was herself no beauty: a hulk of a woman, with a massive jaw rising out of a creased dewlap, and a livid birthmark covering one eye. Her nickname suited her, for the word binette meant “hoe,” an implement she had once nearly decapitated a man with for trespassing on her land. Its more archaic meanings, “visage” and “wig,” could equally be taken to refer to her unsettling face or to the coarse yellow clump of horsehair that sat on her head like a turkey’s roost.
Of Vrac’s father, nothing was known. Everyone suspected it had been old Rocher himself.
“Mon dieu
, his own daughter and barely thirteen!” they had exclaimed those many years ago as the smock front of the young Marie-Claire grew daily shorter for all to see. Over time, Vrac the child and Vrac the mancame simply to be accepted by the scattered farming community as an unpleasant feature of existence, like bad weather or mud. If he was shunned—children ran when they saw him, and women crossed themselves at his approach—he was at the same time tolerated and even protected by the fierce local loyalties that defined a region where in times past a person’s entire universe was measured by how far he or she could walk out and back in a day.
In fact, it might even be said that Vrac enjoyed a kind of ill-favored celebrity. Local farmers sometimes employed him to fell trees and heave tractors out of ditches, for he was enormously strong. He also had a certain understanding of the darker side of machinery and was often able to bludgeon exhausted and antiquated farm equipment, which normally would have been left on a hillside to rust, into some level of fitful functioning. These odd jobs gave Vrac cash in his pocket, a tenuous claim on society, and a kind of preposterous self-conceit.
All the same, Vrac understood murkily that he was not wanted. Even his own mother called him names. These rejections filled him with an inarticulate rage that erupted from time to time in crude acts of violence perpetrated randomly against inanimate objects and living things that chanced to cross his path.
Like a bear, Vrac covered a vast territory, killing and taking at will, poaching on reserves and fishing on private land where the streams and rivers of theregion formed pools attractive to pike and perch. There was only one place that he avoided—a deep pond in the forest where tall reeds whispered and frogs and small fry abounded. For reasons known best to him, he would not eat things taken from its muddy depths.
La Binette was a more complex being. She assessed the world about her with a cynicism that usually worked to her benefit. Her son she treated like an animal, with a bitterness that arose from her belief that he was a punishment for past sins. He was of her making, and he never should have been made. Nevertheless, need arising, she probably would have defended him to the death. And if she attended but minimally to his bodily needs, it must be said that she did no more for herself.
For the rest, la Binette tended her sheep and made a surprisingly good cheese from ewe’s milk. In fact, her
brebis
was something of a local specialty, which she sold at nearby periodic markets, arriving with much backfiring in an ancient wood-paneled truck. Occasionally, she augmented the household income by picking up unwary hitchhikers or motorists in distress, driving them not to where they wanted to go but to some isolated spot where she demanded a
forfait
, usually what cash their wallets contained, for “transportation services rendered.” Most paid and were then dumped, shaken but relieved, to make their way back to civilization as best they could.
Curiously, mother and son slept together. Whetherthey joined in an incestuous relationship was beside the point. The point was that, apart from routinely cooperating out of necessity to till the soil or harvest or slaughter, these two creatures went their own way from dawn to dusk. At night, however, like beasts made uneasy by
Of Vrac’s father, nothing was known. Everyone suspected it had been old Rocher himself.
“Mon dieu
, his own daughter and barely thirteen!” they had exclaimed those many years ago as the smock front of the young Marie-Claire grew daily shorter for all to see. Over time, Vrac the child and Vrac the mancame simply to be accepted by the scattered farming community as an unpleasant feature of existence, like bad weather or mud. If he was shunned—children ran when they saw him, and women crossed themselves at his approach—he was at the same time tolerated and even protected by the fierce local loyalties that defined a region where in times past a person’s entire universe was measured by how far he or she could walk out and back in a day.
In fact, it might even be said that Vrac enjoyed a kind of ill-favored celebrity. Local farmers sometimes employed him to fell trees and heave tractors out of ditches, for he was enormously strong. He also had a certain understanding of the darker side of machinery and was often able to bludgeon exhausted and antiquated farm equipment, which normally would have been left on a hillside to rust, into some level of fitful functioning. These odd jobs gave Vrac cash in his pocket, a tenuous claim on society, and a kind of preposterous self-conceit.
All the same, Vrac understood murkily that he was not wanted. Even his own mother called him names. These rejections filled him with an inarticulate rage that erupted from time to time in crude acts of violence perpetrated randomly against inanimate objects and living things that chanced to cross his path.
Like a bear, Vrac covered a vast territory, killing and taking at will, poaching on reserves and fishing on private land where the streams and rivers of theregion formed pools attractive to pike and perch. There was only one place that he avoided—a deep pond in the forest where tall reeds whispered and frogs and small fry abounded. For reasons known best to him, he would not eat things taken from its muddy depths.
La Binette was a more complex being. She assessed the world about her with a cynicism that usually worked to her benefit. Her son she treated like an animal, with a bitterness that arose from her belief that he was a punishment for past sins. He was of her making, and he never should have been made. Nevertheless, need arising, she probably would have defended him to the death. And if she attended but minimally to his bodily needs, it must be said that she did no more for herself.
For the rest, la Binette tended her sheep and made a surprisingly good cheese from ewe’s milk. In fact, her
brebis
was something of a local specialty, which she sold at nearby periodic markets, arriving with much backfiring in an ancient wood-paneled truck. Occasionally, she augmented the household income by picking up unwary hitchhikers or motorists in distress, driving them not to where they wanted to go but to some isolated spot where she demanded a
forfait
, usually what cash their wallets contained, for “transportation services rendered.” Most paid and were then dumped, shaken but relieved, to make their way back to civilization as best they could.
Curiously, mother and son slept together. Whetherthey joined in an incestuous relationship was beside the point. The point was that, apart from routinely cooperating out of necessity to till the soil or harvest or slaughter, these two creatures went their own way from dawn to dusk. At night, however, like beasts made uneasy by
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