by Karen Hill
“No trouble at all, just lots of fun and exercise,” said Ruby.
“Do you love me?”
“Yes, I do,” said Ruby. “Of course I love you.”
Werner stood looking at her, shaking his head. “Yeah, well, think about this relationship of ours some more while you’re away,” he said before walking away.
Emma slept over the night before they left, and both of them were brimming with excitement when they took the subway and the bus at dawn down past Grunewald towards the highway and check point. They planned to hitchhike to France to save money. They figured they could make it to Alsace in ten hours and then to Burgundy in another three or four hours. Ruby was carrying a can of mace. They agreed, somewhat naively, that the safest rides would be with truckers; because the drivers were working, the girls assumed that they were somewhat less likely to commit a crime.
They got their first ride after an hour with an old man in a beat-up Benz. He asked them a lot of questions about where they were going and poked fun at their German. He was heading for Frankfurt. That would take them close to Alsace, a few hours from Strasbourg. He dropped them off at a rest station outside Frankfurt, and there, Emma flagged down a couple in a red Audi with French licence plates who agreed to take them to the border. When they hit the autobahn, Ruby lay her head down on Emma’s lap, she was so afraid of the speed and the lane-swerving. She almost threw up when they got out at the border, still a ways north of Strasbourg. Pretty soon after that they caught a lift with a truck driver. The going would be slower, but Ruby was happier. From Alsace to Burgundy, low-lying, densely forested hills grazed the sky as the river Oise flowed alongside, and relief bubbled up now that she was in France. Here she was escaping Werner, her surrogate father. No one would tell her what to do every day, and she would be able to speak and hear her mother’s language once again.
After arriving in Mâcon in the early evening, they stood in line with a motley assortment of people seeking fruit-picking jobs. One African fellow didn’t have all his papers, and the official at the desk began yelling at him. Then a tall man around forty years old, with straggly red hair and beard, stepped out of the line. His sly grin revealed several missing front teeth.
“Mais qu’est ce que vous faites? Vous devez avoir honte de traiter les gens comme ça!”
When several others echoed the tall man, saying the official should be ashamed of treating people like that, the official shrugged and simply asked the African to come back the next day with all his papers. The redhead remained boisterous in the line, complaining constantly about the wait to his much quieter companion, a brown-skinned, black-haired teenager wearing a David Crosby–type fringed suede jacket. It seemed so seventies and out of place in this new era.
When Ruby and Emma turned in their papers, they were told that there was a potential job for them if they returned the next day. They were handed tickets to use at a campground half an hour away by foot. As they stood mulling their options, the tall redhead began speaking to Emma, also a redhead, in broken English.
“Ladies, I ask you, where are you from?”
“Canada . . . England,” was their joint response.
“Well, well. Pleased to meet you. I am Jean-Claude and this”—he gestured to his friend—“is Willie. May we take you to the campground in our car?”
Ruby wasn’t sure about these two characters, but Emma jumped at the chance. As the foursome walked over to the road, Ruby recoiled when she saw a bright red sports car with a sprawling naked woman spray-painted in silver across the hood. The side and rear windows were covered in foil.
“Emma, no, we can’t go anywhere in that!”
Emma replied rather testily, “We’re just getting a ride. Nothing’s going to happen.”
Ruby climbed reluctantly into the back seat with the teenager. In the front, Jean-Claude and Emma hit it off instantly, nattering endlessly, while Willie and Ruby did not speak a word. At the campsite, they pitched their tents and shared some fruit and cheese, sausage and bread. Jean-Claude and Willie supplied a few bottles of red wine and brandy. Willie loosened up enough to tell Ruby that his father was an indigenous Peruvian and that his mother was French. Ruby told him about her own mixed background, but she still felt strangely awkward.
Things worsened as the night wore on. Emma and Jean-Claude were all over each other, while Willie cast longing looks at Ruby. She felt sorry for him, but not enough to invite him into her tent. He was only eighteen and looked sixteen—too young for her. Willie eventually retreated to sleep in the red car, where he was less likely to hear the grunts and squeals emanating from the tent where the redheads were busy.
