The White Bicycle Page 13

  I see an old woman in a butterfly dress. She is spooning olives into a plastic jar. I look at her carefully but it is not Adelaide. I feel wetness on my cheeks and I am crying. I pick up one of the T-shirts from a table and then put it down.

  A vendor comes and points to me and says something in French. I think he is trying to steal my money but then I notice that the pouch I am wearing is unzipped and money is falling out of it. I quickly stuff the bills back inside and zip the pouch shut. The man smiles. I smile back and wave. This is just as smart as saying thank you.

  There is nothing I want to buy at the market but I stay there as long as it is open. The thing I want to do, which is to see Adelaide, I cannot do. When the last stall closes, and the last bowl of olives is scraped into a bucket and put inside a white truck, I turn away from the town square and ride around the village. Eventually I ride up to the Lourmarin castle and lean the white bicycle against a wall, locking its wheels together so it can't be stolen. I pay my entrance fee and go through the gift shop, where there are lavender sachets twice the cost of the ones at the market. I climb the stairs to the highest turret. From here I can look down at the pond in the courtyard, where mottled koi rise among the water lilies. Last time I was here I saw a Gold Ogon koi that was probably worth a thousand dollars. I don't see it now. I wonder if the heron came for it, too. I see a Kohaku koi, and a Platinum koi, and two Ginrin koi, but no Gold Ogon.

  I think about winter coming. Will the ponds freeze here like standing water freezes in Canada? I think about being here in the middle of a long winter, listening to the crackling ice. Deep in the pond the slow koi turn, the water congested with their milky breath. Heaviness fills me and I am afraid to take a step away from the railing but I am afraid to lean forward. Something flutters past and I remember spring, clover gathering the bees, their quick excited singing. I start walking away from the edge, towards the stairs. I think it was a Painted Lady butterfly back there but I am not sure.

  If I look out past the castle grounds I can see the whole village. I can see where the market was, with all the wares for sale, but now it is gone. Now it is gone but it will come back next Saturday. It will come back but Adelaide will not. I look into the distance but I cannot see Cassis. I cannot see Adelaide's house, or the garden, or the pool where no little orange fish dart to the surface.

  Supper With My Mother

  On Saturday night my mother has arranged for me to have dinner with her at the Auberge La Fenière, where she has been taking her cooking class every day for the past week. After biking home, I wipe spots out of my jean dress because my mother always notices things like that, and then Alan Phoenix gives me a ride to the hotel. He is mad because the rearview mirrors have both been ripped off the car and he wonders if the insurance will cover it.

  "You should have flattened them when you parked," Martin Phoenix told him before we left the house, and that just made him madder.

  Inside the restaurant, candles are on all the tables, and as soon as the waiter takes me to ours, I blow the candle out. Its flame is so yellow that I feel like sneezing, and then I do.

  I sip my water and after six minutes my mother walks into the dining room and sits down opposite me at our table.

  "You've already taken care of the candle," she says.

  "No, I blew it out," I say.

  "It might be a little dark to see our food," says my mother, looking around the room.

  "What is the food?" I ask.

  "It's a surprise," she says. "The first course is on its way. I hope you like it."

  "So do I," I say, and my mother laughs.

  A waitress brings out a tray with two plates, one for each of us.

  "Foie gras de canard," she says. "Epicé et cuit au torchon, figues confites, pain aux noisettes et raisins."

  I poke at the rolled circle of what looks like meat, bread, and dried fruit.

  "Go ahead, try it," says my mother, putting a small forkful into her own mouth. "Mmm," she goes on. "It's really good!"

  I try a small bite. It smells like butter and cinnamon. It tastes dusty and I don't eat any more of it.

  "What is foie gras?" I ask.

  "Fatty liver of duck," she says. "They force-feed the ducks so the liver gets bigger and extra flavorful."

  "Force-feed?" I ask.

  "With a tube, I think," says my mother. "But that's too much information. I'm sorry I told you that. Just forget about it, Taylor."

