Chapter Forty-Two: Carnage in the Country

Content warning: terrible human and canine behavior ahead.

At least Freddy was safe.

When my psychedelic rocket ship landed down in Saint-Maxime, life fell back into place pretty easily. Most of the rest of the village coasted into summertime along with me. The Japanese anemone poked its cherry-pink heads up in Michel and Simon’s garden, a balmy site for dinner parties under fairy lights for their friends imported from Paris. They often asked me over, and to the last, I liked their people—sensitive illustrators and mouthy art gallerists and funny graphic designers and advertising producers and journalists. They had all known each other since forever, and may have been the only adult people in their 50s who seemed like they still had room for new friends. I don’t understand how Michel and Simon kept their social batteries topped up with all the cooking and shopping and folding in everyone’s kids, but I was happy to take advantage of their invites. Life was expanding again, with people who felt familiar even if they were new.

Cassandre’s corner of the village was less copacetic. Her stewardship of the Comité des Fêtes was navigating murky waters, as lines were being drawn between those in the group who wanted the party to stay exactly the same as previous years, and her high-minded hopes for something a little more distinguished. “The church is sitting empty most of the year, why shouldn’t we put on little concerts from time to time?” she asked, thinking ahead to her yearlong remit once the first big test of the summer village party was over.

Angélique vaguely supported the idea—she was already on the Sister City committee that paired Saint-Jouin to someplace or other in Germany. (If you ever wondered why or if anyone cared about those initiatives, here’s your answer.) But most everyone else on the team who had lived in the village a long enough time lacked pretense to elegance. To them it seemed silly, like make-work. Anything that felt expensive or different, as we crawled out of Covid together, put their teeth on edge.

Cassandre’s leadership style could best be described as benevolent dictator, with the benevolence sometimes wobbling. I found her to be kind of punk about it, which I sort of loved. (I could afford to since I wasn’t on the committee.) But I knew she was not much appreciated by my immediate neighbor Stan, who could sense her disdain for his loud dogs and shaggy-looking house. Not wanting to indicate that I was a minion of her reign, but just a friend with a neutral position, I kept my head low around party issues, attending village-wide presentations, volunteering to help out at the drink stand next to the barbecue on the big day, and cleanup after the village-wide sit-down dinner the night of. It was about a month away now. So tension was mounting and I tried to ignore it. I had a lifetime of training honing that skill.

Meanwhile, Diana’s puppies were starting to age out of their immobile small potato phase. Sasha needed to find seven of them homes, save one, whichever ended up reminding her most of Hugo. This turned out not to be so easy. German Shorthair Pointers are demanding dogs. They need long, long walks and tons of exercise and interaction. A friend of one of my closest pals, a guy who lived down in Marseille, was a nut for the breed as well, and was considering raising his hand for one.

I was happy to help, as I could see how the task was stressing her out. As we were texting about the potential of a home for one of the girls, she told me she had to go into Paris for a hearing with one of her refugee clients. The Ukranians were gone, so there was no one to look after the dog family in her absence. When that happened, she would load them all up in her car to make the trip into Paris together, and drop them all off at her mother’s place just west of the city. Except now the puppies were strong and curious enough to escape the dog bed she had been using to keep them gathered, so getting there was the problem.

“Come by my place on the way out of town,” I told her. “Maybe Fred and Penelope’s carrying case is big enough to squeeze them together. You can’t have them roaming around the car while you’re driving. One could get next to the gas or brake pedal. It’s super-dangerous.”

She showed up about 45 minutes later, already on a schedule. I locked the cats into one of the bedrooms upstairs, let Hugo and Diana into my living room for a joyous visit, and then Sasha and I carried the puppy bed in together, each of us taking one end due to the sheer weight and wriggling, chaotic cuteness of the thing.

When you get a puppy house call, routine and normal attention to detail grind to a halt. Once everyone was inside, I started taking copious phone videos for other prospective puppy adopters and sort of lost track of who was where and what was going on. Suddenly I heard Hugo’s loud bark off in the distance, looked up, and saw that the side door to my backyard was open.

