The French for Christmas

by Fiona Valpy

  A woman grabs me and pulls back to the safety of the sidewalk.

  ‘Madame? Etes-vous blessée?’ she enquires, concerned. People turn and stare, the woman with the stroller amongst them.

  Am I hurt? Yes, I guess you could say I’m hurt. But the pain in my elbow—I flex it gingerly: bruised, but not broken, luckily—is nothing compared to the pounding in my head and the desperate empty ache in my heart.

  ‘I’m okay. Merci.’ I catch my breath, trying to blank out the jumble of images in my mind, of brightly painted wooden toys, soft linens, a drawer full of tiny knitted bootees in pastel colours, a brand-new stroller, never used, leaning against the wall in the hallway at home.

  I manage to cross the street without getting myself killed and walk quickly back to the hotel. ‘Stupid, stupid!’ I berate myself. Thinking it was that easy for you to escape. Thinking you could outrun the sadness. Thinking a few hours in Paris would cure the heartache and let you forget.

  Still trembling, I collect my keys from the front desk of the hotel and climb the four flights of narrow stairs to my room. Up here, under the charcoal grey slates of the mansard roof, there’s a view across the rooftops to where the tip of the Eiffel Tower winks and glitters with its brilliant show of lights. Just as it did all those years ago. Only now it’s laughing at me, not with me. I cross quickly to the window and pull the curtains together, shutting it out. Then head to the bathroom, run water into a glass, swallow a couple of pills fast to dull the pain that’s too much to bear.

  Paris was a mistake. Too many memories. Too much risk of running headlong into Christmas just when you least expect it. I lie down on the bed in the darkened room, waiting for the fog of blessed, chemically induced numbness to descend. Tomorrow I’ll leave early, as soon as the worst of the rush-hour traffic has died down. Heading west and then south, to the blissful isolation of the deepest French countryside where I’ll be in control. No cars (my throbbing elbow is already turning a deep purple-black), no babies in strollers, and—most importantly of all—categorically no Christmas.

  * * *

  I’ve never been to the Sud-Ouest before, which is a pretty big omission given that one-quarter of my roots extend into the bedrock of this particular corner of France.

  Mamie Lucie used to tell me stories of her childhood in the Périgord, the region which lies just to the east of Rose and Max’s holiday home, as we cooked together in her kitchen. As I stood on a chair at the kitchen table, an oversized apron tied around my middle to prevent too much flour getting onto my clothes while I rolled out a ball of sweet shortcrust pastry, she would reminisce about the rich farmland that surrounded her parents’ home, the fields of sunflowers turning their obedient faces to follow the summer sun; orchards where red-black cherries and dark purple plums ripened, each in their own season; plantations of walnut and hazel trees, as old as her own grandparents, whose rich brown kernels were gathered each fall; vineyards where trellised vines spread their arms wide in the sunshine, drinking it in to sweeten their clusters of ripening grapes in time for the wine harvest. It was from her that I learned about the importance of cooking with the best seasonal produce. In the depths of the New England winter, my mother, rebelling no doubt, would casually throw green beans from Kenya and raspberries from Chile into her basket at Shaw’s, with little regard for either flavour or cost. And Mamie Lucie would tut and shake her head, and produce a pumpkin pie, or a Tarte Tatin made with crisp McIntosh apples from Vermont, or a dish of roasted root vegetables infused with garlic and rosemary that would make our taste buds perform cartwheels of joy, the ingredients bought from the local farmers’ market.

  In the first few days of December each year—so right about now in fact—there’d be a special cookery session. ‘Evie, Tess, allons-y! It’s time to do our baking for Saint Nicolas.’ We’d get out the big cream mixing bowl, its glaze crackled with age, and our rolling pins (an old, heavy oak one for Mamie Lucie and smaller, more manageable beech-wood ones that she’d bought for my sister and me), and mix together the butter, sugar and spices to make the cookies for the saint’s feast day on the sixth of the month. First we’d make the star-shaped bredeles and Tess and I would decorate them with brown hazelnuts and sugared orange peel, and then we’d prepare the dough for the gingerbread men. Mamie Lucie’s special recipe, which was passed down to her by her own mother—who was originally from Alsace in the north of France, where celebrating the feast of Saint Nicolas is almost a bigger deal than Christmas itself—included adding little nuggets of succulent crystallised ginger which exploded with flavour as we bit into the finished cookies that had been drizzled with white sugar frosting.

