A Story from the Mountains
by Debbie Robertson
The story of a life goes on…but only
when it is told in a story….
“Marie, not again! Come here this
instant!”
A large woman stood in the doorway to the stable, one hand firmly on her hip
and the other wagging an accusing finger at the scene in front of her.
In a goat stall in the far corner, where one shaft of morning sunlight sent
dust motes of hay drifting in wisping, wayward figure-eights, nine-year-old
Marie, woolen-socked feet tucked under the hem of her blue smock, stirred
slightly. One arm was still wrapped
around the neck of a baby goat who was snuggled in a warm ball at her side.
As Marie’s eyes pried themselves open, the baby goat untangled itself and
scrambled away, bleating for its mother.
“It was the storm, Mama. The lightning
was ripping up the sky, and the thunder shook me in my bed. I was so afraid, and I knew Mimou would be
scared, too.”
Her mother, though, was no longer there.
Marie stood up to shake out a thick, red blanket and then folded it carefully.
Through the clatter of pans in the kitchen, her mother’s voice rang out, “Your
grandmother will want her milk. We’ll
need two pitchers for breakfast!”
The four goats that comprised the entire herd of the Arnaud family needed no
coaxing to be milked. Marie’s hands were
gentle and sure, and she talked to them as she worked, having beckoned each by
name.
When the milk bucket was full, she quickly ladled out a dipper of pellets for
the three rabbits whose noses were twitching hungrily through the wires of
their cage, tossed an armful of fresh grasses into the trough for the goats,
and gave an abbreviated hug to Bernadette, the cow. “I’ll be back in ten minutes. Don’t you worry,” she reassured her, and
firmly taking the bucket by the handle, Marie made her way to the house.
Her grandmother, sitting in the swivel rocking chair at the head of the table,
scowled at Marie’s tousled hair and rumpled smock, bits of hay clinging to the
sleeves and peeking out of the pockets.
“You’ll need to sweep the front steps before school. The wind last night left many twigs and
leaves.”
“And don’t forget the stable,” her father grumbled by his armchair by the
fireplace.
“Yes, Grand-mama; yes, Papa. I will do
it all,” she replied, her head bowed.
Marie poured the milk into two white ceramic pitchers, saving back a half a cup
or so, which she emptied into a low yellow bowl. Walking with the bowl to the back door, she
called, “Here, kitties,” and five cats suddenly appeared, nuzzling her legs and
lapping up the milk eagerly. After a
scratch behind the ears for each—and a sharp rebuke from her mother that she
still had many chores to do, Marie allowed herself a sigh.
She milked Bernadette, freshened the hay in all the stalls, cleaned the
rabbits’ cages, washed the breakfast dishes, swept the porch steps, and tidied
her room. Then, hair now neatly combed,
sturdy shoes laced up tightly, and her heavy book bag biting into her
shoulders, she headed down the street to school.
Her footsteps dawdled once or twice, first, when a mountain chickadee alighted
on a thistle in Madame Coste’s garden and again when two white butterflies
zig-zagged lazily in front of her.
The school bell clanged, and Marie, late again, dashed through the door and
scuttled into her seat, just as Madame Rouget finished writing the last
flourish of the date, September 22, 1939, with a new piece of chalk. Then,
wiping her hands on a freshly ironed handkerchief, she turned, unsmilingly,
from the blackboard to face the class.
This school day was like all the others: recitation, math, reading, and
dictation, with the children sitting straight on their stools under the
hawk-like eyes of Madame Rouget. That
is, all but Marie. She couldn’t help the
squirming of her feet under the desk, trying, in vain, to hide her
impatience. But she kept her head down,
intent on forming each letter in her notebook with utmost care, fearful of
leaving a blot of ink, and only imagining the flowers and the bees and the
leaves and the birds she wished to sketch in the margins. She knew all too well
that if she wandered, even slightly, into a lapse of concentration, the rod
would come out, Madame Rouget delivering a swift whack across her
knuckles. Marie had had her share of
that, and white scars across the backs of her hands were strong reminders.
The twelve bongs of the church bell signaled a respite, as children scurried
home for lunch.
