The positive news, he tells me, is that the series is out on offer all over the world. With a few healthy sales, we can release the farm. I smile encouragingly, but the battle to keep hold of Appassionata has paled for me now. After all, magical as the place is, we could always find another farm, another property, and begin again. It’s the journey together that counts, not the points of departure.
Once upon a time, oh, it seems a long while ago now, I dreamed of a natural haven, of paradise winking down upon a tranquil blue sea. I had pictured friends and family at ease in my Garden of Eden, sharing and at peace, a place where artists worked and lovers loved. But it had been a vague sketch, a dream without lines between the dots, until I met Michel. Then it began to gain wattage, to take on a shape, develop light and shade, rhythm, sinew. Together we have breathed life into those blurred images. Together we have discovered how to live a new life.
Even more, what has blossomed out of those dreams surpasses any bricks or mortar, or even the loveliest of pearly terraced olive groves. Our paradise lies in the depth of our love. What geographical points our traveling takes us no longer matter.
You see, whatever Michel and his dogged determination believe, I suspect that our chances of hanging on to Appassionata are slim. Painful as it is, I am ready for the loss now. Prepared to watch our quirkily dilapidated farm be seized by bankers who cannot begin to calculate the wealth in every silvery leaf, each golden orange, the glittering of early-morning dew drooping in clusters from foliage and richly colored petals. We began this enterprise on a shoestring. Love and tenacity have held it together. We can do it again if we have to. And in the discovery of all this, I have shed skins—driving ambition, materialism, a need to control my life. I am learning to let go and am empowered. My heart has found heart.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
RETURN
The airport at Nice is closed. I cannot get back. Each day I telephone Charles de Gaulle and am told that the situation has not changed. René is holding the fort, but the olive season is commencing and he has over seven hundred trees to tend. I must return. Michel’s health is improving. He works from his little studio in the mornings, then we meander for an hour or so up and down the crooked, cobbled lanes of the Latin Quarter, pausing in the small garden facing Notre-Dame Cathedral before poking about in the musty corners of the English-language bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, until it is time for him to return and put up his feet for the remainder of the day. The pains have subsided. Our last visit to the doctor was very reassuring. If Michel’s health continues to improve at this rate, there will be no need for the operation, and before too long, he will be able to return to a more civilized diet. I feel a little quieter about leaving him. In an ideal world, I would stay, but there is work to be done, and in a few more days, he will join me at the farm for a quiet and simple Christmas.
Curiously, frustratingly, the airport remains closed. What is going on? When I finally get through on the telephone, I am informed by a member of the Air France ground staff that the problem is the weather. Yes, but for five days now I have been trying to get a flight. What weather could possibly close an airport in a climate as temperate as ours for such a period of time? She does not know.
I check the weather pages in both Le Monde and Libération. In both papers, alongside Nice, is a miniature drawing of the sun, beaming at me beatifically. I am baffled. Eventually, I hire a little car and set off with everything we will need for the holidays. Just before my departure, Michel receives a fax to say that the first sale on the series has been made, to Greece. We are over the moon. And how fitting it seems to us both that Greece, mythological land of the olive tree, will allow us to make our first reimbursement to the bank. It buoys me, for the thought of separation never gets easier. These days together have been harmonious and dulcet. Parting, particularly under these conditions, hurts.
I LOVE TO DRIVE LONG distances. The solitude and the passing landscape clear my thoughts. Whenever I am blocked with my writing or have a problem to unravel, I will get in the car and go for a spin. This trip offers me the perfect opportunity to mentally catch up on the time I have been falling behind with my work. I stop for a quick lunch and, to stretch my legs, stroll around the medieval town of Beaune, gazing in the windows of antique shops, before continuing my journey. It is a pleasing drive. The weather throughout the day is crisp and topaz bright. The passing countryside is naked but for row upon row of twisted vines, smoking hillsides, frozen runnels of dark earth and occasional sightings of farmers or country folk clad in gloves and scarves and overcoats.