  I feel sick to my stomach. I am glad I did not eat much of that stuff. They should not abuse animals this way.

  "Well, you're going to like the rest of the meal. The main course is fish. You like fish, Taylor," she says.

  "Turbot a la citronnelle cuit sur l'arête, avec lentilles au lard," says the waitress.

  "Turbot—that's fish, right?" I ask my mother, translating the rest of the French myself. "Fish in a lemon sauce, with lentils and bacon."

  She nods. I try some of the fish. It is good, but the lemony taste makes me sneeze. I scrape away the sauce and the bacon, and then try a lentil. Dusty. I only eat the fish.

  We each drink a glass of fishy white wine called Château Fontvert White. My mother says it comes from an organic winery near Lourmarin. She tells me that the grapes are hand-picked and then the wine is fermented in French oak barrels for eight months.

  "Can you taste the flowery aroma?" she asks.

  "I just taste fish," I say.

  "I taste a kind of a peachiness," she goes on. "I like the balance between roundness and acidity in this one."

  I look at my glass. It is pear-shaped.

  "I am sorry Adelaide died," says my mother.

  "Why are you sorry?" I ask.

  "I'm—I'm sorry for your loss," she says. I do not say anything for a few minutes.

  "People can be friends even if they are not the same age," I say, finally. "You don't have to have a consistency of age in order to make a friendship."

  My mother nods.

  "Would you like to go to her funeral?" she asks.

  "I don't know anything about that," I say, and suddenly I hate everything about this restaurant, I hate the meal, and most of all I hate my mother. I feel all the numbers and all the vowels and consonants in my head, yelling themselves into the red zone.

  "We could phone her daughter and ask," she says.

  "Ask what?" I whisper.

  "Ask about the funeral," says my mother.

  "But Adelaide won't be there, will she?" I say, my voice climbing into loudness. "And the rest of them are just strangers!"

  "Shshsh," says my mother. "Taylor, think about where we are and let's just have dinner."

  There is a long silence and eventually I fill it.

  "Why don't we watch movies anymore?" I ask. My mother looks at me and the h of wrinkles is in the middle of her forehead.

  "Movies?" she asks.

  "We always used to watch movies but now we don't."

  "I guess … I guess we kind of forgot," says my mother.

  I reach out my foot and kick over her flowered handbag.

  "That's dumb," I say. "It's dumb to forget things."

  My mother reaches over and touches my cheek and when her hand comes away, the fingers are wet.

  "Taylor, I'm sorry Adelaide died," she says, for the second time.

  "I know," I whisper. "You said it before."

  "And I'm sorry we haven't been watching movies. I guess I just got busy."

  "Why can't you be busy when you want to pester me, and not busy when we want to watch a movie?" I ask.

  I try to think what I mean, and then I know. It's about the difference between children and adults, and it's about telling people the truth, but I can't find the exact words and the exact words are important.

  My mother takes another sip of wine. "This wine is twenty dollars a bottle here but it is probably fifty in Canada. It goes well with fish, white meat with zesty sauces, goat cheese, and especially the foie gras."

  The waitress comes to the table with more
food on a tray.

  "I do not want to eat any more, especially bloated duck," I say.

  "Crème brûlée," says the waitress, putting down the dishes even though I asked for nothing. She also leaves a plate of cantaloupe slices. I try a piece. It is juicy and sweet and the best part of the meal.

  "Do you want coffee?" asks my mother.

  "I hate coffee," I say.

  "The chef who was my teacher is very knowledgeable. She's earned this restaurant two Michelin stars," my mother continues.

  "Oh," I say. "Did you cook all of our meal?"

  "The whole thing," she answers. "Did you like it?"

  "No," I say. "But I am sure you worked very hard because there was a lot of it."

  I look at her and she doesn't say anything.

  "I liked the melon," I say.

  My mother has a look on her face that I cannot interpret.

  "Are you thinking of something bad?" I ask.

  "No," she says.

