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

by Don Wallace

  We were running out of things to do with the Great Sulky Ones, so we’d gone in no good mood to the cliffside shingle beach of Pointe des Poulains. Here, under the worn pink battlements of Sarah Bernhardt’s once-grand mansion, we tore apart rotisserie chicken with our fingers and drank cold alcoholic cider, just as Monet and John Russell did, and maybe also on another occasion a young Van Gogh and his paint-around-pal, Paul Gauguin.

  Maybe, just maybe, this was even where jeune Marcel Proust waited in vain, smoking neurasthenically, for an audience with The Divine Sarah. It definitely was the beach off which the Prince of Wales anchored his yacht one day in 1901 and paused to have himself rowed ashore to visit his old lover, before returning to his yacht and setting off for his coronation as Edward VII.

  All this I rattled off, hoping to impress, as I tend to do when faced with imminent disaster. It wasn’t working. (It never does.)

  Then a French family arrived and, with a smile, took the next cove over in the rocks. When they opened a wicker picnic basket and produced not just a checkered tablecloth but linen napkins and silverware, bottles of wine and Perrier, I braced myself for criticism of our feeble attempt. Instead, my grumpy father finally melted.

  “Here’s a nice family,” he said, as if such a thing simply could not be found in France. “The father, the mother, and the teenage daughter.” We stole covert glances as we ate our ruder but no less delicious lunch. It was hot; the cliff blocked the wind. A seagull walked slowly up. My father tore off a piece of baguette and tossed it. The seagull decided he might as well get acquainted and hopped onto the rock next to Dad, who was almost childishly delighted. My mother and I exchanged glances. It had been a rough recovery from his heart attack, not only physically but mentally. Afterward, a sense of play was lacking. Nice to see it back.

  Lolling in the sun, our two families exchanged smiles and hoisted glasses to each other.

  “This is a normal family having a picnic,” Dad said, falling into his Edward R. Murrow radio broadcast voice. He did this sometimes. “The girl is well-behaved—look at how she offers the Perrier to her father first, then her mother, before helping herself. Now she pours the wine for her father…”

  The day got hotter. We flaked out in bliss. The girl got up and from a soft, cloth shoulder bag took out two juggling pins. Dad just kept narrating. “The good daughter is now going to juggle for her father and mother. See, they don’t have to go to a circus, she’s going to put on a show right here…”

  The girl stopped after a couple of minutes and mopped her face with her sleeve. Her father held up the Perrier bottle and she took it, drank, and with a flourish, added it to the juggling rotation. My father sat up and applauded. The father nodded in appreciation; the mother smiled; and the girl dipped a quick knee and kept her eyes on the pins. With a flourish, she stopped, mouthed “Whew,” and sipped from her Perrier bottle. Her now-prostrate father raised his glass of wine like a toast to the gods.

  “That’s the way children should treat their parents,” said Dad.

  “You wish,” I said.

  Mom added: “You just want a juggling girl of your own.”

  After taking a breather and sitting down for a spell, the girl got up again. We shifted on our towels and prepared for the next act. She picked up the juggling pins and tossed them slowly into the air, flipping end over end. It was a warm-up; she caught them in midair and set them down, rolled her shoulders and reached down to the hem of her blouse, gave it a tug and pulled it over her head. She threw her blouse aside, unpinned her chignon, and gave her long hair a shake as it tumbled to her shoulders. Her breasts were small and perfect.

  “Oh no,” said Dad. She picked up the pins and tossed them into motion. “She shouldn’t be doing this.” With the slow, sensuous air favored by jugglers, she prowled around the picnic tablecloth, stepping around her mother and coming up to her father—or, should I say, “father.” Because she continued her performance directly in front of him, slowly, hands a hypnotic blur, the flipping pins encircling her rosy nipples.

  “No-no,” said Dad. “Her father should stop her—the mother should stop her—oh, dear! He really shouldn’t be watching her.”

  “But you’re watching her,” Mom observed, deadpan.

  With an effort, he wrenched his head away to stare blindly out to sea. “They seemed like such a nice family.”

