On Rue Tatin (7 page)

I walked into his room one day and he was babbling to himself.

“What are you saying?” I asked him. He looked at me, startled. “I’m speakin’ French,” he responded. That was when I understood. Much of what he heard was senseless babble, so of course he felt confused. We realized he needed to learn the language, then he could relax. Maybe Edith had a point.

I went to the local public nursery school in Le Vaudreuil, which had a very good reputation, to see about getting him in. I met with the principal, Annie Grodent, a lively young woman who listened to my story then agreed to take Joe, even though he wasn’t
propre
, or potty trained. He had been, but moving to France had made him revert to his baby ways. It was highly irregular to take a child who wasn’t potty trained, but she didn’t care as long as we understood that no one would change his diaper. They weren’t set up for that.

We agreed to bring Joe for an hour a day. Michael and I walked him to school the first day and handed him over. He burst into tears. Annie, who as well as being the principal was also the teacher in his class, waved us away. I sat on the edge of a chair at home for an hour, then went to retrieve him. He was still crying—he hadn’t stopped. We repeated the exercise that week and the next, two of the worst weeks of Michael’s and my life. By the end of the second week he wasn’t crying, but he wasn’t letting go of Annie, either. She was wonderfully patient. She was surprisingly loving (for a French teacher). She held him, sang to him, took care of him, all the while conducting her class.

By month’s end, Joe was comfortable enough to play with the children, and we left him for two hours at a time, then three. By the end of three months he told us he had a friend, though he wasn’t sure of her name. One Sunday we went to a children’s program at the village
salle des fêtes
, or town hall, and his eyes lit up. “Mama, there she is, my friend,” he said, pointing to a gorgeous little bright-eyed girl. I went to meet her and her parents, overcome with gratitude. They said they knew all about Joe. Annie had told me how their daughter, Lydia, though only three years old herself, had taken Joe under her wing and how they had become fast friends. Thanks to Lydia, Joe looked forward to going to school, and after another three months he was speaking French like a native.

Once Joe was comfortable about staying the whole morning at school, we could pay attention to what he was actually doing there. It was remarkable; Annie had the kids doing craft projects, music, theater, gymnastics. She welcomed songs in English, which she tried to teach to the other children. They went on field trips and had circus performers come to teach them juggling and balancing. It was wonderful, and Joe ended up loving it. We regretted that first month had been so hard on him, but it was such a relief to see him happy at last. His night awakenings stopped, and he visibly relaxed.

Héloïse Tuyéras, now in her early seventies, once had provided day care in her home and took care of Joe for us from time to time. She lives in Le Vaudreuil, and her house is the depot for the local Catholic charity. This means that people with goods to give away simply drop them outside her front door, and she spends her time sorting, mending, cleaning, and ironing everything that comes her way, then makes sure these things go where they are most needed.

When I stopped in to see her during our first week, she pointed out a stack of things she’d been collecting for us. I was surprised. “Héloïse, we’re not needy, we can get these things for ourselves,” I said, imagining truly needy people going without.

“Don’t be silly, Suzanne,” she said. “I get so many things, and you need so many things.” She convinced me not to rest on my pride and handed me a large bag of Legos for Joe and an ironing board. That began a stream of goods which came our way from Héloïse. One day while we were still in the little house by the river, which Joe referred to as France, she called to see if Michael could pick up a four-burner stove that was almost like new. “You can have it if you want it,” she said. “It belongs to a woman who wants to get rid of it, doesn’t want to sell it, doesn’t need the money.” This was a gift from heaven. I was cooking on the two burners that were in the house when we moved in, managing, but I couldn’t do any serious cooking or recipe testing. We had been putting off buying a stove, however, for even the simplest are very expensive. Michael returned that afternoon with the stove, which was a modern, dark brown Rosières, a well-known brand. It had three gas burners and one electric burner, a curious but common quirk in French stoves. The electric burner was like an emergency burner should the gas be cut, a design apparently created after World War II when gas often was cut off. Michael made room for it in our little corner kitchen—with Florence’s blessing—allowing me to cook real meals again.

