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

  We leave them on the lawn unscrewing things and go to the kitchen, LeRoy and I pretending to help, when Madame P comes in and says something to me, then remembers who she’s talking to and takes me by the hand to the garden. I think she wants to show me her radishes or how the green beans are growing, or some type of lettuce she knows I’ll think is a weed and destroy, but she doesn’t. She points to the sky and says something.

  “Oui,” I say, as I always do in France when I don’t understand what’s being said. In English I say, “No?”

  She goes, “Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,” and pinches me. Hard.

  “Ow!” What is this—some secret French greeting, the Breton version of noogies, my punishment for not speaking French? She points at the sky again, and I see a bunch of bugs flying over the house. In the U.S., I kill anything that flies into the house that’s not a bird. In France, land without screens, I’m inured. Flies enter and leave the house on the ground floor, mosquitoes and bees on the second floor, and bats on the third. Something buzzing outside the house doesn’t bother me at all, but it certainly does Madame. She goes into the house and explains it to Joanna.

  “Bees,” Joanna says. “Les abeilles. There’s a hive in your chimney. If you start a fire and upset those guys, you’re in trouble.”

  Now what? It’s 8:00. Henri and Renée are on the lawn, dismantling my washing machine. Madame is in her garden digging potatoes, radishes, onions, leek, and zucchini. Joanna’s trying to figure out when to put the bird in the oven. LeRoy’s reading Herald Tribune box scores, and I’ve got bees swarming my house. I walk over to Henri and ask him what I should do.

  “Call the pompiers.”

  “The pompiers?”

  “The firemen.”

  “Bon.” If they can get cats out of trees in Oakland, why not bees in France? I call. “Bonjour.”

  “Bonsoir.”

  Already I’m wrong. “Je suis Monsieur Greenside.”

  “Oui.”

  “L’Américain au Kostez Gwer.”

  “Oui.”

  “J’ai l’abbée,” telling them I either have bees or an abbey.

  “Oui.”

  “C’est possible vous êtes visit mon maison ce soir?”

  “Oui.”

  “Bon.”

  Thirty minutes later, they arrive in full regalia with a truck, hoses, ladders, all of it. If there’s a fire anywhere, those people are doomed. Three firemen and a girl exit the truck, spot Henri and Renée on the lawn, walk over, and shake their hands. Then they walk to Madame and shake hers. They look at me and say, “Bonsoir.” Doing their job is one thing, familiarity and friendship another.

  “Bonsoir,” I say, and point to the chimney.

  They look up and immediately start arguing. They walk closer to the house. The girl starts making hand motions as if surveying and gauging. Then one guy walks over to Henri and Renée, says something, and they all return to the truck and leave. I don’t get it. I walk over to where Renée and Henri have the innards of the machine laid out like a museum display. Joanna’s clothes are in a pile on the grass. It looks promising, though I have no idea how they will ever remember where each piece goes. “What’s with the pompiers?” I ask.

  “They brought the wrong size ladder.”

  “All that equipment and they have the wrong size ladder! What if there’d been a fire?”

  Henri shrugs.

  Renée begins the reassembly.

  Joanna wants to know if she should put the chicken in the oven.

  I shrug.

  LeRoy grouses about the A’s and the Giants losing.

  Madame never stops digging. She has a pile of potatoes, shallots, zucchini, and lettuce, large enough to feed a village.

  The firemen and girl return in the same truck, I hope with a different ladder. They exit quickly and make the rounds, shaking hands, including me this time. They look at the sky, the house, the chimney, the trees, the light, the clouds, and when they’re finally ready—who knows why?—they remove the ladder from the truck, lean it against the house, and send the girl up to do the job. She scurries up, takes a look, and scurries down. This is followed by more discussion and walking around. Then the same guy as before walks over to Henri, says something, and they all leave.

  I walk over to Henri and say, “Now what?”

  “It’s too early.”

  “It’s after nine o’clock.”

  “The bees are too active. They’ll come back later when they’re sleeping.”

  “Okay,” I call out to Joanna, who’s back in the house. “Put the chicken in the oven. What the hell.”

