Tender at the Bone

by Ruth Reichl

  “Oh,” said my mother brightly, “how nice. You’ve made matzo brei for your friends. I’m so glad you’re not lonely.”

  THE TART

  Right after Christmas, Tommy enlisted in the navy. I cried when he left and wore the miniature silver ring he sent around my neck. But neither that nor his misspelled letters were a satisfactory substitute for his presence, and I started drinking in earnest. My parents were away most of the time and now that Tommy was gone the American high school experiment was not much fun. I couldn’t wait to go to college.

  I threw myself into the applications. My mother was pushing for the Ivy League but I wanted to get out of New England, to get as far as I could from the person I had become. I wanted to be in a place where nobody knew me. I wanted to start all over again.

  I applied to the University of Michigan because there was no fee and no essay. When I was accepted three weeks later I realized it would be perfect: tabula rasa, I had never even visited the state.

  In the meantime, though, there was the summer to get through. I applied for a job at the local Dairy Queen, but my mother had other ideas. She came home one weekend and handed me a ticket. “We’re going to Europe!” she said brightly.

  Oh great! All of a sudden she wanted to spend time with me. “I can’t,” I hedged. “I have to make some money for college. It was your idea.”

  “You can work over there,” she said. “I have it all figured out.”

  Unfortunately, she did. My mother had discovered the wonderful world of working abroad, and she was going to write a book about it. She had even wheedled an advance out of a gullible publisher. Mom had thought of everything: while she stayed in Paris interviewing young Americans, I would be a counselor in a camp on a small island off the Atlantic coast of France. She had thoughtfully arranged it all. I was stuck.

  “I wonder if it is a good idea that you take that sort of a job,” Béatrice wrote. “In America working in a camp is ideal and I might do it myself in a year or two. But I’m afraid things are rather different here. Secretaries and shopkeepers become counselors because they want a free vacation. You won’t have anyone to be friends with.”

  Béatrice was even more skeptical when she learned that I would be working in a “colonie sanitaire” on the Île d’Oléron. Health camps were a sort of rural version of the Police Athletic League, places where poor French children were sent for a free month in the country. “Think of the food!” she wrote. “You’ll starve.”

  She was wrong about everything.

  OLÉRON BERRY TART

  PASTRY

  1½ cups sifted flour

  ¼ cup sugar

  ¼ pound sweet butter

  2 tablespoons cream

  1 egg yolk

  Put flour and sugar into a bowl. Cut the butter into small squares and add to flour-sugar mixture. Toss with your fingers until butter is coated with flour, and then rub until the mixture resembles cornmeal.

  Add cream to egg yolk and pour into flour mixture. Mix lightly with a fork until pastry holds together in a small ball. If not moist enough, add a tablespoon or so of water to bring it together.

  Sprinkle flour across a counter and place pastry on flour. Push the dough with the heel of your hand until it has all been worked through. Gather into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and let rest in refrigerator 3 hours.

  Remove and allow to warm for about 10 minutes. Sprinkle more flour onto counter. Flatten ball into a disk and roll out into an 11-inch circle. Fit gently into 8- or 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Press into pan gently, being careful not to stretch the dough; trim off edges, and put into freezer for 10 minutes until firm.

  Preheat oven to 350°. Line tart shell with aluminum foil and fill with dried beans. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove aluminum foil and beans and cook 4–5 minutes more, until golden.

  Remove from oven and allow to cool while making filling.

  FILLING

  ¾ cup blanched almonds

  ¾ cup sugar

  3 tablespoons butter, softened

  3 large egg yolks

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  4 cups raspberries

  Put almonds and 3 tablespoons of the sugar in food processer and grind to a fine powder.

  Cream butter with remaining sugar. Add egg yolks, stirring until smooth. Add ground almond–sugar mixture and vanilla extract.

  Spread almond cream into bottom of prebaked tart shell.

  Carefully cover the tart with 2 cups of raspberries.

  Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons sugar, bake at 350° for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and cool for 2 hours.

