In the country we leave the doors open, the big one out front and the big one out back, and sometimes it’s the chimneysweep who stops by, and sometimes it’s Maud’s grandmother with a bag of cherries, impossibly red and unstoppably sweet, and sometimes it’s cousin Benoît come to cook us a truffade. Chimneysweep, le ramoneur.

The last so many days in France, I’ve been trying to keep all the genders straight; truly, gendered nouns are the bane of my French-speaking life. Maud says I get them wrong une fois sur deux, which is probably about right, but goddamn it, there’s no bloody logic to explain why a forest is feminine and a choice is masculine. Our lunch today near undone me, what with the endive-walnut-bleu d’Auvergne salad, and the tomato-tomme salad, and the spinach stirfried with garlic and lemon, and the herring and shallots and dill, and the bowl of bitey radishes. Shallot, une echalote. Endive, une endive. Zucchini, la courgette. All these nouns, and there’s only so far you can go trying to stifle the gender in a muffled cough: mrfradis, hrmendive.

My gut feeling said the radish—in a deep pink dress and a flouncy green sunhat—would be feminine, but no. Radish, le radis. In the great vegetable village in my head, the radish is now a dandy in a sharp pink suit and a green fedora, cane optional. It’s clear that the endive is feminine, because the endive is the village wetnurse. Similarly, it is clear that asparagus is feminine, because the asparagus are the gossipy aunts at tea. Asparagus, une asperge. Maud wanted to know what spinach is, but spinach is nothing, because spinach is what the other vegetables grow in their vegetable gardens.

But where I was going with this is, it is good when all sorts of people stop by, as long as none of those people is the lettuce come to kill us. The lettuce story is, there is a stone fountain in the big garden which holds not a fountain but several massive gorgeous heads of lettuce. A couple of nights ago we were clearing out the fridge for a snacky dinner of leftovers thrown together, and what is nice to go with a snacky leftovers dinner of cheeses and saucissons and jambons both blanc and de pays is a fresh salad, which is what started the madness.

I asked if it was too late to go out and get a head of lettuce, because it was after eight, when, clearly, the lettuces are already asleep. “No,” Maud said, “they are already sleeping.” And I was all warm and fuzzy inside with how French people and Chinese people have a shared mythology, when it became quite clear that in fact French people were mocking Chinese people, because then Maud handed me a knife and said: “Go get a lettuce.” And then there was all sorts of nervous giggling and knife-gesturing, and then Maud said: “Go get a lettuce,” for she is single-minded, this one. Bloodthirsty and single-minded.

We stood in the doorway, finally, while India marched out into the dusky garden, dagger in hand. And her figure got smaller and smaller as she walked away from us and toward the dry fountain. And it was very quiet, except for my cloth shoes on the stone steps as I fidgeted from one foot to the other. India bent over into the lettuce bed and somewhere inside me there was a very little scream, because I could see the big green leaves reaching up and out to envelop her and swallow her. I could see the big green leaves like big green leafy hands, and I could see her tumble in, and I could see her legs kicking desperately in the air as her muffled shouts echoed into the night.

At the kitchen table minutes later, the lettuce was cold and crisp, sweet, barely dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette. Lettuce, la laitue.