Third time’s a charm, and thirty minutes later we park Bertetto next to an isolated house, just off a dirt road that cuts through a golf course at the edge of town. The house is a standard Provencal hybrid—sturdy yet ramshackle, plain yet charming. A beige, limestone building with green trim, surrounded by empty beer bottles, sun-burnt plastic containers, non-matching lawn furniture, stale bread slices, wine corks, farm tools, yellow water hoses, and, of course, olive trees, heavy with the ripening green flesh that will become l’huile d’olive and olives casses (broken olives) in another couple of months.
“Who was it that first figured out that you could actually eat these things?” queries Paige as we walk through the olive groves, the trees planted in perfect squares. She spits out the tiny piece of olive that she has just tasted. “Awful.”
Olives apparently need a lot of processing before they become tender and edible. The man we are here to meet--Marius Comba--makes his own. Subtle, green olives casses, firm but yielding, the pit easily relinquishes its attachment to the flesh, a perfect balance of salt and flavor. A friend of his, Frederic, who is now a friend of ours, served Marius' olives to us in Arles. Frederic suggested that we meet the olive maker on our way toward Aix.
"He makes them like no one else," Frederic tells us. "He picks them, mashes them, changes the salt water twice a day every single day. No one makes them that way any longer. When Marius goes, the secrets of his olives will go with him."
We take a seat on sun-and-wine-stained plastic lawn furniture, and proceed to wait. I am about to twist the top off of the day's vin en vrac and to pour the evening's first glasses, when I notice an old, grey man and his old, black dog. Stock-still, both man and dog stare at us with synchronized bewilderment.
"Marius?" Paige asks. "Bonjour Marius!"
I do my best to explain in stilted French that we are friends of a friend, that we tasted his olives in Arles, that we want to learn more, that we are hoping to visit with him for a little while if he has time. But it is Paige's friendly smile that obviously does the trick.
Within five minutes, he has served us beer and Panache. Within ten, Paige and I have tasted the best jam of our lives, made from apricots harvested a stone's throw from where we sit. Within thirty minutes, we have an invitation to camp in his olive groves, and another to join him the next evening, when he will play traditional Provencal music for a busload of American tourists.
Marius is an archetype of his generation, of his location. Born to Italian parents who migrated to Southern France and established a farm (where the golf course is now), he remembers German (and later American) soldiers marching along the dirt road that passes in front of his house. He has been growing olives all his life, and has won a gold medal in Paris with his olive oil--one of only three awarded to olive growers from the surrounding region. He is chagrined at the thought of selling his oil in stores, and instead sells directly to the golfers who pass by his house on their way along the 7th fairway.
His marketing strategy is simple and successful. His house is approximately 180 yards from the teebox of the 7th, or about the length of an average drive. He waves at Polo-clad golfers as they search for their tee shots, accosting them with friendly banter. Over the course of a year, he manages to sell almost 1,000 liters of oil in this fashion. At 11 Euros per liter, this is good living in budget-friendly small-town Provence.
He speaks French with traits that recall his Italian ancestry--hand gestures, vigor, volume, and a faintly detectable accent on trailing vowels. If one didn't understand a bit of French, or pick up the twinkle in his intense eyes, one would think he was shouting at everyone and everything with whom he speaks.
But his humor and friendliness are unmistakable. He repeats phrases as though they were catchy song lyrics.
"From California? Ooo-la-la!" he shakes his hand like a wet rag. "Ooo-la-la! OOO-LA-lA!"
"Tango!" He calls to his eight-year old black lab. "Whoa. Tango!"
"Tango is sad." He eyes the dog, its head resting on its forepaws. "He lost his compagne two weeks ago."
"Beaucoup des Americains, eh?" He refers to the tourist buses that visit a local olive oil operation with regularity and for whom he plays music. "The boss lady speaks good American, no? She's American, no?"
"From Lourdes? With le velo? Ooo-la-la!" Again, the wet-rag hand gesture. "Ooo-la-la!"
A distinct twitter, of multiple cicadas and their crooning noise of creaking wood and tinkling glass, provides a constant backdrop. "There he is," Marius cups his hand to his ear, as though he is hearing the noise for the first time."The last one of the season."
He points again to the large black lab. "I call him every night. If he comes, he sleeps inside. If not, he sleeps outside. Now he sleeps outside. He is sad."
We hear variants of each of these phrases and others at least ten times over the next day, and with each rendition, they become funnier, more noteworthy, more poignant.
Marius is almost certainly the most famous resident of Mouries. His picture is on several postcards sold by local boutiques. Several large framed photos of him hang in the shop of Moulin St. Michel, where Marius takes his olives each year to be pressed. In each photo, he appears in Provencal attire--black boots, black or rouge cape, black hat--and usually is pictured playing a small, wooden flute and carrying a large tambourin (drum).
He is younger in most of the photos. In the pictures, his hair is still dark, his face darkly handsome, clean-shaven. Today, he is grey, bearded, fatter. But his eyes haven't changed. They are the eyes of someone who knows a truth, has always known this truth. He feels no need to share it, but also no desire to horde it. To Marius, life is what it is--simple, deep, enjoyable, flavorful.
I am sure he cannot begin to fathom the postcard mindsets of the Americans who step off their bus, take their tour, take their pictures, eat their meal, drink their wine, listen to Marius play, and then hop back on the bus to be carried off, along with their money, to the next stereotypical, made-for-TV destination. Live to work, or work to live? I don't think this is a question that has ever crossed Marius' mind. To him, life is another morning watering his trees, another afternoon in the shade, another evening playing music, another meal with friends, another sombre-faced dog, another Mistral gust, another olive harvest.
As I am about to fall asleep, tent flaps open to the gentle Mediterranean La Dame breeze, I see through the olive branches a silhouette, back-lit in a doorway. A figure in pajama top, belly overhanging plain underwear, bare, thin legs in a feeble pose of age and fatigue. He is absurd, comical, tragic.
"Whoa! Tango!" His voice is almost more howl than human. It carries years and heartbreak and the full moon out into the night. "Vien! Tango! Vien! Whoa! Tango!"
He calls to the old dog for five minutes. Tango doesn't come. After one final entreaty, Marius slowly closes the door and shuts off the light.
The next day, we find ourselves ignoring our early-start intentions and linger until well past noon, as passerby after passerby stops to strike up conversation. Finally, we thank Marius for the hospitality. He invites us to return for the harvest, and gives us a liter of olive oil and another jar of apricot preserves to stuff into our baby trailer. He asks us to take a picture of Tango, who is inside today, asleep on the couch.
"So I can remember him," Marius says. "When he is gone."
As we are leaving, we notice the sign beneath the old pine that Marius planted a half-century ago in front of his then-new house: "La Risoulete."
"Q'est que 'La Risoulete?'" we ask.
Marius replies, his hand gesturing toward the heavens, "C'est comment paradis."
La Risoulete. Paradise, or something like it, and the name that Marius gave to the house he built with his own labor, over fifty years ago.
We couldn't agree more. We plan to return to Mouries in early November to help with the harvest and to learn more secrets of the ancient, mysterious olive.
Marius playing the flute:
with Marius and George:
Tango, Marius' dog:
Link to VIDEO of me playing music "Provencale" with George:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TPjqAmmMKQ
VIDEO:
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