The French House: An American Family, a Ruined Maison, and the Village That Restored Them All

by Don Wallace

  “Campers,” we tsk. Tsking because camping is illegal, but who are we kidding? We’ve been there before—living rough. It just feels different when it’s your rough, your island.

  The scene is tidy, nicely laid out, no trash in sight: well policed, as my Boy Scout father liked to say of a clean campsite. Still, the farmers are tired of campers messing up their fields, and the island’s self-appointed conservators also are vigilant. Birdwatchers see everything. You can get away with a night or three, but…

  “Want to bet how long before somebody runs them off?”

  “Or maybe not.” There’s a stake driven into the roadside ditch and a little homemade mailbox of wood is attached to it. This is somebody’s home. Or will be, one day. Looks like we have some competition in the rough-living department. And it looks like they’re ahead.

  • • •

  A drive into Le Palais on a crisp morning to shop at the open markets.

  Bags weighing us down, we stop at Denis LeReveur’s atelier on Place du Général Bigarré. Now that our accounts are settled, he doesn’t try to duck our visits. He has time to talk, to reach behind into the wall of cubbyholes and bring out our rolled-up plans. We spread them out on the drawing table. And sigh.

  We never get past the sighing. But, today, Mindy clears her throat after studying the graceful lines of the staircase, the spidery tracery of the downstairs with an imaginary armoire against one wall and a set of see-through furniture waiting for the ghostly perfect family.

  “We’ve waited long enough,” she says. “Can we get the job finished by next summer?”

  I repress a big whoa! and squeak out a little one. “Um—Mindy—I mean—?” Pause. “Shouldn’t we think it over?”

  “I’ve thought it over,” she says. “It was seeing that motorcycle camp. I don’t want to end up like that. If we wait until we have the money…we’ll never do it.”

  Mindy does look spooked at the thought. I can see the picture in her mind of us huddled around a sooty fire blazing on the ground floor of our house. Like after some kind of apocalypse.

  Good thing Denis has the same relationship to English that I have to French. He doesn’t know we’re sparring over our very financial future. He simply goes on nodding, but in a restrained way, not overplaying it. In fact he looks serious, très, très sérieux. That’s smart; I could learn from that, instead of always turning everything into a joke. But Americans don’t have the same natural gravity of the French, Bretons, Bellilois. We have to work at it and I’m here on vacation.

  Mindy is explaining in French now. I am coming around. After all, this is something we should’ve done five years ago. We’ll find the money. Blasé blasé, as the cooler black cats in my high school used to say.

  “There is a problem,” Denis says. Even I can translate that one.

  We wait. He inhales and tries English:

  “Monsieur Borlagadec is retraité.” Retired.

  “Surely we can find another to do the floor and stairs?”

  “These old houses require an eye,” says Denis, switching back to French. “In the old days they didn’t use yardsticks or levels, just strung a piece of string along the wall. The modern ones, they use”—he raises his hand and points it, makes a beeping noise—“les outils électroniques.”

  I nod. I’m following. My construction experience fills in the gaps. He’s saying that today’s construction workers are like those in the United States, little more than installers of prefabricated shells. For an 1830 stone house we need a craftsman.

  “The new eye does not the old house do.” Denis, trying English again.

  “Well, who has that kind of eye?”

  “Monsieur Borlagadec.”

  “Ah.”

  “Retraité,” I say, helpfully.

  “Oui.”

  “Can you talk to him?”

  “I have.”

  “And?”

  “Retraité.” Denis extends an arm and swings it across the ceiling, squinting. “Pheasant. Boum!” He aims at the door. “Lapin. Boum!”

  We leave with an understanding that, though Denis is out canvassing among the old and doddering artisans of Belle Île, we are essentially doomed to a frustrating process and unsatisfying result. When the new construction workers see an old house, Denis says, they don’t want to spend a couple of weeks cutting and shaping each piece to the irregularities of a nineteenth-century stone wall. So they shrug, say, “Yes, I can do this,” and when you’re out of sight, they bring in a backhoe and yank it down.

