by Alan Holmes
When we first arrived, the garden at the Villa Champs de Mai was deep grass and weeds, with no paths on which to ride a bike. Beyond our front gate was a rough grassy track a quarter mile long, bordering the communal pasture and connecting our house to the nearest paved road. The track was partly coarse gravel and partly rough, tussocky grass, making for a bumpy, unpleasant ride on a bike.
Indoors, the situation was even less promising because the workmens’ activities made much of the house off limits to me. Adding to the pervasive gloom, Raimond was miserable because Françoise was still out of sorts over the Aga cooker. For him, life was tense enough when Françoise was “in sorts.”
The house was quite unlike any I have ever seen. It was about a hundred feet long by sixty feet wide, with a central corridor running its full hundred-foot length. The drawing room and four existing bedrooms on the main floor had French doors which opened onto a wide, covered terrace. The terrace bordered the entire length of the south and west sides of the house.
I was intrigued by the construction work in progress, but my curiosity was largely thwarted by the fact that I was ordered to give the workmen a wide berth.
Raimond also took an interest in what was being done or about to be done. One morning, while standing at the top of a contractor’s ladder propped on the lip of a ceiling hatch, Raimond had surveyed the attic where the new construction was about to begin. Later, while serving us lunch, he reported that there was so much old furniture, bric-a-brac, and discarded junk in the attic that it was impassable. He explained that since there was no flooring in the attic, this mountain of junk was placed across the exposed joists which supported the ceiling below. He wondered how the builders would get all that stuff through the small hatch that led out of the attic. One false step while moving the junk out, and a workman would come crashing through the plaster ceiling, Raimond predicted portentously.
That afternoon, I noticed an electrician’s ladder leading up into the attic hatch. Since the workman was not around, and since Mother was away playing golf, I decided it was an ideal time to conduct an exploration of my own. Cautiously, tentatively, I climbed the wobbly ladder, determined to discover what this “impassable junk” was all about. The rungs were spaced far apart, and each step up was a huge stretch for an undersized seven-year-old. I was acutely aware that each one represented a successively greater danger as the floor below me receded. The fear of falling, the intoxication of height, and the thrill of adventure were a heady brew. When I finally reached enough altitude to put my head inside the attic, I found it was too dark to see anything.
As I stood resting after my perilous climb and wondering what I should do next, my vision became acclimated to the low level of light; eventually, it proved not only adequate but surprisingly abundant. Light from outdoors suffused through a myriad of horizontal slits between the ill-fitting roof tiles. The steep-pitched roof was antique, and the hand-made tiles resting on the widely spaced lath that spanned the large rafters, didn’t fit together neatly and snugly.
A tabletop missing its four legs had been placed beside the hatch opening as a landing platform. I climbed a few more rungs of the ladder, stepped cautiously onto the tabletop, which seemed sturdy enough, and surveyed the vast, unexplored territory that surrounded me.
There were mountains of stuff, mostly old broken-down furniture: headboards, chairs, small tables, outdoor wicker furniture, as well as chamber pots and slop buckets, wooden boxes full of old kitchen utensils, stained mattresses, some saddles and other horsy stuff, such as riding boots, britches, and riding crops. The list went on: broken fishing rods, tennis rackets with strings missing, canoe paddles, battered oars, moth-eaten carpet rolls, and mounds of what might have been curtains, blankets, bedding and piles of old clothes. These things extended in all directions, sometimes piled, sometimes carelessly thrown one on top of another. It looked as if a string of owners had successively dumped all their unwanted or worn-out belongings up here, and as if nothing had ever been retrieved.
Dust-laden cobwebs draped everything like a single large drop cloth. The dust was not the usual pale gray, fluffy house dust but a fine, gritty powder, dark gray, almost black. When Raimond had first told us of his foray into the attic, he had mentioned the excessive amount of gritty dust, explaining that it was an accumulation of the local topsoil which streamed through the slits between the tiles when the wind blew.
