On Rue Tatin

by Susan Herrmann Loomis

  Our stairways are wood except the very last step, which is made of local white stone. I love walking barefoot down the cool wood stairs, hitting the cold stone stair, then putting my foot on the brushed concrete floor, which is warmed from underneath by coils of hot water. The contrast feels luxurious.

  We all breakfast together in the dining room. If it’s very cold, either Michael or I build a fire and its flames flicker on the beamed walls as though we were eating by candlelight. Michael buys a fresh baguette every morning and we eat it slathered with Breton butter that is crunchy with sea salt, and either fresh lavender honey or homemade jelly or jam. Many mornings Michael makes hot cereal with a wonderful blend of grains called Mixepi, and we usually have a bowl of café crème or tea, and Joe has Banania, a French powdered drink made of chocolate and bananas that is mixed with hot milk. We linger over breakfast until finally it is time for Joe to put on his socks and shoes—we all walk barefoot on our heated floor—and by 8:15 we are usually out the door.

  Light is just beginning to brush the winter sky as we walk through the center of town, past Alà Page, the bookstore where the owner, Monsieur Fontaine, and his staff can aways recommend the right book. Down the rue piétonne, or pedestrian street, past Le Petit Restaurant, a tiny affair where I read the menu posted outside every day to see if there are any changes. Parents and children are approaching the school from all directions either by car or on foot. The traffic is terrifying as cars swing in and park this way and that, disgorging their charges. I’m always amazed that everyone makes it through the morning alive.

  In the springtime after I’ve dropped off Joe I like to walk home through the Place des Halles, the square in the center of the commercial district just down from Monsieur Richard the butcher, for it is planted with ornamental cherry trees that turn it into a fluffy bower. My favorite pharmacy on the square is just opening and if I need anything I go in then, before it becomes crowded with customers.

  Pharmacies in France do a land-office business, as French doctors have a penchant for prescribing large quantities of medicines for the slightest ailment. Our family doctor, a homeopath, is in Paris so we visit him just twice a year for checkups. The rest of the year I call him for advice and treatments, which are always reasonable. For the little incidents of daily life we consult a local doctor who is both a homeopath and a conventional medical doctor, and when Joe is sick in the middle of the night we rely on the doctor on call who comes to the house.

  I take any prescription into the pharmacy to discuss it with the pharmacist, whom I’ve come to know quite well since I see her around town and at school where she drops off and picks up her children. She and her staff are exceptionally warm and friendly and they smile when they see me come in with a prescription, knowing I’ll choose not to take most of what is written on it, and often agreeing with me. Sometimes I arrive when they are having coffee and they never fail to offer me a cup.

  If I have time in the mornings I love to lécher la vitrine, which literally means to “lick the window,” or window-shop, at the parfumerie, or perfume shop, a boutique with slick, colorful wares. From the minute its doors open it is busy as customers buy their soaps, perfumes, the multiple skin treatments that help French skin look so lovely.

  Applying a unique scent is an innate French skill, shared by men and women. I never fail to be fascinated when, for instance, a plasterer friend comes to help Michael work on the house and I catch a whiff of his perfume as we exchange our obligatory four kisses—two on each cheek. Parents as they walk their children to school leave a sweet scent behind them, as do baby-sitters and truck drivers, café owners, and the mayor.

  Next to the parfumerie is a graineterie, a throwback to another era. Half of the quaint old store is filled with animal cages where hamsters and guinea pigs (and sometimes mice) scratch and snuffle or birds chirp, and aquariums where languid fish swim to and fro. The other half is filled with beautiful packages of flower and vegetable seeds, which hang from Peg-Boards. I go in each spring to buy seeds and generally emerge with enough to fill a small farm, my eyes bigger than our garden. Depending on the season, the graineterie has tiny lettuce plants outside, or cabbages, or spinach, peppers, or tomatoes alongside flower bulbs and flowering plants, garden tools, pet accessories. We don’t have a dog, but if we did we would probably go to the graineterie to buy its collar, rawhide or plastic bones, leash, or a tiny plaid coat with four little sleeves for its limbs. Dogs are royalty in France and nothing, but nothing, is too good for them. In fact, Louviers has two grooming salons for dogs and a third in the planning stages, and they administer everything from nail clippings to haircuts.