  By the time we’d gathered our things to head home, the father was reclining fully clothed with wineglass in hand, wife and daughter, both topless, on either side: le déjeuner sur le rocher.

  Later, after we’d climbed back up the dirt road to the top of the cliff, I was careful to pause to let Dad catch his breath. He stood silently, staring along the rugged, carved-out coastline topped with moors twinkling with points of light. It was calm and still.

  From nowhere a sadness came over me. My father seemed so old, suddenly frail. His gaze over the shimmering Côte Sauvage and mirrored ocean seemed to see all the way across the sea, toward England and the coast of Cornwall, where the souls of the dead lined the northward cliffs, waiting to be ferried to the mythical island of Avalon. I felt our loss of days together, living so far apart. My fault.

  He sighed, smiled.

  “I can see why you like this place,” he said. “I think it’s good for you.”

  He turned to go, then stopped to look one more time. “Reminds me of Carmel. If they put in a golf course, your house could easily double in value.”

  • • •

  And lo, it would come to pass the following year that my sister Anne, the golf writer, would track down the rumor of the famous golf course, allegedly founded by Sarah Bernhardt in 1900. Yes, it actually existed, in crude outline. And it was lurking in the heather on the very moor we’d been surveying. The newly roughed-out links were originally played, it is said, by Bernhardt and her lover, the same Prince of Wales, while the latter dallied en route to putting on the crown and, with it, the burdens of a king.

  Abandoned during both wars and frequently storm-racked, The Divine Sarah’s Champs du Golf had lost five holes over the past century to cliff collapses. Its tortured fairways wound through daunting tunnels of gorse and blackberry. Our golfers—Dad, Mom, Anne, and her son, Devo—nevertheless fell in love, viewing it as their own private Pebble Beach.

  Mindy and I, needless to say, were nonplussed. It was a little humbling to realize that we weren’t enough of a draw on our own. But beggars can’t be choosers. So we waved gaily whenever the golfers announced they were going rogue for the day—“for the day” because, with only thirteen holes, the course could be done two or three times in one of our long Nordic afternoons. One hole in particular drew them back again and again: a pool of grass marooned on a narrow spire two hundred feet above the churning sea. My mother needed to get down on her knees and crawl across the narrow spine of rock to play her ball. But she did, and loved it.

  Over the years, the addition of golf to the island repertory has proved to be a kind of safety valve for many American visitors, who occasionally need a break from our notions of rough summer sport, but its most important role will always be how it led to the parental seal of approval. The favor was returned by the louche crew at Le Club House, a one-room box with artichoke and tartan-plaid wallpaper and a clientele that dressed to match.

  When the British Open was on the television one afternoon, my father made a calculated entrance in his full regalia of canary yellow pants, red and white saddle shoes, bright green polo shirt with white Titleist polka dots, thistle-and-rose cashmere vest, and a floppy Augusta National Golf Club hat. There was a hush. And then we heard a gentle pattering of palms—applause, the kind that ordinarily follows a model’s strut down a runway during Fashion Week. Dad couldn’t buy a drink that day. When my sister Anne returned to the States with tales of the knee-crawling Trou de Sarah B., she promptly hit up her editor at the golf magazine and wrangled a story assignment in o
rder to return.

  Given a green light, Anne took her boyfriend. The marriage that followed was almost a foregone conclusion.

  • • •

  Meanwhile, here it is, our first day back in Kerbordardoué this year, and we’re still in bed. We used to be such warriors! Now it’s the height of luxury to loll and nap—and watch the swallow dart in, beating his wings hard to brake, hover, and warble indignantly.

  I roll out of bed, feel the pine paneling graze my head, and realize that, while I may have forgotten to duck, my muscle memory of this place is already returning. Mindy growls again. “Stop it!” she snaps, not fooling.

  “I’m just seeing if the rental house is occupied.”

  “Stop looking out the skylight. If Madame Morgane sees you…”

  Still rigorously observing the village rule, I see. Even if every renter and tourist who walks by our house on the square cranes their neck to peer in—Regardez la maison rustique et authentique Bretonnes! Regardez le rosier! Les fleurs! Les paysans!—we’ll not return the favor, at least not on Madame Morgane’s side. Mindy is of course correct, but the reason she’s so fierce is that she has her heart set on a second skylight, in Rory’s room. This would directly overlook M. Morgane’s house and was thus out of the question in the original plans. The negotiations have been going on for years. Favors pile up. Nothing changes. Mindy doesn’t quit. She knows the business of acquiring land, rights over a well, access for a driveway or a road, even a wall’s shadow; it’s never over.