  ‘Tell us about the Bad Butcher again,’ we’d implore as we cut the shapes from the cookie dough, nibbling on the raw scraps until our grandmother stopped us, saying we’d get a stomach ache.

  ‘Well, my darlings, a very, very long time ago and a very, very long way away, there lived a very, very bad butcher. One day, three little children wandered away from their mothers and got lost. Cold and hungry, they came to a butcher’s shop where they begged for shelter. But the bad butcher took them—un, deux, trois—and cut them up with his big, sharp knife and popped them into his brine pot.’ Our eyes would grow as big as saucers at this point in the story and Tess and I would shiver with delighted horror at the gruesome tale, safe in the knowledge of a happy ending.

  ‘But then, one winter’s day, seven long years later, Saint Nicolas came to the butcher’s shop and, in his turn, asked the man for shelter. “But of course; do come in,” said the butcher. “May I have something to eat as well?” asked the saint. “Certainly, Saint Nicolas! Would you like a little piece of this ham? Or perhaps this veal?” “No, thank you,” replied the saint. “I’d like the meat that you’ve been keeping in your brine pot these past seven years.” Upon hearing this, the bad butcher ran away, terrified. The saint placed his hand on the rim of the brine pot et hop!—un, deux, trois—the three children leapt out, as right as rain. And to this day, the saint comes back on the sixth of December every year and gives good little children gifts and cookies. But you’d better watch out for the bad butcher—Le Père Fouettard—who comes behind him, in shame, leaving nothing but bundles of twigs for children who have been naughty.’

  After our baking session, we’d be allowed just one of the sweet, melting cookies—‘As long as you’ve been good little girls?’ Mamie Lucie would ask, her eyes smiling with love behind her mock-stern expression. The rest would be saved for the Saint’s day when, next to our shoes which had been filled with candy, little baskets of gifts and the cookies would magically appear on the front porch, with labels inscribed to ‘Miss Evie Callahan’ and ‘Miss Tess Callahan’ tied to the handles with red-and-white ribbons. We were the envy of our school friends when we shared our spoils with them, having our Saint Nicolas treats to tide us over so fortuitously between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

  I must still have the recipes for the cookies in Mamie’s notebook, which I’ve brought with me on my road trip back to her homeland.

  One of these days I’ll look them out.

  Not this year. But one day...

  Rose has shown me photographs of their French holiday home. It looks positively idyllic: an old stone farmhouse with a red-tiled roof. In the pictures, the sun is always shining and there are pots of red geraniums and a spectacular, sprawling vine covered in flame-coloured trumpet-like flowers which casts its shade onto a terrace behind the house. Of course, they’re usually here in the summer, so I’m not expecting it to be quite so lush at this time of year. But, I have to admit, my heart sinks a little as the GPS tells me I’m nearing my destination. To be honest, the landscape is, well, a bit bleak. Bare trees stand stark under a lead-grey sky and in the vineyards the vine stocks are grotesque, wizened stumps. Apart from the grass which grows in a thick carpet along the roadside, the only greenery is the parasitic mistletoe that hangs in the branches of the trees, dark lace pom-poms like ink blots against the sheet of winter
clouds.

  I try to recall what Rose told me when she was describing how to recognise their house. ‘You’ll see the little white signpost for Les Pélérins. It means “The Pilgrims”, because it’s on one of the pilgrim routes to Santiago de Compostela that wind through France and all the way across the northern coast of Spain. Look out for the cockleshell way-markers and you’ll know you’re getting near. Occasionally you still see pilgrims walking up the lane, though I doubt there’ll be any in the winter. It’s a tiny hamlet, just a handful of buildings. On the right-hand side is the cottage belonging to our neighbours Mathieu and Eliane—you’ll see a gateway to a château just beyond it. On the left-hand side there’s a cluster of buildings, two houses, some outbuildings and a big barn. Ours is the first house you come to when you drive into the courtyard, the one with two big oak trees beside it. The other one belongs to old Doctor Lebrun and his wife, Anne. The neighbours are all charming, but Mathieu and Eliane are ancient and the doctor and his wife must be well into their sixties now. So all in all it’s a good thing you’re not going for the hectic social life! Your arrival is going to lower the average age of the inhabitants of Les Pélérins by a long chalk.’

