Jean and Josianne Lascaux returned from the funeral for Père Philippe, held in Carcassonne with all pomp and circumstance, even the hierarchy in Montpellier having roused itself to come and pay homage. The priest was remembered for the many spiritual insights he helped those who sought him out achieve, as well as for the charm of his homilies.
One in particular stood out in Jean's mind. Père Philippe was saying that the goodness of God was such that, not only had he given his only Son to redeem man, but that, notwithstanding the trials and tribulations of this world, in the end, even the devil would submit. And did that fact not illustrate how small, when you came right down to it, the devil really was, that he could be defeated by goodness?
Delphine had been summonsed, Cibiche had been hailed, the man in the red T-shirt, the smoker, had been arrested for the murder of Père Philippe, as well as the attempted murder of Delphine. A Frenchman from Carcassonne, whose family went back generations in Languedoc-Roussillon, he had a history of offenses against women. The Police Nationale were interested because he was from Carcassonne, but because the murder took place in Caunes, the gendarmerie arrested him. It was the Police Nationale, however, that suspected he might have played a role in a few local cases involving women and told the gendarmerie to go through their cold case files, one of which was Irine Fantôme's. Put in a line-up, Irine recognized the man as the tile installer about whose work she had filed a complaint demanding his license be revoked.
The disfigured woman testified at his trials for the murder of Père Philippe, the attempted murder of Delphine, and her own. Delphine was not permitted to testify, despite her many protestations. Her history of insanity made her an unreliable witness, even if, in fact, she was the only witness to Père Philippe's courage.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Faith
Père Philippe was in the sacristy, sweeping out the dried leaves that had blown in since he opened the window this morning. Today there would be a larger turnout than usual for the Mass celebrating the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven. The paintings of the life of the Virgin that framed all sides of the altar have particular significance today, thought the priest: Mary being educated by her mother, Saint Anne; Mary betrothed to Joseph, each one of them kneeling in the presence of the other; Mary giving birth to Jesus; Mary ascending into Heaven; Mary's mercy presiding over the world.
Père Philippe put his white alb on over the simple black robe of the Passionists. Pulling the white hood over his head, he then put on the chasuble, then the stole. There came a knock to the sacristy door just as he finished putting on the vestments. It was Delphine.
Père Philippe had tried to counsel Delphine many times. Whether he was succeeding never seemed obvious. Delphine, while sincerely loving Christ and his saints, was a prodigal. Her manias could only be controlled by medication, but Delphine tended to think the elated moods were divinely, rather than genetically, ordained. The dangers of that thinking were obvious to many, Père Philippe included; but Delphine was an adult and beyond the reach of the authorities until something she did required them to intervene. That had never happened: Delphine in her mania hitchhiked, or, if she could not get a ride, walked the roads, all perfectly legal actions, however, questionable.
Delphine looked radiant, Père Philippe observed to himself. "What was she up to?" It would be like her to do something dramatic on today, of all days. She entered the sacristy moving in the direction of the chair in which parishoners made their confessions. Before she reached it, she knelt down facing Père Phlippe, who was standing diagonally opposite, by the long table on which he kept his books.
"Père, I have a gift to make in the name of the most Blessed Virgin, in honor of this day, the anniversary of her Assumption--". And she reached into the pocket of her white dress, taking out a man's cowhide wallet. From it, she removed two hundred denomination Euro bills, putting the wallet back into her pocket.
"Here, Father-- Like a Magdalene repentant, I offer you this--" And she stretched out her hands to Pére Phlippe, her head bowed in a gesture of submission.
Just then, the curtain which separated the sacristy from the chapel was drawn back and the man in the red T-shirt, the smoker, penetrated the sanctuary. Eyeing Delphine he did not hesitate.
"You bitch! You thieving little bitch!" With that, he took out a small pistol and aimed it at the kneeling figure.
Père Philippe did not hesitate: instinctively he walked into the line of fire, feeling the bullet burn into his chest.
Delphine looked up, startled. Outside, in the chapel, the parishoners gave a collective gasp, and several of the men entered, including Jean La Croix. The man in the red T-shirt was wrestled to the floor and knocked out cold --by Cibiche.
Père Philippe put his white alb on over the simple black robe of the Passionists. Pulling the white hood over his head, he then put on the chasuble, then the stole. There came a knock to the sacristy door just as he finished putting on the vestments. It was Delphine.
