Into Woods
INTO WOODS
Also by Bill Roorbach
FICTION:
The Remedy for Love
Life Among Giants
The Smallest Color
Big Bend
NONFICTION:
A Place on Water
(with Robert Kimber and Wesley McNair)
Summers with Juliet
Temple Stream
INSTRUCTION:
The Art of Truth (ed.)
Writing Life Stories
INTO WOODS
Bill Roorbach
Camden, Maine
Published by Down East Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SEll 4AB, United Kingdom
Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK
Copyright © 2002 by Bill Roorbach
First paperback edition 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The hardback edition of this book was previously cataloged by the Library of Congress as follows:
Roorbach, Bill.
Into woods: essays / by Bill Roorbach
p. cm.
1. Roorbach, Bill. 2. Authors, American—20th century—Biography. 3. English teachers—United States—Biography. 4. Outdoor life—United States. I. Title.
PS3568.O6345 Z476 2002
814'.54—dc212001006423
ISBN: 0-268-03162-2 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN: 978-1-60893-513-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN: 978-1-60893-514-7 (electronic)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
For Juliet
And for our parents:
Ursula and Frank, Reba and Jack
Contents
Honeymoon
Into Woods
Spirits
Shitdiggers, Mudflats, and the Worm Men of Maine
You Have Given This Boy Life
Vortex
Duck Day Afternoon
Birthday
Scioto Blues
Sky Pond
My Life as a Move
Into Woods
Honeymoon
In Paris the clerk at our three-star hotel gave Juliet and me a cheese-smelling second-floor room only a little wider than the bed. So we looked up the words for honeymoon and I went down to the front desk and grimaced and strung a few sentences together around that concept. A different clerk, a sour lady, grimaced too and said all the rooms were nice. So I changed from wanting a nicer room to wanting a higher room, a higher story for my lune de miel, and that impressed her. The new room was beautiful, with a balustrade window and a big bath and a desk.
Next day Juliet and I marched around in the ninety-nine percent humidity, trying out our French (I lack verbs, Juliet is fluent, but was rusty and shy) and nervous that in a restaurant they’d make us buy bottled water and serve us some mysterious, expensive organ we wouldn’t want to eat, and glare at us and be famously rude, all of which happened. At least the Seine was there and flowed past (dead or alive) and at least, later in the afternoon, a stunning thunderstorm came and flooded the streets and cleared the air. We stood in a Latin Quarter doorway and watched the wakes of cars flush into the entrance of a clothing shop. The salesclerk just shrugged, took her shoes off, and waded around the store tidying the miniskirts and bathing suits on their hangers.
On the advice of married friends who said we should splurge shamelessly and without regret on our honeymoon, Jules and I rented a car. We followed a map and went out to the Atlantic Ocean for a few days. The air was cold, the water colder. The beaches were bleak and lined with hotels and empty cafes; you could see how crowded it would be in a few weeks. We made it south as far as the Île de Ré (which resembled our beloved Martha’s Vineyard in that the locals abhorred summer dinks, and knew one when they saw one), then headed back inland to Cerqueux sous Passavant, where Juliet’s art class would be. Cerqueux is a small town twenty miles south of Angers, an easy bicycle ride from Vihiers in the département of Maine-et-Loire, in the Anjou region. It’s an agricultural village, with a miniature cathedral and a boulangerie and a cafe and a garage and a mairie and a bank branch and a post office.
The day we drove into town (July 1 of 1990), four thirteen-year-old girls sat on the steps of the church drinking from a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream (of all possible choices!). They were quite drunk, but not hiding themselves, and no one seemed to care or even notice them. They went all polite when they heard our accents, said in embarrassed English that they didn’t speak English, then in English said they didn’t know where the école Albert DuFois was. We thanked them in embarrassed French, and everyone giggled.
