A Year in Provence (21 page)

It was dramatic, not because of any uprooted trees, but because of the effects of the deluge on earth that had been baked for weeks. Wraiths of steam rose among the trees, and with them a continuous hissing sound as the heat of the new day started to dry the undergrowth. We came back for a late breakfast filled with the optimism that sunshine and blue sky can inspire, and we were rewarded by a working phone, with Monsieur Fructus on the end of it. He had called to see if his insurance policy had suffered any damage.

We told him that the only casualty had been the drive.

“
C’est bieng
,” he said, “I have a client who has fifty centimeters of water in his kitchen. It sometimes happens. August is bizarre.”

He was right. It had been a strange month, and we were glad it was over so that life could return to the way it had been before, with empty roads and uncrowded restaurants and Menicucci back in long trousers.

O
VERNIGHT
, the population of the Lubéron dwindled. The
résidences secondaries
—some fine old houses among them—were locked and shuttered, their gateposts manacled with rusting lengths of chain. The houses would stay empty now until Christmas, so obviously, visibly empty that it was easy to understand why housebreaking in the Vaucluse had achieved the importance of a minor industry. Even the most poorly equipped and slow-moving of burglars could count on several undisturbed months in which to do his work, and in past years there had been some highly original thefts. Entire kitchens had been dismantled and taken away, old Roman roof tiles, an antique front door, a mature olive tree—it was as if a discerning burglar was setting up house with the choicest items he could find, selected with a connoisseur’s
eye from a variety of properties. Maybe he was the villain who had taken our mailbox.

We began to see our local friends again as they emerged from the summer siege. Most of them were recovering from a surfeit of guests, and there was a certain awful similarity in the stories they told. Plumbing and money were the main topics, and it was astonishing how often the same phrases were used by mystified, apologetic, or tightfisted visitors. Unwittingly, they had compiled between them The Sayings of August.

“What do you mean, they don’t take credit cards? Everyone takes credit cards.”

“You’ve run out of vodka.”

“There’s a very peculiar smell in the bathroom.”

“Do you think you could take care of this? I’ve only got a five hundred-franc note.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll send you a replacement as soon as I get back to London.”

“I didn’t realize you had to be so careful with a septic tank.”

“Don’t forget to let me know how much those calls to Los Angeles were.”

“I feel terrible watching you slave away like that.”

“You’ve run out of whisky.”

As we listened to the tales of blocked drains and guzzled brandy, of broken wineglasses in the swimming pool, of sealed wallets and prodigious appetites, we felt that we had been very kindly treated during August. Our house had suffered considerable damage, but from the sound of it our friends’ houses had suffered too. At least we hadn’t had to provide food and lodging for Menicucci while he was wreaking havoc.

In many ways, the early part of September felt like a second spring. The days were dry and hot, the nights cool, the air wonderfully clear after the muggy haze of August. The inhabitants of the valley had shaken off their torpor and were getting down to the main business of the year, patrolling their vineyards every
morning to examine the grapes that hung for mile after mile in juicy and orderly lines.

Faustin was out there with the rest of them, cupping the bunches in his hand and looking up at the sky, sucking his teeth in contemplation as he tried to second-guess the weather. I asked him when he thought he was going to pick.

“They should cook some more,” he said. “But the weather in September is not to be trusted.”

He had made the same gloomy comment about the weather every month of the year so far, in the resigned and plaintive tones used by farmers all over the world when they tell you how hard it is to scratch a living from the land. Conditions are never right. The rain, the wind, the sunshine, the weeds, the insects, the government—there is always at least one fly in their ointment, and they take a perverse pleasure in their pessimism.

“You can do everything right for eleven months a year,” said Faustin, “and then—
pouf
—a storm comes and the crop is hardly fit for grape juice.”
Jus de raiseng
—he said it with such scorn that I could imagine him leaving a spoiled crop to rot on the vines rather than waste his time picking grapes that couldn’t even aspire to become
vin ordinaire.

As if his life were not already filled with grief, Nature had put a further difficulty in his way: the grapes on our land would have to be picked at two separate times, because about five hundred of our vines produced table grapes which would be ready before the
raisins de cuve.
This was
un emmerdement
, made tolerable only because of the good price that table grapes fetched. Even so, it meant that there were two possible occasions when disappointment and disaster could strike and, if Faustin knew anything about it, strike they undoubtedly would. I left him shaking his head and grumbling to God.

To make up for the mournful predictions of Faustin, we received a daily ration of joyful news from Menicucci, now coming to the end of his labors on the central heating system and almost beside himself with anticipation as the day of firing up the boiler
approached. Three times he reminded me to order the oil, and then insisted on supervising the filling of the tank to make sure that the delivery was free from foreign bodies.

“
ll faire très attention
,” he explained to the man who brought the oil. “The smallest piece of
cochonnerie
in your fuel will affect my burner and clog the electrodes. I think it would be prudent to filter it as you pump it into the tank.”

The fuel man drew himself up in outrage, parrying Menicucci’s wagging finger with his own, oily and black-rimmed at the tip. “My fuel is already triple-filtered.
C’est impeccable.
” He made as if to kiss his fingertips and then thought better of it.