Père Philippe had tried to counsel Delphine many times. Whether he was succeeding never seemed obvious. Delphine, while sincerely loving Christ and his saints, was a prodigal. Her manias could only be controlled by medication, but Delphine tended to think the elated moods were divinely, rather than genetically, ordained. The dangers of that thinking were obvious to many, Père Philippe included; but Delphine was an adult and beyond the reach of the authorities until something she did required them to intervene. That had never happened: Delphine in her mania hitchhiked, or, if she could not get a ride, walked the roads, all perfectly legal actions, however, questionable.
Delphine looked radiant, Père Philippe observed to himself. "What was she up to?" It would be like her to do something dramatic on today, of all days. She entered the sacristy moving in the direction of the chair in which parishoners made their confessions. Before she reached it, she knelt down facing Père Phlippe, who was standing diagonally opposite, by the long table on which he kept his books.
"Père, I have a gift to make in the name of the most Blessed Virgin, in honor of this day, the anniversary of her Assumption--". And she reached into the pocket of her white dress, taking out a man's cowhide wallet. From it, she removed two hundred denomination Euro bills, putting the wallet back into her pocket.
"Here, Father-- Like a Magdalene repentant, I offer you this--" And she stretched out her hands to Pére Phlippe, her head bowed in a gesture of submission.
Just then, the curtain which separated the sacristy from the chapel was drawn back and the man in the red T-shirt, the smoker, penetrated the sanctuary. Eyeing Delphine he did not hesitate.
"You bitch! You thieving little bitch!" With that, he took out a small pistol and aimed it at the kneeling figure.
Père Philippe did not hesitate: instinctively he walked into the line of fire, feeling the bullet burn into his chest.
Delphine looked up, startled. Outside, in the chapel, the parishoners gave a collective gasp, and several of the men entered, including Jean La Croix. The man in the red T-shirt was wrestled to the floor and knocked out cold --by Cibiche.
Charity
Delphine smoothed down her skirt, leaving the man lying on the bed sleeping. She combed her curly hair back into place, grabbed her bag, then took a look around the room.
Sacrifice was implict in a holy life. One accepted hardship in order to be able to rise above it, steering one's natural inclinations away from fulfillment so that the gem-like heart of a saint might have room to grow. It was a hard path, but Delphine had sought nothing else since she was a child. As an adult woman she had grown only more aware of the higher reality. Thanks to Père Philippe she had learned more about facing her demons with patience and concentration. Nothing was what it seemed at first, the true nature of an act emerged only upon meditation, a consideration of its essence.
Sleeping with the man in the red shirt might be slutty to some, but Magdalene was a friend of Christ's, Dephine reflected. Eyeing the wallet by the bed Delphine thought herself a bit of a Magdalene, slipping it into her handbag, then, on tiptoe, making her way to the door of the apartment in Carcassonne and down the stairs.
She walked to the bus stop and picked up the Tessier back to Caunes.
Returning to her tiny home on one of the narrow 'ruelles', Delphine crept inside, so as not to wake her mother, who was sleeping in a chair near the fireplace.
She walked up the narrow and vertiginous flight of stairs to her side of the house. She took off her white clothes and showered, then crawled under the quilt, clean and fresh again.
After several hours sleep, she awoke feeling alert and refreshed. It was 10:00 a.m. She had enough time to walk out of the village and up the road to Notre Dame du Cros in time to see Père Philippe before the Mass for the Feast of the Assumption.
Her mother asked where she had been, her face bewildered. "I told myself I would wait until this morning before I called the gendarmerie. You know that last time they scolded me, when you walked in, right under their noses. Delphine, please, please --the worry is going to kill me. Try to stay home."
Delphine was already on her way out the door, her mother's words resounding in the background, thinking of how surprised Père Phlippe would be when she handed him her gift for the Assumption collection.
Sacrifice was implict in a holy life. One accepted hardship in order to be able to rise above it, steering one's natural inclinations away from fulfillment so that the gem-like heart of a saint might have room to grow. It was a hard path, but Delphine had sought nothing else since she was a child. As an adult woman she had grown only more aware of the higher reality. Thanks to Père Philippe she had learned more about facing her demons with patience and concentration. Nothing was what it seemed at first, the true nature of an act emerged only upon meditation, a consideration of its essence.
