Toujours Provence (18 page)

“It’s part of the menu,” said Régis.

Both of them seemed worried, as though I had suddenly been taken ill, but it was no good. Hiély had won by a knockout.

The bill was 230 francs a head, plus wine. It was astonishing value for the money. For 280 francs, we could have had the long
menu dégustation
. Maybe next time, said Régis. Yes, maybe next time, after three days of fasting and a 10-mile walk.

The second half of the gastronomy course was postponed to allow Régis to take his annual cure. For two weeks, he ate sparingly—three-course meals instead of his customary five courses—and soaked his liver in mineral water. This was essential for the rejuvenation of his system.

To celebrate the end of the
régime
, he proposed lunch at a restaurant called
Le Bec Fin
, and told me to meet him there no later than quarter to twelve to be sure of a table. I should be able to find it easily enough, he said. It was on the RN 7 at Orgon, recognizable by the number of trucks in the car park. It would not be necessary to wear a jacket. My wife, wiser than I in the heat, decided to stay and guard the pool.

By the time I arrived, the restaurant was completely surrounded by trucks, their cabins jammed tight against tree trunks to take advantage of the scraps of shade. Half a dozen car transporters were drawn up, nose to tail, on the hard shoulder opposite. A latecomer cruised off the road, squeezed
into a narrow strip next to the dining room, and stopped with a hydraulic hiss of relief. The driver stood for a moment in the sun and eased his back, the shape of his arched spine repeated exactly in the generous swell of his stomach.

The bar was full and loud; big men, big moustaches, big bellies, big voices. Régis, standing in a corner with a glass, looked almost svelte by comparison. He was dressed for July, in running shorts and a sleeveless vest, his handbag looped over one wrist.

“Salut!”
He tidied up the last of his
pastis
and ordered two more.
“C’est autre chose, eh? Pas comme Hiély.”

It could hardly have been less like Hiély. Behind the bar, damp from the wet cloth that Madame was using in great swoops, was a notice that said
DANGER
!
RISQUE D’ENGUE-LADE
!—watch out for a slanging match. Through the open door that led to the lavatory I could see another notice:
DOUCHE,
8
FRANCS
. From an invisible kitchen came the clatter of saucepans and the hot tang of simmering garlic.

I asked Régis how he felt after his period of self-imposed restraint, and he turned sideways to show off his belly in profile. Madame behind the bar looked up as she flicked the froth from a glass of beer with a wooden spatula. She inspected the long curve that started just below Régis’s chest and ended overhanging the waistband of his running shorts. “When’s it due?” she asked.

We went through to the dining room and found an empty table at the back. A small dark woman with a pretty smile and an undisciplined black brassiere strap that resisted her efforts at adjustment came to tell us the rules. For the first course, we should serve ourselves from the buffet, and then there was a choice of beef, calamari, or
poulet fermier
. The
wine list was brief—red or
rosé
, which came in a liter bottle with a plastic stopper and a bowl of ice cubes. The waitress wished us
bon appétit
, performed a little bob that was almost a curtsy, hitched up her bra strap, and went off with our order.

Régis opened the wine with mock ceremony and sniffed the plastic stopper. “From the Var,” he said,
“sans prétention, mais honnête.”
He took a sip and drew it slowly through his front teeth.
“Il est bon.”

We joined the line of truck drivers at the buffet. They were achieving small miracles of balance, piling their plates with an assortment that was a meal in itself: two kinds of
saucisson
, hard-boiled eggs in mayonnaise, moist tangles of
celeri rémoulade
, saffron-colored rice with red peppers, tiny peas and sliced carrots, a pork
terrine
in pastry,
rillettes
, cold squid, wedges of fresh melon. Régis grumbled at the size of the plates and took two, resting the second with a waiter’s expertise on the inside of his forearm as he plundered each of the serving bowls.

There was a moment of panic when we returned to the table. Impossible even to think of eating without bread. Where was the bread? Régis caught the eye of our waitress and raised a hand to his mouth, making biting motions with bunched fingers against his thumb. She pulled a
baguette
from the brown paper sack standing in the corner and ran it through the guillotine with a speed that made me wince. The slices of bread were still reflating after the pressure of the blade when they were put in front of us.

I told Régis that he might be able to use the bread guillotine in his Marquis de Sade cookbook, and he paused in mid-
saucisson
.

“Peut-etre,”
he said, “but one must be careful, above all with the American market. Have you heard about the difficulty with the champagne?”

Apparently, so Régis had read in a newspaper article, the champagne of the Marquis de Sade had not been welcome in the land of the free because of its label, which was decorated with a drawing of the top half of a well-endowed young woman. This might not have been a problem, except that a sharp-eyed guardian of public morality had noticed the position of the young woman’s arms. It was not explicit, not depicted on the label itself, but there was the merest hint of a suggestion that the arms
might have been pinioned
.

Oh là là
. Imagine the effect of such degeneracy on the youth of the country, not to mention some of the more susceptible adults. The fabric of society would be ripped asunder, and there would be champagne and bondage parties all the way from Santa Barbara to Boston. God only knows what might happen in Connecticut.

Régis resumed eating, his paper napkin tucked in the top of his vest. At the next table, a man on his second course unbuttoned his shirt to let the air circulate, and revealed a stupendous mahogany paunch with a gold crucifix suspended neatly between furry bosoms. Very few people were picking at their food, and I wondered how they could manage to stay alert at the wheel of a 50-ton truck all afternoon.

