At Home in France (25 page)

I informed him that I would sign the contract and wanted to go ahead and pay for the work. This would surely set things in motion (such expeditiousness would be my inclination, not that of the French, I should have realized). Would Monsieur accept my French-franc traveler’s checks (I’d come prepared with extra money to pay for the work on this trip)? Not possible, he said sternly. But, I explained, since the checks were in French francs, it was exactly like cash. His nose twitched, as if this was a further irritation. The bank was just a few blocks away, he said.

I ran to the bank. Why am I forever trying to beat the noon closing of everything in France? I cashed the wad of traveler’s checks, studying the young woman’s face to see if she registered surprise. I hoped no other customer was observing the mound of bills being counted—I fantasized a gun at my back as soon as I walked out the door. The idea of carrying so much cash, even for a few blocks, made me extremely nervous. I sped back to the Saur office.

I signed the two copies of the contract. I counted
out and recounted the precise amount of francs. Monsieur Carsac counted and recounted them. Eventually—Monsieur waiting it out—I dug out the last centime.
Fini
.

In June of 1993, I called Monsieur Carsac from the booth at the Carennac post office and was told that work on my house had been postponed. In short, my house was creeping up on their to-do list. A month after I got back to New York, I received an amended
facture
or bill from Saur. The cost had risen slightly, based on a more recent estimate. I paid the difference.

N
o, Monsieur Bézamat told me in October 1993, the work had not been started. His expression was pained, as if he shared some responsibility for the delay. I should call the Saur office. Before I made my shopping rounds in St-Céré, I stopped at the post office to put through a call to Gramat. No answer. And of course the office would be closed the next day, as well as Monday, France’s usual day off. I hung up in a fury. I would be spending the following week in the Auvergne. A delay here for me wasn’t a matter of days, but months and months, until my next visit.
“Merde,”
I muttered.

When I received a
facture
from Saur at the end of January in New York, I took it as a positive sign. The bill was for the
“1er semestre”
of service. Then, at the end of May, just before I planned to return, there was a second bill for the same amount. (The Hirondes had underestimated slightly.) We were in business at last!

A
nd so, when Monsieur Bézamat greeted me upon my arrival with a
“problème,”
I was incredulous. He offered to follow me directly to the house. He parked the car,
slammed the door, and stood poised for a moment, hands on hips—a momentary reluctance to deliver bad news. Then he advanced and pointed out to me the placement of the
compteur
, the underground meter. It was entrenched on the far side of the incline leading up to the garage, in the shadow of my rosemary bush at the edge of the woods. Which is to say, it was a far stretch from the
cave
. In short, Monsieur Bézamat informed me, it was an impossible task for Monsieur Bru—who had moved into the post of plumber after Monsieur Prysbil was taken to a sanatorium—to make a connection from the
compteur
to the cistern. He would not only have to dig a tunnel for a considerable distance but burrow under the stone wall surrounding the house. In other words—the light was dawning—I had the
compteur
, and in Saur’s view, the job was done. The bills, of course, would keep coming—the meter, true enough, was installed. Yet it was inoperable: there was no umbilical cord from meter to house.

The
compteur
, Monsieur Bézamat stated, would have to be moved, preferably inside the stone wall opposite the
cave
. Why hadn’t Saur consulted with him? he muttered. (I had given the Saur office his name in my absence.) If he’d been informed, he would have advised them. He whistled in disgust.

I was too weary. This being early Friday evening, there would be no recourse until the Saur offices opened on Tuesday. I told Monsieur Bézamat that I would drive to the headquarters in Figeac then and present the problem. After opening the house, I drove down to the well—the old routine—for water.

On Monday evening, when I came home, there was a note on the back of an envelope in Monsieur Bézamat’s elegant script under the door.
“Demain matin, avant
d’aller à Figeac, passez me voir, au sujet du compteur.”
(Come see me about the meter.) I noted, slightly shocked, that it was addressed familiarly: to Ann and signed Charles.

When I stopped at the house in the morning, he said that he’d had a sudden brainstorm: the
compteur
was on public property, not
chez moi!
True or not—I had a muddled notion that perhaps it was indeed on my land, but was not about to dig up the deeds. This was a stroke of genius on his part; it would make for an unassailable argument in my favor! Saur would
have
to move the
compteur
. I complimented him on his clever thinking. Did he truly believe this, or was he just being wily? I didn’t care.

