The Rose Café by John Hanson Mitchell

people like Algerians who really shouldn’t be helped at all and in fact shouldn’t be allowed to come to Paris in her opinion and how her father, who was also a journalist, had got himself into trouble for a story he had just published and how he had a mistress who, in her opinion, was more sensible than her own mother because she agreed about the Algerians and then, almost in midsentence, she asked if this was a good spot to swim.
    â€œYes, I swim here every morning. I live just up there. In the stone cottage.”
    â€œGood,” she said. She waded into the waters and struck out for the middle of the cove.
    She had a smooth stroke and strong shoulders, and when she reached the middle of the cove she arched down into a dive, and like a gleaming porpoise, slipped beneath the waters and didn’t come up for a long time. I was wondering whether I should worry when she burst up with a great splash.
    â€œBe careful of the moray eels in the rocks,” I called as I went up the path back to the restaurant.
    Chrétien was in the kitchen when I came in with my basket of urchins.
    â€œYou were in the cove, yes? You must have seen Marie. She is beautiful, no?”
    â€œCute,” I said.
    â€œLike a little rabbit,” he said.
    I hadn’t thought that Marie looked at all like a rabbit.
    â€œMore like a sprite …” I said, searching for the word in French.
    â€œA what?” Chrétien asked.
    â€œ Une fée ?” I ventured.
    â€œ Mais non ,” he shouted. “Not a fairy. Not at all. A rabbit. A beautiful little squirrel.”
    Things were getting worse as far as Marie’s appearance, I thought.
    â€œIn the night, she transforms herself; she wears a hint of the best Molinard, just a trace you know, and you can taste the salt on her skin, and her hands, like the small busy hands of a monkey, so delicata, si tanta bella . I kiss her.”
    He cupped his left palm in his right hand and lifted it to his lips.
    â€œShe is like the small antelope that scampers beneath the acacia of the African savannah.”
    â€œShe has a good walk …” I said.
    Chrétien, I had come to understand by then, was fond of animal metaphors.
    Later that afternoon I saw a new couple out on the terrace, taking the sun and a glass of beer.
    â€œYou see them?” Chrétien said quietly. “Marie’s parents. Simone and Teddy. I cannot wait until they leave.”
    Simone had blond hair cut in a pageboy and the same hazel eyes as Marie, and she wore a large, flower-patterned muumuu, which she had hoisted above her knees as she stretched herself out at the café table, her feet up on a chair, an empty beer glass perched in front of her. I noticed how tanned her legs were, and her finely shaped feet—toenails painted a bright red.
    Her husband was a small man, well formed, blue-eyed, but he had a surprised, almost frightened look as if he were unsure of whatever it was that he was saying or doing. In fact, however, he was a troublemaker, having published, according to Chrétien, a scathing article in Le Monde attacking both de Gaulle’s policies concerning Algerian independence and, with equal vehemence, the policies of the colonialists and the right-wing French generals. Both sides detested him, Chrétien said.
    â€œSomebody blew up his car a month ago,” Chrétien said.
    That Sunday night, after the ferry had left for the mainland, the man they called le Baron came into the dining room. He arrived early, while the dinner guests were still at their desserts and coffee, and sat at the bar. Micheline was in the kitchen at the time, and I happened to be at the bar when he came in. He settled in the front at the polished-wood counter and turned to face outward, toward the terrace, ignoring me. I think he was watching for his card partners, who had not yet arrived.
    I had seen the Baron off and on over the past few weeks. I saw him in the square a couple of