The dog has no collar, no name and no tattoo. In France, a tattoo is obligatory. If a dog is found without one, it can be destroyed. Worse, it can be sold and used for experimentation. I am horrified and promptly arrange to spend more than half the cash René has given me on a whole host of treatments for this magnificent hound. Her paw needs a minor operation and stitching. Two teeth have been broken, almost certainly while being thrashed, on top of which, she has a stomach complaint and bleeding lacerations on a mauled hind leg. This animal doctor is hugely tall and equally rotund. He is a good-natured, bearded German from Bavaria, a really delightful fellow whose love of animals exudes from his every pore.
“Leave her with me,” he says. “I will call you in a couple of days. You can collect her when she is a little healthier. Do you know her name, by any chance?” We are talking in English because the doctor enjoys the opportunity to test out his skills.
I shake my head. “I don’t know her name,” I say.
He looks surprised, then chortles and writes something on her card while wishing me a bonne soirée and assuring me that I am not to worry.
I return home to my work, thinking about what to do with the dog when she is well again. I have not forgotten Henri and the promise I made to return for him as soon as our circumstances allow. These concerns prompt me to telephone the animal rescue center, le refuge.
When I inquire after Henri, I learn that a home was found for him shortly after we returned with him. My heart sinks, and yet I cannot begrudge dear wild Henri a decent bed. “Il est très, très content,” the administratrice informs me. I thank her, wish her well and replace the receiver, saying a silent au revoir to the big black hound who turned our lives into a spin for a few short weeks.
René does not return the next day for his prepurchased wood, nor the following. I have no telephone number for him. I did not even catch his last name. I am puzzled. Am I in possession of stolen or homemade notes which I am about to pass on to the vet and to Mr. Di Fazio who clunks up the drive, ready and eager to begin the repair on the roof?
I watch as he unloads the most gruesome collection of tools and asphalt-heating equipment, something not unlike a giant Bunsen burner. All the while, he sings and whistles and grins, nodding and bowing every time I am anywhere near him. On one occasion, as I pass by, he slaps his thigh as though he were the principal boy in a pantomime and grins, shining white teeth exposed like an open zipper within his soot-smeared face. “Pas de bottes, eh!”
Which means, No boots! It is now July. I am running about everywhere in shorts, a tube top and flat espadrilles. I have no idea what he is talking about, and I don’t want to ask, but I am beginning to fear that he might be completely balmy.
UNTIL THE END OF the twentieth century, when dieticians the world over pronounced the Mediterranean diet the healthiest in the world, the olive and its by-products were used almost exclusively in southern cuisines. The hue of the oil is as golden and luxuriant as a summer afternoon spent dozing in a hammock in the Midi. It is as familiar and vital to the kitchens of this region as, say, garlic or bouillebaisse. Quintesssentially Mediterranean, it evokes the climate, terrain and character as instantaneously as any wrinkle-faced Niçois playing boules in his dusty village square.
It was the Greeks, some twenty-five hundred years ago, who planted the first olive trees on this southern coast of France, but they spent precious little time cultivating or reaping here, they were not an agricultural people. They were navigators, explorers, seafaring traders. Moving westward, they founded such seaports as Antibes, Nice and, of course, Marseille in 600B.C.—its original Greek name was Massilia—and then they moved on. For the Greeks, the bustling port of Massilia was a watering place and a spa as they headed inland, hell-bent on securing their tin and amber routes. The citizens of Massilia spoke perfect Greek. They dressed and comported themselves like Athenians and kept well away from what they perceived as the contamination of the barbarians living all around them, the tribal Celts.
I GIVE UP ON MY writing and olive studies because Di Fazio is marching to and fro on the roof. His every step is acoustically exaggerated and shudders the house as though a giant were striding the heavens. And how he whistles and sings!
I close up my laptop and go outside for a swim, but almost as I plunge into the pool, he calls down to me, asking for a beer. He is très soif. Fair enough. The day is hot, and he is up there with a flame as high as a laurel bush. I ascend the ladder, dripping wet, to take him his beer. The heat and activity have broken him out in a sweat. Perspiration is running down his face and has washed away the soot in stripes. His face looks like a zebra’s. I hear the telephone ringing, so I hurry across the semi-surfaced roof—it is as hot as hell up there with the gas flame roaring and spitting—and begin my descent. As I turn, he holds up his bottle: “À la vôtre!”