We now refer to Héloïse as our guardian angel, for during that year she watched over us, continuing to supply us with things we needed, even before we realized we needed them. She lived just a few houses away and would stop by with toys, books, and clothes for Joe, and would call to tell us about furniture that was available. One day she brought over a laundry rack, the next day a small chair for Joe, or a beautiful cotton sheet . . . small things that made life easier for us. She also invited us over for memorable meals, which always included at least one dish guaranteed to please a child as well as adults, like her famed squash purée with apples.

As the months progressed toward winter, rain and bone-chilling days set in. Michael set off early every morning for the house in Louviers, while I got Joe off to school, then worked in my office. Michael would return at noon to pick up Joe, then he worked on plans for the house while Joe napped and played with him and I worked. We’d been in the little house by the river for two months by then, about the amount of time we thought we would have to stay there. But work on the house in Louviers was going slowly, and it was impossible for us to move in yet. Everything was taking much longer than we expected, since it was all so different from anything Michael had ever done, from the electrical system to the plumbing. I checked in with Florence, who reassured us that her little house was ours as long as we wanted it, so we settled in even more.

When the baby-sitter’s tenure was over, we saw her off one gray day. Life began to take on a rhythm. I needed to travel for my research, so at least once a month I left on a Monday and would be gone most of the week, making sure to return in time for the weekend. Then, we went to the Messy House, as Joe called the house in Louviers, which was paradise for him. He could build sand castles in the dining room where Michael stored his pile of sand, or bang nails into boards while Michael built and I cleaned and tried to bring about order.

Our first weekend there was cold, so we were bundled up. We hauled and scrubbed as Joe ran around trying to help. Mid-morning Michael and I both had a longing for coffee, so we all went to the café across the street to take a break and warm up. The owner seemed to know who we were. “Next time if you’d like to take the coffee back to your house you may,” she said in a friendly way. We accepted her offer. On days when we were all in the house, Joe and I would go to the café and I would order two
grand crèmes
and a
chocolat chaud
, which the owner would put on a tray. Holding Joe’s hand and the tray, I would navigate my way across the busy street feeling like a native. We would all sit in whatever room in the house had a ray of sunshine coming into it or, if it was a particularly nice day, we would sit outside in the garden to sip our coffees and chocolate.

Once Michael got a good electrical line installed I was eager to make coffee in the house. I bought an electric coffee maker and some coffee, brought cups from home, and went to our favorite local bakery, J. Gosselin, to buy
sablés
, Normandy’s traditional butter cookies. At morning break time I made coffee in the room upstairs where the owner had lived and where Michael had installed an outlet. This coffee would be the first thing I would prepare in the house, and its making was a momentous occasion. My hands trembled as I fit the paper filter into the machine and measured the coffee into it. I’ll never forget the eerie feeling I had smelling that first tempting, warm, human aroma in the house. Michael and I looked at each other. I could tell he felt the same way. How many people throughout the ages had made coffee, or the equivalent hot, comforting drink, in this house?

That was the first of many pots of coffee brewed in the upstairs room, where we often lunched on one-portion quiches, or small tomato pizzas, or
baguette
sandwiches stuffed with ham or cheese or hard-cooked eggs and vegetables from the bakery.

Progress on the house was steady, but slow. Every time Michael would start on a room, expecting to be able to proceed easily from point A to point B, he’d find something that needed fixing first—a rotten beam that needed replacing, for instance. Before he could replace it, however, he’d have to move a wall, or shore up the floor, or go in some other direction before he could actually get back to point A. He desperately needed a helper, not just for the physical help but to assist him in interpreting the language and the systems of buying materials, but that was out of the question. With the price of Sheetrock alone triple what it was in the United States we needed every centime we had to pay for materials. So Michael worked on alone, slowly developing systems. He would often come home after a materials-buying trip so frustrated he could hardly speak. “People here just don’t want to give out information,” he would fume. “In the States if you have a question you go in a store and ask the people working there and they fall all over you trying to answer it because they want your business. Here, there are a bunch of know-nothing Napoleons working in the stores and they hear my accent and act like they can’t understand a word I’m saying even if they did know the answer.”

