I had never employed a millionaire before. I don’t have much time for them as a rule, but this one put in a good long day. Load after load of gravel was delivered and tipped onto the drive by the son. The father shoveled and spread, and Madame Sanchez followed behind with the wooden rake, pushing and smoothing. Then the compacteur was unloaded; it was like a massive baby carriage with handlebars, and it was wheeled ceremoniously up and down the drive with Sanchez the son at the controls, shouting instructions at his parents—another shoveful here, more raking there, mind your feet, don’t tread on the vines.
It was a true family effort, and by the end of the afternoon we had a pristine ribbon of crushed, putty-colored gravel worthy of being entered for the Concours d’Elégance sponsored by Bulldozer Magazine. The compacteur was inserted into the back of the truck; the parents into the front. Young Sanchez said that the price would be less than his estimate, but he would work it out exactly and his father would come around to deliver the bill.
The next morning when I got up, there was an unfamiliar van parked outside the house. I looked for a driver, but there was nobody in the vines or in the outbuildings. It was probably an idle hunter who couldn’t be bothered to walk up from the road.
We were finishing breakfast when there was a tap on the window and we saw the round brown face of Monsieur Sanchez. He wouldn’t come into the house, because he said his boots were too dirty. He had been in the forest since six o’clock, and he had a present for us. From behind his back he produced his old checked cap, bulging with wild mushrooms. He gave us his favorite recipe—oil, butter, garlic, and chopped parsley—and told us a dreadful story about three men who had died after an ill-chosen mushroom supper. A neighbor had found them still at the table with wide, staring eyes—Monsieur Sanchez gave us a demonstration, rolling his eyes back in his head—completely paralyzed by malignant fungus. But we were not to worry, he said. He would stake his life on the mushrooms in his cap. Bon appétit!
My wife and I ate them that evening, studying each other between mouthfuls for signs of paralysis and eye rolling. They tasted so much better than ordinary mushrooms that we decided to invest in a guidebook and to share a pair of anti-snake boots.
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THERE COMES a time in the restoration of an old house when the desire to see it finished threatens all those noble aesthetic intentions to see it finished properly. The temptation to settle for the shortcut nags away as the delays add up and the excuses multiply: the carpenter has severed a fingertip, the mason’s truck has been stolen, the painter has la grippe, fittings ordered in May and promised for June don’t arrive until September, and all the time the concrete mixer and the rubble and the shovels and pickaxes become more and more like permanent fixtures. During the hot months of summer, tranquilized by the sun, it had been possible to look with a patient eye at the uncompleted jobs throughout the house. Now that we were spending more time indoors with them, patience had been replaced by irritation.
With Christian the architect, we went through the rooms to establish who had to do what, and how long it would take.
“Normalement,” said Christian, a man of great charm and implacable optimism, “there is only six or seven days of work. A little masonry, some plastering, two days of painting, et puis voilà. Terminé.”
We were encouraged. As we said to Christian, there had been dark moments recently when we imagined waking up on Christmas morning still surrounded by the debris of a building site.
He threw up everything in horror—hands, eyebrows, and shoulders. What a thought. It was inconceivable that these mere finishing touches should be delayed any longer. He would telephone the various members of the équipe immediately to organize a week of intensive activity. Progress would be made. No, more than progress; a conclusion.
One by one, they came at odd times to the house: Didier and his dog at seven in the morning. The electrician at lunchtime, Ramon the plasterer for an evening drink. They came, not to work, but to look at the work that had to be done. They were all astonished that it had taken so long, as though people other than themselves had been responsible. Each of them told us, confidentially, that the problem was always that one had to wait for the other fellow to finish before one could start. But, when we mentioned Christmas, they roared with laughter. Christmas was months away; they could almost build a complete house by Christmas. There was, however, a common reluctance to name a day.
When can you come? we asked.
Soon, soon, they said.
We would have to be content with that. We went out to the front of the house, where the concrete mixer stood guard over the steps to the front door, and imagined a cypress tree standing in its place.