At Home in France

by Ann Barry

  In May of 1988, there was added “business” to attend to. I had invited my cousin Marilyn (Munsterman, on my mother’s side) and her husband, Charles Berberich, to visit the house. They live in Denver and are real Francophiles, Charles especially, who speaks fluent French and whose aunt and uncle lived in France for years. I wanted the house to look its best. I washed the windows, brought curtains and bedspread to the blanchisserie, replaced a missing coffee cup. Then I decided to purchase some heavy-duty oilcloth to cover two wine racks in the cave.

  I drove into the kitchen-and-household-supply store in St-Céré, an expansive two-story affair carrying everything from hibachis to double boilers. I approached the female cashier on the first level. I had unfortunately neglected to arm myself with the word for oilcloth, which was not part of my standard vocabulary. I suspected that huile, the word for oil, would be vastly misleading, so I put together a broad description of what I was seeking: thick, shiny, plastic-coated paper. Something like that. She understood instantly. That would be on the second floor. There I approached the service counter and repeated my request to Madame. She, too, understood immediately what I was after. She pointed to the rear of the floor. “Choisissez votre dessin,” she instructed me cheerily. At the rear of the shop, sure enough, there was an entire rack of more than a dozen oilcloths, one above the other, each slightly unrolled to display the various patterns. I mulled over the selection and eventually settled on one that I felt would show the least soiling. I returned to the service desk.

  “J’ai choisi le dessin,” I announced.

  “Bon,” she said. “Portez-le ici, s’il vous plaît.”

  This was rather puzzling, but I took her at her word—to bring the roll—and returned to the rack. The rolls, perhaps four feet long, were anchored one on top of the other with steel rods that were attached to heavy metal hooks at each end. I grasped the one I’d chosen and hoisted it off the rack, releasing it from the mean-looking hooks. It was tremendously heavy. I had to let one end drop to the floor and dragged the fat monster, the metal rod whining, under my arm toward the service counter. As I approached it, stooped and limping with my burden, I sensed a sudden stillness in the room. A pair of customers in one aisle, a small group around the service desk, and Madame herself were all standing motionless, their eyes trained on me. They looked as if they were holding still for me to take a photograph of them. Something was terribly wrong. Madame rushed to assist me for the final lap.

  “Oh, madame,” she said, oddly mournful. Then she explained. She thought I’d wanted shelving paper. A thousand apologies. Of course, I’d used the word papier, which had misled everyone.

  Mortification. And then, deepening my humiliation, she said, with a well of pity, “Pauvre madame.” It was one of those moments when you come smack up against your foreignness. When I got home, I looked up the word for oilcloth: toile cirée. It is now firmly fixed in memory.

  After that, I focused on the floor in the main room. It had been stained a deep mahogany (the old-world English look) and was sorely scuffed. What an improvement it would be to have it stripped and varnished in a soft, lighter finish (the Early American natural look). It would brighten and freshen up the whole room.

  To accomplish this job required a further extension of my vocabulary. I prepared myself this time with a new batch of words: enlever (strip off), vernis (varnish), and the like. At the paint store in St-Céré, the woman directed me to a lumberyard on the edge of town.

  “Bien sûr.” Monsieur nodded when I arrived and had stated my needs. “Vous voudrez poncer le plancher.” Poncer le plancher. The words bounced in my head—it sounded like a circus act. He proposed to send a man to the house to give me an estimate. The best way to give directions to my house, I have learned, is to draw a little map: the bridge over the Dordogne, the right turn to Carennac, a left at the fork, the stone wall at the very top of the winding road, the dirt road and the first crossroad, the left turn and the very steep descent to the house. To emphasize the steepness, I always crook an arm at a sixty-degree angle. The appointment with a Monsieur Barrié was set for the following morning.

  After breakfast, I sat on the patio awaiting his arrival. Soon I heard a car at the intersection and the crunch of gravel as it descended. Monsieur Barrié stepped out of his car with a young man whom he introduced as his son. Monsieur had curly reddish hair and a pale complexion, unusual coloring for this part of France. This was echoed in his son, a painfully thin young man who languidly chain-smoked.

