At Home in France

by Ann Barry

  Before Marilyn and Charles arrived for their second visit the following year, I wanted to try my hand at fishing. Fishermen are a common sight on the Dordogne. They stand poised like statues in the currents of the river. During my first few years at the house, they remained more or less in my peripheral vision. Then, for some reason—perhaps I felt more settled and attentive—I suddenly thought, Why don’t I go fishing? It would be another way of participating in the life in the country; I would be part of the picture. And what a treat it would be to bring home a fresh catch and pop it in the frying pan. I’d fished as a kid in the Missouri Ozarks, but that had been in a lake—and it seemed so long ago. Trout fishing, involving fly casting in river waters, was another matter. Lessons were in order.

  So, prior to the spring trip, I signed up for a weekend fishing course with the Orvis company, which was held at the Eldred Preserve, in upstate New York. This was completely an academic exercise—the aim was not to catch fish but to master technique. After an extremely tedious day of casting, recasting, and more recasting, I was anxious for the real thing, which I was convinced would be more enthralling than merely practicing, like playing a Chopin sonata would be after hours and hours of Bach finger exercises. But of course I had to have the proper equipment. It was like anything else—biking, running; if you were really going to get into it with any degree of seriousness, you had to be properly outfitted. The accoutrements of fishing were immensely appealing and gave me a sense of authenticity, of transformation. Through an Orvis mail-order catalog, I laid out a couple of hundred dollars for rod and reel, vest, waders, flies, leaders, and—even more irresistible—polarized glasses and a shirt with the image of a handsome trout in a graceful, leaping-for-the-fly arch. I shipped the entire regalia to the closet-size Carennac post office to await my arrival, GARDEZ JUSQU’À L’ARRIVÉE DU CLIENT, I marked the packages, envisioning Monsieur the Postmaster, a pasty-faced and stoical gentleman, scrutinizing the boxes. “Qu’est-que c’est que ça?” I could imagine him muttering to the deaf walls. “Comme c’est ennuyeux!”

  When I arrived at Pech Farguet and considered the foreign waters, I experienced a momentary loss of confidence. I decided it would be wise to engage a guide for my first time out on the river. At a sporting-goods shop in St-Céré, I found the very man: the young salesperson himself, who seemed not the least surprised at my request. The next afternoon we drove to a spot on the river, where, he wagered, the trout were running. Gearing up—he unabashedly took a pee before pulling on his waders—we descended the bank and waded into the shallow river.

  Here, my real education began. Lesson one: how to walk in the river. The bottom was a bed of rocks coated with an incredibly slippery greenish-brown film. I was making extremely slow progress. The proper way to go forward, he showed me as I careened and toppled, was to pick up each foot all the way out of the water—rather like a high-stepping marcher—and set it down in a firm manner. I tried, but my feet, encased in the weighty waders, felt like tree stumps. I tottered after him, like a child taking its first steps. Once we arrived at a spot midriver, lesson two began: casting. I know all about this, I thought, gritting my teeth but holding my peace. Not so. The Orvis people had favored an overhead casting method, reserving a side method for ticklish spots where shoreline brush and trees would interfere from behind. My French guide relied principally on the side technique. Thus passed another afternoon of casting, recasting, and more recasting in this fashion. From time to time he deftly changed both of our flies—which, just watching, seemed as exasperating to me as trying to thread a needle without my glasses—explaining the necessity of imitating the types of mites in the air. To make the fish feel at home. The subtle differences between flies and their relationship to the local insects could have been the subject of a doctoral dissertation. I could see the near-invisible army of infinitesimal insects adrift over the river, but as far as I could tell, they lacked any distinct character. I felt the nausea of defeat. Fishing, which I’d thought of as something of a carefree activity, was turning into a tedious, discouraging exercise. Catching trout was less a matter of fun and luck than of science and seasoned skill. Yet I tried to buoy my spirits up as we headed—troutless—back to the house through the twilight. It was a beginning.

