A Provençal Mystery

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Authors: Ann Elwood
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punish myself for the thought. I heard myself grunt.
    Mother Fernande: Harder. Harder!
    Her face was very red. Her arm kept flying up and slashing down. The whip rose and fell faster and faster. It was as if it had a life of its own. Tears coursed down her face.
    We tried to follow her example. Gertrude is quite fat. She fell to the ground in a faint. But Mother Fernande did not stop. Why did the rest of us continue? Why did we not make her stop? Blood flew off her whip and stained the white wall. It splashed on the plaster.
    * * * * *
    I was in the scene, that alien scene. The shadowy room. The sharp slash of the whip. The searing flame of pain. The wild trance-like fervor. Blood on the wall. The blissful abandonment denied, denied. I was there, for a moment, with them. In their flayed skins. Gone beyond the words on the page. Shocked, I jerked my head up and turned the sheaf of papers over, to hide them.
    My heart was beating too fast. To slip into the mind and body of someone else had always been my dread and my desire, even though I knew it was—and should be—impossible. But this terrified me. I was afraid to look up. If I did, someone might be able to see what was in my eyes.
    “What’s the matter?” asked Agatha.
    “Nothing. I’ll tell you later.” I couldn’t look at her.
    “If it’s nothing, then you’ll have nothing to tell me,” she said. “Come on.”
    “I can’t talk about it now,” I said, watching Rachel as she badgered Chateaublanc for documents again.
    “You said yesterday that you would look into the matter,” Rachel was saying.
    “I did look into it, and the documents are still unavailable,” Chateaublanc replied.
    Rachel lowered her clenched fists down on Chateaublanc’s desk. “Do I have to go to a higher authority?”
    He smiled tightly, a thin line uplifted at either end, then shrugged delicately and dismissively. “Indeed, madame, do feel free to do that.”

    Chapter 6

    The following day, Foxy and I were on our way to lunch at the Cafe Minette, when turning off the Rue de la Republique, we saw Madeleine and Agatha down the block facing off against a group of teenagers who had been let out from their high school, Lycée Juarès, for the lunch hour. Agatha, a large figure in black, was gesticulating; the sleeves of her habit, seeming more antique here than in the archive, blew in the wind. The kids watched her with amused interest. Two girls were sitting close together on the stone steps of the old building, and three boys were leaning against the painted metal railings. All were wearing jeans and smoking. Like most teenagers in France they were fresh-faced and self-assured. Not a pimple dotted their faces, and they were at ease in their bodies.
    As I drew nearer, a trail of smoke hit my nose and I sneezed. Madeleine poked Agatha, who turned and waved to us, then resumed her harangue at the students. She was expostulating about the importance of abstinence: “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” she said.
    “What isn’t? Abstinence?” one of the male students asked, in that tone that asks the respondent to see the joke, recognize the one-upmanship. He glanced at the girls.
    “Sex, you idiot!” replied Agatha, with her huge smile.
    “Ah, so you say.” He sucked in a lungful of smoke.
    “Truly.”
    “And how would you know?” another boy asked.
    “Be quiet, Guillaume. Don’t be fresh with a nun!” said one of the girls.
    Agatha continued, “You don’t want to bring a screaming kid into the world, do you? Especially since you’ll stunt its growth with that nicotine habit of yours.”
    Guillaume shrugged. “ On verra .” A useful French phrase—“we shall see”—I thought. It serves so many purposes. Two male voices speaking English behind me disoriented me for a moment—I had become so immersed in French that English sounded like a foreign tongue. I turned to see who it was and looked briefly into Fitzroy’s hazel eyes. He wore his elegant coat

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