Encore Provence (21 page)

“Ah, you wait.” He tapped the side of his nose. “The story isn’t over yet. Too many people know.”

I had awful visions of grave robbers creeping at night through the village cemetery, the scuffle of shovels in the earth, the sudden sharp creak of wood as the coffin was forced open, the grunt of satisfaction as the precious ticket was retrieved. But surely, I said to Marius, there was some way the family could claim the prize without disturbing the corpse.

He wagged the inevitable index finger at me, as though I’d suggested something ridiculous and impossible. Rules were rules, he said. Make an exception here, and it would open the door to all kinds of bogus stories about disappearing tickets—eaten by the dog, blown away by the mistral, washed into oblivion by the laundry—there would be no end to it. Marius shook his head, and then, remembering something, reached into a pocket of his army surplus jacket.

“I have an idea that we could work on together,” he said, taking out a rolled-up magazine and smoothing the crumpled pages. “Take a look at that.”

It was a copy of
Allo!
magazine, the chronicle of minor celebrities that is an item of standard equipment in hairdressing salons and dentists’ waiting rooms. Colored pictures of the rich and royal at play, at home, and, occasionally, at funerals. That’s what had prompted the idea.

“You once worked in advertising,” said Marius. “You will see the possibilities.”

He had thought it all through. His scheme was to bring out a companion magazine devoted to prominent, recently dead figures. It would be called
Adieu
in France, or
Goodbye
for the Anglo-Saxons. The editorial content would be obituaries lifted from newspapers, illustrated with photographs taken during the lifetime of the chosen subjects—“Seen here in happier times,” as Marius said. There would be a regular special feature, Funeral of the Month, and advertising support would be provided by funeral homes, wreath makers, florists, coffin manufacturers, and—most important—catering services, a well-fed wake being an essential part of any self-respecting funeral.

“Well?” said Marius. “
C’est pas con, eh?
It would be a gold mine. Somebody famous dies every week.” He leaned back, eyebrows raised, and we sat in silence for a few moments, contemplating death and money.

“You’re not serious,” I said.

“Of course I’m serious. Everybody thinks about it. You, for instance,” he said, “you must have thought about how you would like to die.”

My hopes for an acceptable death could be summed up in one word: sudden. But this wasn’t good enough for
Marius. The old vulture was interested in the details, the where and how, and when I couldn’t provide them, he shook his head in disapproval. One of the very few certainties in life, and I had given it less thought than what I was going to have for dinner. He, on the other hand, had made his plans; a perfect scheme, the final triumph, a mingling of pleasures that anyone fortunate enough to be present would never forget. In his enthusiasm, he might have been describing a treat that he had been looking forward to for years—which, if all went according to his expectations, it would be.

The first essential was a beautiful summer day, a sky fading from deep to paler blue in the heat of high noon, a light breeze, the rustling chirrup from a choir of
cigales
providing background music in the bushes. Death in the rain, so Marius said, would spoil an otherwise agreeable occasion. The second essential was a good appetite, because Marius had decided that his final moments on earth should be spent having lunch on the shaded terrace of a restaurant.

A three-star restaurant, naturally, and one with a cellar containing wines of unimaginable elegance and expense: golden-white Burgundies, first-growth Bordeaux, late-nineteenth-century Yquem, vintage champagnes from the oldest vines. These would be chosen, with no regard for price, several days before the lunch. This would allow the chef time to create a suitably exquisite meal to accompany the wines. Marius picked up his glass of the café’s ten-franc
rouge ordinaire
, took a sip, shrugged at the taste, and continued.

Congenial company was also important on this special day, and Marius had already picked out an appropriate guest—Bernard, a friend of many years. Not only a friend,
but a local legend, notorious for his reluctance to dip into his pocket for fear of disturbing his money, a man who had made an art of frugality In all the time that they had known each other, Marius could only remember two occasions when Bernard had paid his way in the café, and then only because the
toilettes
had been occupied, cutting off his usual escape route at the time of reckoning. But he was a good companion, full of stories, and the two men would have hours of memories to share over the food and wine.

As for the meal—the
menu de mort
—Marius was still refining the exact procession of dishes. There might be a few deep-fried
courgette
flowers to alert the palate. Some foie gras, of course. Maybe a charlotte of Sisteron lamb with eggplant, or pigeon in spiced honey, or pork slowly cooked with sage (Marius was quite happy to leave the choice to the chef), and then roasted goat cheese with rosemary, followed by a custard and cherry tart, or a fresh peach and
verveine
soup.…

He stopped, his eyes looking past me toward this future banquet, and I wondered how he was going to find the time or the inclination to die when there was so much on the table demanding his attention. A brief shake of his head brought his thoughts back to the climax of lunch.

“This is how it will pass,” he said. “We have eaten the meal of a lifetime, we have drunk like kings, we have laughed and exchanged stories, lied about our successes with women, vowed eternal friendship, drained the last wonderful bottle. And yet the afternoon is still young. We are not quite ready to leave. Another glass or two to settle the stomach, and what could be better than a cognac made in 1934, the year of my birth? I raise my hand to summon the waiter—and then,
paf!
”

“
Paf?
”

“A
crise cardiaque
, a fatal heart attack.” Marius slumped forward on the table, turning his head to look up at me. “I die instantly, but I have a smile on my face.” He winked. “Because Bernard gets the bill.”

He sat back in his chair and crossed himself. “Now
that’s
a death.”

