Saturday, March 14, 2020

Short Story: The First Annual Guînes Abbey Baking Competition

            Séraphine was happy. The little pouch of francs jingled merrily in her habit pocket, and she hummed quietly to herself a distinctly peppier version of “Peuples, Criez de Joie.” The First Annual Guînes Abbey Baking Competition was today and everything—EVERYTHING—was going according to plan. The flyers had been posted all around town, the monks of Andernes Abbey, she had been told, were hard at work on their biscuits, and of course the sisters of her own Guînes Abbey were already underway baking their pies and counting down the hours until they could finally show them off to the world. It seemed like it was really going to work.
The thought made Séraphine grin like a schoolgirl, which she quickly fought back down. A servant of Christ must always bear in remembrance the solemnity of the cross, she reminded herself. But the solemnity of the cross was hard to focus on when the sun was this warm, melting off the early morning chill, and the sky was this clear and blue, allowing little streams of sunlight to fall through the budding trees and over the squat, homely rooftops of the town. The light sparkled brilliantly off the surface of Canal Guînes, which burbled along with her hummed hymn and kept apace with her brisk gait toward the local Carrefour supermarket.
A child ran, giggling, toward her on the cobblestone path, his mother calling after him. He was looking backward and didn’t see that he was about to—
Bump! Before Séraphine could maneuver away, the boy collided with her right side and, with serendipitous clumsiness, swiped the coin pouch with his shoulder right out of her pocket and onto the street. The small copper pieces flew everywhere.
The boy’s mother gasped and shrieked, “Gabriel! Oh, my goodness!”
She hurried up to the scene of the accident. It was Catherine Lemaigre—Class of ‘81. “Madame Séraphine, I am so. Sorry. I—”
Séraphine smiled. “Oh, no, no, Miss Catherine, it is quite alright.”
“We shall pick up every last coin, won’t we, Gabriel?” The young mother shot her son a glare more deadly than a laser beam.
“Chère, c'est bien,” she replied. Normally, she would have said something different entirely to the young mother, but not today. Nothing could disrupt the magnificence of today.
Séraphine, in as distinguished a manner as she could, hiked up her habit and attempted to stoop down, grunting mightily as her bending over compressed her girth upon itself.
“No, please, allow us, Madame,” Catherine protested, grimacing.
“It’s… really… no…” With a mighty, final grunt, Séraphine managed to grab a single coin, then stood back up, heaving. “Problem…” she finished, her face now red.
She leaned against the stone barricade between the street and the canal as Catherine and her son silently finished gathering the coins.  Gabriel stared for a while at the heaving nun until his mother shot him again with the laser beam.
The francs were returned to the pouch, Catherine gave Séraphine a final, miserable grin, and the little family ran off down the street.
Séraphine sighed, straightened out her habit, and glanced around. Across the little canal, a man seated at the outdoor cafe with a newspaper and coffee was staring at her—it looked like Jules, the constable—Class of ‘69. Her steel blue eyes narrowed instinctively at him, and he quickly ducked back behind his paper.
Just wait ‘til the competition, Séraphine, she comforted herself. They’ll see.
Some greyish, dumpy clouds had flopped in front of Séraphine’s brilliant spring sun by the time she reached Carrefour a couple minutes later. They distilled the light unpleasantly on the zucchini piled in pyramids and the heads of cabbages that looked sleepy and distant.
She sighed heavily, then entered the already open door of the supermarket.
It was crowded inside Carrefour today. Crowded and noisy. People bustled about the aisles, baskets overflowing with goods. There was a pervading air of anxiety that struck Séraphine as quite odd. It’s the same feeling she had gotten at the post office yesterday, and that she had gotten when she had sung with the women at the infirmary on Sunday.
“My, what a busy day!” she exclaimed, thinking she was dropping a major hint at everyone to inform her what was going on.  But the people within earshot only turned, reverently nodded and mutter something like “Oui, Madame Séraphine,” then went back to their scurrying about the shelves.
She tried again.
“I haven’t seen commotion like this in here since Monsieur Duclos switched the morphine and aspirin tablets by mistake.”
Nothing. She frowned.  What in the wo---! Ah, of course! Everyone must be getting ready for the competition. And her presence must have inspired some anxiety in the poor townspeople, knowing the greatest pie crafter in Guînes was now in their midst.
Her smile returned at last and she made her way among the sea of townspeople to the produce in the back.
She had looked forward to this moment for months: the moment she would decide what kind of pie she would make. She had all the other ingredients already at the abbey, but she had wanted to make this special trip early this morning just for the fruit. She had been debating between rhubarb and peach, but she had been clandestinely toying with an American apple. Ooh, how fiendishly uncouth that would be!
She browsed the fruit, wafting in their scents and probing them with her finger like some kind of scientist, until she came to the last cart and laid eyes on its contents. In a perfect, splendid pyramid, a hundred or so bright, red, plump cherries sat, staring salaciously at her. She blushed. She had never seen anything so titillating in all her life. She could’ve sworn a white shaft of light fell on them from a skylight above.
“Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise,” she murmured rapidly, gazing upward. “His greatness no one can fathom.” She looked back at the cherries. One winked at her. She was sweating. “One generation will commend your works to anothertheywilltellofyourmightyacts.”
She rushed those last words, snatched one of the flimsy plastic baskets provided for the fruit, and started stuffing handfuls of the corpulent beauties in.

