A Year In Provence Read online

  The finding of truffles, chancy and unpredictable though it is, began to seem almost straightforward when compared with the skulduggery that goes on in the sales and distribution department. With the relish of an investigative reporter, and frequent winks and nudges, Ramon took us through the most common of the murky practices.

  With everything edible in France, certain areas have the reputation for producing the best-the best olives from Nyons, the best mustard from Dijon, the best melons from Cavaillon, the best cream from Normandy. The best truffles, it is generally agreed, come from the Périgord, and naturally one pays more for them. But how do you know that the truffle you buy in Cahors hasn't been dug up several hundred kilometers away in the Vaucluse? Unless you know and trust your supplier, you can't be sure, and Ramon's inside information was that 50 percent of the truffles sold in the Périgord were born elsewhere and "naturalized."

  Then there is the uncanny business of the truffle that somehow gains weight between leaving the ground and arriving on the scales. It could be that it has been gift wrapped in an extra coating of earth. On the other hand, it could be that a heavier substance altogether has found its way inside the truffle itself-invisible until, in mid-slice, your knife lays bare a sliver of metal. Ils sont vilains, ces types! Even if you are prepared to sacrifice the flavor of fresh truffles for the protection offered by the canned variety-even then, you can't be sure. One hears rumors. It has been hinted that some French cans with French labels actually contain Italian or Spanish truffles. (Which, if true, must be one of the most profitable and least publicized acts of cooperation ever between Common Market countries.)

  Yet, for all the whispers of chicanery and prices that become more ridiculous each year, the French continue to follow their noses and dig into their pockets, and we found ourselves doing the same when we heard that the last truffles of the season were being served at one of our favorite local restaurants.

  Chez Michel is the village bar of Cabrières and the headquarters of the boules club, and not sufficiently upholstered or pompous to attract too much attention from the Guide Michelin inspectors. Old men play cards in the front; clients of the restaurant eat very well in the back. The owner cooks, Madame his wife takes the orders, members of the family help at table and in the kitchens. It is a comfortable neighborhood bistrot with no apparent intention of joining the culinary merry-go-round which turns talented cooks into brand names and pleasant restaurants into temples of the expense account.

  Madame sat us down and gave us a drink, and we asked how the truffles were. She rolled her eyes and an expression close to pain crossed her face. For a moment we thought they had all gone, but it was simply her reaction to one of life's many unfairnesses, which she then explained to us.

  Her husband, Michel, loves to cook with fresh truffles. He has his suppliers, and he pays, as everyone must, in cash, without the benefit of a receipt. For him, this is a substantial and legitimate business cost which cannot be set against the profits because there is no supporting evidence on paper to account for the outlay. Also, he refuses to raise the price of his menus, even when they are studded with truffles, to a level which might offend his regular customers. (In winter, the clientele is local, and careful with its money; the big spenders don't usually come down until Easter.)

  This was the problem, and Madame was doing her best to be philosophical about it as she showed us a copper pan containing several thousand francs' worth of nondeductible truffles. We asked her why Michel did it, and she gave a classic shrug-shoulders and eyebrows going upwards in unison, corners of the mouth turning down. "Pour faire plaisir," she said.

  We had omelettes. They were moist and fat and fluffy, with a tiny deep black nugget of truffle in every mouthful, a last rich taste of winter. We wiped our plates with bread and tried to guess what a treat like this would cost in London, and came to the conclusion that we had just eaten a bargain. Comparison with London is a sure way of justifying any minor extravagance in Provence.

  Michel came out of the kitchen to make his rounds and noticed our bone-clean plates. "They were good, the truffles?" Better than good, we said. He told us that the dealer who had sold them to him-one of the old rogues in the business-had just been robbed. The thief had taken a cardboard box stuffed with cash, more than 100,000 francs, but the dealer hadn't dared to report the loss for fear that embarrassing questions might be asked about where the money had come from. Now he was pleading poverty. Next year his prices would be higher. C'est la vie.