The next day, Jean-Claude and Willie left for town, promising to look for work for the four of them. Ruby wasn’t too sure about letting these guys—one loud and obnoxious, the other quiet and unassuming—take charge of their working future in France. But Emma was game, reasoning that being French, they knew the ropes. Hours later, they were back: they had secured a job on a pear farm about thirty kilometres down the road.
The next morning, hung over, Ruby was still feeling uncomfortable about riding in the car. Jean-Claude sped through Mâcon, running red lights and almost running down several pedestrians. Ruby yelled at him to slow down. But he just laughed. “If you’re anarchist, this is the only way to drive.”
Ruby could have told him that her lover was also an anarchist but would never drive so recklessly, but she knew it would fall on deaf ears. The car careened through the streets of the town and eventually onto country roads, the high speed reducing Ruby to a huddled ball in the back seat. She hated the smile on Emma’s face.
Willie only talked when Jean-Claude addressed him directly. Then he would babble about how his father had led his people into rebellion in Peru many years ago and how he too possessed the ability to rouse people to revolt. Jean-Claude talked about his experiences in the 1968 student uprisings in Paris and how he hoped to repeat a similar situation, this time enlisting workers from across the country.
How different they sounded from Werner. He was an intellectual who lived through his books, his days of fighting in the streets a thing of the past. He had wanted to change the world; however, he had told her that he gave it up when he realized that it had become more about the excitement than about the cause. Now he was only involved in his books, studying German language and history. She tried to picture Werner dressed in black, from balaclava to boots, setting barricades on fire. What a different person that would have been!
Arriving at the farm, Ruby gazed over a vast expanse of woods and fields; at the top of a ridge, she could see row after row of pear trees. They were immediately approached by a man who introduced himself as Monsieur Ranier. Short, pudgy and balding, he perched his sunglasses atop his shiny head as he looked over the group.
“I hope you all know that this is hard work. You’ll get a break for lunch at one and then work until dinner at six. Pitch your tents and then come back ready to work.”
They found a beautiful little lake surrounded by trees and rocks and a little sandy tract of beach. Just above the beach was flat ground where they pitched their tents.
“This is heaven,” said Ruby. “I can swim!”
Heading back up the hill, they found Ranier waiting for them with the others. Ranier hooted when he found out that Ruby was Canadian.
“You are a cousin of ours, after all.”
Ranier teased her about her slightly Québécois accent. From then on, everybody referred to her as “La Canadienne.”
Ranier sent Emma, Jean-Claude and Willie off to the pear trees to start picking. Then he said to Ruby, “Eh, la Canadienne! Venez ici.” And, you, the Canadian! Come over here.
Ruby was told to drive a tractor that held dozens of wooden flats of pears. “Mais, vous vous moquez de moi. Je n’en sais rien,” Ruby said. You must be joking. I don’t know how to do that.
“Ça ne fais rien. Venez avec moi.” Doesn’t matter. Come with me.
Ruby said, “But I don’t ev
en know how to drive a stick shift.”
As Ranier continued to insist, Ruby thought he was trying to humiliate her. They walked up a long row of pear trees. The tractor at the top of the hill seemed like some mythical beast. Ranier made her climb onto the shiny red tractor and told her she was to back it slowly down the row, stopping every few metres so that more flats could be loaded. Each flat was about a metre square and would be filled with rows of barely ripe pears. Ruby was terrified. What if all the pears fell off? She fumbled nervously with her feet, trying to figure out the clutch. Finally she decided to shift into first gear without it and see what would happen. The gears screeched and groaned as they tried to find their place. As she heard the flats shifting behind her, she started shaking.
“Mais arrêtez donc,” Ranier urged, telling her to be more careful. “Tout va tomber. Vous foutez la transmission. Lentement, lentement!”
Ruby finally managed to move the machine backwards with a bit of a lurch, not enough to make the fruit fall off. But how was she going to keep this up? The tractor stopped with a shudder, and two guys grabbed the flats that the pickers had filled with fat, ruddy pears and stacked them on top of the others on the tractor. Ruby felt her heart in her mouth each time the tractor stopped, afraid of losing the precious cargo. But as the hours passed, she learned to move her feet in sync and felt less shaky. The tractor’s transmission had been spared.
