Amandine by Marlena de Blasi Page B

Montpellier, their winter uniforms are of dark gray wool bouclé: high-waisted dresses, velvet-collared with elbow-length puffed sleeves; the wide velvet-bordered hems reach to the ankles, just to the tops of their lace-up boots. Black wool capes and matching basques for outdoor jaunts. For summer, the same but in gray linen with white batiste trimming. In the classrooms, once the villa’s sitting rooms and parlors, long, low tables and diminutive upholstered chairs have been arranged to serve as community desks. There is good furniture, mostly from the Empire and Directoire eras, carpets, threadbare but fine, heavy draperies and, according to the weather, wood fires smoldering in raised marble hearths. Hardly less elegant than the rooms arranged years before for Amandine andSolange, one might wonder that Paul had found those quarters decadent. Early proof of her resolute animus. She would be tranquil with nothing about or concerning
the child
. Nothing.
    Apart from its status as a regionally approved scholastic institution, St.-Hilaire is an accredited
école d’arts d’agrément
. A finishing school. Thus, feminine skills such as comportment, elocution, etiquette, conversation, voice, and ballroom dancing are practiced under the tutelage of local
maîtres
. Perhaps the most unique studies on its rich agenda are: the art of dining, the training of the palate, a fundamental knowledge of haute cuisine as well as the traditional dishes of the Languedoc.
    A swift, silent meal is breakfast; porridge, bread and jam, and small brown bowls of hot chocolate thick as pudding. At midday there is soup, cheese, and fruit. In a flurry of fish knives and sauce spoons, hot copper casseroles, covered tureens, butter molds, finger bowls, it is at the evening meal that the little French girls sit leisurely to dine.
    Confit of duck and potatoes sautéed in duck fat; cabbage leaves stuffed with black bread and eggs and pinches of
quatre épices
, the plump rolls tied up in kitchen string and braised in broth and tomatoes; hefts of pâté de foie gras set down with toasted brioche and Sauternes jelly; wild mushrooms baked in cream; braised beef
chaud-froid;
white beans cooked overnight in deep terra-cotta dishes with sausages and lamb; thick soups of dried peas and smoked bacon ladled over butter-fried
croûtes;
potato pancakes with plum jam; roast chicken stuffed with prunes; trout in brown butter; truffled turkey; apricots set in long metal pans, cut sides up, and strewn with black sugar, pinches of sea salt, a batter of cream and eggs and vanilla, and baked until bubbling and charred. How the little French girls dine.
    Solange had despaired for their separation, for Amandine’s leaving behind the intimacies, the established rhythms of their life together. On the façade, it seems she needn’t have worried so. It is a Saturday afternoon at the end of Amandine’s first week in the school, and thetwo are preparing for a walk into the village. Loosening the tight plaits in which the dormitory sisters have arranged Amandine’s unruly hair, Solange feels anxious, perplexed by Amandine’s remoteness.
    How grown up she is. Flush with her own sufficiency. An act, of course
.
    “Do you miss me, Amandine?”
    “Of course I do. But I’m fine.”
    “And the girls, how have you been getting on with them?”
    “Fine.”
    “Have you made a special friend with any one of them? I saw you holding hands with that girl called Sidò, Sidò with the blue glasses.”
    “We have to hold hands, walk two by two, to the chapel. When we lined up the first day, there was no one left but her and me. We’re partners now. For the walk, I mean. She bites her nails, and the sisters put red stuff on them so they taste bad and so she won’t bite them anymore.”
    “Did it work? Did she stop biting her nails?”
    “No. She says the red stuff is not so bad after a while. She asked me if I wanted to taste it, but I said no.”
    “I see. And the