At Home in France (13 page)

In October, I drove lickety-split from the Bézamats to the house. No table. I bristled. He had had all those months to finish it. What could have delayed him?

What had delayed him, Monsieur Ribeiro explained when I stopped at the shop, was that he had had doubts about some specifications, and had hesitated to go ahead without my approval. What if he’d got it wrong; I would have been very unhappy, no? He arrived the next morning, only a half hour late, and we reviewed all the particulars.
I was harboring a slim hope that he could undertake the work while I was there, but no, he was up to here (hand under chin) with orders. May, then. May it would be.

May, and no table. I was seething. How could he string me along like this? The weather was perfect! I could be enjoying the patio. It was just a simple picnic table! What could be so complicated?

What was so complicated, Monsieur Ribeiro explained, was that he had had a serious accident in his workroom. We were standing there at the time. He demonstrated—slapping his forehead and reeling backward—how a part of a heavy machine had flown off and struck him. He’d had a severe concussion and had been hospitalized in Toulouse. He did look a bit pale; he’d lost a little weight. Something of his usual ebullience was gone, and his smile was wan. I felt my anger forestalled, my arguments deflated. I expressed my sympathy over his accident. The table, he promised, would be installed by the time I returned in the fall.

The following September, it was, at last, THERE. There, in capital letters, because in the context of my dollhouse-sized patio, it had all the monumentality of a luxury ocean liner. The original plan for something rustic and simple had taken on grandiose dimensions in Monsieur Ribeiro’s mind. What was now in place was a massive table—the sort you see in public parks—with four-inch-thick planks and brass studs the size of a French franc. How had it assumed these proportions?

I dropped my luggage at the door and immediately tested the table. It was, indeed, anchored to the stone wall—this table was going nowhere. A person had to high-step over the thick wooden slabs connecting the benches to the table and sidle awkwardly into the seat. It
was like mounting a horse in a tight stall. The table was chest high, so if I rested my elbows on top, they winged out at shoulder level. Even more troubling, the table was on a slant, causing the vista to be dizzily skewed. I had visions of dinner plates slowly creeping away from the person eating from them and guests muttering about disappearing eating utensils. To climb out of the table took as much dexterity as getting in—God forbid you should forget the salt! But I buried my sickening disappointment. It had been such an arduous feat getting the table. I could live with it, couldn’t I?

The following spring, when I’d gotten some distance from it, I thought not. Even though I’d paid Monsieur Ribeiro, the result was unacceptable. When I visited his workshop to explain the problem, he agreed to stop by the house that afternoon. I invited him to sit at the table and withheld comment as he struggled with his large frame to sit down—or should I say climb aboard? He sat with a self-important rise and fall of his shoulders, looking mildly satisfied. Then I pointed out the slant, the impossible height for comfortable dining, the disorienting view. He didn’t disagree. Nor did he agree. But he said he would make some slight alterations—these were not serious problems—and it would be perfect when I returned in the fall.

Need I say that the repairs had not been made in the fall?

This time Monsieur Ribeiro was not at his workshop. His son—the resemblance around the eyes and mouth was too strong for him to be anything else—seemed to be in charge. His father, he said, continued to have problems resulting from his accident and wasn’t able to work to full capacity. I explained the problem, and he said he
would see to it immediately. He arrived within an hour, with a young helper. It was no small job to lower the table and set it at an even level on the rough, irregular stone surface. It had to be unbolted, measured and recut, then reassembled. It took hours. When it was completed, I slid in comfortably and sat down. Perfect, it was perfect. After they left, I brought out the cheeses and
pâté
, bread and wine, and basked in the sunshine. Food, my mother always said, just tastes better outdoors.

D
espite my problems with him, Monsieur Ribeiro was incontestably a fine craftsman; a more solid table you couldn’t ask for. Thus, I assumed the job of repairing the window frame would be a snap. After I greeted him at his workshop—his health apparently restored—I crept up on my reason for visiting him, blathering in general about the problem of animals in the house over the winter. Then I reached the final hurdle, the nonsense about the
martre
or the
hibou
, whatever—the as-yet-to-be-determined culprit. I drew a breath. A window molding needed replacement, I announced, skidding to a conclusion.

“Hal”
Monsieur Ribeiro roared in my face. The
martre/hibou
issue seemed to have struck some chord, as if he, too, had suffered a similar outrage.

When he and his son arrived the following day, they studiously examined the window frame. Mystified, they asked for details. I passed on the few clues I had, producing the feathers (I was getting like Monsieur Bézamat in my old age). Monsieur Ribeiro was uncharacteristically subdued, stumped.
“Martre, hibou,”
he muttered. I was frankly relieved just to let the matter lie. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he said that the solution was to
cover the window with a sheet of waterproof board. A simple solution, but a sound one. Since the window was opaque and provided the faintest light (I relied on the other window for this as well as for a view of the valley), nothing would be lost by covering it up. The cover would serve as a sort of seal against animals and the elements. I hesitated only a moment. It was aesthetically distasteful, but I could keep the curtains closed.

Seizing the occasion, I asked Monsieur Ribeiro if, at the same time, he would cut a bed board for me, since my mattress was not firm enough.
D’accord
. He took careful measurements of both the window frame and the bed.

In the morning, the Ribeiros were back. In minutes, the window was sealed up. The bed board, however, proved to be a more complicated undertaking, starting with a great deal of huffing and puffing to get it up the tiny, angled staircase. Then, to my dismay, when they slid it onto my bed frame, it was inches short all the way around. I was beginning to have serious doubts about Monsieur Ribeiro’s skills with a tape measure. Until he explained the problem: this particular board was the only size, of the thickness I’d demanded, that he’d had on hand. But it wouldn’t do, I countered, since the mattress would extend over the edge all the way around. He looked resigned to this fact. But now, he said with immense regret, the bed board would have to wait on a fresh supply of wood so that he could cut it to my specifications. I knew what this meant: sometime, far down the road, I would have my bed board. Maybe by fall, certainly by spring.

