Michel, the truck-owning son of an Armailli who gave me a lift from the station on the day I sang for Corboz, remembered that I played at the Chateau d'Oex Catholic Church on Sundays. After finishing today's now-customary shambolic service (poor visiting Priest from Italy knowing even less about the average Sunday there than I did, which said something, and know-all fellow not standing behind me to lead things this time, so his technique of sing-everything, harmonize-everything didn't work) up popped Michel, all tanned, lined face, grin, trucking clothes and regional accent, to excitedly embrace me and say how wonderful it was to see me again.
He insisted on driving me back to Grandvillard. And as the train journey takes about two hours rather than the usual half hour due to Sunday scheduling, I said yes. He stopped at the Chateau d'Oex graveyard, walked to a particular grave and made the oddest sign of a cross I have ever seen. It involved a motion so quick it was apparent that he had done it thousands of times at least. And it finished with a kind of gesture that looked as if he was spraying drops of water from his fingers at the grave in question. Then he got into the car and I asked if it was his mother's or his father's grave, and he replied that no, it was his friend's father's grave, a friend with whom he had worked up in the nearby mountains. He pointed to it and was very specific about which bit he meant. The locals here never wave vaguely at a mountain. They insist on explaining, naming, specifying, pointing, taking one by the shoulder. Or maybe they just do that to me. Anyway, he then asked me if I wanted to take a short journey up there to see the place. Well hell, I said yes.
We first went to a little cafe at the bottom of the hill, by a river. Lots of motorcyclists there, mostly old couples. I tried to imagine them as rebellious seventies teenagers, with heavy borrowings from Grease, the movie. Meanwhile Michel looked at the paper, paying close attention to road accidents. Not many. He had coffee and I had coffee with ice cream and loads of local cream. The blushing waitress gave the wrong change back, a difference of something like 60 centimes, but Michel said «Mais, ce qu'il est juste, c'est juste,» Or something like that. In any case he made it a point to insist and regaled me with some long story about another incident in his life where a waitress gave him the wrong change. I sat there trying to place Michel in the town where I was born, Gibsons. He'd definitely be a logger of some kind, brusque in his manner, possibly causing offence to young ladies, but with a heart of gold. Not much notion of culture as such, and probably only read cowboy novels. I never asked him the books he read, which would have been interesting. Before we left he asked me if I needed to go to the toilet, then said it was tres important. When I laughed he became extremely serious and told me earnestly that if you have a full bladder and are in an accident, you'll die, but if it's empty, you'll be all right. He really pressed that point, completely convinced that this information could mean the difference between life and death.
We went up, up, up, past sweating cyclists, various families parked at the sides of the road with picnics, past the inevitable groups of cows. It was quite steep and I felt truly sorry for the cyclists. Soon there was a collection of chalets and a restaurant and we were in Etivaz, where they make the wonderful Gruyere cheese. Michel told me something about the trees, something about a tree falling on a Porche he once owned, at around Christmas time when the garages were shut. Or something. I could understand a bit of his talk, but most certainly not all. His accent was thick, and I am far from being a fluent listener, nor a fluent speaker, though I do try. I managed to explain the way my father and grandfather used to handlog on steep islands, and the way the large trees would slide down the mountainside and into the water, and the kind of saw they used, and he understood enough to shake his hand and say ayayay, beaucoup de traivail. He told of logging with cables. I got the impression he had done many many kinds of jobs. But whenever we passed a backhoe, or a machine of some kind by the road, he would say what kind of engine it was before we could actually see it. As he'd say the name, I said «peut-etre,» meaning, hell, it could be anything for all I know. But he said «no, no, c'est juste! Pas peut-etre.» We reached La Lecherette, the region where Michel-Joseph, berger, has his straw-bed and goat's cheese breakfast, though Michel didn't know him. There were two huge owls carved out of wood on an enormous stump along with the sign saying «Lécherette». And the hill still climed up and up and up. We reached a sort of village, or scattering of chalets and small farms and a sort of military base, very small really, and Michel pointed out a few places where he'd worked, in the fields. At this