“It could be anywhere here,” he said, and waved his arm over 50 square yards of ground. “Évidemment, that is too much for you to dig.” Our partnership clearly didn’t extend to a sharing of physical labor. “What we need is a machin for detecting metal.” He turned his arm into a metal detector and passed it in sweeps over the grass, making clicking sounds. “Beh oui. That will find it.”
“Alors, qu’est-ce qu’on fait?” Massot made the universal money gesture, rubbing his fingers and thumb together. It was time for a business meeting.
We agreed that I would finish digging the trench, and that Massot would take care of the high technology by renting a metal detector. All that remained to be decided was the financial participation of the partners. I suggested that 10 percent would be a reasonable price to pay for some undemanding work with a metal detector; Massot, however, said he would be more comfortable with 50 percent. There was the drive into Cavaillon to pick up the metal detector, the digging involved when we struck gold, and, most important, the confidence I could feel in having a completely trustworthy partner who would not broadcast the details of our new wealth throughout the neighborhood. Everything, said Massot, must be kept behind the teeth.
I looked at him as he smiled and nodded, and thought that it would be difficult to imagine a more untrustworthy old rogue this side of the bars of Marseille prison. Twenty percent, I said. He winced, sighed, accused me of being a grippesou, and settled for 25 percent. We shook hands on it, and he spat in the trench for luck as he left.
That was the last I saw of him for several days. I finished the trench, laced it with manure, and ordered the roses. The man who delivered them told me that I’d dug far too deep, and asked me why, but I kept the reason behind my teeth.
There is a widespread aversion in Provence to anything that resembles social planning. The Provençal prefers to drop in and surprise you rather than call first to make sure you’re free. When he arrives, he expects you to have time for the pleasantries of a drink and a roundabout conversation before getting down to the purpose of the visit, and if you tell him you have to go out he is puzzled. Why rush? Half an hour is nothing. You’ll only be late, and that’s normal.
It was almost twilight, the time of day entre chien et loup, when we heard a van rattle to a stop outside the house. We were going over to see some friends for dinner in Goult, and so I went out to head off the visitor before he reached the bar and became impossible to dislodge.
The van had its back doors wide open, and was rocking from side to side. There was a thud as something hit the floor, followed by a curse. Putaing! It was my business partner, wrestling with a pickax that was stuck in the metal grill of the dog guard behind the driver’s seat. With a final convulsion the pickax, was wrenched free and Massot emerged backwards, slightly faster than he’d intended.
He was wearing camouflage trousers, a dun sweater, and a jungle-green army surplus hat, all well past their youth. He looked like a badly paid mercenary as he unloaded his equipment and laid it on the ground—the pickax, a long-handled mason’s shovel, and an object wrapped in old sacking. Glancing round to see if anyone was watching, he removed the sacking and held up the metal detector.
“Voilà! This is haut de gamme, top of the range. It is efficacious to a depth of three meters.”
He switched it on, and waved it over his tools. Sure enough, it detected a shovel and a pickax, chattering away like a set of agitated false teeth. Massot was delighted. “Vous voyez? When he finds metal, he talks. Better than digging, eh?”
I said that it was very impressive, and that I’d keep it safely locked up in the house until tomorrow.
“Tomorrow?” said Massot. “But we must start now.”
I said it would be dark in half an hour, and Massot nodded patiently, as though I had finally grasped a very complex theory.
“Exactly!” He put down the metal detector and took hold of my arm. “We don’t want the world watching us, do we? This kind of work is best done at night. It is more discret. Allez! You bring the tools.”
There is another difficulty, I said. My wife and I are going out.
Massot stopped dead and stared at me, his eyebrows drawing themselves up to their full height in astonishment.
“Out? Tonight? Now?”
My wife called from the house. We were already late. Massot shrugged at the curious hours we kept, but insisted that tonight was the night. He would have to do it all, he said plaintively, himself. Could I lend him a flashlight? I showed him how to switch on the spotlight behind the well, which he adjusted so that it lit the area by the rose bed, muttering in irritation at being left tout seul.