I nod. “Good health to you, too, Monsier Di Fazio.” I smile and disappear. His cheeriness is quite extraordinary. I am about to enter the house, hurrying to the phone, when he leans out over the roof again and calls, “Et votre mari, il porte un melon aussi?” And he roars with laughter. I am thinking about it. The question he has asked is: And your husband, does he carry a melon as well?
“‘ello?”
It is the vet’s young receptionist. “No Name is ready to be collected.” No Name! I smile and tell her that I will be by in a short while. I have decided to keep the dog until she is fit, and then… I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. Michel is arriving later this evening. I intend to discuss the dog with him.
Although the vet’s bill is somewhere in the region of five thousand francs, about five hundred pounds, he refuses to accept one centime. “Why?”
“Because No Name was not your responsibility and because you have given us many hours of pleasure. In Germany, the program is called The Doctor and His Dear Friends. I will accept a signed photograph of you, and that will be my payment.” I am bowled over by his kindness and delighted to set eyes on the dog, who is now answering to No Name. She is bandaged from snout to neck, ears exposed and erect, and has another dressing protecting the wounded hind leg. It does not inhibit her ability to walk, albeit with a limp. She wags her tail at the sight of me, so I cannot have been entirely forgotten. Armed with a dozen boxes of antibiotics, I lead her gingerly to the car, and she follows without a whimper.
“Hard to believe,” says the vet who accompanies us, “that anyone would abandon this creature. She’s a purebred Belgian shepherd and a particularly splendid example of the race. If you can’t keep her, let me know. I’ll have no difficulty finding a home for her.”
When I return, our chirpy plumber has packed up for the weekend, but the wood has still not been removed. I settle No Name in a makeshift basket and head for the airport.
Michel is tired. Actually, he looks exhausted and speaks only in monosyllables about his production affairs, but I can read in his expression how pleased he is to be here. On the journey home, I am recounting the adventures of my week while he listens, silently stroking my shoulder and hair.
My pride at selling the wood, the vet’s kindness… oh, yes, there’s a dog, and I have understood correctly, haven’t I? The word melon means melon, doesn’t it? As in English. Michel considers, pondering Di Fazio’s comment.”That was all he said: does your husband carry a melon?”
“I think so.”
“Ah, porter to wear!”
“Do you wear a melon?” I am giggling. We are now kneeling beside No Name, who is uncertain about the arrival of this unknown male, but she does not bare her teeth.
I take Michel on a swift tour of the garden to show him various shrubs and flowers I have potted and inform him blithely of my purchase from one of the village stallholders of a hundred roses, paid for in advance, to be collected when the market next passes this way. Without a hint of criticism, he tries to point out that I lack symmetry and that I am not necessarily choosing the plants that will withstand the heat. “Where will you plant a hundred roses?” he
asks. “If the fellow ever comes back, that is.”
“You are cynical. Of course he’ll come back.” I wave my arm vaguely to the right. “Up there.”
“But, chérie, the earth is full of stones, and there’s no shelter or water source. It will be blazingly hot, which is not ideal for roses.”
“Sometimes you are so full of logic!”
“Überblick,” he replies warmly, which I think is his favorite word. Translated, it means overview. “Are you sure Di Fazio didn’t ask you whether your husband is a melon?”
I burst out laughing. “Why would he ask such a thing?”
“A melon is a fool, a simpleton.”
“Are you?”
“I hope not.” All this is lighthearted banter as Michel prepares the barbecue and I make a salad. We are eating on the upper terrace, looking out over the moonlit sea. The crescent of lights along the promontory of Fréjus string out and camber, winking in the darkness. Standing in the center of our clothed, temporary garden table is my oil lamp. We watch it glow, a warm ball of honeyed light. It is already past nightfall, and the evening, because we have not yet reached full summer, has turned coolish. Clad in slacks and long-sleeved shirts, we pour ourselves glasses of dark red wine. Michel brings the sizzling lamb cutlets spiced with herbs from a small vegetable patch I have been creating as I return from the house carrying the cash paid to me by René. I pour it onto the table for Michel to examine. It has spent the past few days stowed in the bottom drawer of an antique Irish pine chest we found in a junk shop in Paris, buried among our lavender-scented linen. He looks at it, then at me, queryingly.