It is somewhere around Montelimar that night falls; early, because we are approaching the shortest days of the year. The sky is clear, a deep wisteria blue, and the stars resplendent. At first I mistake the glaringly bright light behind me for a car approaching on high beams and feel irritated by the selfishness of certain drivers. Then I glance in my side mirror again and look harder. There is no traffic. The great globe of light is the moon. I slow, move over into the truck lane and, because the road is deserted, pull up on the hard shoulder.
Everything on earth seems to be illuminated by the lunar glow. I have never seen the moon this bright, waves of flaxen light on the silent, distant hillsides. I step out of the car and tilt my head to gaze heavenward. It seems so close I could caress it or draw it down, cradle it in my arms. A platinum balloon, a great round scoop of Montelimar nougat. Its proximity is eery, awesome, but it lights my path all the way home.
Journey’s end. I cross the bridge and turn into the lane. The familiarity of the approach is gratifying. Here are sweet-scented orange groves and agave cacti to welcome me. Here, silhouettes of lofty coned cypresses. Here there is peace. I draw up outside the gates to search for my keys. The cottage, meant for a caretaker and sadly empty since the departure of Quashia, is lit up. For a fleeting moment, I think that someone is in there, and then I see that it is this same extraordinary moon casting beacons of light across the desolate garden, knee-high in weeds, illuminating it as though with electricity.
The dogs plunge down the drive to meet me. Three of them. Ella, Lucky and who? No Name? No, the third animal is too small to be No Name. They yap and bark, panting and frolicking with excitement, following the unknown car the full reach of my ascent. Flanking us are the olive groves and, at the foot of each tree, our circular sprays of netting. Ah, it is a joy to be back. I wind down the window and breathe in the perfumed air. An owl screeches from somewhere in the forest high above. I step from the car and am instantly bowled over by three pairs of paws landing against my hips. There is much licking and tail-wagging happiness. The third fellow is a black and white hound with long, droopy ears and an even longer piebald body. He is compact and muscular with legs like a soccer player’s. “Who are you, where did you come from?” I ask him, but he backs off shyly and begins to yowl like a country and western singer, which makes me laugh. Before going inside, I walk the terraces for a few minutes, stretching my legs. Twisted galaxies of stars dazzle like tinsel in the moonshine. The world is as clear as broken daylight.
Dare I take it as a sign that our days of darkness are coming to an end? That life will soon be reconciled and polychromed once more?
I AM DEAD TO THE WORLD the following morning, coming to consciousness only when I hear the diesel spit of René’s sturdy Renault climbing the drive. His arrival is followed by a chorus of barking dogs. I turn over and glance at the clock. Seven-thirty. Downstairs, I hear the clatter of aluminum dog bowls scraping the ground as they slurp and guzzle greedily. I grab a robe and head out onto the terrace in bare feet, calling as I go. The tiles are cold beneath me. The air is brisk. The day is clear and ominously still. René looks up and waves. “Bonjour! Tu vas bien?”I nod, yawn, stretching my sleepy, bed-warm body as I glance out across the sweeping valley to the sea, where white horses are discernible on choppy waves. A sign of wind. Bad weather coming in. “Tu veux un café?” I ask him.
He tells me yes and heads to the trunk of his car,
drawing out a chainsaw. One of ours. Needed sharpening, he explains.
“By the way,” I call as I head back into the house. “Whose dog is that?”
“The hound? He turned up about a week ago, following behind your shepherd. Never leaves her side. I tried to shoo him off, but he’s not budged. He’s only a puppy.”
Coffee mugs in hand, on the terrace by the pool, we study the olive groves. Birds trill and echo in winter song. Overhead, a buzzard tracks and circles.
“Have you looked at the trees?” he asks.
“Briefly, last night. What is it? The paon?”
“No, no. I said it would be a bumper crop, but even I underestimated. We’ll need help. When’s Michel back?”
I explain the news, and he nods thoughtful concern, then asks me to take a walk with him. We leave our cups on one of the garden tables and set off to tour the terraces. The trio of dogs canter at our heels until our new arrival lets out a curious and rather comical baying, then takes off like a streak of lightning and the other two follow.
