Chinon Story

Chinon: marché

M. Roland’s pale cheeks flushed ruddy from the cold rain pelting his face in the breeze as he stood beneath his flower tent in Jeanne d’Arc square. The scent of mint, radish leaves and squash combined with the diesel exhaust of a chugging camionnette and the nerolis and rose perfume from a woman of Italian extraction, gracefully picking her way over the cobblestones back to her stand. There, her cousin stood guard over her merchandise—flowing tunics, hand-sewn blouses, skirts, and Capris—gently swaying in the same breeze that pelted rain on M. Roland’s face.

Roland’s eyes followed her with a surreptitious sidelong glance from under his thick lashes as his mouth puckered in greeting to the grey-haired M. Bruno and his wife Elise slightly leaning upon each other against the breeze, the diesel fumes and the ardors of doing the morning shopping. Aches and pains pulsed through their limbs producing winces that went imperceptible beneath their matching felt hats–his a Fedora, hers more of a cloche–set firm against the rain.

M. Bruno chortled his greeting “Bon, ben, Salut Roland!” as though a stiff puff of air escaped through bellows across his tired larynx forcing out the syllables with a staccato rhythm that jolted M. Roland from his reverie. Mme Bruno’s eyes, tinged grey, reflected a puddle on the pavement, her blue-green cataracts formed misting clouds across her irises, making her sway back and forth against her husband. She gazed down with a slight smile nestled deep in her soft wrinkles that met a small reddish brown mole on the edge of a dimple. Once alluring, it now sported a defiant black hair.

M. Roland’s Italian flower floated across the square between the stalls of lettuce, fennel and zucchini. The cold, dark spring had delayed the tomatoes this year and the aubergines were just the length of the zucchini—miniature imitations of their full-grown selves. Bernadette only visited Roland when the tomatoes were ripe and the eggplants sat heavy in the hand and sprang back when touched, leaving no fingerprints.

She wore a pale pink scarf loosely draped around her neck that set off her rich olive complexion; her dark curls framed her face and flashing brown eyes as she joked with her cousin whose overalls sagged and billowed over his white T-shirt in the spluttering rain as he repaired one of the support poles of the tent sheltering her swaying clothes. She made a point of not looking at Roland, but could feel his sidelong glance caress her cheek from across the square as she wondered when the tomatoes would ripen.

~*~