2.
The Visitor In The Black Car
Two weeks passed. Halette was returning home from a morning walk, having followed the little stream that ran through the back of their property, through a small forest and onto the neighbour’s farm. There was a small clearing by the stream, the water deep and still. It was a secret place she’d often go to be alone. Yet Halette always brought company with her, and today she’d stayed longer than she intended, remaining until she finished reading the book her father had bought. The heroine, Francesca, having desperately escaped into Spain, managed to fight her way back home, reclaiming all she’d lost in a daring adventure of impossible odds.
Glistening off the trickling water, the summer sun glowed through the leaf filled trees rustling in the warm breeze. Their lowest branches wallowed lazily over the path above the stream as Halette strolled by. When she broke free, tall wild grasses rose to meet her as she made her way along the well-worn path, winding her way through fields of pasture and wildflowers until the great tree by the farmhouse came into view. Inspired by her heroine’s escapades while crossing the Alps, Halette felt disappointed to already be home, a feeling compounded by the sight of a large, black car parked in the driveway.
Halette hid behind the tree as a black-suited man stepped from their front door, placed his hat on his head, and strode quickly to the car. Her parents followed, stopping at the white gate as the man bid them farewell. Their backs were turned, but even from that distance, Halette felt the man’s despair. Unsure of what was happening, she didn’t step out from behind the tree until the car had disappeared up the driveway in a cloud of dust. As she silently approached the farmhouse, she saw her mother interlink her arm with her father’s and rest her head upon his shoulder.
“Who was that?”
Surprised by her sudden appearance, both her parents turned.
“Where have you been?” her mother asked with a slightly accusatory tone. Halette was about to answer, but she felt uncomfortable under her mother’s concerned stare. She hadn’t been anywhere she shouldn’t have, yet she couldn’t say she was escaping back to France from Spain, so Halette decided she wouldn’t answer at all. Realising no explanation would come, her mother took her by the shoulders and ushered her through the gate.
“I hope you’re not hungry,” her mother said, her frustration apparent. “You missed lunch.”
Halette was starving, and felt even more so at the mention of food, but her appetite faded when she looked over her shoulder, beyond her mother, to where her father was still staring with grave concern at the dust cloud fading along the driveway. Halette was not so gently nudged inside.
“Slice off some ham,” her mother said as they entered the house. Halette followed her to the kitchen but saw only two glasses of wine on the kitchen table. Whoever had come had not stayed for long.
“There’s bread left, if you want,” her mother called out, collecting the dishes and putting them in the sink. She returned with a clean plate, and a large, serrated knife which, unsurprisingly, she handled well as she passed it to Halette.
“Don’t cut yourself.”
Ignoring the comment, Halette took what was left of a leg of ham and deftly sliced off several thick chunks. There was also a quarter round of cheese left on the table, so she claimed that too before her mother packed it away.
“At least they taught you how to dress a wound at school if you did,” her mother continued, almost to herself. “You’re lucky, you know. When I was your age, every girl had to know how to sew stitches, though some didn’t have the stomach for it.”
Halette smiled for her mother as she ate, having heard stories of the Great War many times before. As well as losing the bulk of their farm, both her grandfathers had also died. Her mother’s mother passed not long after, and her father’s mother remained in Honfleur at the outlet of the Seine, near her husband’s grave. All her parents had left of them was a single framed photo, one captured memory hung on their living room wall.
Distracted by the thought of how it would feel to be without her family, Halette didn’t see her father enter until he returned from the scullery with more food and sat down beside her. For a while he said nothing, he just sat with a piece of oil-dipped bread in one hand while he sipped his glass of wine.
“Papa, what’s wrong?”
He stared at her, grim faced.
“It’s just –.”
“Henri,” her mother interrupted. Halette caught a look between them, then her father’s face softened.
“I forgot to tell you,” he said, putting down his wine. “Young Enzo came to see me. He arrived home last week from his first year at medical school. He was asking a lot of questions about you.”
Halette was surprised. It had been almost year since she’d seen Enzo. Three years older than her, he’d remained in Baschel after finishing school, working in his father’s clinic a full year before being accepted into the Medical Faculty of Vienna. Enzo was smart; his parents wealthy, living just off Baschel’s main square in a large house right on the edge of the Seine, but he was never well liked by many of the boys at school. Some were jealous of his wealth, others ridiculed his inability to focus on anything non-academic, but most simply picked on him because of his malformed leg.
“Has he… improved?” Halette asked, feigning indifference while she fumbled for the right word. The comment stopped her father from taking another bite.
“Never judge someone by an affliction such as his,” Henri said, with all seriousness. “Enzo is a clever boy. He’ll make a fine doctor one day, despite his disability. It’s encouraging that he thinks of you after a year away.”
Halette remained silent. She thought of Enzo, of the few times he’d come to visit them on the farm. He’d come with his father, though he and her father would often disappear behind closed doors the moment they arrived. While her own father was simply an engineer, Halette knew he was far more than a glorified mechanic. She believed Enzo’s father felt that way too. They were two men at opposite ends of society, yet they shared a practicality that allowed them to become friends.
