French Poodle Pictures Article

Petrol and hay trucks speed past. French travelers, beginning their holiday season, zip by at ninety miles an hour. They go so fast, Sonia thinks. As Walt drives, she tries to recall the pictures Katrine sent. The snapshots of Katrine and Michel with their children, now grown, a scribbled note told them, and a poodle, named Gilbert, now dead, and the farmhouse, the garden, the cat, still living, whose name Sonia cannot recall. Katrine had written to her about the poor creature. "He is blind," Katrine said, "but he is no trouble at all."

Sonia doesn't want to think about the blind cat. Or a dead poodle. She is trying to remember what the house looks like. She wishes she'd downloaded the snapshots. She recalls the stone farmhouse, the view from the kitchen window. An aerial shot of the house (How did they get that view?). But what if the images she has in her head bear no likeness to the actual house? What if it looks nothing like that at all?

It was Walt who'd discovered the website, . He was scheming, looking for deals. "Look," he said to her last winter, "this is the way to go." When she'd first seen the logo for , she'd imagined some sex site Walt had found, a way to invigorate their marriage. Then he explained it was for houses, not spouses.

Sonia and Walt hadn't been able to afford a real vacation in years, not the kind where you go to Europe and travel around. With Kiah in college and now Kezia in private school, they couldn't afford the hotels, restaurants every night. Besides they liked to take it easy, go slowly. They didn't like to pack and unpack every night. To do a room check every time you leave a place, only to discover that you've forgotten a nightgown that was a gift or a novel whose outcome will have to wait until you are home. Sonia doesn't like that feeling of waking up and not knowing where she is. It is better to stay put, in one place.

Once they'd posted their house, this trip had taken on a momentum of its own. A few emails had set it in motion. Katrine and Michel were looking for a New York holiday and soon it had seemed unstoppable. They'd exchanged letters, then photos of their kitchens, pets, even bicycles. And finally keys. Now Sonia takes the keys out of her bag. "Is this some high-tech form of the key bowl game?" She dangles them in front of Walt. "What if we don't like it?" Sonia says.

"We will."

"How do you know?"

He drums his fingers on the wheel. "I just do." The land they traverse is flat. Fields of wheat blow in the wind. It is like a yellow sea. The sun comes straight out of the clouds onto the haystacks. Monet would paint this scene. Sonia wishes she could relax the way Walt does as he hums, hands gently on the wheel. "God this is beautiful," he says. "This is great. I feel as if home is a million miles away.

But Sonia cannot look at the fields and the sun streaming down. All she can think about are those pictures. What if they aren't recent? What if the house is in disrepair? And now she doesn't know how she feels about strangers rifling through her medicine closet, searching for aspirin. Sleeping in her bed.

It occurs to Sonia that she really knows nothing about the people who will be arriving at her house as she arrives at theirs. They've never set eyes on Katrine and Michel. They'd wanted to, but it hadn't worked out because Katrine and Michel were going to Colorado first and Sonia and Walt would be driving around France.

It would have been better if they had met. It would have put her mind at ease. But Walt said it was all right. He said things would be fine. "Just call it my gut feeling. "

Sonia and Walt had never done a swap before, never even contemplated one. They'd been urban pioneers, buying in a rundown neighborhood, lovingly restoring their house to what it once was. How could they trust strangers with the rummage sale antiques they'd spent years stripping? Or the rare prints, dug out of flea market bins, that hung on the walls?

But Katrine wrote that they'd swapped dozens of times. They'd spent a week in Prague, a month in New Zealand, a whole summer in Greece when their kids were small. Katrine and Michel were both teachers who loved to travel and this was how they saw the world.

Sonia had asked timidly if anything "bad" had ever happened on one of their exchanges. Not exactly "bad," but unpleasant or unfortunate. Katrine had written back a funny email that made Sonia laugh. She said she has many antique cups and saucers and that once a Spanish family stayed with three small daughters and the little girls rearranged all the cups and saucers as if in some kind of mad tea party.

Even from a distance Sonia liked Katrine. She sensed her humor, her easy way. Her casualness. Sonia could be more casual. She had to have things right, just so. Walt and the girls teased her for that. Why does it always have to be so perfect? So what if something is out of place? Walt, who was hardly one for order, would moan, but Sonia could not help herself.

Disarray made her nervous. She hated old newspapers, clothes not put away. But somehow she felt she wouldn't mind this in Katrine. Sonia felt certain that if they ever met, they would enjoy one another. They would be friends.

Sonia holds the little hand-drawn map Katrine made for them. It came with the keys and it is a scribble of windy roads, a few arrows. "Do you think anyone ever really arrives there?" Walt asks, glancing at the map. They had, in fact, tried to find Rambourgh in the atlas, but were unable. "It must be very small," Sonia reasons, staring at the quickly drawn lines on French lycee graph paper.

As they drive down the A-11, Sonia begins to relax. The air, the light, just being in France is taking a weight off her. She reaches for Walt's hand and, as he feels her grope for him, he grabs her. Takes hold of her before she can take hold of him. It is a reflex between them. He clutches at her like a drowning man, but it doesn't bother her as it does at home. She senses his excitement too.