  She’d continued, ‘I spoke to Eliane yesterday and let her know you’re coming, so that Mathieu can open the shutters and have the water turned back on for your arrival. Ask them if there’s anything you’re not certain about. Are you sure you’ll be okay there with no heating? There’s a good supply of logs in the woodshed though.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,’ I assured her. ‘I’ll take warm clothes; after all, I’m used to New England winters which make your sorry British efforts look like a balmy spring day.’

  And surely, I think, having driven south for two days solid, the weather must be even milder in south-west France? I’m relishing the thought of sitting snugly beside a crackling fire, catching up on reading the lengthy list of books that I’ve got lined up on my iPad. Or taking long, revitalising walks in the French winter sunshine, breathing the London pollution out of my lungs. It’s going to be bliss!

  Here’s the signpost now. The tiny hamlet of Les Pélérins huddles beneath the lowering sky, and I see the twin oaks, adorned with mistletoe pompoms of their own, their bare branches stirring in the winter wind, beckoning me on in.

  I find the key under a stone beside the front door, just as Rose has described. The lock is stiff and the door opens on its rusted hinges with a drawn-out creak. I step into a long, narrow hallway that runs the length of the house, a staircase at the far end leading to bedrooms under the roof. In the late afternoon, the thick stone walls don’t allow much light in through the windows whose panes are misty with winter dust. The desiccated bodies of dead flies dot the low windowsills and the air inside the house is almost as chill and damp as it is outside. Tall, panelled doors, their closed faces inscrutable, lead off the hallway. I push the first one open and step into a long, light sitting room where someone—Mathieu when he was opening the shutters, I guess—has laid a fire in the hearth ready for lighting. Quickly, before the dampness and the chill and the grey afternoon can impose themselves on my mood any further, I strike a match from the box on the mantelpiece and hold the tiny flame to an edge of newspaper in the grate. It flickers, catches, creeps in under the kindling and, gratifyingly easily, begins to take hold of the dry sticks that crackle and pop, instantly cheering both the room and me.

  I gaze about myself, taking stock of my surroundings. This room has tall French doors and their window panes let light flood in, despite the lack of sunshine today. They lead to a terrace outside where, I imagine, the orange-flowered vine casts its shade in the summer. The floor of the room is of old wooden boards, polished to a soft patina with age and beeswax, and several rag rugs add splashes of colour. Two soft, deep sofas flank the fireplace, covered with a once-fine floral chintz which has faded and worn with use, the arms threadbare. On a console table pushed against one wall stand a cluster of framed photographs and I cross to take a closer look, smiling at the familiar faces of Rose, Max and their boys that grin out at me from the pictures. The photos are full of sun and laughter, holiday-time snaps of tanned skin and heat and freedom from the routines of work and school. ‘Am I pleased to see you guys!’ I exclaim, my voice loud in the silence which is relieved only by the soft muttering of the fire as it begins to burn more steadily, radiating a gentle but encouraging heat.

  I go back into the hallway, leaving the sitting room door open to allow the light and warmth to filter into the rest of the house, driving out the shadows and the faint mustiness of the air that has been shut in here since the end of the summer. I push open the other doors, exploring. Next to the sitting room is another long, spacious room which, from the look of its uneven beams, appears to have originally been two smaller rooms that have been knocked through to create a generous dining kitchen. An ancient cast-iron range dominates the far end. It’s clearly just for decoration as there’s a more modern electric hob and oven set into the cream Shaker-style cabinets that are fitted around the walls. Cheerful red gingham curtains frame the windows, and there’s another set of French doors leading out to the garden terrace beyond. A scrubbed pine table and chairs are set before these doors to take advantage of the view. It must be spectacular in summer. The garden, where shrubby rosemary and bay bushes spread their leaves to the grey winter sky in search of sunshine, slopes gently at first and then falls away more steeply as the hillside plunges headlong towards the broad silver river in the valley below. On one side there’s a sloping meadow, where a white horse is calmly cropping the lush winter grass, and on the other a vineyard, whose neat rows of trellising hug the contours of the land.

