At Home in France

by Ann Barry

  Monsieur brought out the walnut liqueur. We each had a tiny glass. The rest of the afternoon would be devoted to a siesta for us all, I said. Madame brought coffee.

  As Françoise cleared the last of the dishes I reminded Madame of the potato-puff recipe. She shrugged. It was très simple. She went to a cupboard in the kitchen and set before me a box of something called Pomlesse. I was aghast, but tried not to show it. This was available in any grocery store, she said. All it needed was the addition of a little flour and water to thicken the mixture; she added an egg to transform them into pommes dauphines. I held the box studiously. Pomlesse, I deduced, was the catchy, singable name for “easy mashed potatoes” (pomme, for potato, perhaps combined with a corruption of aise, meaning ease). I said I would certainly try it myself.

  I thanked them all effusively for the feast—we’d been at table over two hours. We stood on the porch for a moment to drink in the fresh air. As I waved to the family from the car, I was suddenly stirred, wistful. In many ways the afternoon had been a strain—there was such a gulf between our separate lives—but the Bézamats had become family to me, and I felt my solitariness in leaving them. After I got home, I took a long walk.

  The next day I picked up a box of Pomlesse. It had numbered instructions with simplistic illustrations in primary colors: a hand pouring from a measuring cup, a hand stirring the mixture in a bowl, and so on. A child could easily follow them. I religiously copied each step and added Madame’s egg. The consistency seemed right. I heated the oil—hot, Madame, had stressed—and dropped in globs of the mixture by heaping tablespoons. I stood and waited for the pommes daupbines to swell into golden puffs. They sizzled briefly. Then, through some mysterious chemistry, they rapidly disintegrated into something unrecognizable. Small granules floated around the oil and then quickly clogged together into a gummy, greasy mass.

  Now, I consider myself something of a gourmet cook. I have impressed friends with sophisticated recipes; there is no challenge I wouldn’t attempt in my home kitchen. This failure was trifling, of course, but all the more unacceptable for being so. I was miffed—to be thwarted by a mere package mix—and reached for the trusty loaf of bread.

  Commitment

  11

  MY NEW CAR

  During their second visit in the spring of 1989, Marilyn and Charles and I were strolling along the road by the river in St-Céré after a morning of marketing. I came to an abrupt halt before one of the cars that were parked in a bumper-to-bumper file by the stone wall.

  “That’s the car for me,” I exclaimed. It was a deux chevaux—a two-horsepower—a classic model of Citroën, with a shiny black-and-red Art Deco design. Discontinued in 1990, the deux chevaux has always been the brunt of jokes among the French: open the windows if you want to pick up a little speed on the downhill—that sort of thing. As Richard Bernstein writes in his book Fragile Glory, the car is “a bit of the countryside priest, a bit of the nostalgic hippy, a bit of the far-out past in look.”

  The idea of buying a car had been brewing for a while. The continual cost of renting was one factor; the long, by-now-repetitious—and sometimes hazardous—drive from Paris another. But I could never figure out the logistics. Where would I keep it in my absence? Who would bother turning the engine over from time to time? Who would pick me up at the train station, which was in St-Denis-Près-de-Martel (a small local train made the connection in Brive), about a fifteen-minute drive from my house? But even more significantly, did I really want to invest more in my place here, to take on more responsibility? It would be one more tie that binds. I kept dreaming.

  Then, four years ago in May, I was driving (in another of my rental cars) past the garage in Bétaille, which is across the street from the bakery. It has the appearance of a sort of neglected country house—in the Midwest, come to think of it—with a weathered white painted-wood facade, plastic strips fluttering in a breeze in the open doorway, and a couple of big shaggy old dogs slumbering, like crumpled blankets, around the pumps. There is always a mysterious collection of cars parked to one side. And there it was, a shiny black-and-red deux chevaux glinting in the sunshine! I drove past, but my head reeled back as if it was attached by an invisible line to the car. I slowed, then crept, and finally stopped. I turned the car around and pulled into the garage.

  A young mechanic in a grease-spotted blue jumpsuit was bent over the engine of a car in front of the service area. I asked if the owner was around and he pointed to the door. I waved aside the curtain of plastic strips, followed by a lumbering dog. The small room was wood-paneled. To the right was a kitchen. Perhaps it had, in fact, once been a house. Behind the desk was a squarely solid young man who was conducting a rapid-fire conversation on the phone. He raised his eyebrows in acknowledgment of my presence and raised a finger as a signal that he’d be with me momentarily. I waited, as the dog’s wet muzzle nudged my hand. The man slammed down the phone and bounced up, smile at the ready.

  “Cette voiture, par là, le deux chevaux,” I began, pointing out the door. “Je suis curieuse …” We advanced out the door.

  “Oui. Elle est à vendre,” he said, anticipating my question.

  My heart stopped. Elle—she—the feminine gender made us allies—was for sale. My brain was no longer operational.

  I stood, momentarily transfixed. At close hand, the car looked to be in perfect condition, almost brand-new. Monsieur, who seemed to be very good at mind reading, said that it was in top condition, had very little mileage (approximately 11,000 km), and, in fact, was highly prized as the last of the deux chevaux models made.

  I explained my situation: the house, my twice-yearly visits, the expenditure of rental cars, and my desire to buy a car of my own—and the concomitant problem of finding a place to keep the car.

  He said he could keep the car. He had a second garage and always had extra space.

  But this would mean I would need a way to and from the St-Denis train station.

  He could pick me up. Pas de problème.

  What had seemed insurmountable was suddenly easily being solved.

  Was I interested?

  I nodded, perhaps a little too vigorously. “Oui!”

  He was pressé dit the moment, he said, but if I’d like, I could drop by tomorrow at around noon and take a spin in the car. Indeed, he had a jumpy, mildly distracted air—which turned out to be characteristic—as if he had many other important matters on his mind. Despite this tiny village and modest business, he appeared to be an incredibly busy man.

  I introduced myself. He didn’t volunteer his name, as if this was an unnecessary, or perhaps too time-consuming bit of information to impart. I said that I would be back tomorrow. À midi?

  D’accord.

  I know I am a compulsive person. The delay would give me time to cool my fever and approach this with some degree of rationality.

  Instead, it only heightened my delirium. I could think of nothing but the car. Actually, I know nothing about cars. As I live in New York, I am totally dependent on the subway. I don’t know one car from another—a failing of my mother’s that used to annoy me when I was growing up, when the acquisition of a driver’s license, the use of the family car, and models of cars were of major significance. She seemed oblivious to all this. Yet here I was—around the age my mother was then—in the same state of ignorance. I knew that cars in the States cost a bundle. The asking price for the Citroën certainly didn’t seem outrageous. It was possible; I would get a loan.

  At noon I reappeared at the garage. The manager was once again on the phone, firing off clipped sentences like gunshots into the receiver. He hung up, stabbed his cigarette in an ashtray spilling over with butts, and delivered me an I’ll-be-with-you-in-a-minute smile as he scribbled on a notepad. I meandered outside to moon over the deux chevaux.

  Soon he bounded out of the garage. He opened the door on the driver’s side for me and came around to sit in the passenger seat. The deux chevaux is a study in functionality of design. The dials ar
e as plain as can be. The fat black knob of the gearshift is nearly the size of a tennis ball and fills a cupped hand. The passenger and driver windows are a hoot. They are divided in half horizontally. The lower flap is released with the flick of a catch; this section then swings outward and is cinched in place by another external catch. The motion required to open the window is like that of a hook shot in basketball. One has no choice about the degree of ventilation as with roll-up windows; it’s open or shut, period. Another source of ventilation, and fog control, is the vent running along the dashboard, which can be regulated by the twist of a knob. The control of the miniature heating system is about the size of a cigarette pack, with a tiny knobbed latch that can be slipped into notches for low, medium, or high. That’s about it—just the basics. The seats of this model were a soft dove gray—a rather plush look, I thought. It had a sunroof that would unsnap and roll up behind the backseat—for a sporty look, and, of course, the ultimate in ventilation.

  The manager showed me the simple movement of the gear for reverse, first, second, third, and fourth. Off we went, down the road toward Vayrac. I was on top of the world, sailing along. There is a special feeling in driving the deux chevaux—or, I should say, it made me feel quite special. Majesterial: I felt I was riding high above the road. In command: the wheel, in comparison with compact American or European cars, is oversized; you can rest flare-elbowed on the rim. So authentic: the car is quintessentially French, indigenous. It would look ridiculous in any other country. Here it would look proper parked in front of a café or pâtisserie, in the drive of a château, alongside a country stream casting a shadow for a picnic. This particular deux chevaux, black and red, evoked Stendhal and dark passions. Yet the model was called Charleston, which had a nice, jazzy American ring.

  It was a coup de foudre, love at first sight. I was incapable of objectivity. I didn’t even consider shopping around (but then, I’m not one to shop around for a dress, either). And hadn’t there been that prescient moment with Marilyn and Charles? I wondered if, in fact, the car I had seen with them was the exact same one. It was destiny.

  We drove back to the garage. I stood beside the car, assuming a posture of deep thought and intense decision making. Of course, I should offer a lower price. You had to do that. The manager lit a cigarette. I heaved a sigh, meant as a sign of regret that I couldn’t afford what he was proposing. After briefly haggling, he agreed to a slightly lower price. It could have been shaved a mere fraction from the asking price and I would have thought it a victory.

  And how was I going to pay for the car? he wanted to know. I had no idea. I explained that I would have to go immediately to the BNP, in Biars-sur-Céré, where I have a bank account. The town was an approximate twenty-minute drive away. I forewarned him that I didn’t have the francs at the moment, but I would see what could be worked out and I’d be back.

  At the BNP, a small branch of the national bank, I explained the situation to the woman teller with whom I always have my dealings. Unlike my New York bank, with its battery of tellers behind bulletproof glass and bleeping neon-green lights to indicate the next available employee, she is only one of two tellers and has become a familiar welcoming face behind the counter. She has curly black hair and a gap between her two front teeth that she worries with her tongue when she counts bills in a rapid-fire blur.

  “Superbe!” she remarked at my choice of automobile. But I would have to see the bank manager. Yes, he was here. Une petite seconde.

  When the bank manager emerged from a side office, I felt a surge of confidence. He was not the stodgy old-timer who might resist the unorthodoxy of my request, but a stylish young man who said that he was delighted to make the acquaintance of one of their foreign clients. This seemed promising. He escorted me into his office and asked how he could assist me.

  “J’ai trouvé la voiture de mes rêves!” I exploded. The car of my dreams was a black-and-red deux chevaux, I informed him. A 1990.

  “Ah, une voiture collectionnée,” he said, with some feeling.

  I explained that the car was at the garage in Bétaille.

  “Charron,” he said noncommittally, referring to the owner.

  I told him the price. He did not balk. Then I proposed my idea: that I borrow the money from the BNP and, upon my return to New York, take out a loan for the same amount from my bank and immediately repay the BNP.

  How long might that take? he wondered, seemingly amenable. I paused, figuring. I was staying at my house for another week, I explained, before driving back to Paris. Once home, I guessed that it would take a week or so to get approval on a loan from my bank. But then I could make a direct transfer of funds from the New York BNP, which would expedite matters.

  “Alors, un mois,” he summed up, one month. He smiled broadly. He seemed to be enjoying the moment. Wouldn’t it be nice to be a banker with the power to wave a magic wand and make dreams come true?

  He reached for the phone; he would speak to Monsieur Jean-Paul Charron. I was dizzy with the rapidity of the transaction. And this was France, the land of endless red tape. In a suddenly commanding voice, he explained the arrangement to Charron, interrupted periodically when, I presumed, Charron was pummeling him with questions. The bank, he said, would issue Charron a check for the total amount, which he was to hold until the BNP received my check in return. Then, to my utter astonishment, he officiously yet gracefully informed Charron that I would need the use of the car during the remainder of my stay. And that I would be along shortly with the check. He hung up. Now, he said, I would need insurance on the car. Would I allow him to call his friend at the agency just down the road? I could stop there on my way back to Bétaille.

  Check in hand, insurance in hand—we in the States have much to learn about customer service—I headed back to the garage.

  I handed Monsieur Charron the check, unable to resist a slight flourish. Gone was the veneer of pleasantness. He was solemn and nervous—not without reason, perhaps—scrutinizing my driver’s license as if it was an impenetrable puzzle or as if it might reveal a prison record. This, I’ll admit, was somewhat understandable. Its mind-boggling string of numbers is daunting. He said, at last, that he would have the transaction papers for me to sign within two or three days. There was no mention of a charge for garaging the car or shepherding me back and forth from the train, and I didn’t bring it up. See how it goes, I thought. Then—with a plastic smile—he handed me les clefs, the keys. I left him those to my rented car, which would remain at the garage until I picked it up to go back to Paris at the end of the week. Then, kiss rental cars good-bye forever!

  I drove away in my new car, floating on a cloud of incredulity. I parked Charleston—as I’d decided to call her—at the house. Though there is the open garage, I resisted the steep uphill drive and chose a patch of lawn beside the stone wall leading to the house. After lunch, I washed and waxed the car. It glistened, from windshield wipers, which reminded me of slanted eyebrows, to hubcaps. I walked in admiring circles around it. That afternoon I puttered about the house, making periodic excursions to the front door to admire my car. I showed it off, of course, to the Bézamats (“Ooh, elle est belle!” said Madame. “Pas de radio?” Kati asked, incredulous) and the Hirondes (“Une voiture collectionnée,” said Raymond, echoing the bank manager, and tapping his forehead with an index finger to signal a clever move). During the week I made any excuse I could find to tool around: to St-Céré on shopping trips, to Rocamadour to look for a pair of candlesticks, to Cazillac for bread, to Meyssac for its jour du marché. Wherever I drove, I felt, whether real or imagined, the object of everyone’s admiration. Every time I returned to the car, I inwardly beamed. Elle est à moi!

  That weekend I was on the lookout for announcements of local festivals—anything to give me an excuse to take a spin with Charleston. Festivals are often announced with banners strung high across village streets. I spotted one for a cheese festival taking place in Rocamadour.

  Tables were set up in an open fiel
d above the town for the dégustation of local cheeses and Cahors wine. I sampled the most wonderful Cantal, a mellow cheese of the neighboring département of the Auvergne, and bought a slab to bring home.

  Most of the wines were from 1988 or 1989. I sampled a few from tiny plastic cups, enjoying the sunshine and the parade of families—with kids and dogs gamboling about—whiling away a Sunday afternoon. At one table, a farmer woman was offering homemade stuffed cabbage in small tin containers, perfect for one. That would be dinner, heated up.

  When I got home, there was time for a long run. After a shower, I sat on the patio to read. But with the distraction of birdsong and the presence of Charleston, which I could glimpse out of the corner of my eye, the book rested idle in my lap. It was time to heat up the stuffed cabbage. How had the day slipped away?

  Early Tuesday morning, I closed the house, dropped the keys with the Bézamats, and returned to the garage for the swap of cars with Monsieur Charron. I explained that I would be back in late October and would write him well in advance to notify him of the exact day and train. Au revoir!

  The rental car felt low on the road, lightweight, dull. I was instantly reduced to a mundane American-with-the-rental-car status. That evening I had planned a splurge for the finale of my trip, an overnight stay at the château de Vault-de-Lugny, in Burgundy, on my circuitous way back to Paris. I’d read about the château in one of my French newsletters, which are highly reliable sources for hotels and restaurants in both Paris and the country. It had waxed lyrical about the château, calling it “one of the most unique places we have ever visited in the world … a dream château in every respect.”