Halette felt that Enzo, however, would come simply to escape Baschel and hide from those bullying him at school. Halette had ignored him at first, but as the visits became more frequent, she and Enzo had become friends. Halette realised she’d not given him much thought since he’d gone away, and she blushed at the idea of him returning home from such a grand city as Vienna. Apart from the odd trip to Paris with her father, the only place Halette had ever visited was with her grandmother in Honfleur.
“I don’t know why he wants to see me. He’ll leave again at the end of summer,” she said, unsure if she was sad or relieved.
“Then perhaps it’s time you really got to know him, before you miss out,” her father said. As if to make the point, he then reached out, took her piece of cheese and stuffed it into his mouth.
Enzo left a message early the following week with her father of his intention to visit. True to his word, he came on his bicycle late one morning. Well dressed, he clearly found cycling difficult, his weak leg not having the strength to push the peddle forward as it should. At first, she’d admired his resolve, coming all this way just to see her. By the time he reached the end of their long, gravel driveway, however, pity was all she felt. Seeing absolute commitment on Enzo’s face, she was determined not to let that pity show.
“You won’t make many house calls at that pace,” she teased. He was taller than she remembered and had become thin. He swivelled off his seat, then brushed his flattened, dark hair to one side. As he straightened his clothing, Halette thought he looked every bit the young physician, grown from his year away, yet she felt that somehow, he seemed unable to fill the role he desired to play as he did his best to stand up straight.
“I don’t make house calls,” he said, and at once Halette remembered his singularly focused mind. Enzo was not being rude, he simply reconciled his world through facts, figures, and proof.
“From next week, Father wants me working at the clinic.”
She joined him as they began walking along the fence line. She wanted to take his bike for him but knew it would hurt his feelings if she asked. He caught her looking at him, and suddenly he seemed shy.
“I thought I should come and see you while I could.”
Halette stopped walking.
“Enzo Blanchet. Are you here to sweep me off my feet?”
Enzo stood before her, unsure what to say.
“I… well, once I finished my studies, I thought we could –.”
“You think a lot, don’t you,” Halette interrupted, stopping him from saying anything further. She carried on a dozen paces when she realised Enzo wasn’t following.
“Well? Are you coming or not?”
Baffled, Enzo hurriedly pushed his bike along the driveway, not seeing Halette’s wry smile as she turned. When they reached the house, she made Enzo wait outside while she selected some picnic items from the pantry.
“Take some more bread,” her mother whispered when Halette was inside. “And fruit. Does Enzo like fruit?”
“Mother!”
“Alright,” her mother said, retreating to the lounge. “I’ll leave you two alone.” But Halette caught her mother’s grinning, sideways glance as she packed the hamper and made her way outside.
“I brought some wine, if you’d like,” Enzo said, the moment Halette stepped out from the front door. He opened the basket on the front of his bike, revealing two well-wrapped glasses and a tall, thin bottle.
“It’s a Riesling Rotlack Kabinett,” he announced, cradling the bottle in admiration. “The grapes are hand-harvested from the single Schloss Johannisberg vineyard in the Rheingau. I’m told it has graceful citrus and wild strawberry aromas.”
Halette suppressed her laughter, but Enzo caught her bemused grin as he carefully lifted the wrapped glasses.
“Don’t laugh. It’s very good,” he stated. “I bought it at a festival in Vienna. There were wines from all over Germany.”
Halette wasn’t impressed. Though she didn’t drink a lot of wine, her family often enjoyed the local Cabernet Franc from the Loire Valley, but she savoured the velvety Burgundy reds her father sometimes brought home. She took the wine and two glasses, slipped them into the hamper, then they both set off down the dirt pathway beyond the barn.
“What’s it like living so far from home?” she asked as they slowly ambled though the fields.
“I thought I would miss Baschel,” Enzo said, his response slow and considered. “But as it turns out, I don’t. Vienna is less chaotic than Paris. More rules, perhaps. Or perhaps people know how to behave. I’ve even started learning German. You know, I’ve met a lot of Viennese who want Austria to become part of Germany again.”
He said this with a hint of enthusiasm. Halette looked at him, shocked.
“Why would they want that? We lost almost everything to them.”
She looked out over the farmland, toward the forest and beyond.
“This all used to be ours. My grandfather’s. Now, we’re left with almost nothing.”
“They’re not all like that,” Enzo said. “I’ve made good friends in Vienna, not like here. Apart from you, of course. Many of them are German. There, I’m like everybody else. They accept that I am trying to better myself by studying to be a doctor. In Baschel, I’m just the cripple with one leg.”
Halette opened her mouth to speak, but she knew it was true. For years, she heard the torments Enzo received, so she remained quiet. Her pity returning, she linked her arm in his and remained close. As she guided him along the dirt path, through the willow trees toward her private spot beside the stream on the neighbour’s farm, she wondered how much she, too, would change if she were made to spend a year away from home.