A Year In Provence

Most of the bakeries had their own touches which distinguished their loaves from mass-produced supermarket bread: slight variations from conventional shapes, an extra whorl of crusty decoration, an elaborate pattern, the artist baker signing his work. It was as if the sliced, wrapped, machine-made loaf had never been invented.

In Cavaillon, there are seventeen bakers listed in the Pages Jaunes, but we had been told that one establishment was ahead of all the rest in terms of choice and excellence, a veritable palais de pain. At Chez Auzet, so they said, the baking and eating of breads and pastries had been elevated to the status of a minor religion.

When the weather is warm, tables and chairs are placed on the pavement outside the bakery so that the matrons of Cavaillon can sit with their hot chocolate and almond biscuits or strawberry tarts while they give proper, leisurely consideration to the bread they will buy for lunch and dinner. To help them, Auzet has printed a comprehensive bread menu, the Carte des Pains. I took a copy from the counter, ordered coffee, sat in the sun, and started to read.

It was another step in my French education. Not only did it introduce me to breads I had never heard of before, it told me with great firmness and precision what I should be eating with them. With my aperitif, I could choose between the tiny squares called toasts, a pain surprise which might be flavored with finely chopped bacon, or the savory feuillets sales. That was simple. The decisions became more complicated when the meal itself was being chosen. Supposing, for example, I wanted to start with crudites. There were four possible accompaniments: onion bread, garlic bread, olive bread, or roquefort bread. Too difficult? In that case, I could have seafood, because the gospel according the Auzet authorized only one bread to eat with seafood, and that was thinly sliced rye.

And so it went on, listing with uncompromising brevity what I should eat with charcuterie, foie gras, soup, red and white meat, game with feathers and game with fur, smoked meats, mixed salads (not to be confused with the separately listed green salads), and three different consistencies of cheese. I counted eighteen varieties of bread, from thyme to pepper, from nuts to bran. In a fog of indecision, I went inside the shop and consulted Madame. What would she recommend with calves' liver?

She set off on a short tour of the shelves, and then selected a stubby brown banette. While she was counting out my change, she told me about a restaurant where the chef serves a different bread with each of the five courses on his menu. There's a man who understands bread, she said. Not like some.

I was beginning to understand it, just as I was beginning to understand mushrooms. It had been an instructive morning.

MASSOT was in a lyrical mood. He had just left his house to go into the forest and kill something when I met him on a hill overlooking a long stretch of vineyards. With his gun under his arm and one of his yellow cigarettes screwed into the corner of his mouth, he stood contemplating the valley.

'Look at those vines,' he said. 'Nature is wearing her prettiest clothes.'

The effect of this unexpectedly poetic observation was slightly spoiled when Massot cleared his throat noisily and spat, but he was right; the vines were spectacular, field after field of russet and yellow and scarlet leaves, motionless in the sunlight. Now that the grapes had all been picked there were no tractors or human figures to interfere with our appreciation of the view.

Work on the vines wouldn't start again until the leaves had fallen and the pruning began. It was a space between seasons, still hot, but not quite summer and not yet autumn.

I asked Massot if there had been any progress in the sale of his property, maybe a nice German couple who had fallen in love with the house while camping nearby.

He bristled at the mention of campers. 'They couldn't afford a house like mine. In any case, I have taken it off the market until 1992. You'll see. When the frontiers are abolished, they'll all be looking for houses down here- English, Belgians…' He waved his hand airily to include the other Common Market nationalities. 'Prices will become much more important. Houses in the Luberon will be tres recherchees. Even your little place might fetch a million or two.'

It was not the first time that 1992 had been mentioned as the year when the whole of Provence would be showered with foreign money, because in 1992 the Common Market would come into its own. Nationalities would be forgotten as we all became one big happy family of Europeans. Financial restrictions would be lifted-and what would the Spaniards and Italians and the rest of them do? What else but hurry down to Provence waving their checkbooks and looking for houses.

It was a popular thought, but I couldn't see why it should happen. Provence already had a considerable foreign population; they had found no problem buying houses. And, for all the talk of European integration, a date on a piece of paper wasn't going to stop the bickering and bureaucracy and jockeying for special preference which all the member countries-notably France-used when it suited them. Fifty years might see a difference; 1992 almost certainly would not.

But Massot was convinced. In 1992, he was going to sell up and retire, or possibly buy a little bar-tabac in Cavaillon. I asked him what he'd do with his three dangerous dogs, and for a moment I thought he was going to burst into tears.

'They wouldn't be happy in a town,' he said. 'I'd have to shoot them.'

He walked along with me for a few minutes, and cheered himself up by muttering about the profits that were certain to come his way, and about time too. A lifetime of hard work should be rewarded. A man should spend his old age in comfort, not breaking his back on the land. As it happened, his land was exceptional in the valley for its ill-kempt appearance, but he always spoke of it as though it were a cross between the gardens at Villandry and the manicured vineyards of Chateau Lafite. He turned off the path to go into the forest and terrorize some birds, a brutal, greedy, and mendacious old scoundrel. I was becoming quite fond of him.

The way home was littered with spent shotgun cartridges fired by the men whom Massot dismissed as chasseurs du sentier, or footpath hunters-miserable namby-pambies who didn't want to get their boots dirty in the forest, and who hoped that birds would somehow fly into their buckshot. Among the scattered shell cases were crushed cigarette packets and empty sardine cans and bottles, souvenirs left by the same nature lovers who complained that the beauty of the Luberon was being ruined by tourists. Their concern for conservation didn't extend to removing their own rubbish. A messy breed, the Provencal hunter.

I arrived at the house to find a small conference taking place around the electricity meter which was hidden behind some trees in the back garden. The man from Electricite de France had opened the meter to read it, and had discovered that a colony of ants had made a nest. The figures were obscured. It was impossible to establish our consumption of electricity. The ants must be removed. My wife and the man from the EOF had been joined by Menicucci, whom we now suspected of living in the boiler room, and who liked nothing better than to advise us on any domestic problem that might arise.

'Oh la la.' A pause while Menicucci bent down for a closer look at the meter. 'Ils sont nombreux, les fourmis.' For once, he had made an understatement. The ants were so numerous that they appeared as one solid black block, completely filling the metal box that housed the meter.

'I'm not touching them,' said the EDF man. 'They get into your clothes and bite you. The last time I tried to brush away an ants' nest I had them with me all afternoon.'

He stood looking at the squirming mass, tapping his screwdriver against his teeth. He turned to Menicucci. 'Do you have a blowtorch?'

'I'm a plumber. Of course I have a blowtorch.'

'Bon. Then we can burn them off.'

Menicucci was aghast. He took a step backwards and crossed himself. He smote his forehead. He raised his index finger to the position that indicated either extreme disagreement, or the start of a lecture, or both.

'I cannot believe what I have just heard. A blowtorch? Do you realize how much current passes through here?'

The EDF man looked offended. 'Of course I know. I'm an electrician.'

Menicucci affected to be surprised. 'Ah bon? Then you will know what happens