Fuck.

Sasha sprang up and sprinted as the barking sounds got louder and louder. I could hear her hollering now too. What the hell was going on? That fucking door never closed well. I was always having to remind people to do it properly. Out in the street, now I could hear the mayor yelling too, and Sasha wailing back. This couldn’t be good.

She came back into the house with the dogs, one scruff in each hand. Her normally tanned face was ghostly.

“They just ate your neighbor’s cat,” she said, point blank.

I knew instantly which one: Stan’s. It was a fat tabby, a total baller, who patrolled the village with attitude. I had seen Stan’s little boy, the one who welcomed me into village life by staring into my kitchen window, playing with that cat on so many boring, endless sunny afternoons when he should have been with friends in a play group or over at someone’s else’s house with snacks and toys.

I ran out to Stan’s place as Sasha shoved Hugo and Diana into her car and presumably started arranging the puppies.

Stan’s son was standing there, mouth agape. He had witnessed the whole thing.

My heart shattered into ten thousand pieces. I’ve only ever said goodbye to cats via disease, or from a distance. And that’s been heartbreaking enough. But witnessing the mauling of my best, maybe only, friend? This was something like evil. And it was my door they had escaped from, so it was partly my fault.

“Why weren’t those dogs on the leash?” the mayor hollered at me when she saw me show up.

“They escaped from my living room, the door was closed but it’s often not closed firmly enough,” I pleaded. “We would never have let them out. This was a terrible accident. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

I looked down at Stan’s boy, who was in shock. I crouched down to his eye level, and said, “I’m so, so sorry. That must have been so scary. I loved your kitty and I know you did too.”

(I’m getting emotional all over again just writing this. This is such a fucked up story.)

I told Stan, “I would be happy to help you find a new cat as soon as you’re ready.”

He shook his head grimly. “She grew up with our dogs, but I don’t think a little kitten would be a good idea. What can you do?”

He was being impeccably stoic but I could see how sad he was. Just then the mayor plopped a hefty bag containing the cat’s remains into my hands. It was heavy and I could just barely feel it starting to stiffen.

“You take this to the vet and get it cremated and bring them back the urn,” she ordered. I said of course I would, as Sasha pulled up alongside us in her car, the dogs now locked in, making excuses that she would be late for her hearing, tossing an apology out the window, as she rolled off.

Later that night, after picking up some flowers on my way home from the vet, I wrote Stan a letter, which I would deliver with the flowers. I wanted the French to be perfect, so I asked Sasha to make sure it was all correct before I hand-wrote it on my nicest stationery. I also wanted her to understand the position she had put me in before jetting off to put out some other fire, and see that when catastrophes strike, normal people don’t just rush off to another one. They clean up their mess first. She could never come back to my village again. That much was clear.

“Dear Stan:

I’m sick over this, and the fact that I had a part to play in it is unacceptable to me. I know animals count for you, like they do for me. If I were in your shoes, I would be inconsolable and I appreciate how gracious you were with me when I saw you earlier.

It’s important to have good neighborly relations. I would completely understand if that were hard for you, but I hope that will not be the case.

Please know again how sad I am over this horrible thing. I loved having that cat patrol the village. She was a lot tougher than my two. I’m so sorry she’s gone. I know it’s probably too soon, but I meant it when I offered to help you find another cat friend. Please consider that a permanent offer. 

With my condolences and, again, my sincerest apologies,

Alexandra”

Sasha made a few tweaks to my grammar and didn’t say much more about it. This wasn’t the first cat her dogs had killed. She never enjoyed it. But her feelings about it were not my problem. Her total lack of responsibility was. Why didn’t she have something to transport puppies in? Why was she accumulating more animals and burdens? Why didn’t she call her client and say she’d be late and clean up the mess herself?

I never got an answer to those questions.

I’d like to say that was the last time she and I spoke. It wasn’t, though a rupture would happen soon enough.