On Rue Tatin (10 page)

I’m not much of a seamstress, so I was happy that our bedroom window looked out on little-used church property behind us, allowing me to put off making curtains for a while. A tiny skylight in the roof on the other side of the room looks into the heavens, so that will never pose a problem.

It was late before we stopped for dinner. We washed up, and Michael got a fire going in the Mirus. I set a kettle on top so we would have warm water for dishes, and went about making a family favorite, a big green salad with apples, walnuts, and Roquefort cheese, our favorite bacon and chive omelette, and a winter fruit compote. Joe was busy coloring on the Sheetrock wall by the sink, which we had decided should be his canvas to decorate as he liked.

I put a candle on the table and set it with cloth napkins and some antique china a friend had given us. We brought the food out and Michael opened a bottle of smooth red wine from Sablet, a small village in Provence. The stove was blazing and we were incredibly warm and cozy. We ate slowly and told stories to Joe, talking about how fun it was to be camping in our house.

Once upstairs Joe wasn’t so sure. He was intimidated by the new surroundings. Tucked in bed, though, under his fluffy
duvet
and completely engulfed by his stuffed animals, he fell asleep and we didn’t hear a word from him all night long.

Neither of us slept much, however, as we listened to the unfamiliar moans and creaks of the house. I thought about the nuns who had occupied it for so long, and the various others who might have slept there. I noticed the way street lights came in the windows and listened to the night traffic. I heard clanking and soft voices around 6
A
.
M
., which I learned later were the florists across the street preparing for their workday. It was all new and strange.

Michael got up early to light a fire in the woodstove downstairs and went out for
croissants
and
pains au chocolat
. Joe crawled in bed with me and we snuggled under the thick
duvet
until Michael called us to come down for breakfast. The windows had a light layer of frost on the inside and when my feet hit that cold tile floor I almost screamed. Joe and I dashed through our morning ablutions and rushed into the warmth and smell of coffee and fresh pastries downstairs. We sat at our bright blue table near the stove and breakfasted amid the ruins.

We settled into a routine. Joe was still going to school in Le Vaudreuil, so I drove him the ten minutes there each morning. Héloïse Tuyéras picked him up and fed him lunch and Michael went to get him in the evenings. During the day, Michael bashed and built and I worked in my office, making slow but steady progress on my book about French farmhouse cooking. My deadline for turning in half the manuscript was looming and I had to grab every second I could to work on the book. We ate lunch together each day, which was sometimes a recipe test, other times leftovers from the night before. We would talk about our various projects, both of us completely lost in what we were doing.

I loved being in our own home. It was rustic and cold, but it was gorgeous. The entryway had a dirt floor, which we covered with sheets of plywood so that Joe had a place to play. Naturally warm-blooded, he has an extreme resistance to cold. Bundled up, he never seemed to notice the temperature. Now that same entryway is covered with golden, brushed concrete and heated from underneath. It couldn’t be further from what it was, nor more comfortable.

Michael installed an instant hot water heater upstairs in the bathroom so we could bathe, but there was no hot water downstairs. What I couldn’t heat on the stove I would haul from the bathroom in a big black bucket, feeling like Laura in
Little House on the Prairie
.

We had decided to hire a local plumbing company to install our furnace, because Michael didn’t feel confident that he could do a perfect job. After soliciting opinions from everyone we know we hired the best company in town and established a date when they would begin. It came and went and we never saw anyone. I called, they apologized, and we set a new date. It came and went. This went on for six weeks. We were entering into what would be one of the coldest winters on record since the turn of the century, and we were really concerned.

Finally, when yet another date had gone by with no plumbers I took Joe and went to the plumber’s office, which is also an appliance store, and made a little scene, shaming them for putting off the work when we had a small child to keep warm. It worked, of course. Making scenes is often the only way to get action in France. Everyone gets excited and raises his voice, says regrettable things he forgets later, and whatever is at issue is resolved with no hard feelings. It’s not a bad way to live, actually. Violent crimes of a personal nature are relatively rare in France, and I think one of the reasons is that the French way of life involves arguing on a daily basis. Emotions are vented, not suppressed.