point he was a bit confused as to which road to take. He seemed torn between wanting to show me more and not going too far out of the way...or getting lost. We started along a road, he changed his mind, mentioned something about speeding and cameras, turned back and then started along the road a second time, slower. Perhaps this is some truck-driver's trick. The road we went along was a military road now used by everyone, built in the sixties. He knew when everything had been built and could probably say which machines built it. Every few yards there was a little sign saying «Pont 1» «Pont 2» «Pont 3» and so on, up to at least forty. That was what was needed to make a straight road I suppose. All sorts of little bridges on concrete pilons. It curved round and round the mountain, and there were wild roses a very pale pink, and these enormous, practically elephantine white flowers, kind of like, I don't know, giant baby's breath, but more clump-like. The air smelt very, very good; wild flowers mixed with the smell of clean hay in the sunshine. Then suddenly one looked down and saw the Lac de Hongrin. Stupendous, and bright green. One looked down, down, and there it was spread out like an unexpected plateau before the land continued down, down. By this time it was apparent that any remarkable view would result in Michel taking hold of my left arm in order to facilitate my viewing. I kept smearing on the sunscreen. I must have put ten layers on at least. I saw two old, rusting tanks that seemed to be left as symbols, or art, or perhaps because there was nowhere better for them to go. There were relatively few trees and I commented that they were small, but Michel said they grew slowly and had excellent wood, très solide. The most remarkable view, to my mind, was just after the lake, when you go around and around a few mountaintops, and then you see the green mound of mountain and sticking up are two eroded striated rocks. Huge, like cores of extinct volcanoes. I asked if it was volcanique (I sometimes guess correctly that if you pronounce the English word with a French accent, you'll get it right) but he said no. He's possibly wrong of course, an expert in farming and construction and trucks and motors but not so good with geology. But they just stuck out, like gigantic ears, two bare grey things arising out of a giant green mound.
Underneath them was a long flat shape, rather tiny. Michel pointed out that this was a chalet especially designed so that avalanches pass over it, rather than picking it up and taking it along.
Many more cyclists, sweating in the heat. Many more families with picnics. The road wound and wound upward and I hoped that it was leading us back to Grandvillard, or at the least, Chateau d'Oex. No chance. After a while, Michel admitted that he was lost, and recalled a time when he went up this area when it was deep in snow and his father told him he was a silly boy, completely crazy. At this point I started to recall to myself the self-defence lessons taught in school, and size him up for speed. I could certainly outrun him. Silly apprehension of course. Everyone knew him at the Pic-Vert place in Grandvillard, and he really wasn't that sort. But still, this was a loooong way from Grandvillard and Chateau d'Oex. Perhaps not so long as the crow flies, but certainly as the foot walks. Just how long was demonstrated when suddenly (sorry for all the 'suddenlys' but it's how these roads are. Or railways for that matter. And Switzerland in general) to my right and as if seen from an aeroplane, was Lac Leman, looking truly immense, and a town. I asked him what town it was and he didn't know. Looking at the map, it must have been Villeneuve. I don't think it was Montreux, because we were further south and further east than that. Soon there was a one-way tunnel which was very rough and hewn and blasted throughout, no polishing or cementing at all, with what looked like torches on either side from time to time. Of course they were lights, but they looked primitive like the tunnel itself. Then it was down, down, down, curving and twisting and like a small intestine. Anyone tending to motion sickness would have been in hell, especially with Michel's hilarious driving, pointing at things, sure of his experience on the roads. After a bit, during which I was silent, trying to do the dancer's head-turning trick during the constant bends and rolling my tongue around like a lozenge (a trick I have), he said «T'as peur? T'as pas peur? T'as peur, t'as peur, ou t'as pas peur?» Well, mister, when you put it like that...anyway he took his watch off without slackening his pace, and handed it to me and told me to read it. I looked at the time and thought that this was something sinister. Like, your time is up little girl. But no, he wanted me to see the back of it, and it was incidentally a Mercedes-Benz watch (didn't know they made 'em) and it said «Michel Sciboz, 1,000 000 km» Driving their trucks, I suppose. He put