Toujours Provence(13)

After admiring his artistic judgment, I asked him what he could tell me about toads. He plucked at his moustache, turning half of it orange before remembering the paint on his fingers.

“Merde.” He rubbed his moustache with a rag, spreading paint over his already garish complexion, which the wind and cheap wine had seasoned to the color of a new brick.

He looked pensive, and then shook his head.

“I have never eaten toads,” he said. “Frogs, yes. But toads, never. Doubtless there is an English recipe. No?”

I decided not to attempt describing the English delicacy called toad-in-the-hole. “I don’t want to eat them. I want to know if they can sing.”

Massot peered at me for a moment, trying to make up his mind whether I was serious. He bared his dreadful teeth. “Dogs can sing,” he said. “You just kick them in the couilles and then …” He lifted his head and howled. “Toads might sing. Who knows? It is all a question of training with animals. My uncle in Forcalquier had a goat that danced whenever it heard an accordion. It was very droll, that goat, although in my opinion not as graceful as a pig I once saw with some gypsies—now there was a dancer. Tres délicat, despite the size.”

I told Massot what I had overheard in the café. Did he, by any chance, know the man who trained toads?

“Non. Il n’est pas du coin.” St. Pantaléon, although only a few kilometers away, was on the other side of the main N100 road and was therefore regarded as foreign territory.

Massot was starting to tell me an improbable story about a tame lizard when he remembered his painting, proferred his elbow once again, and went back to his orange walls. On the way home, I came to the conclusion that it was no use asking any of our other neighbors about events taking place so far away. I would have to go to St. Pantaléon and continue my research there.

St. Pantaléon is not large, even by village standards. There might be a hundred inhabitants, there is an auberge, and there is a tiny 12th-century church with a graveyard cut out of rock. The graves have been empty for years, but the shapes remain, some of them baby-sized. It was eerie and cold that day, with the mistral rattling the branches of trees, bare as bones.

An old woman was sweeping her doorstep with the wind at her back, helping the dust and empty Gauloise packets on their way to her neighbor’s doorstep. I asked her if she could direct me to the house of the gentleman with the singing toads. She rolled her eyes and disappeared into the house, slamming the door behind her. As I walked on, I could see the curtain twitch at her window. At lunchtime, she would tell her husband about a mad foreigner roaming the streets.

Just before the bend in the road that leads to Monsieur Aude’s workshop—the Ferronerie d’Art—a man was crouched over his Mobylette, poking it with a screwdriver. I asked him.

“Beh oui,” he said. “It is Monsieur Salques. They say he is an amateur of toads, but I have never met him. He lives outside the village.”

I followed his directions until I came to a small stone house set back from the road. The gravel on the drive looked as though it had been combed, the mailbox was freshly painted, and a business card, protected by Perspex, announced in copperplate script, HONORÉ SALQUES, ÉTUDES DIVERSES. That seemed to cover almost any field of study. I wondered what else he did in between supervising choir practice with his toads.

He opened the door as I was walking up the drive and watched me, his head thrust forward and his eyes bright behind gold-rimmed glasses. He radiated neatness, from his precisely parted black hair down to his noticeably clean small shoes. His trousers had sharp creases and he wore a tie. I could hear the sound of flute music coming from inside the house.

“At last,” he said. “The telephone has been en panne for three days. It is a disgrace.” He pecked his head toward me. “Where are your tools?”

I explained that I hadn’t come to repair his phone, but to learn about his interesting work with toads. He preened, smoothing his already smooth tie with a neat white hand.

“You’re English. I can tell. How pleasing to hear that news of my little celebration has reached England.”

I didn’t like to tell him that it had been the cause of considerable disbelief as close as Lumières, and since he was now in a good humor I asked if I could perhaps visit the choir. He made little clucking noises and wagged a finger under my nose. “It is clear you know nothing about toads. They do not become active until spring. But if you wish, I will show you where they are. Wait there.”

He went into the house, and reappeared wearing a thick cardigan against the chill, carrying a flashlight and a large old key labeled, in copperplate script, STUDIO. I followed him through the garden until we came to a beehive-shaped building made from dry, flat stones—one of the bories that were typical of Vaucluse architecture a thousand years ago.