  I look at her. She is. I'm sure she is. I wonder if she wants me to go to Adelaide's funeral. Then I wonder whether she wanted me to like the food she made. I look at the table. It is so perplexing to try and figure people out. But even if people cannot speak the same language, they can learn to understand each other.

  "We have to tell each other the truth," I say.

  My mother puts down her wine glass.

  "We do," she says. I look at her. "Well …" she continues. "Most of the time we do. But sometimes …" Her voice stops.

  "Sometimes and all the time we should tell each other the truth," I say. "Adelaide and her daughter lived together and Francine wanted to be the boss of Adelaide, but Adelaide wouldn't let that happen. And nobody can be bossed without their own compliance."

  "I'm sorry Adelaide died," says my mother for the third time.

  "She kept on making choices," I tell her. "She played 'God Save the King' on the piano in the middle of the night because she wanted to. I am going to do that."

  "You're—you're going to learn to play the piano?" says my mother.

  "No, I mean I am going to make my own choices. From now on, I am an adult and I will be making the choices about myself. That is something I have control over. You have control over yourself and you should just think of the choices you have to make. If I am going to be independent, we both have to keep on choosing for ourselves and not the other person."

  I can't tell if her eyes are wet or not. I think they are.

  "I don't know … it's hard," she says. "You don't always understand things, and—"

  "Nobody understands everything, Mom," I say. "Nobody could possibly understand everything. You certainly don't."

  "Well, I …" she says, and her voice trails off and she makes kind of a choking sound. "It's hard, Taylor. You have no idea how hard it is for me. When you're like this, when you're sad or mad, I want to comfort you and give you a hug, but that doesn't work with you. Whatever I do doesn't work. It's always been that way. When you were little, people thought it was my fault, and that you were spoiled—"

  "People who are spoiled think only of themselves," I interrupt. "Maybe I used to be like that but then I started learning about other people's perspectives." She nods.

  "Nobody understands everything," I repeat as a placeholder, but then I can't think of what to say next. We sit in silence. Finally, I say, "I do know how to ask questions. I can use all the five w's. That's something. That's something I bet Stanley couldn't do."

  Something about my mother's mouth changes. Is she smiling?

  "Yes, asking questions is something," she says.

  "Stanley couldn't ask any questions and that's why he didn't have any way out of his bedroom where his landlady bossed him all the time. Well, he might have had one way out, but that's the way out Annie Arbor used and it's a bad way."

  "Annie Arbor?" asks my mother, but I do not respond. There is no use telling her Adelaide's stories. Those stories were between me and Adelaide and I am going to keep them for myself.

  I feel as if a great weight is lifting off me. I look at my mother sitting on the other side of the table and I am not afraid anymore about my future, whatever it may be, because I am not—I repeat not—going to be like Stanley.

  "I am not like Stanley," I tell her, just so she understands completely what I am talking about.

  "I know," she says. "You are much more independent than Stanley, from what you have said about that play."

  "You think I am independent?" I ask.

  She nods.

  "I know I am independent," I say. "I can use strategies when I am sad or mad, and Stanley could not. He didn't know about postponing difficult topics until a better time, or deep breathing, and he kept all his anger in his core. I am not like Stanley and I am not waiting any longer, either," I say, thinking about that other play, Beckett's play Waiting for Godot. "All this time when I thought I was waiting for no one, I was really waiting for you, Mom."

  "Taylor, what are you talking about?" she says.

  "There's something I have been waiting for in order to be an adult. It's not having a boyfriend. It's not taking classes at university. It's not getting a job. I have done all those things and I am going to keep doing them. But they do not make me an adult. I'm not waiting any longer, Mom. Because I know what I am waiting for. I am waiting for you."

  "But I can't …" she says, "… I don't know—"

  "I'm waiting for you to let me be free," I tell her.

  My mother stares at me and then she looks down at the table. Then she looks at me again.

  "I should be free, Mom. I should be."

  She keeps looking at me and it is uncomfortable because I do not want to look back and so I look at her eyebrows.