  By 10:00, Henri and Renée have the machine almost back together. Madame’s car is loaded with veggies and flowers. Joanna sticks her head out the window, “Dinner in fifteen minutes.” Henri and Renée lift the machine and put it back in the shed.

  “What about that?” I say, pointing to several small parts left in the grass. Henri shrugs. Renée says nothing. I think, Tomorrow I’m buying a Whirlpool. They plug in the machine, screw on the hoses, turn the dials, push the buttons, and fill it with Joanna’s clothes. Before I can stop them, they’ve got both doors closed, inner and outer, and the machine is washing.

  “C’est un mirac,” I say. “Merci, merci beaucoup.”

  They both shrug. It only took them three hours. We go into the house to celebrate—beer and apéritifs all around. At 10:30 the chicken is done. Joanna takes it out of the oven just as the firemen return. We all go outside and watch the girl climb up the ladder in full protective wear, like medieval garb, and remove the hive with the now sleeping bees, who will wake up tomorrow in a new home. The hive is placed in a sack. The ladder is returned to the truck. The whole thing is completed in less than ten minutes. I offer to pay them for the trouble, but they refuse, telling me it’s their job. I offer a tip, which they also refuse, saying, “No prob-lem, no problem.” I ask Henri what I should do. “Give them three hundred francs—fifty dollars—for beer.” I do, and they accept it with lots of “Bonne soirées,” and shake my hand, teaching me once again there’s always a right way and a wrong way to do things in France, and I’d better learn the difference soon.

  Joanna invites Madame, Henri, and Renée to dinner, and, as I expect, they decline. They just spent three hours helping me and didn’t think anything of it, but coming into my house, meeting my friends, and sharing a meal is a level of commitment they don’t have the energy to make. Henri and Renée have to work the next day. Madame has a carful of hydrangeas and veggies and Monsieur waiting for her at home. We walk them to their cars, thank them profusely, exchange many, many cheek kisses, and wish them “bonne soirée, bon nuit, bonsoir,” and wave, à bientôt.

  It’s 11:00, dusk, when Joanna, LeRoy, and I sit down to a forty-garlic-clove chicken dinner with Madame’s lettuce, shallots, potatoes, and green beans. We finally make it to our respective beds at 1:00 a.m., exhausted, but satisfied and full in every way. The next day I wake up early and go to the shed to check the washing machine and Joanna’s laundry. The machine’s fine, and so are Joanna’s clothes—if pink is her favorite color.

  The New Yorker in Me

  One of the things I like best about my house is its location—it’s at the end, or beginning, of a village of about five hundred people. The land behind the house is an open field maintained by a herd of sheep. The land in front is a small, narrow, public park that borders on the river. On the other side of the river trees grow and men fish for salmon. A quarter mile beyond the house the river turns wild in its run to and from the ocean. It sounds like the boonies, but it’s not. I have neighbors on both sides, each side separated by a strand of thirty-foot-tall, dense, dark green, billowy cypress trees that block my view of their houses and their view of mine. I treasure these trees, their majesty, their tree smell, their wooooshy sound in the wind, and, of course, being from the U.S., the privacy they afford, the sense of isolation without actually being isolated. Two houses north is a restaurant.

  Soon after I bu
y the house, the neighbor on the restaurant side and a younger adult woman I’ve never seen before visit me. This is rare in France. Strangers, meaning anyone you have not formally met, even neighbors, do not just drop by, and here they are, at four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, after their midi family meal, before goûter and their evening apéritif, heading down my driveway. I know the man is my neighbor because I’ve seen him working in his garden, and I’ve shouted “Bonjour” and “Bonsoir” numerous times to him and his wife and their dog as I drove past them on my way to somewhere. I know I should have stopped and introduced myself, but after that what could I say? Nothing. So I drive past them waving and yelling, “Bonjour” and “Bonsoir,” hoping to avoid another conversation I won’t understand. And now he’s here with a woman I’ve never seen before, knocking on my front door. Somehow I know they’re not the Breton Good Neighbor Society.

