A Chateau of One's Own

by Sam Juneau

  Then, with a fierce yell, Tom ran at full speed from our right and hit the original puncher with his full force and weight. I worked my guy to the ground and stood on him proudly. After Tom’s final victim spun into a wall and plopped on the ground, Tom yelled, ‘Don’t fuck with the Irish!’

  At this point, four or five gendarmes arrived on foot and broke up the fight. It wasn’t clear right away who was at fault. The cops arriving on the scene could only have seen one big melee. But this being France, home of liberty, equality and fraternity, the gendarmes roughed up the darker of us, the Moroccans, slapped plastic restrainers on their wrists and hauled them off to the police station. We stood, hearts beating, shirts torn, blood dripping, trying to explain to the cops exactly what happened. The barman and several customers rushed to our aid and quickly relayed the night’s events. Soon the cops left. We sat down.

  The barman came up to us, ‘You have all done what we could not do. Thank you so much. You will drink on me for the rest of the night.’ Our fellow café denizens came over one at a time to shake hands and thank us. John and Tom’s girls moved to our table as they recounted the unfolding of John’s birthday night out on the town. We settled down and told the story over and over again, filling in details, embellishing and setting the record straight. Adrenalin continued to course through our veins as we relived the best and worst of what we had done.

  After telling the story for the thirtieth time, we climbed into the van and started home. We told the story to one another several more times and arrived at the chateau. We walked into the kitchen and made Brie and ham sandwiches and told the story again.

  Suddenly, Bud walked in. ‘I can hear everything you’re saying. It’s two a.m. and you guys woke up Blue. Sam, what are you doing?’ She was mad now, yelling. ‘I’m almost nine months pregnant, you are a father and thirty-four years old and you’re fighting like an animal in the streets of Angers. What were you thinking? And look, you tore your shirt. This is ridiculous.’

  Of course, Bud was right. Infantile. Adolescent even. Who did I think I was, Hemingway?

  ‘How could you put yourself in danger like that? They could have had knives or Lord knows what.’

  It was true. It was totally irresponsible but I was still secretly a little proud. The boys stood quietly as Bud rightfully reprimanded us. I could see them stifling giggles as Bud’s indignant harangue continued.

  The next day I was sore and somewhat bruised. We were all hungover, and quietly recounted the fight amongst ourselves as I drove Tom and John to the train station.

  I pulled up and we unloaded the boys’ bags. We shook hands. I thanked them for their summer’s hard work. We promised to keep in touch.

  Tom added as they passed into the train station, ‘Oh, and Sam, please don’t tell Marion.’ I nodded in assent and opened the truck door. Driving back to the chateau, I felt a tinge of regret and thought ruefully, I am no Levin.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Wild Boar and Vegans

  ‘What’s that noise?’ No answer.

  Bud was sleeping soundly. Seven in the morning and for half an hour there had been a persistent, annoying buzz in the distance. Blue had been up most of the night crying in a fit of baby discomfort. Now this.

  Rolling out of bed, I pulled on my trousers and shirt. I stumbled around looking for my shoes and finally went downstairs into the kitchen. I burst out the back door, grabbing a thick, long stick along the way, before launching into the woods determined to find out who or what was disturbing my precious sleep. As I walked deeper into the woods, the buzzing, whining sound of a chainsaw became more apparent, punctuated by the revving and idling of a tractor. After about five minutes, I came to the edge of the woods where I saw a blonde curly-haired farmer working away on a large, fallen tree. I watched for a few minutes so I could understand exactly what was going on. It seems the tractor was pulling a very large tree off our property and into the neighbouring field while the farmer worked his busy-bee way through branches and vines. I looked to the right, then to the left, and could see major, major work going on.

  There in the distance sat a sprawling earth mover with a huge digging bucket clawing away at a small hill that separated my land from the farmer’s. We knew when we bought the chateau that Monsieur Cocteau was an aggressive farmer, chipping and angling and pushing his way centimetre by centimetre into Bonchamps’s grounds. So the former owner told us. Evidently, he had taken to cutting branches and uprooting trees that dared to hang over the property line, without permission. I’d ignored the warnings.

