I'll Never Be French (no matter what I do) Read online

  It’s late afternoon and I’m napping. I hear a pounding on the door that scares the bejesus out of me. Either the person has been knocking for quite some time and has grown frustrated or worried, or it’s the end of the world.

  “Moment,” I yell, and run down the stairs to see who it is. In the U.S., I’d ignore the knocking or demand an ID before opening the door. I yank open the door, which sticks in the rain, and see the biggest French person I’ve ever seen. Not big fat. Big like a bear. Huge. Jean-Paul Bunyan, with a chest like a cask, arms like giant legs of lamb, and he’s beaming, smiling like a toothpaste commercial, which is odd because usually strangers look wary, doubtful, or scared when they meet me.

  “Bonjour,” he bellows, clearly happy to be here. He’s either lost, a loon, on drugs, or the happiest guy in France. He’s wearing spotless, white, pressed worker’s overalls. I have no idea who he is or what he wants. He shakes my hand, hands me a card, and says something about Henri, Madame P’s younger son. The card is in French and English—Proper Plancher—so I start speaking in English until I realize his English is worse than my French.

  I invite him in, pointing to the kitchen, but he does what most French people do when I speak, he ignores me. He takes two steps forward, kicks off his shoes, gets down on all fours, crawls to the stairs, and begins knocking on the first step, stroking it softly and smelling it. He works his way up three stairs, then knocks and rubs his way down and turns left into the library–game room, where he crawls around some more, knocking everywhere and mumbling to himself all the way. I figure the house is about to collapse or it’s a shrine, an oil well, a gold mine. I can’t tell—only that this guy, Hugo!—what kind of French name is that?—is thunderstruck. I watch in awe as this bear of a man crawls around my floor “bon-ing” and “oui-ing” and rubbing. Even I know this isn’t usual first-time-meeting-someone behavior.

  I finally get him into the kitchen, which has a tile floor, so I think I’m safe, but he immediately begins “bon-ing” and “oui-ing” as he caresses the wood paneling covering the old stone kitchen fireplace. I can’t tell if he’s going to have an orgasm, a heart attack, or both. Finally he sits down and tells me the floors are original, more than 100 years old, very rare. He shows me the thickness and width of the planks and tells me, to my relief, that they are in excellent condition and that he hasn’t seen anything this old in this good condition in years. I’m nodding, happy, thrilled, still not sure if this guy’s a lunatic or for real, thinking he’s trying to sell me some polish or wax or service I don’t need.

  He must sense my skepticism because he leaves the table and goes to his van and returns with two photo albums, each at least eight inches thick. I’m hoping like hell it’s not what he did last summer. He opens the first book and shows me pictures of magnificent floors before, during, and after he’s worked on them, house after house after house, châteaux, the Beaux Arts museum in Quimper. No doubt about it, if this album and work are his, this guy’s for real.

  I walk him through the rest of the house so he can see it. In every room, including the attic, he hits the floor and crawls around “bon-ing” and “oui-ing,” knocking and rubbing, saying, “Magnifique, original, beau, ancien,” and makes that inhaling whistling noise that sounds to me like incoming.

  After about thirty minutes we’re back at the kitchen table. Casually, as if being polite but not really interested—I don’t want him to get his hopes too high—I ask him for an estimate, un devis. He shakes his head and tells me he’s very busy and not sure he can do the job. Now I really want him, and I’m ready to pay almost anything. Thinking of the photos in the album, I’m willing to beg. With floors like this, Madame P and Monsieur and Madame Nedelec would be proud of me. That’s when he tells me about his son, Johann—another odd French name—and the trip they took to New York, which both of them loved and because of that trip and I’m American, yes, he will do the job. He says he’ll send me the devis by mail. He also says his friend will come to the house and give me a devis for le traitement.

  I’m perplexed. “Quel traitement?” In the U.S. it would be included—varnish, wax, whatever.

  He takes me by the hand and leads me into the library-game room and points at a tiny pile of sawdust on the floor. Ah, for the woodworm. “Bon.”

  It’s early June. The work is to be done in September or October, after his mandatory August vacation and before my November rental arrives. We shake hands, and that’s that.

