The peasant and his wife discussed the problem that night as they sat in the kitchen and ate their soupe. They could, of course, call in the police. But since the truffles—or at least, the money made from selling the truffles—did not officially exist, it might not be prudent to involve the authorities. Questions would be asked about the value of what had been stolen, and private information such as this was best kept private. Besides, the official penalty for truffle poaching, even if it were a spell in jail, would not replace the thousands of francs that were even now stuffed in the poacher’s deep and dishonest pockets.
And so the couple decided to seek tougher but more satisfactory justice, and the peasant went to see two of his neighbors, men who would understand what needed to be done.
They agreed to help him, and for several long, cold nights the three of them waited with their shotguns among the truffle oaks, coming home each dawn slightly tipsy from the marc that they had been obliged to drink to keep out the chill. At last, one night when the clouds scudded across the face of the moon and the mistral bit into the faces of the three men, they saw the headlights of a car. It stopped at the end of a dirt track, two hundred meters down the hill.
The engine stopped, lights were extinguished, doors were opened and quietly closed. There were voices, and then the glow of a flashlight, which came slowly up the hill toward them.
First into the trees was a dog. He stopped, picked up the scent of the men, and barked—a high, nervous bark, followed at once by ssssst! as the poacher hissed him quiet. The men flexed their numb fingers for a better grip on their guns, and the peasant took aim with the flashlight he had brought especially for the ambush.
The beam caught them as they came into the clearing: a couple, middle-aged and unremarkable, the woman carrying a small sack, the man with flashlight and truffle pick. Red-handed.
The three men, making great display of their artillery, approached the couple. They had no defense, and with gun barrels under their noses quickly admitted that they had been there before to steal truffles.
How many truffles? asked the old peasant. Two kilos? Five kilos? More?
Silence from the poachers, and silence from the three men as they thought about what they should do. Justice must be done; more important than justice, money must be repaid. One of the men whispered in the old peasant’s ear, and he nodded. Yes, that is what we will do. He announced the verdict of the impromptu court.
Where was the poacher’s bank? Nyons? Ah bon. If you start walking now you will be there when it opens. You will take out 30,000 francs, which you will bring back here. We shall keep your car, your dog, and your wife until you return.
The poacher set off on the four-hour walk to Nyons. His dog was put in the boot of the car, his wife in the back seat. The three men squeezed in too. It was a cold night. They dozed through it in between tots of marc.
Dawn came, then morning, then noon …
Alain stopped his story. “You’re a writer,” he said. “How do you think it ended?”
I made a couple of guesses, both wrong, and Alain laughed.
“It was very simple, not at all dramatique,” he said. “Except perhaps for the wife. The poacher went to his bank in Nyons and took out all the money he possessed, and then—pouf!—he disappeared.”
“He never came back?”
“Nobody ever saw him again.”
“Not his wife?”
“Certainly not his wife. He was not fond of his wife.”
“And the peasant?”
“He died an angry man.”
Alain said he had to go. I paid him for the truffles, and wished him luck with his new dog. When I got home, I cut one of the truffles in half to make sure it was the genuine, deep black all the way through. He seemed like a good fellow, Alain, but you never know.
Life Through
Rosé-Tinted
Spectacles
Going native.
I don’t know whether it was meant as a joke, an insult, or a compliment, but that was what the man from London said. He had dropped in unexpectedly on his way to the coast, and stayed for lunch. We hadn’t seen him for five years, and he was obviously curious to see what effects life in Provence was having on us, examining us thoughtfully for signs of moral and physical deterioration.
We weren’t conscious of having changed, but he was sure of it, although there was nothing he could put his finger on. For lack of any single change as plain as delirium tremens, rusty English, or premature senility, he put us in the vague, convenient, and all-embracing pigeonhole marked “going native.”
As he drove away in his clean car, telephone antenna fluttering gaily in the breeze, I looked at our small and dusty Citroën, which was innocent of any communications facility. That was certainly a native car. And, in comparison with our visitor’s Côte d’Azur outfit, I was wearing native dress—old shirt, shorts, no shoes. Then I remembered how often he had looked at his watch during lunch, because he was meeting friends in Nice at 6:30. Not later in the day, not sometime that evening, but at 6:30. Precisely. We had long ago abandoned timekeeping of such a high standard due to lack of local support, and now lived according to the rules of the approximate rendezvous. Another native habit.