Friday off as well. This is known as a pont, or bridge. It was very logically pointed out to us that it would be foolish to break up a holiday with one day of work. We began to realize that May could easily be viewed as a month off, interspersed with a few days of work.
Quite apart from the holidays, there was a peculiar loose sense of time for some of the provençal tradesmen that we got to know. Was it safe to leave the house in case that day a tradesman happened to show up, even though for the last three days he had failed to do so?
We created strategies to hold onto the workers until a project was completed. The young man who installed the kitchen cabinets was offered an apéritif and dinner so that he would work to finish the job before he got away that evening.
The mason had said that he would arrive at our place at dawn on Monday, hadn’t he? So by noon on Wednesday I called his wife and said that probably with my poor grasp of French I hadn’t understood him properly, and could she possibly ask him to call to set another day to start the work. We didn’t receive a return call, but the next morning the doorbell rang, and with some curiosity about who was there so early in the morning I opened the door to find the mason standing in front of me.
“Bonjour, Albin,” I cried with some delight, while a measure of surprise must have shown on my face. The custom in Provence, even if two people pass each other on the street for the third time in a day, is to shake hands. If one person is lax about extending his hand it would likely be taken as almost an insult or that one was angry with the other. Albin’s hand had been half-extended while he watched to see what I would do. I reached out and vigorously shook his hand. This ritual demanded looking each other squarely in the eyes at the same time. I could see him visibly relax and then smile.
“Entrez, entrez . . . Marie-Hélène, Albin is here and I’ve invited him in!”
Down the stairs to the front door she came almost at a run.
“Albin, je suis ravie de vous voir,” she enthused.
He obviously missed the irony in the greeting as he glowed with pleasure and stepped inside. I noticed Tabitha slip past our legs and out the door, only to stop when she saw Myrtille sleeping on the flagstones warming in the morning sun. She quickly changed directions and headed off behind the house.
After exchanging all the necessary pleasantries with Albin, we got down to business. There were several hundred floor tiles that had to be returned to the magasin de bricolage, the equivalent to a lumber yard in Canada. Albin had delivered a load of tiles last fall that I had later unwrapped to discover they weren’t the ones we had ordered. I put on some work gloves and pitched in to help load his truck. Albin stacked them one on top of another onto wood pallets in the middle of his truck bed.
“Albin, ce n’est pas possible. Elles glissent et tombent,” I said, making a sliding motion with my hands to indicate the tiles were piled too high and would fall as soon as the truck was set in motion.
“Pas de problème.” he responded casually, smiling at me.
I couldn’t see why he thought loose stacks of tiles would be safe to move, but reluctantly accepted that he knew what he was doing—after all, this was what he did for a living. We finished loading the truck and hopped into the cab. As we began to pull out of the driveway a loud crashing noise erupted behind us. I looked at Albin, who eased the truck to a stop with his mouth hanging open.
“Merde!”
Turning to look back, I saw the tiles spread across the truck bed. Albin climbed up and began to restack them, the broken ones on the bottom, the whole ones on top, arranging them more evenly and wrapping them loosely with plastic in an attempt to prevent further sliding. We started off again, this time very slowly. Fortunately the magasin de bricolage was less than a kilometre away and we arrived without further incident. Albin waved at one of the yardmen to come over with a loader and move the pallets into the storage shed. We walked into the office where he had the salesman credit his account. He had forgotten about the broken tiles.
Albin didn’t stay at the house to do any work that day, nor did we see him for another week. After all, this was the month of May.
“You know,” I said to Marie-Hélène over lunch on the balcony, “I think I’m beginning to understand why we’ve had so much trouble with Albin’s work,” and I related the whole story to her.
We began to realize the drawbacks of owning a house so far away that travelling there was an event in itself. If the job was left with the tradesmen to do in our absence, they inevitably did it as they saw fit, regardless of our instructions.
In our second week the Thursday market was on, so we left the maçon and his crew with specific instructions as to where to open a doorway through a stone wall, and then went to the village to shop that morning. When we returned home, they had marked out with chalk a completely different location on the wall and were getting out hammers and drills to start in. After redirecting their efforts back to where I wanted the door, I asked why they had decided to move it. Apparently they had looked at the wall and thought they had a better idea.
As this was not the first time something like this had occurred—spikes were driven into the exterior stucco while we were in Canada—we put a stop to all work unless we were present to keep a close eye on the progress. This was a sensitive matter, for if they felt they were being watched too closely they would think we didn’t trust them—which in fact was true. And if we weren’t nearby, they reverted to their own decisions despite all instructions to the contrary. I learned to be very precise about what we wanted, both verbally and with gestures, lots of pointing, and even sketches on paper. Then I’d walk away to do some gardening and just happen to be walking by on the way to find a garden tool. I could look in and congratulate them on their work so far. This strategy seemed to be a successful balance of presence yet distance. Often my very passing at a critical moment resulted in their consulting me on the next decision they were about to make. This turned the work into a joint project with us all putting our two cents’ worth in and reaching a consensus before proceeding. It certainly prevented returning to find a hole in the wrong place.
The electrician arrived Tuesday and began installing wiring. Then, at the end of the second day, I saw him putting his tools into his case, so with some concern I asked if he would be back the next day. He reassured me that yes, he would be back, normalement. For a moment I felt relieved, and then with growing alarm I began to think about what he had actually said. He’d said, “Yes, I will be back the next day—” So far so good. But then he had added “normalement.” Slowly I realized what this little addition to the sentence really meant. It meant, “Normally I would be back, but . . .” I had come across that word before. As the French are reluctant to say no, instead they say “yes, normally”—which means “no, definitely.”
I smiled at the electrician as he lifted his tool case and headed toward the door, knowing that I had lost him for an indefinite length of time. I wanted to say something more, but I bit my tongue instead.
No one came the next day and it was mid-May. “Let’s risk it and drive to Avignon on Monday. Probably no one will turn up and we can at least buy the fixtures.”
We needed some bathroom fixtures and decided Leroy Merlin in Le Pontet just north of Avignon was the best place to buy them. Really we just wanted a day’s outing.
In sunny weather the drive south toward Avignon is a delight. Along the narrow and winding D538 from Nyons to Mirabel-aux-Baronnies, crumbling stone structures dot the orchards that cover the rolling hillsides. Between Mirabel and Vaison-la-Romaine, vineyards become more prevalent and signs appear indicating dégustation for anyone who wants to stop. We had stopped and sampled from time to time; however, we felt awkward taking the wives or vignerons away from their work to open bottles for us to taste and then not buy their wine. As a result, we already had a sufficient number of ‘guilt’ wines that wouldn’t cellar long. So we brought them out for unannounced guests before the contents turned to vinegar.
The hills become steeper between Vaison and Le Barroux as the D938 winds along a narrow valley. Then it abruptly descends to the broad fertile plain of the Rhône Valley, where the road straightens