  By mid-July there’s still no devis, and Monsieur le Traitement has yet to arrive. If August arrives before the floor guy and his traitement buddy, it’s over for this year, and suddenly, though I never in my life cared about it before, I want my floors done now. It used to be Peace Now, End the War Now, Bring the Troops Home Now, and now it’s Finish My Floors by November, please. Once again, I learn Marx was right.

  My first instinct is to call Monsieur and Madame P and scream, “Attention!” but I know better. If I call, they’ll feel responsible for the work, the price, and the outcome, and it will make them even more nervous and anxious than they are. French people are often nervous and anxious. They’re fatalists, certain that whatever they do, it won’t work out. That’s why the theater of the absurd. That’s why “C’est la vie.” Shit happens. Americans say it, but truly don’t expect it and are outraged and dismayed when it does. The French do not say it, but they await its downpour every day. I decide to spare Monsieur and Madame an additional load and resort to guerrilla tactics. I do the one thing I know will drive the floor guy nuts. I make it an issue of national pride.

  “Bonjour. C’est Monsieur Greenside, l’Américain. Où est le devis? Au revoir.” I do this to let people know I’m not a Brit, and because contrary to international myth, most French people like Americans—not the government or much of the culture but the people—and there’s an unspoken rivalry and competition between the countries, much like the Giants and Dodgers. When I say I’m American, the French usually rise to the challenge.

  The next day there’s a knock on the door. I run down the stairs, triumphant, certain I’ve prevailed where Peter Mayle had not. I open the door, trying not to gloat, expecting to see the floor guy, devis in hand, maybe looking bashful. Ha.

  Facing me is a tall, thin, fair, very curly-haired lad wearing wire-rim glasses. He’s dressed casually in tan chinolike pants and a cucumber green dress shirt. He looks like an intellectual or a salesman selling the Great Books or encyclopedias. “Hello,” he says, holding out his hand, “I’m Johann.”

  The floor guy’s son. I shake his hand and say “Bonjour,” emboldened by his English.

  “I am here to measure the floors.”

  “Good, good. Come in.” I’m thrilled he’s here and thrilled he speaks English. I follow him around the house as he measures each floor and writes down the numbers. He’s a student, premed, studying in the south of France. In the summers, he works for his dad. He wants to talk about New York, California, the U.S., books, literature, why I’m there, if I like it, what I write—he’s heard I’m a writer—and he wants to practice his English. I, of course, want to practice my French. We have a very long, odd conversation made up of words that don’t exist in either language, until midi—noon, lunchtime—when he leaves, promising the devis the next day.

  Sure enough, about the same time the next day, there’s knocking on my door. I run down the stairs, pull open the door, and say “Johann,” as I thrust out my hand to shake.

  In front of me is an openmouthed middle-aged guy whose name apparently is not Johann. He shakes my hand and steps backward, not an easy thing to do, and says something I don’t understand, so I shrug and say “Oui.” He removes a card from his clipboard and hands it to me. The only things I can read are his name and the word traitement. Ah, Monsieur le Traitement!

  “Entrée,” I say, “entrée.” I say it as if I just won the lottery.

  He hesitates, clearly not accustomed to this kind of enthusiasm. I point to the floor in the library–game
room and say, “S’il vous plaît,” which spurs him to action. He removes a tape measure from his belt and measures the floor from north to south, south to north, east to west, and west to east, as well as diagonally. He does this in every room, working fast, faster than I’ve ever seen a French worker work. Either he has other important plans or he wants out of here and away from me very badly. He’s done in twenty minutes. I expect him to do what every other French worker has done—shake my hand and tell me the devis will be in the mail. He sits at the kitchen table and begins writing and figuring, crossing out numbers, replacing them with others, checking everything with his calculator. He finally finishes and hands me the paper—I’m expecting the worst. I look at the bottom line, which is all I can read anyhow: 5,500 francs, about $1,000. Guaranteed for ten years. He tells me this by saying “Garanti” and holding up ten fingers.

  I’m amazed. “Pas de insecte pour dix année?”

  “Oui.”

  “Vous êtes guarantee?”

  “Oui.”

  “Vous êtes écrit le guarantee?”

  “Oui.” He’s beginning to look at me oddly.

  “Combien?”

