PAUL CHRISTENSEN

The last day of July and it is cool at this hour, a little before three p.m. here in southern France. A breeze is blowing, and the sky is so blue it is almost the color of the deep sea. I can't complain. I am a veteran of the last heat wave, a blistering Sahara-fueled "heat plume," with giant arches of super-heated desert fury bearing down on us, leaving gardens limp, trees bleeding sap onto the parked cars, and women moving along like mourners at a funeral. The kids take som

The tourists are not so abundant as in past summers. I can tell by how many camera-toting Dutch and Germans come down the main street in town, the Grande Rue, as it is called. It is hardly grande, and just barely a rue, wide enough to admit a slender European sedan, but a delivery truck has to crawl along scraping its side mirrors against the walls of the houses. This summer, now in its stride in July, feels thinner, less robust with some of the houses remaining empty at this