  In the middle of the lawn—if the rough grass beyond the terrace can be called that—stands a bizarre sight: it’s an ancient apple tree, its trunk twisted and gnarled with age, and its branches have lost every single one of their leaves; but rust-red apples still hang from them, points of colour in the grey landscape. And, if it weren’t for the fact that such things are completely banned this year, I would say they look exactly like the baubles on a Christmas tree. A robin hops on the ground amongst a few windfalls beneath the tree and then, as I watch, it flutters up and perches on the tip of the very highest twig, cocking its head and flaunting its russet breast, looking, for all the world, as though it’s laughing at me. Or, perhaps, inviting me to laugh along with it. As non-Christmas trees go, it’s really a very pretty sight. I smile. My spirits pick up a little and I think, ‘Plan B will do very nicely indeed, thank you, Rose and Max.’

  I feel cocooned here, far enough away, at last, from London with its constant reminders of failure and disappointment and loss; far enough away from Paris and its bustle and busyness, its memories of a stage of my life that’s now long gone; far enough away from my family in Boston to allow them the space to stop worrying about me and enjoy their lives, unimpeded by the weight of my sorrow; far enough from the magazine articles and the TV programmes and, at last, far enough away from Christmas itself.

  Going out to the car to start bringing in my cases, I pause in the doorway for a moment, listening. The only sound is the faint sigh of the winter wind as it brushes past the bare branches of the oak trees, making the fronds of mistletoe stir and shiver. Nothing more. Now, finally, in this vacuum of space and quietness, where I know no one and no one expects anything of me, I think I just might be able to find some kind of peace of mind at last.

  The Twelve Days of Christmas

  On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me

  Three French hens...

  Aargh! That does it; I swear I’m going to wring that rooster’s neck and make him into a tasty coq au vin. Right after I’ve wrung the neck of the other bird, whatever it is—some kind of owl, I guess—that woke me up in the middle of the night with its screeching, leaving me lying in the pitch darkness (a much darker darkness than any I’ve been used to in cities), with my heart pounding and my mouth dry. The bird’s startlingly
loud scream seemed to come from one of the oak trees just beyond the wall of my bedroom.

  I pulled the covers up round my ears, shutting out the cold night air as well as the noise of the neighbour’s dog which was also now barking enthusiastically. Once that finally stopped, I lay awake for a while, eyes wide in the darkness, waiting for the welcome oblivion of sleep to return. And then, no sooner had I finally dropped off again than that rooster decided it was time to sound the morning alarm. I reach a hand out from the cosiness of the covers and grope on the bedside cabinet for my watch. Squinting to read the dial in the first, very faint light of the dawn that’s just beginning to filter in through the skylight above my head, I make out that it’s barely six. I turn over, pulling the covers back up again, reluctant to leave the warmth of my bed. Even a short trip to the bathroom entails a scramble to pull on my thick sweater and long woollen socks before shoving my feet into my slippers. The floorboards are cold enough but the bathroom tiles are positively glacial.

  It turns out that the peace and quiet of the countryside is a whole lot noisier than I’d ever have imagined. The first night I was here I turned in early, worn out after the long drive as well as all the emotion of leaving London and visiting Paris. I’d heard what I guessed must be the doctor’s car pulling up in front of the house next door, the quiet slam of the door and the crunch of footsteps on the gravel. I’d held my breath for a moment, wondering whether he and his wife, noticing the smoke rising from the chimney, would feel obliged to come and knock on my front door to say hello. But it was already on the late side for a social call, and all my lights were off, and thankfully the footsteps made their way in the opposite direction. A door opened, then closed with a firm thud. And then I lay and listened, with intrigue at first and then with increasing irritation as, from one of the outbuildings, sounds of distant sawing, then hammering, then the whirr of a drill rudely interrupted the drowsiness that had begun to soothe my frayed nerves in the pleasant aftermath of a cup of camomile tea and a hot bath. The last thing I remembered thinking was, ‘How very inconsiderate; now I’ll never get to sleep!’ before dropping off a cliff into deep, dark oblivion. And by the time that darned screech owl woke me again in the wee small hours, the sounds from the garage had fallen silent. I suppose I should have been thankful for small mercies.