Sleeping with the man in the red shirt might be slutty to some, but Magdalene was a friend of Christ's, Dephine reflected. Eyeing the wallet by the bed Delphine thought herself a bit of a Magdalene, slipping it into her handbag, then, on tiptoe, making her way to the door of the apartment in Carcassonne and down the stairs.
She walked to the bus stop and picked up the Tessier back to Caunes.
Returning to her tiny home on one of the narrow 'ruelles', Delphine crept inside, so as not to wake her mother, who was sleeping in a chair near the fireplace.
She walked up the narrow and vertiginous flight of stairs to her side of the house. She took off her white clothes and showered, then crawled under the quilt, clean and fresh again.
After several hours sleep, she awoke feeling alert and refreshed. It was 10:00 a.m. She had enough time to walk out of the village and up the road to Notre Dame du Cros in time to see Père Philippe before the Mass for the Feast of the Assumption.
Her mother asked where she had been, her face bewildered. "I told myself I would wait until this morning before I called the gendarmerie. You know that last time they scolded me, when you walked in, right under their noses. Delphine, please, please --the worry is going to kill me. Try to stay home."
Delphine was already on her way out the door, her mother's words resounding in the background, thinking of how surprised Père Phlippe would be when she handed him her gift for the Assumption collection.
Wednesday
At the Café de la Fontaine Wednesday morning, the story about the broken doorknob made the rounds. The talk was of the petty thievery perpetrated mostly against the seasonal owners. The consensus was that while whoever stole was committing a crime, giving them the opportunity to do so --by leaving a door or window open-- was almost as bad.
Jean Lascaux listened to the hubbub around the bar with half an ear as he read l'Equipe, concentrating particularly on the soccer standings. It was going to be a very hot day, as was usual in the Midi in the middle of August.
"The Police Nationale won't do anything, and the Gendarmerie could care less, but if I caught one of them in my house, I'd cut his hand off faster than you could sing La Marseillaise" said the man dressed in fatigues, the former Legionnaire officer. It's not easy to accept that prison is a punishment, Lascaux thought to himself, when you come across the most violent regularly. The foreign Legionnaires are often hard cases saved from prison by enlistment, fighting their more refractory former comrades. Home again, the French officers bring all their prejudices to local matters.
"Look, they're just trying the doors. One puts the other up to it. This isn't Marseille, 'Thank God'. Nobody's celebrating their birthday by holding up a tabac," said another man.
The reference was to the robbery of a tabac in Marseille over the weekend, caught on videotape: three young men from the banlieue walked into a tabac brandishing pistols. They emptied the cash register then walked out. A retired man, 60, tried to stop them from getting away. As the three ran, one of them fired, killing the good samaritan.
"What has France become?" wailed the café owner, a husky, auburn-haired man with a beard. "In my parents' day, anyone who didn't fall into line got sent to the Army, where those who made a career of it gave him the message --conform or get to like prison. Most of the rest of us, the worst we could do was to have to put on the ring before we were intending, so the child would have the father's name. Not too serious, but you would have thought it was the end of the world, the way everyone carried on about the girl being ruined. Those were the days! Les Trentes Glorieuses! Who will bring them back now?" The last was said rhetorically.
"We're not even sure who's French and who's not, because even if they have a French passport, they don't think like us--the Maliens, the Algeriens, particularly. The Sénégalais and the Marocains, they made the most of what we offered them. The others, they hate us." This from a veteran of the Algerian War.
"The other day one of the Nazaris called me about a lamb to buy for a family event," said a local farmer. "My wife took the call. 'How much would one cost?' I told Marie to tell him that I would call him back. If I give him the price I would normally sell for, he will bargain. It offends me because it's aggressive and means I have to calculate my price higher than I would for one of you, because that's how they do business. If he finds out that one of you got a lower price than he paid, next time he'll remind me of that and ask for a still lower price. So if I want to do business with them, I have to do it their way. --And I have to do business with everyone, if I'm going to sell my lambs and make it pay."
Jean Lascaux had heard it all before. France was no longer what it was, but everyone over fifty who grew up hearing his parents speak French retained a memory of a time when French ways counted for something all over France, if not the world. The different immigrant communities --those who grew up acutely aware that their parents did not speak French-- were all asking when France --the shopkeepers, the artisans, the small farmers, the teachers, the railway workers for life, not to mention the bureaucrats-- would recognize their France. Their France was the France of the parents who couldn't speak French and did not interact with their longer-established neighbors, their France was the France of the HLMs and social housing, the France of the jobless, growing every day, and disproportionately immigrant-- living side-by-side with the other France, but each ignoring the other.
