Playing House in Provence

by Mary-Lou Weisman

  We let down our guard when we make our way toward the food. After all, one must eat. We pause to choose among the rows of bright-eyed fish lying gill to gill. We buy gleaming green, brown, and black olives, each color in its own oval basket, each basket supplied with its own long-handled, rough-wooden spoon. We scoop out some of each, dig for coins, and move on to the pâtes, sausages, cheeses, fruits, salads, and tiny delicious strawberries—so fresh that unlike their sell-by-date, steroidal American cousins that molder within a day, Provençal berries remain fresh and succulent for at least a week.

  The market is a great place to practice our French. Larry is becoming a regular at the grattons stand. That’s where they sell his favorite food group, grease. Since he can’t afford foie gras, he’ll settle for grattons, fried duck skin. He elicits a smile of recognition from the vendor, followed by what has become a ritual exchange.

  “Bonjour,” says the gratton man.

  “Bonjour,” says Larry. “Ça va?”

  “Ça va,” says the gratton man.

  “Une poignée pour messieur?”

  “S’il vous plaît,” Larry answers.

  The vendor grabs a handful and deposits it into a paper bag.

  “A la prochaine,” the vendor calls after us. “Until the next time.”

  “A la prochaine,” Larry calls back.

  We smile and wave goodbye as if parting from a good friend.

  These are the moments we live for; conversations, however trivial, in real-life situations with actual French people who don’t know us and might even think we’re French, at least for a split second. During the rest of our market stroll, Larry will toss one gratton after another into his mouth, as if they were peanut M&Ms. I keep my mouth shut, but I’m thinking, Quadruple bypass.

  After a month’s worth of visits to the market in L’Isle sur la Sorgue, we know our way around. The vendors look familiar to us and we to them. We greet the woman who sells hummus near the pharmacie. It is she who explains to me that the word for a plastic container is une boîte, an all-purpose French word that means container, can, and box. We recognize the bouquiniste, who deals in secondhand French books. We browse there often, looking for written material that we have a chance of understanding. We know who’s got the best cheese. We know that the rotisserie chicken that’s sold near the church isn’t as good as it looks. We even recognize the town weirdo who addresses passersby in Tourette-like blurts, which at first we are unable to translate. Now that we’ve learned a few more French colloquialisms, we no longer smile sweetly at him when he tells us, “Va te faire foutre”—“Go fuck yourselves.”

  How to Go to the Bathroom

  French toilets can be daunting. When I first came to France in the late fifties, most of the toilets were à la turque, in the Turkish style. One had to squat on slightly elevated vitreous footprints, hang over a hole while clinging to a rope, and flush by pulling a chain with the other hand, thereby releasing a cataract of water that only the most nimble could outleap. The Turkish toilet is all business, not a facility that invites reading or crossword puzzling.

  In spite of the fact that Turkish toilets are outmoded and not user-friendly, there are still plenty of them around, especially in cafes and gas stations, so it is best to be prepared. If you’re wearing trousers, squat toilet users recommend pushing the waistline down and rolling your pant legs up to your knees. Skirts are a hazard and are best worn tied around the neck.

  There’s a perpetual water shortage in this part of Provence in spite of the Durance River, which, along with the Rhône, flows through the valley. Too many people are irrigating vineyards and orchards. Part of the response to this demand for water is the environmentally friendly toilet. Many French toilets come equipped with two circular, shiny steel flushing buttons on the top of the tank, the smaller located inside the larger. The smaller one is calibrated for pipi only. These big-flush/little-flush toilets have begun to make their debut in the States.

  It should come as no surprise that the French language, as it does in so many situations, makes it as difficult as possible for foreigners to go to the bathroom. “Where is the bathroom?” is what we say in the United States when we’re not at home and feel the need to answer nature’s call. But if you translate the very same question into French as we did initially—“Où est la salle de bains?”—your words will be met with displays of confusion. They’ll think you’re asking to take a bath.