  On the way I stopped by the Bézamats. Monsieur, who is attuned to the smallest details of his surroundings, could not restrain his curiosity. What was the fishing gear doing in the backseat of my car? An account of my fishing expedition—and my hopes to pursue this endeavor—was met with a long pause, the raising of the cap, revealing the patch of white forehead where the sun never reached, the scratch of the head—his typical gestures of confoundment. A complicated thought process was playing across his face. I would never catch any fish this way, he pronounced. Or, on the off chance that I did—and his rocking hand, in a sort of comme çi comme ça gesture, indicated that this was unlikely—the fish would be coming from polluted water. Or, at least, water that was not as pure as in former days.

  If I wanted to catch trout, in the finest water, he knew the place. He accompanied this declaration with a dramatic landing-the-fish pantomime: hands joined as on a fishing rod, a moment’s hesitation, then a jerking of his arms over his shoulder. He repeated the gesture with accelerating speed: whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Point made, he came to a standstill. Would I care to go along with him Sunday afternoon to catch some fish? Marilyn and Charles had arrived the day before and planned to indulge in the three-hour Sunday ritual feast at the restaurant in Loubressac. I told them to save room for some trout that evening.

  The afternoon was full of promise: sunshine, blue sky, a ruffling breeze in the air. I arrived at the Bézamats at the stroke of two o’clock, the time agreed upon for our rendezvous. When I pulled into the yard beside the garage, Monsieur ambled down the outside stairs, followed by Madame, in a flowery short-sleeved dress, trailed by the twins. The girls admired, with suppressed giggles, my trout T-shirt. I began to unload my gear from my car, when Monsieur informed me that this wouldn’t be necessary. That was puzzling, and a little annoying. Perhaps, I thought fleetingly, grouchily, we were only meant to watch Monsieur fish.

  We piled into the car, a somewhat dilapidated Citroën, the two girls and me wedged in the backseat. I had brought a map in order to track the secret Bézamat “fishing hole.” We drove for nearly a half hour, meandering along back roads, through open country and thick sun-dappled forest. Eventually, we turned onto a narrow dirt road that wound downhill. At the bottom of the hill, Monsieur Bézamat stopped the car. There were a number of other cars parked beside a large shed. Kati and Françoise bolted. Madame Bézamat hoisted herself out and smoothed her dress, as if she was about to greet her hostess at a dinner party.

  A hefty woman came forward and babbled away with the Bézamats as if they were old acquaintances. She had a deep harelip, which may or may not have been why I could barely understand a word she said. Madame Bézamat retired to a nearby lawn chair, where a group of women, with whom she was apparently friendly, had congregated. The rest of us—Kati and Françoise reined in by their father—followed the broad back of the woman to the shed, where she presented us with fishing poles, of the rudimentary sort Huck Finn would have used, and a tin of worms. The mystery was beginning to unravel before me, but my brain was still probing: what’s going on? I trailed Monsieur, who had headed off on a tiny footpath. We quickly arrived at two concrete pools, each the length of a cows’ trough, where clouds of trout swarmed and darted in unison, as if controlled by an invisible switch, from one end to the other.

  It was a trout hatchery.

  This was outrageous.

  Yet what was I to do but follow suit? Monsieur and the twins were hastily threading worms on their hooks. Recoiling, I skewered a worm on mine. I dropped in my line and the bait was instantly snatched by a trout—they actually seemed to be in a competition to get hooked. We were all bringing in fish as fast as we could hook the worms, in the exact manner of Monsieur’s pantomime. I left the k
ill to Monsieur, who would swiftly thwack the fishes over the head with a short wood plank. Within a matter of minutes we had an adequate supply for all our dinners.

  Back in the shed, the woman weighed our trout, and we paid accordingly. It was quite reasonable. Monsieur Bézamat collected Madame and we all bundled into the car for home.

  What had Monsieur been thinking of when he suggested the outing? I thought peevishly. That I wanted fish, of course. But not the challenge, the sport, the satisfaction of the catch? I was deflated. He, on the other hand, was elated, to have shared with me his foolproof fishing grounds. Marilyn and Charles read my disappointment when I returned. “Kind of like going strawberry picking,” Charles said, chuckling. I had to admit, though, as I rested my fork and knife on my plate that evening, that it was probably the best trout I’d ever eaten: the flesh was pink, as rosy as a salmon’s, and full of flavor.

