and preferred to be self-reliant, guarding his privacy and independence. He was one of those people who typically lived their entire lives in the village or on the land where they were born. They rarely visited other nearby villages unless they had business there, were hard-working and never asked favours from anyone. Each family had to (and was even proud to) subsist on the resources available. And in turn, each community would rely on its members unless it was absolutely necessary to seek help from another community. To use a tradesman from another village was viewed as a serious breach of solidarity.
The next day I drove over to meet Marcel. When I arrived he was already standing at his front door. It was early and a cold wind blew the low, grey clouds overhead.
“It’s been wet and muddy. Not good conditions for the dog to pick up scent.”
He called his dog, which came around the corner of the house at a run. When it saw me, it stood off and barked aggressively. He patted it on the head and the dog settled down again.
“Truffling dogs are valuable and are often stolen,” he said, grimacing. “I lost a good dog once, so I’ve trained this one to bark at strangers.”
We got in my car and, with the dog between Marcel’s legs, drove to a wooded hillside where he pointed to a spot to park. The dog jumped out of the car and turned to Marcel, wagging its tail with expectation.
As we began walking into the scrub oak trees, our boots made squishy sounds on the ground that was soggy from the recent snowfall.
“She won’t truffle if she feels I’m not paying attention. She does it to please me. It’s like a game to her. When she finds one, I have to reward her with attention and a treat of some sort. If I were to ever beat her, she would never again truffle for me.”
The dog began sniffing at the ground ahead of us. Every now and then she looked back to make sure Marcel was following, then went on with the hunt again. Nothing much happened; so we walked deeper into the woods. After about half an hour the dog still hadn’t found anything.
“I think she feels I’m neglecting her. Let’s you and I stop talking and I’ll just talk to her. Maybe that will get her on track.”
We walked some more through the scrub oak trees and undergrowth, letting the dog lead the way.
“Bien, bien,” he cooed as if talking to a baby. This seemed to kindle a spark in the dog and it began sniffing more earnestly. Then it stopped and started energetically pawing at the ground. Marcel walked over, bent and stroked the dog’s head, talking to distract it from further digging. He reached into a pocket of his windbreaker and gave the dog a tidbit to eat. Next he pulled a small garden trowel from his other pocket. After loosening the soil, he dug his free hand into the mud, brought up a handful and filtered it through his fingers. He was left with a few round stones that he picked through and tossed away, until several lumps remained in his hand.
“Here,” he said, “smell this . . . It’s small . . . but it’s a good one.” He passed it over to me.
I took it and sniffed, smelling moist earth but also the telltale pungent odour of the truffle. It was hardly the size of a large marble, covered in pale earth with the dark brown colour of the truffle showing through.
“This one’s bigger,” Marcel said, brushing the mud off another one and handing it to me. “Some people call it a diamant noir—a black diamond. Others call it a smelly lump of coal. Do you see that there is no grass growing under that tree?” He made a sideways glance at a tree to indicate that I should follow his gaze. “Truffles feed on the roots and take over the ground. That’s why it’s so barren there.”
He put the truffles in a small sack, then bent over and lavished affection on his dog again, petting its head and rubbing its sides. Then he pointed at the trees. The dog seemed to understand the gesture, for it went in that direction, sniffing the ground, stopping only to see if Marcel was following.
By mid-afternoon we had returned to Marcel’s house with a good handful of truffles in his sack. “We’ll wash them and dry them.” He emptied the contents on the kitchen table and looked them over. “You are with us for dinner, non?”
“Well, Hélène is at home and . . .”
“Excellent!” He said, now grinning while scrubbing the truffles in the sink and depositing them one by one on a dry cloth before returning them to the sack. “My wife wants to meet you both, and she has dinner all planned. Here,” he said, handing me the sack. “C’est pour vous—these are yours. I can get more another day.” He held it out to me.
This was clearly a ‘don’t refuse or risk insulting him’ situation. I took the sack and thanked him.
“At seven o’clock then,” he said, leading me to the door.
On a cold winter night, the country dinner was almost intoxicating. Marcel’s gruff exterior seemed transformed around his family. They welcomed us into their home, and his wife and their two children showed a genuine happiness and contentment with life. For people working hard to make a living on their farm, they showed a generosity that left us feeling like best of friends, friends who had known each other for years. There was a camaraderie which warmed us with its honesty.
Two mornings later, Jean backed his old Renault down his driveway behind our house and I walked out with a ski suit, gloves and toque in my arms. The two of us had decided to drive several hours into the mountains past Serres to Montagne du Loup. The weather had warmed and the snow was slushy and difficult, so we skied ourselves to exhaustion and then arrived back late in the afternoon of the third day.
I was thinking about dropping into a comfortable bed when Hélène looked at my dishevelled, unshaven state and pushed me toward the shower.
“Suzette has invited us to dinner tonight. You’ve got half an hour to clean up and get dressed.”
I did as I was told.
Jean, in his seventies, was a good ten years my senior and, as he walked down his driveway to greet us, he looked refreshed and ready for the evening. He had outskied me, and I was the worse for wear in trying to keep up. Rest was about the only thing that interested me at this point.
Suzette’s dinner was wonderful and gave us a chance to catch up on the news of the winter. After a lot of talk Hélène raised both her hands in mock drama.
“Last night I awoke to a cat screeching outside. It was so loud I thought something awful had happened. So I got out of bed and looked out the window. Of course I couldn’t see anything, but the screeching got louder than ever. I put on my slippers and went outside. I couldn’t tell what was going on, but I could see that Tabitha was up a tree by the gate. So, with great difficulty, I got the ladder out and carried it over, put it against the tree and climbed up to rescue her. Just then a car came up the road. There I was in nothing but my nightie and fluffy slippers on a cold winter night halfway up a tree, caught in the headlights of a car! And even worse, the driver stopped, got out and asked if I was all right. All I could say was that I was fine, thank you. I guess he saw my embarrassment because he just smiled at me and then got back in his car and drove off.”
Suzette and Jean burst out laughing. I stared at Hélène. She blushed.
“Tabitha was fine. I’ll bet everyone in Nyons knows about me by now.”
“Let me tell you a story we heard this winter,” Suzette said. “Two elderly couples who had known each other for years would get together