It is an odd feeling, having a stranger's keys jingle in her pocket. She feels their heft. She imagines Katrine and Michel, opening the door to their Brooklyn brownstone, being pleasantly surprised to find the flowers and bottle of wine ("coals to Newcastle," Walt had said). The notebooks Sonia left with detailed household instructions on how the grill works, the best produce market nearby, take-out menus all carefully labeled ("best Chinese," "great Thai," "Don't miss!"). Brochures for concerts in the park, the subway maps.

They'd emptied closets and drawers to make room for the French people. They'd had a stoop sale, making almost two hundred dollars with what they were throwing out. "We should swap more often," Walt said when he saw the money.

When the girls were small, they had traveled all over Europe in vans, on Eurail passes. They backpacked through Spain, stayed at youth hostels. One summer they'd rented a cottage in Italy, but now they can't afford much. Walt's law practice is mainly housing and tenants. "Couldn't you do landlords?" Sonia sometimes teases. In fact many of his clients are homeless people. He has fought for squatters' rights to abandoned buildings and often makes very little money at all. And Sonia teaches literature in the public schools.

Sonia considers herself "good at languages." She has an ear for them. In Spain people think she is Italian. In Italy she passes for French. She speaks enough German to order coffee and enough Russian to get them out of a taxi without being robbed. Her family marvels at how she can switch from one language to another, go from country to country as if each place is home.

As a girl, her goal, once she realized she had a gift, was to get away from the Hartford suburb where she was raised. When she met Walt, he drove a motorcycle and wore a black leather jacket, never mind that he was a student at Columbia Law. He moved into her one-bedroom rent-stabilized apartment where they lived for years. Sonia didn't look into the future. She pictured herself more easily in a Moroccan desert town than in Brooklyn, dustbusting after dinner.

At her wedding, as she danced with her father, he imparted his final lesson to her. "Remember, Sonia," he said, as she tried to follow his waltz step, "life is one big compromise."

They stop for gas. Unfamiliar with the pumps, Walt pours about a gallon of diesel into the tank before the station owner starts shouting at him. "Oh my god," Walt says, "I think I've ruined the car."

The station owner waves them away. "He thinks we're idiots," Sonia says with a laugh. In French she calls to him, "Can you help us, please?" which he does, grumbling.

Walt shakes his head as they drive on. They follow a few twists and turns. The light is fading as they come to Rambourgh. It is a village of faux thatchedroof houses, farms; big columns of trees grace the main road.

At last they come upon it - the farmhouse covered in wisteria, hydrangeas in bloom all around, the yarrow and cornflowers, the daisies and black-eyed susans. They pull the car into the carport with pillars and a crumbling stucco facade. After unloading the car, they drag their suitcases to the back where there is the garden.

They haven't anticipated the garden. It is filled with figs, ripe and dropping from the trees, and plum trees, with tomatoes and green beans, with peaches and espaliers of pears and apples, onion and eggplant burst from the ground. Zucchini dangle from vines, the size of small wind instruments.

Sonia and Walt pause, gazing at the garden, the fields of bending wheat, the ramshackle farmhouse. "It's perfect," Sonia says.

And all Walt can do is shake his head. "It is."

It takes a while to open the door. The house has a musty smell from being closed for so long. It is a smell of darkness and something else - rotting fruit, old grain, pipe smoke. "We need to air it out," Sonia says as she struggles to open the windows. They are closed with iron shutters and she leaves Walt tugging on these and takes a basket and heads to the garden.

As she hears Walt groaning, yanking the shutters open, she plucks an eggplant from the ground, admiring its purple flesh. She takes ripe tomatoes, onions, peppers. Why would anyone plant this garden, then go away? Why would anyone ever want to leave?

When she goes inside to try and work the stove, she sees that Katrine has left little Post-its all over the house. Instructions on how to use the various appliances, all of which have been unplugged in the event of "dangerous storms." What storms? Sonia wonders. No one had mentioned storms. Soon the appliances are humming. She is slicing tomatoes, eggplants, putting them in sizzling oil.

It is late when they sit down to their simple meal of wine, bread, cheese, and ratatouille. "I'll do better tomorrow night," Sonia says. "We'll go to the market in Beaumont. I've read it's wonderful and they sell live animals."

"I've always wanted a goat."

They laugh, clicking glasses, proud that they made it this far. That they have reached this place. They have opened the shutters and made food from the garden. Sonia is savoring the dry red wine Katrine and Michel left them when she hears the mewing. On the windowsill just outside she sees the cat. She hasn't even thought about the cat since they arrived, but now he is on the ledge, begging to be let in.

Pet care was part of their exchange. She hadn't minded. They had left their dog, Muppet, and cat, Pumpkin, in the care of Katrine and Michel. Now the cat is on the sill. Katrine has left explicit directions about the cat. When he comes to the window, put a chair there so he doesn't fall and he can step inside to eat. Put food and water dish directly to right of chair.

