Steady Work

Yesterday, Monsieur Besse and Miss rattled into the yard at 9am. He told me that had spoken with Monsieur Labrousse, the dead-animal man, at 8am and that Labrousse would arrive around 11:30, after he stopped by the vetertarian's clinic to retrieve the patients the vet couldn't save. Roger wanted to know if a tractor could back up to the sheep shed. I said it was impossible because the sheep shed was located in the back of a small topiary and rose garden. We walked down to regard the logistics.

Roger said he'd bring over a rope since it appeared that the only alternative was to pull Olympia out over the garden path through the box hedges. He said he would also bring a plastic tarp, to lay her on as they pulled, and a dolly. Roger said that the sheep couldn't be carried out because he had a bad leg. I told him that I would send Preston out to help, that I didn't want Roger lifting the sheep, and why did we have to help Labrousse, wasn't he a professional with such matters.

Roger and Miss returned home, and I washed my dirty kitchen French doors which were smudged badly from Blanche and Olympia looking in and pressing their sweet faces against the glass last January. I let them have the run of the place back then when I didn't have any flowers.

Housekeeping Tip: You don't need chemical-based window cleaning products, like Windex, if you just use wet, wadded up newspapers. This simple method removed a heavy layer of fly droppings and sheep drool from my windows, so I'm sure it can tackle your windows. Note: S.C. Johnson & Company attorneys can leave their comments at the bottom of this entry.

My neighbor, Francine, walked over on the footpath that connects our two houses. I invited her in and she expressed her condolences for the death of Olympia. She said she had heard the news from the man who was repairing the cemetery wall. He told her he wasn't quite sure he had understood what I said . . . I found this upsetting because I had walked away from that conversation thinking that all had gone well with him and I was proud of myself for speaking such clear and fluent French . . . he thought I had said that one of my sheep had died. I told Francine that I was doing much better than I would have expected before Olympia died, and that I was relieved that Blanche was living, because I was closer to her than to Olympia. Blanche is the cuddly one. Francine invited Preston and me to dinner the next evening (Thursday). I said I'd bring the dessert. She responded with a phrase all the French that I know use when speaking English, "As you wish." When they say this I feel as if I'm being demanding and they are just giving in to my unreasonable demands. She walked back home through the woods as I returned to my window washing and wondered if she was annoyed that I had insisted on bringing a dessert.

Preston and I were painting the hallway upstairs when we heard Roger's tractor. I sent Preston down to help him. I stood in Preston's bedroom, paintbrush in hand, looking out through the large French windows at the proceedings. Labrousse backed his truck into the driveway and parked as close as he could get to the sheep shed. From my perch, I felt like a crazy woman from one of Faulkner's novels, peering from behind the curtain of an upstairs window as the authorities came to take away a corpse she had been keeping for some time. (I think it's Absalom, Absalom where the woman keeps the corpse in a bedroom. . . but correct me if you know.) I had mixed feelings. I was sad to see Olympia go and I was thrilled that Blanche could move out of the outhouse for her night lodgings and perhaps there would be closure and peace in our little world.

If I looked like a inbred Faulkner character, Labrousse resembled the evil protagonist from a Stephen King novel, or Charles Manson's love child that perhaps Liza Minelli or Bella Abzug bore for him. I was expecting a sweet, compassionate, retired old farmer to arrive. Labrousse is a young man, with long, wavy, unkept hair. He sports a five-day-old beard, and I have to admit, if I saw him while I was walking in the woods, I would be afraid. Hell, if if I saw him walking in downtown Paris, exiting the Ritz in a tuxedo I would be afraid. If you called up Central Casting and asked them to send over someone to play an animal necrophiliac, they would only be able to send over Labrousse. But I shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, or by it's career choice. I'm sure he's a nice man. He lives nearby. I hope he doesn't enjoy walking in the woods.

Labrousse tied a rope around one of the hind legs of the very wooly, gas-filled, Macy's-Thanksgiving-Parade-Balloonesque Olympia and the three men pulled on the rope as if they were in a tug-of-war contest. Slowly, Olympia emerged from the topairy bushes. Later, I asked Preston if she smelled. He said she did. I said I had been worried that they were going to pull her leg off. Preston said that he too had worried about that happening, especially when he heard her leg joint snap.

