Toujours Provence(48)
“Chose extraordinaire,” he said. “When these dogs are hunting, nothing will distract them. They become rigide. You press the back of the head and the rear legs will rise into the air.” He put the sausage down, covered it with leaves and let the dog root for it, then placed his foot on the back of the dog’s head and pressed. The dog snarled and bit him on the ankle. We moved on.
The stade was recovering from lunch, the small folding tables under the trees still scattered with scraps of food and empty glasses. A spaniel had managed to jump onto one of the tables and clear it up, and was asleep with its chin in a plate. Spectators moved with the slowness that comes from a full belly and a hot day, picking their teeth as they inspected the offerings of the local arms dealer.
On a long trestle table, 30 or 40 guns were laid neatly in a row, including the new sensation that was attracting great interest. It was a matte black pump-action riot gun. If there were ever to be a mass uprising of bloodthirsty killer rabbits in the forest, this was undoubtedly the machine one needed to keep them in order. But some of the other items puzzled us. What would a hunter do with brass knuckle-dusters and sharpened steel throwing stars, as used, so a hand-printed card said, by the Japanese Ninja? It was a selection that contrasted violently with the rubber bones and squeaky toys on sale at English dog shows.
It is always possible, when dogs and owners gather together en masse, to find living proof of the theory that they grow to resemble each other. In other parts of the world, this may be confined to physical characteristics—ladies and basset hounds with matching jowls, whiskery little men with bushy eyebrows and scotties, emaciated ex-jockeys with their whippets. But, France being France, there seems to be a deliberate effort to emphasize the resemblance through fashion, by choosing ensembles that turn dog and owner into coordinated accessories.
There were two clear winners in the Ménerbes Concours d’Élégance, perfectly complementary and visibly very pleased with the attention they were attracting from less modish spectators. In the ladies’ section, a blonde with a white shirt, white shorts, white cowboy boots, and a white miniature poodle on a white lead picked her way fastidiously through the dust to sip, with little finger cocked, an Orangina at the bar. The ladies of the village, sensibly dressed in skirts and flat shoes, looked at her with the same critical interest they usually reserve for cuts of meat at the butcher’s.
The male entries were dominated by a thickset man with a waist-high Great Dane. The dog was pure, shiny black. The man wore a tight black T-shirt, even tighter black jeans, and black cowboy boots. The dog wore a heavy chain-link collar. The man wore a necklace like a small hawser, with a medallion that thudded against his sternum with every step, and a similarly important bracelet. By some oversight, the dog wasn’t wearing a bracelet, but they made a virile pair as they posed on the high ground. The man gave the impression of having to control his massive beast by brute force, yanking on the collar and growling. The dog, as placid as Great Danes normally are, had no idea he was supposed to be vicious or restive, and observed smaller dogs passing underneath him with polite interest.
We were wondering how long the Great Dane’s good humor would last before he ate one of the tiny dogs that clustered like flies around his back legs when we were ambushed by Monsieur Mathieu and his tombola tickets. For a mere 10 francs, he was offering us a chance to win one of the sporting and gastronomic treasures donated by local tradesmen: a mountain bike, a microwave oven, a shotgun, or a maxi saucisson. I was relieved that puppies weren’t among the prizes. Monsieur Mathieu leered. “You never know what might be in the saucisson,” he said. And then, seeing the horror on my wife’s face, he patted her. “Now, non. Je rigole.”
In fact, there were enough puppies on display to make a mountain of saucissons. They lay or squirmed in piles under almost every tree, on blankets, in cardboard cartons, in homemade kennels, and on old sweaters. It was a testing time as we went from one furry, multilegged heap to the next. My wife is highly susceptible to anything with four feet and a wet nose, and the sales tactics of the owners were shameless. At the slightest sign of interest they would pluck a puppy from the pile and thrust it into her arms, where it would promptly go to sleep. “Voilà! Comme il est content!” I could see her weakening by the minute.
We were saved by the loudspeaker introducing the expert who was to give the commentary on the field trials. He was in tenue de chasse—khaki cap, shirt, and trousers—with a deep tobacco voice. He was unused to speaking into a microphone and, being Provençal, he was unable to keep his hands still. Thus his explanation came and went in intermittent snatches as he pointed the microphone helpfully at various parts of the field while his words disappeared into the breeze.