A Castle in the Backyard: The Dream of a House in France

4. We Arrive with a Key

By October the entire transaction was complete. In Madison we received a thick sheaf of documents from the notary confirming that our wire transfer had been received, our account credited, the papers signed and stamped comme il faut, the monies dispersed in accordance with the avant-contrat, our title and deed recorded . Included in the packet was a photocopy of an ancient survey map depicting our little plot of land in relation to the castle grounds. Delighted, we examined the glossy paper with a magnifying glass. There was our little rectangle of property located diagonally below the outline of the round artillery tower. The entire area was designated a classified historic site. From M. Meunier we received a note of congratulations and a large, dungeon-sized key taped to a piece of cardboard. All joys (and any problems) of the house were 4 w e a r r i v e w i t h a k e y now ours. From the Gulessarians we received forwarded bills, for by mutual agreement they had transferred the home’s utility and insurance accounts to our name. We had water and electric bills to cover, a home owners policy , and the expectation of a property tax bill, which did not arrive that year. Even when the tax rolls caught up with us, our annual expenses would be light. However, that first summer we did have an empty house to fill. The only article that came with the house was its key. There were three rooms to furnish—bedroom, living room, and kitchen—not to mention garden furniture, dishes, utensils, tools, and fix-up materials to buy. We spent the Wisconsin winter obsessively going over room measurements and fomenting projects for our first summer in the house. There would be the new wood floor and ceiling beams to finish in the séjour, unwanted wallpaper (the maddening floral pattern) to strip from the peaked ceiling of the bedroom, doors and shutters to stain, the kitchen and bathroom to whitewash, window screens to buy or make (make, it turned out, because no one sold them), a garden wild with nettles to tame, and those empty rooms to fill with furniture. For the séjour we would look for a couch, a chair, a small wardrobe, and a pair of little tables (antiques if we could find them) that could serve as desks and fit just so into the corners. We would need a bed for the attic chambre, and we wanted a double mattress. But how could we get something that size up the winding wrought-iron staircase ? Faced with the same problem, the previous owners had settled for single beds narrow enough to fit through the bedroom window. Obviously, any furniture would have to go in that way or come disassembled. A 8 0 D O R D O G N E D AY S flexible foam rubber mattress might be just the thing, if we could find one. There was a modern furniture store in Bordeaux that seemed promising for some of these items, and we had located a giant IKEA outlet next to the Bordeaux airport that was sure to carry disassembled furniture. Naturally we couldn’t do everything at once. We would start with the basics: a table to eat on, a few chairs, a stove, a refrigerator, and a bed. On the trip over in June we looked like refugees carrying their worldly possessions on their backs. We were encumbered by duffle bags stuffed with pillows, sheets and towels, blankets, a small woven rug for the livingroom floor, cushions for a sofa we hoped to buy, clothes to take and clothes to leave, pots and pans and kitchen implements, hand tools and sundries, not to mention a portable computer and dual-current household gadgets. A month earlier we had shipped books and school supplies ahead, for we both had writing projects we planned to work on while we were setting up the house. In one of the duffles were two inflatable rubber mattresses designed for pool use, which could serve as temporary bedding for our first night or two, in case we had trouble finding a real bed. (This plan proved unnecessary, but the mattresses did serve as great river rafts. Later that summer Michael logged four hours on one, starting upriver and floating down the Dordogne until reaching the beach landing at Castelnaud, sunburned but sporting a triumphant smile.) Like the conscientious students we had always been, we...