  I half-open the door and peer out. They’re standing side by side, looking unsure but resolute. He’s trim, mustachioed and silver-haired, wearing pressed white slacks, a forest-green shirt, and shiny oxblood shoes, looking very dapper, as if he dressed especially for this occasion. She’s very pretty with short, dark, fashionably cut hair, wearing a yellow floral dress and low heels. I’m wearing cut-off jeans and a T-shirt that once was white and now is pinkish gray with a mustard stain on it from my ham sandwich lunch. Once again, I feel like an affront to the village, France, and humanity.

  “Bonjour,” Monsieur says, visibly hesitating, seeing it’s worse than he expected, probably wondering if I’m contagious, and bravely extends his hand to shake. I put out my hand, say “Bonjour,” and shake his. He nudges the woman to do likewise. She does, and we do. Then we all stand there not sure what’s next. I’m waiting for my cue from them. They are waiting for me. It’s my house, so I open the door and say, “Entrée,” and point them to the library–sitting room. They head straight for the couch, refusing to look at anything else, and huddle together, expecting the worst.

  “Une boisson?” I ask. “Un bièr, pastis, jus, de l’eau, thé. Un café?”

  They refuse everything.

  An unannounced visit by people I don’t know, who won’t accept a drink, is not a good sign. I’m in trouble, but I have no idea about what. Monsieur begins speaking—in French. I recognize a few words: sun, trees, garden. I respond with my usual, “Ah, oui…Oui…C’est vrai…C’est joli,” not understanding a thing. I think I’m doing pretty well listening to him, hanging in there, being friendly and neighborly, when he switches to English and says, “This is my daughter. She speaks very good English to you.”

  I know what this means: we’ll fail to communicate in two languages instead of one.

  “What my father’s been saying,” she says in perfect English, “is he wants you to cut your trees. They are green and very pretty on your side, but on our side they are brown and ugly and dead. Also, they hide the sun from the garden.”

  I sympathize. I do. I like the sun too, but I don’t want to cut my trees. I offer a compromise. “I’ll trim the trees. I’ll cut two meters off the top and remove all the dead, brown branches on your side.”

  That’s when she tells me about French law, a subject I’ve learned to dread. “In France,” she says, “your neighbor—us—we—have the right to have any tree on your property that’s within two meters of our property cut to two meters in height….” I picture my beautiful trees, thirty feet tall, stumped to six, and remember reading something about the French and trees, and how they don’t like them: nuts are okay; fruit; flowers; a windbreak, a forest for hunting, even a preserve, all are necessary. But a tree, in and of itself, per se, who needs it? It’s a mess, a bother, a potential hazard or problem, work. The French, so romantic and nostalgic, sentimental, in some ways, in others are more practical than the Brits.

  I understand perfectly what she is telling me: they have the right to force me to cut my trees.

  We talk for a few more minutes about the weather, rain, and the upcoming village fête. Then they stand, in unison, and I walk them to the door, where we all shake hands again and wish each other “bonne journée.”

  In the fall, I have the trees topped and the dead branches facing their house removed. I do it every year, and over the years, we become close friends—Louis and Jocelyne, their daughter, Marie, their son, Jules, and their spouses, Léon and Alexandra, writing, exchanging gifts, sharing meals, playing boules, eating crêpes, hiking together, walking the beach, drinking Ricard, visiting with each other, being invited to family affairs—and never discuss the trees again.

  That’s how it is, until the day Jocelyne tells me she’s selling her half of the house to her brother, Pierre. As soon as she says it, I know it means trouble. Living in France has done this to me, made me fearful of change, conservative. I don’t know if it’s as Marx said, because I’m a property owner, or my tentativeness as a foreigner, but whatever it is, I’ve come to believe change, almost any change, is not for the better but the worse. In the U.S., I live as if there is nothing that cannot be improved. In France, I don’t touch a thing. I leave it alone even if it is worn, bent, crooked, scratched, dented, if it skips, blinks, it doesn’t matter, because bad as it is, whatever I do will make it worse.