But by two, they were all back again. Marie secretly counted every endless second,
and, with her stomach filled from a stew that she, herself, had made the night
before, her drowsiness could not stop her daydreaming.
She was soaring, diving, drifting, flapping her wings. Sometimes, she was a swallow, sometimes a
yellow butterfly, sometimes an eagle, but flying, lost in the sky, in another
world, far above the village, the chores, and Madame Rouget.
-----
And so the years went by. The work, her
grandmother’s scowl, the coldness of her mother and father, the threat of the
rod were ever-present. Storms continued
to shake the mountains, sending boulders into the river Bachelard and sending
Marie to the stable to find comfort in—and to comfort—Mimou.
But, in the springtime, in an apple tree near her bedroom window, a pair of
magpies made a nest. “You’re building a
world of your own, aren’t you?” she mused, watching them both deliver pieces of
moss and twigs of various shapes and sizes.
And, in the summer, a clearing of Queen Anne’s lace below Sugarloaf
Mountain became her quiet glade.
Autumn brought a cathedral of color to the forest around the mountain aptly
named Gentleman’s Hat.
And in winter, she left open the shutters to her room, letting the glitter of
snow under the moonlight surround her in her slumber.
Alone, she created a world. But in her
world, she was all alone.
-----
Meanwhile, the world outside was busy.
For through it all, side by side, sometimes far away and sometimes too
close, the threats of war and then real war roiled and raged. Neighboring
countries, one just miles away across the border, ceased to be neighbors
anymore. True neighbors’ sons went off, their
chests puffed out in their uniforms of bright gold buttons, and they came back in
coffins made of wood.
Her father, cursing at his crippled leg, took to drinking more and more. Her mother’s face was stone, saying nothing,
her eyes dark, her mouth a grim line.
And, of course, the work. The house,
school, the increasing demands of her grandmother. They all went on. Marie’s dreams of flying far, far away came
more and more.
-----
Six years later, the war, as all wars do everywhere, ended. It was over in the halls of government and
power, yes, but not over for the many, many women of the village who would
never wear anything but black again.
Little by little, farms were worked once more, and the border agents, more
philosophical than most, welcomed the young men from Italy coming across to find employment.
Three years passed, and lives were beginning to be somewhat normal. The village festival of 1948 was eagerly
anticipated, full of great promise.
Marie, now eighteen, had blossomed. Her
hair, well below her shoulders, shimmered with streaks of sunlight, and her
cheeks mirrored the pink of an evening sky over the mountains just before
twilight. She was lithe, yet strong, her
years of work providing her a great advantage.
Coming in from the stable on the morning of the festival, she glimpsed at the
calendar on the kitchen wall, noting the date, June 26.
Little did she know that it would be a day she would never forget.
That evening, as darkness descended onto the valley, the village square, festooned
with strings of colored lights, gave a cheery welcome. Small children played hide and seek under
patterned tablecloths and tables laid heavy with plate of cheeses and raspberry
tarts and baskets of bread. Each
household had brought its finest, and the men and women were proud and pressed
in their Sunday best.
Marie placed a cushion on a bench under one of the four ancient linden trees
that marked the corners of the square.
Two fiddlers were tuning up on a makeshift bandstand, and an accordionist was
strolling amidst the gathering crowd.
At the edge of town, a small car had pulled up, and a young man got out,
laughing good-naturedly as he checked his reflection in the side mirror,
jauntily angling his hat over his right eyebrow. He strode into the square, capturing curious
eyes who quickly ascertained he was Italian.
The older men and some of the women turned their backs, for memories of
sons and grandsons lost in the war were still too vivid, too close.
Marie had not noticed. She was studying
the pattern on her dress, tracing the outline of a rose with her finger.
Only when a pair of dark linen pants and a hand holding a jaunty-looking hat
appeared in front of her did she look up.
For in that moment, the first notes of the first dance of the night had
begun.
“May I?” A tanned and calloused hand reached out, and warm brown eyes framed a
dazzling smile.
Marie noted the accent, but shyly nodded assent.
The young man took her arm, leading her to the center of the other couples who
had also been taken in by the merriment of the music. He was so solid, so sure.
