She lowered her voice to the range of a man’s. “Here is an invitation, you crawling beetle. Come to my café sometime, if you please. I will give you fine food and strong drink, free of charge, on the house. And when you are most at ease, full, drunk, most smug in your little power, I will plunge a knife into your neck.”
As she left the town hall, Odette passed Guillaume bicycling homeward, probably from some all-night vigil with a stricken animal. He studied her expression, then stopped, calling out to her, “What on earth are you so happy about?”
Chapter 9
Odette was not alone in having wants. In fact Emma began to suspect that the single animating energy of Vergers was want.
The spiral of desire included every villager—but the origin, the starting place, was Emma herself, who, on the anniversary of Philippe’s conscription date, found herself missing him so desperately she struggled to breathe, she could not sit still.
It was October, normally an interval of backbreaking labor as each farm brought in its harvest, but that year a quieter time for the villagers, and one of melancholy. With the beach forbidden by the occupying army, Emma could not visit the places she and Philippe had whispered and kissed. Because of an officers’ tent, she could not sit on the bluff where he had held her while she wept over Uncle Ezra. Due to mine placements, she could not hide in the gulch where on his last night she had allowed him parting favors—his hands on her skin, her softness at his touch a discovery only the two of them knew—that recurred so often in her daydreams.
As if she were the most confident woman who ever lived, that night Emma had opened the upper buttons of her dress to display herself for him. Philippe’s eyes bulged, but then he surprised them both by leaning forward and kissing her breasts. Her head swam with pleasure and surrender, and the ocean crashed at their feet. The memory still made her blush, though in the many months since then, the thrill in her heart had been replaced entirely by longing.
On that particular anniversary of remembrance and desire, Emma was meandering by the harbor, a stork soaring past without one flap of its wings, her yearning broadcasted like a beacon across the landscape, because when it comes to the ache of love, few places are superior to the seaside in October. Yves the fisherman trotted down the dock in her direction. In no mood for conversation, she began to move away, but he called out.
“Emmanuelle, one moment please.”
Everyone knew that Yves had the best singing voice in the village. Early risers heard his shanties as he set out in the gray dawn. Afternoon strollers eavesdropped on his humming while he repaired his nets. Odette confessed to entertaining unreligious thoughts when he rang the rafters during hymns at St. Agnes by the Sea. Thus his call from the docks was musical enough to hold Emma in place. He hiked up his foul-weather overalls and hurried down the gangplank to where she stood.
“How may I help you?” Emma asked, more out of manners than desire to assist.
“Well, that’s it, you see.” His cheeks were raw from the sea, his hands thick and callused. “Help is exactly what I need.”
Emma could not imagine how she could possibly aid a man such as this, his life rough and hardened. But after a glance over his shoulder, Yves continued.
“Each day now the soldiers are waiting when we come in, to confiscate our catch. They leave us only enough to live for another day, so we can continue to supply them.” Yves leaned closer. His forearms were huge. Somehow he managed to have no smell of fish on him, only rubber and faint motor oil. “If I had a bit more fuel, I could try a second haul later in the day, keeping all of the catch for our village. Every fin and gill.”
“How am I to help?” Emma asked, crossing her arms. “I have no fuel.”
“No.” Yves smiled. His teeth were bright and straight, a rarity in a town whose dentist had been conscripted with the others. “But you are friends with Pierre, the dairyman. He receives a ration for his tractor, though I have not heard it running in years. Also I passed by there the other day. He is down to three cows, so the crop work must be minimal.” Yves spied down the docks again before leaning closer still. “If he could spare a jug or two, it would mean cod for him, haddock for you, bream for the rest of us. On a good day, anyway.”
Emma heard her stomach growl. She knew an excellent recipe for tarragon cod. She also knew that Pierre had a fuel tank behind one of his barns, though she had never considered how much it held. “What do you want me to do?”
A soldier swaggered down the dock, rifle at his hip. “What’s the delay?” he snapped. “Leave your sweetheart and we finish the counting.”
“Right away.” Yves stepped back. “Bring fuel, Emmanuelle,” he whispered. “If I can fish, we can eat.”
The next morning Emma visited Pierre as he milked Antoinette, perched on his stool and all the while chewing on the mouthpiece of his pipe. Mémé sat on a huge rock in his dooryard, picking at the lichen that yellowed its northern side. Emma waited to ask—the yoke for draft horses wearing a cobweb, the ladder to the loft on its side like a man on vacation, the sack of chicken feed dusty from lack of use—until Pierre’s bucket was sufficiently filled that it no longer rang with each squeeze, but made a satisfying frothy thrum. Fuel? Why, yes, mademoiselle, his tank was nearly one quarter filled.
“It is my bank account,” Pierre explained. “My savings, in case times become more difficult before our rescuers come. The army gives me a tiny ration, mere drops, but over time it accumulates. Just like milk does, from a good girl.” He caressed the flanks of Antoinette, who flicked a fly from her ear with an expression as if she had winked. “However.”
Emma waited, rubbing the cow’s long nose. One quarter of a tank would not catch many fish. “Yes?”
“I might consider trading a portion, for a pouch of tobacco.” He paused his milking to frown into the bowl of his pipe. “You’ve no idea how I long for a decent smoke. It aches all the time, like a sore tooth.”
Next Emma sat in the parlor of Marguerite the tobacconist, her store long closed for lack of inventory. She nodded her aged head, confiding in Emma that she had heard rumors about a smuggling operation in Cherbourg. British tobacco, in small leather pouches to prevent mold. Strong, peaty stuff. Marguerite was an obedient citizen, though, whose law-abiding ways extended to include the whims of the occupying army.
She sighed and smiled, displaying the gaps in her grin, tobacco stains on the remaining teeth. At age seventy-seven, she explained, her eyes were beginning to fail. It was to be expected, it was to be endured. However.
Her need was for a combination of light and faith. Marguerite could not last the long week between the Monsignor’s Sunday sermons. She needed her daily verses. But a candle flame was no longer sufficient for reading the Bible after supper. Could Emma somehow, miraculously, find her a lightbulb?