Four Km, spinning knees and a donkey.

Four kilometres.

From the house, to the village.

The first two through the forest, the second half is along the road that skirts it.

Today, I take the bike. I get a puncture after the first 200 meters so walk back. I take a chance and pump the tyre, after all, the man in the shop sold me indestructible inner tubes. For the next ten minutes, I keep a careful eye on the back wheel, almost skidding into the ditch as a result. 

A butterfly saves me, concentrating my gaze on the way ahead.

At the road there is no one, a sign says deviation but I know better and follow the road up and down until I reach the church. The church which marks the entrance to the village and carries you out when you are done. It stands on a small rise overlooking the square. For some reason that no one has tried to explain, there is a plaque on the wall proclaiming it to be a Centre D’art. A smaller plaque underneath, perhaps added either as an afterthought or in defiance by a local believer, simply states Eglise. On the other side of the road lies the post office, my destination.

 

I set my bike against the rail set there for that very purpose and enter.

 

Inside there is a table displaying an array of cakes, buns and tarts. It is still early, the heat of the day not yet intense, and I have not had breakfast. The display is tempting, but not intended for me. This part of the post office doubles as a tea-room during the festival, and it is festival time in the village, hence the deviation that I ignored.

 

The woman behind the counter greets me and I greet her back, we know each other from another café. One in which I served her.

“I need a stamp for Canada,” I explain. A distant relative is dying and I have written to his wife. I don’t explain this.

“Ah, in which case I can sell you a beautiful stamp!” the woman explains, her face shining like someone in love.

She reaches for her folder, where all the stamps are organised, and draws out a sheet. I can only see the back for the moment and she looks at me as if she is about to perform a magic trick. Suddenly, she whips the sheet round – an action that causes her to spin on the swivel chair on which she is perched – and I see that the stamps are a colourful cubist representation of the Eiffel Tower, especially conceived to celebrate the Olympic event taking place over 600 kilometres (several days’ bike ride) away in the capital. She is genuinely proud.

“Unless, of course, you don’t want one.” She teases.

“I’ll take three please.” I surprise her and she spins on the chair again, this time in excitement and just because she can. Her knees look very pretty in the spinning; I am still young enough to appreciate her beauty, yet old enough to smile.

“They are beautiful aren’t they?” She asks, this Is the moment I smile because I know that she is not talking about her knees. 

“They are,” I agree, in fact talking about both. Both knees, and both her knees and her stamps, “a little bit….” I am looking for the word cubist but I don’t find it, so my voice disappears into a void waiting for something to fill it.

“I asked for three books, but they gave me this!” She fills that void.

“I’m surprised they haven’t created a special…..”Again I can’t find the word, plaquette doesn’t seem right, fichecertainly not and so my silence once again enters the void.

“But we have this wonderful poster.” Once again she pulls me back, indicating the poster on the wall at the side of the void.

I admire it. It’s nice, though basically just an enlargement of the stamp, which in my mind is better because it is a stamp. And stamps are far more romantic than any poster can ever be. 

“I love all the designs created for the Olympics,” she enthuses. She could be ten years old with enthusiasm like this, but I see that she isn’t.

“Even the mascot?” I ask. I can’t believe anyone, even a ten-year-old, would like the mascot; boxes of them remain unsold on the local supermarket’s shelves. “What is it meant to be?”

She ignores my cynicism.

“Each sport has its own logo; they are really interesting. And I love the way the event is bringing everyone together. It will be difficult afterward, but…” This time, she enters the void.

She has used the word chute– the fall – and a fall it will be. Many people feel it may be worse, but for now hope, celebration and togetherness have banished the spectre of division and argument that has been pushed aside for the summer.

“Perhaps it won’t be immediately. Perhaps the good feeling will tide over longer than we think.” It is not really positive enough to draw us out of the void, so I try something else.

“If you could be an Olympic Champion in any event, which would you chose?”

“Oh no, I couldn’t, the sacrifice, the training…” she says, but I interrupt her.

“No, just like that. Suddenly you are an Olympic champion. Imagine.”

“Oh well, I love collective sports,” she begins, “the way you work as a team, help each other, console and celebrate together. Not just you against an adversary, but you with friends.” I wait. “I played basketball for twenty years, so basketball.” She concludes.

This is not the game.

“Then it has to be, basketball excepted which sport? I would choose synchronised swimming,” I offer as way of example. 

“Surf,” she doesn’t hesitate and I can imagine her knees on the board as she is about to stand up and go with the wave.

“Have you surfed?” I ask.

“Never, but I would like to.”

This is one of those moments that you look back on later in life, maybe asking yourself a lot of questions. Why didn’t I invite her for a day by the ocean? Would she have said yes? Can she swim?

But I’m old enough just to smile.

So, I paid for the stamps, said goodbye and cycled to the café at the other end of the village. The café that receives you the first time you arrive from the city to the south, and which sends you on your way with coffee when it is time to return. I buy croissants and chocolatines(pain au chocolatin Paris) and cycle back. 

Four kilometres to the heart of the forest.

I meet Martin on the track, eating a pear.

He is shorter than me, grey like me, French, unlike me and likes pears. 

Like me.

I have known him for about a year and we get on well, but I can’t talk to him about the Olympics.

He is a donkey.

I am not.