Sonia opens the window and the cat with opaque green eyes stares at her with its blankness, then deftly places its paw on the chair and goes right to its dish. Sonia wishes she could remember the cat's name. It bothers her that she can remember the name of the dead dog but not the living cat. She knows it is blind, but it doesn't act blind. "I think it can see," Sonia says to Walt.

He shakes his head. "Look at those eyes. Blind."

"I don't remember his name. It was with an M I think. Micky, Max."

"Let's call it Max." They watch as the cat eats, then jumps back onto the chair, waits for Sonia to open the window and disappears into the night.

When they get in bed, Walt's back hurts. The bed is too soft so they roll the mattress onto the floor and sleep there. The light in the bathroom flicks on and off so Sonia has to close the door. When she gets back in bed, Walt curls into her hip. In the distance she sees lightning, forked, coming down, but it is far away. It looks like the hand of God.

In the morning Sonia wakes early and slips out of bed. Making her way downstairs, she turns on the coffee, then starts sorting the wash. Everything is dirty. They have been traveling for two weeks already. When Walt pads down and finds her, separating colors from whites, she says, "I want to do the laundry. I want to set up house."

"Of course you do," he says.

Since it is market day, they drive to Beaumont where they are overwhelmed by the cheeses and meat, the baskets of peaches and squash. They buy beefsteaks, cut paper-thin by a butcher wearing an ironed blue shirt and silk tie. They sample creamy cheeses, wedges of nectarine. Walt picks spicy olives out of barrels, then buys an assortment from a North African man.

At the fish stand Walt stops to admire the piles of shrimp and mussels, the cod and Atlantic salmon, and Sonia feels the first wave of nausea. Walt does not notice her, gripping the pole. He suggests salmon, poached for lunch, but Sonia won't go near it. "It won't be fresh," she tells him. "Remember how sick you were in Paris."

Walt shrugs. "I wasn't that sick." He points to the fish. "It looks fresh," he says. Then he puts his hand on her neck and feels its coldness. "What is it?" he asks. "What's wrong?"

"Just tired from the journey," she tells him. It is one of the things she wishes was different between them. She wishes he could read her mind. But he can't. He never can. He accepts her, as he always does, at her word. As they drive through their hamlet, the car laden with groceries, a giant goose stands in the road. He stands firm, puffing himself up, honking. "Scary goose," Walt says, honking back, making Sonia laugh.

Walt honks again, but the goose doesn't budge. "You'll have to chase him," Sonia says.

Walt gets out of the car and struts up to the goose. He flaps his arms and makes a quacking sound. Sonia looks at him - a tall, big man who still has most of his hair. His waist is wider than it once was, his dark curls gray at the temples. Seeing this big man threatening the goose makes her laugh. Even as the goose spreads its wings and assumes a more threatening pose, she laughs and the darkness that came over her at the market passes.

At last the goose turns and walks off the road. When Walt gets back into the car, Sonia who is still laughing tells him her plan. "I'm going to do the laundry. Then I'll make you a nice lunch. How does that sound?"

"Sounds good to me."

As they unload the groceries, she is thinking they will eat outside on the patio beside the garden. She will make chicken breasts sauteed with mushrooms and shallots, sliced tomatoes, green beans, and white wine. As she plans the menu, Sonia tries to figure out how the washing machine works. It is so tiny she can only put a few things in at a time. It looks as if it could just contain her head.

She asks Walt to put on his pajamas and she puts on hers, then does three loads of laundry. She washes all their underwear, their jeans, their sweats, all the clothes from the road trip. It is close to one o'clock when she hangs each article of clothing on the line in the sunshine. She stuffs clothespins in her mouth and snaps them on the clean linen.

The sun is warm on her face as she shakes out a white t-shirt with a flick of her wrists. She doesn't mind the moisture running down her arms. She is clipping the t-shirt to the line when she realizes she is being watched. It is not an entirely unpleasant feeling, but she knows she isn't alone. She turns and sees Max standing a little off to the side. He is staring straight at her with those blank green eyes. When she looks at him, he starts to purr so she puts down her wash and scratches him behind the ears.

As she does the laundry, taking it from the washer to the line, the cat follows her everywhere. It stays close at her side, rubbing his silken body against her leg as she hangs the clothes to dry. Sonia tries once more to remember the name of the cat, but it eludes her. "Here, Max," Sonia says and Max rubs up against her legs. "He can't be blind," she says to Walt as the cat tags behind her.

"He moves by his senses," Walt says, giving her a little squeeze, "just like me." To prove his point, Walt puts a book between Sonia and the cat and the cat stumbles on it when he follows her out the door.

For lunch she changes her mind about the green beans. They'll have them that evening with the beefsteaks. Instead she plucks the fixings for a salad from the garden. She slices tomatoes while Walt washes every leaf. As he moves past her in the kitchen, his hands slide along her waist. They set the table outside and drink a whole bottle of wine over lunch, savoring each sip, then go upstairs and, thinking they will make love in this house for the first time, fall asleep instead.