  We don’t notice at first, but for Americans, “bathroom” is the euphemism we’ve inherited for “toilet,” although it makes a kind of sense, since, in our country, toilets are usually located in bathrooms. In France, they’re not. They’re in their own little private room, along with a tiny sink, what we euphemistically call a “powder room.” You will get where you want to go if you ask for the internationally accepted term “water closet,” or WC. The French don’t have the letter W; they just stick two Vs together and voilà, le double V. Interesting that we, who also stick two Vs together, call the letter “double U.”

  Les toilettes is probably the most utilized alternative, but be sure to ask in the plural—les toilettes—even though you only need one. Ask for la toilette and you risk more confusion, evoking, as you do, the French expression faire la toilette. A French woman doesn’t simply get dressed. She makes her “toilette,” which in this instance has nothing to do with toilets as we know them. The word derives from the word toile, which refers to a woven cloth upon which a woman, in earlier times, would lay out her grooming materials, such as her hairbrush, her makeup, and a bottle of eau de toilette, which you now know if you didn’t before, is not water from the toilet. Only the French could make something sweet smelling out of the word “toilet.”

  None of the above, however, is good enough for Monique, who has taught us that it is polite to employ a euphemism, “Je voudrais me laver les mains.” “I would like to wash my hands.”

  While visiting Sylvie and Alain Prétot, I find myself in need of a toilet. I approach Sylvie and tell her I need to me laver les mains. She takes me to the kitchen sink, hands me a fresh dishtowel, and watches while I, temporarily dumbfounded, wash my hands. The flow of water from the faucet leads me to cross my legs in desperation. I blurt out something about a toilet. Sylvie, laughing, leads me to what we would call a powder room, furnished with a toilet and a sink.

  When Monique, the linguistic traitor, shows up at the Prétots’ for lunch a few minutes later, I call her on it. Not a bit apologetic, Monique shamelessly tells us the story of an American woman who asked the same question at a stranger’s house and ended up in a tiny room with only a sink attached to the wall. Too embarrassed to inquire further, the woman made an attempt to mount the sink and—oh là là—the sink broke away from the wall and fell to the floor. She collected herself as best she could, exited the bathroom, and explained to the hostess that she had felt faint and grabbed onto the sink, only to have it pull away from the wall.

  Finding les toilettes when you’re out and about is no problem. Contrary to policy in many restaurants and cafes in the States, toilets are not “reserved for customers only.” Having been toilet-trained in the United States, it took us awhile to figure out that it is not necessary to sit down and buy something to eat or drink in order to be permitted access to the les toilettes. Nor is there any reason to ask to wash your hands. A simple “Les toilettes?” does the trick.

  Just remember, when back in the States, switch back to the singular. Don’t ask to go to the bathrooms.

  Hanging Out

  I develop an unlikely passion in Saumane—hanging out the laundry. I can’t get enough of it, in spite of how perilous the journey leading from our back door to the clothesline below. Our house doesn’t really have a backyard. After you step onto the lovely stone patio, you face a dramatic falling off of the yard, a virtual cliff into which dozens of rough-cut, suicidal stone steps have been inserted, without aid of banisters. We’ve not
iced that Provençal stairways, both interior and exterior, often lack banisters. Perhaps the French have no building codes, as we do, that require them. Perhaps the French believe that you should take responsibility for yourself, that you should recognize potentially dangerous situations and behave accordingly. Now that I’m French, I agree. “Don’t be a klutz,” I tell myself as I make my way carefully down the steps, holding a basket full of wet laundry. “Ne klutzez-vous pas.”

  At home, one of my least favorite activities is doing the wash, even though it can hardly be said that I’m doing anything much at all, except switching a load, when I remember, from one Maytag sister to the other. Folding is even worse. But what annoys at home often challenges and delights me here. In Provence, I love doing the wash. I do wash more frequently than necessary, just for the sheer joy of it. Larry thinks I’m crazy, but he raises no protest. While I’m outside hanging, he’s inside, stealing a smoke.