When Olympia had progressed onto the driveway, Labrousse opened the back of his large truck. The back door was electronically controlled and folded down to become a ramp. Preston turned toward the house to get my attention and waved his hand in front of his face which I took to signify that a distinct stench was pouring out of the back of the truck. The floor of the back of the truck was covered with dead animals. Some were in plastic bags, others, several dogs among them, weren't. Labrousse scrambled up the ramp. He scampered over the pile of dead animals. He had to move one especially large dark plastic sack. The thought crossed my mind that local women must worry if their husbands become chummy with Labrousse. He grabbed a winch line, pulled it out, and attached it to Olympia's back leg.

Housekeeping Tip: When you discover you have a dead animal at your home, IMMEDIATELY place it in a plastic bag and tie tightly. You don't know when the beast removal man will be able to schedule a pick-up time. This helps prevent attracting flies,wild beasts and marauding dogs that may want to devour your deceased animal. Note: S.C. Johnson & Company, before you develop Zip-Lock Animal Shrouds, contact me to discuss royalty payments.

Slowly, Olympia was hoisted up the ramp. Her head drooping forlornly as her neck lifted off the ground. I looked out the side window of the bedroom to see if Blanche was viewing this horror, but thankfully, she was laying down looking in a different direction.

When Olympia had joined the pile of other animals in the back of the truck, Labrousse jumped up and removed the winch from her leg. He climbed down out of the truck, walked around to the side, and pressed something to raise the back door. There lay Olympia, slowly disappearing, looking very much asleep from my window vantage as the door slowly closed. I yelled out the window and asked, "How much?" I had gone to the bank that morning and took out 100 Euros because Roger told me I might need to pay the man in cash. The locals like to conduct their business in cash to avoid taxes. Roger and Preston both turned to me and made signals that no money was necessary.

Later, Roger told me that Labrousse informed him that dead animal removal is a free service provided by the departement. The French government provides lots of nifty free services. Besides the free health care, I think the best service they provide is once-a-week maid service for retired and disabled people. As a result, this has to be the only country where women lie and say they are older than they really are so they can have someone clean their house for free.

Labrousse's job is to make a scheduled circuit each week of the departement, picking up dead animals. I ended up having Olympia lay about for three days because my area's scheduled pickup falls on Tuesday. A woman's voice can be heard on Labrousse's answering machine so he is either married or living with a woman, or perhaps it is his mother or a sex slave he keeps in his cave. However, over lunch, Preston and I were imagining Labrousse's return each evening to an imaginary wife. Did he immediately rush for the bath? Did she fumigate his clothes? Or were they accustomed to the stench of rotting animals? We had lots of questions that will most likely go unanswered.

In the early evening, I cleaned out the sheep shed carting at least ten overflowing wheelbarrow loads of fusty straw bedding to my gigantic compost pile. What an efficient form of exercise . . . it works the upper body, it works the legs, it's aerobic and good for the heart. The straw on top is light and fluffy. But the stuff below is wet, compacted and heavy. Between shoveling endless pitchfork loads of wet straw and then pushing the wheelbarrow an eighth of a mile, one way each trip, to get to the compost pile, I had a great workout.

Blanche was happy to move into her newly renovated digs. Although, I was bothered by the fact that she went exactly to the spot where Olympia laid down and died, and started rooting around. This morning, when I went to take her to her pasture, I quietly walked up behind her and saw her sniffing the same spot. When I said bonjour to her, she panicked and went running around the small shed. I believe she could smell the death of Olympia, and she was frightened. She willingly went out into her pasture this morning, and seems to be grazing farther afield, perhaps having given up on the fact that Olympia is coming back to keep her company.

Throughout this ordeal, I was telling myself that animals don't understand the concept of death. Blanche didn't seem to be overly upset when she saw Olympia's body. But I think that once Blanche was in the sheep shed, even though I had cleaned it out, she understood that Olympia was gone, dead, had met a bad end.

Sheep, and other animals, understand LOVE, and now I think it's my arrogant, human delusions that made me think they don't understand DEATH. They do understand it, in a metaphysical, primal way.

When I had finished mucking the sheep shed out, I walked over to Roger's to give him a small bag of nougats from my favorite candy store in Cahors. I was hoping he would invite me in for a drink and he did. He broke out a bottle of homemade ratafia, French moonshine made with grapes. He opened a large, American-sized bag of pretzels which he keeps on hand for me and any hearty American snackers I occasionally bring to visit him. He learned early on that a small, bag lunch size of potato chips, which would tide over ten French people, isn't enough for me.