Paula's story
The village baker believed in a perfect baguette, peerless pains au chocolats, and punctual croissants.
Every morning at precisely six-thirty, Monsieur Josef Moreau removed the first tray from the oven and then surveyed the square of St. Martin-sur-Flumes as though he were inspecting the troops. If Madame Fournier's yellow shutters opened before the church bells rang, she had slept poorly and would be anxious all day. If old Monsieur Delormé walked his dog before buying his brioche, he had quarreled with his wife. If the mayor crossed the square without stopping for a baguette, some committee had invented a new problem.
The village contained four hundred and eighty-three souls, five thousand opinions, and one unwavering conviction: that everyone else's life would improve considerably if it were conducted according to one's own advice. It was a harmonious arrangement.
Until the hydrangeas disappeared.
The hydrangeas belonged to Mademoiselle Isabelle Dinde, a retired theater professor and undefeated champion of winning arguments after the other party had long since forgotten what they were discussing. Every spring she cultivated spectacular hydrangeas that covered every inch of the small front garden of her rose-covered cottage.
One Monday morning, she woke to discover that they were gone. Every blossom had been snipped from its stem.
By eight o'clock, the entire village knew. By nine, everyone had solved the mystery. By ten, no two theories were the same.
"I am not accusing anyone," Mademoiselle Dinde announced from her garden gate, with the solemnity of a queen greeting her subjects. "I merely observe that someone possessing both gardening shears and questionable judgment entered my property."
"The question," said the cheesemaker, "is motive."
"The question," corrected the widow Hugette, "is opportunity."
"The question," interrupted Madame Fournier, "is why no one trims that hedge properly."
She pointed across the lane at an entirely unrelated hedge. The village nodded. It did need trimming.
Mayor Étienne Martin disliked conflict because it delayed paperwork, and paperwork was predictable. Conflict required eye contact.
"My friends and fellow citizens," he proclaimed at an emergency gathering outside the village hall, "we shall approach this rationally."
Everyone agreed. They then proceeded irrationally.
The tea shop owner suggested tourists were at fault. "There are no tourists that early in the morning,” the mayor said. "Precisely,” said Madame Fournier. “No one would suspect them."
The butcher blamed the neighboring village. "They envy our flower festival,” he declared. "They have won the flower festival three years running," someone observed. "Which proves ambition,” the butcher nodded.
The mayor rubbed his forehead.
Someone suggested it was the gendarmes. "No," Mademoiselle Dinde said firmly. "If the state becomes involved in gardening, France is finished." This statement received broad approval.
Only Colette Bernard remained silent. Colette owned the tiny bookshop where hardly anyone bought books but everyone sought gossip. She was good at noticing details.
For example, she noticed that the retired dentist, Monsieur René LeBoeuf, had acquired an unusual number of scratches on his hands. She also noticed he became remarkably interested in examining his shirt cuffs whenever the hydrangeas were mentioned. Most importantly, she noticed that he had recently begun visiting the newcomer, the young widow Claire Dubois, who had moved to the village only ten years ago.
She wondered.
Meanwhile, the annual village dinner in honor of the Ascension approached. In St. Martin-sur-Flumes, this was less a celebration than a competitive exhibition of modesty.
"Oh, it's only a simple tart." (He had peeled fruit for six hours.)
"I just threw together a little duck." (She had worked for two days.)
"I hope the wine is drinkable." (It had won awards.)
At sunset, long tables filled the square. The mayor prepared another speech. The villagers prepared to not listen to it.
Then Claire Dubois arrived. She carried an enormous arch woven from hydrangeas.
Mademoiselle Dinde’s hydrangeas.
A collective gasp traveled through the square with remarkable efficiency.
René LeBoeuf stood and nervously cleared his throat. "I should explain,” he said. "You certainly should," five villagers said simultaneously. “You see,” he said, "there was a proposal of marriage."
Everyone turned. Claire DeBois blushed. Monsieur LeBoeuf continued. "I wanted to make an arch of hydrangeas because Madame DuBois once mentioned that, as a child, she had always imagined one in a dream.”
"So you stole mine," Mademoiselle Dinde got straight to the point.
LeBoeuf turned to her and bowed. "I intended to replace every bloom before sunrise,” he said. "But the proposal occurred three days ago?” she asked. "It took me longer than expected,” he said. "There were, ah, emotions."
The villagers considered this. Emotions were notoriously bad at following schedules.
Mademoiselle Dinde stared at the arch. Then at the couple. Then back at the arch. "Why didn’t you just ask me?” she said. “You assumed I would oppose romance?"
"You once said marriage is merely a comedy with administrative consequences," Monsieur LeBoeuf reminded her.
Mademoiselle Dinde sighed. “You aren't angry?” the retired dentist asked. “I am furious,” she replied. The couple bowed their heads. “Because,” she said, “you deprived me of making a dramatic sacrifice.’
The villagers blinked.
Mademoiselle Dinde continued. “Imagine it. You ask for my hydrangeas. I refuse in no uncertain terms. You appeal to sentiment. There may be tears. I finally relent, reluctantly. Everyone admires my generosity while pretending not to notice.” She gestured at the arch. “Instead you’ve made me the victim. It is theatrically disappointing.”