  "I am not just someone acted on by the world—I am acting on it," I tell her. "I am more than just a daughter and a sister. I am more than just a woman with a white bicycle. I am someone who can save an old lady from the sea, who can take care of a boy I am assisting, who can read the words of people like Jean-Paul Sartre and think about freedom."

  She nods but I am not sure she gets it and so I go on.

  "I am a student and a friend. I might be a biologist some day. I might be an artist. I might be a writer. But whatever I do, Mom, I am free to choose. I need to be free to choose."

  I see her nod again and then she brushes her eyes.

  "I get it," she says.

  "You get the picture," I say, just to be sure.

  "Yes," she answers, and kind of laughs. I'm not sure why.

  "It's hard when things change," she says, and wipes her eyes again. "It's hard on me. Just when I think I'm getting good at … at how things are, they change."

  "Join the club," I say. Then I look at her to make sure she's understood. "I'm not talking about a real club," I tell her.

  "I know," she says, and kind of gulps.

  "Sometimes I might need an island of stability," I say, remembering how I felt in the hotel room when I was worrying about our lost luggage. "But not all the time. Nobody needs an island of stability all the time, Mom."

  "Okay," she says. "I … I understand that, Taylor. I do."

  "It takes two of us," I remind her, just so this is very clear. "Stanley could have tried to be more independent but probably Meg wouldn't let him. You have to let me be an adult—just like when you are old, I will let you be an adult."

  "What?" she asks.

  "When you are old, you might come and live with me, like Adelaide and Francine. At first I thought it would be excellent to be the boss of you, but then I decided that it would be awful because you are too stubborn. So I won't try to be the boss of you after all if you are living with me, like Adelaide lived with Francine."

  She laughs but when she looks at me I see that her eyes are wet. I think she is probably sad about her cooking.

  "But we can watch movies sometimes," I say, just to make sure she hasn't forgotten about this.

  "Okay," she says, wiping at her cheeks with the napkin. "Okay, Taylor
."

  "I am glad you took this cooking class from the chef with the Michelin stars," I tell her. "Even though I did not like the food, someone will probably like it. You could open your own restaurant in Saskatoon. You would be good at that. Except do not force-feed the ducks. Force-feeding the ducks," I tell her, "is mean."

  "I promise," she says softly and I am very relieved until she says, "I promise I … I will try to let you go, Taylor. I'm not saying I can do it soon or even very well, but I will try."

  "Okay," I say, glad to hear that, but sorry about the ducks because it appears that I still have some work to do about the foie gras.

  "Maybe it just takes practice," I say.

  "What?" she asks.

  "Letting me be an adult. Maybe we both just have to practice," I say.

  Going Home

  Today is the day that we go back to Canada and our summer in France will be over. My mother got up very early to pack. I can hear her banging around in the kitchen and I am not sure what she is thinking. She could be chasing spiders. She could be washing somebody's breakfast dishes. She could be cooking, although this is unlikely since we are soon going to be leaving the villa. I am not sure what she is thinking but her thoughts are up to her.

  Last night, I dreamed I was riding the white bicycle through the vineyard at the bottom of the hill near Lourmarin. The path was a bit rough, like that playground when I was little and biking for the first time without training wheels, but I am now an experienced rider and I stayed in the seat. I could see the grapes forming round and ripe on the vines. I could smell the lavender in the neighboring fields. I came to the woods and I began to carry the white bicycle, remembering that after I carried it for a while, soon I would be able to ride again. I listened very carefully but I couldn't hear my mother calling. All I could hear was my own breath.

  Life is like that. Sometimes things are heavy in your arms, and at other times, you are lifted forward to places you would not have discovered without the burden you have carried.

  Looking backward, I can see bicycle tracks in the sandy soil but if I look ahead all I see is the distance, blue as the Luberon mountains, inviting as the cool breeze that pushes up through the hot air. It is a distance I can navigate, a space that I will be moving through with the wind in my hair. And there is no precipice ahead of me, just good solid land. There is nothing to worry about, not really.