“Why didn’t you bank it?”
I have to think a moment, because I am not exactly clear why I have left the equilavent of a thousand pounds sitting in the chest. “In case it’s counterfeit or stolen,” I confess.
Michel roars with laughter. “Chérie, you are so dramatic. It is black money, no doubt, but surely tu as déjà compris that a considerable percentage of all money that changes hands down here is earned on the black market. It is the modus vivendi. I am sure this René fellow didn’t physically make it!”
“Then why hasn’t he returned for his wood?”
“He will. This is the Midi. Everything happens in its own time.”
Yet again I have forgotten to remember that time has a different interpretation here. Tomorrow does not necessarily mean tomorrow. It means at some point in the future beyond now. And the only way to know when that might be is to cheerfully wait and see. For a woman as impatient as I am, this has to be a learning curve! I accept his wisdom, and we pass a blissful weekend without sight nor sound of workmen.
AS EVER HERE, WE rise at the first call of the sun. Now that the land has been cut back, we like to walk. This morning, we pick our way up the winding narrow track, ascending through the steep pine forest, hiking to the very pinnacle of the hill. Puffing, we drop to the needle-strewn earth, inhale the heaven-sent perfumes, sharp with a twist of early morning dew, and watch the sun rise. Its rays stream through the squiggle of treetops and blank out the crescent moon.
Daybreak. I have watched the sun rise, the breaking of the day, in myriad locations all over the world with companions or past lovers, but nowhere has it felt this blessed. Here it belongs to us and our intimacy. I close my eyes and breathe deep. Sometimes, for a moment, it feels scary to love this much.
Wending our way back down the hill to the house, we take an early-morning dip in the still, cool pool, followed by a warm bath. Together, through the window of the cavernous blue-tiled room, we watch families of rabbits steal out from beneath the stacks of wood. They poke cautious snouts and whiskers into the new day and then scamper freely, hopping about, taking stock of their newly undressed playground.
These early mornings are a treasured time of day. We have snatched them for our own. They are a part of who we are and what we share. Most of our waking hours are given over to work, weekends too, because if we don’t create, we won’t have a gnat’s chance of restoring or even holding on to this ruin of a farm.
“BREAKFAST!” CALLS MICHEL. His curly hair, which he has let grow, is damp from his bath and clings to the nape of his neck. He is tanned from the sun.
The days are growing too hot to breakfast on our hidden terrace, so we shift our wooden table and chairs to the front of the house, where the sun will not hit until after ten. Over eggs and coffee I begin to fill Michel in on some of the olive material I have been reading. “It was like a journeying caravan, like good news or a creed spreading, the way the olive tree and the production of its fruit traveled. The Greeks brought it here to southern France, but it was also exported across northern Africa to Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco. There, right across the northern littoral of that continent, the Arabs began to cultivate it. Oil was produced. Fruits marinated, recipes and methods passed on, adapted to their cooking. It found its way quite naturally into the local cuisines. Later, the olive tree sailed across the waters north to Portugal and Spain, along with Arab traders, perhaps. The two migrations in that direction from Africa were the Arabs and the Sephardic Jews.”
“Did you know,” Michel chips in, “that the Koran speaks of it as a blessed tree of neither the East nor the West?”
“No, I didn’t. I have been wondering, though, if priests, seers, ancient gurus, the family cook, a tribal grandmother, whoever, understood its mythical powers, its curative properties. Facts were handed down until somewhere in the melting pot of a more modern world, the second-millennium migrations, wars, et cetera, this knowledge was lost, and only now are we beginning to rediscover it.”
