On Rue Tatin by Susan Herrmann Loomis Read Free Book Online

director, however, and spends most of his time traveling to distant points on the globe. When Bernard says something is “interesting” it pays to listen. I suddenly started to get very excited.
    I called Christian Devisme, a friend, talented architect, and Edith’s brother, and asked him to come inspect the house and give me his professional opinion. He and his partner arrived and spent at least an hour poking, prodding, and snooping around like detectives. They finished in the back garden, where I joined them, and we all gazed at the exterior wall, which was so full of holes it looked like lace. I asked Christian what he thought. He slowly cleared his throat, shook his head, then looked at me sideways.
“Il ne faut pas sousestimer le travail,”
he said, gravely. “You must not underestimate the work.” That sent a chill through me.
    Then he swiveled to look at the little brick building behind the house, which belonged to the church. “You should try to buy that, too,” he said. “It would add a lot of value to the property.”
    “So you think we should buy the house?” I asked.
    “If I were younger I might think about buying it,” Christian, who was then forty-five, said. “At this point in my life it’s too much work, but it’s a beautiful house.”
    I understood Christian’s point. He and his wife, Nadine, had bought an old farmhouse nearly twenty years before when they had three tots, and had lived in a tent in front of it for a year while they made it livable. It is not an experience he would want to repeat and he is convinced he accomplished it only because he was young. Yet he obviously thought this house in Louviers was full of potential.
    “Its walls and roof are solid,” he said. “If you have to pay someone to fix it up you can’t afford it. If Michael can do it himself, you should seriously think about it.”
    I took that for encouragement.
    Edith came to pick me up and before we left we went through the house again, deciding what should be where when it came time to decorate the rooms. I could just imagine all the
soirées
we would have there, in the shadow of the church, L’église de Notre Dame. That night I reported everything to Michael, who knew all the protagonists and could judge their responses. He seemed excited, too. I thought the world was turned upside down.
    I called an engineer, a plumber, a roofing specialist to come see the house. I got estimates for installing electricity. I took photographs, pasted them together, and FedExed them to Michael, along with the estimates and every shred of information I could find about Louviers. I talked at length with Bernard, who assured me that there were no complications for a foreigner buying property in France. He said he would introduce us to his banker, and that would help expedite matters should we decide to buy it.
    Michael and I talked, we debated, we each agreed we didn’t have the money to undertake the project. And then, with Bernard’s help, we decided to buy it.
    I was beside myself. With excitement. With dread. With panic. With desire. My dream to own property in France—a dream I had never actually articulated, even to myself—had come true. It didn’t matter that we were moving to France on a wing and a prayer. It didn’t matter that we were always seeming to scrape by. It didn’t matter that life in France was bound to be more expensive than life in the United States with sky-high prices for everything from gasoline to farm-raised chickens. And it didn’t matter that we would be so far from our families and American friends. Never big on paying attention to reality, I definitely put on my soft-focus lenses this time. If Michael thought we could do it, then we could.
    We made an offer on the house, which was immediately accepted. I met the owner, who was a small nervously sad woman, and signed the
compromis de vente
, or the contract to buy the house. Bernard was true to his word, taking time to help with all the