Promises to Keep Read online

  “We French have a very open attitude to our bodies and sex and how we relate to them,” Véronique said. “I’m sorry, I did not mean to make you uneasy.”

  Katherine waved her hand. “No, no. Please continue. I know the French talk about these issues much more matter-of-factly, but sometimes I still react like a Canadian.”

  “I am seventy-five, much older than you. I know that life changes at this stage, and, yet, I’m always a little surprised when it happens to me. I feel much younger, but the realities are what they are. David is five years older. Physically he struggles a little more each year, and losing his sexual prowess has been difficult for him.”

  Katherine shifted her position, hoping the move and her discomfort went unnoticed.

  “But here is what is satisfying now,” Véronique continued. “We have both adjusted. What has become much more intense to us—our passion, you might say—is the beauty of life around us and the importance of what we share. Do you suppose it’s because we are acutely aware of time slipping by?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she went on. “Our lives have a different intensity now. Our lust is for life, for beauty and peace and, of course . . . le plaisir. I am often told I have never created better work than in these past few years. David spends less time running his business but gets more pleasure from his successes and is less disappointed when things don’t work out. I think we have never loved each other more . . .”

  Her voice trailed off.

  “May we all age so well and so wisely,” Kat said.

  “Pardon my ramblings,” Véronique hiccupped behind her hand, “but I’m caught off guard by the revelations of old age. The cognac urged me to share it with you. Now I will show you to the guest room, and please let me know if there is anything you need.”

  “It’s been a lovely evening and an illuminating conversation. You expressed so beautifully how life can continue to be satisfying and even exciting, just in different ways. Thank you.”

  “Make no mistake, ma chère, there are many who continue to enjoy sex at my age too. Everyone is different.”

  Katherine smiled, “Taking it one day at a time is the secret.”

  “D’accord,” Véronique agreed, leaning in to bise her.

  In the guest room, the window was open wide, and cool mountain air washed over Katherine as she slipped under a heavy duvet. Instead of the sea air she loved, this was another kind of good, she thought: a fresh, crisp breeze, cooled by the snow-tipped mountain summits. The quiet was a dramatic change from the sounds of the sea, traffic, and people that were her lullabies in Antibes.

  In the stillness, she heard the distant bark of a dog and she smiled as she drifted off. It never fails—there are always dogs, was her last thought.

  Morning came quickly, and a light rap on her door roused her from delicious sleep.

  After a quick shower, she went to the kitchen, where she found Véronique had lit a fire. The aroma of bacon being cooked filled the room.

  “It’s the easiest meal—breakfast in a pan—again from David’s childhood and transported across the Atlantic. Lardons . . . our bacon, eggs, peppers, onions, cheese, all cooked in a skillet. I’ll keep it warm in the oven and plate it when the others are here. It’s hearty fare, but they won’t allow me to prepare anything else. They’ve heard what a terrible cook I am, so this is my spécialité de la maison!”

  “It smells divine.”

  “My secret ingredient is Jacques’s young goat cheese. It has a unique flavor. The others will be here soon, and I’m looking forward to you meeting them.”

  The day proved to be as invigorating as Véronique had promised. The group was friendly, focused, just a bit eccentric, and very French.

  It was not merely a social gathering but a serious sharing of creative ideas about inspiration and technique. There were good-natured exchanges and a lot of laughter as they hiked the chosen path for the morning. They stopped several times along the way, either just to look around or to draw, photograph, or simply make notes.

  Lunch, which they took turns carrying in a few baskets, consisted of baguette and a selection of cheeses, bowls of tapenade and olives, assorted sliced hams, and the customary salad of greens dressed with vinaigrette.

  The others were curious about the visitor in their midst, and some of the questions they asked Kat pushed her to think about the why and how of her photography. She tried to explain her approach—helped by translation at times. She enjoyed being treated as an artist in her own right and hoped she sounded like she knew what she was doing.

  The group was made up of two painters, a sculptor, a potter, another weaver, and a photographer who shot only in black-and-white. With one exception, everyone had brought a computer or a tablet with them, so it was easy to share photos of their work in progress with each other. The exception was the potter, Norman Joliette, who worked strictly from pencil sketches, photos and notes. Véronique explained he had an assistant who took care of any computer-related work.

  The others in the group introduced him, with obvious affection, as l’ermite, because, they said, he preferred to use his bicycle for transportation and still had a dial telephone.

  After they returned to the house later that afternoon, Norman sought out Kat.

  “I’m not a hermit,” he told her as Véronique translated. “I simply decided to remove myself from social media and cell phones, and I like to bike wherever I go.”

  Another added—to laughter from the others, including Norman—“If my vehicle was a thirty-year-old Volkswagen hippie-mobile, I might prefer to cycle too.”

  Norman spoke happily of the quiet refuge in the hills where he created his work and where agents came by regularly to place orders for shops and private clients. He had walked away from a shop on a busy street in Cannes when he grew tired of crowds and traffic. Now he rented a stall at a different craft fair every two months to sell his wares and build his customer list.