We wiped our empty plates with bread, and then wiped our knives and forks the same way. Our waitress came with three oval stainless steel dishes, burning hot. On the first were two halves of a chicken in gravy; on the second, tomatoes stuffed with garlic and parsley; on the third, tiny potatoes that had been roasted with herbs. Régis sniffed everything before serving me.

“What do the
routiers
in England eat?”

Two eggs, bacon, chips, sausages, baked beans, a fried slice, a pint of tea.

“No wine? No cheese? No desserts?”

I didn’t think so, although my
routier
experience had been very limited. I said they might stop at a pub, but the law about drinking and driving was severe.

Régis poured some more wine. “Here in France,” he said, “I am told that one is permitted an
apéritif
, half a bottle of wine, and a
digestif.
”

I said that I had read somewhere about the accident rate in France being higher than anywhere in Europe, and twice as high as in America.

“That has nothing to do with alcohol,” said Régis. “It is a question of national
esprit
. We are impatient, and we love speed.
Malheureusement
, not all of us are good drivers.” He mopped his plate and changed the conversation back to more comfortable ground.

“This is a high quality chicken, don’t you think?” He picked up a bone from his plate and tested it between his teeth. “Good strong bones. He has been raised properly, in the open air. The bones of an industrial chicken are like
papier-mâché.
”

It was indeed a fine chicken, firm but tender, and perfectly cooked, like the potatoes and the garlicky tomatoes. I said that I was surprised not only at the standard of cooking, but the abundance of the portions. And I was sure the bill wasn’t going to be painful.

Régis cleaned his knife and fork again, and signaled the waitress to bring cheese.

“It’s simple,” he said. “The
routier
is a good client, very faithful. He will always drive the extra fifty kilometers to eat well at a correct price, and he will tell other
routiers
that the
restaurant is worth a detour. As long as the standard is maintained, there will never be empty tables.” He waved a forkful of Brie at the dining room.
“Tu vois?”

I looked around, and gave up counting, but there must have been close to a hundred men eating, and maybe thirty more in the bar.

“It is a solid business. But if the chef becomes mean, or starts cheating, or the service is too slow, the
routiers
will go. Within a month, there will be nobody, a few tourists.”

There was a rumble outside, and the room became sunny as a truck pulled away from its place next to the window. Our neighbor with the crucifix put on his sunglasses to eat his dessert, a bowl of three different ice creams.

“Glaces, crème caramel, ou flan?”
The black bra strap was hitched into place, only to slip out again as the waitress cleared our table.

Régis ate his
crème caramel
with soft sucking sounds of enjoyment, and reached for the ice cream that he had ordered for me. I’d never make a
routier
. I didn’t have the capacity.

It was still early, well before two, and the room was beginning to clear. Bills were being paid—huge fingers opening dainty little purses to take out carefully folded banknotes, the waitress bobbing and smiling and hitching as she brought change and wished the men
bonne route
.

We had double-strength coffee, black and scalding beneath its scum of brown bubbles, and Calvados in rotund little glasses. Régis tipped his glass until its rounded side touched the table and the gold liquid exactly reached the rim—the old way, he said, of judging a true measure.

The bill for us both was 140 francs. Like our lunch at Hiély, it was wonderful value for the money, and I had only
one regret as we went outside and felt the hammer of the sun. If I’d brought a towel, I could have had a shower.

“Well,” said Régis, “that will hold me until tonight.” We shook hands, and he threatened me with a
bouillabaisse
in Marseille on our next educational outing.

I went back into the bar for some more coffee, and to see if I could rent a towel.

The Ménerbes stadium, a level field among the vines, is normally the setting for loud and enthusiastic matches played by the village soccer team. There might be a dozen cars parked under the pine trees, and supporters divide their attention between the game and their copious picnics. But for one day a year, usually the second Sunday in June, the
stade
is transformed. Bunting, in the Provençal blood and guts colors of red and yellow, is strung across the forest paths. An overgrown hollow is cleared to provide extra parking, and a screen of split bamboo
canisse
is erected along the side of the road so that passersby can’t watch the proceedings without paying their 15-franc entrance fee. Because this is, after all, a major local event, a mixture of Crufts dog show and Ascot, the
Foire aux Chiens de Ménerbes
.

This year it started early and noisily. Just after seven, we were opening the doors and shutters and enjoying the one morning of the week when our neighbor’s tractor stays in bed. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, the valley was still. Peace, perfect peace. And then, half a mile away
over the hill, the
chef d’animation
began his loudspeaker trials with an electronic yelp that ricochetted through the mountains and must have woken up half the Lubéron.

“Allo allo, un, deux, trois, bonjour Ménerbes!”
He paused to cough. It sounded like an avalanche.
“Bon,”
he said,
“ça marche.”
He turned the volume down a notch and tuned in to Radio Monte Carlo. A quiet morning was out of the question.

We had decided to wait until the afternoon before going to the show. By then the preliminary heats would be over, mongrels and dogs of dubious behavior would be weeded out, a good lunch would have been had by all, and the best noses in the business would be ready to do battle in the field trials.

On the stroke of noon, the loudspeaker went dead and the background chorus of barking was reduced to the occasional plaintive serenade of a hound expressing unrequited lust or boredom. The valley was otherwise silent. For two hours, dogs and everything else took second place to stomachs.

“Tout le monde a bien mangé?”
bellowed the loudspeaker. The microphone amplified a half-suppressed belch.
“Bon. Alors, on recommence.”
We started off along the track that leads to the
stade
.