Playing House in Provence

by Mary-Lou Weisman

  Fontaine de Vaucluse becomes a regular destination. We like to walk through the prehistoric town to the deep cavern that is the source of the Sorgue, so deep that even Jacques Cousteau couldn’t get to the bottom of it. On our first visit, we were surprised to see that this very French town is dominated by a museum devoted to the memory of Petrarch, the famous fourteenth-century Italian scholar, poet, humanist, and quite possibly the champion of unrequited infatuation. He is best known for the 366 poems he wrote over a period of twenty-one years to a young beauty named Laura.

  Scholars differ as to whether Laura actually existed, but those who believe she did say Petrarch fell in love when he caught his first and last sight of her in a church in Avignon. Laura, assuming she was real, lived in the town of Noves, which may explain why Petrarch chose an ex-pat life in nearby Fontaine, where he lived for years in a house he built on the banks of the river. Maybe there was a Laura. If so, maybe she read his letters, maybe she didn’t. One thing is for sure; there’s no evidence that she ever wrote back.

  After we walk through town, we lean our bikes against the stone wall that separates the narrow main street from the river and order our usual—a banana ice-cream cone for me and an apricot slush for Larry. We turn our backs on the souvenir shops that line the street and train our eyes on the immense waterwheel that creates electricity for the paper factory, and on the kayaks that bob and swivel on the fast-flowing Sorgue. Then we climb back on our bikes and pedal back beneath the aqueduct and under the bower of bliss. Our ultimate goal is to be able to ride all the way home, to the top of Goult—more than a mile—without getting off our bikes two or three times to rest, or, worse yet, having to walk them part of the way uphill. It doesn’t help my morale when a woman who looks older than I, dressed in a faded flowered house dress, her gray hair held in a bun, pedals smoothly past me, without even breathing hard. “Bon Courage,” she calls over her shoulder. I, outfitted in my padded Lycra cycling shorts and plastic helmet, don’t even have the wind to call back, “Merci.”

  Given our natures, Larry and I compete against the hill and each other to see who can get to the top first without having to get off and rest. That doesn’t happen until the last week. We are our own little Tour de France.

  At first we used to drive to and from Ulli and Bettina’s house from Saumane, but now that we live in Goult, we ride our bikes, a trip of about seven miles. We usually do this on weekends, so that it’s possible to pedal there and back and still have enough time to fall into a coma.

  We discover a dedicated bike path that starts near Goult and ends in Apt, just a mile or so beyond Perrotet. Once we streak down our hill, we walk our bikes across the treacherously trafficked highway.

  Then we take a left onto a narrow, flat, paved road where a rural world of colorful wonders awaits us. We pedal past orange pumpkin fields, wild bouquets of Queen Anne’s lace, broom, and pale blue morning glories adorning sagging wire fences. Our path takes us through vineyards abundant with ripening clusters of purple grapes, under stone bridges, and alongside trailer encampments festooned with laundry, where gypsy children and their dogs run wild. We relish the occasional buff-colored, sternly rectangular, plaster-covered stone farmhouses. If the plaster has fallen off here and there, exposing the continent-like shapes of the ancient stonework beneath, and if their once colorful shutters are faded to chalky pastel by years of blazing sunlight, so much the better. We love a ruin.

  The most thrilling part of the trip is traversing Le Pont Julien, named after that Julien, Julius Caesar. It is a one-lane, two-thousand-year-old, triple-arched Roman bridge in such perfect condition that it’s still in use, although cars and bikes must wait their turns at each end to traverse it single file. It will take a few trips over Le Pont Julien before we even begin to get bored with the idea that eons ago, Roman legions in chariots passed this way. We exit the bike path at Perrotet, walk our bikes once more across the highway, and pedal a kilometer or so to Ulli and Bettina’s where we wash up and watch our friends put the finishing touches on what the French call lunch and we call a feast.

  We start with a kir apéritif and hors d’oeuvre of olives and saucisson. Then comes a fish course, served with a vegetable, then a goat cheese quiche, then a salad made with arugula and strawberries, after which they serve the requisite cheese plate and finally a chocolate mousse. All the while we’re slowly but surely drinking our way through two bottles of light rosé.