  Just before serving, cover the top of the tart with remaining 2 cups of berries. I don’t glaze it, but if you like you can melt 2 tablespoons of currant jam with 1 tablespoon of water in a pan, allow to cool, and then brush the glaze over the berries.

  Serves 8.

  “Vous commençez maintenant,” said the woman at the Gare d’Austerlitz, pushing nine small boys in my direction. She handed me a sheaf of tickets, turned, and disappeared into the crowd. The boys eyed me speculatively, shifting their knapsacks from one hand to the other. Then the smallest, a child with dark skin, black hair, and huge brown eyes gave me a challenging stare and began whooping like an Indian. They all followed his lead.

  Passengers running for their trains turned and looked disapprovingly in my direction. The disappearing woman turned too; even from a distance I could see her mouth working. She came back, a look of anger and resignation on her face. “Nikili,” she said fiercely, whacking the smallest child on the back of the head. “Taisez-vous,” she said to the others. The noise subsided instantly.

  Looking sternly at me she said, “You will have to maintain discipline. Do you know what to do?”

  “No,” I said, thinking I was about to get an instant course on being a counselor. But all she wanted was to get me off her hands. She pointed to a group of boys in the distance, gathering by a gate. “The train leaves in twenty minutes. Go wait with them,” she said, turning to leave. She turned back, murmured, “Bonne chance,” and fled.

  I herded the boys toward the group she had indicated. “Maison Heureuse?” I asked the cute guy standing with them. “Très heureuse,” he replied as the gate opened. The boys all dashed for the train, my group galloping happily behind. I ran to keep up and then looked around for the cute guy, but he was no longer in sight. Disappointed, I settled the boys into their seats, told them a thousand times to be quiet, and watched the station slide from view.

  An hour later I discovered that Nikili had disappeared. I was frantic, imagining an international scandal. “Incompetent American!” I muttered to myself, shaking Nikili’s pal Roland and pleading, “Où est-il?”

  Roland grinned irritatingly and said nothing. I gnawed at my fingernails and contemplated getting off at the next stop and disappearing into the French countryside. How could I admit that I had already lost one of the campers? The boys snickered in their seats and threw things at each other, while I wondered what to do. Just as the tears were gathering under my eyelids I looked up to see a girl about my age dragging Nikili down the aisle by his ear. She had a thin athletic body, thick black hair, and startlingly blue eyes, but she carried herself like someone who had no interest in her own beauty. She wore drab clothes, no makeup, and looked like business. As she hurled Nikili into his seat she threatened to take him to the director for a good spanking the minute we arrived if he dared to move.

  He didn’t.

  “Et vous autres,” she said sternly before going back to her seat, “I’ll be watching you too.”

  I followed her to the back of the car where the other counselors were seated. Watching them, I soon got the hang of French child control. It was mostly a lot of screaming. Volume was important and threats seemed to help. When all else failed the preferred strategy was to invoke the name of the dreaded director. “We certainly are a pathetic group,” said the girl who had found Nikili. “All counting on a director we have yet to
meet.”

  I smiled wanly and said nothing. I was tired and homesick, and I wished I were at the Dairy Queen with Julie. I felt sorry for myself and when we straggled into camp and finally met the man in charge it did not help. Standing on the stone terrace that ran the length of the main building, the director outlined the rules. There was to be no shoving, no shouting, no disrespect. Showers would be taken once a week. Most important, everyone was to eat everything on his plate. Campers would be weighed once a week and the government expected everyone to get fatter.

  “If there are any problems …” he said, pausing significantly, “you will come and see me.” And he held up a thick paddle. We were dismissed.

  “Welcome to the army,” said the cute guy from the train as we led the boys to the long, low dormitory. Rows of cots stretched down the length of the room, each with a trunk at its foot. The counselors were housed next door, four to each tiny bedroom.