They wake to forked lightning, terrible crashes like accidents happening all around them. Though it is still afternoon, they are surrounded by blackness. Sonia gazes out at the torrential rain, the wind ripping through the fields of wheat. "The appliances," Walt says, remembering the warning about dangerous storms.

"The laundry," Sonia groans.

She leaves Walt to unplug the washer, the stove, the computer, and rushes outside and tugs soaking underwear, shirts, jeans from the line. Dragging them in, she drapes wet laundry over every surface she can find. Over chairs and tables, on lamps and hooks. "Looks like a bordello," Walt says with a laugh as he returns from the utility room, screwdriver in hand.

"A scene from Porgy and Bess." Sonia steps back to admire.

Walt starts to hum, "Bess, you is my woman.

"The kids would love this moment," Sonia says.

"We have no clothes to wear."

"We have nowhere to go," she replies.

The last time they were in France it had rained as well. Then they'd had the girls with them. They were little and it was just a few years after Fred died. They hadn't planned to have Kezia, but after Fred they'd had another child. When they were in France last time, and it was, what, ten, fifteen years ago, so long ago, almost a lifetime, certainly another life, they had made a video with the kids about a weird French couple who murders people for no real reason. It had occupied the kids on days like this.

"I wish the girls were here," Sonia says.

"Me too." Walt puts his arm around her.

They shiver in the cold house. They spend the rest of the day in their pajamas, the only dry clothes they have. They cannot go anywhere because everything else is wet. They crawl into bed early and in the morning the storm hasn't stopped. Their clothes are still damp. Walt thinks about shaving, but doesn't bother. Already his beard is dark, stubbly. They can't remember the last time they didn't dress in the morning and find they don't mind.

Walt builds a fire because now it is cold and, since they are housebound, Sonia tries to learn where everything is. She opens each cabinet and drawer, even those which she probably doesn't need to open. The objects of the house fascinate her. The failing houseplants whose tentacles reach across counters and into drawers, cactuses struggling for light, the silk flowers that Walt sniffs, thinking they are real. She sees the cup and saucer collection the Spanish girls rearranged and the collection of egg cups from all over the world. All Sonia can think is how much Katrine has to dust.

She studies the paintings on the wall. The bad landscapes, the oils of wideeyed children, old women with hands held up in despair, the statues of headless men. And the one she can hardly bare to look at of the screaming souls. It is a painting of hell. When Sonia looks more closely at these paintings, she realizes they are all signed KB. Katrine Beauce.

Still, though she cannot explain this, she feels oddly at home.

In the afternoon the rain subsides and they put jackets over their pajamas and walk through the hamlet. An old farmer dressed all in blue waves at them. They pass a small flock of sheep and Walt bleats at them. They bleat back. When Sonia tries it, they are silent. "Who can explain this?" Sonia says. Ahead of them they see the goose, back at his command post in the middle of the road. "Let's go through the fields," Walt says, "I don't feel like running into that guy again."

They cut through a farmer's field, soaking their shoes and pajama legs and come to a road. On the side of the road a male pigeon flaps his wings around a female. In the lull of the storm he is trying to entice her. Walt flaps his arms at Sonia, imitating the pigeon. She looks at Walt in the middle of the road, arms flapping, doing his mating dance.

She starts to laugh, and he flaps harder. "Interested?" he asks.

She smiles, wishing she were. Then Sonia thinks that the neighbors might be watching. "Please, Walt. I'm sure people can see us.

As the wind picks up and brings a new rush of rain, they head home. They turn on the news. All over France there is torrential rain. In Normandy a man walked out of his house and disappeared into a forty-foot hole of mud. They learn that they are trapped in a weather pattern all over France. Something off the North Atlantic that shows no indication of shifting.

Katrine and Michel have left their password and Walt gets the computer going. He goes to Yahoo weather and together they stare at the little rain clouds, pouring down for the next five days. All the major cities have rain clouds over their heads.

They check the weather map for all of Europe to see if they can't go somewhere else. "According to this," Walt says, "the nearest place would be Uzbekistan. "

The road to Illiers-Combray is a straight shot from the farmhouse. They'd planned to bicycle but decide to drive instead. The next morning they find some jeans, t-shirts, and cotton sweaters they left by the fire. Though the clothes are still damp, they put these on. Then they rush to the car to escape the driving wind.

For months Sonia dreamed of this pilgrimage to Combray. She reread the first volume in the original. She imagined riding bikes to Proust's aunt's house on a sunny day, but for now the car will have to do. She is anxious to see the rooms where the young Proust used to sit up at night, watching the images the magic lantern made on his wall. She once contemplated writing her doctoral dissertation on Proust and involuntary memory, but then she met Walt. She had gotten pregnant. They were going to marry anyway.