  Most of the houses in Provence don’t have dryers. That’s because all of Provence is a dryer. The Provençal sun is so hot and the humidity so low that a pair of blue jeans hanging on the clothesline, with which all houses are equipped, is dry in two hours, even the pockets and waistbands.

  The last time I hung out laundry, I was a child. The clothesline was on a pulley, anchored between the exterior wall of the back of our house and a tall tree near the sandbox. I would watch in wonder as my mother, with a single yank, could send the hung wash on its way and make room for what waited in the basket at her feet.

  I had the extremely important job of holding the canvas clothespin bag and passing the clothespins to my mother, homemaker extraordinaire, mistress of the mangle, wonder woman of wash. I watched, proud and fascinated, as she’d turn a small bit of the clothing over the line before securing it with a wooden pin. For whatever reason, pin conservation was a goal and part of the ritual. The idea was to use the second pin from one article of clothing, assuming it was an upside-down two-pin shirt, for instance, and not a one-pin sock, to secure one side of the next piece of clothing. I loved the skill and the thrill: the wet sheets billowing, the pleasing order of the final lineup, the humorous appearance of random, dismembered body parts hanging in a ghostly display.

  In my backyard in Saumane, it all comes back to me in a Proustian rush. Because the French word for laundry is le linge, Larry mocks my nostalgia for le linge by calling it A La Recherche du Linge Perdu.

  But there’s more going on here than a madeleine moment. There is pleasure in back-to-basics real work, something I relate to a genuine exploration of another culture. So much physical work is done for us in our real lives at home. Doors swing open. Garage doors lift. Windows rise, and lights turn on automatically. In many public places, water faucets turn themselves on and off. Even toilets flush themselves, terrorizing me at the same time as they invade what I like to think of as my personal space. In Provence, I enjoy the built-in workout that laundry requires. Standing, bending, and reaching in the backyard of my borrowed, old-fashioned world, I find the motions calming, reassuring. There is a meditative quality to the hanging of wash. It takes time. I check it periodically to see how it’s doing. And when it’s dry, I bury my face in the heady scent of sunshine and grass. Nirvana.

  Make Way for Ducks

  The night before we are to leave, we give ourselves a farewell dinner party. Ellen recommends that we order take-in from Bernard Chastlelas, the Duck Man. He has a rotisserie truck in nearby St. Didier. He majors in chickens, Ellen explains, but if you call him the night before, he’ll prepare his especially delicious olive-stuffed duck. Ellen should know. In addition to every other challenge she has mastered, she’s an expert French cook.

  The next morning, we set out to claim our ducks. They are not there. M. Chastelas is, of course, désolé, but we shouldn’t worry. The ducks will be ready at noon.

  “What’s he planning to do?” says Larry. “Go home and kill them?”

  “This is Provence,” I defend with the pride of a native. “Maybe they’re not done hanging by their feet, or whatever it is they do to ducks.”

  We had walked through this fifteenth-century town when we went to the movies with the Rogets, but that visit was in the evening, so we never got a good look. Now, under a vividly blue sky, we take a few minutes to enjoy the fact that the main street is lined with century-old plane trees that create an aisle, fine enough for a bride, leading toward an eighteenth-century belfry gate. Larry takes out his camera.

  Before we leave, Larry insists upon taking a picture of me with M. Chastelas. I protest. He practically has to drag me to the truck, and then to top it off, Bernard slings an arm around me. One minute I’m like any other Provençal woman buying ducks from an itinerant purveyor, and the next minute my own husband blows my cover.

  There’s no point in hanging around St. Didier for a couple of hours, so we head back to the supermarket in L’Isle to buy some extra wine and other last-minute items we’ll need for the party. We shop with reasonable dispatch. It’s taken a month, but I finally know where the eggs are.

  We load up the trunk but fail to fully close it. As we drive home to put the purchases in the frigo, we hear some strange tinkling noises but figure it’s the wine rolling over the potato chips. At another juncture, we hear the same noise and imagine the wine rolling over the eggs that we’d planned to hard-boil. In fact, our groceries are falling out of car and onto the road, but we don’t realize this until we get home and find the trunk empty. We retrace our journey. Larry drives. I hang my head out the passenger window, scanning the roadsides for evidences of dinner.

