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No food in the house, but we were both too jet-lagged to be hungry. Wayne left soon afterward to pick up a rental truck and drive to Marseille, to collect crates of belongings we had shipped from the States. Alone, I wandered from room to room, discovering our still-unfamiliar domain, exulting in this adventure. Bliss and expectation danced in the air, like the brilliant motes caught in bars of sunshine traced by the shutters I had half closed against the rising heat of the day.
The sound of the kitchen door, noisily opened, drew me out of my trance. I would learn later that, in Provence, callers walk in through the kitchen door, ignoring more ceremonial entrances, not bothering to knock, simply calling out: “Y a quelqu’ un?” Anyone home? I found myself face to face with a tall, handsome blond man in his thirties, carrying a small, wicker-clad jug.
He didn’t introduce himself but took my hand and bent low over it. “Salut,” he said, “we heard you had arrived. Il faut arroser ça, one must drink to that. Do you have any glasses?” From the still-empty dish closet, I unearthed two jam jars and rinsed them, all the time thinking: This can’t be a village man, he is dressed much too casually. I suspected locals wouldn’t come calling at the house of strangers, wearing cut-off jeans and a shirt knotted at the waist. Obviously, someone else. But who could that be?
He filled the glasses with rosé wine. “Taste this,” he urged. “Just picked it up at the winery down below. Our rosé is the best in Provence. Can’t travel, doesn’t age well. But when it’s fresh, it’s the Virgin Mary in silk panties. Like it? It’s still cool from the barrel.”
Who, who in the world could that be? His casually knotted shirt was sans buttons, but he wore a signet ring with an almost worn-off engraving. No clues there. Obviously, I don’t know him, yet he seems vaguely familiar. A TV or movie actor? A chain hung from his neck, with a heavy gold seal attached. Engraved on the face of the seal I distinguished something like a double-headed eagle, perhaps the emblem of some royal house. Of course, now, I could figure out why that handsome face, with its square jaw, brought a vague feeling of déjà vu. A couple of years earlier, a Town and Country feature’s lead photo pictured a beautiful young girl, strolling on the terrace of a castle in Provence, arm in arm with her fiancé. Given the uncertainties of politics, the man sitting now on my kitchen stoop, refilling my glass once more, stood in immediate line to a throne, and might very well, one day, become king in succession to his father.
Later, under the cool spray of the shower, I kept wondering whether or not I had had the visit of a prince that morning. One thing seemed clear though: Chance had brought us to a place that might just be holding in store something very much like magic.
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