After my scene the workers showed up at the house within the week and wasted no time. I’ve noticed the very few times we’ve called in anyone to work on the house it’s always the same. Getting them here is the hard part. Once here, they work with record speed and efficiency. Two men arrived that first day at 8
A
.
M
., shook hands all around, unpacked their tools, and went to work. Michael followed them around because he wanted to learn how they installed radiators and hooked up pipes, figuring correctly that it was a skill he would need one day.

They broke for coffee at around ten, smoked a cigarette, then returned to work. The church bells chimed noon and they were gone, tipping their hats. An hour and a half later they returned, usually just as we were finishing lunch. If I had baked dessert I would give them some, and they always had coffee with us, then I wouldn’t hear anything from them until about four, when the aroma of coffee drifted into my office from the kitchen below, where Michael was brewing a pot for them. By 7
P
.
M
. they were gone.

This went on for two weeks and the two workers became part of the family as they rushed in and out of the bathroom, the bedrooms, the office, laying their pipe and placing the radiators. Once the work was finished they were gone, and we were warmer and could expand into other rooms with comfort. Not only that, but we had a steady supply of hot water upstairs, though it would be a year before Michael routed it down to the kitchen. I didn’t mind. Having hot water in the kitchen, even if I had to carry it there in a black bucket, was one of life’s pleasures.

APPLE, ROQUEFORT, AND WALNUT SALAD
SALADE DE POMMES, ROQUEFORT, ET NOIX

This simple salad is a favorite in our home, and I make it often as a main course for lunch or as a first course for dinner. I use a mix of lettuce or fresh young spinach, Papillon Roquefort, one of the best qualities available, walnuts from our friend Danie Dubois’s farm, and apples from our own trees. Serve this with a Languedoc red.

FOR THE VINAIGRETTE:

1 teaspoon sherry vinegar

2 teaspoons Dijon-style mustard

Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup/60ml extra-virgin olive oil

FOR THE SALAD:

10 cups (about 8 ounces/250g) mixed salad greens such as curly endive, romaine, and arugula, torn into bite-size pieces

1 large (8-ounce/250-g) tart apple, cored, peeled, and cut in 1/2-inch cubes

1/2 cup/60g walnuts, lightly toasted

3 ounces/90g Roquefort cheese

1. Place the vinegar and the mustard in a large bowl, add a pinch of salt and pepper, and whisk together. Whisk in the olive oil slowly until the mixture emulsifies. Adjust the seasoning.

2. Add the salad greens, apple, and walnuts and toss until they are all coated with the dressing. Crumble the Roquefort over the salad, toss well, and season to taste. Serve immediately.

4
SERVINGS

BACON AND CHIVE OMELETTE
OMELETTE AUX LARDONS ET AUX CIBOULETTES

Omelettes are the salvation of a busy day, and a gastronomic treat when made with fresh farm eggs. I take delight in being able to whisk together eggs that come from a nearby farm and season them with fresh chives from the garden. I always have bacon in the refrigerator, which makes this practically an instant meal served with salad and fresh bread. French omelettes are slightly runny in the interior. If you prefer omelettes cooked through, simply cook it longer than specified.

Slab bacon in France is very lean and requires a bit of oil when it cooks. American bacon is so fatty that the olive oil will most likely be unnecessary. In fact, if the bacon gives off too much fat simply drain all but I tablespoon from the pan before making the omelette. Serve this with a simple red wine, such as one from the Languedoc.

6 large eggs

Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 bunch/5g fresh chives

5 ounces/150g slab bacon, rind removed, cut in thin slices then cut crosswise in thin strips

1 tablespoon olive oil, optional

1. Place the eggs in a medium-size bowl and whisk just until they are broken. Season with salt and pepper and whisk again just enough to mix in the spices.

2. Mince the chives and stir them into the eggs.

3. Place the bacon and the oil (if necessary) in a large omelette pan over medium-high heat and sauté until just beginning to turn golden, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs to the pan and let them sit for about 30 seconds, then bring the edges gradually toward the center, tilting the pan so the uncooked egg in the center runs to the edges of the pan. When the omelette is set but still slightly runny on top let it cook for an additional minute then slip it out of the pan, folding it as you do so, onto a warmed serving platter. Serve immediately.