Over time Michael learned to avoid the large stores and head for the smaller ones where the prices were somewhat higher but the chance of someone knowing something was far greater.

Within a few months of his starting work on the house the plumbing was functioning, the electricity installed. After we decided which room would be my office Michael cleaned it up and installed enough electrical outlets for all my machines. Edith and I painted it white one afternoon and sanded and varnished the floor the next day, then the following day I moved in. What a relief it was to move my office out of our bedroom in that tiny little house on the river. Now, we wouldn’t be awakened by those late-night faxes from the States.

I had two phone lines installed, arranged my file cabinets, and Michael painted a wood panel my favorite color, turquoise, and laid it atop them as a temporary desk. He built bookcases and put strips of wood on the wall next to the desk. I pounded tiny nails into the strips and hung a bulldog clip on each one, so that I could hang up current projects to keep track of them. Once all the machines, from fax to answering machine to computer and printer, were installed I settled in to work.

From then on, the minute I dropped Joe off at school I went to work in my office. There was no heat in the house but if I got really uncomfortable I simply plugged in a powerful little space heater and aimed it at my feet.

I loved working in that clean room amidst the mayhem, with its window overlooking the garden, the street, and the side of the church. I would shut the door and revel in the clean white walls and the desk and get to work, stopping occasionally to look out the window. The church bells, which ring on the hour, quickly became a beloved sound. I came to distinguish the funeral dirges from the regular bells and whenever one began I would look at the scene spreading out before me, as the hearse arrived along with the florists and their massive bouquets. The funerals became a familiar element in our lives, right along with the weddings, which are a nearly daily event in the month of June.

I am a lapsed Catholic, but I enjoy going to Mass from time to time. I expected to go once in a while, since it occurred within fifty yards of our front door, but somehow, hearing the hymns and organ music and occasionally the congregation praying was enough.

I do delight in watching weddings, though, and the wedding tradition in France calls for a civil ceremony at the town hall, which is up the street from us. Once that has been done, the wedding party makes a procession to the church, stopping at the side door, directly across from my office window. When the entire party is assembled it proceeds inside. For large weddings a set of double doors is opened, which affords me a view of the interior all the way to the altar. I can see the glint of candles and the silhouettes of everyone inside.

Joyfully ringing bells signal the end of the ceremony, and moments later the bride and groom come out the front door onto the
parvis
, or square in front of the church, followed by the crowd and a storm of tissue paper hearts, many of which float on the wind into our front yard. When Joe was small he loved to chase them all over the garden, carefully hoarding his handfuls. The wedding parties gather outside to await the gaily decorated cars that come to pick them up and whisk them away to what will be hours of eating, dancing, and eating again. Some days there are two or three weddings in a row. If I’m in my office I see the priest finally emerge from the church at the end of the day and lock the door with a satisfied flourish before going on his way.

After my office, the next room to be finished was Joe’s room, then our room, then the bathroom, and finally a temporary kitchen, which meant the house now had a working fireplace. All of this took a full year, during which time we stayed in our little cottage on the river. We continued to love it, often taking long walks along the river during summer evenings when it is light until 11
P.M
. I worked steadily on the book, traveling at least one week a month and sometimes more.

That first year I drove the winding wine routes of Alsace, knocked side-view mirrors with another car in the Pyrenees as I went to visit a cheese maker, shivered in the cold waters off the coast in Brittany during a visit to oyster beds, and had the thrill of harvesting mussels right outside of Bordeaux. After each trip I would return laden with specialities—bottles of fruity Alsatian Riesling and an assortment of sausages, an entire Ardi Gasna (Basque sheep’s milk cheese) weighing just over two pounds,
cannellés
(custardy little pastries) from Bordeaux. We tasted these as I recounted my adventures, making them real for everyone.