The woman behind the desk in the Saur office, harried though she was, was persuaded by my argument and sympathetic with my plight. After a series of phone calls, she said that they would send a man to the house that evening, a Monsieur Singe from Puybrun, who had done the installation. Would six o’clock be agreeable?

On the way home, I stopped at the
alimentation
—the grocery store—in Carennac on another bit of business. Monsieur Bézamat had advised mounting a screen around the chimney to prevent further invasions of
hiboux, martres
, and company. Monsieur Coussil, whose shop I lean on at times like the Yellow Pages, was likely to know the whereabouts of the roofer (Jean Prunet, who had repaired my roof, had passed away). With his customary passivity, he recommended Monsieur Massalve, who lived up the road at the end of the village.

My rap on the door set off a feisty yipping and angry clawing. A young girl with pale white skin and curly black hair looked at me with painful shyness. I identified
myself and explained the problem. She hushed the dog, who trotted away, mission accomplished, and ushered me into the hall. Could her father stop by the house? I asked.

“Il est mon mari,”
she corrected me softly. I could barely squelch my astonishment—she looked all of twelve years old! Yes, she said, her husband could come by on Friday evening. Indicative of her reclusiveness, she seemed ignorant of the location of my house. She pulled out a map from the chest in the hall so I could point it out.

From there, I swung by the Bézamats. Without hesitation, Monsieur said he would come to the house at six to meet the Saur man.

Monsieur Singe was a ruggedly handsome man with a football-tackle physique, perhaps in his forties. Introductions were made all round.

“Vous expliquez,”
I said, turning the podium over to Monsieur Bézamat immediately. When the incontrovertible fact was presented—that the
compteur
was on public property and would have to be moved—Monsieur Singe became livid. He smacked his forehead, he paced steamily in circles, he pounded a fist on the trunk of his car. Two
days
, two
days
, he’d spent on this job, and now it had to be undone! More storming about. I hovered by the picnic table. Say nothing, an inner voice advised. Look innocent, but look resolute. When Monsieur Singe wound down enough to carry on with the discussion, Monsieur Bézamat steered him to the spot inside the stone wall where the
compteur
should logically have been placed to begin with.

Monsieur Singe rebelled. That would be impossible, he exclaimed, with much gesticulation. That would mean going under the stone wall! He turned on me. The stone wall was ancient, unstable. It would collapse, and then what? I pretended not to speak the language. (He had a
point, I feared.) The stone wall, which was approximately six feet high, was constructed of slabs of stone, layered horizontally and highly irregularly, knitted together somewhat magically without the benefit of stabilizing mortar. Monsieur Bézamat, meanwhile, strode to the
cave
and emerged with a metal rod. He plunged it into the ground by the wall, testing the depth of the stones beneath the surface. He proposed that if Monsieur Singe saw fit to reposition the
compteur
outside the wall, he would dig the trench beneath it. This mollified Monsieur Singe not the least. He marched up to the garage and pounded on the stone wall. Why not drill a hole here, through the wall, leading into the
cave?
he shouted insanely. Then the
compteur
could simply be moved to the other side of the rosemary bush,
chez moi
. He bounded down to the
cave
, trailed by Monsieur Bézamat. This seemed a sickening alternative, violating the house, the ancient walls. Better, I said when they returned, that the stone wall crumble than the house fall down. I could have wept.

The detestable Monsieur Singe, with his bullying, hot-tempered manner, stood rooted in front of me and planted his fists on his hips. Intuitively, I knew that he was the type of man who would respond to cajoling and flattery, especially from a woman, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I explained that I was leaving on a two-day excursion. I needed to think it over. Could he return on Friday, when we could make a final decision? He shrugged and snickered, as if he didn’t care if we made an appointment a year from now. Five-thirty? I proposed. Five-thirty, he mimicked. (An inner voice said, he’ll keep you waiting, he may not even show up, he’s going to make you pay.)

Monsieur Bézamat and Monsieur Bru subsequently
agreed to come by the following Friday. Monsieur Bézamat arrived at the stroke of five-thirty. We sat on the patio. He seemed pensive.

