I was still pondering all this as I drove closer to a village close to the vineyard. There was a long avenue of plane trees formed a graceful natural entrance to the village. They had been planted, like every other plane tree in Provence—if one believed the stories—by Napoleon, to provide shade for his marching armies.
I parked in the shade and strolled into the main square. It was like every other Provencal village in the area. A café, a tabac, the Mairie, and a fountain. The only obvious addition was a small restaurant, the tables under their umbrellas still filled with people lingering over a shady lunch.
Leading off the square were narrow, shadowy streets, little wider than passageways. I could see signs hanging over the doors of the bakery and the butcher’s shop and, on one corner, another sign with peeling, sun-bleached paint and an arrow marked Notaire pointing up the street. I looked at my watch, and saw that I had half an hour to kill before the appointment at the vineyard.
The sun beat down, so I took my thirst into the café, nodding at the group of old men who had paused in their card game to inspect this new stranger in their town, and ordered a pastis. The woman behind the bar waved an arm at the shelf behind her. “Ricard? Casanis? Bardouin? Pernod?” I shrugged, and she smiled at my confusion. “Alors, un Ricard.” She poured a generous shot into a glass and placed it on the pockmarked zinc bar next to a jug beaded with moisture. I added water and went to sit at a table on the terrace, where I was joined by the café dog, who put his head on my knee and stared with large, soulful brown eyes.
I took a first sip of the cloudy liquid, sharp and refreshing with the bite of aniseed, and wondered why it tasted so much better here than the few times I’d had it at home. The heat, of course; it was a warm-weather drink. But it was also the surroundings. Pastis was at its best when you could hear the click of boules and the sound of French voices.
Looking across the square, along the walls on the village side all was dusty, the wriggling vines, the lemon and eucalyptus trees, the casual wheelbarrow, left only a moment since, but already grown into the path.
I watched the last customers leaving the restaurant, flinching at the heat and adjusting their sunglasses before ambling off in a slow, post-lunch waddle to deal with the business of the afternoon. I finished the drink and stood up. It was time to go.
It was ten minutes to eleven now and the sun was at its hottest. I came down a white road across a hill and ahead I could see a large stoned building with a tiled roof. It looked like any typical farmhouse of the region. It was whitewashed with variant colors that had faded over the years and gave it a very rustic feel. It had old, light blue wooden shutters on each side of the windows and there were newly planted trees on each side of the road that led to the house.
The road was bumpy and uneven and I had to slow down to stop rocking around. I could see in the distance two men in the front courtyard fixing up a tractor and black smoke was rising from the engine. There were vine trees all along the side of the driveway that lead up to the house and went off in the distance. I rolled down the window and slowed down to take a better look, the warm, heavy air hit me instantly.
The vine trees were small and stumpy with black roots and green leaves. They seemed to have already been harvested as I saw no grapes hanging. They were all set apart in straight lines and separated wide enough so a small tractor could drive up. The ground around the vines was covered in what appeared to be loose white limestones.
I continued up in front of stone pillars, crumbling and stained almost black by two centuries of weather, that marked the entrance to the dirt road leading down to the house. The name of the property could just be made out etched into the stone, the letters soft and fuzzy with lichen after their prolonged battle against the elements. I drove on, through rows of well-kept vines, and parked under the plane tree—a huge tree, pre-Napoleonic—that shaded the long south wall of the bastide. In contrast to the clipped and orderly vines, the garden was in a state of some neglect, as indeed was the outside of the house.
I entered the courtyard and pulled up next to the tractor and killed the ignition. I took out a pencil and a cheap lined notebook and put them into my pocket. The notebook was full of notes on poison and a half-written letter to Maria. I made a note in my head to burn the damn thing before returning to Switzerland.
A lady came out of the house and walked over to the car as I was getting out. She wore a big smile and had a tanned face, which was burnt dark from the sun, and long gray hair that was tied up in a bob.
“Bonjour,” she said brightly.
“Bonjour! Je m’appelle, Harry.”
“Yes, I know,” she replied in English. “My cousin called this morning and told me all about you.”
“Ah, okay. Great,” I said. “Yes, Madame Duflow is very nice. Thank you so much for taking the time to see me, Madame?”
“Annette, Madame Annette,” she said with a nod of her head. “It’s no problem. So, welcome to Château La Canorgue.”
“Thank you.”
“I hear you are interested in the vines and the wine making process.”
“Yes,” I said. “Very much so. But I know nothing, and this will be my first time.”
She smiled. “Okay, then let’s get started. Follow me, please.”
Her eyes gleamed restlessly in the sun, as she wiped her palm on the seam of her trousers.
We walked behind the main house to another even older building of about the same size. The building had thick stone walls, and as we entered it was very cool and cold and there were crates of bottled wine everywhere.
“These will be shipped to Paris this evening,” she pointed.
There were tables around where wine tasting took place and thick chairs that were worn out. We walked into another room where wine casks were piled high. The light came in from the door and Mme Annette brought out two bottles of wine and two glasses. She uncorked the bottles and poured wine into each glass slowly, explaining the flavors and differences between each vintage.