The children of the immigrant communities were restless, and took it out on those more established, while the established communities demonized the newcomers. The conflict was sharpest between those from each group closest on the social scale. So the small farmers in l'Aude, who were barely making ends meet, were most resentful of the children of the laborers who built their houses, preferring to side with the foremen, who were often the children of Spanish immigrants who arrived in the 1940s, and whose children learned French while speaking Spanish at home. By the third generation, these grandchildren of Spaniards spoke only French and thought of themselves as French. Whether the newcomers, too, would become "French" --everyone talked in those terms. Not if these peasants had anything to say about it, Jean thought to himself, retreating further into his newspaper.
Jean Lascaux listened to the hubbub around the bar with half an ear as he read l'Equipe, concentrating particularly on the soccer standings. It was going to be a very hot day, as was usual in the Midi in the middle of August.
"The Police Nationale won't do anything, and the Gendarmerie could care less, but if I caught one of them in my house, I'd cut his hand off faster than you could sing La Marseillaise" said the man dressed in fatigues, the former Legionnaire officer. It's not easy to accept that prison is a punishment, Lascaux thought to himself, when you come across the most violent regularly. The foreign Legionnaires are often hard cases saved from prison by enlistment, fighting their more refractory former comrades. Home again, the French officers bring all their prejudices to local matters.
"Look, they're just trying the doors. One puts the other up to it. This isn't Marseille, 'Thank God'. Nobody's celebrating their birthday by holding up a tabac," said another man.
The reference was to the robbery of a tabac in Marseille over the weekend, caught on videotape: three young men from the banlieue walked into a tabac brandishing pistols. They emptied the cash register then walked out. A retired man, 60, tried to stop them from getting away. As the three ran, one of them fired, killing the good samaritan.
"What has France become?" wailed the café owner, a husky, auburn-haired man with a beard. "In my parents' day, anyone who didn't fall into line got sent to the Army, where those who made a career of it gave him the message --conform or get to like prison. Most of the rest of us, the worst we could do was to have to put on the ring before we were intending, so the child would have the father's name. Not too serious, but you would have thought it was the end of the world, the way everyone carried on about the girl being ruined. Those were the days! Les Trentes Glorieuses! Who will bring them back now?" The last was said rhetorically.
"We're not even sure who's French and who's not, because even if they have a French passport, they don't think like us--the Maliens, the Algeriens, particularly. The Sénégalais and the Marocains, they made the most of what we offered them. The others, they hate us." This from a veteran of the Algerian War.
"The other day one of the Nazaris called me about a lamb to buy for a family event," said a local farmer. "My wife took the call. 'How much would one cost?' I told Marie to tell him that I would call him back. If I give him the price I would normally sell for, he will bargain. It offends me because it's aggressive and means I have to calculate my price higher than I would for one of you, because that's how they do business. If he finds out that one of you got a lower price than he paid, next time he'll remind me of that and ask for a still lower price. So if I want to do business with them, I have to do it their way. --And I have to do business with everyone, if I'm going to sell my lambs and make it pay."
Jean Lascaux had heard it all before. France was no longer what it was, but everyone over fifty who grew up hearing his parents speak French retained a memory of a time when French ways counted for something all over France, if not the world. The different immigrant communities --those who grew up acutely aware that their parents did not speak French-- were all asking when France --the shopkeepers, the artisans, the small farmers, the teachers, the railway workers for life, not to mention the bureaucrats-- would recognize their France. Their France was the France of the parents who couldn't speak French and did not interact with their longer-established neighbors, their France was the France of the HLMs and social housing, the France of the jobless, growing every day, and disproportionately immigrant-- living side-by-side with the other France, but each ignoring the other.
The children of the immigrant communities were restless, and took it out on those more established, while the established communities demonized the newcomers. The conflict was sharpest between those from each group closest on the social scale. So the small farmers in l'Aude, who were barely making ends meet, were most resentful of the children of the laborers who built their houses, preferring to side with the foremen, who were often the children of Spanish immigrants who arrived in the 1940s, and whose children learned French while speaking Spanish at home. By the third generation, these grandchildren of Spaniards spoke only French and thought of themselves as French. Whether the newcomers, too, would become "French" --everyone talked in those terms. Not if these peasants had anything to say about it, Jean thought to himself, retreating further into his newspaper.