The tea shop owner nodded. “She has a point.”
“The staging was weak,” agreed the widow Hugette.
“The timing,” added the butcher, “needed rehearsal.”
The mayor quietly folded away the speech no one had intended to hear and tucked it into the cord at his waist.
Six weeks later, the wedding took place beneath a fresh arch. This time, the hydrangeas had been donated by half the village. The other half insisted they would have donated hydrangeas if someone had informed them in time.
Mademoiselle Dinde delivered the final toast. She stood and told everyone that true love was extremely inconvenient but occasionally perfectly decorated. No one entirely agreed with her. No one entirely disagreed. Such distinctions were considered excellent manners in St. Martin-sur-Flumes.
And so, the baker resumed observing the square every morning. The hydrangeas bloomed again. And the hedge remained untrimmed,
Annemarie's story
Could it be?
Henri Rousseau never left France; so we are told. Despite a popular rumour during his lifetime that he had travelled to Mexico, he eventually admitted that the story was not true. Famous for his lush jungle scenes with exotic animals, he based his paintings on his own imagination and visits to the Jardin des Plantes and natural history books and museums.
However, just like Agatha Christie's mysterious disappearance, there was also a mysterious missing fortnight in 1897 when Rousseau was fifty-four years old. He had retired from his job as a toll collector and was concentrating on his art. Did he decide to take a secret holiday?
I ask this because a few years ago in a Parisian flea market I bought an 19th century art book - "Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux" by P.J. Stahland - and tucked between the pages were a few battered leaves from an old note book. Predominantly a travel journal but a few sketches as well.
Since childhood I've always been an admirer of Rousseau's art and on the off chance decided to get the tattered pages investigated by Juliette Degennes, Heritage curator at the Musée de l'Orangerie and a leading expert on Henri Rousseau. Finally, and with the additional help of a renowned handwriting expert, those battered leaves have been pronounced genuine. I will read just a couple of his somewhat scribbled pages, which, I think, proves that he did leave France during that vital fortnight and he spent the days somewhere in North Africa... And inspired one of his most famous paintings.
I have brought one of the original pages, which I have translated - excuse my translation.
From Marrakesh I travelled into an ancient land of desert sands, with my easel, chair and paints. The nights were chilling cold, the days were blazing hot, my blistering feet on burning ochre sands. Beneath a distant range of ghostly mountains I rested in the lengthening shade of a solitary tamarisk tree. Then came a gypsy woman, skin like ebony, hennaed hair in twisted cords. She wore a robe of rainbow stripes - azure, orange, greens and scarlets melting into indigos and violets, amethysts and golds. Slowly she tilted her gargoulette and placed it carefully to her lips as I imagined the water gurgling from that terracotta pitcher. And carefully again she placed the pitcher on the yielding sand, the red against the yellow. With slender fingers she picked up her lute and plucked a chord across six strings, then gently laid the lute beside the pitcher. She placed a folded bundle beneath her head and lay full-stretched on the shifting sands, her wooden cane grasped firmly in one hand. The evening sky descended, and a hunters moon arose, the opalescent disc illuminating the gypsy. From the darkness a tawny lion walked into our desert camp. Perhaps it would have been expedient to leave the scene but mesmerised I watched the creature standing behind the sleeper, tail pitched high in the air. It bent its head and smelt the sleeper; it turned its head and looked at me, bared its teeth and growled. Then tears fell from this mighty lion's eyes. Those teeth were rotten, the stench was putrid and he left the sleeping gypsy with her dreams. This lion was going cold turkey, this lion required a dentist.
The Sleeping Gypsy by Henri Rousseau
________________________________
Jackie.
Yellow, Expedient, Cord, Turkey, Dream, Dentist, Tears_______
He knew something was wrong the moment he walked into the surgery. The screen beside the entrance scanned him from head to toe, taking in all his information simply in a second. Then, to his horror, it wrapped a long spiral around him, made up entirely of words.
A friend had recommended this new surgeon, but judging by the yellow curtains, yellow chairs and yellow carpet, the surgery felt less like a dentist’s office and more like being trapped inside a giant lemon.
There was no receptionist, cloaked figures filled the waiting room, he wondered whether he was in the right place. As he sat in the dentist’s chair he closed his eyes and opened his mouth. The dentist examined his tooth and picked up a very large drill. Don’t worry said the dentist this drill is programmed to alleviate the pain. “programmed !!! he screamed looking at the size of it and hearing the whirring of blades. Tears started to pour down his cheeks – this must be a dream” how can you program a drill. A metal smile crossed the surgeons face , screws and bolts and nails that made up his head churned and spun in different directions. A robot he thought in terror as he perceived bio plastic wheels with flashing yellow lights and just behind the right ear it was turning red to purple. The transparent eyes were looking straight ahead and not at his teeth
In the end the dentist had to pull out his patients tooth with a cord as the drill had disfunctioned – the turkey in the garden next door screamed so loudly the rest of the patients in the waiting room turned yellow with fear, and he decided that the most expedient thing to do was to run before the machine removed his whole head!
