A Pinch of Time

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In the electronic versions of this book

blank pages that appear in the paperback

have been removed.

A Pinch of Time

Claude Tatilon

Translated by

Jacob Homel and David Homel

Publishers of singular Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, Drama, Translations and Graphic Books

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Tatilon, Claude

A pinch of time / Claude Tatilon; translated by Jacob Homel and David

Homel.

Translation of: La soupe au pistou.

ISBN 978-1-55096-147-8

I. Homel, David II. Homel, Jacob, 1987- III. Title.

PS8589.A8738S6813 2010 C843'.54 C2010-907140-9

eBooks

978-1-55096-204-8 (epub)

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978-1-55096-206-2 (PDF)

Text © 2010, Le Cherche Midi Editeur

Translation © 2010, Jacob Homel and David Homel

Cover Design by Christine Tatilon

This translation was completed with a variety of grants from the Canada Council’s National Translation Program for Book Publishing (NTPBP)

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For my parents,

newly reunited

CONTENTS

The Curtain Rises

The Curtain Falls

Afterword

Endnotes

Don’t ask me what’s true and what’s not in this story. I’d have to tell you everything’s true – down to the last made-up detail.

A word about pistou…

For North American gourmets, it might be tempting to read pesto for pistou. Not far from the truth, but not quite right either. Yes, fresh basil is involved, plenty of it, but pistou is a soup, not a sauce, something like a minestrone, part French, part Italian.

For gourmets and amateur cooks alike, the recipe can be found at the end of the book. Bon appétit!

The Curtain Rises

My first pistou lesson was given to me by my mother. I wasn’t yet seven and I remember it as if it were yesterday.

We were in Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, one hundred kilometres from Marseille, where I was born. We had just arrived in this charming little village perched in what was known as the Basses-Alpes then, since rechristened Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. When I say we, I mean my mother, my cousin Gérard, and I. This was at the end of June 1943, and my father had been arrested a month before, on the 25th of May, during a secret meeting at the house of the head of the Resistance cell he belonged to. The night the Gestapo arrested him, he was carrying a basil plant and a modest piece of parmesan. The ingredients with which, he would later take pleasure in telling, he had enjoyed, in the Nazi camps, invigorating pistou soups that surpassed, or so he claimed, the ones made by my Aunt Virginie. Natzwiller-Struthof, Neue Bremm, Buchenwald,  Vaihingen and the last stop, Dachau, where on April 29, 1945, he was freed by the American army. Dad had travelled more than most in his early thirties. When he returned, something no one expected anymore, those orgies of pistou hadn’t fattened him up: he weighed thirty-six kilos and a whisker!

In my family, pistou was a sort of tradition. Actually, more like a competition in which my mother and one of her three sisters, Virginie, had long battled for supremacy. The two other sisters had their own specialties: Marie’s, the oldest, was fish – bourride, bouillabaisse, bass, grilled bream, and flambés with pastis. Henriette’s specialty was desserts, and particularly her famous oreillettes, or little ears.

Despite my mother’s efforts, when it came to pistou, Aunt Virginie was the uncontested champ of the family’s culinary battles. Today, I still use her recipe. The one I learned on Sundays on the large cast-iron stove, under the attentive supervision of her gourmand husband, Uncle Eugène. Today, I am about to make one for some of my Toronto friends who can’t get enough of it.

I lay in front of me the necessary ingredients, bought yesterday with Nela at the St. Lawrence Market. At the center – for we must give credit where credit is due – is basil. Pistou for us Provençals. It offers a full bushy head and stands some forty centimetres high. Its strong aroma – close to thyme - makes my mouth water. Here in Toronto, we’re lucky: the local basil, grown by the region’s Italian farmers and sold under the name pesto, competes in nobility and taste with the best Provençal product.

Before me, I have the dog-eared notebook in which I keep my favourite recipes. Aunt Viriginie’s occupies the first two pages. It’s interesting that although I know these pages by heart, I’d never dare begin a pistou operation without first carefully reading them.

But let’s return to my first lesson on that morning of June 1943. We were on Uncle Émile’s terrace – he, the husband of Aunt Marie. They would spend their summers in Moustiers, away from the big city.  At the time, the hundred kilometres or so that separated the small village from Marseille were quite a distance, especially by bus. Uncle Émile did have a car, a 1943 front-wheel-drive Citroën that the German army hadn’t commandeered, but there was no gas to be found.