  Inside the house, Monsieur admired, pro forma, the view from the windows, and then proceeded to take measurements. He walked mincingly, heel to toe, heel to toe—as the average person would in trying to get a rough estimate of feet—the length and breadth of the room. This struck me as a rather casual method—especially since I would be charged according to this measurement. With a flourish, he made calculations on a notepad and presented me with a figure. The entire job required stripping the floor of the old varnish, applying two new coats, and polishing; this would take two days. I had not expected to spend that much money, but by now my excitement about the project overcame any second thoughts.

  Also, this would fit in perfectly with a plan I’d made for a brief canoeing expedition on the Dordogne. (I make it a rule to steal away for at least two or three days of real vacation on each trip.) The job could all be accomplished, painlessly, while I was away.

  Monsieur said he would prepare a bill and arrive the next day at nine A.M. We said our farewells.

  The road going past my house down to the valley, as I always emphasize in directions, is treacherously steep; in a shift car, you need to remain in first gear. I forewarn anyone who’s not been there. Upon their departure, I advise them—as I now did Monsieur Barrié—to continue downhill, past the Salgues’ farm, and circle back to the main road, rather than attempt the impossible uphill return. But no sooner had I closed the door than I heard the squeal of spinning wheels and the sputter of flying gravel. For some reason—sheer obstinateness? a streak of machismo?—he had reversed the car and attempted to head up the hill. I rushed out to the alarming sight of Monsieur Barrié’s car tilted crazily at the side of the road. It had skidded backward and now teetered at the edge of a dropoff to the valley below. He was standing by the car, with a ghostly pallor, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. His son remained seated in the passenger seat, his head propped against the headrest, smoking unconcernedly.

  “Attendez!” I shouted. “Je vais chez Monsieur Hironde!” Hironde, I reasoned, who had so capably delivered wood to my house, going down and back up the road with his tractor, could surely help.

  I walked/ran to the Hirondes’ and found Raymond in his yard. Hyperventilating, I attempted to explain the situation: my left hand, the road, at an upward angle; my right hand, the car, sliding down, down, down. He responded with his usual aplomb and said he would arrive tout de suite.

  Monsieur Barrié was staked out beside the car as if willing it to hold fast. At the arrival of Hironde and the tractor, he became visibly agitated, perhaps at the sight of the giant, rumbling vehicle, perhaps in response to Raymond’s amazing calm. Hasty introductions made, Hironde pulled the tractor into the patch of lawn by the house, backed up, and turned the tractor in the uphill direction. (Tractors, of course, have no trouble with the ascent—I’d seen my neighbor Salgue negotiate it daily.) He then hitched a long, thick cable to the front fender of Barrié’s car and instructed Barrié to return to the driver’s seat. (The son, enveloped in a smoke cloud of disinterest, had never left the car.)

  I retreated to the patio as the tractor began its sure, grumbling, turtlelike ascent. The car was plucked gently from the edge of the embankment. I slipped into the house and peeked out from behind the curtain, to save Monsieur Barrié my witnessing his humiliation. From the door, where the road is seen at its steepest, I watched as the tractor disappeared uphill behind the trees, with Barrié’s car, cigarette smoke issuing from the window, inching along at the end of its tet
her.

  Monsieur Barrié and his son arrived on schedule the following morning, with no mention of the previous day’s escapade. I bade him farewell and set off for the canoeing expedition.

  In New York, I had made arrangements for this short venture with the Safaraid company, who operate some six hundred boats in canoeing territory. After checking in at the seventeenth-century Château de la Treyne, in Pensac, where I had made reservations for the night, I stopped for an al fresco lunch at a totally deserted restaurant in Meyronne. I met my guide, Jean-Noël Dufour, a lithe young man with a shock of reddish hair and mustache, at his house in the nearby tiny village of St-Sozy. Right away he asked me to call him by his first name and proudly divulged that the house, which had been his family’s second residence when they lived in Paris, was his inheritance. He preferred the country life.

