One of the characteristics I most love about the French is their appreciation of the arts. We are all, even the humblest of entertainers, les artistes in the eyes of the French. The very mention of the word actress, or even better, writer, fills them with apoplexisms of delight and awed respect. Di Fazio is no exception.
“I saw you on television, didn’t I?”
I shrug. It is possible, but I cannot think what he might have seen. Little if anything I have ever acted in has been bought by the French networks. I understand that All Creatures Great and Small has been shown all over the world except France. Even in Poland, before the fall of communism, when all American and English programs were banned, All Creatures slipped through the system and continued to be screened.
“You are very famous. I had no idea.”
I head on toward the house because he has overestimated my notoriety, because I fear that our plumbing bills are about to escalate and because I am feeling lonesome. But not for long! Amar arrives with an army of ouvriers or jardiniers who unload what looks like an entire forestry commission project’s worth of shrubs and laurel bushes. Definitely way beyond the number we ordered. And then he departs, leaving his équipe to go to work. I steam down the drive. Shovels, rakes, garden utensils of every shape and size are digging, hacking at pine branches, throwing sods of earth every which way, transforming the face of our border land.
“Stop!” I screech.
There is no leader here to take heed. I am the madwoman from atop the hill. Sun-baked faces stare, eyes glare, but they return to the job in hand, the contract they are being paid for, no doubt at a menial rate. I dread to think what Amar will charge for all of this, and I hurtle back to my papers in search of his telephone number. This has to be stopped before I find we have purchased an entire garden center!
While this performance is at play, René arrives, followed by a bevy of cars, all of which have open trailers attached. Our drive is now completely blocked by vehicles. Even if I wanted to escape, I couldn’t.
René, who is a little over five feet five tall, leads his party up the hill. Fit and stocky with a wine-tinted face and a shock of gray hair which grows so thick and lustrous it almost doubles his height, he begins organizing his gang, all of whom are wielding chainsaws. No Name begins to bark. Then there is Di Fazio above me on the roof, melting and pouring asphalt, unloading and raking gallons of gravel, singing his socks off, five chainsaws zirring at full whack in the pine forest above while, lower down the terraces, shovels slap against stones, branches crack and hit the earth, voices yell… I cannot hear myself think or speak, and I am screaming like a lunatic into the telephone, insisting to Amar that he come over here right now and put a stop to all this planting.
“But the plumbago will be magnificent. Blue creeping up through all those cedar trees. It will be splendid.”
“But we didn’t order plumbago, and we can’t afford it! We don’t even have a fence yet.”
He sighs and agrees to be there as soon as he can. The prospect of not receiving his money seems to have clarified his sense of reason. I put down the phone and run my fingers through hair that hasn’t been combed since I got out of bed, when I barely had time to brush my teeth. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and see how utterly disheveled I look. Somewhere distant, in the village of Le Cannet, where Bonnard painted some of his finest works and Rita Hayworth lived out many of her later years, the midday siren sounds, and as though a switch has been flicked, all work activity stops. Ah, silence. From a dozen quarters, men tramp to the parking area and pull from their various cars, vans, trucks—or, in the case of Amar’s Arabs, their satchels—lunch. Each seeks out the shade or a step to perch on. I watch from a window, fascinated. The Arabs each have small plastic lunchboxes similar to those given to school-children. Within, I see sandwiches and a piece of fruit, an apple or a banana. They also have bottles of still water; the Crystal, which is for sale at one franc a liter. They sit on the ground alongside or close by one another, always in the deepest shade.
Elsewhere are the French.
René and his chainsaw gang are unfolding and setting up a portable table. Onto it are placed unlabeled bottles of rosé and red wine, water, paté, salad, plates, saucepans of hot food (how, I ask myself?), while knives and forks are passed out like leaflets. These are followed by glasses which, when filled, are raised while each drinks the health of the rest. Di Fazio, who is alone but French—more precisely Riviera-Mediterranean, because his family hailed from Italy a couple of generations back—hovers close by his fellow citizens, wishing them bon appétit.