As they began to dance, Marie found a strange sensation overtaking her. Her feet were floating on air, and, more
perplexingly, her heart was feeling like it was taking wing, too. Not astonishingly, his was as well.
The rising moon smiled as it saw the young couple, but three other faces in the
crowd most certainly did not.
Marie’s father spat on the ground.
“You must stop it immediately,” her grandmother said through gritted teeth.
“Does she not think of her cousin and her uncles, their corpses cold and
crumbling in a cemetery not one-hundred yards away? This I will not allow,” her mother marked
with finality.
But already, enough words had been spoken.
Secrets had been exchanged. He
was nineteen, and thus too young for the fighting, a carpenter from the valley
just across the border, now helping to rebuild the towns destroyed by the
Germans as they had made their retreat.
She had told him of Mimou, of the mountains she loved, of her apple tree
and its nest of birds, and of the rod of Madame Rouget.
His name was Marco, and his hair was curly and black. His gentle hands on her small waist as he
lifted her into the air at the end of the dance felt right, so very right.
But at that precise moment, her mother’s stern face appeared behind him, and an
icy hand grabbed hers, dragging her down the street and through a door that
slammed behind them.
Oh, cruelty upon cruelty! She had been
torn away! But, in truth, she had left
her heart behind.
Crying, Marie retreated to her room, and opening her shutters, took refuge in
the moon.
Through the branches of the apple tree, where green balls that would be apples
come fall were starting to show signs of pink and red, the moon shone down on
her tears.
She did not know that Marco, having followed her after her hasty abduction, was
under the self-same tree, gazing, too, upon her cheeks, wet with tears that
glistened in the moonlight.
-----
The next morning, upon rising, she found a gift on her windowsill: a small stone
in the shape of a heart.
In the days and weeks that followed, other gifts appeared: other heart stones,
carvings of birds and butterflies, and notes with words she dared not share
with anyone. In the bottom drawer of her
dresser, she arranged these objects into a little world all her own, daring to
touch them tenderly and dream.
Secret meetings were arranged. She could
go into the mountains to gather wild spinach for ravioli, pansies for tea, and
rosehips for jam. Her mother and father
never suspected, but her grandmother did note Marie’s smiles upon her return,
only making her own frown even deeper.
Years had to pass. The legal age of
twenty-one had to be observed: the age one could marry without the blessing of
one’s parents. But for Marie and Marco,
the years were rich with promise and plans.
He built them a house, in a clearing of Queen Anne’s Lace at the base of Sugarloaf Mountain, and he fashioned all the furniture,
each piece bearing his signature, a heart.
He planted a garden of bluebonnets, the color of her eyes, and one of roses,
the tint of her cheeks.
On her birthday one year, he planted an apple tree beneath the window that was
to be their room.
He made a stable for goats.
He left food for cats.
He waited.
And, on the day of Marie’s twenty-first birthday, dressed in his first suit and
with new black shoes, he boldly knocked on the door of her parents’ house and pushed
past her grandmother, who had opened it.
To her father, in his customary chair by the fireplace, he strode without
hesitation. Her mother, hearing the
commotion, hurried from the kitchen.
Marie, at the top of the stairs, suitcase in hand, closed her eyes.
“I have come to marry your daughter. And
this, I shall do. To you, it is
complicated. To me, it is simple: I love
her. She loves me. We want to build a world together.”
Marie’s footsteps flew down the stairs, and then she was at his side.
“You must remember how it is to love so much.”
She looked back and forth between her mother and father.
“I remember my brother Jacques killed by a bullet made in Italy.” Her father turned away.
Her mother, who had stood listening in the doorway, disappeared into the
kitchen.
There was nothing to do but leave.
And though, for one moment, as her feet clicked down the porch steps, she
thought, “I’m leaving my home. I’m
leaving my home.”
But then, just as quickly, as Marco’s hand wrapped around hers, another thought
replaced it. “No, I am going to my home. Our home.”
The ceremony at the mayor’s office was brief.
Madame Gontard, his secretary, was the only witness.
And when Marie and Marco reached their house in the mountains, he carried her
across the threshold and closed the door.
-----
Their world was complete. Their world
was the only world. Daydreams of flying
away left her, so happy she was on the ground.
