My Twenty-Five Years in Provence Read online

  Seen in a purely historical context, you can understand his caution. Having spent his adult life in England, a country where the climate allows you to experience three, and occasionally four, seasons in the same day, he knows that you can’t count on a sunny morning turning into a sunny afternoon, and he needs to be prepared. In extreme cases, he will also have brought to the beach his carefully folded plastic raincoat.

  Each spring, from April onward, the English en vacances display a more carefree attitude to the weather than our friend on the beach with his umbrella, an attitude that inspires puzzled discussions in the café: What is the crucial temperature that makes the English discard their clothing? When the rest of the village is still in sweaters, full-length pants, and the essential scarves, we see our English visitors dressed for high summer in their shorts and T-shirts and summer-weight dresses, apparently oblivious to the chill in the air that threatens to turn their bare knees blue.

  This is merely a preview of what is to come: a habit that I have heard described as le masochisme anglais—the pre-lunch plunge into the pool, an almost obligatory ritual to greet the arrival of spring, and to hell with the brisk temperature. We are, after all, in Provence, which is well known for having, by English standards, an almost subtropical climate. I have often thought that it would take sheet ice to keep a determined Englishman from taking his first dip of the year.

  But the Provençaux themselves are not without some quirks when it comes to dealing with the weather. When the sun doesn’t shine and the light turns from bright and clear to dull and gray, they become morose, casting accusing glances at the sky and grumbling about this unreliable weather that threatens Provençal agriculture. Strangely enough, this is often improved if an Englishman should come into view, which provides the opportunity to deliver what might be Provence’s all-time favorite weather cliché.

  Let’s say you’ve met Jean-Jacques, an acquaintance, in the street. It is one of those gray mornings, and this is reflected in his appearance. He looks ill-tempered and glum, his ruddy, normally cheerful face set in an expression usually reserved for discussing politics. In reply to your inquiries about his general state of health, he shakes his head, looks upward at the sky, and shrugs. As if activated by a signal, it starts to rain. Jean-Jacques’s expression changes, and a glint appears in his eye as he nods upward again at the gathering clouds. “Merde,” he says, with obvious relish, “eh oui—c’est comme un beau jour au mois d’aout en Angleterre.” I must have heard this dozens of times, often accompanied by a poke in the ribs to make sure I was paying attention and ready to laugh. Eventually, I started asking the weather experts if they had ever been to England, to experience at first hand that mythical fine day in August, only to find that most of them had never left Provence.

  Every season has its experts, none more ready to alarm you than the motorist, as the brief but often icy winter begins. Throughout the year, the driving population of Provence is divided between tortoises and hares, and freezing weather accentuates the difference between them. The tortoises will bring out the old horror stories of ten-car pile-ups caused by patches of black (and therefore almost invisible) ice. The solution: slow down. But the would-be Formula One driver will actually tell you that speed is safer, that the added danger of an ice-slicked road improves his reactions, his judgment, and his timing, not to mention the macho thrill of overtaking those elderly ladies dawdling along at fifty kilometers an hour. Not surprisingly, he has his enemies, led by the army of truck drivers who do their best to deliver in any weather, despite anything that nature throws at them. Unlike elderly ladies, they refuse to cower in the verge to allow a little extra room for passing. Often the opposite. When they hear the insistent blare of a horn behind them, they increase speed, and edge over until they occupy more road space. War is declared. The blarings continue, each one from behind echoed by an answering fusillade from the truck, until the stage is set for the final act.

  The problem here is that the Frenchman’s fondness for the physical gesture is hindered by the demands of steering, which limits the use of both hands. However, all is not lost. At last, the road widens, the pursuing car begins to draw level, and the driver lowers his window so that, as he finally passes the truck, he can stretch out one arm, the rigid second finger of his hand extended, to present the truck driver with the classic insult before accelerating away.

  Less dangerous and more elegant was the response of Michel, a friend of ours who enjoys taking his pony and trap and sometimes me for a spin on the narrow country road between his house and the village post office. The road is always quiet, often empty, and a large sign at its entrance forbids trucks. Even so, we had barely set off for the village one morning before we heard a muffled clatter, and then a shuddering mechanical wheeze behind us. I looked around, and there was a vast, multiwheeled truck, almost as wide as the road itself. Michel was unconcerned. “It doesn’t happen often. The driver will have to be patient.”

  He may have tried, but he couldn’t resist a couple of optimistic toots on his horn. In reply, Michel raised his whip above his head and twirled it several times. Was this a message of defiance, I wondered, or merely an acknowledgment? I asked Michel if it had a special meaning. “I’m sure it does,” he said, “but I’ve forgotten. I’m turning left, I’m turning right, I’m lost—I think it’s one of those.”

  Whatever it meant, it was enough to keep the truck driver more or less silent until we reached the end of the road and the start of something with two lanes. Michel pulled onto the shoulder, stopped, and climbed down from his seat. He took off his ancient brown hat, and with a bow and a flourish used it to direct the truck onto the larger road. It was the first and only time I have seen a truck driver smile.

