Читать книгу Provence for All Seasons - Gordon JD Bitney - Страница 7

Chapter 2

settling in

A CLOSED-UP AND SHUTTERED HOUSE is like a hibernating animal waiting for spring to arrive. Throwing open the shutters, opening the windows and letting in the fresh air disturbed the stillness that had accumulated over the winter months. The house responded as if awakening, blinking and stretching in the unexpected light.

After months of absence we were anxious to see if everything was still in order and if anything had gone wrong that needed immediate attention. I did a quick inspection of all the rooms and the garage and then walked around the outside of the house. Our villa was small, with the kitchen, our bedroom and the den up one floor. The exterior was ochre stucco with a tiled roof.

The garden sloped down the hillside to a road that swept in one large curve around three sides of the property. The villa’s former owner, a crusty old French bureaucrat, had once been a proud gardener but had possibly lost interest after his wife had died. There were a dozen olive trees and some pines, as well as indigenous, gnarly-looking oaks and a tangle of overgrown shrubs framed by rosemary hedging that, despite our efforts a year earlier, still needed more serious attention. We had trimmed the shrubs and repaired the eroded garden paths that meandered along the slope. The olives had been picked by our neighbours in December and pruned by François, our gardener. As it was only March, there was very little greenery at all, mostly leafless limbs and branches. The rose bushes we had planted last year were among the few things still green and looked much the same as when we had left the previous fall. Nevertheless, the winter had taken its toll on an oak tree next to the road that had died.

Patches of snow remained among the trees. The neighbouring vineyards were bleak and lifeless, their bare, black stumps aligned in long rows strung with strands of wire for support. Some vines had already been pruned in preparation for the coming season, while others looked messy with the long canes still uncut from last year’s growth. There was a stillness in the air as the fields lay lifeless, biding their time for the warmer weather. Only the wild almond trees with their fragrant pale blossoms offered a sign that spring was coming.

We had thought that we had left the house and yard in good condition; however, upon inspecting it after our return we realized that there was a lot more to do. The wooden gate to the driveway had not withstood the winter very well. It sagged and scraped on the driveway as the screws holding the hinges had come loose in the decayed wood. We decided to replace it with a wrought-iron gate that would have to be custom-made to fit the opening. That meant a visit to a ferronnier, or ironworker, who had been recommended to us. We wanted an old stone bench for the garden. And finally, I realized that I would have to edge the garden paths with stones to prevent the soil from eroding on the sloping hillside of the garden. I called François and asked him if he could deliver the stones.

While Hélène got out her pruners and set to work on the rose bushes, I decided to tackle the dead oak. My plan was to cut it down, keep some of the wood for the barbeque and give the rest to our neighbours Jean and Suzette to burn in their fireplace next winter.

On one wall in the garage hung garden tools, against another was a work bench and on the third wall was a furnace and water heater. I found the ladder, carried it out, rested it against the tree and climbed up to begin sawing off the branches. Just as I began to work, a green Citroën 2CV rattled up and braked to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road.

“Allo, allo!” the driver hollered out the half-open car window. It was Pierre Luc with his daughter, Violette, in the passenger seat.

“Bonjour, Violette,” I said, waving at her as I climbed down the ladder.

She giggled and waved back at me.

Pierre Luc leapt from the car, leaving the door ajar, and walked over, his face one great radiant smile. He was already talking as I came down the ladder. “C’est bon, c’est bon. Vous êtes arrivés.”

“Yes, we’re back for the summer, maybe longer,” I said while reaching over the fence to shake his hand. He started to raise his arm and then quickly offered his left hand instead. This brought a quirky grin to his face. Then I saw why. His right hand was bandaged in white gauze.

I had gotten to know Pierre Luc last summer when his wife, Fanny, had moved to Paris with their daughter, Violette. He had been a lonely man, with only the company of his dog, Fidel. He had been unfocused and had not tended his vineyards, which may have been why his wife had left him, and he had put his property up for sale in order to follow his wife and daughter to Paris. He had never been what the French call un homme sérieux—a hard-working man, for he preferred to hang out at the local bars with his copains, or buddies. The odd jobs he took on for other people in order to raise some money were rarely finished. Then Fanny and Violette returned, and he vowed to change and rebuild the vineyards.