  “Une accident, oui?” he says, and we hear his anger at the loss of the old houses, the old skills and, worse, the lack of shame.

  “Oui,” we say. “Une accident.” Thinking of Madame Morgane.

  • • •

  “Don! Come! Come now!” cries a breathless Mindy, gripping the doorframe and sticking her head inside the house. Then she yanks it back outside.

  Rory: my first thought, followed by guilt. We’ve trusted him too much. He’s gone and hurt himself. Fallen down the well.

  I run after Mindy into the square where she waits, hands on hips, staring down our allée. Just as suddenly my panic wanes. Rory’s on his knees in the white dust over by Gwened’s stone wall. He’s pushing a toy truck with a little Playmobil man in a hard hat at the controls. Phew.

  I sidle up to Mindy. She has an eager air, like a hawk facing into a strong wind and hovering, waiting to plummet and pounce. “What?” I ask.

  “I saw a car going down the vallon. Pheasant hunters. The season hasn’t started yet.”

  “Did they have guns?” I ask. She shakes her head. “So what’s the big deal? We can’t stop them from scouting the terrain.”

  “I think I saw Monsieur Borlagadec.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m going to talk to him. Wait here.” She looks at Rory. “No, come. Leave Rory. He’s fine.”

  We race down the unpaved allée and turn right down the slightly larger road, down into the vallon.

  After emerging from the cypress tree tunnel at the throat of the triangular pasture, we pause and pull ourselves together near some baby cows, les petits veaux, that cluster around a rusty steel water trough. Look casual, we tell ourselves.

  “He’s not here.” Mindy spins around. “He must’ve turned.”

  There’s a dirt road or a couple of narrow car tracks to choose from. We take the road. A long 180-degree pan of the stubble fields and hayricks turns up nothing except, ironically, a brood of pheasants picking grain out of the chaff.

  “Wait. Listen.” Mindy pricks up her ears. She turns this way and that. Her chin lowers. A half a mile away a screen of trees shelters a couple of small, white houses at the outer edge of the village. “I hear voices.” We scoot back up the road to a muddy driveway, which we’ve never taken because it seems to go nowhere except into somebody’s front yard.

  We round a corner into terra incognita. A burly, mustached older man in a plaid wool shirt jacket is talking with a young workman, the two of them chatting easily while standing atop a newly laid concrete foundation. So there’s a new house going up here. I’m disappointed. But then I’m always disappointed at new construction anywhere.

  “It’s him,” says Mindy, looking at the older man. “Here we go.”

  Neither man acknowledges our presence until we draw near enough that it’s obvious we’re going to speak to them. “Bonjour, Monsieur Borlagadec,” Mindy starts, and soon she’s introducing herself to the workman to refresh M. Borlagadec’s memory: “I am the American woman with the house that is not finished.”

  But it’s evident he needs no reminding. He seems taken aback at our sudden arrival, but not offended. His strong mustached face hardens as Mindy asks if he’s come to see how his pheasants are doing. “What pheasants?” he asks.

  Mindy smiles. “The ones Denis LeReveur says you’re going to come back and shoot, b
ien sûr.”

  The black eyes glitter. It occurs to me that he knows what’s coming and is not going to make it easy on Mindy.

  But then she switches tack and launches into an earnest apology for not continuing the work. She keeps her explanation to a minimum: la catastrophe économique mondiale, le bébé. Mais maintenant…

  “Je suis retraité.” Blunt and to the point, that M. Borlagadec.

  “Yes, I heard. Congratulations.”

  He likes that. Though she’s overmatched, in his mind, Mindy staying in the ring is the sort of thing a Bellilois appreciates.

  “I do not wish to intrude now,” she continues.

  “You’re not,” says the workman, who is also beginning to enjoy this. Mindy may be his first fluent foreigner. Her Tourenne accent would ordinarily come off as un peu snob in a Frenchwoman, but being of no discernible class, Mindy gets a pass. The workman raises a bottle of wine and offers it to her, a drink from the spout. Mindy knows better but laughs at the teasing. The workman turns to Monsieur Borlagadec. “Etes-vous prêt, Papa?”