it back on without slackening his pace, and the curves in this road are almost circles. Looking down was almost frightening, because it really and truly was precipitous. Below was another town. This time Michel knew which one. Aigle. I needed the loo. That was very important to Michel and he found one quickly. I came back and he said, oddly, «Tout propre?» Through a whole hillside of vineyards, and past a fascinating looking tiny chateau that looked as if Disney had gone to it for inspiration, with a cone-like tower. Either this place was called Corbérier, or it was just after a place called Corbérier. Then Aigle, which looked quite Mediterranean in the baking heat, or at least the bit by the vineyards did. Further along there were power stations, factories...I saw a fabulous Chateau with scaffolding around it but we didn't stop. There was a river in a gorge. We went up the mountains again, though the curves weren't as sharp. Signs pointed reassuringly toward Gstaad. We more or less followed this river, and it was fairly dramatic looking down at it. Soon we were in forests and across the valley I saw a fascinating orange bridge across a huge gully, just hanging there in the air, it appeared. It was for the railway line that goes to the Diablerets. The air smelt of forests and rivers, rather like western Canada. We got closer to the bare-looking rutted grey mountains with the traces of snow on them, and I could see that it was melting and that there were an impressive set of waterfalls tumbling onto rock that was polished over many many many years of that snow melting. This was the source of the river we'd been seeing. Then Michel said we must eat (it was around two o'clock by this time. Remember that mass at Chateau d'Oex ends at eleven) and went up a single-track road to the Lac Retaud restaurant. Many many ramblers and cyclists. Mostly getting on in years, and very obviously not from anywhere farther than France, Italy or other parts of Switzerland. We parked and he said «Il y a une surprise au sommet...Une bonne surprise pour toi...une veritable surprise» or words to that effect. I figured it'd be a lake, and I was right. Up there, in the middle of the mountains, was the sweetest pond you could wish for. Ducks a-quacking, boats a-rowing (nice colourful wooden affairs, four francs per hour. I would have liked to have rented one, but it would have been far too romantic for my already excitable friend) and of course, a restaurant. All those curves and turns down the mountainside had rendered me without much of an appetite. Not ill, not even nauseous, but just without an appetite. So I urged Michel to eat, and he had the local thing, which was a huge hunk of bread with an enormous amount of cheese melted onto it, and a big slice of ham and more cheese, and two fried eggs on top. I had some Grappino, or whatever it's called. Grape juice. Michel spoke with the owners to get to know them, and told me it was a family establishment, so would be all right.
On our way again, and there was a crude sign advertising Serac, a very mild cheese. Michel turned around and we went into this farm, which was the real thing, truly. The woman there was youngish, and not fat, but somehow the way she was built was odd, spread out. Her face looked as if it were made out of plasticene and somebody's thumb had pressed the nose a bit, spreading the features. The forehead was a bit low. her body was similar, a bit splayed. She was quite droopy and would probably be classified as 'special needs' in a school. But she has a good herd of cows and makes good cheese. She had a different dialect than Michel, and they each had a little trouble understanding a few words of the other, but they spoke the same language in other ways. The right questions, the right answers. Incidentally, Michel's dialect, the local here in Grandvillard, has a lot of 'ng' in it. Prends ca comes out prung ca. Pays d'Enhaut is Pays dung-oh. The lady farmer didn't prounounce 'G', and Gummfluh was Yummfluh. It was a dank cellar and there were at least three sheets of flypaper, each about 14 inches by 11, and COVERED with flies. I'm certain I've never seen so many flies in my life, in one place. The woman has thirty-nine cows. There was an enormous old iron stove, and a brass cauldron that would easily have provided a good-sized man an adequate bath. Her cupboards contained tinned goods, just as they must have for countless decades, in an area far from shops. It was none of it any too clean. An extremely faded picture of cows cut out from a newspaper hung next to a tiny radio from the rafters, which were low. The Serac was in two sizes and looked like cottage cheese pressed into a little plastic bucket full of holes. Michel bought a big one and I bought a small one. Mine was only three francs. Imagine. It's not at all small and will last me a week at least. I have had some already and it is lovely. Nice and nutty and mild and a bit sweet somehow. Not too salty at all.
