Vicious Memories

Chapter 10

"Venez ici."

"I'm sorry?"

"I said, come 'ere."

Surprised, I walked over to where a very pretty blonde woman stood looking at me with a bemused expression.

I hadn't accomplished much over the last four hours. My list of accolades included walking around the circumference of the village three times, poking my head into various cabins, withdrawing after being yelled at, and walking around the rocky outcropping where the sleeping caves were located. I'd eaten a lunch of freshly prepared fruit alone. Afterwards, I'd searched for Gabriel, Cooper, and even Arun, all to no avail. I'd tried to find Alice to thank her for testifying on my behalf, but she wasn't anywhere in sight. The dogs I'd heard howling made their appearance, and I spent a while running around with them.

Now the light began to shift from a radiant yellow to mellow orange. The wind picked up, as if to help usher the day away beyond the horizon, and many of the villagers began to return home.

"You are Oliver?" the woman asked. She said my name ah-lee-vEr.

"I am."

"Mads," she said.

Ah, I thought. The chef. I held my hand out with a smile. "Call me Ollie."

She batted my hand away, laughing. "Fair la bise." Before I know what was happening she grabbed me by the shoulders and planted a kiss on each of my cheeks. "We are all family."

"Ah. I get it," I said. "French?"

"Très bien, Ollie."

She regarded me openly with wide eyes. Her skin glowed palely in the evening sun, and her red lips stood out by comparison. A matching red bandana sat tied around her blonde hair to keep it off of her face, reminding me of the woman in the "We Can Do It!" propaganda posters from the 40s. That little history reference tickled the back of my mind, forcing me to think again about all the information I knew that didn't match up to any memory of having learned it.

"You actually want to talk to me?" I asked. "Nobody else does. Not that I blame them, I guess."

"You seem like a nice enough man. That is the first thing." She turned and began to walk slowly toward the sunset. "The second thing is that we have something important to do. Tu va m'aider."

"I'm going to help you?" Apparently I knew a little French.

"Oui, we have the most important task of the day. We must make dinner."

"I'm shocked you actually understand what she's saying," Cooper stage-whispered. "Speaks gibberish nearly constantly."

"Ve te faire foutre!"

"See what I mean?"

Mads made several gestures, most of which I didn't catch, though she ended them with the middle finger.

"Just joking, Mads. Just joking." To me he added, "Didn't know a word of English when we first washed up here. Not a single thing past 'Hello' and 'Please'. Come a long way since then."

"You pick up any French?" I asked.

"Yeah. Ve te faire foutre."

"Which means?"

"Go fuck yourself." He grinned. "Great language, French."

Cooper, Mohammed, and the second woman from the original group that had picked me up, Shana, stood near the edge of the creek. We'd all come down a steep embankment west of the village to help Mads with dinner.

A small boar lay on a line of flat stones, already skinned, gutted, and cleaned. Cooper and I were currently washing our hands and forearms in the creek as it wound its way merrily southward, reflecting light in a thousand shimmering patterns, like a long expanse of shattered glass. The sound of its passage danced through the air.

"If I let you handle the cooking tools you're going to behave yourself, right?" Mohammed asked.

"Of course."

"If you do anything strange I'm going to punch you first and ask questions later."

I chuckled a bit at that. "Seems to be the theme with you. I won't do anything strange. I promise."

"Okay," Mads said. "Boar stew. Villagers never drink enough water. Stew helps. Cooper and Mohammed, cure extra meat. Shana, make fire. Ollie, vous êtes mon assistant."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And there is no complain in my kitchen."

Mads's energy infused everything around her, a near-constant chatter pouring from her lips in French, and from Cooper's goodnatured jokes and insults I gathered that this was standard procedure. It was clear that Mads took a lot of pride in providing for the rest of the village. According to Shana she had come up with so many recipes from such strange ingredients that they were convinced she had some deserted-island cookbook stashed away somewhere.

The stew was supposed to have celery, sage, rosemary, garlic, onions, and parsley. Mads substituted every single one of those ingredients - with the exception of sage, which the villagers grew on a farm nearby - with plants and herbs I had never seen before in my life. Or, at least, plants that I didn't think I had seen. We sautéed everything in a massive iron canister - which I suspected was an oil drum with the top cut off - suspended over a fire. Water was boiled in a different canister while Mads cooked the meat.

The whole thing took over an hour.

I found myself relaxing, blissfully busy, relieved and happy to be accepted into the group. I wondered if this was how they felt all the time; if, in some ironic way, they were actually content and happy with their lives. Everyone felt like they were helping each other. Every morning that greeted them was a new gift.

"Good," Mads said, looking approvingly at the steam leaking out of the top of the canister. "Good."

"You good," Cooper said.

"No, you good."

"You good."

I looked over at Mohammed, who shrugged. "They're like brother and sister. Don't ask."

The sun set in earnest now, dusk creeping up on us like a child trying not to wake his parents as he crawled into their bed. A host of different sounds came out of the jungle across the creek, lower in pitch, rustling gently. The air finally began to cool.

"It's time," Cooper said, looking up at the darkening sky. All around, expressions turned somber.

"I watch dinner from the top," Mads said, gesturing up the embankment. "You go to the memorial."

"Thanks, Mads."

We each kissed Mads on the cheek - standard procedure - and left the purple and orange sunset behind us. It was time for Jessica's memorial service.