  Cocteau had ripped out bushes and trees and an entire kilometre of hedges in the hope of gaining a few extra centimetres on which to plant his corn. It seems he had been very busy on previous days when we weren’t paying attention.

  Furious, I spat out, ‘Bonjour. What are you doing?’

  Cocteau walked over and offered his hand. I shook it impatiently and asked again, ‘What are you doing? I’m the new owner of Bonchamps.’

  ‘We are removing the talus [small hill-ditch]. It will make room for new crops and it is messy.’

  ‘And this tree? I think it is mine. Why are you taking it?’

  ‘Oh, well, it was dead. I was removing it for you.’

  I think the technical word for Cocteau is ‘cheeky’. I was furious. Yet I stifled my outbursts for two reasons – one, I did not know the exact legal situation of the talus (whether it belonged to me or him) and two, I had some vague sense that one should, generally speaking, get along with the neighbours. Something inside me said well, of course, he was right to clean up his patch and make room for more crops. The tree, still cheeky. Theft, really. But with thousands of trees around the parc, I was willing to overlook it.

  ‘I see you cut some branches and trees here. I want to be clear. I don’t want you to touch anything on the property without speaking with me first. We can work something out. Just let me know.’

  ‘No problem,’ Cocteau said with a slight grin on his weathered, red face. Yet he appeared surprisingly young. Perhaps it was the eyes or his short-cropped hair. Or maybe it was his stance, a bit insolent and insecure.

  For the rest of the day, Cocteau continued his destructive handiwork. Every time I heard the noisy saw or caught an earful of the tractor tugging and straining, it made my blood boil. The talus had served as a nice buffer between his crops and the beginnings of our woods. I could see how the weeds and nettles and briars would bother a guy trying to plant and harvest crops. But as they say, good fences make good neighbours; and when lacking a fence, a talus is second best.

  The former owner, Monsieur Pernod, had actually warned me about the Cocteaus and the surrounding farmers. At the closing of the sale, after giving the advice about doing everything myself, he had archly whispered in my ear at the closing, ‘Watch the paysans, or peasants. There is a saying in France: “If you give a paysan a hand, he will take an arm”. Beware.’

  At the time, I found this offensive. First of all, I was a peasant, really. My ancestors had been poor immigrants and I just might, at any moment, have at least one uncle in jail. Also, considering myself an open-minded liberal and wanting to embrace French country ways, I refused to think of these hard-working, salt-of-the-earth farmers as peasants. And this coming from Monsieur Pernod, who as far as I could surmise, reminded me of my Louisiana country cousins.

  The more I talked about my experience with our few acquaintances in town, however, the more I realised that paysans were revered in France. You might even call yourself a paysan and be proud of it. Pernod’s slight was not meant as a slight but as what it was: a warning against crafty country people.

  The farmer-paysan calls forth loads of passion in France, all over Europe for that matter. Forty years ago, 20 per cent of the population in France still had ties to farming and an agrarian life. But, like most Western industrialised nations, this number has dwindled as people, after the war, moved to the cities seeking jobs and a way out of country life. Today, the hardy few in farming ac
count for roughly 3.5 per cent of the population. And agribusiness is consolidated into the hands of fewer and fewer mega-corporations, not unlike the UK and the States. Some reports tell us more than 30,000 farms in France disappear each year.

  Perhaps it is for this reason the rare farmer is held in such high esteem. This romanticised notion is akin to the American cowboy, a myth only tenuously related to the reality. Most French view the farmer as the custodian or caretaker of the land. This little deceptive confection is wrapped neatly in the firm belief that most French, even if they’ve been living in the big cities for decades, have ties to the rural parts of France. There’s much to gain from this delusion. France receives more than nine billion euros a year in subsidies, over 40 per cent of the EU’s total agricultural budget. As we struggled to get the B&B up and running, this simple fact coupled with my noble neighbours’ surreptitious activities started to bother me. No one offered me sizeable subsidies to start a business that could, just possibly, employ people… in rural France, no less.