  “Ah, yes, there.” I point, when we’re halfway down the Saumane hill, at our own grocery roadkill—scrambled eggs, blood-red wine, shards of glass, egg shells, and flattened bags of potato chips. We go back to the supermarket and start all over again.

  When it’s time to return to St. Didier, we decide to go by bike; we’ve had enough of the car. There’s a bit of mistral in the air but not enough to interfere with cycling. It will be our last bike ride, and the weather is perfect. Then we remember the ducks. Larry comes up with a solution. He’ll carry them home in his backpack. Once we descend our hill, it’s pretty much a flat ride into St. Didier, although too much of it is along a highway. Huge trucks speed by, blowing us sideways with near mistral force, almost sweeping us off our wheels.

  Our ducks are ready. Larry discusses this evening’s party menu with M. Chastelas, who suggests that we add some white beans to the menu.

  “Just heat up the ducks and serve them over the beans. That’s the classic Provençal way.” He happens to have a few jars in his truck.

  It’s too bad that we didn’t think to bring some plastic bags. M. Chastelas has wrapped the ducks in paper, but that’s not going to keep three steaming-hot ducks from exuding whatever ducks exude—grease for sure. I pedal behind Larry all the way home, watching the stain on his backpack expand, take over his T-shirt, and begin to form tiny rivulets that are heading toward his butt.

  That night we tape a sign on our door that reads, “Liberté, Egalité, Amitié.” We mean it, the friendship part especially. Although we hardly know them, Mo, Ange, Sylvie, Alain, Catherine, Yves, René, Danielle, Ellen, and Bob feel like friends.

  Between what we have assembled and what the guests have brought, our table is heaped with cheeses, hummus, pâtés, sausages, smoked salmon, a lobster spread, tapenade, and baguettes galore. The French, or at least the French we know, like to make mincemeat out of every animal, vegetable, fish, or bird they can get their hands on. It may be an excuse for eating bread.

  Mo brings a tomato pie. Ellen brings a box of Belgian chocolates. René and Danielle, Catherine and Yves, the Prétots and Ange bring wine, which is a good thing because, even though we replaced the broken bottles of wine, we have vastly underestimated how much wine the French will drink. Ange brings his prized antique wooden corkscrew that stands on three legs and looks like a Gatling gun.
Yves plays his guitar. We sing. Catherine asks a riddle: Why can’t a man be both good-looking and smart? “Pourquoi?” (“Why?”) We give up. “Because then he’d be a woman.”

  Our soirée is a great success. The wine and conversation flow freely. It is midnight when we walk Ange and Mo to their car. I, who have the reputation of being about as sentimental as a junkyard dog, burst into tears when it’s time to part. We promise each other we’ll stay in touch by e-mail. I couldn’t bear it if this adieu were not really à bientôt, see you soon.

  We leave very early the next morning. We slip the keys into Catherine’s letterbox and head down the hill for a quick café and croissant at Le Café Bellevue, where we encounter Alain on his way to work. We tell him we are désolés—très très désolés—to be leaving Provence. He is désolé that we are leaving. We exchange warm hugs and triple kisses. “Il faut partir pour revenir,” he says, consolingly. You have to leave in order to return.

  In the Second Place

  The Second Time Around

  We love our little house so much that we rent it the following year. Since it’s not available for September, we lease it for the last three weeks of June and the first week of July. Coming home turns out to be a mixed blessing. We take great pleasure from the cozy feeling that accompanies returning to rue de L’Eglise. After all, wasn’t feeling at home in Provence precisely what we wanted? What better way than to return to the same house, to René and Danielle, to the crazy hill, to Lou Clapas, where we’re welcomed back with open arms? And, grâce à Dieu, with a bunch of computer adapters that we already know will marchent. But here’s the rub: repetition exacts a price, novelty.