The house was empty in early June when we had to flee Marseille to avoid the Gestapo’s possible reprisals. My mother, anxious, wanted to think it through, and put off our departure. I’d be alone with the little one, and so far from Marseille… And what if Paul manages to escape, like Mister Moretti… But Grandma Rose had taken up her role as the inflexible mater familias. Backed up by the rest of the family, ignoring her younger daughter’s hesitations, she’d decided for her. This is serious business and we must hurry, Mireille. You’ll leave tomorrow. Gérard will go with you. You’ll put them both in school up there. Uncle Émile made the trip with us to open up the house and show us around.

Standing at the top of the village, on a steep slope, the modest house was built over a stable. Its entrance, on one end of a large terrace, overlooked a small garden where a century-old linden tree stood guard. The tree had imposing branches, under whose protection we would while away the hours – clocks run slower in Provence, especially in summer – from breakfast, when the sun was already high in the sky, to supper, when it would disappear behind the mountain. A steep mountain over the village, cut in two in the middle, with its two sides linked by a chain on which was suspended, two hundred and fifty metres above the village, a golden star.

The heavy stone house had been built in the 1880s by Uncle Émile’s father, a mason by trade. Later, another floor had been added with three rooms that were reached via an outside staircase on the north side, toward the mountain. There was a cafoutche under the staircase, a storage space with old tools and miscellaneous things. A fascinating place for children – almost as much as the stable, which was forbidden to us, though Gérard quickly found the key.

We didn’t live in the topmost rooms, too cramped and cut off from the heart of the house for our taste. We slept downstairs, in the rooms that were the extension of the kitchen and that gave onto the village. The smaller room was my mother’s, while Gérard and I slept in the larger one with two beds. During the day, we often climbed upstairs to play. Over Moustiers’ mossy rooftops, we’d let our eyes wander across the plain to the blue-hued hills, behind which were hidden Riezla-Romaine and the Valensole plateau. 

One morning – I’ll never forget it – we followed a strange aerial ballet for several minutes. Two graceful airplanes twisted and turned in the air, playing out a dance on the vast stage of the sky.

One reached up, then the other descended. They crisscrossed, brushed against each other, hurling wreaths of shooting stars. A slow-motion pas de deux, the slowness explained by the distance of the duel, ten kilometres away. Look at the one on the left! He spiraled up above the other, and made a vertical drop on him. Spirals, tailspins, looping. And always, in slow motion, a myriad of shooting stars. We could barely hear the staggered, dull crackling that gave us an impression of unreal silence. Finally, be it the clumsiness of the gunners or the skill of the pilots, with no salvos hitting the other, eastbound, westbound, the planes divorced for fear of running out of petrol.

An Englishman and an Italian, if we were to believe the opinion of the villagers who had no idea how the aerial hunt ended. Many years later, I like to imagine that one of the planes was French, piloted by Saint-Exupéry on a reconnaissance mission. 

The pistou is ready. 

That name, its two syllables giving rhythm to the nostalgic song of the past, was just a simple meal to devour back then. Given the circumstances, a very humble dish. No matter; it was enough.

Soon, with the war over, my mother would be able to improve her recipe for the duels when better times returned, when, pécaïre!, she’d have to brave her eternal rival, Virginie. It was a time of almost perfect happiness that I would soon come to know. Despite the deep scars, the family would resume its old habits. Under Grandma Rose’s veranda, the frame bare, having lost all its window glass during the battle to liberate Marseille, but still offering an impressive view of the Vieux-Port, the harbour, and the islands of Château d’If and Frioul, we would extend the Sunday afternoon suppers – the adults with their endless discussions (why are they making so much noise?), the children with card games or ludo – until the sun would start its descent, which meant the men (Gérard and I first!) could play a few games of pétanque in Uncle Eugène’s yard, not far away.

Nicou, would you mind cleaning the terrace table? Hey, not so fast, you missed a spot.

In the meantime, Gérard returned from the Clérissy well in the centre of the village, dragging a heavy watering can from which we would drink, the water cold enough to break your teeth. My mother brought the smoking tureen. 

Bless this humble meal, Lord, which we are about to receive. Gérard, sit up! And get your hair out of your eyes, you look like Madame Sylvestre’s cocker spaniel!