I drew the curtains across the board on the window—and on the unsolved mystery.
Hibou
or
martre
, we would never know.

O
ne of the advantages of the house is using it as a base to explore
la France profunde
, as the French refer to the countryside. Often I split a vacation between a visit to the house and a sojourn to a particular area in another part of the country. It’s immensely satisfying simply to toss a nightgown and a toothbrush in a bag for an overnight stay at a not-too-distant inn. A further advantage of
my
house is that I can go any which way: farther south to the Basque country, east to the Auvergne, north to the Loire, southeast to Provence.… The only problem is that I have to rely on rental cars, and this can be expensive.

In April 1990, I spent a week in Brittany. I’d been lured to that part of the country by what I’d read about its whitewashed villages, rocky inlets, and coastal cliffs rising above crashing waves; of its enduring legends (King Arthur searched for the Holy Grail in the forests of central Brittany); of its fierce independence (staunchly clinging
to the Breton language, which is closer to Welsh than to French). It sounded like a mystical place. I limited myself to a stretch of the Western coast, starting with the serene little town of St-Brévin-les-Pins. For dinner and lodging, I relied on my on-the-road Bible, the
Logis de France
, which is reissued each year. In order for a hotel-restaurant to qualify for the guide—and post the cheery green-and-yellow
Logis de France
sign on its exterior—it must offer reasonable rates and regional cuisine. The guide includes regional maps, pinpointing the location of each
logis
, which are usually family-run affairs. At a glance, you can see that the country is riddled with them—and once you’ve keyed into the
logis
, the little green-and-yellow sign catches your eye everywhere. Since I don’t travel in high season, I often simply call ahead from one evening to the next for a reservation; at times I haven’t even called ahead, when I’m not sure where I’ll wind up at the end of the day, and have never had a problem finding lodging. This is a great comfort, banishing worry about finding a place for the night in unfamiliar territory.

Vannes, a pretty cobbled town, had some sophisticated shops, a cut above the norm in this low-key part of the country. I dawdled for the afternoon and bought a dress, a rare indulgence. It had a brilliantly colored design and would call for a special occasion—I had to take a walk around the block to persuade myself that this flamboyant whim would be in fact a reasonable choice. My Brittany dress it would be. That night I stayed in Quiberon at Le Neptune, where my room had a panoramic view of the bay.

On the road past Carnac, on an appropriately gray, somber day, I spotted some of the curious, eerie menhirs
I’d read about. The giant stones, some weighing up to three hundred and fifty tons, were like swells in the earth, here as if created by a colony of giant moles. In fact, it was the Druids, members of ancient religious orders and regarded as pagan magicians in Christian legends, who assembled them from 5000 to 2000
B.C
. Their meaning in ancient rituals has yet to be understood and their presence in the natural landscape is disturbing and haunting. Tourists were walking about the terrain, heads down in a studious perusal, as if they could uncover the mystery. I drove on, satisfied with the sight from the car.

In Quimperlé I happened on to a pint-size six-table
crêperie
near the cathedral for lunch, where a woman in historic Breton dress was turning out the battery of orders for
galettes
from her station near the front window. It was a fascinating example of the art of
crêpe
making. The batter was contained in a deep yellow bucket beside her. Across the top of the bucket was a wooden plank to hold utensils and a hole carved out for a measuring cup. In front of her were two large gas-heated griddles, which she continually adjusted (every time the door opened, a blast of cool air came in). She would dip a cloth-covered sponge in melted butter to coat one griddle. Then she poured in a cupful of batter and smoothed it out with a wooden spatula. Within seconds the batter would begin to bubble. She would peek at the underside and, if she was satisfied, flip the
crêpe
on its undone side to the second griddle. With dazzling sleight of hand, she then started another
crêpe
on the first griddle. Immediately, she would spread the filling on the cooked
crêpe
, fold it, flip it over and back again, and glide it onto a plate. For the family at the next table, it was chocolate and raspberries; then, for me,
gruyère
. Her
crêpe
making went on and
on in a balletic sequence, without pause. I was mesmerized and would like to have lingered, but I had gobbled up my
crêpe
—one goes down very quickly—and people were backed up at the door waiting for tables.

After that,
crêpes
became my regular lunch fare. For breakfast, I discovered a delicious pastry called
kouign-amann
(the pronunciation of which I never quite mastered), a Breton specialty that has a crisp exterior and a buttery, almost creamy interior. I scanned bookstores for a regional cookbook with the recipe and eventually found it in a slim paperback lyrically titled
Balades Gourmandes, 77 recettes de la Bretagne et des pays de la Loire
. Among its charming illustrations of old posters and photographs is one of an elderly peasant woman plucking chickens. A skinny naked chicken, like one of those rubber versions you sometimes see in a circus clown’s act, is nearly swallowed up in the depths of her capacious lap, with its neck dangling over one knee. She is gesturing with an outstretched arm, an animated expression on her face, regaling someone out of sight with a story. I stared at this photo time and again, trying to imagine what her tale could be. Just scanning the recipe for
kouign-amann
, I could see why it was so outrageously good. It called for twice as much butter as flour! The recipe is time-consuming, requiring four
tours
, foldings and rollings of the dough, each followed by fifteen-minute chillings, to create flaky layers as in a croissant. I plan to try it at home some Sunday morning, but I know that, food being more than a question of taste, I’ll never be able to replicate it. I won’t be seated in a tiny village café by the sea as the sun does battle with the early-morning fog and the brisk, briny air has caused me to work up a keen appetite. Some things just don’t translate.