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                Séraphine dumped fifteen cartons of cherries onto the counter, very much out of breath and sweating like mad. She dabbed at her brow with a handkerchief, and then fumbled with her habit pockets for the pouch of francs.
                Mon dieu, what lines you have today!” she said cheerily as she searched. “So many people, so much commotion, so much baking… Ah! It’s exciting.” She produced the coin pouch and looked up at the person at the counter, smiling warmly.
                An acne-besmirched young man with hair much too long, chin scruff much too sparse, and a nose ring stared vacantly back at her.
                Still smiling, she courteously continued. “Must be a… fun challenge for you as the grocer!”
                You could hear the sound of a distant train howling in the empty expanses of his expression. Nothing.
                She kept smiling, panting from holding that many cherries for that long. “Would you, uh… would you kindly ring them up for me?” She offered.
                “Can’t.”
                Séraphine blinked. “…Pardon?”
                “Can’t. The scanner’s broken, I’m three minutes past my break, and this is too many cherries.”
                Séraphine fought with all her might to keep her smile, straining so hard her eye twitched. I will not lose composure again. A servant of Christ must carry the love of God to all.
                “I see.” She cleared her throat, preparing to tackle each of these issues one by one. “I believe I saw you scan the last patron’s goods without issue, no?”
                “Nope.”
                She blinked again. “…Sorry?”
                “Nope. I just made up a number and ran his card.” He sniffed. “It was probably close enough.”
                She frowned and shook her head. “You… what--?”
                “Anyway, I’m going on break.”
                Flabbergasted, Séraphine wracked her brain to find words, but ended up just returning his vacant stare. She looked back at the other people in line. They averted their gaze and shuffled their feet. She turned back to the teenager and finally, she managed, “Well? Are you going on break, or aren’t you?”
                “I’m on break right now.”
                “Really. Just standing there. Staring off into space like a… a pigeon?”
                “Mmm, yeah, I’d say that’s a good way to put it.”
                “You don’t want to at least sit?”
                “I’m good.”
                “Have a snack?”
                “Nah.”
                “A smoke?”
                “Do you mind? I’m trying to relax.”
Séraphine couldn’t believe her ears. “Well, then I shall leave my cherries here until you get off break!” she replied defiantly.
                “No, that won’t work, see, because that’s far too—”
                “—many cherries, I heard you. What does that mean? You don’t want my patronage?”
                “Not if it involves counting all those cherries.”
                She was losing it. Who was this young man? His sloppily pinned name tag just said GEORGE. She’d never seen him before. She’d certainly never had him in primary school at the abbey. His family must be new in town. This thought gave her one last shred of grace to hold onto.
                “Young man, you must not be aware. Come 5 o’clock this afternoon, Guînes, the town in which we all live, will be having its first ever baking competition—”
                “Cool.”
                “—which competition is both being officiated and attended by my fellow sisters at the abbey and myself, who have been working hard every morning—”
                “Awesome.”
                “—to make sure this is PERFECT, which includes being able to purchase cherries for our pies which have to be PREPARED and BAKED in time, and if they aren’t—”
                “Sweet.”
                “—I’LL MISS MY ONE CHANCE TO PROVE TO EVERYONE I’M NOT A HORRIBLE, NASTY OGRE! Now, listen here!”
                She seized George by the collar of his shirt, fire burning in her eyes. “Ring up my cherries now, or mark my words, I’ll take these cherry baskets and---”
                No one in Guînes had ever heard a nun refer to that part of the body in that way before. They had also never seen a nun—or anyone—rip open a locked cash register drawer and try to shove coins into it and then run off with fifteen baskets of cherries in her arms. Similarly, they had never seen a nun pelt a young man and innocent bystanders with bright, red, stolen fruit as she bustled out the door and through the streets of town. And they had certainly never seen a nun wrestled to the ground by Jules the constable, cuffed, and stuffed into the back of a police car.
                Yes, it was a day of firsts for the people of Guînes. A baking competition wasn’t one of them.



(This was obviously completely different from anything else on my blog, but, hey, I finally wrote a short story that I'm proud of--something I've been wanting to do for years--so I thought I might as well share it here!)

This short story is under full copyright of Anderson Paul Spendlove. All rights reserved.  

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