What is it? I asked.

He swept off his cap, freeing up a thought that had obviously been weighing on his mind.

Aren’t you afraid doing what you’re doing alone, a single woman? he asked, with the look of fatherly concern he sometimes gave me.

I couldn’t imagine what had provoked this. (Unless he thought Monsieur Singe was going to steal up in the night and do me in.) After all these years of
n’ayez pas peurs
, perhaps it had taken all this time for him to dare to ask.

No, I said, I’m not afraid. It seems very safe here.

But there are not very many women who would do this, he said.

“Oui,”
I said.
“Mais être seule—c’est mon tempérament.”
That seemed to satisfy him.

Monsieur Bru arrived. He is an athletic man in his forties, prematurely bald, with deep-set eyes and a year-round nut-brown complexion that gives him a rather feral appearance. He reviewed the options with Monsieur Bézamat: the repositioning of the
compteur
, either inside or outside the wall, versus drilling through the house. After prolonged discussion, measuring, and examination of the wall, they agreed that drilling through the house was senseless. And, if Monsieur Singe refused to place the
compteur
within the stone wall, they would be able to deal with it. Monsieur Bru stated that I should not pay Saur any
supplément
for the extra work.

It was past six o’clock. They left. Here we go again, I thought miserably: the Saur office would be closed the next day and Monday, and I was taking the early-morning train for Paris on Tuesday. It was going to be an
other aggravating delay. I went in to shower and start dinner.

At seven, Monsieur Singe showed up. I reminded him that we had agreed on five-thirty and that Monsieur Bézamat and Bru had come and gone. No apologies, no explanation. We stood on the patio like two boxers facing off in the ring. I explained that Monsieur Bru found it impracticable to drill through the house. Perhaps Monsieur Singe would consider dropping by his house; the two of them could resolve the question of the placement of the
compteur
. Monsieur Bru, I added lightly, lived nearby.

“Je sais où il est,”
he said contemptuously.
“Il est un copain.”
They’d gone to school together. The two of them pals? I found this hard to believe.

As for the payment for the additional work, how was I going to take care of that? he wanted to know. There was going to be an additional charge of a hundred and sixty dollars.

I stammered. If I refused to pay, the whole business might be stalled again. Yet it seemed unjust, another bundle of money for something that was the company’s error. This was unfair, I said, testing the waters. He jerked backward, as if I’d punched him in the stomach. Monsieur Singe was like a tricky fish on a line; he could be reeled in temptingly close to a landing, but then would spin out into the depths. Should I mention Monsieur Bru’s counsel that I shouldn’t pay more, or would that be a betrayal? When I did, he shouted that Bru had no right to interfere in his business arrangements! So much for his
copain
. He spun on his heels, as if the discussion, such as it was, was closed.

“Alors, je vous payerai!”
I shouted in desperation to his retreating back, my fist in the air.

At which point a young man, seemingly from out of
nowhere, approached the patio. In the heat of the moment I hadn’t even noticed his car pull in. He looked aghast at having stumbled into this unpleasantness. Monsieur Singe stopped in his tracks. I lowered my clenched fist and swallowed my exclamation.

“Massalve,” he announced shyly. The roofer. Instantly, I saw that he was the perfect match for his young wife. He looked the quintessential angelic flower child, tall and lean, with a halo of black curls, the poetic mustache and beard of an aesthete, and deep blue eyes. From my peripheral vision, I saw that his car was painted a bright purple, like a heavenly chariot. He extended his slender hand to Monsieur Singe, who responded with a quick, wrenching handshake. Monsieur Singe then seized the moment to beat a retreat.

Massalve. His very name was a balm. My emotions turned on a dime: from heated anger and frustration to sweet delight. The tension oozed out of my body into a pool on the patio. Monsieur Massalve gazed at the roof. I invited him into the house in order to show him the violation:
caca
that had accumulated just in the past day or so on the newspaper I’d spread in the fireplace. (Monsieur Bézamat’s sleuthlike ways are contagious.) Monsieur Massalve bent over and craned his head under the chimney. He righted himself and nodded sympathetically. It was an easy solution, he said. He would mount a
grille
around the chimney and that should solve the problem.