  Over the coming months, I saw Cocteau tear up trees, level ditches and dykes and bury streams, and wreak general, all-round havoc on the environment outside of town and around Bonchamps.

  And as Cocteau nipped and tucked his way into our property and stole trees, the Pasteurs, who had so kindly offered home-made wine and foie gras those many months ago, continued to draw water from our pond to water their crops. They had reminded me of their rights. But when I looked closer, the deed of sale said the Pasteurs had the right to draw water from the pond ‘in times of drought’. This arrangement was in force just up until the local town provided water service to their farm. The town had been sending water the Pasteurs’ way since the mid-eighties, yet they continued to draw both in times of drought and in times of plentiful rainfall. ‘Lend a paysan a hand…’

  The Pasteurs’ use of our water wouldn’t have been a problem if they hadn’t nearly drained it that first summer. They had rigged a small, powerful pump with a long hose that extended several yards into the pond. With this makeshift contraption, they would draw water, send it to another pump on their property and irrigate their corn and wheat crops. Given the dryness and the heat of recent years, it was simply too much for our little pond. Week after week, the water’s edge receded. The process did produce one benefit: as the water drew back, a lovely mosaic of paved stones revealed itself. That was a nice effect, except that the pond was home to a beautiful and diverse ecology which included frogs, birds, fish, herons, ragondins and the thousand other living things that make up a country pond. And a low pond made the property look less attractive, depleted, despite a new-found stone border. For Bud, this aesthetic consideration was the least of her worries. She wasn’t so concerned about the unkempt look of the place. She cared only for the animals and their livelihood.

  The ragondins were a particular source of conflict between us and the Pasteurs. We loved them, but our farmer neighbours, and all other French country farmers, hated them. I knew the ragondin from Louisiana where we call them ‘nutria’. They are cat-sized and vaguely beaver-like with long teeth, furry bodies but a tail like a rat. I suppose they are rodents, but they were our rodents. The Pasteurs had declared war on these fast-reproducing characters. They said the ragondins dug out the sides of the pond, carried diseases and deserved to be killed. Chevalier Pasteur used to catch them, on his side of the pond, and shoot them each morning. We confronted Chevalier, whose name means ‘knight’ in French. I’m not quite sure if knights used their formidable fighting skills to kill ragondins. He said he enjoyed it and had a right to shoot them because they were wild animals and belonged to no one. As long as our furry friends clambered onto his side, Chevalier could do has he pleased. If I’m not mistaken, Chevalier called this ‘hunting’. The fact that he would generally shoot the poor things as they wriggled in one of his home-made traps did not deter him from viewing this as a sporting game. The tension with the farmers mounted. We were beginning to feel besieged on all sides.

  ***

  One night, Bud and I managed to go out to eat. This was rare since we’d had Blue. The restaurant was a lovely, intimate auberge on the banks of the River Mayenne about 20 minutes north of the chateau, with stone and wood beams and old tiled floors and a divine menu. All local produce, all local wines – thanks to the farmers, of course. This was the flip side of the equation. The French are obviously passionate and proud of their menus gastronomiques, and rightfully so. Eating out for Bud in France was always a problem. I would start by saying: ‘She is a vegetarian.’ Then there would be a look of bemusement followed by bewilderment, followed by that whiff of Gallic disgust. Then came the begrudged plate of chips and a plain, lonely green salad. Bud often jokes about her second-class status in France, her lack of true personhood. Part of being a human in France is to eat and enjoy meat. Why live, after all, if you aren’t here to eat everything that moves, save dogs and cats? But Bud, for many years at this point, had not eaten anything with eyes or parents. She wasn’t a proselytiser. You could eat as you wished. She just couldn’t do it.

  We had heard good things about this restaurant, however. Bud was sure they could conjure up something nice from the garden, if not the woods. She started off with a creamy asparagus soup which hit the spot. We polished off our starters and drank wine while we waited for the main course.

  Mine arrived first. Rare, almost bleating lamb with rosemary and fig jus surrounded by the most beautiful millefeuille pastries with local mushrooms, sautéed green beans and a small mound of potatoes coated in Brie. Bud’s plate followed. A large white, gleaming bowl of boiled vegetables.

