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 carry 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 His woolen bonnet had been replaced by a lightweight cotton model decorated with a slogan advertising sanitary fittings, and instead of his thermal snowshoes he was wearing brown canvas boots.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.
"You buy a bidet," he said, jabbing me with his finger, "and you pay full TVA. The same for a washer or a screw. But I will tell you something scandaleux and altogether wrong. You buy a pot of caviar, and you will pay only 6 percent TVA, because it is classified as nourriture. Now tell me this: Who eats caviar?" I pleaded not guilty. "I will tell you. It is the politicians, the millionaires, the grosses légumes in Paris -they are the ones who eat caviar. It's an outrage." He stumped off, fulminating about caviar orgies in the Elysée Palace, to check jeune's radiator arithmetic.
The thought of Menicucci occupying the premises for five or six weeks, burrowing his way through the thick old walls with a drill that was almost as big as he was and filling the air with dust and running commentaries, was not a treat to look forward to. It would be a dirty and tedious process involving almost every room in the house. But one of the joys of Provence, we told ourselves, was that we could live outdoors while this was going on. Even this early in the year, the days were very nearly hot, and we decided to start the outdoor season in earnest one Sunday morning when the sun coming through the bedroom window woke us up at seven o'clock.
All good Sundays include a trip to the market, and we were in Coustellet by eight. The space behind the disused station was lined with elderly trucks and vans, each with a trestle table set up in front. A blackboard showed the day's prices for vegetables. The stall holders, already tanned from the fields, were eating croissants and brioches that were still warm from the bakery across the street. We watched as one old man sliced a baguette lengthways with a wooden-handled pocket knife and spread on fresh goat's cheese in a creamy layer before pouring himself a glass of red wine from the liter bottle that would keep him going until lunchtime.
The Coustellet market is small compared to the weekly markets in Cavaillon and Apt and Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, and not yet fashionable. Customers carry baskets instead of cameras, and only in July and August are you likely to see the occasional haughty woman down from Paris with her Dior track suit and small, nervous dog. For the rest of the season, from spring until autumn, it is just the local inhabitants, and the peasants who bring in what they have taken from the earth or the greenhouse a few hours earlier.
We walked slowly along the rows of trestle tables, admiring the merciless French housewife at work. Unlike us, she is not content merely to look at the produce before buying. She gets to grips with it-squeezing aubergines, sniffing tomatoes, snapping the matchstick-thin haricots verts between her fingers, poking suspiciously into the damp green hearts of lettuces, tasting cheeses and olives-and, if they don't come up to her private standards, she will glare at the stall holder as if she has been betrayed before taking her custom elsewhere.
At one end of the market, a van from the wine cooperative was surrounded by men rinsing their teeth thoughtfully in the new rosé. Next to them, a woman was selling free-range eggs and live rabbits, and beyond her the tables were piled high with vegetables, small and fragrant bushes of basil, tubs of lavender honey, great green bottles of first pressing olive oil, trays of hothouse peaches, pots of black tapenade, flowers and herbs, jams and cheeses-everything looked delicious in the early morning sun.
We bought red peppers to roast and big brown eggs and basil and peaches and goat's cheese and lettuce and pink-streaked onions. And, when the basket could hold no more, we went across the road to buy half a yard of bread-the gros pain that makes such a tasty mop for any olive oil or vinaigrette sauce that is left on the plate. The bakery was crowded and noisy, and smelled of warm dough and the almonds that had gone into the morning's cakes. While we waited, we remembered being told that the French spend as much of their income on their stomachs as the English do on their cars and stereo systems, and we could easily believe it.
Everyone seemed to be shopping for a regiment. One round, jolly woman bought six large loaves-three yards of bread-a chocolate brioche the size of a hat, and an entire wheel of apple tart, the thin slices of apple packed in concentric rings, shining under a glaze of apricot sauce. We were aware that we had missed breakfast.
Lunch made up for it: cold roasted peppers, slippery with olive oil and speckled with fresh basil, tiny mussels wrapped in bacon and barbecued on skewers, salad, and cheese. The sun was hot and the wine had made us sleepy. And then we heard the phone.