Читать книгу Provence for All Seasons - Gordon JD Bitney - Страница 9

Chapter 3

truffling ~ dog tales ~ cycling for croissants

WE DECIDED TO GO into Nyons for the outdoor morning marché that has been held every Thursday for centuries. It was small at this time of year, with only the most diehard merchants in attendance, dressed in heavy winter coats to fend off the cold, stamping their rubber boots on the ground and rubbing their hands together. Their faces were ruddy, and as they talked their breath sent puffs of mist into the air as if their words were visible. The couple that sold roasted chicken were more fortunate as they could bask in the heat of their rotisserie where banks of chickens turned on skewers. We shared in the warmth while Hélène reacquainted herself with madame and bought one hot off a skewer.

By noon, the regulars were gathering at La Belle Époque and already the bistrot looked busy.

“Bonjour, Monsieur/Dame!” the owner’s wife smiled warmly.

“Bonjour, Madame.”

“Comment allez-vous?” she asked.

“Bien, merci. Et vous?”

Then her husband came over to shake our hands and lead us to a table.

The menu du jour posted on the chalkboard on the wall read: ‘escalope de veau avec sauce blanche’. We both ordered the veal, and when the plates arrived at the table the waitress turned out to be our friend Alice from the nearby village of Vinsobres.

“You’re still here!” Hélène exclaimed. “I thought you were moving back to Quebec.”

“Oui, oui. That is true. But it didn’t work out. Here, my parents can look after my daughter while I earn some money. She will start school next year. Excuse me, I’ll come back. The boss wants my help.” And she headed off to serve other tables.

Every now and then she stopped at our table to get in a few more words. As we left, Alice waved at Hélène and held one hand up to her ear.

“I’m to call her tomorrow, and we’ll get together to catch up on things. I think she’s met someone . . .”

When we opened the door of the house, the telephone was ringing. Hélène moved quickly to answer it.

“Bonjour, Suzette!—Oui, oui. Nous sommes arrivé dans la tempête hier soir.—Oui! C’était terrible. . . .”

Hélène had adopted the clipped provençal argot of Suzette, so I gave up listening and went back to the bedroom to finish unpacking my suitcase. A few minutes later I got a summary.

“That was our neighbour, Suzette. She knew we were driving in last night and was worried when we didn’t arrive on time. She says we were lucky. The TV5 news announced that a semi-trailer had jackknifed on the A8 Autoroute and several people died. She thought we might have been involved. Oh, and with all the fresh snow Jean wants to go skiing in the Alps. Are you interested?”

“Yes, but I am going truffling with Marcel tomorrow.”

I had jumped at the chance to actually see how a dog finds truffles, and I wanted to dig one out with my own hands and smell its earthy, pungent aroma. A truffle, however, is a fungus like the mushroom that matures in the fall and raises its cap above the ground to send spores into the air. A truffle never breaks the surface, remaining out of sight while it matures during the winter.

Marcel lived in Bouchet and was one of those self-contained, hardy farmers who knew how to live off his land and within his means. Even though he accepted the government grants that had become a way of life to so many French farmers, he remained cautious and preferred to be self-reliant, guarding his privacy and independence. He was one of those people who typically lived their entire lives in the village or on the land where they were born. They rarely visited other nearby villages unless they had business there, were hard-working and never asked favours from anyone. Each family had to (and was even proud to) subsist on the resources available. And in turn, each community would rely on its members unless it was absolutely necessary to seek help from another community. To use a tradesman from another village was viewed as a serious breach of solidarity.

The next day I drove over to meet Marcel. When I arrived he was already standing at his front door. It was early and a cold wind blew the low, grey clouds overhead.

“It’s been wet and muddy. Not good conditions for the dog to pick up scent.”

He called his dog, which came around the corner of the house at a run. When it saw me, it stood off and barked aggressively. He patted it on the head and the dog settled down again.

“Truffling dogs are valuable and are often stolen,” he said, grimacing. “I lost a good dog once, so I’ve trained this one to bark at strangers.”

We got in my car and, with the dog between Marcel’s legs, drove to a wooded hillside where he pointed to a spot to park. The dog jumped out of the car and turned to Marcel, wagging its tail with expectation.

As we began walking into the scrub oak trees, our boots made squishy sounds on the ground that was soggy from the recent snowfall.

“She won’t truffle if she feels I’m not paying attention. She does it to please me. It’s like a game to her. When she finds one, I have to reward her with attention and a treat of some sort. If I were to ever beat her, she would never again truffle for me.”