  Since there had been a surplus of rain in the spring, the river was high. Thus, rubber boots and a wet suit were essential. He pointed to a back room where I could slip into them. I wiggled in a sort of bizarre dance into the wet suit, a hideously viselike outfit; it was like being snapped up in a giant rubber band. I pulled on the boots, but then decided that they were on the wrong feet. I switched them and had the same sensation. I concluded that it didn’t matter. Following Jean-Noël to the car, I rocked sideways with the gait of a robot, though he seemed oblivious to my condition, as agile in his own wet suit as if it were a second skin. He loaded the canoe on the rack of the car and we headed for the river. Sitting in the car in my rubber straitjacket, I felt like a crash-test dummy. A hot crash-test dummy. My skin couldn’t breathe.

  When we reached the river, Jean-Noël parked the car and maneuvered the canoe to the water as I waddled after him. At the shoreline he handed me a bright yellow life jacket, which transformed me into a buxom robot. Usually I enjoy the paraphernalia of a sport—the shoes and clothes for running, for example—but this was all so odious. I gracelessly boarded the rocking boat. Jean-Noël pushed off from shore, assuring me that the water would be très tranquille. I thirstily gulped the cool breezes as the canoe was picked up by the current. Jean-Noël captained from the rear, dexterously manipulating a double-paddle oar. My canoeing experience was limited to long-ago days in the Missouri Ozarks, where I had gone to summer camps as a kid. From the front of the boat, I dipped in my single-paddle oar from time to time, to one side or the other, feeling ineffectual. This actually suited me just fine. I was completely content acquainting myself with the river from this fish-eye view. The landscape of high bluffs and lush greenery slipped by. I felt I’d become a part of the scene in one of those timeless Missouri river paintings by George Caleb Bingham.

  Only at one point did the river become less than tranquille. We ran into a sudden stretch of rapids and were swept pell-mell to shore. I sucked in my breath and clutched the sides of the canoe, in that split second grateful for the hideous wet suit. But Jean-Noël, unruffled, pushed us off again and we rejoined the quieter waters.

  After an hour of gliding along, he steered into shore at the île de la Borgne, a tiny deserted island with a carpet of wildflowers. He remarked that there are many such sauvage places in the country, but that there was nothing to fear. We hiked across the flat terrain for a view of Belcastel, a privately owned seventeenth-century château, perched like a hawk on the brink of a high overhanging cliff. Back on course, we continued on the tranquil four-mile trip to end up near Pensac and the château. More serious canoeists would have continued on to Souillac for a full-day trip, with a picnic along the way. But I had opted for this briefer excursion.

  Jean-Noël dropped me off beneath a little bridge by the château (one of the help would later drive me to pick up my car). I struggled out of my life jacket, wet suit, and boots. Free at last. The air circulating about my body was deliciously refreshing. I felt as light as a butterfly. Thanking him, I waved good-bye and climbed up the steep bank to the bridge.

  The view of the château was breathtaking. Though it seems precarious, on the very brink of a rocky precipice over the river, its solid base is actually strategically anchored. Its turrets and towers soar heavenward. I trudged up the hill and wandered about the garden before a light rain drove me inside. There I was effusively greeted by Madame Michèle Gombert-Devals, who owns and runs the château. Ah, she loved Carennac! She had friends there, whom I must meet. And how was my canoeing? I must tell her all about it. A pity, this dampening shower. Last November they’d been able to have dinner on the terrace. And why was my visit so brief? She so enjoyed company!

  I wandered through the stately interior: billiards room, Renaissance salon, and library, all furnished with tapestries and ponderous antiques. One could easily imagine the rooms peopled with richly attired guests, who would have arrived by carriage and boat, attended by plumed servants in the candlelit interior. It was a romantic picture. But wouldn’t travel have been tedious? How did they manage it, with all the trappings required then? Still, despite the ease with which I’d arrived, I was just as ready to be pampered.

  Before dinner, I had an aperitif in the salon, where a fire burned steadily. The giant wheels of wood would burn for days. Contentment, after a full, unusual day. I took my place in the dining room, which overlooked a small formal garden. The room, which was decorated in the same grand manner as the rest, had a rather gloomy atmosphere, though Madame Gombert-Devals stopped solicitously at my table to wish me bon appétit.