The Arabs munch in businesslike silence.
The French still have preparations afoot. Di Fazio walks over to his prehistoric bus and pulls out a cooler, from which he extracts chilled water and two bottles of beer. He paces the parking area, slugging back the beers, one directly after the other, in thirsty need. The water is then poured over his head, which now renders him the complexion of an albino. He saunters over to René and his troupe and begins to make conversation. His voice is loud, but his accent is so thick I have no idea what he is talking about; whatever the subject matter is, it calls for a great deal of gesticulating. The others are entranced. So am I, but for different reasons. I find this social spectacle fascinating. Even the Arabs, whom Di Fazio swings to face one or twice to include them in his storytelling, seem hooked. Di Fazio is now acting out with great pizzazz what looks like a bank robbery. Two fingers go up in the style of a child’s gunplay. Then he slinks his portly body about, as though imitating a woman, slaps his calves, makes a kick in the air as though booting someone off the face of the earth, before his gaze is reverentially raised in the direction of the house.
It is only then that it dawns on me, as all eyes turn toward the villa and I jump guiltly out of sight, that the female impersonation was meant to be of me!
Monsieur le plombier then makes a gesture that I have noticed is very common here in the Midi. It is a shaking of the hand, thumb turned upward, that denotes wealth or power or serious money. Even his French audience has stopped eating, so spellbound are they by his gossip. Is he telling them that we robbed a bank? But he hasn’t even been paid yet, and if the cash noir, stashed in the linen drawer and burning an illicit hole in our sheets, is stolen, it is René’s!
Fortunately, the arrival of Amar breaks up the party. He heads over to his workforce and wishes them bon appétit, repeating the same to the French contigent. I exit the house and make my way to him, feeling just a mite self-conscious. As Amar and I approach each other, René calls to me: “C’est vous qui jouez dans chapeau melon et bottes de cuir?”
Everyone awaits my response to “Is it you who is playing in a melon hat and leather boots?” Having no idea what this means or what to reply, I take the Midi approach and shrug. This they translate as an exceedingly modest affirmative. René rises to shake my hand, as does one of his companions who already looks the worse for wine and keeps repeating: “Enchanté, madame. Vous êtes charmante, charmante.”
Panic drives me to grab Amar by the arm and drag him down the hill. Nothing I say now will convince him we purchased this olive farm and are attempting to renovate it on an already fraying shoestring. Di Fazio has scuppered everything. Still, after persistant nagging, Amar agrees to dig up those shrubs not agreed upon. But he says that because he cannot take back the bags of fertilizer and horse dung that have been laid and shoveled everywhere, they must all be paid for. When I query the astronomical figure charged for horse manure, he tells me that it is a particularly potent mix since these sacks have been collected from a stud farm! The finest stallions. He smiles wickedly.
I can barely credit the sheer ingenuity of his invention. Yet again he has managed to augment his contract fee by a substantial sum. I thank him for his cooperation and resolve that this will be his last, very last, job for us. Thank goodness I ordered the roses elsewhere.
Later, when Michel and I talk on the phone, he agrees that the time has come to loo
k around for someone else. We say good night, sending love through the airwaves, and I almost forget that I haven’t told him about Di Fazio’s latest pantomime. I narrate it hastily, and Michel is highly amused. “A bowler hat and leather boots,” he explains. “Yes, I didn’t think of that.”
“A bowler hat and leather boots?” I repeat like the simpleton described in French as a melon.
“Melon also means bowler hat. Because of its shape. In this instance, it is the French name for a British television program.”
“Which is?”
“I can’t remember the title in English. I’ll think of it and tell you tomorrow.”
“Have I acted in it?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll remember it, don’t worry.”