Friday, August 23, 2013
Doorknobs
The door handle to one of the houses on on of the 'ruelles' off Avenue du Minervois had been snapped off. The house belonged to the mother of Delphine, the woman in white.
The door led to a second apartment attached to a larger house, rented out on a seasonal basis. The violence with which the door had been forced had caused the handle to break off. The owners, an ex-pat couple, were furious, and also discomfited. The gendarmerie in Peyriac was as uninterested as if the apartment door had been left open and there had been a theft.
While there was a garage adjoining, no car could have struck off the doorknob, which was recessed. The doorknob had served for several years, and ought to have served for many more. To have destroyed it someone would have had to push down swiftly, and with great force. Whoever the attempted burglar was, it was not one of the young men normally suspected of pilfering. The forcing of the door was not the act of a petty criminal trying to commit a crime of opportunity, but of someone more menacing, someone operating from a conviction without conscience.
The door led to a second apartment attached to a larger house, rented out on a seasonal basis. The violence with which the door had been forced had caused the handle to break off. The owners, an ex-pat couple, were furious, and also discomfited. The gendarmerie in Peyriac was as uninterested as if the apartment door had been left open and there had been a theft.
While there was a garage adjoining, no car could have struck off the doorknob, which was recessed. The doorknob had served for several years, and ought to have served for many more. To have destroyed it someone would have had to push down swiftly, and with great force. Whoever the attempted burglar was, it was not one of the young men normally suspected of pilfering. The forcing of the door was not the act of a petty criminal trying to commit a crime of opportunity, but of someone more menacing, someone operating from a conviction without conscience.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Delphine
"You are arrogant! You pose! You are not what people think!"
The woman in white screamed these words as Père Philippe entered the sanctuary from the refectory. Delphine, the woman in white, had been praying in front of the statue of Notre Dame du Cros when the sight of Père Philippe impelled her outburst.
Delphine was always dressed in white, a leather belt around her waist carrying a wallet in which she kept her money and her keys. She had black, curling hair and a few grey ones, but the heart-shaped face, the childlike voice and the swiftness of her movements, made Delphine seem very young, a virginal milkmaid suffused with religious feeling. Yet the rapturous expression before the statue turned harsh as she shouted the denunciation, which rang through the chapel.
Accompanying a surprised visitor to the exit of the chapel, Père Philippe explained, "She is not in her right mind, she hasn't been taking her medication."
Delphine remained at the altar, now arranging the flowers and singing to herself softly, smiling up at the paintings of Mary.
Père Philippe returned after saying goodbye to his visitor, heading for the rectory. Again, Delphine shouted, this time,
"You are not a man of God! You are a false prophet!"
The skirt of Père Philippe's black robe made a rustling sound against the marble floor as he walked, briskly and imperturbably, back to the rectory.
It was Tuesday, two days after the kermesse. The fair had been considerably more successful than last year's, more foreigners attended, seeking bargains at the church bazaar, and helping themselves to wine and sandwiches. Monday, as usual, the chapel was open, but there was no Mass. Today the regular schedule of daily Mass at 11:30 a.m. resumed, hence Delphine's presence. She would tend the flowers by the marble statue of the Virgin and Child, although the women canons automatically did so. Delphine, however, obeyed no laws in her devotion, which made encounters with her disconcerting to many in the village. Père Philippe, however, saw no reason to restrain her gestures of adoration, and counseled her to continue to take the medication prescribed for her mania. He was not always successful, as today indicated.
Delphine walked back to Caunes after the Mass, observed by another regular Mass-goer, a man from Villeneuve who drove a car to the chapel and back. At the intersection of the road to the chapel and the main highway, he saw Delphine stop to talk to a man in a panel truck, then get inside.
The woman in white screamed these words as Père Philippe entered the sanctuary from the refectory. Delphine, the woman in white, had been praying in front of the statue of Notre Dame du Cros when the sight of Père Philippe impelled her outburst.
Delphine was always dressed in white, a leather belt around her waist carrying a wallet in which she kept her money and her keys. She had black, curling hair and a few grey ones, but the heart-shaped face, the childlike voice and the swiftness of her movements, made Delphine seem very young, a virginal milkmaid suffused with religious feeling. Yet the rapturous expression before the statue turned harsh as she shouted the denunciation, which rang through the chapel.