  We got home to find the telephone ringing. It is a sound that both of us detest, and there is always a certain amount of maneuvering to see who can avoid answering it. We have an innate pessimism about telephone calls; they have a habit of coming at the wrong time, and they are too sudden, catapulting you into a conversation you weren't expecting. Letters, on the other hand, are a pleasure to receive, not least because they allow you to consider your reply. But people don't write letters anymore. They're too busy, they're in too much of a hurry or, dismissing the service that manages to deliver bills with unfailing reliability, they don't trust the post. We were learning not to trust the telephone, and I picked it up as I would a long-dead fish.

  "How's the weather?" asked an unidentified voice.

  I said that the weather was good. It must have made all the difference, because the caller then introduced himself as Tony. He wasn't a friend, or even a friend of a friend, but an acquaintance of an acquaintance. "Looking for a house down there," he said, in the clipped, time-is-money voice that executives adopt when they talk on their car phones to their wives. "Thought you could give me a hand. Want to get in before the Easter rush and the frogs put up the prices."

  I offered to give him the names of some property agents. "Bit of a problem there," he said. "Don't speak the language. Order a meal, of course, but that's about it." I offered to give him the name of a bilingual agent, but that wouldn't do. "Don't want to get tied up with one firm. Bad move. No leverage."

  We had reached the moment in the conversation when I was supposed to offer my services, or else say something to terminate this budding relationship before it could bud any further, but the chance was denied me.

  "Must go. Can't chat all night. Plenty of time for that when I get down next week." And then those awful words that put an end to any hopes of hiding: "Don't worry. I've got your address. I'll find you."

  The line went dead.

  April

  IT WAS ONE of those mornings when the early mist hung in wet sheets along the valley under a band of bright blue sky and, by the time we came home from walking, the dogs were sleek with damp, whiskers glittering in the sun. They saw the stranger first, and pranced around him pretending to be fierce.

  He stood by the swimming pool, fending off their attentions with a handbag of masculine design and backing ever closer to the deep end. He seemed relieved to see us.

  "Dogs all right, are they? Not rabid or anything?" The voice was recognizable as that of our telephone caller, Tony from London, and he and his handbag joined us for breakfast. He was large and prosperously padded around the waistline, with tinted glasses, carefully tousled hair and the pale-colored casual clothes that English visitors wear in Provence regardless of the weather.

  He sat down and produced from his bag a bulging Filofax, a gold pen, a packet of duty-free Cartier cigarettes, and a gold lighter. His watch was also gold. I was sure that gold medallions nestled in his chest hair. He told us he was in advertising.

  He gave us a brief but extremely complimentary account of his business history. He had started his own advertising agency, built it up-"tough business, bloody competitive"-and had just sold a controlling interest for what he described as heavy money and a five-year contract. Now, he said, he was able to relax, although one would never have guessed from his behavior that he was a man who had left the cares of office behind. He was in a constant fidget, looking at his watch, arranging and rearranging his trinkets on the table in front of him, adjusting his glasses and sm
oking in deep, distracted drags. Suddenly, he stood up.

  "Mind if I make a quick call? What's the code for London?"

  My wife and I had come to expect this as an inevitable part of welcoming the Englishman abroad into our home. He comes in, he has a drink or a cup of coffee, he makes a phone call to check that his business has not collapsed during the first few hours of his absence. The routine never varies, and the substance of the call is as predictable as the routine.

  "Hi, it's me. Yes, I'm calling from Provence. Everything okay? Any messages? Oh. None? David didn't call back? Oh shit. Look, I'll be moving around a bit today, but you can reach me on (what's the number here?) Got that? What? Yes, the weather's fine. Call you later."

  Tony put the phone down and reassured us about the state of his company, which was managing to stumble along without him. He was now ready to devote his energies, and ours, to the purchase of property.