  After this episode, my interest in fishing waned. Some things take hold; others are passionate but passing fancies. Somehow I could never muster the enthusiasm again: all that gear, all the effort just to get situated in the water, those impossible flies and the dismaying know-how required. I wanted more instant gratification. Monsieur Bézamat’s version certainly provided that, but it lacked the sense of sport. Now the equipment is stashed away, a vague reminder of diminished expectations, unrealistic dreams. I don’t even wear my trout T-shirt; I don’t feel I’ve earned the right to. I’ve thought of asking at the sports shop in St-Céré if I could trade in my fishing pole for something else. But I can’t think what it would be just now. And, then, on ne sait jamais—you never know.

  On the way to the “fishing” expedition, I had mentioned to Monsieur that there was something peculiar in my house. In the tiny utility closet adjacent to the fireplace in the main room, I had noticed a sticky substance, like thick buckwheat honey, running from the ceiling of the closet to the floor. It had a decidedly unpleasant odor.

  Monsieur promised to stop by the next day. He arrived in the late afternoon, along with Madame, Kati, and, not to be excluded from the adventure, Bobbie the dog. Marilyn and Charles had gone off on a sightseeing expedition. Monsieur entered the house in his customary fashion, stepping out of his shoes without skipping a beat. He is totally unconscious of this habit and of the oddness of his padding about my house in his stocking feet. At first I thought it was perhaps a behavioral tic instilled in him as a boy by his mother and reinforced by his wife, who didn’t want their floors muddied. It certainly had nothing to do with the Japanese ritual of leaving shoes at the door to acknowledge the sacredness of the interior. Later, I discovered the practical purpose for this habit, when I became infested with some type of chigger after a walk in the woods. The local pharmacist I’d consulted explained that you had to have a pair of both outdoor and indoor shoes—never should the outdoor shoes, which could carry insects, be worn indoors.

  Madame ensconced herself on the patio. Kati lay on the grass while Bobbie charged her, yapping at her heels and head, as if she were fallen prey. Monsieur inspected the problem closet. He drew an index finger across the brown substance and smelled it, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

  “Les toilettes marchent?” he asked me.

  Mais oui, no problem with the toilet.

  He summoned his wife and ordered her to stand by the closet. He ascended the staircase to the upstairs bathroom, which is located directly above the closet. He flushed the toilet.

  Madame turned an ear to the open closet, where the sound of water could be heard gushing through the pipes.

  “Ça marche, Charles. C’est beang,” Madame shouted shrilly with her twist of patois.

  He flushed the toilet again.

  Once again, gushing, gurgling water flowed cleanly through the pipes.

  “Ça marche, Charles. C’est beang,” Madame called out at a higher pitch, as if loudness added credibility.

  Monsieur descended the stairs, looking defeated and mystified, hat tipped back to allow his fingers to massage his brain.

  It was a Monday, France’s day off—small chance of getting a plumber. Monsieur Prysbil, the elderly plumber who was responsible every fall for turning off the water in my house, was known to take a siesta at this time, after his full complement of wine at lunch. (Prysbil was taken periodically to a nearby clinic for his drinking problem.) Marc Bru, Madame Servais’s nephew, who lived about ten minutes away, was mentioned, but he was away visiting in-laws.

  “Mais, ça marche, Charles,” Madame repeated.

  “Oui, ce n’est pas la toilette,” I chimed in.

  Monsieur ignored us, carrying on what appeared to be a debate with himself.

  He instructed us to stand by and wait for his return. Off he went in the car, without explanation. I offered Madame a cool drink and we sat on the patio. I’m normally a person who likes to feel in control, and at times like this in France I feel the reins slipping away. Okay, I say, just wait and see. I mentioned to Madame that I hadn’t known that Marc Bru was a plumber, and that perhaps it would be best if he took over Prysbil’s duty at my house. Madame wholeheartedly agreed. Prysbil, she said, was un voleur who overcharged me.

  A sputter of gravel on the road and Monsieur was back, with a tall ladder strapped to the roof of the car—and his son, Serge. They braced the ladder on the base of the patio, resting it against the roof beneath the bathroom window. Monsieur climbed the ladder, followed by Serge. They began to turn over the tiles of the roof, one by one, sniffing at each opening. Madame and I stood, gazing upward like two children at a puppet show. Then, suddenly, they came to a halt at a spot directly above the closet.