As the car whizzes along the highway, Sonia stares out at the sodden fields. All that golden sunshine is gone. Now just this grayness. With her finger she traces her breath on the window as she once did as a child. Walt says nothing, but gazes at the road. Ahead of them Sonia spots a flicker of red. They zip past a small bouquet of flowers, a vase of them beside a cross along the side of the road. A memorial. "Someone died on this road," Sonia says. "Recently, I think." Walt nods with a sigh.

She is about to say something to him. She opens her mouth, then closes it again. Instead she touches his arm and looks into the rearview mirror until the flicker of red recedes.

Everything is closed in Combray - the museum, the shops, even the old church. Even the fine restaurant the guidebook recommends. They go into a smoky bar where some men are shooting pool. They order ham sandwiches and red wine which makes them sleepy.

In the back of the bar three young men dressed in navy peacoats are playing pool. They listen to the sound of balls cracking. The bartender bends across the bar, chatting with a woman who is smoking a Galoise. Sonia leans over, taking Walt's hand. There is a conversation she needs to have with him.

It should not be so difficult to say these things, but Sonia has been waiting for the right moment. Sitting across from him in restaurants, at home over dinners, there's always some other conversation they are having - about the food or a new way to mortgage the house or something about the girls. But the real conversation seems to elude her.

But now the fish market, the red vase by the road, the fact that it is just the two of them, it seems to Sonia as if the time is right. She recalls the odor of the fish, how she thought she would faint. What was it she'd read once? The whole family was playing Trivial Pursuit and the question was: What sense is the most closely associated with memory? The answer was smell.

She knew the answer right away. She thought then that she would tell that to Walt, years ago. I knew the answer was smell. The words that have been on the tip of her tongue for so long are there now. It is like a burning. She will dip her face close to his and speak. "If I tell you something, promise you won't be mad."

"Depends on what," Walt, the lawyer, replies.

"Well, then I can't tell you." She sighs. "Try me," he says.

Her mind drifts to that flash of red by the side of the road. "I miss the girls," she says. She has changed the subject without telling him.

"Now, why would I be angry at that?" He pats her hand.

"I didn't think you would..."

"Ready? Come on, let me distract you. How about a nap in front of that cozy fire."

As soon as they are finished with their wine, Sonia says, "Yes, let's go home."

They drive swiftly back to Rambourgh as if they have an appointment there. But once inside, Sonia can't wait to get warm. She feels as if she can't bear the chill. Upstairs she opens a closet where Katrine keeps her things. There are shelves filled with sweatshirts and pants, bulky sweaters. She takes down a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. Slipping them on she is surprised at how easily they fit. A little snug perhaps, but she can wear them.

Sonia realizes that even after her own clothes are dry it will be pointless to wear them. They are all summer clothes, not suited to this cold. She decides to wear Katrine's clothes instead. She wants to feel merino wool, flannel next to her skin.

For dinner that night she puts on a pair of black slacks, a pink sweater. Wait comments, "I haven't seen you in that sweater before. Is it new?"

"I'm glad you like it," she says. "Yes, it is."

Home recedes. When she takes a corkscrew out of the drawer, she asks herself, "Where is my corkscrew?" She plays this little game with herself, trying to recall where she put things, but she finds she cannot recall much.

That night over dinner Sonia says to Walt, "Wouldn't it be nice if we could just stay here?"

"Stay here?" Walt asks. "You mean never leave."

Sonia nods. "I don't know if I mean never, but I mean just stay where we are. For a long time."

Walt shakes his head, sips his wine. "Well, it's a nice vacation, but I'll be ready to get back."

"Of course," Sonia says, brushing her hair with her hand. She catches a glimpse of herself in the window and there on the sill is the cat. "Oh, there's Max."

Before she can finish, Walt is opening the window to let him in. Deftly Max leaps from the sill onto the chair, then heads for his bowl. Without looking at them, he eats.

After dinner as Walt does the dishes Sonia notices for the first time that in Katrine's house there are no pictures of the family, no children, not like her house which is nothing if not wall to wall pictures. Her own home is full of faces, looking out of frames, frozen in time. Even the picture of Fred. What a stupid name for a baby. Fred. It is a name for a cat; a goldfish. Even now she can't say his name.

That night as they slip into bed, Walt is shivering. "I don't know what it is, but I can't seem to get warm." Sonia puts a hand to his brow.

"You are a little clammy," she says. "Let me find the extra blankets."

She heads for the linen closet and begins digging into the shelves. The blankets seem to be tucked away and she has to remove some towels. A small box comes out as well. On it is the picture of a naked man's torso and the words in French, "Ideal Companion."

Gently she opens the lid and finds pills and condoms, the implements of birth control. Sonia gazes into the box. It had not occurred to her that Katrine was that much younger than she. That she would still be using birth control. Or in fact that they would be having sex in her bed. She had imagined Katrine and Michel in her bathtub, on the toilet, asleep in bed, but not making love. To the best of her knowledge no one besides Sonia and Walt has ever made love in their bed.

Sonia and Walt used to have sex daily, sometimes twice a day when they were young. And then Fred died, and Kezia was born. It was after Kezia was born that Sonia found herself repulsed by Walt's body - the flatness of his rear end, the sour smell of his mouth, the roughness of his hands. She found ways to avoid him and he in turn found ways to avoid her.

