After supper, I recounted my cycling adventures over a dessert of homemade plum tart, the specialty of the cook’s husband, who usually tended to the garden and the shopping. Then we moved out onto the veranda with glasses of sherry and watched the storm put on a light show over the Lac d'Annecy. I counted down the time between the strikes and the thunderous claps: five seconds per mile, three seconds per kilometer. At times, the strikes and thunder claps were almost simultaneous.
Mme. Cailles (who, by the way, was not my grandmother) told a story of when she was a little girl growing up at the Serpenoise. According to her, during one electrical storm, a bolt of lightning hit the house and, a split second later, moved down an inside gas pipe in the living room where they were sitting and then emerged into the room as “ball lightning." Her mother quietly but firmly told everyone to freeze, as they watched the fist-sized ball move erratically across the carpet “looking” for a way to ground to earth. After what seemed like an eternity to her, it struck another pipe and was gone as quickly as it had arrived. But it left a pretty strong impression on Mme. Cailles to recall it over seventy years later.
We said good night around nine pm and I dropped quickly off to sleep. Unfortunately, my long ride in the cold rain had also weakened my resistance, for I awoke less than half an hour later with severe intestinal cramps. Over the next hour or so, I made repeated trips to the simple lavatory that was just off the cobbled courtyard. I was a wreck. Though all traces of the ratatouille had by now left my system, my body ached and I felt feverish and hung-over. To make matters worse, the bells of the church next door seemed to be ringing with excessive vigor.
Not only did they chime the hour, they repeated themselves five minutes later, lest anyone within hearing distance might have missed the first tintinnabulation (I can’t believe I actually wove that word into my blog and, yes, you’re welcome). Not only that, the bells also announced the half hour as well, though only one chime, also repeated five minutes later. Each hour, just as I hoped to drift off into oblivion, the next round would commence. First ten o’clock (twice), then eleven o’clock (twice) then midnight (twice). As I counted down the final twelve thunderous bongs of the second series, I sighed deeply. One o’clock would be a welcome respite and unlikely to forestall my slumber. And so it was; I fell into an exhausted sleep.
Until six am. At first, I thought the bells were in my dreams. They chimed six times and then continued without stopping. I kept waiting for either the bells to stop ringing, or to awaken from my dream. I finally did, but the noise went on unabated. I made a vain attempt to cover my head with the feather pillow, but nothing could muffle those bells.
I dressed and went outside into the early morning air to seek the reason for Quasimodo's concert. I made my way through the garden to the stone wall that separated our house from the church and looked into the courtyard. It was, even at this hour, filled with dozens of bazaar tables where locals were noisily selling all kinds of homemade goods.
Next I headed upstairs to the kitchen. Apparently my disheveled appearance was amusing, as the cook and her husband laughed heartily. They explained that both the bells and the bazaar were to celebrate the feast of Saint James. They had already been to church this morning.
Out on the veranda, as I breakfasted on French bread and jam, I looked out over the lake to a wondrously blue morning in the Haute Savoie and slowly achieved some perspective. Despite my trials of the day before on the Col des Marais, and the internal battle with ratatouille that raged through the night, I was still gratefully and gloriously alive. It was also Sunday – my day off – and by the time I had finished breakfast, the bells had finally ceased. I went back to my bedroom and slept until early afternoon, thankful to St. James, Madonna del Ghisallo (the patron saint of cyclists), and all the guardian angels who watch over me.
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