4
SERVINGS

FIVE
               

Transformations

I AM ALWAYS amazed at what I don’t notice. Living on rue Tatin with the cathedral floating gracefully in front of us all day long as though it had wings, I have become, perhaps, inured to architectural details, since I have such a surfeit in front of my eyes at all times.

But there are other things I do notice. A day never goes by that I don’t stroke the rosemary hedge that shields us from traffic on rue Tatin. I try to run my hands through the scrubby thyme plants that grow in our front courtyard daily, too, for thyme loves company. My hope is that daily contact will make them as lush as I think they should be. I want them to know how much I love their presence—to look at, to smell, and to add to soups, salads, and even apple tarts.

I admire daily the deep blue gate that Michael made several years ago, with its fanciful top, and when I work in the garden, kneeling to pull weeds from among the lettuce and ruby chard plants, I always turn to look at the “holy stone” with the cross carved in it at the end of our house. About two and a half feet high and eighteen inches across, it sits embedded in concrete right in front of the window on the L of the house, surrounded by
hortensias
, or hydrangeas, and
muguets,
or lilies of the valley. Joe often opens the window wide and climbs out onto the stone and stands on it, like a statue. I always ask myself the same questions about it—where did it come from, how old is it, who put it there? I haven’t found the answers, but it doesn’t really matter. I know the stone is old, and it’s almost more fun to dream that it is truly ancient than to know it was hewn perhaps just a few hundred years ago.

I also notice, when I walk inside our house, if it is cool or warm. Usually, it is cool when it needs to be, during the height of summer, warmish when necessary, from Christmastime into February. I notice if the house is clean and our on-and-off housekeeper, Colette, has been and gone.

I met Colette when I was looking for someone to help me part-time in my office. She had some training in office work, and she was happy to get the job as she had been unemployed for some time, but it became obvious quite early on that office work wasn’t her cup of
exprès.
She didn’t like being confined to a desk, the mere sight of English—which she doesn’t understand at all—threw her into a panic, and as she typed and filed I could feel the tension in her build. I would give her jobs that got her out of the office—going to the post office, running various errands in town, emptying wastebaskets—until finally she was cleaning the house and doing a variety of other odd jobs for both me and Michael. She is what I call a
femme à tout faire,
a woman who knows how to do everything from ironing to refinishing wood surfaces, and I’ve never met anyone who works harder or better. While I missed the help in the office, I was delighted with her help around the house.

Small and wiry, she is aged beyond her years no doubt from the two packs of no-filter Gauloises she smokes daily.
“Oui, je sais, ce n’est pas bon,”
she says when I tease her about her habit. “I know, I know, it’s not good for me.” Then she offers a cigarette to Michael, a very irregular smoker, and they go off and smoke together outside.

Colette has three grown children and her husband passed away many years ago so she lives alone with her dog, Max. She has many curious little habits, which she brings with her when she comes to work. One is smoking, though she is respectful enough to do it outside and only when she sorts through papers to put recyclables where they belong.

Another is her penchant for bleach, which she uses to wash everything, so that the house smells strongly after she’s gone. I’ve asked her not to use so much bleach but she just doesn’t feel like she’s doing her job without it, so it always creeps back into her wash water.

The other thing is the fact that she works in the dark. I first noticed it when she was tucked in one of the rooms upstairs ironing. I walked up there to ask her something and though it was daytime, very little light came into the room and she was literally working in the dark.

Colette is an artist with an iron. Clothes, napkins, and even underwear are so beautifully ironed and folded that I’m tempted to photograph her work, and it always pains me to destroy the careful folds she’s made. When I walked into that room with no light I was sure there was something wrong. There was no way she could get such perfect results without light. I flipped the light switch. Colette jumped, looked up ruefully, and said,
“Merci, Madame Loomis.”
(I’ve tried to get her to call me Suzanne but she won’t.)