Even here in France in this house where they have been for almost a week, it occurs to Sonia, not with any emotion but as a statement of fact, that they have yet to make love.

Now she thinks of Katrine, a woman she has never met, making love to a man she doesn't know, in her bed - a bed that has not experienced real urges in many years, but has become more a place of exhaustion and avoidance. The thought of the two of them - two strangers to her - makes her feel slightly aroused. She wants something she can hardly name. She can see their dark bodies on her sheets, her Egyptian cotton sheets with their stains.

As she heads back into the bedroom, there is a crash of lightning. Another storm is upon them. She places the blankets carefully across their bed. "Walt," she whispers, her voice throaty, moist. She touches his chest. Then crawls in beside her husband who has fallen asleep in her absence.

In the morning the rain subsides but a cold wind blows from the north. The light in the bathroom flicks on and off. There is a strange sulphur-like smell. Sonia has to get out. She says to Walt, "Let's go somewhere. Let's go back to Combray."

But Walt is cold. "I'm freezing."

Sonia opens the closet and finds some warm jackets that belong to Katrine and Michel. "Here," she says, "we can wear these."

"I don't know..." Walt looks at her askance.

"I think it's all right."

Today the church where Proust's aunt worshipped is open and Sonia and Walt slip in. It is a cold, gray church with hard wooden pews, a miserable place and after briefly walking through it Sonia wants to leave. They walk the streets of Combray, passing a store that says it sells "the best tripe in all of France."

"Ugh," Walt says, "I can't imagine what the best tripe tastes like."

Following the signs to Proust's house, they come to a blue fence with a gate that is open. They step into the small courtyard where there's a group of what appears to be two families from Scandinavia. The guide asks if they'd like to join them and they say they will. Everyone agrees that the tour can be conducted in English. Sonia and Walt get their tickets and follow the guide into the house where Proust spent his boyhood summers, the ones he immortalized in his giant novel.

They pass through bedrooms with tiny beds, sitting rooms, a dining room, until they come to the room where Proust slept as a boy. In English the guide explains involuntary memory. How Proust discovered that some memories surge up. That they surface despite ourselves.

Under a glass bowl there is a cup of tea and a madeleine cookie and the guide explains how Proust as a grown man dipped the madeleine into the tea and recalled his joyous summers in Combray. Sonia who has been quiet, contemplative through the tour, suddenly speaks up. "It wasn't madeleine," she says. "He made that up. In the first draft it was something else - fruitcake or something. "

The guide looks at Sonia and so does the rest of the group. "Fruitcake?" the guide says, shaking his head.

Walt points to his temple, making the crazy sign. "Fruitcake," he says. Afterwards Sonia is furious with Walt.

"That wasn't funny."

"Well, you can't go around correcting French guides."

Across the street they see a sign for an Italian restaurant. Inside people are eating. The lights are bright and welcoming. "Let's get something," Sonia says. They go in and sit for a while, waiting to be served. After a few minutes the restaurant owner comes back, a short man with stubby fingers who says to them in French with an Italian accent that he is in a bad mood and won't serve them. Then he laughs, because of course it a joke. "Of course, I will serve you," he says.

They order spaghetti with meat sauce and small salads on the side, a carafe of red wine. As Sonia is sipping her wine, she overhears someone at the next table say this is the worst July in history. That it has never been this cold. "What're they saying?" Walt asks.

"They're saying it will be beautiful tomorrow." Walt smiles, holding her hand across the table. He is such an easy man to lie to, Sonia thinks. He is such a good man to be married to. When they first met, she loved to ride on his motorcycle, her hands around his waist. "I'm so big," he told her once, "if we were ever in an accident together, I'd take the hit."

Their food takes a long time and as they are waiting Sonia notices that there are clippings all over the walls. She thinks they must be restaurant reviews and this buoys her spirits since she imagines it must mean the food is good. But then she looks more closely.

It is the same newspaper clipping copied dozens of times and tacked all over the walls. The headlines read "N'Oublions Pas Cybelle et Virginie." Then there is a picture of a young couple, a girl with long blond hair, a boy with a black mustache and leather jacket, beside a big motorcycle.

All over the walls are pictures of the girl and the newspaper clippings. The restaurant is a living shrine. The restaurant owner approaches their table with his rheumy eyes. "I see you are looking at the pictures. This is my daughter. She was an angel. She never gave us any trouble. They were going to be married, but they died on the road from Rambourgh." Sonia thinks of the memorial she saw, the red flowers in the gray gloom. "The son, he won't come home. He doesn't care. But the girl, she lived right here. She helped me in the kitchen." The man's eyes glaze over.

The restaurant owner sits with them while they eat. Sonia translates for Walt who keeps rolling his eyes. As soon as they have finished, as soon as they can, they leave. "Let's get out of here," Walt says, paying the bill. He sees Sonia drifting into one of her "moods," as he calls them. A place he can't seem to retrieve her from.

Sonia thinks about the restaurant owner with the rheumy eyes and the son who is no good. Their son would have been good. They would have named him Alex or Bernard. Not Fred. They would have thought it through more carefully. If he had lived, he would have been a good son. He would have come home for dinner on Friday nights. Sometimes when the phone rings, she imagines his voice on the other end. He is calling to ask her advice, to tell her about his day. More than once Walt has caught her talking to herself when in fact she was speaking to Fred.

She has never told Walt what happened after the baby died. She could never bring herself to say it. Though she knows he will forgive her, there is the unimaginable possibility he might not. For years the words have sat poised, ready to fly out. She checks herself as the gray roadside zips by. She is looking straight ahead as they pass that flicker of red.

When they reach home, Max is waiting for them. At least he appears to be waiting. He is sitting in the driveway. As the car approaches, he curls his back and begins to purr.

Looking at him, Sonia remembers that his name is not Max. It is an M-word, but not Max. Then she says to herself, "Mort. That's it. Come here, Mort." And the cat turns its head, staring up at her with its green eyes the color of algae on ponds.

"Come here, Mort," and the cat purrs, rubbing itself against her calf.

Though it is hard to believe, the sun comes out the next morning. Sonia rewashes most of their clothes that have a mildewed smell and hangs them to dry in the sun. In the distance she sees the threshers, hurrying to cut the wheat. The sound of farm machinery encroaches on their calm.

In the kitchen she finds Walt scanning the guidebook. "Let's do something today." he says.

"Like what? What would you like to do?"

"We could drive to Chartres."

"Oh, yes, let's go."

It is an easy shot on the road, due north from Rambourgh. As Walt drives she reads to him from the guidebook. She tells him about the construction of the cathedral in two different styles and the rose window. She doesn't drive stick so she always reads to him the history of the town where they are going, what they will see. "Isn't there a maze on the floor?" Walt asks, as he negotiates passing a hay truck.

Sonia scans the guide. "It isn't a maze," she says. "It's a labyrinth."

"What's the difference?"

"A maze is a puzzle meant to trick you. A labyrinth is a pattern meant to focus you.

Walt shakes his head. "You know everything."

"Actually it says that in the guidebook."

Half an hour later she walks into the huge, dark vault of the cathedral. She had not anticipated the floor, the shafts of light - blue, crimson, rose, mauve, the green of forests - bolts of light pouring in from the windows. Or the labyrinth on the floor which she had read about but did not expect those penitents on their knees, working their way through the circuits. The grandmothers hobbling, the mothers scaring their children, the young men on bloody knees, all scraping along the floor of the cathedral.

Sonia watches a priest in a corner in a confession booth, his hands folded above the head of an Indian boy. Though she cannot hear what the priest is saying, she sees the family kneeling in front of the priest, their hands reaching across the boy. She imagines what he tells them or what he would tell her. If you are good, you can be forgiven; if you pray, you will be forgiven. If you get on your knees and crawl in the name of God, you will be forgiven.

One day she put her baby down for a nap and returned to find him dead. It was not her fault, the doctor had said. It was no one's fault. "This could happen to anyone," he'd told them. A few weeks after his funeral she had gone to the farmer's market and a young man with dark eyes was selling smoked bluefish, scallops and squid, bottom feeders.

"Mrs. Richards," the boy said. He looked vaguely familiar, though, as with the cat, she could not recall his name.

"Andrew. Andrew Rose. I was in your Spanish class a few years ago." Andrew Rose. She remembered his dark hair and eyes. He had been a student of negligible gifts, but he had looked at her intently during class. Now he was selling fish at the farmer's market.

Sonia didn't even like fish. But he asked if she could wait. He came over to her with a cup of apple cider. He told her he was a musician, but he made money at the market on Saturdays. She asked him what time he got off work and would he like to meet for coffee.

They met for coffee, then lunch, then Andrew took her back to his apartment in Prospect Heights. She had never been to a place like that before - a fifth floor walk-up along a dingy staircase, a room papered in heavy metal posters, and she made love to him not once or twice but many times on his unmade bed. She had two or three orgasms each time with his finger and his tongue and finally his penis and she was oddly nothing to him and he was nothing to her.

She would return after her Saturdays with Andrew's cum on her and think to herself: Please have Walt notice that I am different than I was before. Please have him see that I am not the same woman I was but he doesn't see and never saw beyond his own grief and his work. She just wanted him to notice that she was somehow altered and when he didn't, when life went on as it always had, Sonia found she had lost her taste for fish and for Andrew. One thing led to another. She stopped going to the farmer's market.

From somewhere in the cathedral a strange music is heard, haunting, as if from another time. Walt has wandered outside to take pictures and then he comes back searching for Sonia and finds her standing in a circle of light. "I saw the two towers. The one Gothic and the other Romanesque. That's how long it took to build this . . "

Sonia nods, and Walt's gaze follows hers to the labyrinth in the floor. Its pathway is illumined by the reflected light from the rose window - shards of blue, scarlet, pale gold that shimmer. It has not taken Sonia long, gazing into the labyrinth, to understand. There are no circles. No easy paths of return. Only these complex puzzles and never coming back to where you began.

