Cafe Babanussa by Karen Hill Page B

of wooden flats of pears. “Mais, vous vous moquez de moi. Je n’en sais rien,” Ruby said. You must be joking. I don’t know how to do that .
    â€œÃ‡a ne fais rien. Venez avec moi.” Doesn’t matter. Come with me.
    Ruby said, “But I don’t even know how to drive a stick shift.”
    As Ranier continued to insist, Ruby thought he was trying to humiliate her. They walked up a long row of pear trees. The tractor at the top of the hill seemed like some mythical beast. Ranier made her climb onto the shiny red tractor and told her she was to back it slowly down the row, stopping every few metres so that more flats could be loaded. Each flat was about a metre square and would be filled with rows of barely ripe pears. Ruby was terrified. What if all the pears fell off? She fumbled nervously with her feet, trying to figure out the clutch. Finally she decided to shift into first gear without it and see what would happen. The gears screeched and groaned as they tried to find their place. As she heard the flats shifting behind her, she started shaking.
    â€œMais arrêtez donc,” Ranier urged, telling her to be more careful. “Tout va tomber. Vous foutez la transmission. Lentement, lentement!”
    Ruby finally managed to move the machine backwards with a bit of a lurch, not enough to make the fruit fall off. But how was she going to keep this up? The tractor stopped with a shudder, and two guys grabbed the flats that the pickers had filled with fat, ruddy pears and stacked them on top of the others on the tractor. Ruby felt her heart in her mouth each time the tractor stopped, afraid of losing the precious cargo. But as the hours passed, she learned to move her feet in sync and felt less shaky. The tractor’s transmission had been spared.
    By the lunch break Ruby was famished. She washed up and found her way back to the farmhouse dining room, where there was a long table with many chairs. Soon she was joined by Emma, Jean-Claude, Willie and another young man of stocky build with wavy brown hair and dark brown eyes. Ruby thought he was cute. She caught his eye and said bonjour . Introducing himself as Jean-Pierre, he smiled and sat down directly across from her. Ruby sighed and thought: Not another hyphenated Jean!
    Slowly people took their places around the table, a dozen in all. The room buzzed with conversation. In the middle of the table was a platter of peppery veal loin chops with mushroom sauce, another large plate chock full of roasted potatoes, and several dishes of green bean and tomato salad. Ruby’s mouth was watering and she dug in, chatting through the meal with those around her. Then, from the other end of the table, an elderly man called out to Ruby, “Eh, vous, la Canadienne! Contez-nous une histoire de votre pays, une histoire de Québec.” Canadian! Tell us a story of your country, a story of Quebec .
    Ruby was caught off guard. She had no real stories to tell about her country and felt ashamed, as if she’d let her family, especially her father, down. Her father and her sister were consummate storytellers, but that gift hadn’t been passed down to her. She was habitually shy about speaking in public.
    Everyone started to call out to her. “Oui! Oui! Contez-nous une histoire!” Yes, yes! Tell us a story!
    Ruby finally decided to tell them about her idyllic summers spent in Trois-Pistoles, Quebec, where she had learned French.
    When she was finished, Jean-Pierre said, “I hear that you handle a tractor pretty well.”
    Ruby blushed. “I tried my best.”
    The farmer’s wife put down several warm pear tarts on the table, with lattice crusts and what looked like an apricot glaze. Ruby was stuffed, but she knew she couldn’t leave without trying dessert.
    As she and Emma prepared to leave, Jean-Pierre said, “After dinner I’ll show you around the farm.”
    â€œSounds good.”
    Emma snickered.