  Jocelyne sells her share of the house to her brother and his wife, Denise. Now, instead of a second home that the whole family shares at holiday times, it’s a primary residence for one family to live in most of the time. When Jocelyne first told me, I worried. When I see Pierre, huge, muscular, always smiling, a retired cop, I panic and wait for the worst, but it doesn’t happen. There’s no knock on my door or angry, nasty looks as I drive by and call out, “Bonjour” and “Bonsoir.” I begin to relax. Through friends I hear Pierre occasionally complains about the trees, but he isn’t complaining to me, so I ignore it. It’s the easiest I’ve ever had at playing dumb.

  We “bonjour” and “bonsoir” our way to good neighborliness, at least that’s what I’m thinking, until the summer I arrive and find a six-inch-wide swath of orange Day-Glo paint cutting across all of my trees at two meters’ height. I don’t know French, but I know what this means.

  The next day, under cover of early morning darkness—like a commando or terrorist—with flashlight in one hand and a meter in the other, I sneak outside to measure the distance between my trees and Pierre’s property, and see it’s not necessary: the trees are within inches of his land. I ask Monsieur and Madame P, who confirm the two-meter law. I call Jean and Sharon, who say, “It’s the law, you’re in France, the trees are a pain, you should cut them.” I speak with Monsieur and Madame Nedelec, who are outraged. Monsieur begins a search to see if perhaps this type of cypress tree is protected and finds it is not. He tells me to go to the notaire, the person who acted as the real estate agent when I bought the house from them, and ask if there’s any legal recourse.

  “Oui,” he says after I draw him a picture of two houses separated by a row of trees and slash my finger across the trees, saying, “Coupe. Tout,” and “J’aime beaucoup les arbes.”

  “Quel âge ont les arbres?”

  How old? Jesus Christ, I don’t know. “Je ne sais pas.”

  “S’ils ont trente ans, ils sont protégés.”

  “Oui!” If they’re thirty years old, they’re protected. I go back to Monsieur and Madame Nedelec and ask her, “When did your father buy the house? Were the trees there when he bought it? Did he plant them himself?”

  Madame calls her mother. No one is exempt in this search. Her mother tells her her husband bought the house twenty-five years ago, and, yes, he planted the trees.

  Relativity notwithstanding, twenty-five is not thirty, though Pierre doesn’t know that yet. My plan is to ask the notaire to write an official letter to Pierre telling him about the thirty-year law and leave it up to him to prove the trees are not that old. I know if he searches he’ll find the deed of the sale and maybe the truth about the trees. On the other hand, I also know French people hate coming into contact with th
e bureaucracy in any way—especially, especially with lawyers—and that a letter from the notaire in and of itself could do the trick.

  Meanwhile, everyone in the village is talking about the trees, though not to me. Most people agree the law is on Pierre’s side, no question about it, a neighbor has the right to see the sun. And everyone seems to know this law, like in the U.S. when people say possession is nine-tenths of the law. In France, they say a neighbor has the right…. Somehow I’ve walked into local lore, probably something that emerged from years of class struggle between wealthy landowners and small farmers, and I’m lining up with the lawyers and aristocrats, not exactly where I want to be, though, in truth, I guess that’s what I am. Those who support me think it’s not a neighborly thing to do, demand your neighbor cut his trees, and he, Pierre, should not have marked my trees with his Day-Glo paint. Property is property is property. He has the right to have the trees cut, but he doesn’t have the right to touch them. It’s another of those French paradoxes.

  By the end of the summer, Pierre and I still haven’t spoken, and I’m beginning to think it will blow over, as it did with Louis and Jocelyne and Marie. French people do not like social surprises or confrontations, and generally they think Americans are nice, but also crazy, meaning not predictable and potentially volatile, why else all those dead Indians and guns, so maybe he’ll leave me alone.

  Ha.

  I pull into my driveway, the car filled with shopping bags. Pierre greets me before I get the first bag out of the car. We shake hands and he begins speaking the fastest French I’ve ever heard in my life. Any other conversation and I wouldn’t have a clue, but this one, I know exactly what he’s saying, though I act as if I don’t, hoping he’ll see I’m an idiot, take pity, and leave me alone. He takes my hand and leads me to the trees and shows me how ugly they are on his side—dead, brown—not like the billowy green on my side. He points to the sky and shows me the shadow on his garden.