French Lessons (11 page)

Except for the rustle of envelopes
containing the bids, the auction had been silent. The cows were silent. The
spectators were silent. Livarot seemed set for a drowsy afternoon. And then the
peace was broken by the burp of a microphone and a rasp of amplified throat
clearing. I followed the sounds to the place Pasteur, where Sadler was to be
immortalized, and was nearly run over by a flying wedge of
confrères
making their way through the crowd. Wearing cloaks
and hats of brown velvet, medals twinkling in the sun, they mounted the steps
of a raised platform and formed into ranks on either side of the lady mayor of
Livarot and the lone Englishman.

Far from looking nervous, Sadler was
pawing the ground in anticipation, chatting to everyone within earshot, waving
regally to the audience, a man poised for stardom and enjoying every minute of
it.

A cloaked figure stepped forward and took the microphone, notes at
the ready, to introduce the new
chevalier
to the world. According to
tradition, a suitable introduction on these occasions, as was the case in
Vittel, is a mixture of praise and scurrilous indiscretion. Knowing Sadler as I
did, I thought that the assassination of his character might easily stretch
into the early evening. But for some reason he was allowed to escape with only
a few minor scars to his reputation—trifling sins that wouldn’t
even make the pages of the local newspaper—and then we were ready for the
rites of initiation.

Sadler was given a wedge of Livarot, a large
wedge, but a mere nothing for a man of his infinite capacity. It disappeared in
seconds. He was then given a goblet, more a bucket than a glass, containing
enough Normandy cider to put out a small fire. Here was a challenge that would
separate the men from the boys. The crowd fell silent as the goblet was raised.
To Sadler’s great credit, considering the food and wine he had already
demolished at lunch, he drained the goblet in one prolonged, open-throated
swallow. The crowd showed its appreciation: whistles, applause, exclamations of
“Ooh-la-la.”
The
confrères
were visibly
impressed. Our hero had earned his medal.

Sadler’s wife, Lulu,
was standing next to me. “He did very well,” I said to her. She
nodded. “
C’est normal.
I have never known him to fail with
a glass.”

With the opening formalities over, the crowd settled
down to listen to the acceptance speech. Had it been me, this ordeal would have
been over in less time than it takes to eat a piece of cheese: a muttered
thank-you, most kind, highly honored, off we go. But Sadler is made of more
discursive stuff. Between meals, he is a university lecturer, which must help.
Also, his French is perfect. And, of course, he had a skinful of cider inside
him. At any rate, he seized the microphone with such eagerness that I thought
he was going to take a bite out of it.

With his opening remarks, he
showed himself to be an accomplished speaker with a nicely judged sense of what
would appeal to his audience. “I have a fantasy,” he said.
“It is to make love to my wife on a mattress made entirely of Livarot
cheese.” Lulu bowed her head. Being a Frenchwoman of considerable
refinement, she prefers to keep the door of the boudoir closed. But there was
no stopping Sadler now that he was in the bedroom. “I shall wear my medal
in bed tonight,” he promised. What a picture that conjured up. And with
the audience hanging on his every word, he continued to discuss sex, cheese,
literature, and his love of France—or perhaps he called it lust—for
several rousing minutes before moving on to his finale.

Without giving
up the microphone, he pounced on the lady mayor and kissed her. Then he kissed
the other female members of the
confrérie.
Then, with a cry of
“I’m English, so I’m allowed to kiss the men,” he
nuzzled each of his
confrères.
Imagine a politician in heat at
election time, and there you have it. The moist smack of each kiss, picked up
by the microphone and amplified through the speakers, echoed across the square.
“Mon Dieu,”
said an admiring voice in the crowd,
“how they have changed, the English, since the departure of Madame
Thatcher.” And I had to sit at a table with this man and sign books.

Fortunately, a determined official had managed to extract the microphone
from Sadler’s grip before we reached the table, frustrating his hopes of
broadcasting promotional announcements for the signing. We placed our orders
for drinks, settled down behind piles of our books, and waited to be
overwhelmed by an adoring public.

