Bicycling the Gers

The road that leaves the D 146 and climbs west, uphill, is narrow and steep. It is there that Olivier and Becky are waiting for me, resting against their bicycles. “You missed seeing a Hen Harrier,” I tell them. They look less than interested as they stand in the shade of a farmhouse, a bit red from exertion and the sun. “The thing is,” I say, by way of trying to get them to care about my excitement, “is that my life is better for seeing this bird.” I’m joking and they laugh, but the truth is I kind of believe what I’ve just said.

I saw the Harrier hovering over a wide field. It looked like it was suspended from the sky itself, staying miraculous in place as it targeted the ground. There was a glint of red, and a fanned tail. Then it dropped, like a ball dropping from the sky and vanished into the grass. I figured it would take a while for it to conduct its killing business so I bicycled on, not wanting to keep my sister and brother-in-law waiting too long. 

We all shift into low gears as we prepare for the steep uphill ride that will take us up and over into the neighboring valley. The road is narrow, one-lane, gravelly, and winding. As we bike—slowly—I admire the pink and white cosmos in bloom by the side of the road, the queen anne’s lace that spreads across fields, and the acacia trees with their wispy red flowers. To our left, in the distance, we see the outline of the Pyrenees, especially the dramatic rise of the Pic du Midi. The houses of Antin thin and we’re soon surrounded by woods. There is a false summit, with a miniature valley positioned high in the hills. A few houses sprinkle the landscape, so isolated from the rest of the world. “It’s these inter-valley communities that interest me,” Becky says. And me too. The people who live here speak their own patois, live with little contact with their neighbors. It’s amazing to think of the isolation in such a busy country. Every small farm house that we pass has its own odor depending on what they are raising: Geese and ducks, an odor that is sharp in the back of the nose; beef cows, a flatter smell that mixes with the earth; milk cows, all sweetness.

Soon, we are sailing downhill, the breeze cooling the sweat under my helmet. We stop at the bottom of the hill to sit on a bench by l’Arros, a stream that flows out of the Pyrenees. We’re in the town of St. Sever, known for its Abbey.

St. SeverOn the return we take the D38 toward Villecomtal, then head back east on narrow back roads. I see a buzzard soaring over a field. It’s possible to get lost in these back roads, some of which dead end in fields. But we’ve all biked and driven them enough that we know to turn left or right at the statue of the virgin Mary, or at the grey house.

My grandmother loved taking this road through the woods to visit Villecomtal. They went with horse and buggy, she would tell me, taking the whole day for the visit. And then an uncle of hers owned a small shop in town, a shop that sold bonbons. There, she would get to eat as many candies as she pleased. What would she think of her grandchildren bicycling this same route in the heat of day? She would think we were nuts.

At a turn in the road, Olivier and Becky are waiting for me, though I had told them to go on, so I could stop and look at birds. They are snacking on blackberries, growing by the side of the road. And, Becky wanted to be sure that I saw the lamas in the field, napping in the sun. Lamas, like the donkey, are new to the area.

Becky leaves her bike and wanders to the side of the road to pee. She unzips her pants, and begins to crouch when she leaps into the air, screaming. In all the acres of land, in all the miles of road, she has decided to crouch to pee, right over this: