Chapter 15 #2
“I haven’t been polite since before you were born,” said Madeleine. She spoke with an accent, likely French. She pronounced it like, I ‘avent been polite seens. “But for you Elizabeth, I will try. And for the chickens.”
Ronnie grabbed my hand. Her fingers trembled. She released and stepped forward. Madeleine hadn’t looked at us yet.
“Ms. Cardot? My name is Ronnie Summers.”
Madeleine made a sniffing sound of surprise, at the use of her last name, I thought. The chickens strutted and pecked the ground.
“I’m here to…” Deep breath, pause, regroup. “I have information about your daughter.”
“My daughter?”
“Can we speak freely?”
“I have no daughter,” said Madeleine.
“Emile.” Ronnie squinted at her, looking for the presence of comprehension. “Has anyone ever contacted you about Emile?”
“No one here by that name.” Madeleine threw a handful of feed to the ground.
When the chickens clamored too close, she made the clucking noise and spun in a slow circle, like a girl would.
Her face tilted up to the grey sky. The centrifugal force raised the bucket in a wide arc away from her body. “No daughter. But I have Elizabeth.”
“I’m speaking about Emile.”
“Emile is not my daughter. She is dead,” said Madeleine.
Ronnie shot me surprise. Did she know already?
Had Emile Chambers’s body been identified in Naples and her mother tracked down?
Who knew, not me. Ronnie tried clearing her throat to start again, but didn’t know how.
“Emile is dead,” said Madeleine. “Dead to me. Dead to us.”
Elizabeth spoke from behind us. “Emile left in her early twenties. She has not visited and Madeleine hasn’t mentioned her since. But, truth be told, she was no mother before that.”
“What about Theo?” asked Ronnie.
“He visits. Once a year. He’s out of his wits too, if you ask me, but the men say we can’t turn him out.”
Ronnie tried again. “Madeleine, Ms. Cardot, I have sad news about Emile. Maybe you know, maybe you don’t. She was in Naples several years ago and she died there. I can tell you the details, or I can not tell you, whatever you prefer.”
Madeleine stopped spinning and she steadied herself. “What happened…”
Ronnie said, “Emile was in Naples with—”
“What happened to the roof of the coop? Elizabeth, have you seen this?”
Elizabeth said, “You asked that every day this week, Madeleine. The storm blew off the corner. Joseph will fix it, soon as he’s able.”
Madeleine’s shoulders slumped. “What happened to the coop.”
“Ms. Cardot, did you know about Emile already?” said Ronnie.
Elizabeth made a sniff. “If she did, she forgot. She never told me. Remember what I told you about her wits.”
“I’m sorry about your loss, about Emile. I’d like to know how I can help you in some way…” Ronnie scrambled for the right words. “Some way to remember her, or to make amends, or to…”
“Not if you don’t know how to swing a hammer.” For the first time, Madeleine seemed to see Ronnie. “A hammer, you? I haven’t seen a woman like you since… I used to be a woman like you. And you don’t know how to swing a hammer.”
“No ma’am I don’t.”
“I used to be young and beautiful.”
“You’re still lovely, Ms. Cardot,” Ronnie told her and it was true.
“I used to drink coffee in a Belle époque tea room, didn’t I, and the men would buy me chocolate and offer me cigarettes and I was as pretty as the spring narcissi.
We would drink in the sunlight, and in the rain we’d drink champagne under umbrellas, and we’d drink and smoke and dance at the Bellevilloise and I’d turn the men away over and over until I didn’t.
Those were the last good days of my life, before the men quit bringing the champagne flutes.
The last good days until Elizabeth and the Yoders and the chickens.
Now my children are dead and the champagne is dry and the boots hurt my toes and I cannot dance in them but there’s no pain here. Are you talking about Theo?”
“No ma’am, about Emile.”
“Have you met Theo?”
Ronnie shook her head. “I’ve never met Theo.”
“He’ll be along soon. My only child.” Madeleine turned away from us and scattered more seeds which fell like sand to the ground and the chickens fell upon them. She started to hum.
“I’ve never heard her hum that song,” said Elizabeth. “Nor heard the names she just mentioned. You stirred something in Madeleine, but I expect she won’t speak again for a spell, and maybe then it’ll be crying. We assumed Emile was dead. This is confirmation.”
“Madeleine’s been like this since she arrived?” asked Ronnie.
“Yes.” Elizabeth drew us away from the chicken run.
Ronnie wanted to ask Madeleine questions, but we both saw it’d be futile.
She was witless. “When they showed up, Theo was a scared young boy who told us a man hurt them but we didn’t know who to believe.
Their English wasn’t good. They held train tickets from New York City to San Diego but they got off here, wanting to hide.
She insisted they stay. One of the husbands went to town about it, all the way to Columbus, but they were no help.
If you ask me, the men were swayed by Madeleine and Emile’s looks, though they weren’t half as pretty as they believed.
We expected them to move on but she never did. ”
“Why did Emile leave?” asked Ronnie, watching Madeleine near the coop like she was a distant shadow of something she couldn’t see.
“Emile was…” Elizabeth blew out an air blast of disdain.
“Emile was full of herself. Laughing too loud. Talking to the boys. Always looking in mirrors. Talking about their old way of life, which made no sense to us. She snuck into town. We’d catch her with wine.
She joined one of the theaters and she… Well, she was friendly with the boys in the cast. She would shout at her mother, and the men convened about sending her to a different home but she disappeared.
A Thursday, years ago, during the harvest, gone like a puff of woodsmoke.
Madeleine asked once where Emile had gone, but not since.
Madeleine had lost herself by then, but her daughter running off made it worse.
Soon after, Theo took a job in Lancaster and we started seeing less of him. He lost his wits too.”
“You said you had assumed Emile was dead,” I reminded her. “Why’s that?”
“Six years back, Theo showed up here asking if Madeleine wanted to rear Emile’s daughter. He said Emile had vanished. Again. Emile was good at one thing, leaving people behind. Instead of leaving behind her mother, now she was abandoning her daughter.”
To keep from falling over, Ronnie grabbed the sleeve of my jacket. “Emile had a daughter?” Her voice was weak.
Elizabeth shot her a sharp look and balled fists into her apron. “You didn’t know that?”
“No. We didn’t.”
“Well. I hope it’s the Lord’s will I let my tongue slip, then. Maybe some good will come of it,” she said, but her tongue suggested not even the Lord could help Madeleine or Emile or Emile’s daughter. “I need to get back to my beans.”