  Buying a house in Provence is not without its complications, and it is easy to understand why busy and efficient people from cities, used to firm decisions and quickly struck deals, often give up after months of serpentine negotiations that have led nowhere. The first of many surprises, always greeted with alarm and disbelief, is that all property costs more than its advertised price. Most of this is because the French government takes a cut of about 8 percent on all transactions. Then there are the legal fees, which are high. And it is sometimes a condition of the sale that the purchaser pays the agent's commission of 3 to 5 percent. An unlucky buyer could end up paying as much as 15 percent on top of the price.

  There is, however, a well-established ritual of respectable cheating which has the double attractions, so dear to every French heart, of saving money and screwing the government. This is the two-price purchase, and a typical example would work as follows: Monsieur Rivarel, a businessman in Aix, wishes to sell an old country house that he inherited. He wants a million francs. As it is not his principal residence, he will be liable for tax on the proceeds of the sale, a thought that causes him great distress. He therefore decides that the official, recorded price-the prix déclaré-will be 600,000 francs, and he will grit his teeth and pay tax on that. His consolation is that the balance of 400,000 francs will be paid in cash, under the table. This, as he will point out, is an affaire intéressante not only for him, but for the buyer, because the official fees and charges will be based on the lower, declared price. Voilà! Everyone is happy.

  The practical aspects of this arrangement call for a sense of timing and great delicacy on the part of the lawyer, or notaire, when the moment comes to sign the act of sale. All the interested parties-the buyer, the seller, and the property agent-are gathered in the notaires office, and the act of sale is read aloud, line by interminable line. The price marked on the contract is 600,000 francs. The 400,000 in cash which the buyer has brought along has to be passed to the seller, but it would be highly improper if this were to happen in front of the notaire. Consequently, he feels a pressing need to go to the lavatory, where he stays until the cash has been counted and has changed hands. He can then return, accept the check for the declared price, and supervise the signing ceremony without having compromised his legal reputation. It has been said, rather unkindly, that two basic requirements for a rural notaire are a blind eye and a diplomatic bladder.

  But there can be many obstacles to overcome before the visit to the notaire, and one of the most common is the problem of multiple ownership. Under French law, property is normally inherited by the children, with each child having an equal share. All of them must be in agreement before their inheritance is sold, and the more children there are the less likely this becomes, as is the case with an old farmhouse not far from us. It has been passed down from one generation to the next, and ownership is now divided between fourteen cousins, three of whom are of Corsican extraction and thus, according to our French friends, impossible to deal with. Prospective buyers have made their offers, but at any given time nine cousins might accept, two would be undecided, and the Corsicans would say no. The farm remains unsold, and will doubtless pass to the thirty-eight children of the fourteen cousins. Eventually, it will be owned by 175 distant relatives who don't trust one another.

  Even if the property should be owned outright by a single acquisitive peasant, such as Massot, there is no guarantee of a straightforward transaction. The peasant may set a price which he thinks is absurdly high, and which will keep him in drink and lottery tickets for the rest of his days. A buyer comes along and agrees to the inflated price. The peasant immediately suspects trickery. It's too easy. The price must be too low. He withdraws the house from the market for six months before trying again at a higher figure.

  And then there are the trifling inconveniences that are mentioned casually at the last minute: an outbuilding that has been lost to a neighbor in a card game; an ancient right of way that technically permits the passage of herds of goats through the kitchen twice a year; a dispute over well water that has been bitter and unresolved since 1958; the venerable sitting tenant who is bound to die before next spring-there is always something unexpected, and a buyer needs patience and a sense of humor to see the business through.

  I tried to prepare Tony for these local oddities as we drove to the office of a property agent whom we knew, but I should have saved my breath. He was, by his own modest admission, a shrewd and resourceful negotiator. He had played hardball with the big boys on Madison Avenue, and it would take more than bureaucracy or a French peasant to get the better of him. I began to doubt the wisdom of introducing him to anyone who didn't have a car phone and a personal business manager.