By the lunch break Ruby was famished. She washed up and found her way back to the farmhouse dining room, where there was a long table with many chairs. Soon she was joined by Emma, Jean-Claude, Willie and another young man of stocky build with wavy brown hair and dark brown eyes. Ruby thought he was cute. She caught his eye and said bonjour. Introducing himself as Jean-Pierre, he smiled and sat down directly across from her. Ruby sighed and thought: Not another hyphenated Jean!
Slowly people took their places around the table, a dozen in all. The room buzzed with conversation. In the middle of the table was a platter of peppery veal loin chops with mushroom sauce, another large plate chock full of roasted potatoes, and several dishes of green bean and tomato salad. Ruby’s mouth was watering and she dug in, chatting through the meal with those around her. Then, from the other end of the table, an elderly man called out to Ruby, “Eh, vous, la Canadienne! Contez-nous une histoire de votre pays, une histoire de Québec.” Canadian! Tell us a story of your country, a story of Quebec.
Ruby was caught off guard. She had no real stories to tell about her country and felt ashamed, as if she’d let her family, especially her father, down. Her father and her sister were consummate storytellers, but that gift hadn’t been passed down to her. She was habitually shy about speaking in public.
Everyone started to call out to her. “Oui! Oui! Contez-nous une histoire!” Yes, yes! Tell us a story!
Ruby finally decided to tell them about her idyllic summers spent in Trois-Pistoles, Quebec, where she had learned French.
When she was finished, Jean-Pierre said, “I hear that you handle a tractor pretty well.”
Ruby blushed. “I tried my best.”
The farmer’s wife put down several warm pear tarts on the table, with lattice crusts and what looked like an apricot glaze. Ruby was stuffed, but she knew she couldn’t leave without trying dessert.
As she and Emma prepared to leave, Jean-Pierre said, “After dinner I’ll show you around the farm.”
“Sounds good.”
Emma snickered. “Good. It’s about time you were getting some.”
Back in the fields, the sun blazed high above the surrounding hills. Leaving the tractor to someone else for the afternoon, Ruby joined the others in gathering fruit. Picking pears was simple enough: strap on a flat with a wide, beltlike contraption that hung over the shoulders, scale a stepladder and snap the barely ripe fruit from the branch.
They climbed up and down the ladders and moved up the rows. The trees looked beautiful, covered with small gifts of sweetness. Though Emma was working in the same row, she was too far away to carry on a conversation. When they loaded their flats onto the back of the tractor, they usually saw Willie and Jean-Claude working the other side of the row. Jean-Claude was often grumbling something about “the fascists and their work ethic” and then smacking Emma on the bum.
At dinner that evening, Ruby took her place next to Emma. Then suddenly Jean-Pierre sat down on her other side. Willie and Jean-Claude sat on the opposite side of the table. Jean-Claude shouted out loud for everyone to hear, “Watch out. You’re not likely to get much out of her. My boy Willie has tried already. Don’t waste your time.”
Ruby wanted to kick him in the groin, but he was too far away. Jean-Pierre smiled but kept silent. Willie’s smooth face contorted with anger and embarrassment.
After they had all finished their main courses, a man named Jacques stood up and announced that he had some songs to sing and would love some company. He singled out Ruby, who blushed and demurred, claiming her voice had rusted over the years. Jacques began to sing with great fervour, moving from person to person around the table, addressing each one with a song. To Emma he sang, “You are the bright English redhead that loves French men, but who will leave them far behind.” To Ruby he crooned, “To the Canadian who doesn’t look Canadian, come from afar to steal our men.”
Soon a wondrous array of cheeses spread across wooden platters arrived at the table, accompanied by samplings of the farm’s own poire Williams spirit. The singers calmed down long enough to eat again, but when the drinking began, voices lifted into the air once more, this time in unison, and Ruby felt confident enough to join in.
“I never knew you could sing,” Emma whispered. “Your voice is so sweet and pretty.”
