Je LOVE The Village Worker

Being Bright

The first time I saw him I didn’t know it was him. All the village workers blended into each other with their neon jackets and brooms in hand. They drove big trucks with big beds to load with leaf detritus and stray rocks-always sweeping in slow motion, every flattened chestnut slowly pried from the cobbles, like it was a game to stretch their work through the morning or even through the afternoon. But the chestnuts really were impossible to get up.

The next time I saw him he was watering the pots that line Rue Grande. He walked over to our house to pour water into the olive tree next to the front door. “He’s thirsty, non?” he said. “Merci, monsieur,” I replied. And the next time I saw him he was digging the weeds along our house and I asked if he would please leave the hollyhocks to grow. “Oui! Sont jolie, non?” I thought they were pretty, too and the neighbor told us they used to be everywhere until the village workers scraped them away, but this village worker promised he wouldn’t. Every time he was weeding he glanced at me and pointed out the untouched hollyhocks.

Last month I saw him again. He was leaning over the back of his big truck putting glue on a new street sign. I smiled at his big smile and watched his big hands staying out of the glue. I asked him his name. “Monsieur P" he replied. He asked about our house and how we heated our house and he asked how it was to live in a big house in this little village. I told him what I tell most people-that it’s nice and calm and sometimes not as nice with our next door neighbours not wanting us here at all and trying not to look at us but looking at us with disgruntled faces. He laughed and said that those neighbours will always be looking for someone to give their faces too. I said good-bye and thought all day about how bright he was. His jacket and eyes and skin shone against the grey of the stone walls and cold streets.

Later that evening we startled at a knock at out kitchen door. We are still new to the village and it’s only the postman who ever knocks. I looked through the window and it was Monsieur P with a wooden crate overflowing with lettuce heads. He was even brighter in the dark and with his neon coat he looked like he was a part of his lettuce, a welcomed bouquet. He kept encouraging us to take more. I should have invited him to stay for a glass of wine, but I was so unaccustomed to visitors, I forgot my manners.

He disappeared into the night and we giggled in the glow he left behind, so delighted at being thought of. We even chanted that we made a friend-which seems impossible in the closed Frenchness of this village. Now we see him more often, like he’s present more now that we know his name and had an exchange. We see him drive by in his silver car and we see him at the mayor’s office and we see him on his way to the market on the corner. He’s bright. I wan’t to be bright, like him and I want to remember my manners next time and invite him to stay.