  I began to unpack, setting the framed picture of Tommy on the little table next to my bed along with a box of chocolate-covered cherries and the book I was reading, Bonjour Tristesse. Monique, in the next bed, pulled out a huge bottle of cologne, a pile of movie magazines, and a small mountain of cosmetics. Suzanne was meticulously covering her table with pictures of Johnny Halliday. When they were arranged to her satisfaction, she carefully extracted from her valise an embroidered pillow with “Johnny” written across it, caressed it lovingly, and set it gently on her bed.

  Meanwhile Danielle, my savior from the train, was arranging a colorless stack of books. She set herself primly on her bed, donned a pair of glasses, and opened one of the books. Monique tilted her head to read the title. “La Nausée,” she giggled, “very heavy. No wonder you need glasses.” She examined Danielle critically and said, “You know, you could be very pretty if you’d let me make you up.”

  Danielle looked up irritably. “Please,” she said, “I am trying to improve myself.”

  Monique made a comical face. “I was just trying to help.” She turned to me and said, “Want to go meet the guys? Let’s see if any of them want to take us into town.”

  “Good idea,” said Suzanne.

  “Why not?” I said.

  “’Bye,” said Danielle. She did not look up.

  “Salut les copains,” said the cute guy from the train when we walked into the Boyardville Café. He signaled to the waiter for three more glasses of pineau, looking as if he owned the place. I fell instantly in love. Georges took no more notice of me than he had on the train; he devoted the entire summer to the seduction of Monique. At night I dreamed about him; during the day I consoled myself with eating.

  That was not hard. When we woke up in the morning the smell of baking bread was wafting through the trees. By the time we had gotten our campers out of bed, their faces washed and their shirts tucked in, the aroma had become maddeningly seductive. We walked into the dining room to devour hot bread slathered with country butter and topped with homemade plum jam so filled with fruit it made each slice look like a tart. We stuck our faces into the bowls of café au lait, inhaling the sweet, bitter, peculiarly French fragrance, and Georges or Jean or one of the other male counselors would say, for the hundredth time, “On mange pas comme ça à Paris.” Two hours later we had a “gouter,” a snack of chocolate bars stuffed into fresh, crusty rolls. And two hours later there was lunch. The eating went on all day.

  It was the main activity; Happy House offered no sports, no games, no crafts, no organized activities of any kind. The island was wild and beautiful, a tangle of thick virgin forests bordering endless miles of empty beach, and the campers were expected to entertain each other. Our job was merely to make sure that none of them got lost and all of them gained weight.

  We spent most of the day at the beach. Danielle worked hard, earnestly teaching her campers to swim; the rest of us just worked on our tans. The only thing we taught our groups was to dig up the delicious cockles that lay just beneath the wet sand and share them with us for a late-morning snack. Thus fortified, we walked back across the beach and through the woods to lunch.

  It was always a magnificent meal. To begin there were often big piles of petits-gris, small shrimp steamed in a mixture of wine, water, lemon, and herbs. When you broke off the heads, the rosy shrimp came tumbling out of their shells; they were a lot of work to eat, but worth it. Afterward there were stews made of fresh country chickens or rabbits, or sometimes small, tasty, tough steaks with big piles of just-made frites. And then salad and bread and cheese and fruit. And, for the counselors, the sour country wines of the region.

  After lunch the campers took a two-hour nap. Only a couple of counselors were required to stay and break up pillow fights; those of us who were not “de service” were free to go to town. We wandered the little streets of Boyardville, writing postcards to our parents and eating the unsatisfactory ice-cream cones sold at the tabac. But sooner or later we all ended up at the Boyardville Café.

  I was sitting there alone one day, sipping a cup of coffee and looking wistfully at Georges, when a voice above me said, “Tu permets?”

  It was Danielle. She sat down and said accusingly, “I have just discovered that you are American.”

  “Yes?” I said.

  She was quiet for a moment and then she said shyly, “Tell me, do you know Tony Curtis?”

  I burst out laughing. “Do you know Jacques Brel?” I replied.