Later that day, I took the dogs for a walk on the plateau of the Claparèdes above Bonnieux. It was early evening, and over the mountains to the east a three-quarter moon was rising, pale and milky against the blue sky, balanced by the sun falling in the west. The air was warm and dry, sharp with the scent of the
sariette
that grows wild in pockets of earth between the rocks. The only sound was the wind, the only visible souvenir of man’s presence a few meters of collapsed stone wall slumped among the bushes. The view could hardly have changed in hundreds of years, perhaps thousands, and it was a reminder of the quick blink of time that represents a human life.

I thought of Madame Calment’s one hundred twenty-two years, fueled by chocolate and cigarettes, and of the nostrums that various Provençal experts had recommended to me for a long and healthy existence. Cloves of raw garlic, a daily teaspoon of cayenne pepper taken in a glass of water,
tisanes
of lavender, the soothing lubricant of olive oil. None of my experts had mentioned foie gras, which was a disappointment; but then, neither had they spoken of an even more essential ingredient,
joie de vivre
—the ability to take pleasure from the simple fact of being alive.

You can see and hear this expressed in a dozen small
ways: the gusto of a game of cards in a café, the noisy, good-humored exchanges in the market, the sound of laughter at a village fête, the hum of anticipation in a restaurant at the start of Sunday lunch. If there is such a thing as a formula for a long and happy old age, perhaps it’s no more than that—to eat, to drink, and to be merry. Above all, to be merry.

I was born in England during the dark ages of gastronomy, a time when most good things to eat were either unavailable or rationed. Butter and meat were measured out in ounces, once a week if we were lucky. A fresh egg was an infrequent treat. Potatoes came in the form of powder—I seem to remember it was called POM—to be mixed with water and turned into a tepid, off-white sludge. Presented with my first postwar banana, at the age of six, I had no idea how to unwrap it. Chocolate was an unimaginable luxury. Olive oil didn’t exist.

It eventually made its appearance in England, only to be regarded as a curiosity coming from the wrong side of the Channel, and definitely unsuitable for consumption
with fish and chips or roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. If you were an adventurous cook who felt the need to buy some of this suspect foreign fluid, the only place you could have any hope of finding it was in the chain of pharmacies known as Boots the Chemist. Here, next to the cough remedies, bunion cures, denture cleaners, chest rubs, and dandruff shampoos, you might be lucky enough to come across a small, plain bottle of medicinal appearance labeled Olive Oil. It was not considered necessary to put any details on the label—not the country of origin, not the grower’s name, not the mill where the oil had been pressed, and certainly nothing as inflammatory to the English imagination as extra virgin. Olive oil was merely a commodity; not even a popular commodity.

Today, after more than two thousand years of being more or less confined to southern Europe, olive oil has spread north to those cold, gray countries where olive trees very sensibly refuse to grow. It has spread west across the Atlantic, too, although the early pioneer olives suffered a very discouraging start on arrival in America, being plunged into glasses of icy gin to shiver in the depths of a Martini.

Luckily for all of us, the world is now a more civilized place. You can still find olives behind the bar, but the oil has been promoted—first to the kitchen, and more recently to the tables in desperately fashionable restaurants of the kind that present you with a separate list of mineral waters. In these often highly self-conscious establishments, the chefs make a point of mentioning their chosen oil by name, and extra virgin has become the heroine of many a house salad dressing. Slugs of hard liquor before dinner are out. Saucers of oil are in, to be mopped up with bread. Alas, it can only be a matter of time before
oil snobs start sending back the original saucer of Tuscan
frantoio
and demanding the less well known—and therefore more highly prized by status eaters—
corni cabra
from Toledo.

This increasingly widespread flow of oil is encouraging news for your heart and your arteries, as well as your taste buds. Doctors agree, as much as doctors ever agree about anything, that olive oil is good for you. It helps the digestion, fights bad cholesterol, slows down the aging process of skin, bones, and joints, and is even said to protect against certain forms of cancer. In other words, it can be enjoyed without guilt or digestive remorse, and world consumption is on the rise.

But among oil men here in Provence there is a mild irritation, an occasional touch of gastronomic pique, that the best olive oil is almost always associated with Italy. Given the facts, this is hardly surprising. Italy produces 25 percent of the oil coming from the countries around the Mediterranean, and for years the Italian growers—“those Tuscan windbags,” as Régis calls them—have been marketing it with imagination and great success. In contrast, Provence accounts for no more than three percent of the Mediterranean total, and so far has been uncharacteristically modest about its efforts.

I came across these production figures in the course of pursuing an ambition I have had for years. One morning long ago, when I saw that first sunny slope planted with olive trees, I thought what a delight it would be to have a grove—even a tiny, amateur-sized grove—to call my own and be able to look at every day. I loved the prehistoric appearance of the trunks, the generous spread of branches, and the way the leaves changed color in the wind from green to silver-gray as they rippled in the air.
But taking pleasure in the tree’s appearance was just the start. Over the years I have developed an addict’s taste for olives; on their own, or as black, creamy
tapenade
spread over quails’ eggs, in tarts and salads, in
daubes
, or studded into loaves of bread. And then there is the oil. We cook with it, lace our soups with it, preserve goat cheeses in it, and now I’ve taken to drinking a small glass of it every day before breakfast. It is one of the oldest, purest tastes in the world, a taste that hasn’t changed for thousands of years.

The thought of having all the joys of the olive available just steps away in the field behind the house was so exciting that I managed to overlook an obvious problem: The trees that I admired and coveted, those gnarly, wrinkled, timeless monuments to nature, were each at least a hundred years old. If I planted young trees—a collection of five-year-olds, let’s say, very little more than shoots—I would have to add an extra century to my life to be sure of enjoying the results. I like to think that I’m an optimist, but there are limits.