  Ah, father and son. It registers with a shock of pleasure. We feel new warmth in the air, now that we know, but Mindy keeps her cool. She steps back and lets the two of them make the next move. Instead of leaving, they step up to the new foundation and pour a libation on the ground just inside the southwest corner. Nobody says anything for a little while.

  “Bon,” says the son. He turns to us. “Pour la maison. Afin que personne, n’aurait plus jamais soif.”

  For the house. So nobody will ever be thirsty.

  He offers the bottle again and I immediately get it—he’s offering us the first swig, so no germs, quite a courtesy—and say yes before Mindy can recoil. It’s port. No, something else sweet, more alcoholic… I squint at the label: Pineau des Charentes? The Borlagadecs are watching so I take a second swig. They like that. Then I tip the snout to Mindy who sees the look in my eyes, laughs, and takes a sip.

  She hands the bottle back, saying, “Perhaps you would like to come up to our house for a drink?” Before the “no” is out of M. Borlagadec’s mouth, she adds: “I would appreciate your opinion at what must be done to complete the foundation and the staircase. Perhaps you could even recommend somebody.”

  We know damn well M. Borlagadec has refused to give Denis even one name. He’s apparently proud that he was the last of the best and there is no one left with his skill set. But he’s leaving behind sad, empty houses that will never be finished without him.

  But the son, he doesn’t know. He’s curious. Which house is it?

  Chez Jeannie.

  Tante Jeannie? Son turns and gives father an amazed, delighted look—a look of love and wonder. Tante Jeannie! Tante Jeannie!

  M. Borlagadec heaves a sigh, and when his broad shoulders settle, there is a new expression on his face. Mixed in with a slight lowering of his guard, I think I detect a real curiosity about Mindy. And wry, if still grudging, respect.

  We walk slowly up the allée to the square. Rory is out in front, bent over his plastic backhoe now, pushing it around, shifting a tiny pile of dirt by the door. M. Borlagadec stops to watch. He smiles, really smiles, for the first time. Nudges his son and points. His look needs no translation: that’s just like you when you were a boy.

  Rory chooses this moment to turn his head and look M. Borlagadec in the eye. His expression is very serious. It is not an appeal, but something more imperative. M. Borlagadec understands. He squats and inspects the toy backhoe. He doesn’t touch it. Then he looks at Rory and tilts his head at it. Rory nods, yes, of course.

  M. Borlagadec extends a hand and with the tip of his index finger pushes the backhoe toward the pile of dirt. Rory’s head is bobbing, yes, yes, yes. His body tenses, eyes widen.

  With a gruff laugh, M. Borlagadec ruffles his hair and rises. Un bon homme.

  We step into the house, Mindy and I filled with trepidation. It’s such a disaster, but of course to a construction worker that’s normal. Father and son move slowly around, touching and pointing, clearly remembering how it looked when it was Jeannie’s. I sat here, you there. Then they turn their attention to Denis LeReveur’s upstairs renovation, starting with the ground floor ceiling, which instead of being completely replaced contains both new planks and old. One half of the roof beams are original, too, ca. 1830, probably handsawn over trestles in the square.

  Mindy explains that this was our decision, taken with Denis. Only some of the wood had dry rot.

  “You took a risk.” He waves at the new wood. “This could all rot because you left one bad board. One bad board! C’est fou.”

  “Denis was careful. I trusted him.”

  M. Borlagadec gives a grunt that would be easy to read in English, but has extra levels, flavors, in French. Maybe Denis, that wild roving boy, is famous for taking risks. Or maybe he’s cheap and spun a good story about saving us money while charging us for new wood and using only half. Clearly a house is doomed when a fool mixes old wood and new. M. Borlagadec turns to his son: “Much better to pull it down, oui?”

  Mindy breathes a shocked little “no!” and he smiles at the success of his cruel joke. But to Mindy he’s opened a door.

  “Le maison du Madame Morgane,” she begins, but at a look goes silent. A touchy subject, naturally. Maybe it’s not proper for an étranger to discuss these things with an îlien.

