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  Below this unbridled display of the bride’s feminine assets, the formidably understated gown obliterated any curves she might have had behind the formless two-century-old gossamer and lace train, which trailed behind her like a peacock’s burden, while two capped sleeves floated like confections upon the ends of her sloping shoulders. A sheer white veil wafted around her head and bare shoulders more like miasma than lace, and crowning the entire vision was a large diamond and emerald-encrusted tiara, perched upon her head like a defining moment.

  With cheeks flushed from the piercing cold of the diaphanous fog, Lorraine bit her lips to keep her teeth from chattering. Her knees felt weak and her flat satin ballet slippers offered little insulation of her bare feet from the cold cobblestone of the medieval courtyard. She clutched in her arms between frozen fingers and forearms two dozen white roses encircled with a stanchion of greenish-white lilies and tufted pussy-willow branches, all tied together into a large stately bouquet with silk and flax. She minced her way up to the pulpit before the majestically robed priest, and nodding her head as her husband-to-be nonchalantly joined her. It seemed to her, in her frozen and compromised state, that he was dressed in some sort of military uniform or a riding outfit complete with boots butting up to his knees, jodhpurs, and riding breeches. Perhaps the customary wedding tuxedo was too bourgeois for royalty. She was in no position now to question it.

  The rest of the ceremony presented itself to her as a blur; on her aching knees for what seemed like an eternity with nothing but a delicate, elaborately embroidered satin cushion separating her from the cold stone floor. She meditated on the cadence of the priest’s chants and instinctively repeated the appropriate “Amens” in a demure yet decorous whisper. They sealed their vows with the blood of Christ sequestered in a medieval gem-encrusted silver goblet, the bride’s gleaming wedding band clinking decorously against the cup as it was passed to her quivering lips.

  Later, en route to the grand salon, the fog had lifted neither from the château grounds nor from the bride’s mind and spirit. Long sabers were drawn by the groom and his strutting royal brothers of the hunt — their vintage red riding coats masculine yet pristine in their black-lined squire sensibility. The swords were unceremoniously pressed into service to uncork an arsenal of champagne bottles, releasing a cheerful fountain of foam which found its way miraculously into the enameled goblets of the hearty revelers. A banquet table of food spilled over with many varieties of baguettes and French breads, platters of Valençay goat cheese, large ramekins of wild-boar pâté, and piles of Mediterranean fruits provided for the celebration. As more horns announced the imminent commencement of the official fox hunt, champagne flutes were raised by the four groomsmen as a single squad, and the celebrated union was dutifully toasted by one and all.

  Then, as if prepared for battle, the squad of groomsmen led the battalion of equestrians, both male and female — excluding the bride, who kept on her royal gown and noble decorum while staying out of the hunt — through the salon doors and to the royal stables where they all found their assigned horses and saddled up for the hunt. The horn bearers wore their large circular brass instruments over one shoulder, with the horn at their waist, facing behind them. The groom’s grand-uncle, Comte Georges de Vogel, as Master Huntsman, began the chase by releasing a frantic white hare onto the trailhead of the fog-gutted forest behind the château and then let loose a pack of frenetic hounds.

  The large hunting party rode off in pursuit of the terrified rabbit, just as the bride and the wedding parties’ less sporting women retired to the comfort of a row of chaise longues arched around the salon’s grand fireplace. With the occasional blasts of the hunting horns in the far distance, the ladies made short order of the champagne and listened jauntily through a light-headed fog to a quintet play a touching but sonorous and drawn-out round of Bach fugues and then two movements from Saint-Saëns’ Le Carnaval des Animaux, the hypnotic “Cygnet” nearly finishing off the giddiest of the ladies.

  The musicians seemed to have materialized out of the stonework, and the weary bride wondered if they indeed were waiting in the wings while the ceremony, like the champagne, spilled languorously over into the afternoon. On a stroll alongside the stables the night before, she had seen the white hare huddled, too dull to be frightened, in one corner of the small dreary cage, and now she pictured the animal making its frenzied escape as a pack of blood-thirsty hounds and drunken royal hunters made hot pursuit after it into the forest. She wearily imagined herself as a witch flying invisibly through the dark of the woods and plucking the poor rabbit out to safety from its hopeless escapade.