Accompanying a surprised visitor to the exit of the chapel, Père Philippe explained, "She is not in her right mind, she hasn't been taking her medication."
Delphine remained at the altar, now arranging the flowers and singing to herself softly, smiling up at the paintings of Mary.
Père Philippe returned after saying goodbye to his visitor, heading for the rectory. Again, Delphine shouted, this time,
"You are not a man of God! You are a false prophet!"
The skirt of Père Philippe's black robe made a rustling sound against the marble floor as he walked, briskly and imperturbably, back to the rectory.
It was Tuesday, two days after the kermesse. The fair had been considerably more successful than last year's, more foreigners attended, seeking bargains at the church bazaar, and helping themselves to wine and sandwiches. Monday, as usual, the chapel was open, but there was no Mass. Today the regular schedule of daily Mass at 11:30 a.m. resumed, hence Delphine's presence. She would tend the flowers by the marble statue of the Virgin and Child, although the women canons automatically did so. Delphine, however, obeyed no laws in her devotion, which made encounters with her disconcerting to many in the village. Père Philippe, however, saw no reason to restrain her gestures of adoration, and counseled her to continue to take the medication prescribed for her mania. He was not always successful, as today indicated.
Delphine walked back to Caunes after the Mass, observed by another regular Mass-goer, a man from Villeneuve who drove a car to the chapel and back. At the intersection of the road to the chapel and the main highway, he saw Delphine stop to talk to a man in a panel truck, then get inside.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Kermesse
At shortly after 8:00 a.m., Josianne Lascaux was at the staging area for the kermesse to begin after the 11 o'clock Mass to help with the set-up for the meal. Katy had organized everything, brought tomatoes from her own garden, ordered the Auvergnât ham, pork pâté, melon, roast chicken thighs for those who would not be having tripes, cheese, bread, apple tart and coffee. Jean was cooking the tripes, Marcel had brought the rosé, the red and the bottled water; others, like Simone, had organized the sale of handicrafts, and still others, the betting on the bottle toss and which of the ten rabbit hutches stuffed with carrots the animal would go after.
For 15 Euros, each person would have a plate of slices of melon, ham and pâté, accompanied with a beverage of choice, followed by either tripes or chicken, followed by camembert, followed by tart, followed by coffee. Those who wanted an apèro before the start of the meal could buy pastis, or any of the wines, plus hors d'oeuvres in the form of small sandwiches. It was important to have a good, long apèro before the meal, because the individual drinks purchased filled the coffers of the kermesse; but not too long, because everyone was supposed to fast for at least an hour before the Mass, so by noon everyone was hungry and drinking on an empty stomach.
Katy's helpers worked like slaves, cutting each tomato into fine slices, placing them on plates onto which the chicken thighs went, for those who could not appreciate tripes. After that the line went into production of the first course, lining up two slices of cantaloupe next to one of mountain-cured ham and a triangle of páté, altogether almost three hundred paper plates, each wrapped in plastic wrap to keep the bees away until the apèro ended and it was time to start the service.
The service had to go like clockwork: once one table saw another being served, it became impatient to get its own food. In a group, people who were otherwise very reserved made outrageous demands: if one table had a few missing members, that beside asked whether they could eat the portions as seconds, forgetting that perhaps the portion had been paid for and the table members would be late arrivals.
At the dessert course, everything began to calm down. Josianne was able to sit down and enjoy a glass of blanquette de Limoux with Jean, who, the tripe recipe having gone down well, could rest on his laurels. The games began while the coffee was being served, the ham strung up so its weight could be guessed, then the cards for Loto distributed. Marcel called out the numbers for 90 minutes, then the tombola drawing, a jackpot including a coffee service, a bottle of blanquette in a cooler, locally made confections and a coffee pot. The prize went to a widowed parishioner who rarely entertained.
Père Philippe, whose sermon touched on why the chapel drew visitors to the kermesse who never went inside the chapel, made a brief appearance among the attendees, stopping to talk at a table near where Josianne and Lascaux were seated. The man has an amazing ability to understand human beings, Lascaux thought to himself. Instead of criticizing those who come to the kermesse for a good meal for little and never set foot inside Notre Dame du Cros, he chooses to talk about the roots of their attachment to the chapel and to describe it as a link, however distant, with the God so many find inside. Was Jesus like that? Lascaux wondered to himself. Père Philippe's internal stillness, while not always on display, was the essential part of his nature. Although, Lascaux amended, living in an hermitage it was probably easier to keep that part of himself to the fore than had Père Philippe been assigned to serve, say, in one of those parishes in Marseille --The Three Kings for instance-- where gunshot rang out and fleeing go fasts burned rubber every night, whatever the police did to try to reduce the drug trafficking.