Sonia falls to her knees. "What is it?" he asks. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to do the labyrinth," she tells him.

"What do you mean?"

She points to the floor where the pilgrims and penitents are crawling. "I'm going to do it."

Sonia begins to crawl, one leg in front of the next. She makes her way slowly around the first circuit. There are ten more to go. Walt sees her wincing. There is a trickle of blood when she scrapes her knees.

She has only gone twice around when he reaches for her, gathers her up into his arms. "It's all right," he tells her, "whatever it is. Let me take you home."

Gazing out the window as they drive back to Rambourgh, Sonia formulates exactly what it is she needs to say. It is not that she slept with a boy who smelled of fish in a dirty room that she has been wanting to tell Walt. It is that somehow this boy became confused in her mind with the boy who died and she wanted that boy more than anything. She desired what she could never have and for months she couldn't stop wanting that boy. Or the feeling of wanting him. Even now, years later.

How could she tell this to anyone, let alone her husband?

When they get home the sunlight streams down as it did when they first arrived. Sonia touches the laundry and it is dry. She begins taking it down, putting it fresh and clean into the basket. The sun is suddenly hot, baking, and Sonia looks around. There is no one to see her, just a blind cat, the garden, the miles of wheat.

She slips out of her shirt, then her shorts. She takes off her sandals. She undoes her bra and steps out of her underwear. In the warm sunlight she feels the weight of her hips, the tug of her breasts. She does not remember when she has been naked in daylight like this before.

Sonia takes a sheet off the line, dry and white. She carries it into the middle of the garden where she spreads it among the figs and the eggplant. She lies on her back, legs spread, arms at her sides. When the shadow crosses the sun, she does not move. She knows it is not a cloud but a man and she can feel his presence. She does not want him to speak or say anything and, as if he can read her mind, he does not. Walt kneels above her, his mouth to her breasts. His tongue on her lips, slowly down her thighs. The sun warms her as he slides across her body until he is inside of her and she is hot, sweating as if she is being candied from within.

Afterwards, Sonia lies in the sun in the garden, surrounded by the smell of fruit and ripe vegetables. Above her head bees buzz, and the words on the tip of her tongue fall away. She drifts off in as peaceful a sleep as she can recall. She feels Walt slip away from her, drape a sheet across her. Then, perhaps hours later, she wakes to the ringing of the phone.

She races naked to the phone and when she picks it up, the voice on the other end is throaty and deep. At first she thinks it is a man. It is a raspy voice. Katrine calling to see how everything is. "Oh, it is glorious," Sonia tells her. "Thank you so much. I hope you are having a good time."

"Oh, it is so hot here. We didn't know it would be so hot."

"Yes, well, that can happen in New York ..."

"Oh, but we never imagined .... Anyway it isn't much longer. We will be home soon."

Sonia hadn't really thought this part through. It was near the end. They would have to give back the house. And she doesn't want to. And she is hurt that Katrine does not mention their house and how well they had arranged things for them before they arrived. She does not sound grateful or even friendly. And there is something else. Katrine's throat is gravelly. It is a smoker's voice.

"Well, there are a few more days .... Well, perhaps next time we could meet."

"Yes," Katrine sighs. "But not in summer. So how is Mort?"

"Mort," Sonia says, "is fine."

Hearing Katrine say his name unsettles her. There is a note of finality in it. She realizes she will never meet Katrine. That was never part of the deal. This is just a temporary arrangement. Nothing more. Suddenly Sonia feels as if she has forgotten something. Left some little thing undone.

That night as they lie on their mattress on the floor, Sonia sits up, her face pressed to Walt's. "I have something to tell you."

Walt puts his fingers across her lips. "It's all right," he tells her.

"But," Sonia protests.

"Whatever you have to tell me," Walt says, "I already know."

A few days later she is airing the rugs, scrubbing the sinks while Walt vacuums the car. She wants to leave everything spic and span. She empties the fridge as if it were her house. When Walt is putting back the metal shutters, Sonia looks for Mort. She calls and calls, but he does not appear. She fills his bowl with food and water and walks away.

When she stuffs the linens into the washing machine, she finds the cat sleeping in a laundry basket. "Mort," she says. Sonia pauses, realizing the obvious. How could this have escaped her? Mort means dead. Why would anyone name his cat dead?

Mort gazes up at her with his vacant eyes. In a matter of hours Sonia and Walt will be gone but already she sees what awaits her. She envisions dirty linen and unmade beds. Rooms reeking of smoke and rotting meat. Nothing where it belongs. Shooing the cat away, she wonders what will be missing.

Mary Morris is the author of several novels and story collections, most recently "Acts of God" (2000). The recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature for her first collection of short stories, "Vanishing Animals & Other Stories" (1979), she is currently working on a generational family saga, set in Chicago during the Jazz Age. She teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence College.