  Poor M. Morgane, she has larger worries than a fifteen-by-fifteen-inch pane of glass in our black slate roof. She is suffering from the vacation renters installed every holiday in the new house attached to the remains of her old stone one. Separated by only a door, the tourists carry on without regard for her presence—playing the TV at high volume all day, holding conversations at a shout. Everything already echoes in the cheap, prefab plasterboard and lath chambers.

  “I’m a prisoner in my own home!” she cried to Mindy last year, when paying her ritual call for un petite café.

  “Pas bon,” muttered Suzanne, inconsolable on behalf of her childhood best friend. “Dommage.”

  Mindy holds two coffees each summer, one at the beginning and another at the end. At each she bakes her chocolate football, as Rory calls it. The two old girls arrive and I make my hello, and Madame Morgane listens incredulously and then remarks that my French hasn’t improved. (She’s the only one in the village who doesn’t lie and say the opposite.) With that out of the way, I take my leave. But I know how it goes.

  The two of them will perch on their chairs, alert as birds, and pretend to look around as if they don’t know the house, haven’t spent a part of every day sitting in our salle de cuisine. They’ll exclaim over the lace on the windows, even though it’s Suzanne’s. They’ll talk about the buffet placard, the poster on the wall, Tante Jeannie’s old Jubilee card.

  Mindy will play along. For many years now, we’ve never questioned what went on in our absence. We used to figure that Suzanne would let herself in every so often, as we requested, to air out the house. Maybe she’d sit and knit a bit.

  We were charmed, too, when the first lace appeared one summer, and each year waited to see if a new window would get the treatment. Unlike the elaborate tourist lace sold for a fortune in Le Palais—which, rumor has it, is sourced in pieces from China and finished in Brittany—ours is made from rough cotton thread in a pattern unique to Belle Île, and possibly Suzanne. A fancy Belgian woman who once insisted on visiting—to be able to report back suitably sordid details of the hovel of the Americans, we belatedly realized—took one look at the lace and laughed, saying, “It’s the work of a drunken spider.” That told us all we needed to know about her.

  But we couldn’t dismiss so lightly the warning of one of the village’s second-home people—from the Continent, not Paris—when he took us aside.

  “I hesitate to bring this up,” he said, and of course we knew he meant the opposite. “But do you know those two old women go into your house?”

  “Yes, of course. We’ve asked Suzanne to air it out when it’s sunny.”

  “But they’re there every single day. Two of them. Did you know that?”

  “Yes,” we said simultaneously, faking it.

  He didn’t buy it. “Look, they’re in your house when you’re not there. All year! A violation. Everyone thinks they’re putting one over on you.”

  “We think it’s kind of wonderful,” Mindy said firmly.

  A spontaneous reaction to being pressed, this nevertheless felt true: I felt a warm flush, the kind you only get when you find out you’ve brought about a mitzvah without any knowledge or intention. Not a random act of kindness, exactly; an unconscious one.

  “Pah! C’est fou.” He gave us a look of pity mixed with exasperated admiration, and off he marched, shaking his head.

  When Mindy and I discussed it later, we agreed. We didn’t want to feel that the old girls were putting one over on us. We decided we liked having them here, as if in their girlhood, evoking the memory of Tante Jeannie.

  • • •

  Finally deferring to Mindy’s dream of another skylight, I withdraw my head, but not before taking a quick peek around: no changes, big or small, no signs of work being done. The northern end of the village seems quite deserted.

  Even after padding downstairs and putting water into a battered pot on the stove for coffee, I can’t bring myself to open the door. I’m afraid to look. It’s like Christmas morning. What if the presents aren’t there under the tree? What if this is the glance that pops the balloon? What if a year’s absence has stripped away the last pretense? What if reality has finally shattered the fragile illusion of belonging?

