Peter Mayle - A Year In Provence

"So you see," I said to our friend from Paris, "one way or another, there's never a dull moment."

He didn't reply, and I reached over and took off his sunglasses. The sun in his eyes woke him up.

"What?"

LE PREMIER MAI started well, with a fine sunrise, and as it was a national holiday we thought we should celebrate in correct French fashion by paying homage to the summer sport and taking to our bicycles.

Tougher and more serious cyclists had been training for weeks, muffled against the spring winds in thick black tights and face masks, but now the air was warm enough for delicate amateurs like us to go out in shorts and sweaters. We had bought two lightweight and highly strung machines from a gentleman in Cavaillon called Edouard Cunty-' Vélos de Qualité! '-and we were keen to join the brightly colored groups from local cycling clubs as they swooped gracefully and without any apparent effort up and down the back country roads. We assumed that our legs, after a winter of hard walking, would be in good enough condition for a gentle ten-mile spin up to Bonnieux and over to Lacoste-an hour of light exercise to limber up, nothing too strenuous.

It was easy enough to begin with, although the narrow, hard saddles made an early impression, and we realized why some cyclists slip a pound of rump steak inside the back of their shorts to cushion the coccyx from the road. But for the first couple of miles there was nothing to do except glide along and enjoy the scenery. The cherries were ripening, the winter skeletons of the vines had disappeared under a cover of bright green leaves, the mountains looked lush and soft. The tires made a steady thrumming sound, and there were occasional whiffs of rosemary and lavender and wild thyme. This was more exhilarating than walking, quieter and healthier than driving, not too taxing, and altogether delightful. Why hadn't we done it before? Why didn't we do it every day?

The euphoria lasted until we began to climb up to Bonnieux. My bicycle suddenly put on weight. I could feel the muscles in my thighs complaining as the gradient became steeper, and my unseasoned backside was aching. I forgot about the beauties of nature and wished I had worn steak in my shorts. By the time we reached the village it hurt to breathe.

The woman who runs the Café Clerici was standing outside with her hands on her ample hips. She looked at the two red-faced, gasping figures bent over their handlebars. " Mon Dieu! The Tour de France is early this year." She brought us beer, and we sat in the comfort of chairs designed for human bottoms. Lacoste now seemed rather far away.

The hill that twists up to the ruins of the Marquis de Sade's chateau was long and steep and agonizing. We were halfway up and flagging when we heard a whirr of dérailleur gears, and we were overtaken by another cyclist-a wiry, brown man who looked to be in his mid-sixties. "Bonjour," he said brightly, "bon vélo," and he continued up the hill and out of sight. We labored on, heads low, thighs burning, regretting the beer.

The old man came back down the hill, turned, and cruised along next to us. "Courage," he said, not even breathing hard, "c'est pas loin. Allez!" And he rode with us into Lacoste, his lean old legs, shaved bare in case of falls and grazes, pumping away with the smoothness of pistons.

We collapsed on the terrace of another café, which overlooked the valley. At least it would be downhill most of the way home, and I gave up the idea of calling an ambulance. The old man had a peppermint frappé , and told us that he had done thirty kilometers so far, and would do another twenty before lunch. We congratulated him on his fitness. "It's not what it was. I had to stop doing the Mont Ventoux ride when I turned sixty. Now I just do these little promenades ." Any slight satisfaction we felt at climbing the hill disappeared.

The ride back was easier, but we were still hot and sore when we reached home. We dismounted and walked stiff-legged to the pool, discarding clothes as we went, and dived in. It was like going to heaven. Lying in the sun afterwards with a glass of wine we decided that cycling would be a regular part of our summer lives. It was, however, some time before we could face the saddles without flinching.

THE FIELDS around the house were inhabited every day by figures moving slowly and methodically across the landscape, weeding the vineyards, treating the cherry trees, hoeing the sandy earth. Nothing was hurried. Work stopped at noon for lunch in the shade of a tree, and the only sounds for two hours were snatches of distant conversation that carried hundreds of yards on the still air.

Faustin was spending most of his days on our land, arriving just after seven with his dog and his tractor and usually contriving to organize his work so that it ended near the house-close enough to hear the sound of bottles and glasses. One drink to settle the dust and be sociable was his normal ration but, if the visit stretched to two drinks, it meant business-some new step forward in agricultural cooperation which he had been mulling over during his hours among the vines. He never approached a subject directly, but edged toward it, crabwise and cautious.

"Do you like rabbits?"

I knew him well enough to understand that he wasn't talking about the charms of the rabbit as a domestic pet, and he confirmed this by patting his belly and muttering reverently about civets and pâtés . But the trouble with rabbits, he said, was their appetites. They ate like holes, kilos and kilos. I nodded, but I was at a loss to know where our interests and those of the hungry rabbit coincided.

Faustin stood up and beckoned me to the door of the courtyard. He pointed at two small terraced fields. " Lucerne," he said. "Rabbits love it. You could get three cuts from those fields between now and autumn." My knowledge of local plant life was far from complete, and I had thought that the fields were covered in some kind of dense Provençal weed which I had been meaning to clear. It was fortunate I hadn't; Faustin's rabbits would never have forgiven me. It was an unexpected triumph for gardening by neglect. In case I had missed the point, Faustin waved his glass at the fields and said again, "Rabbits love lucerne." He made nibbling noises. I told him he could have as much as his rabbits could eat, and he stopped nibbling.

" Bon. If you're sure you won't need it." Mission accomplished, he stumped off toward his tractor.

Faustin is slow in many ways, but quick with his gratitude. He was back the following evening with an enormous bouquet of asparagus, neatly tied with red, white, and blue ribbon. His wife, Henriette, was behind him carrying a pickax, a ball of string, and a tub filled with young lavender plants. They should have been planted long before, she said, but her cousin had only just brought them down from the Basses-Alpes. They must be planted at once.

Labor was divided rather unfairly, it seemed to us. Faustin was in charge of keeping the string straight and drinking pastis; Henriette swung the pickaxe, each planting hole a pick handle's distance from the next. Offers to help were refused. "She's used to it," said Faustin proudly, as Henriette swung and measured and planted in the twilight, and she laughed. "Eight hours of this and you sleep like a baby." In half an hour it was done-a bed of fifty plants that would be the size of hedgehogs in six months, knee high in two years, arranged with meticulous symmetry to mark the boundary of the rabbits' lucerne factory.

Whatever had been on the menu for dinner was forgotten, and we prepared the asparagus. There was too much for one meal, more than I could get both hands around, the patriotic tricolor ribbon printed with Faustin's name and address. He told us that it was the law in France for the producer to be identified like this, and we hoped one day to have our own ribbon when our asparagus plants grew up.