The Galisteo Escarpment. Douglas Atwill
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A Kilo of Figs
It was a day’s drive from Gordes to Cabasson-sur-Mer, the vineyards and orchards merging into wheatfields, and finally through the fragrant pine forests along the coast, down the steep cliffs to the beachside. Sam drove most of the way as he was the acknowledged best driver of the three and the most eager to actually drive. Neil took the wheel for a spell through Aix-en-Provence and beyond, but Sam stepped in again to bring them down the narrow road into Cabasson just at sunset.
They found Nicole’s house with the town map that she provided and parked on the street in front of it. Neil took the key and opened the door. The captured smell of cooking herbs and seaside damp was strong, filling the still air of the closed house. It was as Nicole had described, very simple. A stone cottage, white-washed inside and out, with a ceiling of dark beams and mismatched, country furniture in every room. Two bedrooms, each with twin beds and a bathroom at the end of the hall. The rest of the house was a single large room, which served as a kitchen, dining and sitting area. Neil opened the door to the walled garden in the back, the source of the strong cooking herbs. A rampant fig tree filled one corner of the garden with a sharp-thorned sour orange in the other, perennial herbs standing tall in between.
After they got settled, Carrie in one room and the two men in the other, she said, “Let’s walk down to the village before it gets dark and get dinner.”
As they explored the sloping streets, Neil said, “By the way, I suppose you will choose for Nicole the two very best paintings of our show. You might pick two of our early ones, instead.”
“No. I didn’t. She deserves your best work, but maybe not the very best. They were the second-best out of sixty.”
“Second best? Did you do that on purpose?”
“Yes, because of personal reasons.”
“And those are . . .?”
“Both of you are running out of money, I know. I also know that you would not accept a loan from me, as you never have before. Foolish male pride.”
“Just because we have a rich friend doesn’t mean we should take advantage of her,” Sam said.
“I know, I know. But what is the use of having some extra money if I can’t occasionally make life easier for the ones I love?”
“We just couldn’t, Carrie.”
“That’s why I am going to buy a painting from each of you. If Nicole can profit from your talent, then it seems only fair that your best friend should, too. So I selfishly reserved the crème-de-la-crème for myself.”
The two men remained silent.
Carrie continued, “Mind you, I’m not paying Hetty’s London prices. Five hundred dollars each.”
“That’s too generous,” Sam said, looking for Neil’s approval. “Besides, I am not sure that we really want to sell them.”
“It’s only right that you let me buy them. There is fair value for me there, so don’t let egos get in the way of a great arrangement for both sides.”
She handed them both an envelope. “Here it is in francs. I didn’t want our stay here to be spoiled with your worries about money, when there’s an easy solution.” The two men took the envelopes with reluctant expressions.
“So which ones did you choose?” Neil asked.
“I will show you when we get back.”
They walked into the town center, a semi-circle of three-storied buildings that fronted onto the harbor, lined with fishing boats in their night dock. A stone quay in front of the buildings was barely wide enough for the neat rows of white-clothed tables of three cafes. The early evening promenade was in full bloom, citizens walking back and forth slowly, chatting with neighbors, squeezing single file past the bulge of café tables at the risk of a plunge into the water. The was no breeze to cool off the day’s heat.
They chose the café in the middle and seated themselves at a table midway back. Neil had a fixed smile, a man in heaven, as they watched the dusk over the small harbor. It was as perfect as he had hoped. The other parts of the southern coast had grown into an urban sprawl many years before, with high rise apartment blocks crowding the view and destroying the waterside ambiance of the old fishing villages. Cabasson-sur-Mer was one of those overlooked in the rush to develop villas and apartments on every sea-view acre. The fishing boats went out each day from the harbor and returned with catch in the evening. A citizen could still buy hardware, canned goods and bolts of striped cotton from shops opening on the quay. Cabasson had not ceded its village center yet to tourist shops and galleries.
When the waterside meal had been cleared away and they sat with espressos, Carrie said, “I am almost afraid of the future, you know.”
Sam asked, “Afraid of going home, back to the States?”
“No. Fearful of changing what has become a pattern of the three of us together. How can that survive back home?”
Neil said, “Maybe it can.”
She replied, “How can it? Both of you in New York, art careers, fame. I will get all the pressure from my father to get married, to ‘settle down.’”
The two carafes of wine were taking hold as Sam said, “Since I love both of you I can’t image that we won’t be together always.”
Neil looked at Sam for a long time, then stood up to start their departure. They walked slowly up the hill to the house.
The next day Neil rose early, before the other two, and explored both sides of the town, choosing the beach just to the west of the harbor for their day of sun and water. He took an early swim as the sun was rising, the sea still cool from the night. It was clear and green, easily revealing the pebbly bottom at forty feet from shore. He swam quickly out far enough to see the harbor around the promontory rocks, then in a slow float came back to the shore. He ran up the carved steps in the beach cliff and up the road to Nicole’s house, still dripping.
“Get up. Get up. Paradise beckons not a quarter mile away.”
Carrie was up already and had made coffee. Sam was still asleep. She said, “Three weeks doing nothing. Swimming. Reading. No painting.”
“I can’t promise I won’t paint. I want to start on some edge-of-the-water scenes.”
“Maybe we should have come here first instead of Gordes.”
“No. Gordes gave us our summer’s project, however dry and hot it was. I’ll always be the thankful for that, those ochre colors and pale horizons. They’re imprinted on my mind now, part of my being. But I feel that somewhere on the Mediterranean could be a house, a cottage or a villa waiting for me. Not Nicole’s house, but somewhere else. Not for right now, but in a time after we get settled in New York.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I know it, deep within me.”
She said, “Do you think you lived here before, in another lifetime?”
“Reincarnation is such poppycock. However, it could explain why it resounds with me so solidly. Pacific and Atlantic shores do nothing for me, compared to this. The North Sea is too cold, the Caribbean too hot. The Mediterranean has the quality of being just right. Ten thousand years of civilization might say so, too. Why should one place exert such a deep personal attraction if your past was not in some way linked with it?”
After their late breakfast at one of the cafes on the quay, they provisioned Carrie’s basket with white wine and cheese, a loaf of bread, grapes and a kilo of ripe figs. Neil showed them the way to his newly discovered beach. Large granitic rocks protected both ends, no more than 100 feet apart and a low bluff made the back wall, with steps cut out of solid rock from the road above. Instead of sand, it had a beach of very small pebbles which felt cool on the feet. There was no surf, only a slight lapping of the water, and it was five minutes from their cottage.