  Instead of the door, I open the window, the one that overlooks the rose. The moment I undo the latch, the two halves of the window swing inward from the pressure of bunched-up branches. A thick tangle of dark green leaves, fresh reddish thorns, and bright green rosebuds pushes its way into our kitchen like an aggressive Christmas wreath.

  “Whoa!”

  “What?”

  “The rose has grown. I mean, really grown.”

  A moment later, there’s a decisive thump: Mindy’s two heels landing on the floorboards beside the bed. She’s up.

  I peer into the heart of the rose, which has filled the frame and actually blocks all but a vague filtered light. It’s like having a hedgerow in our kitchen. There are creatures living inside, an ecosystem of spiders, ants, praying mantis, lizards, moths, midges, probably a mouse. But that’s all right; the window will stay open as long as we’re here.

  Although the coffee is poured, Mindy insists on an inspection tour. We split up and circle the open kitchen–dining area from opposite directions, calling out questions and findings. Is that cone of black ash in the fireplace a natural accumulation over a year’s time, or should we call the chimney sweep? It seems harmless. Does the puddle by the refrigerator mean it’s leaking? A miracle it’s even running, as we bought it used twenty-four years old. We’ll keep an eye on it. Does the closet smell of mold, or is that just me? Or my socks?

  At the built-in cupboard, I take out the rusted tin that a single malt Scotch once came in, now full of plastic baggies of spices: cumin, coriander, curry, turmeric, chipotle, cayenne. Spotting a handful of tiny brown beetles swimming in the dull orange cumin powder, I sling the bag into the trash. Have to remember to buy more before the annual Concours du Guacamole. Next we move along the walls, feeling the areas of discolored plaster to see if they’re moist. We stand under the old cracks and debate whether they’ve grown.

  Finally, we step into the other downstairs room, which is both a guest bedroom and a study. A beautiful armoire gleams against the far wall, but first we visit the three surfboards hanging from the rafters. Their blue-green nylon hammocks, which I cut from washed-up fishermen’s nets, are striped w
ith tar and entwined with dried seaweed.

  All in all, a most satisfying inspection. No major structural issues, the musty odor already clearing out, just the one bag of cumin tossed. Time for coffee?

  Mindy unlocks the armoire and sticks her head inside until it disappears. Then she starts handing out wool sweaters and socks, fleeces and heavy cotton shirts, tees and blouses and socks. “I’m going to start a wash,” she says.

  Our tiny French washer receives its instructions and sits awhile, thinking existential machine thoughts, while we drink our coffee and eat buttered Krispy Rolls. Finally, with a clunk, the washer begins to run. Another miracle. You never know when you’ve been away for a year what will work and what will require a stern talking-to.

  • • •

  French washers are worth talking to, anyway. Ours runs much longer and more gently than American ones, uses less energy, and gives a longer life and softer feel to our clothes. Mindy has already written this up in her newsletter, and it will one day make it into her book, Do One Green Thing. She’s come to rely on France as a good source of green lifestyle changes that will wash up on U.S. shores in a couple of years: clearly labeled organic foods (biologique); organic beauty products and clothing; energy-saving appliances; fuel-efficient cars; an efficient train and bus system; and, last year, the phasing out of plastic bags in the island markets, which went off without a hitch.

  The Breton kitchen has also taught us much. Breton cooking is elemental, even plain; it owes everything to ingredients. Brittany is the land of the buckwheat galette, farm-fresh egg, and grilled tomato—it’s like hitting the Refresh button every time we go back. Whenever we visit Crêperie Chez Renee in Bangor, I’m whisked away to those nights sitting across from M. Morgane’s old father, listening to his dreamy reminiscences of his younger days.

  In the morning he would put away a dozen buttered galettes made from the wheat of his own fields, threshed in our place, milled by the wind-driven moulin blanc up on the hill. He’d work until sundown, chow down another dozen galettes, then walk two hours to Le Palais, where he would dance, drink cidre brut, and finish off a dozen crêpes de froment et sucre before walking back home to start the new work day. When did you sleep? I once asked. High noon, he said. In the shadow of a hayrick. He winked. But not alone.