As for Marco, he continued to build houses for others, up and down the valley,
for he was good. He earned the
villagers’ respect, but not their friendship.
Their memories were too long.
And, each night, when he returned from a day of work, he would bring her a
gift: a stone in the shape of a heart.
For Marie, the goats and the cats, the birds in the apple tree, her flowers,
the butterflies, and Marco, of course, were all she needed. She began to draw, for all the things around
her called for her hand, and the walls of their little house were hung with
color and light.
Four years skipped by, four years of total joy.
A daughter was born, and they named her Lisette.
-----
One morning in late September, the skies over their house in the mountains hung
gray with rain. Lisette was sleeping by
the fireplace, and Marie, in the chair beside her, was rocking the cradle
gently back and forth with her foot.
Marco, at the kitchen table, firmly put down his cup of coffee and announced,
“Rain or no rain, off to work I go.
There’s the framing of a roof I have to finish today.”
“Must you? It’s so dreadful out there,”
Marie looked up.
He leaned over to kiss her, “The rain will stop. I’ll be back by lunch.” Then, gazing down upon the peaceful Lisette,
with a smile, he was out the door.
The rain didn’t stop. As the morning
wore on, the skies grew darker and darker.
Lightning flashed all around Sugarloaf Mountain,
and thunder crashed up and down the valley, loosening stones on Gentleman’s
Hat.
Marie held Lisette close, but her eyes were on the storm outside.
The clock on the mantelpiece ticked off the hours, and the time for lunch
appeared and disappeared. The storm
lessened, and fell into a pattern of light rain. Just at the chime of one o’clock, there was
the crunch of gravel, and Marie flew to the door, Lisette in her arms, her
heart beating in her chest.
It was not Marco’s tender face that met her there. It was that of Doctor Aubery, his shoulders
stooped and his eyes weary.
He reached out to bring both of them in, and his voice broke as spoke. “He
worked through the storm. A bolt of
lightning…He fell from the very top of the roof. The neighbor brought him to me. I could not save him. His last words, “Lisette…Marie…”
-----
Marie dug the grave with her own hands.
She buried him behind the house in the mountains, for the villagers, all
who had sons and husbands and brothers and uncles in the war, still could not
bring themselves to forgive.
She lived on, raising Lisette and tending her garden and her goats and her
cats, and she watched Lisette grow up and move far away to America. The years slipped away.
More and more, Marie would look at the sky, and the flight of birds or the
flitting of butterflies, and she wished once more to fly to another world….
-----
It is late June. I am standing behind a
small wooden house at the base of mountain called Sugarloaf. A story from my childhood in Texas rings in my
ears. It was told to me by an old woman,
my neighbor, my friend, whom everyone called Mrs. Johnson, but I called Auntie
L. I reach into my bag and unfold a drawing
she had given to me long ago, now faded with age. It is of a different time, but it is
timeless. I look at the picture and I
look back at the house. It is wrapped in
roses. Bluebonnets and Queen Anne’s Lace
blanket the clearing around it. A pair
of magpies chirp in a gnarled old apple tree, together building a nest.
I turn again. In front of me are two simple
graves, completely covered in small stones, all in the shape of hearts. Butterflies dance above them, catching the
last rays of sun over the mountains.
I stand for a long while, not counting the time, and the moon rises over
Gentleman’s Hat.
I can’t explain the feeling here. For
the moment, it is too overpowering.
I think a poet would call it peace. I
know it is love.
I place the small stone I have brought with me among the others, a stone, too,
in the shape of a heart.
I try to absorb this place into my body, closing my eyes, not moving, until I
can feel it in my bones.
Then I walk down the road.
No, they shall not be forgotten, for I have told their story.
It is now yours, yours to remember and pass on.
* * * * *
Debbie Robertson divides her year
between the United States and France, loving the summer and winter skyline
sunrises of Houston, Texas, and reveling in the spring and fall mountain
sunsets in the Alpes de Haute Provence. Her works have appeared most recently
in Heimat Review, Academy for the Heart and Mind, Writing
in a Woman’s Voice, Ekphrastic Review, and Toute la
Vallée, a French journal. She has written plays and “operas” for children’s
theatre, and parallel text (English-French) short stories.
