I stand in the kitchen of the converted olive oil mill in Normandy where our family has summered for as long as I can remember. A light rain slicks the mullioned windows; I absently trace an abstract figure on the glass and gaze out at the French countryside. In my periwinkle apron (which my husband says complements my eyes), hands covered in flour, I am in the midst of baking a batch of the poppyseed muffins Jean-Paul came to adore. I always left one outside his window with a simple note: "From moi."
New of his death brought me back to the spring of 1980, when a friend and I were backpacking through France. As we walked the streets of Paris, word of the great philosopher's demise was on all lips: "Jean-Paul Sartre est mort."
Jean-Paul Boucher, far from being a literary luminary, was a simple man who had difficulty reading (I always made sure to inform him that it was I who had left the muffin; in time, he came to recognize my stationery). But his absence is incalculable, not only to the village of M----, but to our family. We will miss his toothless grin (scurvy), his worn felt hat set at a rakish angle, and the many good times we shared.
An accident fated us to meet: my husband Ian, on his way to buy fresh raspberries at M----'s small Saturday market in the summer of 1998, struck Jean-Paul with his moped. Ever resilient, the old man (he was then into his eighties), in the words of the well-known tune, "picked himself up, brushed himself off, and started all over again." (Albeit starting all over again entailed proceeding with very few of the six dozen eggs he'd been toting to market still intact.)
When Ian related that morning's events, he and I had one of our rare spats. The soul of kindness, my husband had promised Jean-Paul a sturdier basket, which turned out to be the very one my mother had taken marketing during her many seasons in Normandy. "You drive your moped recklessly," I told him, "you should have taken the Peugeot." "If I'd taken the Peugeot, I would have killed him."
Just then, there came a soft tap at the door, and Jean-Paul, winded after walking the seven kilometers from the village center, entered our olive oil mill. After offering him Calvados, I explained that I could not bring myself to part with the wicker basket of ma mère, but in its stead I could offer a rugged canvas bag. And from that time, Jean-Paul was known throughout M---- for his Channel Thirteen Subsciber's Tote.
We learned just how much Jean-Paul loved Calvados the night of what has come to be known as "the naming ceremony." Five months pregnant, I was keen to have the input of an actual Frenchman. In truth, Ian and I would have preferred someone more educated, but the townsfolk have proven dismayingly aloof despite my family's presence here for more than four decades. (The French: c'est la vie.)
After rejecting Jean-Paul's three self-referential suggestions (Jean, Paul, and Jean-Paul), Ian and I had narrowed our future son's name to Marcel and Antoine. Back and forth we went with the two names, like a couple sawing in tandem an enormous sequoia: "Marcel, Antoine, Marcel, Antoine." Finally by 4:30 A.M., we'd settled on Antoine and Jean-Paul, bleary-eyed and non-responsive, seemed in no condition to walk home as he staggered down our cobbled walk into the night.
During the succeeding years, Jean-Paul Boucher became an honorary member of our household, driving us to and from Orly (five times) or DeGaulle (eight), storing our Peugeot outside his modest home and turning over its engine during the chill winter months, chopping and stacking our cord wood, and scrubbing the olive oil mill's tiled floors and en suite bathrooms prior to our arrival each June.
As he reached his mid-nineties, we noticed Jean-Paul's failure to adequately clean the pedestals of our sinks and toilets. "He must be blind," said Ian presciently, as it turned out our friend was indeed hampered by not one but two cataracts. It was at this time we reluctantly decided we could no longer entrust our safety to someone visually impaired (no matter how fond we were of him) and told Jean-Paul we would no longer require his services as a driver.
Apparently, he spent his 96th winter living in our car (when confronted, he claimed it was warmer than his traditional dwelling) and this proved to be the end of our friendship. What did Chinua Achebe write? "Things fall apart."
As I slide a tin of muffins into the oven, my heart is full of forgiveness and I feel closer to Jean-Paul than I have for years. Baking his favorite treat, I suddenly am at a loss: what shall I do with the muffin traditionally meant for him?
