Playing House in Provence

A particular lunchtime conversation starkly contrasts French and American attitudes toward marriage. Is the idea of commitment learned or felt, Mo wonders. But what Mo and Ange, both of whom have been divorced, find laughable is the whole concept of "for better or for worse, until death do us part." "Why suffer?" they ask. What's the point? And they practice what they preach. Ange will soon be replaced by Marc, and Mo by another woman. And it won't stop there. Before we leave Provence for the fourth time, Monique will have gone through three lovers and Ange will be in Canada living out of wedlock with his first wife. And why bother to marry at all? We Americans, they say, are too earnest in our attitudes toward marriage. I am so eager to be French that I find myself questioning my fidelity. Why did Larry and I marry? And why haven't we split up? God knows those thoughts have occurred to us both. We've stuck it out through plenty of "worse." What was the point anyway? For the moment, I seem to have forgotten that I am not French. Part of immersing oneself in a foreign culture can be a temporary loss of one's moral compass. To prove I'm not a hopeless bourgeois, I tell them about my late, free-spirited aunt Lily who had five husbands and didn't waste any time in between. Lily practiced what she called "serial monotony." As soon as one husband lost his allure, she'd move on to another. Mo and Ange express their admiration, but they fault her for bothering to get married, especially after the first time. Someone Put a Banana in My Chardonnay Petty humiliations happen daily. Usually I am able to accept them as no-pain, no-gain learning experiences. The unpleasant feeling is quickly forgotten, and I switch over to trying to correct and memorize the mispronounced word or other evidences of ignorance. Embarrassment is a great teacher. But when the constantly hovering drone of humiliation bombs on me three times in one day, even Paxil won't help. Day breaks, spilling a torrent of chilly rain on Provence. Bad weather on this particular day is especially annoying because Mo has decided that we are to visit a vineyard. I put on my raincoat and take a shortcut through the parking lot to the pâtisserie to buy two of what has become our favorite treat, a sacristan, a flakey almond pastry sprinkled with confectioner's sugar. Since I see the baker nearly every morning, I decide to comment on how bad the weather is, how it's raining constantly. It's the French thing to do; the French love to talk about the weather. "Quel mauvais temps," I say. What terrible weather. "Il pleure sans cesse." I'm very pleased with myself, so I wonder why she looks at me as if I were nuts. On my way home, I check my yellow dictionary. The infinitive for rain is pleuvoir; the infinitive for cry is pleurer. Great! I have told her that I cry constantly. Next stop on my mortification tour: the vineyard. We are met and escorted around the property by Dominique, a young and gorgeous vintner who, even though she's female, is the personification of one of the most important French traditions ever—winemaking. In a brief introduction, delivered inside the winery, she explains that her family has been producing wine for hundreds of years, as far back as anyone can remember. It is a foregone conclusion on the part of her parents and relatives that she will inherit the vineyard and become a winemaker. The fact that she is a woman seems to be irrelevant, even when so many business signs read, "Somebody or other and Sons." No doubt, at this very moment, somewhere in California's Napa Valley, a father is grooming his daughter to take charge of the Beaujolais Nouveau. She may be one of the first female American vintners to break the grape ceiling. Dominique is not resigned to the role of tradition in her life; she embraces it. Her ambitions are defined by the past. I, by contrast, come from a country so young that it hasn't had a chance to accumulate many traditions, and from a family so fractured by divorce or distance that they can't even agree to get together once a year and carve a turkey. Now it's time to tramp around the vineyard. Dominique's got a supply of one-size-fits-all rubber boots for visitors. It is raining harder than ever. Our boots make raunchy noises as we slog through the sticky mud. Larry, Ulli, and I share an umbrella. I am having a terrible time. It was William James who said you could make yourself feel better by smiling. So far it's not working. Once back inside the winery, it's time for the wine tasting. My mood improves. Dominique pours us each a glass of wine from a bottle of one of her best Chardonnays. First we have a swishing lesson. I am unable to swish the wine in a circular motion in the glass. Larry is instantly expert. So is Ulli. Mo, of course, is swishing just fine. She was probably born knowing how, just as she was born knowing how to tie a scarf. I am so determined to master swishing that I create a kind of storm at sea as waves of wine splash over the rim of my glass and drip down my hand. I have never been so not French. Next we are instructed to sniff the wine to detect its "nose." I've never understood that little affectation. I'm the one with the nose. It's the one with the smell. I raise my glass and sniff. It smells like wine to me, but since I know that's not the answer, I know to keep my nose down and my mouth shut. When it's time to taste, my luck changes. "I detect a hint of banana," I say. I really do taste banana. I'm not making it up. "Extraordinare!" Dominique declares. "Incroyable!" Even Larry and Monique are impressed by how natively French and subtle my taste buds are. Dominique affirms that there are, indeed, notes of banana in this Chardonnay. And then I blow it by asking at what point in the process do they mix in the bananas. Everyone stares as me in total disbelief. That's my morning. My afternoon is worse. Now it's raining harder, but even so I decide to try to save the day. There's an exercise class that's held in the church basement across the parking lot, and exercise always makes me feel better. Plus, an exercise class offers an excellent opportunity to insinuate myself into village life. I look forward to meeting some local women; surely they'd want to chat with this American stranger in their midst. I slip into the class, clutching my mat. Nobody even acknowledges me with a bonjour. I take my place and try to follow the directions barked out by the leader. "Baissez votre bassin!" she commands. I have no idea what she wants of me, except that votre means "your." I know that the lake in the center of L'Isle sur la Sorgue is called a basin, but that gets me nowhere. Baisser, as far as I know, means to kiss, but surely she does not want me to kiss my lake. The instructor, in utter disgust, marches over to my nicely arched body and pushes on my stomach, forcing me to lower my pelvis. After class, I roll up my mat—nobody says à bientôt—and head home. I look up the pertinent words in the dictionary. La bise means a kiss. Le bisou is a social kiss, the kind you plant three times on people's cheeks when saying hello or goodbye. Le baiser is a passionate kiss, as between lovers. Or at least it used to be. The B-word is now synonymous with the F-word, so if you want to stay on the safe side of sex, use embrasser, which still means "to kiss." I run my finger down the page a little further and learn that baisser, with two s's means "to lower or go down." So that's what she meant. I should lower something, but what? In the treacherous French language, bassin means pelvis as well as lake. Now I get it. She wanted me to lower my pelvis. I will suffer one more humiliation with the deadly baisser/baiser homonyms. Flying home that year, the French flight attendant will roar with laughter when I ask her if my seat goes down on itself.