LITMIR.BIZ

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and returned to her food dish.

      “In a minute, Tabitha,” I said.

      “She wants to be fed.”

      “I’m getting a bottle of wine from the cellar. Then I’ll feed her.”

      I walked away, but Tabitha dashed after me, batted at my leg, bit my ankle and then ran off.

      “Ouch!” I said. “Why did she do that?”

      “You didn’t feed her.”

      I opened a can of cat food, spooned some into a bowl and put it on the floor. We were at the table having dinner when Tabitha walked back into the kitchen. She ignored her food bowl and sat on the floor beside me. Then she reached up with one paw and patted at my wrist.

      “She’s poaching. Don’t spoil her.”

      I gave her a bit of meat from my plate and she ate it. Then she walked over to Hélène, reached up and patted her on the wrist. Hélène muttered something and then picked a bit of meat off her plate and held it out. Tabitha nipped at it to pull it out of her fingers and let it drop to the floor, where she ate it and asked for more.

      “Merde,” Hélène said.

      At that moment Myrtille announced her presence with an owlish Siamese meow, followed by vigorously rubbing herself against my leg. Next she went to check out the food bowl and ate what Tabitha was now ignoring. Tabitha watched Myrtille and then reached up and patted Hélène’s hand once more. A détente between the two cats had been reached last summer, but there were still territorial rivalries that surfaced in short skirmishes. Tabitha had staked out the sofa as her space. All the same, Myrtille would walk by, rubbing her tail along the cushion that Tabitha was sleeping on, as if testing the exact boundary. Then she would walk away to curl up on the seat of one of the wicker chairs that was pushed under the kitchen table.

      A few days later we were washing up the dishes after dinner when Myrtille reappeared in the olive tree and hopped onto the balcony to stand at the open French doors to the kitchen. She didn’t come in. Odd, I thought, as I got on with what I was doing. Then she turned and walked back over to the edge of the balcony where she meowed and sat looking down the tree.

      Hélène stepped onto the balcony to the railing to see what this was about. “She’s not alone.”

      I came out. At the base of the olive tree were two young cats, not kittens any longer, but not yet grown to their full size. One after the other, not having acquired the full agility and assurance of adult cats, they clawed their way clumsily up the tree and onto the balcony.

      “She’s brought her kittens for us.”

      Hélène put a bowl of cat food on the floor. They walked over and ate, pushing and shoving at each other. Myrtille, who last year had what could be called a competitive appetite, just sat nearby and watched. The two young ones stayed long enough for us to pick them up, pet them and then put them down next to Myrtille, who watched every movement. Finally, she led them back down the olive tree. That was the only time she showed us her kittens; she did not bring them around again. She seemed to treat our house as her time away from them—a mother tired of the demands of her offspring.

      • • •

      Every Frenchman seemed to own un vélo and ventured out regularly, either alone or in groups, spinning in swarms along the roads. Cars inevitably lined up behind, waiting impatiently yet politely for any straight stretch of road to pass. My vélo, an all-purpose bike with fatter tires to accommodate rougher roads, had become a companion of sorts. If I stopped riding for more than a day or two, I missed the exercise and was anxious to get back to it once again.

      One morning, as I rode into the village, I saw the owner of the bookstore, the librairie, putting out a stand of road maps, so I stopped and went in. L’Institut Géographique National of France (IGN) published a blue series of 1:250,000 scale maps for every region of the country. When I unfolded the map covering our village, I was surprised at the detail. I could make out even the smallest lanes and trails as well as a black rectangle that indicated our villa. This was a treasure of information for back-road cycling, so I bought maps for all the surrounding areas.

      The IGN maps led me and my bike in the ensuing months down lanes and shortcuts to places along meandering routes I never dared to take the car—even to tiny hamlets at the end of remote trails that only the residents drove and few people knew existed.

      The new activity of biking that I had taken up on returning this spring was both physically rewarding and mentally stimulating. Riding gave me time to think about the culture of Provence. It was still an exotic place for me, where formal rituals and cultural differences often crept up unexpectedly. At first they seemed subtle and minimal: another language, one that was manageable with effort; the strict formality of greeting someone; rigid restaurant hours with no place open to eat between breakfast and lunch, and between lunch and dinner, unless a McDonald’s had made an unwanted inroad into a village. It was as if the very view of the world in Provence was different from that in Canada. Workers going out on strike at any opportunity and staying out until the country reached the brink of economic meltdown and social chaos was considered normal. The more I learned, the more small things eluded me.

      Walking my bike into the garage late one morning, I found Hélène stretching after one of her runs.

      “So where did you ride today?” she asked.

      “To the east. First to Les Pilles along the D94 and then south on the D185 to Châteauneuf-de-Bordette behind Montagne Garde Grosse. I came out of the hills near Mirabel-aux-Baronnies and then took the D538 back.” I said this rather matter-of-factly, although my pride must have been showing.

      “That’s great. You’re getting to know those roads.”

      “Col de la Croix Rouge is back there, and it’s a bugger to climb—almost a mountain pass. The road runs over a steep ridge between two valleys. There’s a church with a big red cross at the top in the middle of nowhere. It’s stunning in there—rugged and lonely as hell. I don’t know how people a hundred years ago eked out a living on those barren hillsides; yet there are stone farmhouses up there with no running water or plumbing. They have electricity and TV dishes, but those may be the only concessions to modern life. I actually rode by an old woman who was leading her donkey with a load of firewood on its back.”

      “You’re losing weight,” Hélène said.

      “Yes, I guess I am. That was my ‘office weight’, from sitting at a desk all day.” I certainly felt trimmer. Then I glanced at her physique, lean from running every other day. She saw my admiration and smiled.

      Chapter 5

      budbreak and other things ~ where to meet the locals

      AS SPRING ADVANCED, the weather improved along with my stamina, allowing me to venture out farther afield. I also noticed that my body felt uncomfortable when I missed a ride. I was becoming addicted to physical exercise. Some days I rode in the direct hot sun, while other days the shadows of clouds chased me over the landscape. I even went out in wet weather, wearing simply a waterproof jacket; the energy I expended kept me warm. Facing into the wind could change everything, making an easy stretch of level road like an uphill ride until I finally tired, turned around and, with my clothes flapping around me in the breeze, let the wind help carry me home.

      By mid-April budbreak was well underway in the vineyards and the tight clusters of flowers would soon be replaced by grape bunches. This was a risky time of year, for a late frost could easily damage the flowers before the grapes had a chance to set. The apricots had already successfully flowered, despite a close call with the late snowfall.

      Pierre Luc had invited me over to talk about the growing season ahead and show me how his vineyards were coming along. We talked for several hours while walking the rows that I had helped prune a month earlier. As he spoke his pride showed, and I was his willing audience, learning about vineyards and winemaking. His wife, Fanny, had attended l’Université du Vin just after they were married. He had given up on the vineyards, and when their daughter, Violette, was born, he tried

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