  It struck Kat as a perfect example of choosing to make a change, although Norman’s change had been rather extreme and had caused his wife to leave him. He told Kat not to fear change. If he could change his life this dramatically, so could she.

  “Crois en toi-même et en ton art,” he said.

  Véronique translated: “Believe in yourself and your art.”

  Norman was much quieter than the others but just as encouraging when they all looked at Kat’s work. They agreed she should exhibit her work and focus on it full time.

  “Your talent is obvious. If you are in a position to make photography your life, then why not?” one of them said, speaking for the group.

  “I have much to learn,” she demurred.

  “Where better than the South of France?” they all said, in one way or another. “Who could ask for more exquisite light?”

  Driving home late that afternoon, Kat was overflowing with ideas. She asked herself the same questions. Should she pursue photography seriously? Why not? If everything else in her life was changing, why not this too? Just because her paid work had always been science related, who said she couldn’t change that?

  6

  Katherine’s birthday was on November 11. Philippe was playful about how to commemorate the day.

  “I always thought the band and parade on Armistice Day were to honor those who gave everything for our country, but this year they will be honoring you too,” he joked.

  It made Kat think about all the birthdays during her marriage that her husband had barely acknowledged. Her parents always made an occasion of the date, but even though she always had a birthday gift for him, James only ever gave her a card. When he remembered. So she reveled in the attention Philippe was showering upon her.

  She awoke on her birthday to the sight of a vase of sunflowers on her bedside table. She lay in bed for a few minutes with the shutters flung open to welcome the morning sun, and considered ho
w fine her fifty-six years felt.

  After she got up, she found that Philippe had left a pain aux raisins for her when he slipped back with the flowers. It was still warm, and she ate it as she planned what she would do for the morning. She was keeping her promise not to ask Philippe about his problem and had begun to relax about it.

  The weather had turned surprisingly mild that day; a sweatshirt tied over her shoulders was all she needed as she walked to the market after yoga.

  “Joyeux anniversaire, mon amour. Happy birthday, Minou!”

  Wrapping her tightly in his arms, Philippe announced to his customers that it was her birthday. They applauded and offered her their best wishes.

  He lowered his voice and turned away from the lineup awaiting his attention. “I invite you for a special birthday déjeuner when I am home from here. À vélo. D’accord?” She grinned at the idea of a bicycle lunch.

  Back at the apartment, after an invigorating shower, she laid her cycling clothes on the bed and, as a treat to herself, spent the rest of the morning on the window seat in the salon, wrapped in her robe and with her head buried in a book. Here, heavy wooden shutters opened to the busy boulevard below. Traffic was much quieter now that the majority of tourists were gone, but she could still hear the clatter of dishes and cutlery and the scraping of furniture as waiters at nearby restaurants set up for the lunch crowd.

  At one point, she raised her head from her book to listen to the lively chatter and laughter of students leaving the école secondaire around the corner. Later she moved to the small table for two in an alcove off the kitchen and opened the shutters to look down the cobbled passageway that doglegged between ancient buildings, all jumbled into one. Neighbors were leaning over their windowsills to chat with one another across the narrow lane, and the sounds of conversation and of someone playing the piano floated through the air. Philippe was oblivious to the beauty of this simple scene, Kat knew, as he had lived with it all his life, but she loved to witness it every day. He had chuckled at her explanation.

  “It’s so completely different from what I’m used to. It’s so European. I love it.”

  Molly had laughed too when they talked about it, and Kat told her she didn’t really listen to what people were saying to each other. “That’s your fu—well, your classic Canadian personality shining through,” Molly said. “You’re too polite to eavesdrop.”

  “Of course, sometimes I can’t help hearing, but I’m not trying to listen in. Honest!”

  Eavesdropping made her feel uncomfortable. The voices and words were an ongoing background, an audible tapestry of lives being lived.

  Philippe teased her. “Mais non! Gossip was how news was spread for centuries. Everyone listened to everyone else’s business. Everyone still does!”

  Now she heard a cat meowing, and she peered into the alley, leaning over the planter of sage, basil, and thyme she had planted and breathing in the aromas.

  There were often distant as well as nearby yowls and cries from cats, she noted, but seldom constant yapping from dogs. The village dogs seemed far better behaved than those of some of her neighbors in Toronto. She decided it was probably because village dogs were allowed to wander. They were happy.

  “Bien sûr!” her new friend Annette had agreed when they were hiking one day. She had met Annette through the cycling club and then discovered they went to the same yoga studio. Their friendship was slowly becoming more personal. This was, Kat knew, often the French way: a quiet approach until they felt ready to invite you closer.

  Annette was a researcher with an environmental science company in nearby Sophia-Antipolis, and they shared a common history of education with science degrees. Much of the week she worked from home and could pick and choose her hours.

  Annette had laughed and nodded when Katherine said she had noticed that picking up dog poop seemed to be a problem, especially for the person walking the dog.