I held the glass up to the light, allowing myself to have an optimistic moment to contemplate. I sniffed, gargled and shuddered, and immediately spat before rubbing my teeth with a finger to remove what felt like a thick coating of tannin. The wine was one step up from vinegar, enough to kill the liver. Awful.
“No good?”
“Not to my taste no.”
“Perhaps it was a bad bottle. Try this,” she handed me another glass, which tasted much better.
It was still a very hot day outside but the coolness of the building made me shiver.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“Yes, I like it very much,” this seemed to please her greatly.
The proprietor came in and Mme Annette introduced him as her husband. He was a short, middle aged man, heavily built and square in the face. We shook hands and his hands were thick and looked tight and bloated.
“Would you like to see the fermentation room?” he asked.
“Yes please,” I answered with enthusiasm.
“Okay. Follow me,” he said in a very thick French accent. I started to walk, but he pointed at the wine.
“First finish your wine, monsieur,” he insisted. “But please, do not rush it. I will go for a cigarette.”
I took the glass and raised it to my lips. Mme Annette smiled and left the room. I walked around the big, cold cellar, holding my glass from the stem.
There were a few posters on the wall explaining the region’s different type of wine production and the difference in grape types. Around the tables there were a couple of glass display boxes filled with old corks and plastic grapes.
I walked over to the wine rack and examined the bottles. There was a scattering of regional reds and whites—some Châteauneuf-du-Pape, a few cases of Rasteau and Cassis, but the great majority was the wine of the property, decorated with a florid blue and gold label. I picked up a bottle, and took it over to the upended barrel that served as a cellar table, where there was a corkscrew an
d a none-too-clean glass.
I heard the door open and a gust of light and wind lit up the room before disappearing again as the door closed shut. My eyes took a moment to readjust. The owner came in.
“Monsieur?” he called. I came out from the shadows.
“I was just admiring your wine collection,” I said.
“Ah oui,” he muttered, seeming not so interested. “So allons-y. We go to the fermentation room. Have you finished your wine?”
“Yes, I have.”
“D’accord, follow me then.”
We walked to the dark side of the room and he pulled on a large, red wooden door that slid off to the left, making a loud screeching sound. He then walked into the darkness. The lights came on with a large hissing sound, one after the other, and finished at the end of the long hall. To each side of the walkway there were large wooden barrels placed one on top of the other, stacked three barrels high. I counted at least fifty. In the center of the walkway between the barrels, stood a thin light wooden table.
“This room we use for maturing le vin,” he said. “And we must turn the barrels from time to time.”
“It’s a wonderful room for wine tasting,” I said brightly.
“Oui, mais, not these days,” he sighed. “Madame Annette does not have the patience any more for that, and I certainly don’t want to be entertaining the foreigners.”
“Please through here,” he grumbled.
We walked toward another sliding door in the center and to the end of the great room and it again opened to the left. As we walked in the smell hit me and almost took my breath away. He switched the lights on and turned to me, grinning like a little fat pumpkin. I noticed one of his front teeth was missing and the rest were brown and decaying.
“Something wrong?” he asked, still grinning.
“No. I’m quite fine,” I said, screwing up my face. “It’s just the smell is quite overpowering.”
“Mais oui.”
Around the room stood six large steel tanks with small wooden ladders propped up next to each one. The tanks were painted red and stood on four small steel legs that were painted white. The tops of the tanks seemed to be open from what I could see, and at the bottom of the tanks there was a small dial and faucet. The legs were rusting around the bottom and in the corners. My breathing eased up now and the smell was becoming less intense.
Monsieur Annette explained the process as Mme Duflow had done the previous night. I asked to climb up the ladder and take a look inside.
“Of course,” he said. “Be my guest. But please only for a moment. We’ve had too many people fall off those ladders over the years and some never got up again.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“The CO2, monsieur,” he said. “It’s very heavy up there.”
“I see,” trying to sound only mildly curious. “Would you say here at the top is where it’s the most deadliest?”
“Mais oui,” he said. “So come now. Have a quick look and get down.”
He was right. When I arrived at the top I felt dizzy almost instantly. There was not much to see either, only a thick layer of white foam. I quickly came down and could feel my legs shake as I descended the ladder. I asked him about the cleaning process of the tanks and how all that worked, but as I heard his response, I started to lose focus. I sat down for a moment on the floor.
“Ca va?” he said brusquely. “Let’s leave now as you’re starting to lose your color.”
We walked out and I felt I had seen enough, if only for the sake of my health. I was back in my car after saying goodbye to Mme Annette and then out onto the dusty road in less than ten minutes. I felt nauseous and tense. Despite the overwhelming evidence that my plan had taken a big step forward; I still couldn’t shake my own lousy feeling. The nausea stayed with me.
I drove back through Uzès and across a square with a great cathedral and stopped the car to stare. It was magnificent to look at the great dusty walls and to think of going inside, to imagine its smell.
I stepped out of the car and spent the remaining of the morning calmly, lonely but very pleasantly in which I wandered around the small Provencal town, stopping here and there for an hour or two in a café or a restaurant and read the newspaper.
