Outsiders

The place where we’ve settled is remote, rural, and indigenous. Indeed, we prided ourselves for spotting this unique area of Périgord that is neither a British settlement nor a Dutch/Belgian colony. Yet we underestimated that our very presence here may sooner or later stick out like a sore thumb among people that view even those from a different village as estrangèrs.

For one thing we moved here from the capital, Paris, which usually does not bode well in the rest of France. In the aim of keeping a low profile, we are both using our mothers’ respectably French maiden names - but my French does not sound like the natives’, and our conversations in English do not fool them either. We’ve become les Anglais - Americans being too exotic a species here.

Things got even more complicated when we hired a British hand, and when our bathroom fixtures arrived from Italy - complete with technical descriptions in Italian. Our chantier, has turned into a mini Tower of Babel, what with instructions and requests translated and retranslated in three languages. (Interestingly, however, a professional/social camaraderie has begun between our British handyman, Jez, and his French counterparts who now use the familiar tu with him while keeping to the formal vous in addressing us.)

Some misunderstandings occurred when I was in Italy and could only rely on Skype and emails to communicate with Dan - a condition where a syntactic transposition can easily slip in. The stone retaining wall alongside the house that we intended to fix by replacing the mortar with the ‘same yellow lime of the house’ was evenly ‘plastered just like the house’. Had we not paid a small fortune for what now looks like a motorway shoulder, the disappointment would be easier to endure. A hedge of spreading roses and rosemary we’ve just planted will have to soften the impact.

With Stéphane, the roofer, the situation became even uglier. Stung by our insistence that a metal joint between wooden beams must be reworked in order to be hidden behind the drywall, he took revenge and put a similar exposed metal joint in another visible spot. It’s now too late to dismantle that work so we are stuck with it. When I complained about that, he got angry and told me to find someone else if I did not like his work. It wouldn’t be so demoralizing if we’d not paid the man for his bad job - and even for work he will now never complete.

Other workers come and go – sometimes disappearing for weeks – according to their personal schedules that evidently do not honor their commitments to us. Olivier, the plumber, called in sick last week claiming he has an indeterminate pain that doctors have not been able to diagnose. The last we saw of him he was working on the connections from the boiler to the main house, work now halted. It does not help that the late Indian summer is over and the weather has turned cold and drippy. We do have, however, a new cast iron stove mounted in the open fireplace, thanks to Jez – and after all, I once spent a winter in a summer cottage in Cornwall exposed to the gales of the Atlantic.

After Arcadio was shot in his leg, we filed a complaint at the local gendarmerie. I was alarmed when the chief brigadier asked if we thought we had enemies. I could not think of the situation as anything but an accident. ‘Inflicted injury’ she wrote on the statement, which I demanded be corrected to ‘accidental injury’. Her thoughts were seconded by another source. ‘Oh non, monsieur, ce n’était pas an accident, c’était volontaire,’ insisted the president of the local hunting club. It turned out that hunting on our property was authorized by the former owner. ‘Don’t worry, it’s null and void as of today,’ he said. ‘We won’t enter the property unless injured game is taking refuge. And oh - do you see lots of wildlife by the way?’ I thought of the poor doe that haunts La Placette, the wild boars that we’ve seen in the thicket, the pretty leverets crossing our track when we drive home. I was even saddened to find a blue tit, frozen to death in our barn, his beauty and perfect features unaltered. Why this frenzy to destroy things that no human craft can ever create? ‘We have snails,’ I said to him. ‘Lots of snails.’

A new Internet high-speed connection was inaugurated and the village hosted a meeting in the salle des fêtes to inform the villagers. We arrived late. On one side was a forsaken desk with two young women, the experts; on the other a large boisterous crowd along a table covered with salami, cold cuts, blood pudding, little pizzas, cookies, and cakes. We had no idea the village had so many residents, and all into IT. The mayor introduced us to her councilors. They all said immediately that they regret Arcadio’s misfortune. How did they know? One of them even claimed he saw the American flag that Dan flew on November 11 and asked why the Stars & Stripes on Armistice Day? (‘C’etait notre victoire aussi!’ Dan retorted, whose two grandfathers both served in France in World War I.) But how had the man seen the flag in the middle of our very enclosed property, surrounded by thirty-six acres of woods? Adding to our general discomfort, each one offered sad stories of pets killed by hunters, as though society has to sacrifice to the rascals.

We did not feel reassured. A letter about the shooting to the Sud-Ouest, the local paper and also the largest in France, got answered. A pretty journalist came to hear the story and took pictures of Arcadio and me holding him, showing his bandaged leg. She asked if I was against hunting. ‘That’s the quid,’ I thought. I like to eat game, so could not answer ‘yes’. I explained to her that it is like smoking: I do not stop people from smoking as long as they respect me as a non-smoker. Dan and I also made a point that we did not want to make war on people, but merely to raise awareness of the problem of domestic animals being shot by uncaring hunters.

Yesterday we heard the blast of multiple chain saws very close to us and upon investigation we found three men cutting trees on a plot wedged into our woods. We were appalled to hear them say that all the beautiful trees had to go, including ancient pines and spreading white birch. We called the mairie to learn if we could prevent the devastation that would leave barren terrain between us and the road. The village secretary informed me that owners of land have the right to hack and chop as they pleased. In her voice, I thought I could detect the strident accent of the French Revolution.