  He points to the number on the devis, clearly wondering if I’m compos mentis and authorized to make this deal.

  “No, no. Maintenant. En avance. Avant.”

  “Zéro.”

  “Zero?”

  “Zéro.”

  “Bon.” I shake his hand.

  He hands me a pen, shows me where to sign, and I do. Then he gives me a copy and shakes my hand again, and that is that. I now have a deal with a man I’ve never met before to kill worms I’ve never seen, for a thousand dollars, to be paid at some indefinite time in the future, after the work is done. In the U.S., my own sister wouldn’t do business with me this way.

  I’m starting to feel pretty optimistic. I might actually have the floors done this year. Three weeks later, a week before I’m due to leave, I still don’t have the floor guy’s devis. I telephone again and get the floor guy’s secretary, who I find out later is his wife. I explain I’m the American and I’m leaving in a week and I still don’t have the devis.

  “Demain,” she says. Tomorrow.

  All day I wait, resist calling, telling myself to give him until five o’clock. In the U.S., I’d be furious and telephoning every fifteen minutes. In France, I wait, not because I want to, but because there’s nothing else I can do. Who would I complain to, the U.S. embassy? At six o’clock, there’s a loud knocking. I look out the window and see it’s the floor guy—Hugo—holding a clipboard. “Moment,” I yell, and run down the stairs to the door. I open it and hold out my hand. He grabs me and hugs me like a California guy. He’s beaming, waving his clipboard, and talking away. I shrug several times, say “Oui…Oui…Ah, oui,” hoping I haven’t just given him the house or the right to raise pigs in my yard.

  “Entrée,” I say, pointing to the kitchen so he can give me the devis to sign. He goes into the library–game room and begins measuring, north to south, south to north…. I explain Johann has already measured every room and so has Monsieur le Traitement. “Oui, oui,” he says, and keeps measuring, writing the numbers down on his pad. He measures every floor, as if somehow the numbers could have changed. In the U.S., I’d be offended, as if the guy is accusing me of trying to cheat him, like I sneaked in a few extra feet of floor I’m trying to get worked on for free. In France, I recognize it for what it is: precision, personal responsibility, and not believing anyone else could do it as accurately as he. I know the routine, so I wait for him at the kitchen table. When he finishes he sits at the table and begins figuring, adding, multiplying, then adding some more. I’m getting scared. I’m in way over my head. What the hell was I thinking? I need floors done like I need root canal. He shows me the number—30,000 francs, almost $6,000—not a lot for the work, but a lot for me. I’ve already said yes for the $1,000 traitement. With this, it’s $7,000 total, and knowing what I know about workers and work and old houses, I suspect it will be even more. I’m not going to embarrass him by offering him less, and I don’t have the money to say yes. I’m stymied.

  That’s when he starts talking about Johann. He tells me again about their trip to New York and how much they liked the city. He tells me about Johann’s studies and what a good boy he is, how hard he works, how smart, and he asks me about his English. Is it good? Does he understand? Does he speak well? Did I like him when he came to the house? I’m yes-ing him all over the place, “Oui. Oui, Oui.” He’s so proud of his son.

  The more I “oui’”d, the more he went on. Johann loves English. He’s studying English, reads it all the time, wants to know more. “Oui, oui, c’est bon.” He wants to go back to the United States, to Florida, New Orleans, California. “Oui, oui, oui. C’est joli.” I’m thrilled. I’m following the conversation, I understand, I’m responding correctly. I have no idea why he is telling me all this, but it’s great. We’re talking, communicating, being friendly. He asks if Johann could come to the house and speak English with me. And if Johann ever came to the U.S., could he call me if he has a problem or needs help? Could he stay with me if he visits San Francisco? “Oui, oui, bien sûr.” Being very strange in a strange land, I understood completely. I like Johann and I like this guy, his enthusiasm for everything, and his obvious pride in his son.

  “Bon,” he finally says, and stands.

  The devis is on the table between us. He picks it up, folds it in quarters, and puts it in one of his many pockets. I have no idea what this means. I don’t think I’ve offended him. He doesn’t seem angry. He’s smiling, shakes my hand, and gives me another of those California manly bear hugs, and leaves. All I can figure is he doesn’t want the work, it’s not worth it to him, or he’s sensed I don’t have the money and he’s protecting both of us from my embarrassment.