“We shall see,” said Menicucci. “We shall see.” He looked with suspicion at the nozzle before it was placed inside the tank, and the fuel man wiped it ostentatiously on a filthy rag. The filling ceremony was accompanied by a detailed technical discourse on the inner workings of the burner and the boiler which the fuel man listened to with scant interest, grunting or saying
Ah bon
? whenever his participation was required. Menieucei turned to me as the last few liters were pumped in. “This afternoon we will have the first test.” He had an anxious moment as a dreadful possibility occurred to him. “You’re not going out? You and Madame will be here?” It would have been an act of supreme unkindness to deprive him of his audience. We promised to be ready and waiting at two o’clock.

We gathered in what had once been a dormitory for donkeys, now transformed by Menieucei into the nerve center of his heating complex. Boiler, burner, and water tank were arranged side by side, joined together by umbilical cords of copper, and an impressive array of painted pipes—red for hot water, blue for cold,
très logique
—fanned out from the boiler and disappeared into the ceiling. Valves and dials and switches, bright and incongruous against the rough stone of the walls, awaited the master’s touch. It looked extremely complicated, and I made the mistake of saying so.

Menieucei took it as a personal criticism, and spent ten minutes
demonstrating its astonishing simplicity, flicking switches, opening and closing valves, twiddling dials and gauges, and making me thoroughly bewildered. “
Voilà
!” he said after a final flourish on the switches. “Now that you understand the apparatus, we will start the test.
Jeune!
Pay attention.”

The beast awoke with a series of clicks and snuffles. “
Le brûleur
,” said Menicucci, dancing around the boiler to adjust the controls for the fifth time. There was a thump of air, and then a muffled roar. “We have combustion!” He made it sound as dramatic as the launch of a space shuttle. “Within five minutes, every radiator will be hot. Come!”

He scuttled around the house, insisting that we touch each radiator. “You see? You will be able to pass the entire winter
en chemise.
” By this time, we were all sweating profusely. It was eighty degrees outside, and the indoor temperature with the heating full on was insufferable. I asked if we could turn it off before we dehydrated.

“
Ah non.
You must leave it on for twenty-four hours so that we can verify all the joints and make sure there are no leaks. Touch nothing until I return tomorrow. It is most important that everything remains at maximum.” He left us to wilt, and to enjoy the smell of cooked dust and hot iron.

T
HERE IS ONE
September weekend when the countryside sounds as though rehearsals are being held for World War Three. It is the official start of the hunting season, and every red-blooded Frenchman takes his gun, his dog, and his murderous inclinations into the hills in search of sport. The first sign that this was about to happen came through the post—a terrifying document from a gunsmith in Vaison-la-Romaine, offering a complete range of artillery at preseason prices. There were sixty or seventy models to choose from, and my hunting instincts, which had been dormant since birth, were aroused by the thought of owning a Verney Carron Grand Bécassier, or a Ruger .44 Magnum with an electronic
sight. My wife, who has a well-founded lack of confidence in my ability to handle any kind of dangerous equipment, pointed out that I hardly needed an electronic sight to shoot myself in the foot.

We had both been surprised at the French fondness for guns. Twice we had visited the homes of outwardly mild and unwarlike men, and twice we had been shown the family arsenal; one man had five rifles of various calibers, the other had eight, oiled and polished and displayed in a rack on the dining room wall like a lethal piece of art. How could anyone need eight guns? How would you know which one to take with you? Or did you take them all, like a bag of golf clubs, selecting the .44 Magnum for leopard or moose and the Baby Bretton for rabbit?

After a while, we came to realize that the gun mania was only part of a national fascination with outfits and accoutrements, a passion for looking like an expert. When a Frenchman takes up cycling or tennis or skiing, the last thing he wants is for the world to mistake him for the novice that he is, and so he accessorizes himself up to professional standard. It’s instant. A few thousand francs and there you are, indistinguishable from any other seasoned ace competing in the Tour de France or Wimbledon or the Winter Olympics. In the case of
la chasse
, the accessories are almost limitless, and they have the added attraction of being deeply masculine and dangerous in their appearance.

We were treated to a preview of hunting fashions in Cavaillon market. The stalls had stocked up for the season, and looked like small paramilitary depots: there were cartridge bandoliers and plaited leather rifle slings; jerkins with myriad zippered pockets and game pouches that were washable and therefore
très pratique
, because bloodstains could be easily removed; there were wilderness boots of the kind used by mercenaries parachuting into the Congo; fearsome knives with nine-inch blades and compasses set into the handle; lightweight aluminium water bottles which would probably see more pastis than water; webbing belts with D-rings and a special sling to hold a bayonet, presumably
in case the ammunition ran out and game had to be attacked with cold steel; forage caps and commando trousers, survival rations and tiny collapsible field stoves. There was everything a man might need for his confrontation with the untamed beasts of the forest except that indispensable accessory with four legs and a nose like radar, the hunting dog.

Chiens de chasse
are too specialized to be bought and sold across a counter, and we were told that no serious hunter would consider buying a pup without first meeting both parents. Judging by some of the hunting dogs we had seen, we could imagine that finding the father might have been difficult, but among all the hybrid curiosities there were three more or less identifiable types—the liver-colored approximation of a large spaniel, the stretched beagle, and the tall, rail-thin hound with the wrinkled, lugubrious face.

Every hunter considers his dog to be uniquely gifted, and he will have at least one implausible story of stamina and prowess to tell you. To hear the owners talk, you would think that these dogs were supernaturally intelligent creatures, trained to a hair and faithful unto death. We looked forward with interest to seeing them perform on the opening weekend of the season. Perhaps their example would inspire our dogs to do something more useful than stalk lizards and attack old tennis balls.