At Home in France (28 page)

On the way home, I stopped at the Hirondes. It was only eleven in the morning, but Simone was busy preparing lunch for Raymond. He’d received a call the night before asking him to show up at noon, she said excitedly, and he hadn’t even gotten into costume. Raymond sat at the table, his hands clasped before him. He appeared totally unruffled and deflected, with a gruff cough, my enthusiasm. I asked Simone if she would be going to watch the proceedings, and she suggested we meet a bit later—
“sur le pont”
—at around two o’clock. I went home for lunch and plunged into the book.

I brought an umbrella—it was sprinkling again—binoculars, and a notebook. Simone was already on the bridge when I arrived precisely at two o’clock. On the “set” at the pier below, she pointed out the director—an overweight, imposing figure in a baseball cap, holding a megaphone, and the author himself, a tall, handsome, middle-aged gentleman with his hands jammed in his pants pockets and his shoulders hunched inside his wind-breaker. I gazed through the binoculars and then passed them to Simone, who was impressed by their incredible range. She passed them on to several other ladies gathered on the bridge.

Simone explained that her brother and sister-in-law, Michel and Thérèse Fraysse, lived to the left of the bridge in a house that overlooked the river and the reconstructed port. It was one of the most charming old houses in the village and I’d often admired it. The filmmakers had instructed them to keep the curtains closed at all times, though they managed to peek through a crack to get a bird’s-eye view of the action. Simone suggested that I go
down and have a look at the set by taking the path leading down to the river. They would leave the door of the house unlocked so that I could drop in at any point.

I trundled down the path, while Simone went to the house. To the left I could now see the reconstructed warehouse, with a sign that read
ENTREPÔT LOMBARD
(the name of a well-to-do merchant I recognized as a character from the book). I stood on its huge wooden porch and glanced back overhead to the Fraysses’ house. Simone was peeking through the curtains and gave a little surreptitious wave.

On the river, a small rubber raft plied back and forth with a portable machine emitting an atmospheric fog. An early passage in the book recounts Benjamin’s impression of the Dordogne, and this description was now unrolling before my very eyes. It translates:

The great white Labrador from the Vieux Quercy inn gamboled about, to the consternation of the film crew. Two mules were grazing downriver. At this closer range, I could see that the
gabares
were loaded with what were called
piquets
, the tapered wooden posts used in the vine
yards. The actors and actresses in costumes milled about aimlessly—except for Raymond, who was standing motionless and in grave concentration on the dock, looking very much the rugged country farmer. To the right of the
entrepôt
, the
réalisiteur
sat in the typical director’s chair—clenching his fists, biting his nails, puffing on a cigar. He had long curly brown hair and wore jeans and a sweater around his shoulders. His baseball cap said SPORTY BOY, ADVENTURES IN THE WILDERNESS. He wore the requisite black sunglasses, although it was now raining fairly steadily.

“Silence!”
he barked over the megaphone.
“En place rapidement, s’il vous plaît.”
A soundman waited nearby, holding aloft what looked like a giant dust mop. A cameraman stood at the ready with his equipment slung over his shoulder. I was struck by the fact that the film was being made with a handheld camera.

A tight band of actors, led by a large man in a black fedora and cape (Jean-Claude Drouat, in the role of Benjamin’s father), strode down purposefully to the pier, trailed by the soundman and cameraman.

“Coupez!”
the director shouted. The scenario had lasted all of a half minute. This was repeated and then the actors dispersed, except for Raymond, who remained planted at his post on the pier.

I circled back to the house. The door was open. I danced on tiptoes through the small front room, glancing furtively about. It was ill-lit, sparsely furnished, and claustrophobic because of its low ceilings—not as inviting as the house’s exterior. Simone and two ladies were gathered on the enclosed back porch. She introduced me to her sisters-in-law: Thérèse, her brother’s wife, and Madeleine, who was Raymond’s sister. Thérèse was a tall
woman with feathery, cropped white hair, piercing blue eyes, and a hawklike expression. She reminded me slightly of Phyllis Diller. She seemed ecstatic to meet me and led me by the arm, in a conspiratorial fashion, to the curtained window, where, she said, in a barely contained whisper, I could secretly observe
le tournage
. And I was invited to return, whenever I wanted, any day, anytime. Did I know, by the way, she asked, as if she was imparting only to me a well-kept secret, that Elisabeth Depardieu—
très vivante, très charmante
—was staying in the Vieux Quercy? Everyone said that her husband called her every single night. Her eyes grew wide. She chuckled wickedly and poked me gently with an elbow.