  The hare was she, and she the hare, living on borrowed time and a half-future. She called herself a wife. If only she could grab the ghost guitar fully in her hand and make magic of her false life and soar with it. She was no more than a barefoot Esmeralda. And Berne was her sad, silent and beautiful monster Quasimodo, awaiting her return to their lakeside sanctuary. A return he will likely never see.

  A raucous applause broke out from the teetering audience and Lorraine was shaken out of her trance with a start. A strange trick of light cast by the fantastically large chandelier suspended from the ornate ceiling made an oboe, two violins, a viola, and a rotund cello appear to dance before her as if come alive from a murky incoherent dream. The musicians waved their bows in appreciation as they dipped again and again from their black waist-coats, presenting their respective instruments as if they were the true stars of the ensemble, and then bowing deeply at the bride’s direction. From Lorraine’s position front and center, the black suits of the musicians blended into the heavy dark tapestry that hung on the wall behind them. Festooned with a dozen prancing goats, ladies, and unicorns around a precisely executed knotted medicinal herb garden, the tapestry covered the wall completely, from the architrave along the vaulted ceiling to the granite flooring and from the edge of the cavernous limestone fireplace to the large picture window near the rear egress of the hall. Lorraine’s eyes moved involuntarily to the uncurtained window and she was startled to discover an identical herb knot repeated in the courtyard beyond.

  The surreal and bizarre revelation brought her feeling of delusion to an implausible peak. She gathered up her flowing skirts, excusing herself curtly to the revelers around her, and retreated quickly from the room to her chamber, moving like a startled chameleon in deferred flight. Ascending the stairs with heavy legs and the beginnings of a champagne-fueled headache, Lorraine wished vehemently for the end of the evening, to lie on her quilted bed and obliterate the light with the goose-down covers. Would anyone notice? The quarry has been caught.

  Momentarily she heard in the distance the sonorous cry of a victorious hunting horn declaring conclusion of the chase. One of her ladies-in-waiting arrived at her door to dress her for dinner, which was to commence on the return of the hunting party. It seemed that one or two stragglers had been left behind, but all in all the revelers were buoyed by the vigor of the hunt. The rabbit was trussed like a Christmas goose and presented at table to the stunned bride. At the wretched sight Lorraine nearly gagged with revulsion. She quickly averted her eyes to hide her horror, and excused herself to squelch the queasiness in her stomach, discreetly emptying its contents in the stone confines of the small amenities closet beyond the scullery.

  On Lorraine’s return, toasts were made before a fine selection of de Vogel wines from the family vineyard in Chambolle: their legendary Musigny, Amoureuses, and several Bonnes-Mares.

  “Aaahh, the wines show a tight, spicy herby nose which is medicinal and full,” declared the Vicomte François de Vogel, one of Joël’s several royal uncles. “Firm and savory — the palate is dense and full with immense structure; quite evolved. There’s an earthiness underpinning this palate. A very savory wine with some future, yes!”

  “But, ahhh,” he continued, transferring his impressive attentions on the Musigny. “Le Musigny à l’odeur d’un jardi
n sous la rosée … de la rose et de la violette à aurora.” The Vicomte likened the bride to the violette, although Lorraine knew it was the rose with which her new husband was enamored. The uncle also compared the various de Vogel wines to his family members.

  “The Amoureuses represent our women,” he expounded. “Musigny are our fathers, and Bonnes-Mares — they are the unmarried uncles! Explosive … masculine in style … powerful, long-lived … but acquiring a sweet, velvety richness with age … just like me!” Raucous applause broke out from the family cohorts and guests and it was not long before empty bottles piled high behind the wine counter left little room for the bar attendant to continue his job.