There was one direction in which the piled-up junk hinted at an ancient track through this overgrown jungle, so I sallied forth that way. By lifting and moving some of the lighter objects as I advanced, I was able to open up and leave behind me the trace of a clear track. I pushed on, taking care to place my feet on the joists and making sure that all the things I relocated rested on and spanned two joists.
At some point in my journey, I came across a pith helmet that I thought might look well on me, completing the picture I had of myself as an intrepid explorer. It had been discarded topside down and, when I turned it over while putting it on my head, a cascade of black dust and dirt fell over my face, hair, and clothing. Undaunted, I forged on fearlessly.
When I reached the outermost end of the attic and was about to embark upon my return journey, something caught my eye. It was a heavy cast-iron box about three feet wide and two feet high. Several small cast-iron doors set in the side that faced me had swivel latches on them and looked like the oven doors on Françoise’s old cooking stove in Ville-d’Avray. If this were a stove, it had to be a tiny one since it was only two feet high.
With growing curiosity, I removed a mound of curtains from the top of the iron box, revealing two sets of cast-iron stove rings. The top surface also had a sooty hole near the back edge, suggesting a place where a stovepipe had been attached. Everything about this play stove was authentic but on a miniature scale.
I tried to lift the stove for a better look and, while struggling in this futile effort, I inadvertently stepped off the joists and onto the lath and plaster with both feet. I heard a loud cracking sound and felt the plaster surface give way under my feet. To my surprise, I only dropped a couple of inches before my abrupt descent came to a halt. The plaster ceiling was holding me, as if deliberating whether to let me go on through. I remained motionless, not daring to move, lest I unleash the disaster Raimond had predicted.
Fearing that even the quick movement of my eyes would trigger my swift descent into the quicksand, I turned my gaze slowly downward. There, I could barely discern some light shining through several cracks surrounding my feet.
Turning my gaze to the stove, I decided it seemed steady enough, sitting as it did across two joists. If I hung on to it, I reasoned, I wouldn’t go on through the plaster, and the stove would save my life. Gingerly, I moved my hands to a place on the stovetop where I found purchase. Then, I cautiously shifted my upper body weight onto the stove and eventually felt it was safe to move my feet back onto the joists. The plaster seemed to rise as I lifted my feet from it, and the cracks vanished.
At the moment of my misstep, I had been too alarmed to notice that the loud cracking noise of the plaster had disturbed the sleep of several bats, which were now screeching and flying around me in a state of alarm. Terrified by the wildly darting bats and with my heart thumping so loudly that I could hear it, I retreated across the joists as fast as I could.
But when I reached the attic opening, my only exit from this hellhole, I discovered to my horror that the ladder was gone! I called out for help; no one answered. I listened for footsteps; the house was utterly silent.
The bats had stopped their screeching, but still fluttered silently around me. One bat looked as if it were trying to attack me, repeatedly flying straight towards me and, only at the last moment, veering away. The creature may, like me, have been trying to leave the attic through the open hatch. Whatever its intentions, I found its constant swooping towards me unnerving.
I knelt down on the tab
letop landing, leaned over and lowered my head through the hatch, hoping my calling would carry farther from this vantage point. “Aux secours . . . Aux Secours!” (“Help . . . Help!”) I called and yelled, ever louder and more desperately.
Long minutes passed, and then at last I heard footsteps echoing through the silent house. To my immense relief, Raimond appeared. He chuckled good-naturedly when he saw my predicament. The electrician had taken his ladder with him when he left for the day, Raimond told me, and there was no other ladder in the house.
He rubbed his chin and pondered the situation for a minute. Then he said, “Wait!” and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. When he returned, he was dragging a heavy butcher table across the tiled floor and, on a second trip, he was carrying a chair which he used as a step to climb onto the table.
I passed my legs over the rim of the hatch as instructed by Raimond. He reached up and, wrapping his arms around my upper legs, eased me down. Once we were both back on terra firma, Raimond observed that I looked like a coal merchant after a long day’s work and advised me to take a bath before Mother returned from her golfing. “And when you’re done, I’d better scrub the tub right away and destroy the evidence,” he added wryly. I implored him not to tell Mother about my misadventure, and Raimond promised me that he wouldn’t.