  It was one of the worst meals I’ve had in France. I had opted for the chef’s menu of the day, which I expected to show him off at his best. Instead, it was sadly overambitious; he would have done well to let the food speak for itself. Why ruin foie gras with a salad drowning in vinaigrette? Why mask the flavor of the gigot of lamb with a blanket of rich sauce, crowded on the plate with a mushy ratatouille? A respectable Cantal, a nice Cahors wine, and a decent apple tart could not erase the overall sense of a missed opportunity. This was at first perplexing, since I regarded Madame Gombert-Devals as a woman of taste. On second thought, I realized that she was the sort of woman who wouldn’t concern herself with haute cuisine. She was a people person. That was her focus, and her forte. (The chef was probably a dear friend whom she was encouraging in his delusions of, perhaps, the septième.)

  The following day was Easter Sunday. I drove to Souillac for the eleven o’clock Mass at the cathedral. In the States, as I said, I never attend Mass, since I renounced Catholicism years ago. Yet, in France, I go both to partake in a ritual of French life and to sharpen my French by listening to the sermons.

  The priest was standing with a plump altar boy to the right of the altar. Before the Mass began, a nun scurried up to the altar—slinking catlike, as if she wouldn’t be noticed—to straighten the altar boy’s cassock in an age-old motherly gesture. He blushed crimson. A group of musicians from Strasbourg were on hand for the holiday: the men on drums, horn, and trumpet, the women beautifully costumed with great ribbon hairpieces, black embroidered skirts, and lace-collared blouses. The music, however, was somewhat dispirited, and the women seemed to be there for decoration rather than to sing, as I’d anticipated.

  Sermons are always a challenge. Without an immediate context to hang on to, I’m often at sea. This one, delivered theatrically, was based on an allegory involving astronauts that I never completely grasped. It had something to do with our being astronauts in a quest for the heavens (God), the need for training (religion), the stumbling blocks (temptations), and so on. Or, in the dark sea of the language, that’s the message I came away with—greatly reduced, since the sermon went on for a good twenty minutes. During the Communion, accompanied by the repetitious music, I ducked out.

  At Martel, nearing home, I stopped for lunch at La Turenne. Tout le monde was packed into the restaurant for a long holiday gourmandizing. I had a perfect grilled trout and a half bottle of Muscadet, watching the festivities. But I didn’t dawdle. I was anxious to get home to see the floors.

  The room was transformed! It was light, airy, cooler. I
almost hated to walk on the floors, like eating just after you’ve had your teeth cleaned.

  Then I noticed a little visitor, witness to my delight. A tiny blue-and-yellow bird was flitting about the kitchen, its head cocked in curiosity at my sudden presence. Fearlessly, it hopped to the window ledge and, with a little scolding twitter—why did you have to come home?—flew off.

  Before preparing dinner, I stopped by the Hirondes in order to thank Monsieur for rescuing Monsieur Barrié. In thanks for my thanks, Simone gave me a jar of her luscious fat cèpes, which she had put up from the fall harvest. Seated at the dining-room table, Raymond jocularly reenacted the folly of the event—which called for an aperitif. At the end of the restaged drama, he shook his head. The man was a very bad driver, he pronounced. And trop nerveux.

  The house looked splendid for Marilyn and Charles’s arrival. They fell in love with Pech Farguet. They stayed at the Fénelon in Carennac for several nights at the tail end of my visit and the beginning of theirs. After I left, they moved to the house and stayed on for another couple of weeks of their vacation. It was “the sweetest corner in the world,” Marilyn wrote on a postcard.

  The following spring we planned our vacations to coincide for several days again, and after that they began to come in July for their summer holiday. They’ve grown to cherish Pech Farguet as much as I do. After one visit Marilyn wrote: “The stars, they tell a lot about the fun we had. The nights were so warm, and it stayed light so late. Perhaps we would drive to Gintrac or Carennac to stroll and watch the last hint of light fade to darkness on the ocher stone. By this time it would be midnight and we would lapse into long silences, looking up at the beautiful sky filled with stars, and stars, and shooting stars. This state of bliss happened many, many times.”

  7

  GONE FISHING