In one of the shop windows stood a tall picture of a sailboat and one of a beach. It made me think of the ocean. I stood back and felt the humidity along with a sickening feeling of returning home.
CHAPTER XXII
THAT AFTERNOON I CHECKED to the Hotel Cézar near the Théâtre Antique d’Arles. It was a moderately priced hotel in the center of Arles.
Sundown was the hour when the French and everybody else in the town gathered at the sidewalk tables of the cafés. They were freshly showered and dressed, staring at everybody and everything that passed by and eager for whatever entertainment the town could offer. I walked around the center wearing only shorts, sandals and a light linen shirt. I had spent the afternoon wondering the city streets and writing in one of the cafés by the colosseum. It was the first time on this trip that I had really put pencil to paper and it made me feel exhausted. Writing always made me feel exhausted.
Still, I walked along with certain casualness and kept my head up for the benefit of the people who stared at me from the cafés. I had fortified myself with two espressos and one brandy. Now I was playing the role of an athletic young writer, who had spent the day honing his craft.
I made it back to the hotel, collected the key and went up to the room to collapse on the bed. I put my head down, happy and utterly satisfied with the city and the afternoons writing. When I felt myself falling to sleep, I jolted myself awake, got up and went to the basin and splashed my face.
I could start to feel the magic returning within me, and it remained throughout. I had a drink from the mini bar and smoked on the terrace, then showered and changed. I felt in good humor that night. I had felt in good humor since I arrived. It was Arles.
The next morning, I went out for a stroll. I walked with my head up and a smile on my face. I had slept well, and figured it was the atmosphere of the town. It reminded me of Paris, but there was something else, a mixture of things. Perhaps it was the Italian, Roman influence in the architecture or the Spanish influence on the food. I wanted to let the atmosphere seep in slowly, so I bought a local paper and sat down in one of the cafés at the Place du Forum. Feeling relaxed, I ordered a café au lait.
I could see myself here, I thought. I just needed to find an apartment in the center, near the Arles Amphitheatre would be great. I could stay for a while, though I didn’t plan to stay for months on end, especially in the winter. But Arles seemed exciting. I felt excited.
“Yes, I live in Arles now, and keep an apartment,” I said to myself.
By late afternoon, I left Arles and made my way back to the small house by the sea. I had just stepped out of the car when I almost squarely bumped into Madame Duflow, who seemed to be hovering around the house for some reason.
“Ah, Monsieur Hoffman! There you are!” she said awkwardly.
“Bonjour, Madame Duflow,” I smiled easily.
“American Express came with some mail for you this morning,” she said.
I opened the door and put the letter on the table and noticed that Mme Duflow had followed me in.
“Madame Duflow, I have decided to move on tomorrow,” I told her.
“Oh dear, so soon?” she said with an air of friendliness. “Where will you go?”
“Arles,” I said.
“Are you staying with someone?” she asked.
“No, just in a hotel,” I took a glass of wine and walked outside. A moment later I heard her cork-soled sandals trotting after me.
“Why the rush?” she asked. “You should stay till at least to the end of the week, no?”
“No. I’m sorry,” I said. “I really need a change of scene.”
“So how long are you staying?” she asked, her expression downcast.
“Where?”
“Here.”
“Ah. Just overnight. I’ll be going to Arles tomorrow. Probably in the afternoon.”
“Oh, I won’t be around,” she said.
“Well, I hope it’s okay that I leave like this,” I said, clearing my throat. “We didn’t agree on anything permanent, at least that was my understanding? I will of course pay you till the end of the week.”
“It’s fine. I just enjoyed having you around.”
“Merci. I also enjoyed being here.”
We said our goodbyes and I told her I would come visit again and we arranged that I would drop off the key in her mailbox before I left in the morning and went upstairs and laid down on the bed. I awoke suddenly and remembered dreaming that I was in another village and on another bed and it was very cold. I rubbed my eyes and raised myself up and realized my right arm was asleep because I had rested on it and used it for a pillow.
By eight o’clock that evening, I was pottering around the house, but the suitcase was packed and all that was left was to sort out the fishing gear. I took a chilled bottle of Tavel wine from the icebox and poured myself a large glass, and sat outside with the last remaining light of the day. I’d forgotten the letter from Zurich. I opened it and it was from Maria. It read:
DEAR HARRY,
I don’t know how to start this letter, so I’ll start with saying I have decided to take an apartment in Venice for a month, just to have a change of scene and get away from Zurich and be by myself with Liv.
It was really all too much these last months. Liv, you, Roberto, David. Too many energies and I just couldn’t handle it in that moment. I’m so sorry I hurt you, Harry, and we left as we did. I was too much in my head and lost, and unfortunately we all suffered the consequences. Part of my unhappiness wasn’t with you or our love. On the contrary, it was more just the situation. My going away now doesn’t solve anything of course, but it will help me discover how to feel and how to handle things and let go of others. One thing I have realized during this time apart from you is that I still love you my darling.
With you out of the picture these last weeks, I tried to reconnect with myself and what I have been through. And by going through this process, my love for you only grew. I hope you can understand.
In Another Country, and Besides Page 17