The Honest Truth

It had been a pleasant afternoon of gallavanting in the nearest town, Angles Sur L’Anglin. Population: half your high school. Charm: if your high school was a castle from the 14th century.

We put our bikes away, and peek shyly in the doorway. It would be a miracle if he wasn’t home, but of course, we hear stirring. Herman slams open the door (with him, this is possible) and stands there looking at us dumbly wearing a vest over his worn down collarshirt and smoking a cigar.

“Bonjour les filles, qu-est-ce que vous avez faites?” he asks, drawing out every syllable. The conversation always starts politely, but since Adrian has left for another farm and Herman’s  girlfriend, Christine, has gone back to Paris, things have changed. Since Christine showed up he’s been rude to us. At first we thought it was some macho way of proving his masculinity to her, but then we realized it probably would’ve happened regardless. Christine is a sweet saint, and never impressed by Herman’s commentary, be it perverted joke or dispariging comment about us, “les filles.” She’s quick to say “T’es fou, ou quoi?” or some other perfect sentence that gives Herman nothing to work with and shuts him up. None of us know this trick. For know we’re stuck with Herman alone for two days until she comes back.

We tell him about our day at the river in the small town quickly and neutrally to incite no discussion.After telling us about how he called Ruth’s boyfriend, Alex, because the number was left on his computer desk, he proceeds to tell us:

“Il-y-a-du-travail-a-faire demain,” and goes on about how we have to weed inbetween the cobblestones so he can spray a chemical called “round up” so they don’t come back. So much for the organic in WWOOF.

Next, he pulls out a famous line: “Je-vous-propose,” again said very slowly, and always followed by dinner plans. Tonight: “Le salmon et le boeuf.” He also says we’ll be listening to La Traviata, the famous opera, because it’s playing on TV.

In the meantime, we’re to prepare the barbecue. We tell him he hasn’t shown us how to do so yet, to which he grunts loudly, snatches his cane, and hobbles speedily towards the back door. The barbecue is an antique. It’s rusty as hell with a small  rack that goes ontop of coals and a rounded lid.

The barbecue has wheels, and Herrman grabs the handles, tilts it, and drags it along the cobblestones, making unecessary amounts of noise to indicate what an inconvienence this is.

He stops once we reach the shed where the paper and wood are. Ruth picks up a piece of newspaper, folds it, and trys to place it in the barbecue. Herman rips it out of her hand mid-air, crumples it up and says “C’est fait comme ca!” For some reason, he’s very offended by her getting this wrong.

We move onto the wood pile where he starts to violently break branches and throw them on the barbecue. Then he looks at us and says he’s already done half the work.

As we continue to break branches he hobbles over to the haystacks that line the wall of the shed. He puts his cane done, and starts climbing them without explanation. Once he gets to the top he says “Venez ici.”

Ruth, Sascha and I walk over and start to climb the height of five haystacks. I get to the top first and he points to an egg a chicken has laid there. They aren’t supposed to be let out of the coop unless they lay eggs, but since Edwina busted through the coop in the process of getting her collar a few days ago,  they’ve had free reign.

We climb down the haystack, and wait for Herman to come. He trips on the second last haystack, and falls to the ground slowly and akwardly, like a sack of potatoes. Ruth offers her hand but he insists it’s ok.

Herman hobbles back to the house, and we are left to wheel the barbecue back to its place. “Are you we supposed to light it?” asks Sascha once we get to the house. None of us remember what the instructions were. “Go for it,” I say. We’re about to eat dinner, and I don’t see why not. Sascha lights the huge pile of kindle upon which the metal rack uneasily rests and fire blazes.

Then she pokes her head in the door: “Le barbecue et prete,” she says to Herman.

“Nooo,” we hear urgently coming from inside the house, as if someone has just seen something they’re not supposed to. “Vous ‘etiez pas supposez d’allumer le barbecue.” We go inside. “J’ai vous ai-dites ca dans les instructions,” he’s saying, now very upset. “Est-ce que vous avez des problemes a suivre les instructions?”

None of us know how to respond. I try and say that he’s told us many things in the last couple minutes and I’m sorry if we forgot, but I fumble with my french.

When Herman stands up, he moves like a toy car spinning out of control. He slams the barbecue shut, while music from La Traviata flames up from outside. He orders Sascha to get something from the garden and Ruth and I follow him into the kitchen.

He stands at the sink furiously ripping lettuce leaves off a half rotten head.  “Surement a vos maisons, vous jetez toutes ca,” he says, pointing to the lettuce.

“On a du composte a la masin,” says Ruth, snappily.

Then he starts picking furiously at the drain. He says we’ve clogged it, and patrinizingly tells us the metal thing is to block food so we should use it. He drops to his knees and starts fiddling with something under the sink.

When he stands up, he takes another stab: “surement a vos maisons vous avez des garberaters qui faits toutes ca.”

My heart rate is rising, rising, rising. Who knows what colour my face is.

“Herman,” I say. “I’m going to say this in English to be clear. You can’t treat us like this. We’re volunteers. If we did something wrong we’re sorry but you can’t speak to us like this.”

He stares at me blankly and I have no idea what he’s going to say.

“T’as raison,” he says, calmly. “T’as completment raison.” I have no idea if he’s mocking me or being sincere. Then he turns to the fridge to look for something and starts mumbling about facism.

Dinner is tense. Ruth tries to make small about the opera that’s playing. I can’t look him in the face, and Sascha is confused.  All she knows is that something happened while she was gone that prompted herman to tell her that when he’s alone, he gets angry, and that I had been right on calling him out on it.

We scarved down our food, said no to the cheese plate, and filled a caraf of wine to bring upstairs. As we walked up the staircase, I glanced at Herman from the window. He was sitting at the picnic bench, hunched over a bottle of red wine, listening to the opera alone.

