The Egg-Lady
Up the road past pretty chalets is a working farm. The house and barn are in one
building, which is just beside, and at an angle to, the road. A rain-streaked painting of
cows winding up a mountain road decorates the barn—obligatory in these parts;
nevertheless charming. This one is so weatherbeaten it can hardly be seen.
It’s a funky place compared to the chalets with their windowboxes full of petunias,
their mown meadows roundabout, their swept walks. (In fact I don’t think their walks
ever even need sweeping, as nothing gets dirty in Switzerland – I never need to dust my
place. All that firm green grass keeps its knuckles in every particle of loose earth.) But in
this place, hens peck in the hay-strewn muddy yard and leave their droppings on the old
wooden porch. Geese run up hissing at passersby, their long necks lowered out flat. A
black dog, shaggy, sizeable, woofs his alarm.
Sometimes the farmer and his wife are outside—on a tractor; feeding hay into a big
noisy metal chute vacuum-thing which sends it up into the barn’s second floor. Often the
door to the house is just left open, and the chickens walk in and out pooping on the
kitchen floor.
The Swiss houses I know are modern, convenient, and clean. The windows are
double-glazed and fit snugly to keep out winter cold. Kitchens are agreeable, attractive,
light. Everything works.
This house is out of another time—dark, low-ceilinged. The wood seems bowed and
bent, about to give up. A fire burns in a stove which is inset darkly in a wall. The kitchen
is grim—nothing modern here. The table is old, the windows small.
I’d been recommended this farm as the place to get fresh eggs, and dutifully I’d
present myself there once a week with my small egg carton and ask for deux ouefs.
I eat two eggs a week. More, and I get a headache and feel awful. But those two are
precious protein and I omelette them to make them look bigger. It was great to have such
big fresh eggs for this.
But the egg-wife was not a comfortable person to deal with. She always seemed in
deshabille. The first time I went there she was wearing nothing (that I could see) but a
large square man’s t-shirt, and her huge naked thighs bulged against each other as she
went to some dark corner to get the eggs. Her little boy did homework at the long scarred
table as she blopped around with those thighs. She seemed so ashamed she could not
meet my eyes. It was painful.
I got the feeling in subsequent encounters that she hated herself. Her hair was clipped
close to her rather pointed head. A throat- paunch swelled beneath her pointy, slightly
reticent chin. ( What kind of howling misery might be in her, that I was afraid of being
body-tackled by?) Her face flushed as she quite angrily got my eggs. I heard later she
told people in the village, ―At first I thought it was weird she only got two eggs, but then
I got used to it.‖
The last time I went I took my newly-arrived brother to meet her and see where eggs
came from. (He is very fond of what he calls ―porched eggs.‖) On the way I busily
practiced my French for the encounter.( Is it ma frere or mon frere? Must be mon--)
As usual I went to the door and the dog set up a huge barking, on and on. No sound
from within. Finally I heard clomping from overhead. Then out of the shadows came the
egg-lady, bent, fat, tying a bathrobe around herself which still flew open enough to show
cushiony flesh. Something strange about her head—I finally realized she’d been in the
middle of washing her hair, and had shampoo in a white bubbly swath across her
forehead. She was brimming with pissed-off shame.
―Deux oeufs‖, I said, smiling nervously, ―s’il vous plait—“. She went to wherever the
eggs lived and came back with two, put them in my outheld papier-mache’ eggbox. I was
so uncomfortable that I did not hold it well and the eggs weighted it, it dipped, and they
crashed onto the threshold and broke.
An angry exclamation came from her. She went and got two more eggs, which I
accommodated more carefully. I closed the box, handed her fr. 1.40 for the two and we
left—I certainly did not think it was the right time for brother-introductions.
Really it had been my fault. So a couple of weeks later—it took me that long- I went
to the place with a nice envelope with dried flowers and leaves pressed into it. It said
―Mme. Fermiere’ ― on it. Inside was a note of apology in no-doubt awful French, but
prettily done, and fr. 1.40.
I was relieved to see their car wasn’t there. As I placed the envelope against the base
of the closed door, geese hissed and honked around me. I hope she got the envelope
before they did.
And now I buy my eggs—which for all I know could come from her—at the Laiterie
in the village.
It is better that way.
* * * * * *
This is, relatively speaking, a very undramatic vignette. But that is Switzerland—
famed for several things, but not drama (unless you are a mountaineer of course.) In all
my many visits, what I experienced was peace—tranquillity—quiet—space—
unintrusiveness. My hikes stopped far short of heroism, just made me cheerful and
healthy and invigorated. In short, a perfect antidote for my life in India.
Just once I ever saw anything dramatic (well—twice; the first time was an altogether
different farm-wife walking on stilts on her driveway.). This was in Zurich, where I was
sitting at a sidewalk café when all the cooks and waiters began coming outside to stand
and stare up at something happening in the street behind. When I followed their eyes I
saw a nice dutiful firetruck proceeding slowly down the leafy street, with a man up in the
ladder picking from the treetops an entire male wardrobe—shirts, trousers, t-shirts,
underwear, jackets, ties, socks-- which was spread liberally along the arboreal way.
Windows stood open in the apartment storeys above.
Taking care of business. I love it. All those little trains that run on time.
* * * * *
Madhuri (Kathleen
Akin), chez de Marignac, ―le Serfou‖, Chemin du Planet, 1865 Les Diablerets;
Swizerland
madhurijewel@yahoo.com
Madhuri is happily ensconced in the Alps scribbling, making omelettes for her brother,
and recovering from emergency brain surgery in India last Christmas -- a wonderful
experience. She now feels ready to resume boogeying—but where is the band?