“He’s a proper little hunter, that fellow.”
“I wonder where he’s come from. I’ll have to call the vet and the refuge, find out if he’s been reported missing.”
“Runt of the litter, I’d say. You might be stuck with him.”
I laugh, wondering what it is that makes our home such a popular hostel for stray dogs. In spite of our renovations, is it possible that they can sniff the old kennels here? Do scents linger as long as memories?
During my absence, the olives have grown plumper, slightly softer, but remain purply-green. The weight of such a crop is dragging the branches low. A few are brushing the nets. René drops onto his haunches and scans my famous green netting. There is barely an olive in sight. “They are clinging fast to the trees. Not ripening. It’s the same everywhere. I don’t want the branches to start snapping.”
“What’s the forecast?” I ask. “It doesn’t look too good out at sea.”
“I didn’t hear. We should harvest some of this fruit. Of course it won’t yield the same quantity of oil, being so green, but I have—I don’t know, a feeling in my bones.”
“What about?”
“Not sure. Never in all my years of oléiculture have I known the fruit refuse to ripen like this.”
“Could it be the paon?”
“It’s not only your farm, it’s all over.”
The hound returns, tail wagging, a dead rabbit hanging limply from his jaws. His front legs are bloodied. I am appalled and want to chide him but what’s the use, the little fellow is a hunter. He pants, pleased as Punch with himself. I confiscate the still-warm corpse and carry it to the dustbin while three disappointed mutts stare at me miserably, watching their postbreakfast treat disappear before their eyes. I pretend to be cross with the little fellow, but I cannot help grinning, for what a splendid threesome they make: retriever, shepherd and hound, tails awagging.
René and I agree that he will make a start within a day or two. Ideally, if I can find someone to lend a hand, it would save him some time; or he can try to rope in some of his own cronies, but the problem is they are harvesting elsewhere. I promise to do my best, but thoughts of Manuel stunt my expectations. As René settles in his car, he asks, “You better collect your oranges. My wife makes excellent marmalade, and I’ll make you the finest vin d’orange you’ve ever tasted. By the way, did you see on the television that this region is going to be granted an AOC next year? It won’t be for the likes of you and me, but it should improve the local oil prices on the national market, and that can’t be a bad thing, can it?”
I smile. I have never tasted vin d’orange.
“Diable! I’ll make you bottles of the stuff. You won’t forget it!”
An Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée for the finest of the olive oils from this region. One or two areas of northern Provence have already been granted this coveted mark of respectability, and certain connoisseurs believe the olives from our coastal strip—particularly the modest cailletier, which is the variety we farm—to be the one that produces the most delicious of all oils. I think it would be a rather splendid tag.
AFTER COMBING THE EMPLOYMENT pages of the Nice Matin, our local rag, phoning one or two possible candidates, even interviewing one rather pompous ex-military chappie who arrives with a list of rules of what he will and won’t do and then, due to his overaggressive demeanor, gets bitten by Lucky (I spend the rest of our farcical interview bandaging his hand and generally pampering him for fear he will report both us and dog), I give up and put through a call to Quashia in Africa. It takes me several attempts, each time trying to make myself understood in either French or English while at the other end a male voice—le patron of le café?—replies in Arabic and replaces the receiver.
“How are you?” I ask several hours later, when I eventually touch base with him.
“What’s happened?”
“Any chance you could get back? René is inundated with work and—”
“And the olives need harvesting. Yes, I’ve been thinking about it. I gave you my word. If you need me, I’ll come.”
“What about your family?”
“I’ll be there. Don’t you worry about them. Is it urgent?”
“Pretty much. When could you be here?”
“I’ll find out about flights tomorrow, or I’ll organize a boat ticket. It shouldn’t be too hard. All the traffic is going the other way, men returning to their families for Ramadan. Call me Saturday.”