Down through little farms, whole families sweating away gathering in mown hay or grass or whatnot, vast heaps of shaggy green stuff. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters. Their clothes were modern, their hair modern, but they might just as well have been wearing smocks and aprons and so forth. Even the equipment, vast rakes and forks, was traditional. People sat in doorways in shade, and after a few more minutes, we came to a place where there was a small concentration of chalets, and Michel honked his horn and shouted out the window «Salut Bertrand!» A white-haired man was slaving away on his own field with a rake with tines about a foot long. Michel turned around and said «Je vais dire bonjour a mon copin, Bertrand» or words to that effect. Bertrand was a sweet man, sweating like a fountain all over his tanned face. He seemed to have something quite dignified about him and was gentlemanly in his complements, and I sent him telepathic waves that said: I am not Michel's paramour. I am not Michel's paramour. As they chatted in the horrendous heat, I looked up at the absolutely gorgeously ornate chalet near me and read the inscription that said the chalet had been constructed in 1988 by Bertrand B.............. I forget his last name. And then I noticed that behind it and to the side, there was one that was of much darker wood that had also been constructed by Bertrand B.............., in 1962. They were truly remarkable, with such wonderful woodwork and attention to detail, and with beautiful and very large floral patterns near the inscription, big enough to see properly from a distance. Very stylish. I complemented him on these. It turned out he had built the majority of them in the little village, and he explained why he came to put his name on them, a long story I didn't quite understand enough words of. And he told of an amusing anecdote involving some English tourists thinking he owned all the ones he'd signed. Or at least I think that's what the story was about. We said goodbye and drove on, and Michel said that Bertrand was divorced, and had two daughters and a son. I asked if his son also builds chalets like his father (I know enough about the Swiss not to bother asking if the daughters do...) and Michel shook his head sadly and said «Non. Pas un bon fils. Bas bon. Pas du tout.» Having a bon fils is one of those very important things, I realised.
Signs were in German now. We approached Saanen. On the way there was a sort of holiday camp with small buildings and a volleyball court which I saw from slightly above as we passed. It looked just like a tennis court, except filled knee-deep with light yellow sand. Very clean. Very odd.
A little river right next to the road was light green and clean, and Michel started to see the odd person on the road that he knew and he tooted his horn to them always. Being a truck driver (and he continued to say «trooc» with a great deal of pride) since 1967, I would imagine he knows quite a number of people. He told me that he was without a wife, without children, and that when he bought his first truck, his girlfriend left him and he abandoned the idea of having a truck and a wife. «C'est un peu egoiste, et les enfants sont bon, mais c'est une choix.»
A few more places Michel had done one thing or another at - fields, rivers, machines, factories, lumberyards - were pointed out. Presently he put a cassette into the car's primitive tapedeck, and the sound boomed distantly amidst a loud hissing so that the music was almost unidentifiable. I could just tell that it was vaguely folk-like, in French, and had a sixties air about it, though too much on the folk side ever to be in, say, the Eurovision song contest. Then he changed his mind, took out that cassette and put in a comedian who spoke in a Genevoise accent and made funny voices and punctuated stories with chords and arpeggios on a piano. Again, it was with a heavy dialect, boomed distantly, as if the two speakers in the back were wadded down with numerous old dungarees, and had a loud, hissing overlay. Even if it had been clear I wouldn't have understood it. The audience laughed that drunken, generous laughter with equal parts male and female that one hears on old videos of «The Comedians» in the UK. Perhaps he was Geneva's answer to Bernard Manning. Perhaps I'll never know. I understood one word out of seven. But Michel was howling! He thought it was extremely funny. He laughed so much I feared for his steering. He kept pointing at the tapedeck after punchlines, looking at me through his laughter, saying «T'as vu, Patricia? Eh?» I did laugh, at the oddness of it all, the crowning touch of it. He was so happy having a girl in his car that he was able to suspend disbelief this far...he'd just spent five solid hours listening to my ghastly attempts to formulate the most rudimentary of sentences and must have known that understanding this was impossible for me, but to make his day perfect, said girl in car would have to laugh with him at his favourite, worn-out cassette of this old comedian.