  This in the land of culinary paradise. Bud looked down. ‘They really must believe that just because I’m a vegetarian I don’t really want to eat. I must be on a diet.’

  Bud called the server over.

  ‘Do you see my husband’s plate? There are wonderful things all around the meat. Potatoes and green beans and mushrooms. Please give me that. A lot of that. This here is, well, it’s rabbit food.’

  ‘But, madam, you ordered from the ‘coin minceur’, the diet part of the menu. We thought you do not want to eat.’

  When Bud had placed her tentative order she failed to notice that the veggies were all tucked into the Siberia of the menu. Unfortunately, there were no other choices. You could have meat with small sides of veggies or boiled mush.

  So it was confirmed. As a vegetarian, you have no rights, you are not a citizen and you should be given boiled food. The waiter quickly brought out a lovely plate of just what I had, sans meat. It all boils down to a cultural misunderstanding. The one thing Bud had conceded when we moved was her veganism. To pass up the cheese in France really would be criminal. The French give a little, Bud gives, we are all happy.

  The next morning another wake-up call. Too early, too loud. I struggled out of a deep, sweet sleep to the sounds of yelping dogs. It wasn’t the first time, but it certainly was the loudest. I stumbled out of bed and, like a fireman on call, wiggled into my clothes and set off downstairs. I limped into the hallway and was met by Didier, our painter. He was struggling with some bit of sanding machinery and offered me an eager ‘Bonjour’.

  ‘There are hunters in your woods,’ he said helpfully. ‘I’m going to meet them. Thank you.’ Then I noticed something. There had been some niggling little thing about Didier that didn’t quite sit well with me. We loved Didier. He was a perfectionist and a great, great artisan. But as I shot downstairs, hair sticking up and sleep still in my eyes, I saw them. Didier’s tiny feet. That was it. A brief thought crashed through my head. Those are the smallest shoes I had ever seen. They were fit only to be hung from a car’s rear-view mirror. That’s what had been bothering me from the first time I’d met him.

  I entered the kitchen and bolted out the door. The sounds of barking dogs echoed through the woods. There must be a dozen or so. This was the latest trick. The farmers knew they couldn’t hunt on our property so they would send the dogs into the woods to fl
ush out the deer. In this case, they were looking for wild boar, or so I had heard at the boulangerie the day before. It seemed there was a herd of ravenous man-eating boar carousing the countryside looking for children. Or corn, at least.

  I ran here and there in the woods trying to catch a dog or two. Two little fellas had wandered into a disused chicken coop so I bolted the door and locked them in. My only success. The dogs kept coming and I had no chance of catching them. At the edge of the woods, I could see hunters perched like birds of prey just waiting for some scared chevreuil, or small deer, to come bolting out. By the time I made my way to the edge of the woods and approached the hunters, they had all loaded up, jumped into their small utility vans and sped off to other, more promising destinations.

  I went back to the kitchen. By this time, Bud was awake and making tea.

  ‘I don’t want them in the woods,’ she said. ‘One of us should go talk to them.’

  ‘Bud, we can’t fight them on every corner. We can’t stop the dogs coming in the woods. They will just say they got away from the hunt.’

  ‘I will go talk to them, then.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  We loaded into the van, Bud about to pop with baby number two, Blue sleepy-headed but up for the ride. I jumped in and we sped down our dirt road to the top of the property. There sat Chevalier, gun in hand, surrounded by three or four like-minded farmers.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked angrily.

  ‘We are hunting the boar. The mother and her babies have destroyed our crops and we have a right to hunt them.’

  ‘You are not allowed to hunt on our property.’

  ‘We are not on your property,’ Chevalier said. He was right. They were just at the edge. Waiting. Chevalier peered at us through his thick glasses, sweat dripping from his grey curly head, rubber boots and torn shorts completing the picture.

  Bud stepped in, ‘Chevalier, I am a vegetarian, I don’t eat meat. I don’t want any hunting around or on the property. Please respect this.’