As soon as Raimond went back to his chores in the kitchen, I conducted a careful survey of all the ceiling areas downstairs and, to my great relief, could see no cracks anywhere. I decided to remain silent about my mishap.
Raimond was curious about what I had found during my exploration. After extracting a promise from him that he would not tell Mother that I was the one who had found it, I told him about the miniature stove and how anxious I was to play with it. Raimond was as intrigued by the stove as I was and proposed a solution. “I’ll just say that the electrician asked me to go up there to pull on a wire he was installing, and that I discovered this remarkable little stove and decided it would make a beautiful toy for you and Brenda.”
The next day, with the help of the electrician, Raimond lowered the stove down from the attic, along with a complete battery of miniature cooking utensils which he had found in a box not far from the stove. He soon had all these items clean and ready for play, leaving Brenda and me in a state of utter delight that lasted for days. I vastly augmented my chef’s repertoire of dishes that could be prepared by using a variety of garden weeds, soil and pebbles to represent an assortment of exotic foods. Brenda’s dolls and teddy bear seemed to have an insatiable appetite as they devoured these dishes with relish all day long.
This game eventually lost its luster, and it gradually dawned on me that we should light an actual fire in the stove and cook real food. Once again, Raimond was ready and waiting. He had found the original piece of needed stovepipe, uncovered when the workmen systematically emptied the attic, and had put it aside for just this purpose. He set up the stove in the lean-to woodshed at the back of the house where, out of the wind, we could light it with its stovepipe poking out of the open side of the shed.
It took a long time for the chimney pipe to grow hot and to draw well, but eventually, with a lot of help from Raimond, we had a good fire going in the stove. That done, I set about preparing some pommes poêlées (pan-fried sliced potatoes) in the miniature frying pan, and after that, some carottes Vichy. At one point, when I added the required sugar to the carottes, the contents of the pan caught fire. Raimond gently trickled cold water into the pan from a glass he had at the ready. This cooled the burning oil enough to subdue the flames without spoiling my deliciously caramelized carrots.
Next, Françoise brought out a tiny piece of steak, which I browned nicely on both sides and served rare, the way Brenda and I liked it. With the cooking successfully completed, Brenda and I sat down at a play table and ate what we both considered the best meal we had ever eaten. With the help of Raimond, we had everything cleaned up before Mother’s return from an afternoon of golf. At this point, Raimond had second thoughts about our afternoon’s activities and swore us to secrecy, fearing that the thought of our playing around a lighted stove might upset Mother.
On July 14th, the occasion of France’s national holiday, (Bastille Day), Raimond and Françoise had the afternoon off. He had been dying to try fishing on a lake at the far end of the communal pasture, and left the house with his fishing tackle as soon as the lunch dishes were done. Since Françoise felt at loose ends, she offered to take Brenda and me to a carnival being held in Condette. We’d heard that this village fair consisted of a small merry-go-round and some game stalls set up in one of the local pastures by traveling Gypsies.
It was mid-afternoon by the time Françoise, Brenda and I reached the fairgrounds. We were amazed to see the large crowd that had already gathered. All of Condette’s farmers—as well as the populations of several neighboring villages—seemed to be in attendance. The scene was a lively one; bright orange canvas awnings shaded the stalls, an ornate merry-go-round turned to the sound of a calliope, and a bandstand was massively decorated with French flags. Le tricolor (France’s national flag) was everywhere, arranged in clusters like flower bouquets and attached to any location remotely suitable for display such as phone poles, fence posts and awning supports.
Despite the hot summer day and the animation of the occasion, most men and women were wearing their Sunday best: the men in dark suits and the older women in black skirts, black shawls and fancy, wide-brimmed black hats. But the younger men were in freshly laundered workaday clothes consisting of pale blue denim trousers and tunics. Young women and girls wore skirts almost to their ankles, embroidered peasant blouses, and colorful kerchiefs on their heads.