We had paid the rent on a house, two hundred fifty dollars for July, but we didn’t know where the house was, or what it looked like, only that it was on a wine farm within four miles of the school. We’d made a lot of jokes about this, pointing to wrecked barns and saying, “There’s our house,” or to châteaux and saying “That one. ”An old couple saw us sitting there in our car and pulled over, knowing that anyone who looked like us in that district must need help. They nodded wisely at Juliet’s questioning, gave us directions to the Chateau des Landes. The château, when we found it, was decrepit and lovely, but the school wasn’t there. The old couple had got confused because Albert DuFois had once owned the château (now broken into apartments). He’d also been the mayor of the town. “Once the school was here, ”a pleasant woman in the overgrown garden told us, in rather formal French. When we got back to Cerqueux, a charter bus was there, full of American art students.
The townspeople turned out for the bus, but the American artist who ran the school wasn’t there. Everyone milled around, gradually realizing that he wouldn’t be showing up, and that he’d left one of the townspeople in charge, though she was so quiet it was hard to tell. She pointed people into various cars. Many of the artists would be living with families, and the owners of these cars were to be their hosts. Those of us renting were matched up with landlords. I looked around hopefully, but no one seemed to take an interest in us. Juliet said her name, then said it louder.
“Oh, the newlyweds, ”the lady in charge said, with a great intake of breath. All the townspeople turned to regard us. “You will stay in Trémont. Les Moncellieres. ”Some of the women shook their heads in disapproval.
“I see none of the Rochelles have come to greet them! ”a well-scrubbed woman said, patting at her apron.
A man introduced himself as the boulanger, the bread baker, and indicated that he’d see no great sacrifice in showing us to Les Moncellieres. “Perhaps the Rochelles are occupied and cannot come, ”he told us, cheerfully, in clear French.
An American student named Kellogg (this name writ large on her sweatshirt), fortyish, warm, and pleasingly fat, announced in English that she’d been here last year, knew the ropes, and would like to give us a hand. She and the boulanger shouted some simple French at each other, and between them figured out she’d be living not far from us. With no further excitement Kellogg hopped in the baker’s truck, hollered at us to follow, and off they drove, very fast. We followed in o
ur tiny Renault, past the church, past the last building in the village (which was a barn), past the cemetery (a wedge of walled earth beneath a large silver statue of the benevolent Mother of God), and through high farm country: rolling fields of wheat, tidy grape arbors, vast oceans of sunflowers, small fields of poor corn, shepherds’ huts, woodlots.
We drove through another of the now familiar villages—red tile roofs, ancient church, shuttered houses. This was Trémont. No stores, no cafe. A mile later the boulanger squealed into a driveway, passed two houses, and stopped in a dusty courtyard. He honked twice and leapt out of his truck. “Chez vous, ” he said, grinning. We were in the midst of a tumbledown farm-stead, two houses and several huge sheds and many, many, small sheds and enormous stacks of hay and a tractor and an anomalously brand-new combine and two large gardens and twenty rotund cows in a high pasture behind the houses and barns. In the far distance several villages were visible on their ridges, cathedrals prominent. Grape arbors in dense rows covered all the hillsides, mile after mile. Next to us was a crude stone building with a sign, beautifully painted:
CAVEAU DEGUSTATION
Les Moncellieres
The boulanger grinned wider, embarrassed that no one was appearing. Clearly he was in a hurry. He said, “If you wait, they will come. I’m not sure where your quarters will be, ”then frowned, realizing we didn’t want to be left alone.
“He’s speaking French, ”Kellogg said helpfully.
The boulanger banged on the door of the second house, went back to his truck, honked his horn again. Then out of the garage of the first house—the bigger and prettier one—came an old man throwing his arms in the air, sputtering a welcome. His nose was purple as wine and shaped like a fist. “Les Américains!” he said. He was followed closely by an old woman, large and bent, who looked terribly embarrassed by her husband’s ebullience.
“Louis Rochelle the elder, ”the boulanger said deprecatingly, by way of introduction. Louis regarded Juliet with robust pleasure, then looked skeptically at me.