  On Wednesdays when school is out and our regular bakery, Aux Délices de Louviers, is closed, we go to the bakery kitty-corner from the graineterie and buy their pain passion, a heavy, sturdy crisp-crusted baguette that costs a fortune, for it is sold by weight, but which we love. The bakery is so busy it has lines of hungry people outside in the mornings and just before mealtimes as people buy their breads, quiches, sandwiches, tarts, and flaky pastries. Some Wednesdays we go to yet another bakery whose baguette is also delicious, behind the church on the rue du Quai. The pastries there are tempting and occasionally I buy chouquettes, tiny cream puffs with sugar crystals embedded in them, which are a national favorite for a four o’clock goûter, or snack. When Joe comes with me he chooses a beignet filled with raspberry jelly; a pépite, or croissant dough filled with custard and tiny chocolate chips; or a patte d’ours, a puff pastry bear claw filled with apples tossed in butter.

  When I need organic food, or grains, or naturally scented beauty products, I go across the main square, past the convent of the Sisters of Providence right behind our house, and through the Place des Pompiers (formally known as the Place de la République but since the fire station is there, too, everyone calls it Fireman’s Place) to the Maison des Simples, an herboristerie, or herb store.

  I love opening the old wood and glass door there for it causes a tiny bell to tinkle into the hushed atmosphere, which smells like thyme, lavender, and rosemary. Perhaps it’s the effect of the intense herbal aroma in the shop, but everyone inside the Maison des Simples is exceptionally calm.

  La Maison des Simples, which means the House of Healing Herbs, isn’t easy to describe. It has been at this site for several generations and is a combination of a health food store, a church, a doctor’s office, and a place to visit with friends. Many people come in with ailments that they describe to the owner Babette Dewaele or her colleague Marie Thuliez, both trained herbalists, who go right to the old, deep wooden drawers that line an entire wall and begin selecting the dried herbs within. They mix these in a large bowl, which sits on an old-fashioned brass scale, then carefully tip them into plain brown paper sacks. As they explain how to use them to make a tea or a tincture, they write the methodology and dosage on the sack and the client walks away happy and relieved. Nearly half the store is devoted to organically produced food, from baby cereal to fresh vegetables to smoked tofu, and another corner offers organic beauty products with luscious aromas.

  When I go to the Maison des Simples I love talking with Babette, who is passionate about food. She and her husband, Jean-Lou, are both remarkable cooks. They are primarily vegetarians, and their delicate and refined food gives vegetarianism a good name. I am particularly enamored with Jean-Lou’s vegetable nems (spring rolls) and Babette’s savory galettes and citrus marmalade.

  Babette and Marie are both friendly, and their warmth as well as their expertise in healing herbs encourages confidences. I often hear customers confiding in them about health and family troubles and I am constantly amazed at the patience with which both women listen. I once asked Babette if it didn’t drive her crazy that so many people poured out their physical and emotional troubles to her. She looked at me and shrugged lightly. “Sometimes it is hard to listen to people’s troubles, but it’s not just the herbs that heal. People often just need to talk.” It doesn’t matter what the ailment is
, whether a diaper rash or a sore throat, Babette or Marie can offer a treatment or advice.

  Monsieur and Mme Fichot at the café across from our house run a thriving, smoke- and coffee-fueled business. A well-dressed and prosperous-looking couple, they spend their days behind the counter of their neo-classic bar pulling café exprès or draughts of beer, making deliciously rich hot chocolate, and selling stamps, candies, and pack after pack of cigarettes. Cars are constantly shrieking to an illegal halt in front as driver or passenger jumps out, runs in, and emerges with a pack of Gauloises or Camels. I often see children run in and come out with cigarettes for their parents, and whenever I go in I am immediately surrounded by a warm swirl of choking smoke. The clientele is varied: habitués who languidly play pool at one end of the café, businesspeople who stop in for a quick exprès, groups of teenagers who nurse Oranginas or cafés crèmes.