Père Philippe would say, however, that had he been assigned to such a parish, his work would not change essentially. His calling as a priest was not to change the world, but to make those who would hear aware that a world beyond the impermanent world existed, was within the reach of those willing to seek it. It would reveal itself as superseding the immanent, although immanence is a property of God. However, to think God is only immanent is to deny that the world is without evil and to ignore that it is transcendence that ultimately gives human beings the capacity to supersede human limitations.
After eleven years of sitting in the pews of Notre Dame du Cros, Lascaux could call to mind Père Phlippe's homilies without effort. He was a remarkable priest, even if the villagers found him too much of an intellecto, with his books about what it all means.
For 15 Euros, each person would have a plate of slices of melon, ham and pâté, accompanied with a beverage of choice, followed by either tripes or chicken, followed by camembert, followed by tart, followed by coffee. Those who wanted an apèro before the start of the meal could buy pastis, or any of the wines, plus hors d'oeuvres in the form of small sandwiches. It was important to have a good, long apèro before the meal, because the individual drinks purchased filled the coffers of the kermesse; but not too long, because everyone was supposed to fast for at least an hour before the Mass, so by noon everyone was hungry and drinking on an empty stomach.
Katy's helpers worked like slaves, cutting each tomato into fine slices, placing them on plates onto which the chicken thighs went, for those who could not appreciate tripes. After that the line went into production of the first course, lining up two slices of cantaloupe next to one of mountain-cured ham and a triangle of páté, altogether almost three hundred paper plates, each wrapped in plastic wrap to keep the bees away until the apèro ended and it was time to start the service.
The service had to go like clockwork: once one table saw another being served, it became impatient to get its own food. In a group, people who were otherwise very reserved made outrageous demands: if one table had a few missing members, that beside asked whether they could eat the portions as seconds, forgetting that perhaps the portion had been paid for and the table members would be late arrivals.
At the dessert course, everything began to calm down. Josianne was able to sit down and enjoy a glass of blanquette de Limoux with Jean, who, the tripe recipe having gone down well, could rest on his laurels. The games began while the coffee was being served, the ham strung up so its weight could be guessed, then the cards for Loto distributed. Marcel called out the numbers for 90 minutes, then the tombola drawing, a jackpot including a coffee service, a bottle of blanquette in a cooler, locally made confections and a coffee pot. The prize went to a widowed parishioner who rarely entertained.
Père Philippe, whose sermon touched on why the chapel drew visitors to the kermesse who never went inside the chapel, made a brief appearance among the attendees, stopping to talk at a table near where Josianne and Lascaux were seated. The man has an amazing ability to understand human beings, Lascaux thought to himself. Instead of criticizing those who come to the kermesse for a good meal for little and never set foot inside Notre Dame du Cros, he chooses to talk about the roots of their attachment to the chapel and to describe it as a link, however distant, with the God so many find inside. Was Jesus like that? Lascaux wondered to himself. Père Philippe's internal stillness, while not always on display, was the essential part of his nature. Although, Lascaux amended, living in an hermitage it was probably easier to keep that part of himself to the fore than had Père Philippe been assigned to serve, say, in one of those parishes in Marseille --The Three Kings for instance-- where gunshot rang out and fleeing go fasts burned rubber every night, whatever the police did to try to reduce the drug trafficking.
Père Philippe would say, however, that had he been assigned to such a parish, his work would not change essentially. His calling as a priest was not to change the world, but to make those who would hear aware that a world beyond the impermanent world existed, was within the reach of those willing to seek it. It would reveal itself as superseding the immanent, although immanence is a property of God. However, to think God is only immanent is to deny that the world is without evil and to ignore that it is transcendence that ultimately gives human beings the capacity to supersede human limitations.
After eleven years of sitting in the pews of Notre Dame du Cros, Lascaux could call to mind Père Phlippe's homilies without effort. He was a remarkable priest, even if the villagers found him too much of an intellecto, with his books about what it all means.
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