French Lessons Read online

  Which is how I found myself on a hot Saturday afternoon in August driving past the half-timbered houses and endless orchards of the Normandy countryside. This region of France, padded with green fields, rich in cows and apples, steeped in cream and Calvados, was the home of the warriors who invaded England under William the Conqueror. (A man who, despite his aggressive behavior, was evidently a caring and generous father. When he died in 1087, he left Normandy to his eldest son, Robert. To another son, William Rufus, he bequeathed England. Luckily for the boys, there were no inheritance taxes in those days.)

  The current invasion is coming the other way, with the English settling in to Norman farms and manor houses, bringing with them their marmalade and their addiction to those indispensable aids to civilization, British newspapers. As I walked down the crowded main street of Livarot, I heard an English voice—a loud, peevish English voice—complaining about the price the local newsstand had just charged for yesterday’s edition of The Times. Somehow, I couldn’t imagine a Frenchman in a small English country town complaining about the price of Le Monde. But then, he would never be able to find a copy of Le Monde in a small English country town. We remain an insular bunch. The ghost of my old boss Jenkins is with us yet.

  I had been told to meet Sadler in the hotel at the bottom of the main street. Knowing my man, I made for the hotel restaurant, and there he was, still at the table, preparing himself for greatness with a final glass of wine and scribbling on the back of an envelope.

  “I thought I ought to give a speech,” he said, tapping the envelope. “Here”—he pushed a sheet of yellow paper across the table—“take a look at the program while I finish my notes.” He resumed scribbling. I studied the sheet.

  Everything one could hope to find at a cheese fair of this importance was there: an apéritif concert, a marching band, cheese tastings, cider tastings, Calvados tastings, barbecue stands, a fairground, and a grand Saturday-night ball. There were, as well, two other attractions I hadn’t been expecting. That very afternoon, there was to be a sealed-bid auction of forty amouillantes, or cows that were in calf. And the following afternoon, a speed-eating competition under strict Livarot rules to establish who could consume the most cheese in a specified time period and take the title of le plus gros mangeur.

  Sadler finished his notes with a flourish of the pen. “There. I’m the event that comes after the pregnant cows,” he said. “And when the ceremony’s finished we’re going to do a little work. A book signing.”

  “We are?”

  “Certainly. We’ll be at a table just up the street, with full authors’ comforts—choice of cider or wine. It’s all arranged. You’ll love it.”

  Before I had a chance to reply, one of the fair’s official organizers arrived to make sure Sadler was ready for his moment of glory, or to restrain him from ordering another bottle of wine. I wasn’t sure which. The future chevalier de fromage allowed himself to be led away, and I decided to pay my respects to motherhood: A quiet interlude among the cows was necessary before the high drama of the afternoon’s main event.

  I like cows. There is something very soothing about them. It is rare to see them hurry. At a distance, they radiate serenity, moving slowly, tails flicking, placid and picturesque. At close quarters, you notice their eyelashes, the steady oval motion of their jaws as they chew their cud, and, usually, the fact that they are caked in muck from chest to hoof. These cows, however, had come straight from the bovine beauty parlor. They were arranged in a long, immaculate line, groomed to a whisker. Their tan-and-cream coats gleamed, their hooves were buffed to a dark sheen, their eyes were bright. Pregnancy agreed with them.

  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 ju
st 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 andouillette—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.

  We moved on to what our new friend behind the bar called “the reason God created apples.” Calvados of varying ages—from jeune homme to grand-père—was poured, inhaled, sipped, and, I must confess, swallowed. Strangely enough, I had no problem at all drinking 84-proof alcohol before midday; no wincing, no shakes, no burning sensations. Perhaps last night’s cheese was still protecting my vital organs with a layer of insulation. We decided to buy a couple of bottles of Calvados to take home for future reference, and then Lulu very wisely suggested more coffee.

  Our arrival at the café coincided with the first musical interlude of the day. The official Livarot cheese fair band was snaking down the main street, playing very accomplished jazz, led by the chef d’orchestre, a large man with an impressively supple touch on the trumpet—ornamental riffs worthy of Miles Davis.

  The band came to a stop in the square and put aside jazz to reach deep into its repertoire for something completely different. They began to play. Unless my ears were deceiving me, the first few notes sounded exactly like the start of “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” which is somehow not what you would expect to hear in rural France. And yet that’s what it turned out to be. Naturally, the performance had been given a little Norman je ne sais quoi, and it was, appropriately, a long way from the conventional rendition I remembered from my boyhood. The instrumental arrangement, with its jaunty swoops and flourishes, reminded me more of New Orleans than of a military march. And the band sang the words, giving a completely new sound to the destination: “Eets a longwhy to Teeppairairee …” The crowd loved it; encores were demanded, and in the course of the next few hours, we were to hear the song several more times.