  Toasts were made all around to both the bride and groom, and scornfully to the hare. This final remark was interrupted by the announcement of dinner. The five-course meal began with beluga caviar en croute and a selection of pomegranate, truffle, and vermouth-embroidered foie gras, and then followed by the main course of — luckily for Lorraine — not hare, but pheasant. The sumptuous dinner was finalized by a beautifully architectural pièce montée, the traditional wedding cake, dripping with dark chocolate and honey like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Throughout the meal and during the presentation of the cake, Joël continued his reserve and kept an uncommunicative distance. The hunt was his unique contribution to plans for the wedding ceremony, and although his mother initially disapproved, she capitulated when her grown son put on a familiar pout, both petulant and persistent, which he apparently never outgrew.

  The mother also was well aware that the bride neither rode nor approved of hunting, but it seemed like such a grand idea, full of pomp and ceremony provided by a dozen French horns on the grounds of one of the family’s estates. Very patriotic it was — particularly for the newly formed Fifth Republic. Le Général Charles de Gaulle himself was invited, but unfortunately the requirements of his renewed office kept him away. This may have been the cause of the groom’s displeasure, but certainly the bride was not to blame for this slight? The priorities of the French Republic certainly trumped the importance of their nuptials, but the visibly annoyed groom was not to be consoled. Neither the vigorous hunt nor the sumptuous meal seemed to mitigate his irritation. He simply saw it as a vital missed opportunity to make a personal campaign to the new President for a diplomatic post and he was most unhappy. That night Lorraine collapsed on her bed with a murderous migraine headache and did not notice until the late rays of dawn that it was the guitar, rather than her husband, that lay comfortably and loyal, but motionless, on the bed beside her.

  6

  Ellen (Jiri); Lorraine (Paris and St.-Gérard), 1959–1960

  The soldiers wound up Ellen’s performance with their own rousing rendition of a musical. The young one, who had previously taken the initiative to scare Ellen completely out of her wits, put his rifle down for a moment, licked both hands, and ran them through his glossy black hair to make it stand up high off his dark brown forehead like a slick wave off a balmy surf beach. Tucking his thumbs into his brown leather belt where several clips of ammunition hung down one leg of the camouflage trousers and his sheathed kukri — the famed Gorkha hatchet-knife — down the other, he wiggled his eight skinny brown fingers, parted his legs wide with knees crooked, and began moving his hips in a sporadic and jerky motion.

  The others took their cue and joined in by clacking their sheathed kukris loudly against tables and chairs, or guns if they had no knives, in a unified syncopated beat. They gathered in an uncoordinated line behind a row of chairs and continued their tribal rhythm, “Won, juu-juu … Won, juu-juu … ” while the young one cocked his slicked-up head to one side, curled his lip into a seductive snarl, and turned his dark eyes toward the stunned foreigners.

  “Da warrden threw a partee at the county jail … ” he began to sing, “ … the prison band was there, they began to wail. The band was jumpin’ and da jawnt began to swing … ” Both arms and legs abruptly turned out wide on his two tipped toes and the boy strutted about like a baggy khaki-clad starfish writhing to the beat of the knives and gun-butts. “You shoulda heard dem jailbirds sing … ” A chair was thrust in front of him as he grasped it in both hands and shook his thin shoulders in a writhing shimmy. “ … less rock! Ebreebawdee, less rock!” Suddenly he was spinning on the floor in a circle around one bony hip. “Ebreebawdee in da whole cell block … ” Standing now with legs apart, rocking sideways from one foot to the other, as one knee began a dance of its own jerking left to right. “ … was dancin’ to da jailhouse rock!”

  Their captive audience of two stood speechless as a free-for-all took over the rest of the song. Five of the younger uniformed men began gyrating across the room like The King himself singing the verses in ragtag unison, while the rest of the band pranced about the room beating their sheathed kukris and the butts of their guns against tables and chairs in the syncopated rhythm that might have actually ingratiated the viewers had it not been performed with real, and presumably fully loaded, guns. Even the captain of the group reluctantly joined the troupe near the finale in the role of jail warden, wielding his gun cautiously, but nonetheless lightly bashing one of the Elvis-pretenders over the head with its butt.