  Our lunch with Ulli and Bettina has taken at least two hours to consume, not so much because it is so bountiful—although there is a natural pause between courses that slows the process down—but because we take our time. Even for would-be Provençaux, eating is one of the best reasons for being alive.

  It is when we are with Ulli and Bettina that we are the most conscious of the difference between pretending and intending to be French. Even so, I sometimes lose my grip on fantasy and trespass in the dangerous territory of reality.

  “We could do what they have done,” I say to Larry, after a visit to their tiny, huggable house. “We could retire. We could be a la retraite. We could sell our house and buy a little place in Provence. In six months, we’d be speaking decent French. You could stop being a lawyer. You could calm down. You could cook organ meats. You could experiment with watercolors. Let’s have one more grand adventure. Why not? C’mon. There’s nothing to stop us.”

  “Nothing,” says Larry, “except our friends, our house, which is twice the size of the lamb shed, the YMCA pool, the gym, and the library. Plus, you’d have to find an internist, an allergist, a dentist, a gynecologist, a psychopharmacologist, and we’re much too old, we don’t have the nerve, and we’d run out of money.”

  We take turns going sane. This time it was his turn.

  A Type A Couple in a Type B World

  In class, we listen to a recording by the late Fernandel, himself a Provençal, singing a Provençal song. The first line of each stanza begins, “Aujourd’hui peut-être, ou plutôt demain,” (maybe today, or better yet tomorrow) the Provençal equivalent of mañana. As the verses go, Fernandel delays cutting off a tree branch that threatens to crash through his roof, puts off harvesting grass to feed his rabbits, and can’t even find the wherewithal to make love on his wedding night.

  The singer claims he is suffering from la flemme, a serious case of lethargy brought on by the intensity of the Provençal sun. While his flemme is exaggerated to the point of comedy, it is true that the natives like to take it easy, at least in the warm season, which is when we are there. The heat slows people down. They pace themselves. They stroll. They hang out. They linger. They take their time. They nap.

  Like mad dogs and Englishmen, we go out in the midday sun, from one to four o’clock, when all the stores, except the supermarkets, are closed. The natives know the sun will boil your brain, and besides, why not take a little three-hour break? We could go home and study or play Scrabble, or read a book, or even make love. Sometimes we do, but too often our siesta time includes taking a bike ride or food shopping. We may not be tourists, but we tend to move at a touristic pace. Maybe if we knew we were staying longer than a month, we’d slow down a bit, but too often, at the end of the day, we reach for the ibuprofen.

  Once in a while, we achieve that coveted phlegmatic state of mind we so admire. We will sit in the salon and read all afternoon. Larry will take his watercolors outdoors and paint village scenes. I find my calm center daily when I write.

  Sometimes we take a walk, with no destination in mind. Often, when we’re walking in one village or another, Larry will unaccountably come to an abrupt halt, take out his camera, and engage in his own version of time-lapse photography. He is drawn to vintage advertisements that have faded into the plaster walls on which they had been painted decades ago. I would have walked right by without noticing, but now I do. The best ones are so faded that one can’t really make out all the letters. Bleached by the sun, abraded by winds and time, their c
olors retreat into the walls, leaving a beguiling penumbra of their former practical selves. These signs are another way of seeing through time. In this and many other matters aesthetic, I count on Larry to show me what’s beautiful.

  Often we will drive to the top of Saignon, a very quiet village perché. Centuries ago it was a defensive outpost for the nearby town of Apt. Today it is a refuge for the stressed. We sit in the outdoor café on the sun-dappled patio, next to a beautifully time and weather-worn fountain dedicated to Ceres, the goddess of fertility. We each order an Orangina and stare across the patterned Luberon Valley below. Our guidebook describes Saignon as “a typically peaceful village, not demanding of your attention.” Exactly.

  Mo has told us that she has broken up with Ange. Now she is with Marc. Ulli says that Mo is totally gaga over Marc.