After that I observed Colette when she came to work, and I realized she cleaned in the dark as well, never seeming to think about putting on the light. There is never a speck of dust to be found after she has passed through a room so it isn’t like I need to insist she turn on the lights. She misses cobwebs but that’s only because she’s so intent on what she’s doing she forgets to look up.

I’ve seen her sewing on buttons in the dark, refinishing banisters, painting, scraping, organizing, cleaning. I ask her why she works in the dark.
“Je ne sais pas, Madame Loomis,”
she says with a smile, “I don’t know why, Madame Loomis,” and continues on her way.

I think I know why. I’ve met lots of older people in France who do much the same thing. I think it dates to before and during World War II when electricity was scarce, then very expensive. It is still outrageously expensive. One look at a French electrical bill and anyone would be tempted to spend their lives in the dark. We’ve almost gotten used to the price we pay for electricity, and I certainly don’t want anyone working with us to feel they can’t turn on the lights. I think with Colette it is such an ingrained habit that she never even thinks about it.

Working in the dark is one of those French “things” like the national dislike for Jerusalem artichokes (they were the main staple for most people during World War II), the conviction that all ills result from the liver (though we hear less and less
reference to
le foie
than we used to), the belief that tailgating is perfectly safe, and the notion that crying is good for babies because it strengthens their lungs. There is no real sense in arguing about any of these things, nor in trying to change anyone’s opinion. It’s part of the national character and you have to love it or ignore it.

I can usually tell where Joe is simply by following the trail of roller blades, the basket with his shoes and the part of his snack he didn’t eat in it, and whatever outer clothes he was wearing. These generally end at the dining room table where he is leaning or sitting, reading something, whether his monthly subscription to
J’aime Lire,
a lively compendium of stories, cartoons, and games, or
Mickey Parade
, a fat comic book starring Mickey, Donald, and Scrooge.

I always check the smell of the house, which ranges from temptingly delicious and herbal to dusty and sometimes mildewed. When it is the former it means I’ve been cooking and the food aromas have lingered. When the latter, it means Michael has been at hard physical labor, digging into the bowels beneath our house where over the course of the years he has found parts of old stone sinks, chunks of the house’s foundation, gravestones, and even animal bones. Or it might mean that he was wrestling with the chimney, which he completely dismantled before rebuilding.

I poke my head into whatever room Michael is working in to say hello, though I don’t always see what he is doing. I look, but I don’t see—perhaps because I do it on the fly, or maybe because the messes are always so major that I can’t stand to really look. This is what happened while he was working in the dining room, the long room on the ground floor of the house whose end window looks right at the church, and outside of which stands the “holy stone.”

The room is long and narrow, about twenty-three by twelve feet and set at an L to the rest of the house. It has white stone walls about one-fourth of the way up, then timbered walls the rest of the way. A brick chimney angles up one end of the room to the ceiling, and the floor is ochre concrete with the tracings of a carpet design in it that Michael did, for fun.

Before the concrete floor was poured our entire ground floor was paved in gravel. It was an improvement over the dirt and rubble we had found at first, and our friends had found it chic. One couple rushed home after visiting us to call their architect and see how they, too, could have gravel on the floor of their house.

But I loved it when that hard concrete went in. It was clean, and it allowed us to move into the room and use it. The floor heat took off the chill. It wasn’t exactly cozy—the fireplace would help, and so would plugging up the random holes throughout the room—but it was eminently livable.

About a year after the floor was poured Michael was ready to “attack” the room and fix it up. He hung a heavy curtain at the doorway, which connected the room to the rest of the house, and that was the last I saw of it in its cleaned-up state. The next time I walked in it was a work site, as he set about building inner walls that resemble the outer walls so that he could tuck insulation between them. Those first days of work on a previously lived-in room are always a bit discouraging. We seal ourselves off from a certain pattern we’ve established and crowd into the rooms that are livable. And we get used to the fine old dust that settles on everything no matter how careful Michael is to seal it in.