It is a curious and often humbling
experience to be an author on these occasions—not unlike being an exhibit
in a zoo. People gather just out of conversational range and stare at you. You
attempt what you hope to be an inviting smile. They take one step backward,
still staring. You pick up the odd comment: “… Older than he
looks in his photograph.” … “I think I’ll wait
for the paperback to come out.” … “They’re all on
the bottle, you know, those writers.” … “I feel
sorry for his wife.” … “Go on, you ask him.”
Ask him what? You long to be asked something, anything, to relieve your lonely
vigil. But the question seldom comes. One intrepid soul, braver than the rest,
approaches the table, picks up your book, flicks through the pages, puts it
down, and retreats without once looking directly at you. It is as if you are a
human dump.

Not this time, though. Not in the company of a
medal-wearing celebrity, the
chevalier
Sadler, still glowing with the
aftereffects of applause and high-octane cider. We passed an entertaining and
convivial hour, signed some books, and found the people of Livarot to be
enormously, wonderfully jolly. Great kissers, too. I’ve always believed
that colder climates breed colder personalities, and that the farther north one
goes, the more reserved people become. But here we saw many examples of lengthy
embraces punctuated by four kisses, double the normal French ration. I noticed
that this seemed to cause Sadler some concern, and it turned out he was worried
he might have shortchanged his
confrères
on the platform,
might, indeed, have made himself appear to be suffering from English
froideur.
“I think I may have underkissed them,” he said.
“But I’ll make up for it tonight at the dinner.”

The
weather continued to be kind to us. All of Livarot seemed to be out on the town
that evening, sauntering through streets that smelled of meat grilling on
barbecues, of pancakes like golden cobwebs spread out on flat cast-iron
skillets, of toasting cheese, of cider. We passed a brazier sizzling with
andouillett
e—
small potent sausages stuffed with
tripe—and I saw the Sadler nostrils begin to fibrillate. “I could
murder a couple of those,” he said. “It seems an awfully long time
since lunch.” He adjusted his medal and quickened his pace as we turned
off the main street and into the
place
where dinner was being
served.

It was a
repas campagnard,
an informal buffet. Under a
canvas awning, long tables had been set out, lighted from above by a string of
bare forty-watt bulbs. The effect was a particular kind of glow that I always
associate with France, not quite dim, but certainly far from bright; a summer
glow, evocative of long, warm evenings spent out of doors, wine bottles on
plank tables, the flutter of moths overhead. I mentioned this to Sadler,
normally a man of great aesthetic sensibilities, but his mind was elsewhere,
his eye fixed firmly on the buffet.

Generous
was the word for
it: hams, sausages, flans, quiches, salads as big as landscapes, monumental
bowls of potatoes
à la mayonnaise
and—of
course—wall-to-wall cheeses. There was Livarot (“the working
man’s meat”), Camembert, Pont l’Evêque, Pavé
d’Auge. We filled our plates and found our places at a table for twelve.
Although the bonhomie was deafening, I could tell that I had somehow caused
offense to the woman sitting opposite me. She was peering at what I had on my
plate, and it obviously displeased her. Looking up at me, she cocked her index
finger and began to wag it, a sure sign that I had done something
unspeakable.

“Monsieur! You have no cheese!”

It was
true; my plate was full but, for the moment, cheeseless. I was planning to go
back for some. Before I had a chance to explain, though, madame leaned forward
to make sure I could hear what came next.

“Let me tell you what
the great Brillat-Savarin once said: ‘A meal without cheese is a
beautiful woman without one eye.’ Voilà, monsieur.”

I looked around for my
chevalier
friend to rescue me, but he was
busily engaged kissing someone at the next table. Lulu was too far away to
help. I would have to deal with my accuser by myself. Later, I promised her, I
would attack the cheese. And speaking of attacking cheese, would madame be kind
enough to tell me about tomorrow’s eating competition—the rules of
the game, techniques, contestants? Was there a favorite? Could one bet?

This prompted others at the table to join the conversation, with the usual
barrage of conflicting opinions. However, it was generally agreed that there
was a favorite, a local man who had triumphed in previous years. The rumor was
that he’d been training hard and was in top form.
Mais
attention!
There was also an exotic outsider, a dark horse who was coming
all the way from Clermont-Ferrand, in the middle of France. A woman. Not only
that, but a Japanese woman. This was the cause of considerable satisfaction
around the table, confirming as it did the
renommée mondiale
of
Livarot and its cheese.