  “That’s why walking in France requires picking your path carefully. Les crottes de chiens! Le caca! Those cute chiens like to poop as they make their rounds. Picking up after them is starting to happen slowly over here, but we do have signs now and even the odd poop station.”

  Kat let the sounds from outside envelop her again, and her thoughts turned to her mother, who had always been the first person to call her on her birthday. She missed her.

  She took a clementine from a bowl, and as she peeled it and its scent became stronger, so did warm memories of times with Anyu, the Hungarian word for “mother” she always used. She recalled her mother telling her on her last birthday how much it meant to receive a simple orange as a gift in the months right after the war, in 1945. This conversation occurred soon after James had left Kat, while she and Elisabeth were lingering over one of her mother’s appetizing Hungarian dishes in the warm, comfy kitchen.

  “My darling Katica, we live life thinking we will always be able to do everything we want but before we know it, old age catches up with us. We find ourselves grasping the outer edge of the time we have left. Don’t let this injury James has inflicted stop you from living life, from seeing what else is out there for you,” Elisabeth had said, a knowing look in her eyes as she reached to take her daughter’s hand. “I trust there is more. There is always more.”

  At the time Katherine had not believed there was anything else out there for her. But her mother had been right.

  The tantalizing aroma of paprika that often filled her mother’s kitchen now suddenly seemed to fill her nostrils, and she decided to make chicken paprikash for Philippe. Winter was coming. The time was right.

  With her thoughts grounded in the past for the moment, Kat made another decision that surprised her more than anything: the next time she was in Toronto, she would speak with James. Face to face.

  She watched a couple walking their bikes down the lane below the window and thought about how much she enjoyed cycling. The rhythm of her body’s movements, her breath, and the sense of being in a world of her own always freed her from the constraints that often inhibited her reflections. She had been putting a lot of thought into how things had ended with James and why she had avoided any contact with him since then.

  There was her mother’s voice again. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

  Kat knew she was stronger. She knew she was now capable of meeting James, and she had some words to say to this man who had taken so much of her life and discarded it so hurtfully.

  Her time in France and Philippe’s love were allowing her to see for the first time the woman she really was.

  She definitely had a few words for James.

  Philippe rushed home in the early afternoon, and they were soon on their bikes. The day called for warm clothes, but the sky was its classic blue and the sun shone brightly.

  When they reached a favorite spot by the sea, they followed the narrow, well-worn path to a grassy patch near large flat rocks. Resting their bikes against a tree, they reminisced about being there in October, when Kat had planned to leave for Toronto.

  “It seems like a lifetime ago,” she told him, her eyes glistening. “You have changed my world, and I thank you for that.”

  After Kat spread the picnic blanket, Philippe opened a bottle of champagne and they toasted her birthday, their love, and the delicious food he had prepared, still hidden in the picnic basket.

  “I get lost in your eyes. You make me so happy, so full of life again. This is just the first of many, many celebrations we will share,” he said.

  For a while they sat basking in the sun and in the loveliness surrounding them. The view across the bay to where the medieval stone towers of Antibes were outlined against the layers of hills behind was one of Kat’s favorites. They chatted, carefree and relaxed, about nothing in particular until Philippe got up and unstrapped the picnic basket from his bike.

  “Ferme les yeux!” he ordered, and she covered her eyes. “Vo
ilà!”

  He laid out on olive wood platters a baguette and her favorite foie gras, as well as sardines in oil and lemon, sliced melon with prosciutto, figs, and a small pot of crème brûlée. Her eyes went directly to a heart-shaped cheese in the midst of the feast.

  “Did you cut it like that, just for me, for us?”

  “Mais non! But I chose it just for us. This is Neufchâtel from the Haute Normandie region; its lineage goes back to 1035. You’re going to love the history of this. During the Hundred Years War—”

  “The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries!” Kat interrupted with a grin, pleased she remembered the dates.

  “Oui, ma petite history buff. The French farm girls fell in love with English soldiers sent to Normandy, and they made the cheese heart-shaped for them. It was one way they could communicate their feelings. The recipe was protected by the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée just a few years ago, and now it can only be made using warm milk from a Normandy breed of cow.”

  She leaned toward him and planted a lingering kiss. “You give your cheeses such a life with these stories. I love it.”

  “Et moi, I love that you love it. I never knew my cheese could be so séduisant.” He narrowed his eyes and uttered the last word with a cheeky grin.

  She gave him a look that showed just how seductive she found him and his cheese stories.

  He asked her to put the Neufchatel on a small plate he was holding. As she did, she saw a small parchment envelope that had been hidden beneath it. It was the kind he often used to package slices of cheese.

  “Do you need this?” she asked.

  “Non . . . c’est pour toi, Minou,” he said, with a shy smile.

  Kat reached in and removed a delicate gold charm bracelet along with a folded note. Philippe had written, “En amour, un et un font un. There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours. (JP Sartre)”

  Her eyes brimmed with tears, “Such tender words.”