  Three days later, the day before I’m leaving for California, there’s a knock on the door. I run down the stairs and open the door. It’s Hugo holding his clipboard. I put out my hand to shake. He pulls me toward him and I brace myself for another backbreaking hug.

  “Entrée,” I say. No matter how many times people have been to the house, including Madame P, who visits almost daily, no one will enter unless I say “Entrée.” No one will sit unless I say “Asseyez vous.” And when I offer a drink of juice, beer, wine, water, no one will pour it for him-or herself or begin drinking until I sit down and pour it for them. Nothing is taken for granted. So, beaming and bear hug aside, I’m wondering why he’s here—but this is France, so the last thing I’ll do is ask. We talk about New York, Johann, English, visiting the United States, the weather, my trip back to California, his wife, Nadine, who is a wonderful cook, and he invites me to his house for poisson next summer when I return.

  I still don’t have a clue what’s happening, and I don’t until he removes a piece of paper from his clipboard and hands it to me. The devis. Shit, I think, I’ve been snookered. He’s softened me up for the kill. These people are wily, I think, all friendly and then wham-bang. I look at the bottom line and see he’s given me an incredible bargain. Ashamed, I look at him, wanting to say something, but all I can manage is, “Merci, merci. C’est bien?”

  “Bon,” he says, smiling.

  I sign it and ask how much is the down payment?

  “Rien.”

  “Rien?”

  “Rien.”

  “Bon.” And that’s it. I give him a key to the house—one of at least a dozen available in the village—and leave the next day, not sure what will await me when I return.

  By the end of October the work is complete, as agreed. Everyone, including the November renters, tells me the floors and stairs are beautiful. They are several shades lighter, making the whole house brighter, and I’m anxious to pay the bill. Money is strange in France. Outwardly, people disdain it—even shopkeepers—but they remember every sou. I don’t want money to come between us. I send him a Christmas card and ask for the bill. Nothing. June arrives, I’m read
y to return, and I still don’t have the bill eight months after he’s completed the work. I figure he must have left it in the house, but when I arrive it’s not there. Clearly, I’m more concerned about this than he is.

  A few weeks later, I see his van in the village: green and white, with Proper Plancher written on it. I walk toward it, overwhelmed by the pungent smell of glue, wax, and varnish. It’s like a Dickens factory of the 1800s. My head’s woozy even though I’m standing meters away. This odor makes Javel smell like an air freshener. I walk up to the van with my eyes watering, gulping air. Hugo is sitting inside talking on his mobile phone. I stand there waiting for him to finish his conversation. My head’s wobbly. I’m afraid my nose is going to start to bleed, my ears ooze, I’m going to faint from the fumes. French workers don’t wear goggles, masks, earplugs. No protection—they rarely wear helmets on motorcycles. He’s sitting there laughing and chatting away, then abruptly closes the phone, clearly upset, and says, “Merde.” He stares at the phone, shakes it, and waves it in front of me. I can barely stand, see, breathe. I feel nauseated. “This thing is killing me,” he says, “X-rays, gamma, micro—le cancer,” he’s yelling, more worried about the phone than he is about sitting in his van, which smells like the Cuyahoga River on a bad day. I back away, staggering. Maybe this is why he’s the happiest man I’ve met in France. It’s either that or his wife’s poisson, which I eat later that summer and is as every bit as wonderful as he said, cooked with herbs, veggies, and spices fresh from her garden.

  I pay Hugo in July, and in December the floods come—l’inondation—and for the first time in anyone’s memory my house floods. I knew the river overflowed when I bought the house. Madame P told me her house had flooded several times in recent years, but my house was supposed to be safe. It’s farther back from the river. The floodplain is uphill and large. Water should not have been able to reach my house. I find out later what happened. The river is dammed, and the dam was under great pressure from huge amounts of rain and high tides, so they opened the dam to release the pressure and flooded the villages below. Madame P has water, mud, and a couple of salmon floating in three feet of water in her kitchen and dining room. I have two inches on my ground floor. The front hallway, kitchen, and medieval garden-party room have tile floors and are ok. The library–game room, newly refinished by Hugo, is ruined, warped and buckled by the water.