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  · · ·

  No matter what season it is, Provence is never free from the possibility of attack by the ultimate weather quirk, the larger-than-life mistral. Once, during our early days in Provence, I made the mistake of saying to Faustin, our neighbor, what a windy day it was.

  Clinging to his hat with one hand, he set me straight. No, no, no, he said, this is the mistral, powerful enough to blow old ladies across the street, and to uproot the ears from a donkey. What would be called fierce winds where you come from, he said, are no more than breezes to us. He spoke of it with a hint of pride, as though the mistral belonged to him, and I was to find that in Provence it is often regarded as though it were a minor national treasure rather than a violent hiccup in the weather.

  More than almost anything else, the mistral is a wonderfully versatile excuse. I have heard it used to explain not only displaced roof tiles, but also headaches, dogfights, missed appointments, lumbago, marital squabbles, temperamental cement mixers, road accidents, and collapsed soufflés. Its unarguable strength is that it’s nobody’s fault, and so nobody can be blamed. And it doesn’t confine itself to a particular season. Even in high summer it howls, usually for periods of three, six, or nine days.

  It would be remiss, in any study of the weather, however informal, if there weren’t a few statistics to make everything official. And here they are, starting with the one that surprised me most.

  London, that famously moist and drizzly city, has an annual rainfall of 23.4 inches. The annual average in Cannes, where bikinis outnumber raincoats, is more than 30 inches, and, at 28 inches per year, the rainfall in Gordes is still considerably more than in London. These are just two examples of reality failing to live up to reputation. In an attempt to even things out, I searched for somewhere, anywhere in the UK, that offered the three hundred days or more of sunshine each year enjoyed by dozens of towns, villages, and beaches in Provence. No luck.

  So bonnes vacances, and if you’re going to Cannes, don’t forget your umbrella.

  Seventeen

  Blind Luck

  In the long and shaggy history of man’s relationship with dogs, one event stands out as a fundamental moment of change: the
decision to give the dog shelter and let him become closely involved in human life. No longer obliged to spend his days outside as a burglar alarm with teeth, he soon began to take advantage of his greatly improved career choices. From very early days, he became proficient at working with man to herd sheep, cattle, goats, and horses. This led to a variety of activities developed over the centuries, and today we see dogs using their noses to find everything from black truffles to drugs, the bodies of people buried in rubble after an accident, bombs, and personal items lost down the back of the family sofa. There has also been an increase in the number of dogs recruited for police work, and no army regiment worth the name is without its highly decorated four-legged regimental mascot.

  Surprisingly, it took until 1916 before a dog’s talents were officially put to work to help the blind. It was then that the world’s first guide dog school opened in Germany and quickly inspired a network of schools throughout the country. Eventually, other countries followed, and guide dogs became available for lucky adults. In those early days, blind children had to wait until they were eighteen, because anyone younger was considered “insufficiently mature.”

  And then came MIRA, a nonprofit organization based in Quebec. It started with two dogs in 1981, and by 1991 was well enough established to open the world’s first school for blind children and their dogs.

  Thousands of miles away, in Provence, news of MIRA’s school reached Frédéric Gaillane, a man who was, in one way, uniquely qualified to become involved in the project himself. He had lost his sight in a car accident when he was nineteen, and he was only too familiar with the struggle of forging a very different life. And so, in 2004, he went to Canada to meet the founder of MIRA, Eric St. Pierre.

  The two men got on well. Frédéric was impressed with what he found, and he returned to Provence filled with enthusiasm and ideas. He would, he decided, start a school for blind children. In 2007, he made an agreement with MIRA Canada to set up MIRA Europe, and three colleagues were sent to Canada to be trained as guide dog instructors.

  A new school was a fine idea, but first Frédéric had to find somewhere to put it. Luckily, he didn’t have to look far. His grandparents had left him several acres of land that they had used to cultivate vines, peaches, and asparagus, not far from the riverside town of Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. The land was flat and easily accessible, and there was enough of it to accommodate all the necessary facilities.

  An architect friend was put to work on designing detailed plans for the school, and Frédéric began looking for financing. Little by little the money was raised, entirely from private and company donations and fund-raisers organized by volunteers. And then, on October 4, 2008, the first stone was laid.

  In 2010 and 2011, the instructors came back from Canada, their training completed, and by 2014 the school was finished.

  A year or so later, I went to see it for the first time. From what I had heard, it was an extraordinary achievement, all the more extraordinary because it had been done without any financial help at all from the normal official sources. French institutions, for their own obscure reasons, were not in favor of the idea.

  I suppose I had been expecting to see something not unlike a barracks—basic, utilitarian, practical. The reality was a delightful surprise. The buildings were simple and modern, the interiors light and airy, the grounds immaculate. On my first visit, I was hoping to meet some dogs, particularly one or two of the St. Pierres—a cross between Labradors and Bernese mountain dogs—that had been specially bred to guide their companions; but it was a period in between school terms, and so I made do instead with some handsome St. Pierre photographs and a detailed account of just what it takes to make a top-class guide dog.