A second serving, more modest than the first: we had to leave some for the evening meal. In these frugal times, appetite didn’t exist, only want. Children didn’t turn up their noses at soup; they asked for more whenever they could. A fig, cooled in water from the fountain, a drop of honey on a piece of bread, and the meal was over. My mother, after three or four spoonfuls of pistou, would finish her meal with linden tea, the best remedy for stomach cramps caused by hunger.

Poverty? Not exactly. We asked for little and greedily took all that was offered. A simple salad? Amen! A few blackberries and four almonds? Panis angelicus! And freezing-cold water, drunk in great gulps on a linden-scented terrace. 

In Moustiers, at the stroke of noon, the heat became unbearable. The great tree was haloed with soft golden light and its diaphanous shadow offered only relative relief. I slowly yielded to its pacifying perfume. After all, it was Gérard’s turn to do the dishes today. The torpor of the Provençal summer. From the straw-bottomed upright chair to the chaise lounge was only a step, and quickly taken. I made myself comfortable, ready to listen to the cicadas’ concert, for they were already working their wing sheaths above me. A linden flower, an expert glider, was executing a curious spiral descent. My body slowed and sleep took care of the rest, even shooing the flies that never tired of proving their affection for me.

Hey, cooks! Have you fallen asleep? Nela is at the piano, playing extended arpeggios…

No, I’m waiting for the water to boil.

She knows the story by heart. I join in the key of F, and loudly sing Uncle Eugène’s song:

The pistou is almost ready,

Almost ready, almost ready.

The pistou is almost ready

My dear friend.

The veggies and the ham,

How d’you cook ’em, how d’you cook ’em?

Do you boil ’em harder still?

My dear friend.

The veggies and the noodles,

Boil ’em hard, boil ’em hard.

But keep the ham away, I say!

My dear friend!

But, Uncle, the noodles are going to stick!

"You’re not making Florentine tortiglioni or Bolognese spaghetti, young man! You’re making a Provençal pistou, tron dé pas Diou!"

And the San Daniele?

Ah, for the ham, you have to wait.

Isn’t San Daniele Italian?

Not for long, it’ll soon be pro-ven-çal-ized. You’ll put it in the soup later. Ask your aunt.

"It’s true, Gàrri, at the last second, just to warm it up."

Why?

Ask your uncle, the ham is his idea.

Why… why…? Why do you buy cured ham if you’re going to cook it? What are you talking about, Nephew?

You’re right. It does seem logical.

Logical! Of course! But that’s not the real reason. It’s not a cerebral reason – you intellectuals do everything with your noggin! It’s a palatal reason! Let me explain…

"Boudiou! You’re going to make yourself thirsty, Eugène, with all those big words!"

"True enough, my pretty one. Why don’t you bring out the pastis? But don’t grab the wrong bottle! The Ricard, not the Pernod that your flighty Félix gave me. He must’ve thought his father was Parisian… Let me explain, young man: once you take a bite, the unctuousness of the softened pasta will conspire with the velvet of the pistou butter. And what will that produce?"

A… satiny sensation?

Good! Satiny! You found it!

What else? You’ve been serving the same sauce for twenty years.

"Daïse! Don’t exaggerate… A satiny sensation that will excite the more aggressive taste of the pieces of warmed Parmesan. Warmed, not boiled! That’s the real reason. Comprenes, pitchoun? Come closer: listen to the water hiss, look how it trembles. And those tiny bubbles, do you see them, the bubbles that are jostling to get to the top, under the wide eyes of the oil? Wait, not yet, boy! Wait for the first bubbles… You see, now. Throw in the noodles and the vegetables. And reserve the Parmesan."

ONE

Are you going to help me, Nela? I’m with the basil.

She interrupts her piano exercises.

Here I am, my Lord. I shall comb Your head of basil, I shall pluck Your leaves, a little, a lot, passionately… and I shall peel Your six cloves of garlic and will crush them for You. And now I shall grate Your two pieces of cheese: the Parmesan, so white, the red edam, so dry.

Thank you. Everything is ready for the mixture. Give me the oil.

Which one?

Which one? The olive oil, of course!

Here it is: Moulin Saint-Jacques, from the valley of Baux-de-Provence, AOC, extra-Holy Virgin Mary, cold pressed…

She could have added fruity, soft, with a scent of fresh almonds.

A drop on the tip of the finger, the finger on the tip of the tongue.

It’s perfect! Well, maybe a bit more.

Thank you, Nela, you can go back to the piano.

And you, Chef, to the stove. When will it be ready? 

"Twenty minutes,