  “I am from Reims,” she said, as if that answered the question. “I am studying to be a nurse. It is useful work.”

  The other counselors considered Danielle a pain; she was a bookworm, a goody-goody, “pas amusant.” But because she wasn’t interested in boys and the boys weren’t interested in me we slowly became friends. And I discovered that she had a surprising streak of independence. When I asked if anyone wanted to hitchhike to the other end of the island and explore St. Trojan, everybody was too timid. “It’s too far,” said Georges.

  “You’ll get back late and be fired,” said Suzanne.

  “St. Trojan?” said Danielle looking them disdainfully up and down. “Yes. I think it would be interesting to take a look.”

  “Are you crazy?” said Monique. “If he finds out, the director will send you home.”

  “Do you really think he’ll send us home if he finds out?” asked Danielle as we set off. It was a hot, dry day. “What if we can’t get back in time?” We walked through Boyardville, past the tabac, past the one grocery store and the seafood restaurant where the tourists went.

  “The director will never know we’re gone,” I said. “Monique will cover for us.” Danielle nodded, but by the time we reached the place where the sidewalk ended I could see she had lost her confidence.

  There was not much traffic. Nowadays a bridge connects the Île d’Oléron to the mainland, but back then you had to take a ferry from La Rochelle. Few people bothered.

  “Maybe no cars will come,” said Danielle. I thought she sounded hopeful. But just as she said it a car appeared off in the distance. We watched it come toward us, thumbs out. It went flying past, slowed, and came to a screeching halt on the side of the road, throwing up a cloud of dust.

  We ran over. Inside was an older couple from Paris. They could not, they said, take us all the way to St. Trojan because they were only going halfway, to visit a local cheesemaker.

  “Ça ira,” I said, opening the door, “we’ll come along if you permit it.” I knew that if we didn’t go with them Danielle would chicken out.

  “You will be pleased,” said the woman confidently, as if she had known us all our lives and knew what we liked. She had one of those vague, lightly puffy faces that seem like a drawing that has been erased one too many times. Her gray hair was chopped short, she had pale blue eyes, and she sighed a great deal as if some terrible sadness were bottled up inside her; probably it was just indigestion.

  Her husband looked like a walking record of the good life. Built like a fire hydrant, he had a large face traced with broken blood vessels a
nd a large stomach that jiggled softly against the steering wheel. The car was filled with a mysteriously low rattling sound; looking down I saw that it came from the jars of jam and cans of confit that covered the floor.

  Their name was Deveau and when they discovered that I was American they lost all interest in me. “The Americans,” said Madame firmly, “do not know how to eat.” But when Danielle said she was from Reims they gasped happily. “Oh, la belle Champagne,” breathed Madame, peppering Danielle with questions about this restaurant and that winery.

  “My family does not go to restaurants,” Danielle said simply.

  The Deveaus looked sad, as if she were missing out on a great life experience. “Have you been to Troyes?” Madame ventured.

  “Bien sûr,” she said, “my aunt and uncle live near there. Just outside, in the village of Chaource.”

  “Ah, Chaource,” she said reverently, “one of the great cheeses of the world. Have you tasted it?”

  “My uncle makes it,” Danielle replied.

  At that Monsieur Deveau turned to look at her, swiveling so completely that I was grateful the road was empty. He ignored the swerve of the car and stared worshipfully at her, as if he had just discovered a movie star in his backseat. “Do you know it has been made since the fourteenth century?” he said, in the tone of voice most people reserve for great works of art.

  “Yes,” said Danielle. “It is a venerable cheese.” As he returned his eyes to the road she whispered, “I can’t stand it. Disgusting! So rich!”

  A deep sigh came from the front and then Madame Deveau’s face rose over the back of her seat. “It is so hard to get good farm cheeses today,” she said plaintively. She was happy to inform us that when we reached our destination we would be privileged to taste a rare cheese called Oléron. “Made, it is understood, as it should be! It is a sad story when the good cheese of France is being made in factories!” Another sigh.