The village gossip is spreading with the relentless persistence of the bush telegraph. As a consequence, the entire community now has me identified, I learn, as the actress who played the role of Emma Peel in the hit television series The Avengers. It is cult viewing here in France. The French title is The Bowler Hat (as worn by Steed) and Leather Boots (as worn by Ms. Peel). No amount of negatives will shift their opinion. In fact, it serves only to confirm their conviction. They smile patiently, reading my effusive denials as modesty and a plea for the rights of les artistes to live their lives in peace. In the eyes of the locals, I am a glamorous actress. But what most amuses me about this whole affair is my crazy response to it.
I was wild here, scruffy and at ease. Now that I have been found out and labeled, albeit mistakenly, I switch like a programmed puppet into actress mode whenever curious eyes are upon me. Instead of leaping into my battered car and racing down the hill to catch the postman or pick up a forgotten baguette, I now take the trouble to run a brush through my pool-bleached curls. I don lipstick and mascara and trade in my stitch-worn, faded cotton espadrilles for polished toenails and leather sandals with tiny heels which show off my legs. Such vanity! The public perception which so easily ends up defining the boundaries of character. It was part of what I have been running from.
NOT LONG AFTER THE Romans began to press the oil here in France, rather than using the method of the more popular Italian family-run businesses, the cooperative system was established. Small community mills were constructed, and the olives were taken there by the locals to press or cure. Although there were, and still are, many single estates and farms cultivating their own olive groves, very few, if any, own a private mill. It has long been the norm here in France to take the harvest to one of the nearby cooperatives where the fruit is pressed—as a single-estate extra-virgin oil—and sold or used locally. Since Appassionata is modest, Michel and I agree to use this system. The finest olive oil is extremely costly because it is a very labor-intensive process. The trees do not demand heavy watering but they need to be fumigated, pruned regularly—usually biannually on a rota system—and treated once every twenty-one days from around mid-July to early or late October, depending on the weather. Although I am learning all this, it is not until I finally encounter “our man” and we begin to work with him that I understand the challenge we are taking on.
CALM RETURNS. Di Fazio’s reparations are complete, and I hand over the agreed sum in cash. René’s cash. Di Fazio counts it carefully and requests one last beer for the road, which he drinks in two gulps before trundling off down the hill, a contented man.
The laurel bushes are planted. Begrudgingly, I settle Amar’s account with him, the agreed sum plus many hundreds of francs for the manure. I must water the shrubs on a daily basis, he advises. Then, as he takes off, he calls back a parting shot: he cannot be held responsible for their life expectancy, because, due to the escalating heat, nothing should be planted this time of year. “It’s too risky!” I want to throw my gardening tools at him.
Fearful that the precious new bushes will begin to wilt before my eyes, I abandon my writing and rush directly to buy several lengths of hose which René very kindly offers to help me knit together. I am grateful for his generosity because the whole business is unnecessarily time-consuming and complicated, with plastic sockets which in my hands simply will not marry. After much frustrated fiddling, we eventually lay the hose, which winds like a yellow serpent, nudged up against the Italian stone staircase, all the way to the bushes at the foot of the land.
While I was at the hardware store, René sawed the last of the trees. The logs have since been carted away in remorques by various members of his family. All activity is at an end. Evening is approaching, so as thanks for his much-needed assistance, I invite him to stay for un petit apéritif, which he accepts.
Pastis? No, he prefers to join me in a glass of red wine. With the bottle, a Côte-du-Rhône Villages, I serve a humble dish of local olives and another of pistachio nuts because I haven’t had time to shop. We sit in contemplative silence, listening to the frogs and inhaling the perfumes of dusk.
“Are these from your trees?” He has an olive pinched between his workman’s fingers.
I shake my head.
“You know, since I retired, I live my rêve,” he tells me. “The wood business is not mine. I am helping a friend who cannot afford an assistant.”
He asks me to guess his age. It is a game I always try to avoid, but in this case I decide to not subtract five years and speak my mind. “Early sixties” is my pronouncement.
He sits up straight in his chair and shakes his head, thrilled by my mistake. Seventy-four, he announces with pride. And indeed he has every reason to be proud, for I am genuinely amazed.