  I go over there when we run out of coffee and are desperate for a cup, or to buy the occasional stamp. We have a friendly relationship with the Fichots and Madame is forever asking me for recipes or giving me one of hers. Her background is Portuguese, which is noticeable in her jet black hair, beautiful white skin, and stately proportions, and in her food, which is fresh, lively, and unusual. We often talk with each other through the gate as she passes our house on her way to run errands or take a breath of fresh air. She doesn’t like the smoke-filled atmosphere of the bar but shrugs and says if she wants customers she has to let them smoke.

  Across the street and next to the florist is a boutique so tiny it’s easy to miss except for the tumble of baskets on the sidewalk that almost obscures the front door. To walk up its two steps and inside the door is to step into a wonderland of cadeaux, everything from fine and fragile porcelain de Rouen with its lacy gold and deep blue designs, to stuffed goslings and doll house miniatures. The owner, Brigitte Tois, a cheerful, pretty woman of about fifty who grew up in the store and has literally worked there all her life, has become a good friend. She is always outside in the morning arranging baskets on the sidewalk and when I walk by she carefully removes her glasses and we exchange bisous then discuss the weather, the neighborhood, what she will cook for herself and her husband, Alain Pitette, that day.

  The shop is called Laure Boutique and it is crammed from floor to ceiling with merchandise. I always find something to buy when I go there—I’ve purchased glass-topped gilt boxes for graduation gifts, plaster Easter bunnies, chickens and eggs for baskets, Christmas decorations, postcards, gorgeous cut-glass vases from Czechoslovakia, New Year’s crackers from Britain, and first-Communion cards. Brigitte has literally everything, and finding it in the shop is never too much trouble. Sometimes she has to pull out a ladder and climb halfway up to the very high ceiling to pull down a tiny little box, or make her way back into her firetrap of a storeroom where she will emerge with the perfect basket, the ideal apron, a wonderfully ridiculous child’s toy. Brigitte is the unofficial tourist bureau for Louviers and dispenses free maps of the city as well as plenty of advice on where to go for a picnic, get your hair trimmed, buy a box of matches or a phone card. Once I was looking for an American flag and after twenty minutes of searching she pulled out an old one from a drawer underneath the cash register. “I remembered I had this somewhere,” she said as she handed it to me. It was yellowed and delicate with age. When I asked the price she said, “No, I don’t want any money. I must have been saving it for you.”

  Because our house is located in the center of town we often have unexpected visitors, friends who are doing their shopping and have a few moments to spare or want to check on Michael’s progress with the house. I hear them crunch over the gravel as they cross the courtyard to knock on the wooden front door. Michael, who is usually downstairs working, answers the door and if I have time I run down to see who it is and say hello. If it’s a relaxed day we usually take time for a coffee, sitting outside if the weather is fine, or standing around the kitchen if it isn’t. In this way we keep in touch with friends and get to know our neighbors or the local merchants.

  We have a varied and eclectic group of friends and acquaintances. Patrick, our neighbor, works for the French phone company and he walks by every day with his tiny dog, Lola, usually on his way to buy cigarettes at the café or a chop at the butcher’s. If we’re outside he says hello and stays to have a glass of wine. Nadine, who is married to our friend Christian, an architect, and is a very close friend, comes by after the market on Saturday, usually with one or the other of her four gorgeous and now grown children. Babette, the small, rail-thin, and very pretty owner of the herboristerie in Louviers, comes over on her way from the bank and usually stays long enough for a cup of coffee and a conversation about recipes.

  Annie Grodent, a small blonde fireball of energy, and Joe’s very first teacher at the maternelle, flies in once in a while for a quick visit, and Soeur Françoise, the keeper of the keys of the church who lives in the convent down the street from us, always greets us through the fence and our rosemary hedge. It took her years to accept an invitation to come into the courtyard, but we finally got her there, and once she even came for Joseph’s birthday.