Madeleine was the spitting image of Raymond: dark-skinned, with straight brown hair, chocolate-brown eyes, and a pronounced nose. While Raymond had an avuncular look, she had the plain, unassuming appearance and shy gentleness of a spinster aunt (though I later learned she was married to the mayor of Carennac whom I’d met). Madeleine was rereading the Signol books—she seemed to have the same intellectual curiosity as her brother—and put in context for me the scene we had just witnessed. She had the most melodious voice I’d ever heard, as lyrical as her name.

It had begun to pour. The filming seemed to be at an impasse. I bowed out and made my way home.

The next day I stopped at the Hirondes. Raymond had had to stay past midnight the night before. The actors, he said with a chortle, had all let off a little steam by parading through the streets of Carennac with torches, shouting “Emmeline, Emmeline!” By now, I had read enough of the book to recognize the cast of characters. The daughter of the rich merchant Lombard, Emmeline attempts
to win Benjamin from Marie, his true love since childhood. At the same time Raymond mentioned in passing the name of the director: Josée Dayan. “Josée!” I exclaimed in astonishment. He was a she. Raymond admitted that it was confusing: her masculine appearance and gruff manner—and the cigar. She ate four times the amount of any man, he added. This only increased my fascination with the whole movie business.

Each day thereafter, before I went into town, I would check at the Hirondes to see if Raymond had been called. (Several days passed without requiring his presence.) At the same time I made the rounds of the neighbors. Monsieur Bézamat simply couldn’t take time out to watch the filmmaking. Madame smiled indulgently. My obsession with the film seemed to amuse them. The Servais hadn’t been in to Carennac either. There was simply too much to do around the house. Serge was in the middle of restoring the fireplace, and he knew what filmmaking was like: a complete bore, the same thing over and over again. Gabrielle did say that she’d read and enjoyed all of the Signol books, but the idea of seeing them come to life on film—practically on her doorstep—didn’t move her.

And so, Thérèse and I became fellow
cinéphiles
. I could find her every day, either sitting on the bench on the patio outside her house, if there was a break in filming, or observing
sur le pont
or through the curtains inside the house.

One day we were waiting for the action to begin, on one of the side streets of the village. The usual small band of curious onlookers was present. The setup was for a scene in which Benjamin makes the rounds of neighbors begging for money to free Marie’s father, who was imprisoned for night fishing. We were standing just behind the
director’s chair: Josée was sipping coffee and munching on a croissant. I asked Thérèse what captivated her about the filmmaking.

“J’aime l’animation!”
she said spiritedly, referring to all the activity but also, I felt, to something more intangible. Then she added, as if in the strictest confidence, that she loved to dance. Oh, how she had danced in Paris! The waltz, the cha-cha-cha, the tango, all sorts of dances. She rolled her eyes and rocked herself in her arms, as if to the sound of a distant orchestra.

I was jotting down her words in my notebook as she spoke, which pleased her enormously. She drew closer, conspiratorially. She whispered in my ear that she had had a premonition as a child that this moment would come, this great moment when she would participate in a film. (Thérèse had been assigned an upcoming small role as an old woman of the village, costumed in a black robe and headdress that made her look, she said huffily, like a mother superior.) All her life had been building to this. As a child, she’d had an intense feeling for movement and performance; her mother had recognized this. Then Thérèse stepped back and said wistfully that she might have had a career in dancing, but she’d married, moved here with Michel. She was too old to dance now. She shuddered. She dreaded the solitude of winter. Then she rallied. This moment, she nodded sagely, had been destined.
“L’animation, ah!”
That was her passion.
“J’aime l’animation!”
She folded her arms over her bosom and looked at me piercingly.