His two great pleasures in life, he tells me, now that he has passed seventy and has settled into retirement, la retraite, are his boat, which he takes out most fine days to the islands—ah, the islands!—and he spends lazy hours fishing, and the husbanding of olive farms. He oversees and runs four, the largest of which boasts over two hundred trees. That particular estate is owned by a long-standing chum of his. They were boys together. Both were educated here in the village. His school pal, René continues without the slightest hint of jealousy, is a multimillionaire and the proprietor of the largest and most famous chain of hardware stores in southern France. René speaks of his septuagenarian companion with fondness but of himself with pride. “He works too hard, has too many responsibilities. Mais moi, I do what I love in life. I have over six hundred and fifty olive trees in my care.” And he sweeps up his glass, proposing a toast to doing what one loves in life. I drink to that! Then with a twinkle, and not without a soupçon of Provençal wiliness, he adds, “You have the perfect position here. The fruit from your trees must be excellent. Tragic to let it go to waste. Why not allow me to care for them for you?”
I am silenced by his proposition. This is so much more than I had hoped for at this stage. My sole regret is that Michel is not here to share this fortuitous moment.
The bottle has grown lighter as evening has fallen. I pour what remains into our glasses, and he gives me the deal. He will prune and treat the trees, gather the olives and deliver them for pressing at the moulin. For this service he demands two thirds of everything farmed and pressed. We will receive the remaining third.
I had thought we might share the harvest on a fifty-fifty basis, but he shakes his head firmly. He is adamant. Ce boulot requires a great deal of labor, skill and expertise. I nod, knowing this to be true from my books and study, and accept René’s proposition without debate. We raise our glasses to the partnership.
The sun is sinking into underbelly tones, gold seeping into tender flesh-pink. I have lived my life through my senses, looked at, experienced it through prisms of light and emotions. Touching, feeling. Now I am attempting to be not less romantic but more practical, particularly about the renovating of this villa and the reestablishing of its olive farm. Michel describes it as honing new muscles. Still, I hope when he meets René he will agree that fate has dropped a nugget of good fortune into our laps; instinct tells me we have chanced upon our man.
CHAPTER SEVEN
OUR DESERT PRINCE
My father spent his war in Africa. He was a corporal in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, but his remit was never to fly planes, bomb cities or fight. Always a big kid at heart, he happily occupied himself by dressing in high heels and women’s clothes, sporting face powder and streaks of carmine-red lipstick. All in the broiling desert heat. This along with sliding out of camp, hitting the hot spots and getting roaring drunk with the likes of such veteran comédiens as Peter Sellers and Tony Hancock. This trio was imprisoned together on several occasions when discovered by their commanding officer falling about the streets of Cairo completely plastered, attempting to hitch a ride back to base, instead of being already tucked up in their bunks. Never dejected by a night in the slammer, my father continued to sing his young heart out and play the fool and was applauded enthusiastically for it, for he was a proud and dedicated member of one of the most renowned of the wartime entertainment troupes, the Ralph Reader Gang Shows.
I spent much of my childhood sitting on his knee or on the floor at his feet, listening to his stories of those days in far-off Africa. They were outclassed in brilliance only by my grandfather’s tales of big-game hunting, though now, looking back on it, I don’t believe my father’s father ever set foot in Africa, whereas my own father’s tales of high jinx were certainly true, if a little embellished.
I mention this now because, over the years, those stories painted in my mind’s eye a scintillating and very colorful picture of the dark continent, of Arabs and bazaars, of South African beaches and Zulus. It was one of my favorite bedtime victories to persuade my father to sit with me a while and speak to me in Zulu. All that clicking on the upper palate, short phrases spoken in deep and resonant tones, used to thrill and excite me. I pictured those seven-foot natives clicking and communicating and banging tall, hand-painted spears, all to ask little more than after your general health! If there had been an Oscar awarded for ham acting, my father would have been a serious contender.
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