  It doesn’t come cheap. The cost of training each dog is around 25,000 euros, and even the early part of the process takes a year. This is when the young dogs live with familles d’accueil—families that have volunteered to take them in and introduce them to the complexities of living with people, wherever they may go. And these young dogs go everywhere: on trains and buses, up and down busy streets, out to dinner with friends, into shops and cinemas, all the time wearing their first harness, on which is written that they are chiens en cours d’éducation. Then, the dogs go to MIRA at Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, where they are trained by instructors. Only then are they given to the lucky children who become their constant companions. Now it’s time for the children to be trained.

  They come to the center on several separate occasions. The first is for two days, when they learn all about guide dogs. The second trip lasts a week, when their potential for working with guide dogs is assessed: For instance, do they have a good sense of direction? A good sense of space? Do they have sufficient mobility to be comfortable with their dogs? If these basic checks go well, the children are invited to come back for a month’s hand-over program, training and working with their dogs in the busy, complicated world. They take trips on the Métro in Marseille, learning together to take the big leap that must be made to navigate that extra-large step at the end of the escalator. They travel in a car together for the first time. They go shopping. They get a taste of real life as a couple.

  Back at the school, a more intense training takes place in the large, beautifully kept area that has been created to give the children and their dogs some familiarity with the complexities they will have to deal with in the streets of towns and cities. These include different surfaces on different levels, different noises, winding pathways, pedestrian crossings, a turnstile, road junctions, raised walkways, part of a badly parked car, a tunnel—an urban jigsaw that stretches for five hundred meters. There are also two fountains and, to educate the nose, clumps of lavender, rosemary, cypress, and roses.

  While taking their lessons and getting to know their dogs, the children live at the school, which has a dormitory with ten separate bedrooms, and a spacious living and dining area. At the end of their training, instructors take the children and their dogs back to their homes, where they get used to another, more permanent environment, and where they can work out the routes that they will be using in their new lives, to get to college, for example, or to a friend’s house. When school starts, in September, the child, his dog, and his MIRA instructor go together to meet the teachers and the other children, who are taught by the instructor to remember the golden rule of guide dogs: A guide dog is a working unit, not a pet. He is not to be stroked, given tidbits, or otherwise distracted from doing his job. Treats, walks, and affection must wait until his day’s work is done, when his harness will be removed and he can relax.

  Even after the course has ended, MIRA keeps a close eye on the child and the dog—a kind of after-sales service. This continues for eight years, until the child, now a young adult, can join an adult school and the dog can take his well-earned retirement, often going back to the family he first lived with as a young pup.

  On a more recent visit last summer, I was able to go to the school when the new batch of dogs and children were on parade, and I was immediately conscious of the atmosphere. Unlike many places of learning, it was cheerful. There were smiling faces, wagging tails, and a powerful air of optimism as the children began to realize how dramatically their lives were about to be transformed. It was a happy, happy place, and Frédéric should be enormously proud of what he has made possible.

  Eighteen

  Summer Invasion, Autumn Exodus

  For ten months each year, life in rural Provence is a pleasant succession of tranquil, slow-moving days. There is plenty of time to enjoy friends and to contemplate the meaning of human existence as seen, with a glass of vin rosé, from the café terrace. Pressure is reserved for those who live in cities and work in offices, where meetings and appointments dictate the way the days are spent.

  This changes every July, when France goes on vacation for two months. Ties and suits give way to shorts and straw hats. Sandwiches at the desk are replaced by three-course lunches with wine. There are
walks in the countryside, afternoons by the pool, trips to art galleries and museums, and many other small pleasures that are often neglected because normally there’s no time; we’re all far too busy.

  It’s an international complaint, as common among British and Americans as it is among the Belgians, Germans, and Parisians who are part of the summer invasion that takes place in Provence every year to rediscover the joys of a simpler, more relaxed life. How they react to this dose of enforced idleness varies greatly from one nationality to another, and watching these differences has kept me entertained for years.

  Leading the way in terms of energy, curiosity, and enthusiasm are the Americans. For them, Provence is a challenge. They can be seen in the café early each morning, plotting the events of the day. Armed with guide books and often with laptops, they calculate times and distances between what they want to see before lunch, where to have lunch, and where to go for the afternoon. The organization is meticulous and the program often quite exhausting, but they have come all the way from Philadelphia and they’re damned if they will waste a precious second of vacation time. I always feel they’re going to need a few days off when they get back to the States to recover.

  I recently asked Monsieur Farigoule if he had any thoughts on our multinational summer visitors. What, for instance, did he think about my fellow Englishmen? His reply to this and my other questions took up most of the morning.

  On the whole, he said, the English are acceptable: reasonably well behaved and polite, except when they’re having difficulties communicating with anyone who doesn’t speak English. This, as they find themselves surrounded by Frenchmen speaking French, frequently leads to what Farigoule described as the Anglo-Saxon counterattack. It starts with a question, delivered in English, often aimed at the café waiter. It could be a request for directions to the café toilet, or an inquiry as to the availability of English beer, but the waiter’s response is the same—raised eyebrows, a puzzled expression, and a shrug. Undaunted, the Englishman repeats his question, still in English, but this time a little louder. Then again, louder still. Eventually, the bemused waiter retires to serve someone whose order he can understand.