Along with a small group of people behind the director’s chair, we watched the scene repeated over and over and over again. After a
“silence!”
and
“moteur”
bellowed by Josée, Benjamin (played by Aurélien Wiik) would run to the end of the road past the village houses
while a peasant, on cue, led his donkey up the street. At one of the houses, where two women were leaning out of the window, Benjamin would shout his line,
“Avez-vous un peu d’argent pour payer l’amende?”
(Do you have a little money to pay the fine?) With each repetition, it sounded less and less heartfelt. The scene took perhaps three minutes. Far from bored by the repetition, Thérèse and I were hypnotized.

The author Signol hovered about, silently overseeing the proceedings. Several of the spectators approached him with a copy of the book for him to sign. Thérèse had brought a copy for signing as well—for a friend.

Before we knew it, the afternoon had slipped away. I was curious, though, whether everyone was as happy with the filmmaking as Thérèse. Surely all this
animation
would seem disruptive to some of the villagers: the trucks and paraphernalia, the strictures, the late-night filming. I decided to get two other points of view, one negative and one positive.

For the former, Simone advised me, I should talk to Monsieur Rougier, who lived on the road above town, just past the
mairie
.

I met Monsieur Rougier just as he was pedaling home on his bicycle. When I explained my purpose, he immediately invited me in. A retired schoolteacher, he was a trim, handsome man who looked younger than his years, with curly hair and glasses. As I followed him to the house I noticed that he had a pronounced limp from a deformity of his left leg, though he had the vigorous appearance of a
sportif
type. His house was a tastefully restored barn, with a modern open kitchen leading up to a spacious living room with rose-tiled floors, wooden casement windows, and a handsome wooden staircase. We sat on low cream-colored couches across from each other.

Monsieur Rougier spoke with an air of calm intelligence. He was not
against
the film, he was quick to say, but the manner of making the film. The Gaumont company had had a meeting with the villagers—it was outdoors in the center of town, with drinks served—but it was just blather. The problem was that no one was informed properly about the day-to-day proceedings, that is, when and where the filming would take place. His complaint was that the
régisseur
(the assistant director) Monsieur Christian Lambert, who was responsible for overseeing everything, had little regard for the inhabitants of the village.

Monsieur Rougier leaned back and grasped his crossed knees. It wasn’t one particular thing—he shrugged—but an accumulation of many things that made him angry (though his mild manner and pleasant disposition belied this).

For example, he said, there is a ninety-three-year-old woman, a neighbor of his who lives near a
grange
he owns in the village. One morning, she told him, she opened her window for some air and was startled to see a man descending a ladder with parts of the drainage system of her house (the trappings of modernity that wouldn’t be appropriate for the era of the film). When Monsieur Rougier asked Lambert why he hadn’t telephoned the owner of the house, the
régisseur
responded that there hadn’t been enough time.

It was nothing grave, Monsieur Rougier reiterated. Just small things. In his retirement, he said, he enjoyed fishing. But the building of the
gabares
on the river put an end to fishing in his customary spot. It was as if the filmmakers came in like conquerors and took over the village.

For the opposite point of view—one who was
ravi—
Raymond and Simone urged me to visit Monsieur Malmartel,
Raymond’s friend since childhood, who was a retired English professor.

Monsieur Malmartel lived in a two-story house on the main road leading into Carennac. When I rang his bell, he was in the midst of supervising a young workman who was repainting his kitchen. He escorted me into the dining room, where we sat at the table. Monsieur Malmartel was a rotund, jolly man, with a pumpkin face, ruddy cheeks, silver-framed glasses, and a little wool saucer of a cap. He explained that he had taught English for thirty years to high-school students in Brive, where he still had an apartment. He apologized that his English wasn’t up to snuff; since he’d retired he’d lost the facility. I assured him that it was first-rate and told him I was surprised, in fact, that he had an American instead of a British accent. He said he’d picked it up by watching the CBS news each morning. “So, I heard, for example, that you say ‘Penagon,’ ” which he pronounced without the
t
in a broad, nasal inflection, “rather than Pentagon,’ ” which he enunciated with a crisp, high-toned British inflection.