“What happened to your hand?”

“Ça fait très mal,” he said, waving his bandaged hand. “I was pruning my grapevines and almost cut my thumb off with a sécateur. Now I can’t get my vineyard pruned before the budding starts this spring.”

“Can’t your copains from the bar help out?”

“Non,” he said, then laughed at the suggestion.

“So what will you do?”

“Mon oncle—my uncle Jules—helps, but we’re running out of time.” He looked at the ground and then back at me. “If you’re interested, I could show you what pruning a vineyard is all about.”

We talked for awhile, and then he got back in the 2CV and sped on up the hill.

As I started back up the ladder, Hélène sauntered over from the other side of the house. “What was all that about?”

“He’s injured his hand.” I paused and then added, “So I said I’d help out.”

“To do what?”

“Um . . . to prune his vines,” I said casually, looking away.

She turned to take a better look at me.

“Do you really want to get into that again?”

“Actually, he made it sound pretty interesting. I picked grapes last fall . . .”

“And you suffered for it!”

“I can learn what it takes to own a vineyard.” I hesitated and then continued, “I could hardly say no and leave him stuck like that.”

“He got you, didn’t he?”

“Yeah—I guess so.”

I waited for her to say something more, but she just went back to work on her roses. I was free to get back to the dead oak once more and was about to climb up the ladder when a sudden movement caught my attention. It was a cat trotting across Jean’s yard straight toward me. When it reached the fence between the properties, it stopped, bounded up the tree and hopped to the ground on my side.

“Mirteel,” I said, pronouncing her name the French way. I bent over to stroke her head and received a throaty indulgent purr for my effort. She promptly rubbed her body against my legs and butted her head into my hand.

Last year we had rescued Myrtille and her litter from a shed which she had been accidentally locked in. Then we moved the kittens into our bedroom, where Myrtille had nursed them until fall when we carried them in their wicker basket down the hill to Yvette and Gilles, Myrtille’s real owners.

I picked her up, rolled her onto her back and scratched her upturned belly, but she was too excited and pushed her way back to the ground.

“C’mon, let’s go surprise Hélène.”

Her purring turned into a throaty rumble, and she nudged against my legs as I walked toward the roses. “There’s someone here to see you.”

Hélène turned and saw Myrtille. In that moment, she stopped what she was doing, swept the cat into her arms, and they began making disgusting gushy noises at each other.

The next day I dressed warmly, found a pair of leather gloves and walked up the hill in the brisk morning air. Fidel, Pierre Luc’s dog, was curled up beside him in the sun. Next to them stood an old man I immediately recognized as a caricature of a santon, one of those miniature provençale dolls. That may sound odd, but all his clothes, from his worn and faded shirt to the frayed jacket and loose pants, appeared to hang on him as if he had shrunk inside his very clothing. From a strap over his shoulder hung a miniature wooden keg. I had heard that men once filled these kegs with wine to drink while working in the vineyards. He had the weathered appearance of someone who had lived a life outdoors.

“C’est mon oncle Jules,” Pierre Luc said, introducing us.

All the man said was “Eh bheng”—yet he stared sharply at me for a brief second before glancing away. I felt he had taken a measure of me.

By contrast, Pierre Luc couldn’t have been more open and willing to engage in conversation. And he was all smiles now. He motioned for us to follow him over to the vineyard, where he stopped beside a row of vines. One look was all it took to see the tangle of overgrown canes from several years of neglect.

“I don’t have money to buy those new power sécateurs,” Pierre Luc said. “So we do it the old way—by hand . . . maybe next year. I had to buy a truck for now—anyway, a power one would have lopped it right off.” He made a flicking motion as if something was flying from his bandaged hand. . . . With the bandage now pointed at one of the vines, he said, “The old wood with the bark on it doesn’t need pruning. But the cane has to be pruned and then tied to the wire.” He made a quick cut and winced, holding the sécateur clumsily in his bandaged hand. “Ici, commencez ici—start here. Leave three or four leaf nodes on the old cane.” Then he handed me the sécateur and said, “Vous, maintenant.” It was my turn. He put two forefingers on another cane, “Ici.”