As we natter, we watch a band of bushy-tailed auburn squirrels leap from the cypresses to the lower almond tree. They are stealing the nuts we have not harvested. Their expeditions are surprisingly orderly. Two at a time, they descend upon the tree, where the branches bounce like trampolines as they gracefully land, collect their share of the hoard and then give way for the next pair. The only argument develops when a greedy magpie swoops down and begins to screech and rattle the branches. He is furious that the squirrels have beaten him to it. Several landowners I know shoot magpies; watching the birds on this estate, I am beginning to understand why.
AFTER BREAKFAST, WORK. Buried in my space, my atelier, I hear the distant clip-clipping of Michel’s busy fingers at his laptop. I open my book on the history of the olive and read that, after the Greeks, the Romans came to the south of France. Unlike the parched topography of Greece, the landscape of Italy was richer, lusher. It was more verdant and rolling. Because of this, the Romans moved more comfortably by land than sea. During their trek north and their taking of Provence—it was Caesar who christened the region Il Provincia—they quickly grasped the potential of the dusky groves growing everywhere on these hills, their recently conquered territory, and they wasted no time in cultivating the fruit.
Both the Greek and Roman cultures have left profound impressions on Provence. Both are Mediterranean peoples and both stamped their systems, philosophies and architecture on this more northerly region of what we now know as Europe. The differences in their natures has had a deep-rooted effect on Provence. The Greeks introduced the olive to the Romans, and the Romans, in their own country, husbanded and created a thriving industry from it, perfecting its storage, and then they began to do the same here.
IN THE AFTERNOONS, we make love, screened from the relentless heat by the spill of shadows from closed slatted shutters. The century-old house creaks and shifts, waking like Rip van Winkle after decades of sleeping. Then it relaxes into peaceful stillness, as do we. Our sole companion is No Name, who heals by the hour. After, I read or scribble while Michel dozes. Beyond the walls of the cool room, our magnolia has flowered. Its blossoms resemble teacups sculpted out of clotted cream.
During an evening stroll on the upper reaches of the land, we find that many of the drystone walls have sunk into rubbled piles and are slowly spilling across the terraces. They will need to be rebuilt. The removal of such
a surfeit of vegetation could be the cause. The root systems may well have been holding the stones in place or, Michel suggests, it could well be sangliers in search of food. Although no wild boar have been near the house since my first encounter, it is unlikely that they have deserted our farmland entirely. We take a little tour and find their footprints everywhere and untidy holes where they have been snouting for grub. I better take heed! During our stroll back, Michel asks me how my story is getting on. “Slowly,” I reply.
“Might you have it finished by the end of summer?”
I smile and nod, knowing he is inching me toward our agreed-upon deadline. The acceptance and production of these scripts would make a monumental difference to our chances of acquiring the second five acres of land and to holding on to the farm. It would also mean a great deal to me personally, to the fashioning of this new life, the redefining of myself.
Dusk falls, shadows lengthen and we bathe in the pool basked in moonshine, then cook supper on the barbecue. I have taken to preparing the simplest of meals with lashings of olive oil, garlic and herbs. Bliss.
MONDAY ARRIVES AND we are up at the crack of deepest morn, crawling out of bed before the lark sings. Michel needs to be on the earliest flight to Paris, which means we must leave the villa at five-thirty. At the terminal, huddled in my rather temperamental fossil of a Renault, we kiss good-bye. There is heaven in this relationship, and I try not to allow a sense of abandonment or sadness at the prospect of yet another week apart. In three more weeks we will be together for the rest of the summer.
When I return to the house, having stopped off for a much-needed croissant and several cafés au lait in Antibes, Di Fazio turns into the lane. He grinds up the drive behind me.
Before we have barely uttered good morning, he announces, “You’re an actress, aren’t you?”
I nod, feeling at this particular moment more like a bag lady. He roars triumphantly. I am puzzled as to how he has acquired this tidbit but know that it must please him, for he has been regaling me regularly with stories of a highly renowned French pianist and chanteur who, according to Di Fazio, lives not too far from us and whose pipes this plumber has replaced. “Plumber to the stars!” he cries exuberantly, and I picture his vision of it, written in bold paint across the beam of that clonking banger.
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