  When the singing finally ended, they surrounded their stunned captives like a pack of wolves or outlaws in a western movie. The boys repeatedly asked, “You know Elbis Presley? You know Elbis?” punctuating the question with excited assertions in Nepali interspersed with a healthy dose of swearing in their native Gorkha. From the mouths of babes, Ellen thought to herself. And so dangerous, with imposingly large guns in their scrawny arms and a maniacal air about them that made every hair on her arms and the back of her neck stand on end, even as they guffawed and merrily performed the impressive production number again, as if they spent most of the hours of their soldierly days rehearsing the piece. One of the boys picked up the guitar and made a fairly decent attempt at strumming along to the song as the others continued their prancing, singing, and wailing.

  Eventually the prison party came to an end after the third rendition, when the mission’s representative, a large-boned, red-haired Australian fellow finally broke through the military and administrative morass and released the Tenderfields from their grip. They were bundled into a large shell of a truck out on the tarmac along with the Australian and a few of the Gorkha soldiers, to be delivered presumably to the site of their lost luggage. But first the guide took it upon himself to give them a cursory tour of downtown Kathmandu, where small children skidded from out of the shadows of black and yellow latticed timber doorframes in every direction of the dusty dirt-floored square, forming a short parade behind the truck as it approached the ancient central square of Kathmandu. Dramatically sloped rooflines and picturesque temple structures stood timelessly throughout the village and the travelers admired the ancient architecture with awe, feeling as if they were being shuttled through an open-air museum.

  To Col the dark tar-stained roof trusses appeared thousands of years old, mitered and carved with a level of detail that astounded him. Having worked with timber for a lifetime, to see such spectacularly dramatic and ornate craftsmanship was a revelation. The simple plain lines of their own glorified log cabin back home in Canada seemed a dull facsimile of these ancient architectural displays of human creativity and ingenuity. Prince Siddhartha himself could stroll regally through the square at this moment — with his bright yellow ochre robes draped across a square brown shoulder and trailing in the fine dust of the square behind him, his majestic head plaited in a tight glossy black swirl, and piercing dark kohl-rimmed eyes trained on the enlightened path before him — and he would not be out of place.

  Aside from themselves, and the occasional weathered and ancient-looking Tibetan woman chanting a perpetual hymn, “Om mani padme hum,” on an ornate rug beside an open shop door, a face like a beautifully dried apple and the mesmerizing spin of her miniature prayer wheel like a water-mill on a floss, the fa
ces around them were red-cheeked and cherubic, set against a background of beautiful, taut, smooth skin the color of red tanned cowhide.

  All around the periphery of the square, rows and rows of red and black lanterns and lines of multi-colored prayer flag–adorned shops selling rugs, silver jewelry, fabulously colored silk and cotton fabrics, brightly striped black Tibetan yak-wool wrapskirts, more prayer flags, and lanterns spilled out onto the plaza as if the plenitude of their wares uncontrollably outgrew the constricted dimensions of the shops over a protracted period. From somewhere inside the bowels of a shop, the mumbled, yet lightning-paced and frenetically urgent monologue emanated from a tinny quartz radio.

  “What are they saying?” Col asked the Australian, who stopped to listen to the rapid-fire Hindi for a moment.

  “Radio India is proclaiming the successful outcome of the first ever parliamentary election here in Nepal, which is enjoying support from Calcutta. The Nepali Congress is now moving towards implementation of land and agrarian reforms,” he continued, “ … improving prison conditions, building up a police force to maintain law and order, eradicating corruption, and setting up economic programs … ” A muffled whooping and cheering, punctuated by happy cries in Nepali, could be heard from inside the small shop.

  “The promise of a bright democratic future doesn’t seem to have any impact on that old woman sitting outside this shop,” Col remarked drily. They all turned to look at the toothless, leather-faced old woman who continued her chanting, and in her trance-like ecstasy of wheel spinning, ignored their merry-making. Not far from her, a small group of round-faced Tibetan children, half naked in the warm afternoon sun, stared boldly up at the strangers smiling. Their cherubic red, sun-burnt faces need a good scrubbing, thought Ellen to herself.