  The exchange seems to have darkened M. Borlagadec’s mood. He shows impatience. Looks a question at his son—shall we go?—who shakes his head. The son, we sense, is on our side, rooting for us. But the decision lies with Papa. And Papa is retraité.

  Everything could still work out, I’m thinking, when M. Borlagadec takes hold of the ladder. He frowns. Smacks a rung at head height, watches the termite dust slowly sift and fall. Faible. Foutue. After that he shrugs and climbs halfway up.

  He stops, frowning. “What is this? Did Denis do this, this thing?”

  “Ah, no,” I say, adding a little proudly, “I did. It’s a what-do-you-call-it, not a wall, a barrier…”

  He snorts. Climbs another couple of rungs until his head is level with the floor. He sees the futon, the sheets and quilt. “What’s this? Why is it here?”

  “We up there,” I say in broken French. “We sleep. Bed.”

  “Nobody should be up here,” he says. “It’s not safe. Pour le sécurité. L’enfant.”

  He climbs back down, slaps his palms on his pants, and stares at me, not Mindy, giving me his full attention for the first time since we tracked him to the new house. All day he’s kept me at an angle, aslant, on the periphery of his vision.

  Now I wish he still considered me beneath notice. Seeing myself with his eyes, I cringe at the danger I’ve put my family in. Only then does he slowly stalk out.

  “Well, that went well,” says Mindy, “until he saw your barrière.”

  “You mean my derrière?” I halfheartedly joke.

  She smiles, but I feel exposed and small. We mull it over, the odds. Not as much of Rory falling, I’m sad to say, but of M. Borlagadec getting on board. Not good, we think.

  Then we think: can’t risk it. We move our beds to the ground to sleep on the floor.

  • • •

  Pounding on the door, early the next morning, way too early for anybody civilized. I’m still boiling water for coffee. Rory sleeps. Mindy is upstairs washing her face and brushing her hair, having mounted the ladder groaning at the indignity.

  I open the door. There’s no one there. Oh, great, a prankster. But out in the square a white panel truck sits with its rear doors swung open. A moment later, M. Borlagadec comes around from behind the truck, T-square in hand. He’s wearing denim overalls and a worn leather tool belt polished to a high shine by decades of use.

  His son pokes his head out of the back of the truck and waves.

  An hour later, the second floor has a p
roper temporary barrier and père et fils are gone, having politely refused repeated offers of un petit café. My handiwork, the old barrier, is a mess of kindling in the fireplace. It looks like Popsicle sticks.

  • • •

  During the last days of our stay, a team assembles: Borlagadec père et fils, still the best concrete men (the son has the foundations of a dozen Parisian second homes to pour but puts them on hold); the plumbing team (also father and son with matching ponytails); the best electrician (fingers alarmingly bandaged, but, it turns out, from chiseling pousse-pieds off the rocks, not from being electrocuted).

  Denis LeReveur shakes his head in quiet satisfaction at each addition. The best. At a team meeting in the house Mindy explains, at Denis’s prompting, how we do not want to change a thing that can possibly stay the same. We want a Breton house, a Bellilois house, a saine house, a house Jeannie herself would recognize, were she to return.

  “No gold faucets?” asks the plumber.

  Everyone bursts out laughing. They’re antsy, shifting from foot to foot, smiling, flexing their busted knuckles like cowboys ready to saddle up and head out one more time for that last roundup. Who knows, this may be the last old house they ever get to rebuild in the old style.

  • • •

  Before we leave, once again the pickax comes out. One more rose from the nursery goes in. If we can just force the tourist cars wide of our front door, it opens up a space for a garden along the wall.

  The trench of turned-over soil running alongside the house gets a scrawny little red-tipped sauge, sage, and a cutting from one of Gwened’s hydrangeas. Both should require no watering. Gwened thinks the corner is too shady for the hydrangea, but then Suzanne comes by to inspect and Mindy draws her into the conversation. She gives a snort. Hydrangeas grow wherever you want in Kerbordardoué. The question is, what color do you want? Bury a grapefruit with the cutting if you want blue, leave it as is for pink.