Some time has passed, my friends.  Some time where there’s been an old man sitting in a chair, guarding my only hope of connecting to the word via interweb.  Life on the farm in Vienne France is a little hard to explain. It’s one of those rubrix cubes that has many colours that never fit together no matter how hard you try.  Endless contradictions. The best I can do, as always, is try to give a few slices of the pie. Let me preface by saying, it was the strangest 12 days of my life, and if not for Sascha, Ruth, and some other visitors, I would’ve peaced out long ago…

The Beginning:

He’s leaning against a stone wall in the parking lot. Just like in the pictures, he’s wearing a page boy cap, holding a cane, and smoking a cigar.

Before getting on the train we googled his name: Herman Bruce.  We found some online dating profiles, one listing his interests as “erotica.” The french profiles list his first name as Herman, the english ones as Bruce. His age: 70.

“It’s ok,” we assured eachother. He’s just a lonely, sweet old man and if not…WE ARE TOGETHER.

Herman, as he went by in e-mails,  doesn’t say much in terms of greetings. He hauls one of our packs awkwardly on to the top of the car, and mumbles something about having just bought groceries. We exchange nervous glances.

Ruth sits in front, her french being the best, though Herman isn’t hard to understand. He’s from Germany, and lived most of his life in London before moving to Paris. His British is obvious.

The car smells faintly of compost. There’s a book in the back of the passenger seat that’s called ” Renaissance Women” and one on wine.

The french countryside is beautiful, and Herman describes to us the history of the places we pass. The little towns all look similar: windy roads, tall buildings made of aging brick and cement and many flowers. The landscape of the farms are flat and the fields full of wheat.

I catch Herman’s eyes in the rear view mirror, and they seem kind. He keeps asking us if there’s too much wind and if we want to do up our windows. I think he is a nice, but shy man.

We arrive at his farm and a chicken comes to meet us. Herman explains calls her “la rouge” andexplains that after the other chickens attacked her one day, he moved her pen to the front of the house.

Inside, the house is charmingly rugged. There’s a big room that has a sitting area with a couch and two chairs, a dining room table, and a desk with a laptop by the door. The sheets that cover the couch and chairs are slightly dirtied and thrown over the furniture dishevedly.

Surrounding the seating area are tall bookshelves stacked from head to toe. On the coffee tableare clutters of ashtrays and some empty bottles of wine.

The kitchen, small and off to the side, smells strongly of compost.

We go out back to the “farm” which is a huge field of dried, dead grass, a garden, and a big shed with a chicken coup, haystacks, and junk such as an old ping pong table and a rusty car. Also waiting in this shed Herman calls ” le Hangar” are two sheep. The black one is Mr.Robert and the white one is Edwina. Mr. Robert is tied to a leash that is tied to a brick. Edwina is tied to nothing but stands defesively near Mr. Robert. We get the point: stay away.

Herman explains one of our first tasks will be to put a leash on Edwina. Since it’s impossible to approach Mr. Robert without Edwina coming close, the game plan is to walk towards him and once Edwina is there form a human wall to capture her.

Back in the house he asks us what we’d like to drink. He offers every alcoholic drink imagineable and we decide on white wine. It’s 3 p.m.

After unpacking a little in our room in the attic of the house, which he’s named “Diva” for god knows what reason, we come downstairs for a glass of wine.

There are three glasses waiting and opera playing. Herman sits in one of the chairs with a glass of red and a cigar lit. “Racontez-moi un peu de vous-memes” he says, leaning back. As we go around the circle telling him what we do, he nods and doesn’t say much.

We learn he’s a retired economist who after living in Paris for ten years decided to come to the country. He has two daughters, living in Switzerland and London. One he refers to as a facist, because when she comes to visit she throws out all the rotting food in his fridge which he doesn’t think is rotting.

We hear a noise and Herman says “Adrian est ici.” Adrian is another Canadian WOOFER who arrived at Herman’s a couple days before us. He comes in wearing a bright blue shirt and many freckles. He has a sweet, young face. He pours himself a glass of red, and shly tells us that he comes from a small island in B.C., wants to be a writer and came hear to improve his french because he now lives in Montreal. He is already fluent with a beautiful accent.

We’ve polished off the bottle of white, and Herman brings out another. Adrian periodically dissapears into the kitchen and fills both his and Herman’s glasses. Then Herman brings out delicious goat cheese with toothpicks and we discuss what to make for dinner.

A beautiful song with spanish guitar is playing. I look over at Ruth, and she mouths the words “I’m crying.”

Sascha makes a salad with fresh spinach and another with tomatoes from the garden. We sit at the wobbly picnic table out back, with lights hanging from the tree. Herman brings out cold pork, and after that we feast on bread and cheese.

The conversation revolves around the multi-coloured glass fly traps Herman keeps on the picnic table. They enter through the bottom and get trapped and we watch them buzz around looking for a way out. Herman poses the question: If it’s ok to kill flies like this is it ok to kill humans?

We all try to give sincere answers in broken french, and we quickly realize he has a snarky comeback for everything we say. Adrain, by now, knows to keep his mouth shut.

Meanwhile, we’ve moved onto Rose wine, and nobody cares about meaningful conversation as long as the drinks are cold. The sheeps baaaa int he background.

Herman brings out a cherry liquor that tastes like rum and a golden one in plastic bottle that tastes like whisky. We take two rounds of shots. Tomorrow is saturday, and we don’t have to work.

After clearing the plates, Herman and Adrian are in the kitchen cleaning up and refuse my help.  My eyesight blurry, I give Herman two kisses and say goodnight.

The best party I’ve had so far in Europe is with a 70-year-old man and it’s nowhere near ending…