A Year in Provence(30)

They started on Monday with a visit from Marcel the Parcel, our postman. He was irritated, barely pausing to shake hands before demanding to know where I had hidden the mailbox. He had his rounds to do, it was almost noon, how could I expect him to deliver letters if he had to play cache-cache with the mailbox? But we hadn’t hidden it. So far as I knew, it was down at the end of the drive, firmly planted on a steel post. “Non,” said the postman, “it has been moved.” There was nothing for it but to walk down the drive together and spend a fruitless five minutes searching the bushes to see if it had been knocked over. There was no sign that a mailbox had ever been there except a small post hole in the ground. “Voilà,” said the postman, “it is as I told you.” I found it hard to believe that anyone would steal a mailbox, but he knew better. “It is quite normal,” he said, “people around here are mal fini.” I asked him what that meant. “Mad.”

Back to the house we went, to restore his good humor with a drink and to discuss the installation of a new mailbox that he would be happy to sell me. We agreed that it should be built into the side of an old well, positioned at the regulation height of seventy centimeters above the ground so that he could drop letters in without having to leave his van. Obviously, the well had to be studied and measurements taken, and by then it was time for lunch. Post office business would be resumed at two o’clock.

A couple of days later, I was summoned from the house by a car horn, and found the dogs circling a new white Mercedes. The driver wasn’t prepared to leave the safety of his car, but risked a half-open window. I looked in and saw a small brown couple beaming at me nervously. They complimented me on the ferocity of the dogs and requested permission to get out. They were both dressed for the city, the man in a sharply cut suit, his wife in hat and cloak and patent-leather boots.

How fortunate to find me at home, they said, and what a beautiful house. Had I lived here long? No? Then I would undoubtedly be needing some genuine Oriental carpets. This was indeed my lucky day, because they had just come from an important carpet exhibition in Avignon, and by chance a few choice items remained unsold. Before taking them up to Paris—where people of taste would fight to buy them—the couple had decided to take a drive in the country, and fate had led them to me. To mark the happy occasion, they were prepared to let me choose from their most exquisite treasures at what they described as very interesting prices.

While the natty little man had been telling me the good news, his wife had been unloading carpets from the car and arranging them artistically up and down the drive, commenting loudly on the charms of each one: “Ah, what a beauty!” and “See the colors in the sun” and “This one—oh, I shall be sad to see it go.” She trotted back to join us, patent boots twinkling, and she and her husband looked at me expectantly.

The carpet seller does not enjoy a good reputation in Provence, and to describe a man as a marchand de tapis is to imply that he is at best shifty and at worst someone who would steal the corset from your grandmother. I had also been told that traveling carpet sellers often acted as reconnaissance parties, spying out the land for their burglar associates. And there was always the possibility that the carpets would be fakes, or stolen.

But they didn’t look like fakes, and there was one small rug that I thought was very handsome. I made the mistake of saying so, and Madame looked at her husband in well-rehearsed surprise. “Extraordinary!” she said. “What an eye Monsieur has. This is indisputably our favorite too. But why not have something a little bigger as well?” Alas, I said, I was penniless, but this was brushed aside as a minor and temporary inconvenience. I could always pay later, with a substantial discount for cash. I looked again at the rug. One of the dogs was lying on it, snoring gently. Madame crooned with delight. “You see, Monsieur? The toutou has chosen it for you.” I gave in. After three minutes of inexpert haggling on my part, the original price was reduced by 50 percent, and I went to fetch the checkbook. They watched closely while I made out the check, telling me to leave the payee’s name blank. With a promise to return next year, they drove slowly around our new rug and the sleeping dog, Madame smiling and waving regally from her nest of carpets. Their visit had taken up the entire morning.

The final interruption ended the week on a sour note. A truck had come to deliver gravel and, as I watched it backing toward the spot the driver had chosen to unload, the rear wheels suddenly sank into the ground. There was a crack, and the truck tilted backwards. A pungent and unmistakable smell filled the air. The driver got out to inspect the damage and said, with unconscious accuracy, the single most appropriate word for the occasion.