His wife trundled up behind, examining me. “The newlyweds?” she whispered of the boulanger, who nodded.
Louis shook his head. “He is too old to be newly wed,” he said. “Are you sure these are the newlyweds and not the wrong couple?”
“Yes, ”said the boulanger. He shrugged—what did he care?—we’d not be staying in his house.
Kellogg said a loud bonjour as Juliet showed Madame her new wedding ring, and lifted my hand too.
The old man shrugged, whispered, “One prays it is not a hoax.” He raised his volume a couple of notches, said formally, “I am enchanted.”
His wife loudly said something apologetic about her daughter-in-law, who was supposed to greet us, took Juliet’s arm, and started back up the driveway between the gardens toward what she said was our house, a long, low building with a pair of French doors and two shuttered windows and two Dutch doors and a grapevine-covered shed for a garage, the whole thing clearly a converted outbuilding, charming. On either side of the French doors geraniums bloomed in large earthen pots. Juliet looked back at me, well pleased, and walked along with Madame. Kellogg swayed after. The boulanger threw his hands up and followed, too. I hovered back, to allow Monsieur Rochelle to join us, but he only winked, brought the thumb of his right hand to his lips, pinky in the air, then turned and ducked into the caveau.
At our place Madame Rochelle dug ten skeleton keys out of her apron, tried each three or four times, dug out ten more, finally unlocked the French doors, which opened wide into a big kitchen. She bid all of us wait, bustled inside to check the place, came back puffing with embarrassment, muttering once more about her miserable daughter-in-law. She bowed then, and Juliet entered. Kellogg followed, exclaiming in English how lucky. The boulanger wiped his finger on top of the refrigerator, raised his eyebrows at the tiny amount of dust.
Juliet dropped her book bag on the kitchen table, a vintage dinette set in steel and vinyl. The Virgin beamed down on us from a hutch full of odd dishes and utensils. And there was the salle de bain off the back of the kitchen, toilet in a separate room next to it, both with small windows to a spectacular view across the vineyards, the only windows in the back wall of the house, a hard breeze flying through. The parlor was dark, side by side with the bright kitchen, small window and Dutch door opening onto the garden, bright old paint, strips of leftover wallpaper, several nice patterns, cracked plaster showing horsehair. You felt dug into the earth, roots in a root cellar, safe and cool. The bedroom was the same, small window and Dutch door opening onto the glorious garden. Each room was furnished with a bed, big double frames stacked high with old mattresses, the stacks covered with worn purple-shag bedspreads from some lost phase of recent millinery history.
“The best we can do!” Madame blurted.
“But, it’s magnificent,” Juliet said.
Now Louis came up the driveway, drawing his sleeve across his mouth. We all stopped to watch him coming. Madame clacked her tongue, wouldn’t let him in the house when he got there, stood barring the door. He paused on the cement stoop and took off his cap, ignoring her. “Newlyweds! Do you like the beds? Will two be sufficient? Do they have the proper resistance? Too soft and you’ll never make connection!”
“I like the beds,” I said, innocently, in my tentative French
“Aren’t they wonderful!” Kellogg said, robustly, in hers.
“Naughty man,” Juliet said, joking, having understood Louis completely, as Kellogg and I had not.
The grinning boulanger checked his watch. We all strolled back to the cars, Juliet translating what had been said. At the courtyard Louis once again put thumb to mouth and pinky in the air. “A little taste?” he said.
“Ah!” the boulanger said, no longer in a hurry.
Madame sputtered, shook her head, made a face. “If you’re going in there I shall go home and attend to the rabbits.” She marched away.