The dog began sniffing at the ground ahead of us. Every now and then she looked back to make sure Marcel was following, then went on with the hunt again. Nothing much happened; so we walked deeper into the woods. After about half an hour the dog still hadn’t found anything.

“I think she feels I’m neglecting her. Let’s you and I stop talking and I’ll just talk to her. Maybe that will get her on track.”

We walked some more through the scrub oak trees and undergrowth, letting the dog lead the way.

“Bien, bien,” he cooed as if talking to a baby. This seemed to kindle a spark in the dog and it began sniffing more earnestly. Then it stopped and started energetically pawing at the ground. Marcel walked over, bent and stroked the dog’s head, talking to distract it from further digging. He reached into a pocket of his windbreaker and gave the dog a tidbit to eat. Next he pulled a small garden trowel from his other pocket. After loosening the soil, he dug his free hand into the mud, brought up a handful and filtered it through his fingers. He was left with a few round stones that he picked through and tossed away, until several lumps remained in his hand.

“Here,” he said, “smell this . . . It’s small . . . but it’s a good one.” He passed it over to me.

I took it and sniffed, smelling moist earth but also the telltale pungent odour of the truffle. It was hardly the size of a large marble, covered in pale earth with the dark brown colour of the truffle showing through.

“This one’s bigger,” Marcel said, brushing the mud off another one and handing it to me. “Some people call it a diamant noir—a black diamond. Others call it a smelly lump of coal. Do you see that there is no grass growing under that tree?” He made a sideways glance at a tree to indicate that I should follow his gaze. “Truffles feed on the roots and take over the ground. That’s why it’s so barren there.”

He put the truffles in a small sack, then bent over and lavished affection on his dog again, petting its head and rubbing its sides. Then he pointed at the trees. The dog seemed to understand the gesture, for it went in that direction, sniffing the ground, stopping only to see if Marcel was following.

By mid-afternoon we had returned to Marcel’s house with a good handful of truffles in his sack. “We’ll wash them and dry them.” He emptied the contents on the kitchen table and looked them over. “You are with us for dinner, non?”

“Well, Hélène is at home and . . .”

“Excellent!” He said, now grinning while scrubbing the truffles in the sink and depositing them one by one on a dry cloth before returning them to the sack. “My wife wants to meet you both, and she has dinner all planned. Here,” he said, handing me the sack. “C’est pour vous—these are yours. I can get more another day.” He held it out to me.

This was clearly a ‘don’t refuse or risk insulting him’ situation. I took the sack and thanked him.

“At seven o’clock then,” he said, leading me to the door.

On a cold winter night, the country dinner was almost intoxicating. Marcel’s gruff exterior seemed transformed around his family. They welcomed us into their home, and his wife and their two children showed a genuine happiness and contentment with life. For people working hard to make a living on their farm, they showed a generosity that left us feeling like best of friends, friends who had known each other for years. There was a camaraderie which warmed us with its honesty.

Two mornings later, Jean backed his old Renault down his driveway behind our house and I walked out with a ski suit, gloves and toque in my arms. The two of us had decided to drive several hours into the mountains past Serres to Montagne du Loup. The weather had warmed and the snow was slushy and difficult, so we skied ourselves to exhaustion and then arrived back late in the afternoon of the third day.

I was thinking about dropping into a comfortable bed when Hélène looked at my dishevelled, unshaven state and pushed me toward the shower.

“Suzette has invited us to dinner tonight. You’ve got half an hour to clean up and get dressed.”

I did as I was told.

Jean, in his seventies, was a good ten years my senior and, as he walked down his driveway to greet us, he looked refreshed and ready for the evening. He had outskied me, and I was the worse for wear in trying to keep up. Rest was about the only thing that interested me at this point.

Suzette’s dinner was wonderful and gave us a chance to catch up on the news of the winter. After a lot of talk Hélène raised both her hands in mock drama.

“Last night I awoke to a cat screeching outside. It was so loud I thought something awful had happened. So I got out of bed and looked out the window. Of course I couldn’t see anything, but the screeching got louder than ever. I put on my slippers and went outside. I couldn’t tell what was going on, but I could see that Tabitha was up a tree by the gate. So, with great difficulty, I got the ladder out and carried it over, put it against the tree and climbed up to rescue her. Just then a car came up the road. There I was in nothing but my nightie and fluffy slippers on a cold winter night halfway up a tree, caught in the headlights of a car! And even worse, the driver stopped, got out and asked if I was all right. All I could say was that I was fine, thank you. I guess he saw my embarrassment because he just smiled at me and then got back in his car and drove off.”