We settle on that and linger a while longer, chatting about his life at home in Constantin, news of his ever expanding family. I can hear the background hubbub of the Arab café, that world, so alien to mine, surrounding him. I picture him—where?—leaning up against a counter, occupying the proprietor’s one crackly phone line. In the background, well-worn plastic tables and chairs crowded with crease-faced elders, sticks at the ready, drinking minuscule shots of pitch-black coffee, putting the world to rights. Who else, aside from us, I am asking myself, telephones a bar in northern Algeria to book the gardener? I smile; the image amuses me.
“Saturday, then,” we agree, and say our good-byes.
“If there are any problems, I’ll ring you tomorrow,” he shouts as a parting afterthought.
The next day, around one, I am working and hear the phone. As a rule, I would let it ring or let the answering machine get it, but I have a hunch it might be Quashia, which indeed it is.
“Bonjour.” My ears are keen to the fact that he is not calling from his local café. The background is silent, a truck or two roaring by, nothing more. Is he in a phone booth in some dusty Arab side street? I fear the worst but try hard not to reveal how desperately I need him to return. “What’s the news?”
“I am in Marseille. My train gets me to Cannes at three-seventeen.”
“When? Today?” I am speechless. “But how did you… ?”
“I took the boat, traveled overnight. I’ll see you later.”
We say nothing about me meeting him off the train in Cannes. I have no idea if that is what he has in mind, but by quarter to three I am down at the station, sitting in front of an express at a café across the street. From a well-chosen seat, in case his train should arrive early, I can keep an eye on all the comings and going of passengers. His TGV is on time, and then I sight him, black Persian wool hat on his head, carrying not even so much as an overnight bag. One split shopping bag with Arabic lettering printed on its side is his sole piece of luggage. He looks exhausted and unshaven. I wave and shout and run to greet him. His warm eyes dance merrily, and he grins his tobacco-toothed grin and we embrace like long-lost family. People look on, some with disapprobation. After all, this is Le Pen country and here am I embracing an Arab workman.
“Here, I brought this for you.” He hands me the shopping bag. Inside are swags of fresh, sticky, honey-colored dates clinging fast to skeletal fronds. There must be a thousand of them. I thank him and picture the little pencil box of dried dates my mo
ther used to buy us as a treat at Christmastime. On its lid were colored illustrations of camels trekking a desert. How exotic they seemed to me then.
“My grandson picked them from the garden before we left for the port. He said that next time you and Michel are to come and pick them yourselves.”
“We will,” I promise.
“My family wants to meet you. We’ll go to the desert, take off on a trek.”
Arm in arm, we thread our way through the tangle of vehicles, impatient scooters and pedestrians to Michel’s car, which is barely more roadworthy than mine was and twice as unmangeable because it is extremely ancient and has no power steering.
“Where’s the Quatre L?” he asks. It is pronounced “Katrelle” and is the nickname the French use to fondly describe that most typical of all workman’s cars, my sadly missed Renault 4.
I sigh. “It drowned.”
“Drowned?’
“A storm in Nice swelled the banks of the river alongside the airport. The place was closed for days. I couldn’t get back, and when I went to collect the car, I found the lot had been flooded and all the cars had drowned. How forlorn it looked, the little Quatre L. Swimming in silty mud, dilapidated, tires sinking…” I recount, smiling. “The attendant said to me, ‘No charge for the parking!’”
Quashia roars with infectious laughter. Climbing the hills, blue smoke billowing from the exhaust, I listen to his tales, at ease in his company. First his journey: at such short notice, there were no bunks to be had. He traveled across the sea sitting on the upper deck, perched against a lifeboat, watching the stars.
“You must be dead.”
He grins, and a solitary gold tooth glints his happiness. “Yes, but it’s how I like to travel. Not a soul around. Constellations of stars and a full moon to guide us, and the roll of the sea beneath me, wending my way back.” I glance toward him. His wrinkled, baked-brown features are animated with the recollection of it, and any guilt I may have felt about having dragged him out of his early retirement disappears instantly, for I understand him well enough to know that he is positively delighted to be back. Quashia is not a man made for retirement. And this corner of France is for him, as it is for us, a spiritual home.
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