  We are eager to meet Mo’s new boyfriend, so we invite them to dinner. Marc is a darkly attractive man and, like so many people we meet through Mo, smart and interesting, too.

  Larry and I are in hyper-hosting mode. We take turns rushing back and forth into the kitchen, stabbing anxiously at the beef stew, making sure it’s tender, loading the coffeepot, deciding not to put the dressing on the salad quite yet, checking the crust on the tomato pie, remembering and then forgetting to put the salt and pepper shakers on the table, and otherwise being our usual, anxious American selves.

  When we finally settle down at the table, we shift into conversational mode. We talk, with great enthusiasm, as we often do, about how much we have enjoyed our two previous stays in Provence and how much we love the villages, the people, the language, the aesthetic, and, well, so much that is French.

  Marc responds to our proclamations of Francophilia with a question. “What, if any, changes do you want to make to your lives at home as a result of having spent these months in Provence?”

  “That’s easy,” I answer. “We are determined to live more slowly, to relax, to stay longer at the table, not to worry so much.” It doesn’t occur to me at the time that if we can’t relax in Provence, it’s unlikely we’ll be laid back at home. Maybe that’s why Marc is smiling.

  Best Friends

  We enjoy a very active social life in Provence, a cat’s cradle of interconnectedness, with Mo holding the strings. Much of it takes place at lunchtime when Mo invites her friends to share a meal, to meet us, and to oblige us to speak French to people other than herself. Sometimes they become our friends, at least for the time we are in Provence.

  The French have a reputation for being rude and stand-offish. We find no evidence of that stereotype; in fact, we find plenty of evidence that the opposite is true. This friendliness displays itself in many ways. The French literally stand closer to one another than Americans do. After the initial introductory handshake, the triple kiss (or double in Paris) is de rigueur, creating an instant intimacy—a blending of touch and breath—that may be utterly lacking in substance but is nevertheless loaded with good will. Men don’t just kiss and hug women they hardly know; they hug and kiss one another.

  In America, strangers in an elevator tend to face the doors and ride to their floors in stony silence. In France, they are much more likely to talk to one another. The requisite “Bonjour, Madame” or “Bonjour, Monsieur” upon entering a store sets the scene for a friendly, if merely commercial, encounter. Even while seated at separate restaurant tables, diners will greet one another upon being seated, and as we have experienced, may even converse table to table during the meal.

  The language, too, reflects the French inclination toward affection by the frequent use of diminutives. Petit often modifies a French noun to make the object even more endearing. Un ami is a friend. Un petit ami is a boyfriend, even if he’s six feet tall. Similarly, “un petit restaurant” designates a positive recommendation, even if the restaurant takes up a city block. There, the waiter will ask if you’d like “un petit café” or “un petit dessert.” It’s not accidental that this inclination to minimize mimics the fondness that is lavished on babies and small children who are both adorable and petit. We become les petits Américains.

  All this, and more, we figure, inclines the Provençaux to look kindly upon starry-eyed, late middle-aged Francophiles who are eager to speak their language and to blend into their culture. Sometimes we imagine they are thinking (in French), Look at that adorable old couple. One has to admire them for trying to learn French at their age.

  Or maybe not. Maybe they’re just being nice, and it is we who are overreacting to the slightest act of politesse.

  At home or away, we are by nature promiscuously friendly. We tend to like at first sight, too often mistaking well-informed people for deep thinkers and the certifiably insane for delightfully eccentric. Still, we must have friends to feel at home. We understand that real friendships take time and a sense of future, neither of which we’ve got, but we can’t afford to let that bother us. We’re so busy being nice, and they are so busy being nice back, whether we actually like one another or not is hardly relevant. In reality, it could take a long time to find out that we’re not well suited, but since we only have a month, at best, these pretend friendships define superficiality and need not survive the test of time. Here our tendency toward promiscuity serves us well.

  If we find ourselves attracted to someone, we simply shortcut the getting to know you part and go directly to best friends. In this respect, we are like our granddaughter Isabelle. She has what she calls her BFF, her best friend forever. She also has a spare BFF in case the first one doesn’t work out.

