As for Caleb, he and I got to know
each other a little better the following afternoon. It was a Sunday, so we
weren’t expected to work; WWOOFers,
it seemed, got days off from their farming duties. In a nearby village,
Empurany, an annual fair was taking place: the Fête de la cerise, de la terre et du feu, which celebrated the strange
combination of cherries, earth and fire. Given as Anne-Marie and Pierre were
taking their market stall there, a free lift was on offer to us. We wandered
around together.
The little houses were
built in a square around the tiniest of churches, the buildings all with walls
of higgledy-piggledy light grey stones. The village had obviously been standing
for many hundreds of years, nestled in the hills. The narrow streets were lined
with market stalls, the majority of which I recognised from the previous day in
Lamastre, and so head-height tarpaulins of every colour obscured the upper
floor windows of the houses. Towards the lowest corner of the square of houses
the buildings stopped and the village opened out into an area perfect for
summer socialising. To this end, lines of wooden benches had been taken from
the church and laid out around a strangely marked strip of ground. This, I
discovered, was the playing ground of the annual cherry-stone spitting competition.
The rules were simple: all that was required of competitors was that they ate a
cherry, stood on the designated line, and spat. The distance flown by the stone
would then be measured by an impartial judge. Apparently the world record was
29m 17cm. I wouldn’t have liked to have come across that particular champion
when they were suffering from a bout of phlegm.
Next to the benches was a wagon
manned by a local man named Luc. On this wooden wagon, which had been built by
Luc himself, was a wood-burning fire in an iron oven, in which pizzas were
cooking. Beside the oven in a warm, glass-fronted cabinet, dough could be seen
proving, and on top of this cabinet was a work surface. That was where the
dough was mixed and kneaded and the pizzas were prepared. I could happily have
eaten a couple of slices of pizza, but because of the magical allure of his
cart, Luc’s creations were in short supply. I made do with a plastic party cup
of red wine and cherry cordial and sat back happily as a local music group
began drumming. They made their way in a procession around the village, screening
from view the miniature, hand-crafted, bike-powered merry-go-round in front of
the church. The rear of the procession was brought up by the village clown, Plastikos, who had fashioned a
convincing mohican out of empty mineral water bottles to set off his standard
clown’s garb, and played along on a plastic bottle drum.
The locals sat or stood in groups,
chattering and laughing. The feeling of community was so strong it was almost
tangible, and the handful of tourists were awkwardly obvious through their
not-quite-comfortable stances; their grips too tight on their bags, their
shoulders subconsciously tensed, defensive against the conviviality in which
they did not know how to share.
Having exhausted what the fair had
to offer us, Caleb and I set off for Fontchouette on foot; Anne-Marie told us
the way, and said that it was easy to find. Caleb was an intense man, a medical
student from North Carolina with an interest
in philosophy who had come to France
to learn French for two reasons. The first was because he wanted to do AIDS
research on the Ivory Coast;
the second was to be able to read L’Étranger
in its original form. Although his pale skin, black hair and week’s worth
of beard were hardly repellent, physically he wasn’t particularly attractive to
me, but his intelligence was. Unfortunately, although perhaps it was fortunate
for my heart, it was intelligence laced with a lethal dose of arrogance. He was
clever and knew it, and made sure that I knew it too. Still, when I found
myself discussing the merits of various art galleries across Europe,
and of modern and contemporary art itself, and we were both on a level, that was attractive. He reminded me in a
way of a guy I knew at university.
Tony. Like me, Tony was a linguist and
a member of the theatre society. Unlike me, I don’t think there was a single
girl who knew him who didn’t at some point lust after those deep blue eyes
which gave you their full concentration, or the perfectly chiselled cheekbones
which oozed erudition. In a moment of bravery I once asked him to the cinema to
see a French film with me. I never did go to see 13ème Mois, alone or otherwise, but at least I tried. Nor, it has
to be said, did I ever find myself lost in someone else’s cherry orchard with
him. As thespians, that might have had a romantic sense of Chekovian irony
about it. With Caleb it was just a touch awkward.
We had been following Anne-Marie’s
directions, but somehow we took a wrong turn and our long, wooded climb upwards
brought us out onto a dust track on the side of the hill. With our bearings
safely in a rabbit hole a couple of miles back, we had no idea which direction
to take. We chose right. Ten minutes and two amused but informative farmhands later
and we made an about turn, having realised that right had in fact been wrong;
left had been right. The dust track then ran out, and the only way forward was
over a fence, into a grove of ruby-decked trees. We knew we shouldn’t be there,
but we didn’t have much choice. Rounding the curve of the hill at a fair pace,
I suddenly recognised Fontchouette opposite us. Opposite and across a valley.
My heart sank, my parched throat ached, and my bladder complained somewhat.
Taking heart from the fact that we could at least see our destination, we took
the most direct route possible, probably trespassing over at least three
further fields in the process. We survived the experience without being mauled
by dogs or bulls, or being shot at by irate landowners, and spent a lazy
afternoon in the shade.
When Anne-Marie returned, she was
hobbling, leaning against Pierre for support. It turned out that she had been
taking part in an oriental dance workshop, and – in her words – her knee had
gone clack-clack. As the owner of a
clicky knee myself, I wasn’t too concerned. After all, she was still walking
around, although she was obviously in a fair amount of pain. Little did I know
what an effect her dancing escapade would have on my WWOOFing future.
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