Oracle by G.P. Taylor

Author:G.P. Taylor [G. P. Taylor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571276110
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2011-05-09T04:00:00+00:00

[ 16 ]

Chateau Cardonne

THE TRAIN FROM PARIS had taken three hours to get out of the city. It had steamed through the countryside as far as Avignon. Then Jago had sat in the back seat of an old taxi next to a wooden crate filled with chickens. Lana Karlstein had laughed as she looked back and saw him huddled on the tattered seats, a chicken pecking at the sleeve of his coat. The car drove slowly on the wide avenues as it left the town. Everywhere were the abandoned tanks of a retreating army, rusted and bullet-ridden. Some were stained with blood; others had cut flowers placed against them like shrines to unnamed heroes.

They drove through the village of Sarrians and turned onto the long road that led to Chateau Cardonne. Jago looked out of the window of the car and saw the Chateau shining in the sun of the late afternoon. Twenty windows hung against the white walls like silver plates reflecting the light. Surrounded by tall, graceful trees, it looked like it had been there since the beginning of time. He saw two holes cut into the ground at the beginning of the avenue of trees that led to the house, and next to each hole was a new tree, a sapling not more than four years old in a gigantic terracotta pot. But he thought nothing of it as Lana Karlstein spoke to the driver in fluent French. He pulled embarrassingly on his black moustache and muttered a reply into his nicotine-stained hand.

‘He thinks we are lovers,’ she said as she translated what the man said. ‘He wanted to know if we had run away together.’

Jago couldn’t understand a word of what he said. Lana nodded and laughed, touching the man on the arm several times as the car drove along the avenue of trees to the front of the Chateau. She seemed to have forgotten what had happened in Paris, but Jago couldn’t get the thoughts of the lynch mob from his mind; he could still smell the acrid smoke and hear the cries of the men in the car.

‘War finished,’ the man said in broken English as he turned and shook Jago by the hand. ‘Your people helped us against the Gestapo. We all know that.’

The man stopped the car at the doors of the Chateau. A woman stood on the steps in a long dress and knitted coat. She looked homely, kind, with an open face and soft smile. Her silver hair looked out of place on such a young face. It was roughly tied back in a small knot at the back of her head and held in place by several pins.

‘Good to see you,’ she said as the door opened. ‘I am so glad that you can stay with us.’

‘Madame Camargue, it has been such a long time since we last met,’ Lana said as she greeted her with an embrace.

‘Fifty years I think,’ the woman answered. ‘That was when Chateau Cardonne was just a house.

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