A Year In Provence

toilette a la Turque, which is a shallow porcelain tray with a hole in the middle and footrests at each side. It was designed, presumably by a Turkish sanitary engineer, for maximum inconvenience, but the French had added a refinement of their own-a high-pressure flushing device of such velocity that unwary users can find themselves soaked from the shins down. There are two ways of avoiding sodden feet: the first is to operate the flushing lever from the safety of dry land in the doorway, but since this requires long arms and the balance of an acrobat, the second option-not to flush at all-is unfortunately much more prevalent. To add to the problem, some establishments install an energy-saving device which is peculiar to the French. The light switch, always located on the outside of the lavatory door, is fitted with an automatic timer that plunges the occupant into darkness after thirty-eight seconds, thus saving precious electricity and discouraging loiterers.

Amazingly enough, a la Turque lavatories are still being manufactured, and the most modern cafe is quite likely to have a chamber of horrors in the back. But, when I mentioned this to Monsieur Menicucci, he leapt to the defense of French sanitary ware, insisting that at the other end of the scale were lavatories of such sophistication and ergonometric perfection that even an American would be impressed. He suggested a meeting to discuss two lavatories we needed for the house. He had some marvels to show us, he said, and we would be ravished by the choice.

He arrived with a valise full of catalogues, and unloaded them onto the table in the courtyard as he made some mystifying remarks about vertical or horizontal evacuation. As he had said, there was a wide choice, but they were all aggressively modern in design and color-squat, sculptural objects in deep burgundy or burnt apricot. We were looking for something simple and white.

'C'est pas facile,' he said. People nowadays wanted new forms and colors. It was all part of the French sanitary revolution. The traditional white was not favored by the designers. There was, however, one model he had seen recently which might be exactly what we wanted. He rummaged through his catalogues and-yes, he was sure of it-this was the one for us.

'Voila! Le W. C. haute couture!' He pushed the catalogue over to us and there, lit and photographed like an Etruscan vase, was the Pierre Cardin lavatory.

'You see?' said Menicucci. 'It is even signed by Cardin.' And so it was, up on the top and well out of harm's way. Apart from the signature it was perfect, a handsome design that looked like a lavatory and not like a giant goldfish bowl. We ordered two.

It was a saddened Menicucci who telephoned a week later to tell us that the House of Cardin no longer made our lavatories. Une catastrophe but he would continue his researches.

A further ten days passed before he reappeared, now in triumph, coming up the steps to the house waving another catalogue above his head.

'Toujours couture!' he said. 'Toujours couture!'

Cardin may have left the bathroom, but his place had been taken by the gallant Courreges, whose design was very similar and who had exercised remarkable restraint in the matter of the signature, leaving it off altogether. We congratulated Menicucci, and he allowed himself a celebratory Coca-Cola. He raised his glass.

'Today the lavatories, tomorrow the central heating,' he said, and we sat for a while in the 90-degree sunshine while he told us how warm we were going to be and went through his plan of attack. Walls were to be broken, dust would be everywhere, the noise of the jackhammer would take over from the bees and the crickets. There was only one bright spot about it, said Menicucci. It would keep the guests away for a few weeks. Eh, oui.

But before this period of enforced and ear-splitting seclusion we were expecting one last guest, a man so maladroit and disaster-prone, so absentminded and undomesticated, so consistently involved in household accidents that we had specifically asked him to come on the eve of demolition so that the debris of his visit could be buried under the rubble of August. It was Bennett, a close friend for fifteen years who cheerfully admitted to being the World's Worst Guest. We loved him, but with apprehension.

He called from the airport, several hours after he was due to arrive. Could I come down and pick him up? There had been a slight problem with the car hire company, and he was stranded.

I found him in the upstairs bar at Marignane, comfortably installed with a bottle of champagne and a copy of the French edition of Playboy. He was in his late forties, slim and extremely good-looking, dressed in an elegant suit of off-white linen with badly scorched trousers. 'Sorry to drag you out,' he said, 'but they've run out of cars. Have some champagne.'

He told me what had happened and, as usual with Bennett, it was all so unlikely that it had to be true. The plane had arrived on time, and the car he had reserved, a convertible, was waiting for him. The top was down, it was a glorious afternoon and Bennett, in an expansive mood, had lit a cigar before heading toward the autoroute. It had burned quickly, as cigars do when fanned by a strong breeze, and Bennett had tossed it away after twenty minutes. He became aware that passing motorists were waving at him, so in return he waved to them; how friendly the French have become, he thought. He was some miles up the autoroute before he realized that the back of the car was burning, set on fire by the discarded cigar butt that had lodged in the upholstery. With what he thought was tremendous presence of mind, he pulled on to the hard shoulder, stood up on the front seat, and urinated into the flames. And that was when the police had found him.

'They were terribly nice,' he said, 'but they thought it would be best if I brought the car back to the airport, and then the car rental people had a fit and wouldn't give me another one.'

He finished his champagne and gave me the bill. What with all the excitement, he said, he hadn't managed to change his traveler's checks. It was good to see him again, still the same as ever, charming, terminally clumsy, beautifully dressed, permanently short of funds. My wife and I had once pretended to be his maid and manservant at a dinner party when we were all so broke that we shared out the tip afterwards. We always had fun with Bennett, and dinner that night lasted into the early hours of the morning.

The week passed as uneventfully as could be expected, given that our guest was a man who could, and often did, spill his drink over himself while looking at his watch, and whose immaculate white trousers never survived the first course of dinner unsoiled. There were one or two breakages, the odd drowned towel in the swimming pool, a sudden panic when he realized that he had sent his passport to the dry cleaners, some worrying moments when he thought he had eaten a wasp, but no true calamities. We were sad to see him go, and hoped he would come back soon to finish the four half-empty glasses of Calvados we found under his bed, and to pick up the underpants that he had left hanging decoratively from the hat rack.

IT WAS BERNARD who had told us about the old station cafe in Bonnieux. Solid and serious was how he described it, a family restaurant of the kind that used to exist all over France before food became fashionable and bistrots started serving slivers of duckling instead of daube and tripe. Go soon, Bernard said, because la patronne talks about retiring, and take a big appetite with you. She likes to see clean plates.

The station at Bonnieux has been closed for more than forty years, and the path that leads to it is potholed and neglected. From the road there is nothing to see-no signs, no menus. We had passed by dozens of times, assuming that the building was unoccupied, not knowing that a crowded car park was hidden behind the trees.

We found a space between the local ambulance and a mason's scarred truck, and stood for a moment listening to the clatter of dishes and the murmur of conversation that came through the open windows. The restaurant was fifty yards from the station, foursquare and unpretentious, with faded lettering just legible in hand-painted capitals: Cafe de la Gare.

A small Renault van pulled into the car park, and two men in overalls got out. They washed their hands at the old sink against the outside wall, using the yellow banana of soap that was mounted over the taps on its bracket, and elbowed the door open, hands still wet. They were regulars, and went straight to the towel that hung from a hook at the end of the bar. By the time they had dried their hands two glasses of pastis and a jug of water were waiting for them.

It was a big, airy room, dark at the front and sunny at the back, where windows looked over fields and vineyards toward the hazy bulk of the Luberon. There must have been forty people, all men, already eating. It was only a few minutes past noon, but the Provencal has a clock in his stomach, and lunch is his sole concession to punctuality. On mange a midi, and not a moment later.

Each table had its white paper cover and two unlabeled bottles of wine, a red and a pink, from the Bonnieux