  We distinguish among potential friends the same way we distinguish among words in the French language; they’re either faux amis or vrais amis—people with whom we will never get beyond the superficial and people with whom we might. Usually, and not surprisingly, the faux amis tend to speak no English. We will do our best to speak with them at lunch. We may run into them at a fête or in the marketplace, but neither of us pursues a relationship. It’s not worth the effort. When we pass in the street, we recognize one another with a quick exchange of “Ça va?” and keep moving.

  Mo’s table becomes a proving ground. If we can understand their French, and they can put up with ours, they may turn out to be vrais amis. Some of the people we meet invite us to their homes and welcome us warmly. We are often the center of attention. We find ourselves amending our politesse theory to the assumption that they may find us fascinating. Perhaps it’s because, in these small towns, everybody knows everybody except us, which, in addition to the fact that we’re Americans and friends of Mo’s, makes us persons of interest. Or perhaps they are as eager to understand our world as we are theirs. Or maybe Mo pays them.

  Mo has invited a distinguished elderly gentleman from Paris to lunch. She prepares us for his visit. We will notice that he wears a medal on his lapel. He is a member of La Legion d’Honneur, indicating that he made a significant contribution to the military or to French culture. His contributions, she tells us, were primarily in the field of history, but his current passion is the preservation of the purity of the French language. He has joined forces with L’Academie Francaise to do battle against the inevitable lethal leakage of what they call franglais into the purity of the French language. They get cramps when their countrymen say, “No problem,” when they ought be saying, “Pas de souci.” Ditto for words like “e-mail,” “networking,” and “chat.”

  Mo has made a terrible mistake. Did she mean to show us off? She may have thought that Larry and I were ready to converse with a real Parisian, but we are not—so very not that after several attempts to understand a single word he mutters, we fall mute.

  We pass le pain, and the pain, between us. We dab various spreads on crackers. We chew slowly. We twist our napkins one way and then another. We fiddle with the edge of the tablecloth. We avoid eye contact for fear of bursting into the kind of unstoppable, nervous laughter that used to get me sent to the principal’s office.

  Mo rea
lizes her error and turns her conversational attention to her guest. Their conversation is, not surprisingly, about the French language. Mo commiserates with her guest about how a French tennis player is now often described as “un tennisman.” She wants the Academy to revive “joueur de tennis,” tennis player. The French word didn’t need Anglicizing. The French language had a perfectly good word of its own. Non?

  We understand more when Mo speaks. They are discussing the new, hopeful, and perhaps doomed effort on the part of the Academy to rescue those French words that have become Anglicized. To this end, the Academy has sponsored a competition to translate these errant words into French. Without much success, they have tried to convert “Walkman” to “Baladeur,” and “e-mail” to “courriel.”

  At that moment, Larry, the irrepressible, whispers in my ear, “How are they planning to repatriate le hot dog? Le chien chaud?” This causes both of us to excuse ourselves from the table and rush into a distant room to bang our heads on the wall to cover up the sound of our laughter. Fortunately, Monsieur has fallen asleep.

  The outcome is much more pleasant when we are invited to a party at Julie’s house. Julie, whom we met briefly at Mo’s table, has moved to the countryside outside of Lacoste. She is giving a party and invites us to come along. We have no idea if we want to go, but Mo encourages us. She and Marc will drive us there.

  Julie greets us and introduces us to her guests. Again we experience the pleasure of an enthusiastic welcome. Too many of them are named some variant of Marie. Besides me, Mary-Lou, there’s Marie Ann and Marie Therese, a just plain Marie, and even a guy named Marius, who’s married to Mary Ann. When Larry is introduced to a woman named Laurence, everyone enjoys a big icebreaker of a laugh. A hearty Côtes-du-Rhône conspires with coincidence, and soon conversation is also flowing. The mood is informal. Some people have brought their children to keep Julie’s three-year-old boy company. The toddlers lurch about, engaging with guests, speaking better French than we do.