We got to Gstaad and I insisted on treating him to a coffee at a tea-room. I had iced Ovamaltine and used the public loo there, and when I came back he asked, «T'as trouver le bonheur?» A real thing with toilets, he has.
At last Chateau d'Oex again, five hours later! «Le cercle est complet,» I said. «Le boucle,» he corrected. We went past Les Moulins. I asked if it was true that the station there, as Michael has told me several times, is haunted, si il a un Phantom. He very quickly and firmly said «No. Ce n'est pas vrai.» The idea was ridiculous, preposterous, and furthermore a bad thing to say. It struck me that this fellow, who has religion so deep in the marrow that he makes his funny genuflexion even when he gestures at a church, is just the kind of person a world requires for ghost stories to have the necessary impact.
Then instead of taking the way back that Wojtek and Veronique take when they drive, after Rossiniere he went along the old road. He called it «ancien». He grew up here, and his reminiscences from then on were impossible for me to understand. «Mon Papa» figured in them, and «ce maison jaune,» and bicycling, heat, distance, snow, and all sorts of other things. This old road more or less follows the MOB line. He went extremely slowly and it did have an abandoned air, this road. Just a few old dwellings and trees that, uncharacteristically for Switzerland, were left to be a bit wild. As he slowed down to walking pace I started to be a bit apprehensive again. We passed some shacks and he mentioned them somehow and I was thinking that he'd maybe tie me up in one or something, and again I looked around for the best route to run the fastest, the way with the fewest obstacles to trip me up, but all he did was gesture to the shacks and say «Tu ne veut pas les acheter? Non? Pourquoi pas?» in a jesting kind of a way. Then I mentioned that I had hungry rabbits waiting in Grandvillard.
There was a clearing with a lake just visible to the right. He pulled to the side and stopped. There was lots of gravel and a precipice. He started talking and I only caught bits. One must pay attention. It is dangerous. It is a precipice. It was a gravel pit. Then the incredibly reassuring «As-tu peur? T'as peur? T'as peur?» Shit, I thought. A goddamn precipice. Where a body wouldn't be found in ages. He went on. He had worked here in the sixties. It was very hard work. He worked with a woman. Oh God, a woman. Where is her body now? At the bottom of the pit, now covered not only with sixties gravel but also the lake? He sighed and started to drive again. The man was only reminiscing, possibly for the first time in his life, the poor lonely fellow.
And so to Grandvillard, where I had the bike waiting, thanks to Michael's instructions on wheel-changing, and also the neighbour who interrupted me and took over, which I allowed him to do, despite being confident of eventual success. Michel hugged goodbye, asked if I was doing anything Vendredi soir, to which I said yes, I am going with my friend the Princess to the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad. Poor Nadia doesn't like her title bandied about, but it had such a wonderfully exotic ring to it that I couldn't resist. Nothing to do with name-dropping, honest, but the day had been so utterly bizarre that I had to add my own bit of bizarreness to it.
The bicycle ride back to Grandvillard was absolutely sweltering, and all the time I've been writing this, I have cradled a bottle of frozen milk against various parts of my person. It also happens I need milk and the Laiterie is closed. So a good thing all round.
And no, Ma. No photos. I was intending, after waking up at six for the early train, to come straight back from Chateau d'Oex after mass and fall asleep. Last Sunday I brought my camera and ended up deleting the boring pictures that I took on the way, so I left the appareil a la maison, as I kept saying to Michel. Still, I'm a bit glad in a way. The trip was so bizarre that I don't want tourist snaps to make it mundane in retrospect. Besides, every spectacular sight on that journey had local tourists with cameras much like mine, immortalising it all...except for the old man Bertrand, the cheese kitchen with the flies, the sad old road from Rossiniere, and Michel himself. And to photograph any of these would be either rude, or next to impossible to do properly.
