A Year In Provence

He squinted at me drowsily, and put his sunglasses on. 'Exactly.'

It was part of what had become a familiar litany:

Don't you miss your friends?

No. They come and see us here.

Don't you miss English television?

No.

There must be something about England you miss?

Marmalade.

And then would come the real question, delivered half-humorously, half-seriously: what do you do all day? Our friend from Paris put it another way.

'Don't you get bored?'

We didn't. We never had time. We found the everyday curiosities of French rural life amusing and interesting. We were enjoying the gradual process of changing the house around so that it suited the way we lived. There was the garden to be designed and planted, a boules court to be built, a new language to be learned, villages and vineyards and markets to be discovered-the days went quickly enough without any other distractions, and there were always plenty of those. The previous week, as it happened, had been particularly rich in interruptions.

They started on Monday with a visit from Marcel the Parcel, our postman. He was irritated, barely pausing to shake hands before demanding to know where I had hidden the mailbox. He had his rounds to do, it was almost noon, how could I expect him to deliver letters if he had to play cache-cache with the mailbox? But we hadn't hidden it. So far as I knew, it was down at the end of the drive, firmly planted on a steel post.'Non,' said the postman, 'it has been moved.' There was nothing for it but to walk down the drive together and spend a fruitless five minutes searching the bushes to see if it had been knocked over. There was no sign that a mailbox had ever been there except a small post hole in the ground. 'Voila,' said the postman, 'it is as I told you.' I found it hard to believe that anyone would steal a mailbox, but he knew better. 'It is quite normal,' he said, 'people around here are malfini.' I asked him what that meant. 'Mad.'

Back to the house we went, to restore his good humor with a drink and to discuss the installation of a new mailbox that he would be happy to sell me. We agreed that it should be built into the side of an old well, positioned at the regulation height of seventy centimeters above the ground so that he could drop letters in without having to leave his van. Obviously, the well had to be studied and measurements taken, and by then it was time for lunch. Post office business would be resumed at two o'clock.

A couple of days later, I was summoned from the house by a car horn, and found the dogs circling a new white Mercedes. The driver wasn't prepared to leave the safety of his car, but risked a half-open window. I looked in and saw a small brown couple beaming at me nervously. They complimented me on the ferocity of the dogs and requested permission to get out. They were both dressed for the city, the man in a sharply cut suit, his wife in hat and cloak and patent-leather boots.

How fortunate to find me at home, they said, and what a beautiful house. Had I lived here long? No? Then I would undoubtedly be needing some genuine Oriental carpets. This was indeed my lucky day, because they had just come from an important carpet exhibition in Avignon, and by chance a few choice items remained unsold. Before taking them up to Paris -where people of taste would fight to buy them-the couple had decided to take a drive in the country, and fate had led them to me. To mark the happy occasion, they were prepared to let me choose from their most exquisite treasures at what they described as very interesting prices.

While the natty little man had been telling me the good news, his wife had been unloading carpets from the car and arranging them artistically up and down the drive, commenting loudly on the charms of each one: 'Ah, what a beauty!' and 'See the colors in the sun' and 'This one-oh, I shall be sad to see it go.' She trotted back to join us, patent boots twinkling, and she and her husband looked at me expectantly.

The carpet seller does not enjoy a good reputation in Provence, and to describe a man as a marchand de tapis is to imply that he is at best shifty and at worst someone who would steal the corset from your grandmother. I had also been told that traveling carpet sellers often acted as reconnaissance parties, spying out the land for their burglar associates. And there was always the possibility that the carpets would be fakes, or stolen.

But they didn't look like fakes, and there was one small rug that I thought was very handsome. I made the mistake of saying so, and Madame looked at her husband in well-rehearsed surprise. 'Extraordinary!' she said. 'What an eye Monsieur has. This is indisputably our favorite too. But why not have something a little bigger as well?' Alas, I said, I was penniless, but this was brushed aside as a minor and temporary inconvenience. I could always pay later, with a substantial discount for cash. I looked again at the rug. One of the dogs was lying on it, snoring gently. Madame crooned with delight. 'You see, Monsieur? The toutou has chosen it for you.' I gave in. After three minutes of inexpert haggling on my part, the original price was reduced by 50 percent, and I went to fetch the checkbook. They watched closely while I made out the check, telling me to leave the payee's name blank. With a promise to return next year, they drove slowly around our new rug and the sleeping dog, Madame smiling and waving regally from her nest of carpets. Their visit had taken up the entire morning.

The final interruption ended the week on a sour note. A truck had come to deliver gravel and, as I watched it backing toward the spot the driver had chosen to unload, the rear wheels suddenly sank into the ground. There was a crack, and the truck tilted backwards. A pungent and unmistakable smell filled the air. The driver got out to inspect the damage and said, with unconscious accuracy, the single most appropriate word for the occasion.

'Merde!' He had parked in the septic tank.

'So you see,' I said to our friend from Paris, 'one way or another, there's never a dull moment.'

He didn't reply, and I reached over and took off his sunglasses. The sun in his eyes woke him up.

'What?'

May

LE PREMIER MAI started well, with a fine sunrise, and as it was a national holiday we thought we should celebrate in correct French fashion by paying homage to the summer sport and taking to our bicycles.

Tougher and more serious cyclists had been training for weeks, muffled against the spring winds in thick black tights and face masks, but now the air was warm enough for delicate amateurs like us to go out in shorts and sweaters. We had bought two lightweight and highly strung machines from a gentleman in Cavaillon called Edouard Cunty-'Velos de Qualite!'-and we were keen to join the brightly colored groups from local cycling clubs as they swooped gracefully and without any apparent effort up and down the back country roads. We assumed that our legs, after a winter of hard walking, would be in good enough condition for a gentle ten-mile spin up to Bonnieux and over to Lacoste-an hour of light exercise to limber up, nothing too strenuous.

It was easy enough to begin with, although the narrow, hard saddles made an early impression, and we realized why some cyclists slip a pound of rump steak inside the back of their shorts to cushion the coccyx from the road. But for the first couple of miles there was nothing to do except glide along and enjoy the scenery. The cherries were ripening, the winter skeletons of the vines had disappeared under a cover of bright green leaves, the mountains looked lush and soft. The tires made a steady thrumming sound, and there were occasional whiffs of rosemary and lavender and wild thyme. This was more exhilarating than walking, quieter and healthier than driving, not too taxing, and altogether delightful. Why hadn't we done it before? Why didn't we do it every day?

The euphoria lasted until we began to climb up to Bonnieux. My bicycle suddenly put on weight. I could feel the muscles in my thighs complaining as the gradient became steeper, and my unseasoned backside was aching. I