LITMIR.BIZ

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pungent odour of the truffle. It was hardly the size of a large marble, covered in pale earth with the dark brown colour of the truffle showing through.

      “This one’s bigger,” Marcel said, brushing the mud off another one and handing it to me. “Some people call it a diamant noir—a black diamond. Others call it a smelly lump of coal. Do you see that there is no grass growing under that tree?” He made a sideways glance at a tree to indicate that I should follow his gaze. “Truffles feed on the roots and take over the ground. That’s why it’s so barren there.”

      He put the truffles in a small sack, then bent over and lavished affection on his dog again, petting its head and rubbing its sides. Then he pointed at the trees. The dog seemed to understand the gesture, for it went in that direction, sniffing the ground, stopping only to see if Marcel was following.

      By mid-afternoon we had returned to Marcel’s house with a good handful of truffles in his sack. “We’ll wash them and dry them.” He emptied the contents on the kitchen table and looked them over. “You are with us for dinner, non?”

      “Well, Hélène is at home and . . .”

      “Excellent!” He said, now grinning while scrubbing the truffles in the sink and depositing them one by one on a dry cloth before returning them to the sack. “My wife wants to meet you both, and she has dinner all planned. Here,” he said, handing me the sack. “C’est pour vous—these are yours. I can get more another day.” He held it out to me.

      This was clearly a ‘don’t refuse or risk insulting him’ situation. I took the sack and thanked him.

      “At seven o’clock then,” he said, leading me to the door.

      On a cold winter night, the country dinner was almost intoxicating. Marcel’s gruff exterior seemed transformed around his family. They welcomed us into their home, and his wife and their two children showed a genuine happiness and contentment with life. For people working hard to make a living on their farm, they showed a generosity that left us feeling like best of friends, friends who had known each other for years. There was a camaraderie which warmed us with its honesty.

      Two mornings later, Jean backed his old Renault down his driveway behind our house and I walked out with a ski suit, gloves and toque in my arms. The two of us had decided to drive several hours into the mountains past Serres to Montagne du Loup. The weather had warmed and the snow was slushy and difficult, so we skied ourselves to exhaustion and then arrived back late in the afternoon of the third day.

      I was thinking about dropping into a comfortable bed when Hélène looked at my dishevelled, unshaven state and pushed me toward the shower.

      “Suzette has invited us to dinner tonight. You’ve got half an hour to clean up and get dressed.”

      I did as I was told.

      Jean, in his seventies, was a good ten years my senior and, as he walked down his driveway to greet us, he looked refreshed and ready for the evening. He had outskied me, and I was the worse for wear in trying to keep up. Rest was about the only thing that interested me at this point.

      Suzette’s dinner was wonderful and gave us a chance to catch up on the news of the winter. After a lot of talk Hélène raised both her hands in mock drama.

      “Last night I awoke to a cat screeching outside. It was so loud I thought something awful had happened. So I got out of bed and looked out the window. Of course I couldn’t see anything, but the screeching got louder than ever. I put on my slippers and went outside. I couldn’t tell what was going on, but I could see that Tabitha was up a tree by the gate. So, with great difficulty, I got the ladder out and carried it over, put it against the tree and climbed up to rescue her. Just then a car came up the road. There I was in nothing but my nightie and fluffy slippers on a cold winter night halfway up a tree, caught in the headlights of a car! And even worse, the driver stopped, got out and asked if I was all right. All I could say was that I was fine, thank you. I guess he saw my embarrassment because he just smiled at me and then got back in his car and drove off.”

      Suzette and Jean burst out laughing. I stared at Hélène. She blushed.

      “Tabitha was fine. I’ll bet everyone in Nyons knows about me by now.”

      “Let me tell you a story we heard this winter,” Suzette said. “Two elderly couples who had known each other for years would get together regularly for dinner. Their children were grown and away from home; so to fill the emotional gap created by their departure, both couples had acquired pets.

      “The one couple—who I’ll call ‘Monsieur/Dame X’, for I can’t use their names—were cat fanciers. The other couple—who I’ll call ‘Monsieur/Dame Y’—preferred lapdogs and had a miniature Chihuahua. It went everywhere with them, even to their friends’ house one night this last winter. The plan was to have apéritifs there and then go out to a restaurant. One thing led to another and after more than just one apéro they were ready to leave for the restaurant but both pets were asleep, the cat curled up on the couch and the dog on a deep cushioned armchair next to one of its owners. So they left them.

      “Dinner was a great success, and by the time they left the restaurant it was quite late. Arriving home they found the front door ajar. After checking the house for possible burglars, the only thing missing was the miniature Chihuahua. The cat was asleep on the couch where they had left it. They searched the house a second time and then the garden as best they could in the dark of night, but the dog was not found. Finally they gave up, and Monsieur/Dame Y went home without their dog.

      “The next day the search commenced again but with no better result. Then, weeks later, when Madame X was cleaning house, she swept the broom under the sofa and along with the dust she found a small, wiry curve of beige hair. She picked it up, examined it and then looked at her cat that was sleeping peacefully on the couch. ‘Oh, Minou!’ she said. Eventually Monsieur/Dame Y acquired another dog, and everything settled back to normal once more.”

      “Is that really true?” Hélène asked, shocked.

      “Well, apparently it was a very big tom,” Suzette replied. “Shall we have dessert?”

      • • •

      We were now settling into our normal routine each morning, Hélène making coffee while I drove into Nyons to buy the daily edition of the International Herald Tribune as well as fresh croissants. I knew that the boulangère made only enough croissants to satisfy the daily demand and no more, so I had to set off early each day. It was about one kilometre from our house to the main square of Nyons, just far enough so that I didn’t want to walk, yet ridiculously close to use the car, but all the same I drove.

      It was busy as I stepped inside the boulangerie, and the waiting Nyonsais looked me over one by one before looking away again. I was l’étranger—the outsider in their midst. So much for blending in, I thought, as I waited in the crowded space between the door and the counter. The air was permeated with the smell of freshly baked goods and heavy with moisture. The windows were fogged over and there was a constant rustling-of-paper sound: bags being stuffed with pastries; breads being wrapped with bits of paper to cover the centre part of the loaf and not the ends.

      “Cinq euros, trente!” the lady boulangère behind the counter snapped out, as if to move on to another customer. When my turn came I had already had time to practise in my mind the words I needed to use, and so I said “Quatre croissants, deux pains-au-chocolat et une baguette, s’il vous plaît.”

      “Les beurres ou non?” she fired back at me.

      “Les beurres,” I said. I had forgotten that croissants at this boulangerie were available either with extra butter or ‘normal’.

      She filled the paper bag while I pulled a crumpled ten-euro note out of my pocket and put it on the glass countertop.

      “Merci, madame,” I said, picking up my change and the paper bag.

      “À demain,” she said, acknowledging that I would be back the next day. I smiled at her and then wove my way past waiting customers to get to the

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