I tend to stay away from the work sites for several reasons. When Michael works he’s a loner, so involved in what he’s doing that he doesn’t like interruptions. I learned that during the years he sculpted full-time. The atmosphere of his studio was always intensely personal, as if he were encased in transparent steel—untouchable, unreachable. It is much the same in the house though less peaceful, for he can’t often control what he’s going to be doing. He will uncover one wall intending to do one thing, only to find that its support has been eaten away over the years by wood-loving insects, which requires him to replace all the wood, or reorient his work so that he can avoid a pitfall. Nothing is simple or straightforward, or even straight. The angles are always off, and nothing matches. All of this, while enormously challenging, is also often enormously annoying, one more reason not to disturb him at his work.

But of course it is impossible to stay away. So I peek in and sometimes wander around, looking. I walked into the room one day, braving the dusty turmoil. Michael isn’t a full-time smoker, resorting to cigarettes only when confronted with a particularly knotty problem. This day he was smoking, so I doubted he was in a conversational mood, but I was curious about what he was doing. I walked gingerly about. Michael is an extremely orderly worker, but there are still life-threatening traps everywhere for the uninitiated—boards with ugly nails sticking out of them, piles of rubble here and there, gullies where he’s had to dig into the concrete to bury something, stacks of pale white local rock he was using to rebuild the lower wall, bags of ochre to dye the plaster, bags of plaster which, if one should somehow fall on a foot or a leg, would crush it.

Then I just stood and looked around; the stone foundation wall that runs around the bottom fourth of the room was taking shape. He was currently tapping on the lovely, local white stone he was using for it, which he had gone to great effort to salvage, using his sculpture techniques to make the pieces the exact size he needed while keeping them natural looking. This work approached sculpture and while it was slow, tedious going, I could sense his satisfaction in it. He’d been working on the room for several months at that time, having completed a stone wall at one end of the room near the fireplace, which previously had been dirty and uneven and now was pristine and lovely, all of the wiring, and now a good part of this small stone wall.

I marveled at what he had already accomplished. I never understand space myself, and I am in awe of his talent. He looks at a rough, dirty, unfinished space and almost immediately figures out how to make it functional and beautiful. When he’s in the midst of it, as he was now, his hair white with stone dust, tools everywhere, the two pieces of furniture in the room covered in white cloth looking like misplaced polar bears, his mind is fixed, intent on the challenge before him.

I looked at all he had done—the walls, the floor, the ceiling—and my eyes rested on a face carved into one of the support beams. Hmm, I thought to myself. I don’t remember seeing that before. I walked closer, to look at it. It grew organically out of the dark beam, an ancient-looking face with slightly Asiatic features; its eyes seemed both opened and closed. It was calm and quite beautiful. I felt silly for not having seen it before, caught once again in my unobservant state.

“That face is gorgeous,” I said to Michael, who had stopped tapping for a minute. “When do you think it was done?” He took off his goggles and asked me to repeat what I’d said, so I did. He laughed.

“I did it,” he said. “About two months ago. I was so frustrated with the electrical wiring and the beams and the way things wouldn’t come together that I just had to do something.” I looked up at the face. Most people, in a similar situation, might have run out of the house screaming or strangled the first person who came in the room. The kind of frustration I know Michael experienced wasn’t mild. It was the “goddamned frigging stupid little wires and dumb little lights” kind of frustration that, though silent, shakes the windowpanes. His solution was to carve a beautifully restful face in a support beam.

It gave me a shiver. Michael is deeply talented, I know that. But to create something so lovely by making use of frustration takes something more than talent. To me it was an expression of hope, of commitment, of beauty amidst mayhem.

While Michael was working on the electrical wiring for this room I could tell it intrigued as much as maddened him. Each phase of this house is the same as he tussles his way through it, finding the appropriate materials and figuring out how to use them. For this room, he had discovered an inexpensive source for spotlights, each of which required rewiring before he could use it, which he did in his painstaking fashion. Then he decided to embed them right into the old, thick, wavy beams in the ceiling, which took forever, and everyone who sees them is amazed. While we have to get approval from the office of historic monuments for any changes we make to the outside of our house, we are free to do as we like on the inside, so Michael works unfettered.