  The agent met us at the door of her office, and sat us down with two thick files of property details and photographs. She spoke no English and Tony spoke vestigial French, and since direct communication was impossible he behaved as if she wasn't there. It was a particularly arrogant form of bad manners, made worse by the assumption that even the most derogatory language can be used without the risk of it being understood. And so I passed an embarrassing half hour as Tony flicked through the files, muttering "Fuck me!" and "They must be joking" at intervals while I made feeble attempts to translate his comments into some nonsense about his being impressed by the prices.

  He had started with the firm intention of finding a village house with no land. He was far too busy to bother with a garden. But as he went through the properties I could see him mentally becoming the Provençal squire with acres of vines and olives. By the time he had finished he was worrying about where he should put his tennis court. To my disappointment, there were three properties that he thought worthy of his attention.

  "We'll do those this afternoon," he announced, making notes in his Filofax and looking at his watch. I thought he was going to commandeer the agent's phone for an international call, but he was just reacting to a signal from his stomach*. "Let's hit a restaurant," he said, "and we can be back here by two." The agent smiled and nodded as Tony waved two fingers at her and we left the poor woman to recover.

  At lunch, I told Tony that I wouldn't be going with him and the agent that afternoon. He was surprised that I had anything better to do, but ordered a second bottle of wine and told me that money was an international language and he didn't anticipate having any difficulties. Unfortunately, when the bill arrived he discovered that neither his gold American Express card nor the wad of traveler's checks that he hadn't had time to change were of any interest to the restaurant's proprietor. I paid, and made some remark about the international language. Tony was not amused.

  I left him with mixed feelings of relief and guilt. Boors are always unpleasant, but when you're in a foreign country and they are of your own nationality you feel some kind of vague responsibility. The next day, I called the agent to apologize. "Don't worry," she said, "Parisians are often just as bad. At least I couldn't understand what he was saying."

  A FINAL CONFIRMATION that warmer weather was here to stay was provided by Monsieur Menicucci's wardrobe. He had come to c
arry out the preliminary études for his summer project, which was our central heating. His woolen bonnet had been replaced by a lightweight cotton model decorated with a slogan advertising sanitary fittings, and instead of his thermal snowshoes he was wearing brown canvas boots. His assistant, jeune, was in a guerrilla outfit of army fatigues and jungle cap, and the two of them marched through the house taking measurements as Menicucci delivered himself of assorted pensées.

  Music was his first subject today. He and his wife had just attended an official artisans' and plumbers' lunch, followed by ballroom dancing, which was one of his many accomplishments. "Yes, Monsieur Peter," he said, "we danced until six. I had the feet of a young man of eighteen." I could picture him, nimble and exact, whirling Madame around the floor, and I wondered if he had a special ballroom bonnet for these occasions, because it was impossible to think of him bareheaded. I must have smiled at the thought. "I know," he said, "you're thinking that the waltz is not serious music. For that one must listen to the great composers."

  He then expounded a remarkable theory, which had occurred to him while he was playing the clarinet during one of the power cuts that the French electricity board arranges at regular intervals. Electricity, he said, is a matter of science and logic. Classical music is a matter of art and logic. Vous voyez? Already one sees a common factor. And when you listen to the disciplined and logical progression of some of Mozart's work, the conclusion is inescapable: Mozart would have made a formidable electrician.

  I was saved from replying by jeune, who had finished counting up the number of radiators we would need, and had arrived at a figure of twenty. Menicucci received the news with a wince, shaking his hand as if he'd burned his fingers. "Oh là là. This will cost more than centimes." He mentioned several million francs, saw my shocked expression and then divided by a hundred; he had been quoting in old money. Even so, it was a considerable amount. There was the high cost of cast iron, plus the government sales tax, or TVA, of 18.6 percent. This led him to mention an outrageous fiscal irregularity which typified the villainy of politicians.