“Oh, I love to sing to myself, but to others not so much,” said Ruby.
She mulled over her meagre repertory of French-Canadian songs. She recalled an Acadian song by Zachary Richard, “L’Arbre est dans ses Feuilles,” that was easy to sing. She gulped down her wine, hoping to calm her nerves. As she opened her mouth, the first sounds were squeaky and engulfed by a cloud of breath. She closed her eyes to focus on her breathing. Then her voice opened up and she felt the warmth of other voices joining in. As she signalled everyone to repeat the verses, her quaking subsided and her voice flowed out strongly in the company of others. Her face flushed and a feeling of elation washed over her.
After dinner, Jean-Pierre slipped his hand on Ruby’s shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s go for a walk,” he said, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. “You’re very sweet, you know. But I detect a little mischief behind all that sweetness. Anyone who can sing a song like that—so goofy, but loads of fun.”
Ruby laughed. “Yeah, that’s true. I take after my father. A part of me likes to do really silly things.”
Suddenly she kissed him on the lips. They lingered for a few moments, tasting each other’s mouths. Then Ruby broke away and looked at him. “You don’t have a girlfriend?”
Jean-Pierre hesitated, and then confessed he did. But she was away for the summer and this was just for fun, he said.
Ruby nodded and said, “Same here.”
“Where’s your boyfriend?”
“In Germany.”
“What? Do you live there? Is he German? I don’t like Germans—never have. Nobody here does. Not since the war.”
They wandered down towards the tents. Ruby said, “Well, it’s true it’s not always easy living there, but they’re not all bad. There are lots of interesting young people, and the scene is politically charged.”
“I don’t care much about politics. It’s all lies anyway.”
“What about Vichy?” Ruby countered. “The French collaborated with the Germans right here. That’s part of your history, too.”
“Yes, it’s true, it was a shameful thing.”
Ruby took his hand and led him down to the water. Jean-Pierre cupped her face in his hands and kissed her cheeks and forehead.
“You are very beautiful.”
Ruby blushed
and stirred a little, uncomfortable with the flattery.
“So, ma chère, why don’t we go for a swim?”
It was a warm, quiet night and Ruby was still aching from the day’s work. “Are we going to strip right here?” she asked.
“Where else? Come on, what have you got to lose?”
They stripped down quickly, and Ruby ran into the water. They splashed playfully at each other, laughing, held each other’s heads under the water, swam around each other, kicking up sprays of water. They kissed and fondled and licked while the water lapped at their skin. They decided to race each other across the lake. Ruby was a strong swimmer, but she preferred to swim on her back. She closed her eyes and let the rhythmic arcing of her arms and the kicking of her feet propel her smoothly forward as the water coursed over her naked body. She beat Jean- Pierre effortlessly.
“You were just lucky,” he sighed.
They stepped out of the water, grabbed their clothes and made a dash for the tent. They dove inside, rolling around to dry off and then tumbled on top of each other. Willie slept in the car once more.
When Ruby woke the next morning, Jean-Pierre was gone. She felt a mild pang of guilt at her infidelity to Werner. But it was he who had insisted that their relationship be an open one. And because she hadn’t taken advantage of that possibility before, she was determined to do it now, before she was officially married.
One Sunday about a week later, Ruby had an afternoon off and decided to venture into the kitchen and talk to the chef, Bruno. She was hoping to get in on some cooking action. Bruno was a tall, blustery man with a very big heart. He often stopped to chat with her when he saw her in the dining room. He immediately agreed to let her help.
“We’re making onion tarts and tomato salad for tonight. You can help slice the onions for now. Make sure they’re nice and thin. You’ll find the knives over there.” Bruno busied himself getting out cast-iron frying pans and tart forms. Then he rummaged on the shelves for the flour. Ruby peeled and sliced away and soon tears ran gloriously down her face as she cut the onions and made mounds of slices on the wooden board. Her sleeves were wet from wiping away her tears. Bruno instructed her to use butter and oil in the frying pans. He said they would let the onions cook for about an hour. Ruby hummed to herself while the onions sizzled lightly on the stovetop.