Françoise, in her finest (entirely black) Sunday attire, could have passed for a farmer’s wife. Brenda and I stood out as estivants (summer vacationers) in our bright orange terry cloth shorts and shirts purchased at a fashionable Paris boutique.
After a few rides on the merry-go-round, I asked Françoise to let me try my luck at one of the games of chance. Mother had given Françoise fifty francs for such ventures. After carefully surveying all the stalls, most of which involved activities I didn’t understand, I opted for the one that offered what, to me, were the most attractive prizes. I was convinced that I would win whatever contest I entered.
The stall I chose was at the far end of the fair, well away from the noisy merry-go-round and the bandstand. There, a hand-lettered sign at the entrance of an unused grassy meadow proclaimed the area to be a Hippodrome pour Lapins (Racecourse for Rabbits). A Gypsy stood at a nearby stall taking bets on competing rabbits, as well as bets on the fates of some forty carrots neatly spaced out on the grass so as to form a large circle, towards which the rabbits would presumably race.
Inside the Gypsy’s stall, six large, docile-looking rabbits lounged lazily in separate hutches. Numerous wire mesh cages close to the rabbit hutches contained an assortment of small barnyard creatures. A sign above the cages proclaimed that these animals were the prizes to be won. Indeed, this is what had attracted me to this contest. I had my heart set on winning one of those creatures.
Meanwhile, the Gypsy was touting the event through a homemade, cardboard megaphone, “Allez! Tout le monde! Je vous invite à voir la Grande Course aux Lapins! Il faut voir l’événement le plus palpitant de la foire—la Grande Course aux Lapins!” (“Come one! Come all! I invite you to see the Great Rabbit Race! You must see the most thrilling event at the fair—the Great Rabbit Race!”).
The Gypsy stood beside a chalkboard with numbers on it. Each of the numbers on the board corresponded to one of the numbered carrots. I could bet five francs on one of these numbers, and if my carrot were the one chosen by the winning rabbit, I would win fifty francs and my choice of one of the small farm animals in the cages.
The contest had a double punch—at least for the Gypsy—because bettors could also bet on the rabbits. Unlike racehorses, howev
er, the rabbits wore no racing colors. Their names easily identified them since they were named for their distinctive characteristics, such as fur color or other distinguishing features. For bets on the rabbits, a second chalkboard listed the six rabbits by name, and beneath each one were written the names of people who had placed five-franc bets on that rabbit.
Françoise explained to me that the people listed under the winning rabbit would divide the entire amount of money bet on all of the rabbits, but only after the gypsy had taken half of that money for himself.
The rabbit bets confused me, especially that business of the Gypsy taking half the money—that sounded fishy to me—so I decided to bet my money on one of the carrots. Besides, my goal was to win one of the small animals, and I could only do that by betting on a carrot.
I placed my five-franc bet on carrot number seven. The Gypsy wrote “Alain” beside the number seven on the chalkboard. I walked over to the carrot marked seven and decided that it looked like a plump and tempting carrot and that I had made a sound choice. At my urging and after a careful scrutiny of the carrots, Brenda and Françoise also placed bets, Brenda on carrot 22 and Françoise on carrot 13.
The race wasn’t until five o’clock and, in the meantime, taking numerous rides on the merry-go-round did little to calm my anxious excitement. Brenda, who rode the merry-go-round with me, seemed quite ho-hum about the race but was perhaps too young to appreciate the high stakes involved.
By half past four, a large crowd had gathered around the rabbit hippodrome, and all the numbered carrots were spoken for. The Gypsy was anxious to have more bets placed on the individual rabbits, so he touted each one by name as he held it up by its ears. He reached into the cage, grabbed the ears of a gray one and, holding it high for all to see, chanted, “Et alors! Voilà Grisette, la plus vive, la plus rapace. Elle est superbe, n’est ce pas?” (“And now! This is Grisette, the liveliest, the most rapacious. She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”) An assistant posted the last minute bettors on the board as the spectators called out their names, and the five-franc pieces found their way into the Gypsy’s pocket.