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embarrassed about sex anymore.
‘And you work now?’
‘No. That is, I did, in the United States. I was a midwife.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘ Une sage-femme ? Do you want to practise in France?’
‘I would like to work but I haven't been able to get a work permit yet. Also the medical system is different here, so I have to pass an exam before I can practise. So now I study French and this autumn I begin a course for midwives in Toulouse to study for the exam.’
‘You look tired.’ He changed the subject abruptly, as if to suggest I was wasting his time by talking about my career.
‘I've been having nightmares, but —’ I stopped. I didn't want to get into this with him.
‘You are unhappy, Madame Turner?’ he asked more gently.
‘No, no, not unhappy,’ I replied uncertainly. Sometimes it's hard to tell when I'm so tired, I added to myself.
‘You know psoriasis appears sometimes when you do not get enough sleep.’
I nodded. So much for psychological analysis.
The doctor prescribed cortisone cream, suppositories to bring down the swelling and sleeping pills in case the itching kept me awake, then told me to come back in a month. As I was leaving he added, ‘And come to see me when you are pregnant. I am also an obstétricien .’
I blushed again.
My infatuation with Lisle-sur-Tarn ended not long after I stopped sleeping.
It was a beautiful, peaceful town, moving at a pace I knew was healthier than what I'd been used to in the States, and the quality of life was undeniably better. The produce at the Saturday market in the square, the meat at the boucherie , the bread at the boulangerie – all tasted wonderful to someone brought up on bland supermarket products. In Lisle lunch was still the biggest meal of the day, children ran freely with no fear of strangers or cars, and there was time for small talk. People were never in too much of a hurry to stop and chat with everyone.
With everyone but me, that is. As far as I knew, Rick and I were the only foreigners in town. We were treated that way. Conversations stopped when I entered stores, and when resumed I was sure the subject had been changed to something innocuous. People were polite to me, but after several weeks I still felt I hadn't had a real conversation with anyone. I made a point of saying hello to people I recognized, and they said hello back, but no one said hello to me first or stopped to talk to me. I tried to follow Madame Sentier's advice about talking as much as I could, but I was given so little encouragement that my thoughts dried up. Only when a transaction took place, when I was buying things or asking where something was, did the townspeople spare a few words for me.
One morning I was sitting in a café on the square, drinking coffee and reading the paper. Several other people were scattered among the tables. The proprietor passed among us, chatting and joking, handing out candy to the children. I had been there a few times; he and I were on nodding terms now but had not progressed to conversation. Give that about ten years, I thought sourly.
A few tables away, a woman younger than me sat with a five-month-old baby who was strapped into a car seat set on a chair, shaking a rattle. The woman wore tight jeans and had an irritating laugh. She soon got up and went inside. The baby didn't seem to notice she'd gone.
I concentrated on Le Monde . I was forcing myself to read the entire front page before I was allowed to touch the International Herald Tribune . It was like wading through mud: not just because of the language, but also all the names I didn't recognize, the political situations I knew nothing about. Even when I understood a story I wasn't necessarily interested in it.
I was ploughing through a piece about an imminent postal strike – a phenomenon I wasn't accustomed to in the States – when I heard a strange noise, or rather, silence. I looked up. The baby had stopped shaking the rattle and let it drop into his lap. His face began