“A bad marriage,” Louis announced tragically, leading us into the cold breath of the stone caveau. A rusty refrigerator hummed. Next to it stood a homemade bar with two stools, which Louis bid us newlyweds take. Wooden barrels lined the walls. “It is here that we sell our wine,” Louis said. “And back there that we make it.” Through an old archway, stainless steel gleamed and a system of expensive-looking valves and glass piping climbed the wall. “The science is my son’s, but he shall never make wine like mine!” Louis pulled two labelless bottles out of the refrigerator and uncorked them while Kellogg held forth in clear, loud French, thanking him.
After several glasses of the excellent wine, and a lot of stilted conversation, I seemed somehow to insult the boulanger by repeating the phrase thou art the baker over and over again. All I was trying to do was to achieve an accent Juliet wouldn’t laugh at. The baker sulked and glowered. Louis ignored him, came around from behind the bar, stood before Juliet. “I shall sing thee a song,” he said. He puffed himself up, held out his arms and sang, formally, spiritedly, every verse and chorus of a long song, something about the birds of summer. His voice was pleasing enough, unwavering, proud. Kellogg and the boulanger listened passionately. Juliet stood frozen in embarrassment, the song directed straight into her face.
When he was done we all clapped. Louis looked lovingly into Juliet’s eyes. “In a year thou shalt return with a baby!”
“A darling baby!” the boulanger cried.
“Nonsense,” Jules said. She had just turned twenty-eight years old.
Later, the two of us sat at the kitchen table in our little house in candlelight touching hands across the table. “I feel like we’ve just gotten up from a horrible dream,” she said. She meant our wedding, and the whole emotional year leading up to it, and the rush to the airport, and that rude hotel in Paris.
Juliet’s classes took place at a farm called Bellevue. There the farmer had cleared out an enormous steel barn to make room for a makeshift atelier. The American artist had arranged for drawing tables and chairs. He’d installed two ply
wood model stands, upon which two American models would sit, naked. An old-fashioned realist portrait of Albert DuFois—painted by the American artist—hung next to the door. The boulanger’s wife sold croissants from a table in the courtyard (nothing too fresh since Americans weren’t known to complain). Chickens poked around in a big pen near the house where Auguste, the farmer, took long lunches with his wife and neighbors and sons and daughters and rambunctious grandchildren, drinking gift whiskey and local wine with the loudest and most brash of the Americans, the ones who lived up to the stereotype and therefore most pleased him.
Juliet drew from the models in the mornings, came home for lunch and a two-hour siesta. We lolled in the sun of our porch or walked back to the grape arbors or napped in the cool of our room, the parlor, where we had thrown the best mattress on the floor. Then Juliet went back to the atelier, oil landscapes in the afternoon.
I worked at the kitchen table each morning from the time Jules left, sometimes turning to look out at the garden. Several frowzy rows of strawberries started it, running between the driveway and a wire clothesline strung on three rough poles. Charlotte, the daughter-in-law, loaded up the clothesline nearly every day at breakfast time with her sons’ and husband’s laundry, looking furtively at our door, hoping for any glimpse of what we might be up to.
On our side of the clothesline stood two sturdily staked rows of tomatoes, then yellow beans, radishes, shallots, carrots, garlic, onions, lettuce, cabbage. At the far right were six bushy rows of magnificent green beans, pressed up against the wall of the main barn. Four gnarled pear trees (Anjou!) at the back of the garden obstructed our view of the landlord’s houses and his courtyard.
Every morning, about the time I’d got myself started for the day, Grandpere would slip through the pear trees, pad through the rows of garlic and materialize behind me at the kitchen doors, which I always left open to the breezes and the flies and the heat of the day. He’d feign respect for my solitude, say nothing till I turned around, then loudly: “Bonjour! Une petite gout?” Thumb in mouth, pinky in the air. He had the conviction that I was lonely, cuckold to Juliet’s art, that my writing was a morbid hobby and not to be encouraged. He spoke slow, careful French, and took pains to be sure I’d understood whatever he’d said: “I am more sympathetic than the others here, for I too had to learn a foreign tongue, when I was a prisoner: in Germany.”