  Joseph-Claude Miquel, whose family was one of the wealthiest in Louviers before World War II and the city’s textile industry crash, divides his time between painting and giving tours of the church and the town, wearing a deep blue cape and hat in winter, and a cream-colored silk suit in summer. He makes a very distinguished figure as he walks through town, stopping to greet absolutely everyone with a joke or a racy comment, and he invariably opens the door to our courtyard and leans in to wish us well. Old Monsieur Bruhot, who lives in the house adjacent to ours, was born on rue Tatin in 1913, and his bright blue eyes dance when he talks about Louviers and its past, or the five years he spent in a Russian prisoner of war camp during the war (which was a painful experience for him, rife with bravery and bad food, and one he loves to talk about). The food in the camp turned him off onions permanently—amongst other things—and whenever I cook them he lets me know later how much he hates their aroma.

  Our cast of characters also includes Lena, a friend from Sweden who has very American—and familiar—attitudes about raising children, and her husband, Bruno, a professional chef; Martine, her brother Jean-Pierre, and her husband, Patrick, who own a farm and just three years ago turned one of its outbuildings into an instantly successful restaurant serving delicious food. Edith’s father, Michel, or her Aunt Miche stop by occasionally to check on things as well.

  Usually we see these people individually, when they stop by or come for dinner, or when we are invited to their homes. But once or twice a year we assemble everyone for a fête.

  The first fête we had included Bernard—who has always been involved in local politics and was the senator from our district for many years—and Edith, Christian and Nadine, a handful of teachers (who seem to come in twos since they meet and marry while still in teacher’s school), and a prison guard and his lovely, fun wife. We had a great time, all of us, and Edith called me the following day to thank me.

  “You know, normally you would never invite a politician and schoolteachers to the same dinner,” she said. I was dumbfounded.

  “Why not?” I asked. She explained that politicians, particularly centrists like Bernard, and schoolteachers, who are generally left of the left, don’t usually mix.

  “But you don’t have to worry,” she said. “Bernard had a great time and was surprised at how much he liked everyone.”

  When I spoke with one of the teacher friends later he admitted that he’d been uncomfortable at first—not so much just to be with Bernard, but to be with people whom he considered bourgeois—but that he’d also been pleasantly surprised. I was shocked, but now that we’ve lived here for so long and I understand politics a bit better, I wouldn’t think of repeating the experience!

  We also see a lot of people we know while we work in the garden on Saturday afternoons and Sundays or early summer evenings. We’re usually all out there, w
ith Joe jumping on the wooden bridge Michael built him, which has as much play in it as a trampoline, climbing the small apple tree, bouncing his basketball on the postage stamp–size brick entryway. When we first moved in people often stopped to comment on the garden, the flower boxes, the minor changes in the exterior of the house. It was particularly the older generation who noticed, and they would thank us for undertaking the improvements.

  As soon as the weather is fine we eat all of our meals out front, and as people walk by and spy us through the fence and the hedge they invariably wave and say “Bon appétit!” whether or not we know them. Juliano, our Italian hairdresser from down the street, booms out a “Ciao!” as he walks by. Line, who with her husband, Gilles, owns the real estate agency across the street, waves a cheerful hello and often stops in to talk. We see pharmacists, schoolteachers, the mayor, and city council members as they walk by on their way to this meeting or that, or to and from the épicerie or bakery. We love the rhythms of the city, the calm of Mondays when shops are mostly closed, the activity of Sunday morning when the bells ring for 11 A.M. mass and people stream in and out of the church, the bustle of the rest of the week as people do their shopping and run their errands.

  In many ways Louviers is a dream town for me. Its vibrant streets are lined with clothing boutiques, hardware stores, food shops, pet stores, jewelry shops, florists, a perfume boutique, a handful of makeup/day spa shops, and more coiffeurs than I’ve ever seen in one place. As a neighbor—whose husband is a coiffeur—told me, the ideal number of coiffeurs is one per thousand inhabitants. Louviers excels with at least twenty-five coiffeurs, and they all seem busy all the time.