  “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” I asked Madame.

  She wheezed, which I took to mean not to ask questions.

  From high above Monsieur called down, “C’est la bête,” spitting out the words as if he’d bitten a rotten apple.

  I knew whereof Monsieur spoke. The beast had a history at the house.

  The past summer, when Marilyn and Charles had visited, they had had a run-in with the animal—and better them than I, I’d said when I heard the unnerving tale. In the middle of the night, they had heard what sounded like a one-man band in the kitchen, with a banging of pots and pans and a clatter of dishes. Charles had bounded out of bed and descended the stairs on tiptoe, Marilyn in his wake. He had flicked on the light, and there, poking out from under the stove, was a bushy tail, waving like a little flag.

  It was at this rather alarming moment, Marilyn confided in me, that she realized a radical difference between herself and her husband, which, she later decided, could have a profound effect on their marriage. Charles was a gentle soul, while she was a mad avenger.

  “Isn’t she cute?” Charles had said softly.

  “Is there a gun in the house?” Marilyn had whispered wickedly, quaking.

  Eventually, they had decided to return to bed (door firmly closed). What was there to do? By morning the animal had vanished.

  But what animal? They had consulted Monsieur Bézamat, who brought out his illustrated animal book and pointed to a martre, which resembled a ferret.

  When I arrived the next fall and stopped by the Bézamats for the keys, Monsieur announced proudly that he had shot and bagged an example of this beast. He led me around to the back of the house. He’d saved it to show me. I didn’t look too closely at the matted mass of fur in the plastic sack, swarming with flies and maggots. Looking self-satisfied, he recounted, in dramatic fashion, its demise. Checking on my house at the end of summer, he had met up with Hironde, who had come by to trim the grass. When they spotted the beast, Bézamat went to fetch his gun. Hironde chased the animal to the other side of the house (a role Bézamat now played in the stance of a charging bull). Then he, Bézamat (now playing himself, the star of the show), followed with gun poised. Pow, pow, went the gun (Bézamat as gun, exploding like a popcorn popper). “Eh, voilà!”

  I was secretly unimpressed. One martre? How different from, say, killing a single squirrel? Surely,
there were more where it came from. The bête under the roof at this very moment was probably a cousin.

  For the next hour—time I’d planned to spend putting together a salade niçoise for dinner—Monsieur and Serge hacked away at the insulation and substructure of the roof over the closet. The animal, who had holed up for warmth under the eaves, had apparently dropped down into a limbo region between roof and closet ceiling. It had become trapped and died.

  Monsieur Bézamat and Serge suddenly shouted in triumph. The animal had been freed to drop below, into the closet. Madame and I rushed into the house.

  I now know the stench of death. It is as much an assault to the senses as a physical blow. I only glanced at the scattered remains of the corpse, unidentifiable as any form of life. Madame and I reeled outdoors, gagging. Monsieur and Serge rushed into the house—everyone was moving frantically, as if there was a fire. Within minutes, they ran out, with a garbage bag between them. Madame and I returned, not without reluctance, to sweep up the rest of the debris—shards of the closet ceiling and fragments of roofing. We all stood for a moment on the patio, huffing from the exertion. Monsieur dusted his palms together in a gesture of good riddance. Serge, his usual taciturn self, was packing up the ladder. We called it a day.

  The faint trace of death lingered. I took a tin of tuna fish, a wedge of bread, a tomato to eat out of hand, and a bottle of wine to the patio. I was famished.

  Marilyn and Charles commiserated when they returned to the scene of destruction. “We’ll think about the damage tomorrow,” Charles said.

  8

  UNINVITED GUESTS

  All God’s creatures habitually hibernate in the house over the winter. When I close up the house, I imagine a little chorus in the woods: “She’s going, tra-la, she’s gone, ta-ta, let’s get a move on.” I’m now primed for Monsieur Bézamat’s tales—there’s usually a martre episode—when I arrive in the spring. Three years ago in May, when I picked up the keys, he seemed particularly perturbed. This needed an on-site explanation; he insisted on following me to the house.