By now, madame had assumed responsibility for
the rest of my meal. Seeing that I had cleared a space on my plate, she
escorted me back to the buffet to supervise the selection of cheese. I picked
out what I thought was a good-sized triangle of Livarot. Madame clucked her
tongue in disapproval. I was being too restrained. She prodded some larger
pieces with a knowledgeable finger to test for ripeness, chose one of the
biggest, and added it to my plate.

Livarot is not a modest cheese. It
announces itself to the nose long before it is anywhere near your mouth, with a
piercing, almost astringent aroma. It is dense, chewy, elastic, creamy,
brimming with fat (45 percent) and altogether delicious—about as far away
as it’s possible to get from those bland, overprocessed dollops that call
themselves cottage cheese. Madame watched me while I ate, nodding with
satisfaction. By the time my Livarot was finished, so was I. My forehead was
covered in a light sweat; heart palpitations would surely follow. But madame
hadn’t done with me yet.

“
Bien,”
she said. “Now what you need is a little Calvados, to settle the
digestion.”

Sadler, whose ears are as highly tuned and sensitive
as a bat’s to certain stimuli, had heard the magic word. His digestion
(that poor long-suffering process) would also be greatly improved, he said, by
a nightcap. And, as he pointed out, the Normans invented Calvados. If only for
reasons of politeness toward our hosts, we should follow madame’s
advice.

And so we did, sitting around the kitchen table in a house
belonging to a hospitable member of the organizing committee. A dark, anonymous
bottle was produced: unlabeled, undated, homemade Calvados, with a bouquet that
brought tears to the eyes, a roundness that filled the mouth, a smooth warmth
that spread from throat to stomach. “Internal sunshine,” they call
it. That night, I slept like a stump.

One of the many pleasant
unfairnesses of life is the unexpectedly benign way in which the body sometimes
reacts to excess. I deserved a hangover. Sadler deserved far worse. And yet,
the following morning, we both felt remarkably well—rested, refreshed,
ready for the events of the day, even if they included, as they inevitably
would, cheese and Calvados. We left the hotel and went in search of
coffee.

Although it was only a little after ten o’clock, the
braziers in the main street were already lighted; beside them, long necklaces
of sausage were arranged in glistening coils the color of blood. The dog
population of Livarot was out in force, loitering with intent and trying to
look innocent, hoping that a back would be turned long enough to allow a
lightning sausage raid. Walking through town, we kept coming across trucks that
had turned themselves into restaurants—side panels lowered to reveal
minuscule bars, awnings put up, chairs and tables set out on the street, good
smells coming from handkerchief-sized kitchens. Sadler looked at his watch,
decided that even for him it was too early for lunch, and then suddenly
stopped, his medal bouncing against his chest. He had noticed something
fascinating on the far side of the place Pasteur.

He took me by the
elbow. “Do you see what I see?”

It was a small stand,
almost entirely taken up by barrels and a bar. Men with vividly tinted noses
were nursing snifters or plastic tumblers, looking pensive. On the awning,
those fateful words:
Dégustation Cidre et Calvados.

Sadler’s face was the picture of innocence. “It’s only
apples,” he said, “and you can always spit it out.”

I
looked at Lulu. She smiled and nodded. What could I do?

In fact,
midmorning is an excellent time to
déguster.
Breakfast is a
distant memory, lunch is still to come, the eye is bright, and the palate is
clean and undistracted. We lined up at the bar, wondering whether there were
more vitamins in cider or in Calvados. Both would have to be tried.

Although cider is not one of my favorite drinks, there was no denying that
this was a prime drop. There was a freshness about it, and a powerful, heady
taste of the fruit. They say that pigs and horses fortunate enough to live in
Normandy frequently get tipsy on fallen apples that have started to ferment.
And we were told of Gaston
le picoleur,
the alcoholic pig, so fond of
his fix that he used to go around the orchard butting trees to make the apples
fall. So much for the gentle pleasures of cider.