Suzette and Jean burst out laughing. I stared at Hélène. She blushed.

“Tabitha was fine. I’ll bet everyone in Nyons knows about me by now.”

“Let me tell you a story we heard this winter,” Suzette said. “Two elderly couples who had known each other for years would get together regularly for dinner. Their children were grown and away from home; so to fill the emotional gap created by their departure, both couples had acquired pets.

“The one couple—who I’ll call ‘Monsieur/Dame X’, for I can’t use their names—were cat fanciers. The other couple—who I’ll call ‘Monsieur/Dame Y’—preferred lapdogs and had a miniature Chihuahua. It went everywhere with them, even to their friends’ house one night this last winter. The plan was to have apéritifs there and then go out to a restaurant. One thing led to another and after more than just one apéro they were ready to leave for the restaurant but both pets were asleep, the cat curled up on the couch and the dog on a deep cushioned armchair next to one of its owners. So they left them.

“Dinner was a great success, and by the time they left the restaurant it was quite late. Arriving home they found the front door ajar. After checking the house for possible burglars, the only thing missing was the miniature Chihuahua. The cat was asleep on the couch where they had left it. They searched the house a second time and then the garden as best they could in the dark of night, but the dog was not found. Finally they gave up, and Monsieur/Dame Y went home without their dog.

“The next day the search commenced again but with no better result. Then, weeks later, when Madame X was cleaning house, she swept the broom under the sofa and along with the dust she found a small, wiry curve of beige hair. She picked it up, examined it and then looked at her cat that was sleeping peacefully on the couch. ‘Oh, Minou!’ she said. Eventually Monsieur/Dame Y acquired another dog, and everything settled back to normal once more.”

“Is that really true?” Hélène asked, shocked.

“Well, apparently it was a very big tom,” Suzette replied. “Shall we have dessert?”

• • •

We were now settling into our normal routine each morning, Hélène making coffee while I drove into Nyons to buy the daily edition of the International Herald Tribune as well as fresh croissants. I knew that the boulangère made only enough croissants to satisfy the daily demand and no more, so I had to set off early each day. It was about one kilometre from our house to the main square of Nyons, just far enough so that I didn’t want to walk, yet ridiculously close to use the car, but all the same I drove.

It was busy as I stepped inside the boulangerie, and the waiting Nyonsais looked me over one by one before looking away again. I was l’étranger—the outsider in their midst. So much for blending in, I thought, as I waited in the crowded space between the door and the counter. The air was permeated with the smell of freshly baked goods and heavy with moisture. The windows were fogged over and there was a constant rustling-of-paper sound: bags being stuffed with pastries; breads being wrapped with bits of paper to cover the centre part of the loaf and not the ends.

“Cinq euros, trente!” the lady boulangère behind the counter snapped out, as if to move on to another customer. When my turn came I had already had time to practise in my mind the words I needed to use, and so I said “Quatre croissants, deux pains-au-chocolat et une baguette, s’il vous plaît.”

“Les beurres ou non?” she fired back at me.

“Les beurres,” I said. I had forgotten that croissants at this boulangerie were available either with extra butter or ‘normal’.

She filled the paper bag while I pulled a crumpled ten-euro note out of my pocket and put it on the glass countertop.

“Merci, madame,” I said, picking up my change and the paper bag.

“À demain,” she said, acknowledging that I would be back the next day. I smiled at her and then wove my way past waiting customers to get to the door. Tomorrow she would bake more croissants, knowing that her sales had just increased by one more household.

After some days of driving into the village for croissants, one morning I dressed in warm clothes, found a pair of gloves, pumped up the tires and rolled my all-purpose bike out of the garage. I pushed it down the driveway and then started off quickly pumping the pedals to build up body heat against the cold morning air. I accelerated down the hill and around the first wide bend, then braked hard for the switchback at the bottom of the hill, all the while weaving back and forth dodging potholes. I crossed the bridge over the stream and reached the outskirts of the village, passing first the Intermarché, where we shopped for food, and then the old terminus of the railway line that had long since disappeared from the landscape. At the tabac presse I stopped to buy the Trib and then pedalled slowly through the walled arcade and out the other side to the boulangerie. The patrons looked me over once again, taking in my arctic clothing as I peeled off my gloves.

The ride back to our villa felt good to start with, but by the time I had pumped and puffed my way back up the hill like a small steam engine, I felt ridiculously tired. Still, it had to be better than driving and could only get easier as my conditioning improved. After the effort of the ride I noticed the coffee tasted richer than usual.