“D’accord,” I said in agreement and cut the cane where his fingers had been.

“D’acc,” he said, clipping the extra vowel.

The work was similar to harvesting grapes last fall, but easier since I could stand erect instead of bending over to reach the grape clusters hidden below the leaves.

Pierre Luc must have felt he had done all he could, for he smiled and said he would come back later. Then he waved his bandaged hand and walked toward the house with Fidel at his side. The santon doll and I were left standing in the vineyard.

No sooner was Pierre Luc a short way off than Jules snapped, “Pas d’acc!—Ignore him. He knows nothing.” Then he began talking very quickly in a staccato delivery that ran all the words together into one hard burr. He must have seen the confusion on my face, for he stopped and with the sécateur in his hand, began to show me where and how to cut the canes. “Comme ça, et comme ça,” he said, measuring along the cane from the hard wood of the trunk and making several swift cuts. He was not nearly as generous as Pierre Luc, for he left just two nodes on each cane.

We started working just a few feet apart. He moved with a rhythmic intensity, eyeing a vine quickly then lopping off the overgrowth of cane and tying the remaining cane to the wire trellis for support. Then he moved to the next vine and repeated the process. I tried to keep up with him but lacked his discerning eye and practised skill. My hands, even with gloves, felt stiff in the cold morning air, and rubbing them together from time to time didn’t help. Every so often Jules would come back, look at my work and give advice. I was learning, although slower than I would have liked.

When I walked down the hill at the end of the day, I no longer saw any romance in wine-making. It was mind-numbing, tedious work. But also I had a weary sense of having accomplished something.

“So how did it go?” my wife asked as I opened the door and walked in.

“It will take two more days,” was all I said.

Two days later, in the mid-afternoon sun, Pierre Luc, Jules and I sat with a glass of wine on the south side of his stone house. Jules silently smoked a home-rolled cigarette that he pinched between his thumb and index finger. With the pruning done, Pierre Luc had become loquacious.

“I can relax and wait for the budbreak.”

He saw my inquiring look.

“Oh—that’s when the first growth shows up on the canes. After that the new canes shoot out, the leaves open and little clusters appear. They look like tiny grape clusters, but they’re just flower buds. The flowers open, the bees do their work and then the grapes set.” He smiled and took a sip of wine. “Spring is an expectant time of year, like the early stages of a pregnancy, when winter is behind and the growth of summer lies ahead.

“I never wanted vineyards. As a child, I watched my father lose heart when the Viognier variety of grapes he planted was a big flop. Nobody bought his wine. After his death, I just let the vineyards go. But now look at it,” he said with a sweep of his arm. “Viognier has become popular and is beginning to sell well—and I have lots of it. All I need is a good year and I can pay back the bank.

“Come, look here,” he said, standing up and motioning for me to follow. “See there at the top of the slope how the vines are smaller up there. That’s because the top drains first and the vines get less water. Down lower you can see the vines are bigger and can produce more fruit.”

He turned to look at me. “The colder air gathers at the bottom of the hill. Worse, in wet weather the roots sleep in the water and we get disease and rot. Each vine, each row is different, growing, maturing and yielding different grapes.”

I listened, beginning to get some idea of the challenges a vigneron had to deal with. Even with all the modern knowledge, the problems remained fundamentally the same—the land and the weather. And even though I had no vines, I was in the middle of wine country, and I wanted to know what it took to make the wines I enjoyed so much.

Pierre Luc was displaying an optimism that I hadn’t heard before. There was none of the despondency that I had seen last summer when his wife had left with Violette and he had been living alone. Their return in the fall had changed him. All the same, I knew that he hadn’t tended a vineyard, made wine or ever worked at anything.

When I returned home, I told Hélène about the day’s work and what Pierre Luc had said. “He didn’t do a minute’s work with us and has never tended a vineyard.”

“You’ve read Tom Sawyer?”

I stared at her, but she had turned her back and continued ironing. I felt troubled by all of this because I sensed that Pierre Luc was divided between his family responsibilities and his lazy ways with his old chums who hung around the Bar des Amis.