When I first moved to Paris I lived on a hillside south of the city. Strangely enough you couldn't see the hillside from the front of the house, where it was blocked off by a row of trees, but you could see it from the back window. If you just stuck your head out, there it was down below.

The hillside was covered with trees of all kinds, peach, plum, cherry, flowering plum....and yet others I could not name. Nearest of all was a walnut tree which grew by my window, so close I could reach out and take the nuts in my hand. Below this tree stood a sweet little villa, one of my closest neighbors.

The villa was pure white, and I called it the "White House." It stood among a clump of trees, mainly fruit trees. At blossom time in spring, the white house took on the surreal beauty of some fairy dwelling. Even in bare-boughed autumn and winter it bore an air of unearthly purity. But it wasn't really a fairy dwelling, just the home of my kind neighbors -- three beautiful women.

The oldest was in her fifties with a head of silver hair and extremely good looking, but with a fondness for brightly colored patterned clothes reminiscent of the hillside in blossom time. My two younger neighbors were her daughters, the elder, Caroline, having just graduated from university, while the younger, Lorna, was still a student. Tall and slim, their blond hair glowed like the morning sun and their beauty, like a glorious sunset, was enchanting.

"Rat-tat!"

What was that? A door? A cupboard? And first thing in the morning? Oh it's none of those, it's a window! But why should a window go rat-tat? It turned out to be my neighbor, tapping on her window.

The lie of the land meant that my neighbor's white house was lower than mine, placing her upstairs window on a level with my ground floor living-room window. The "rat-tat" sound came from her upstairs window, but because it was so near it sounded as if it was comg from my own. Resonance, you might say.

"Bonjour!" I opened my living-room window, right opposite hers.

"Please open your door," called my neighbor from her upstairs window. "Caroline has picked a basket of fresh cherries for you."

I quickly opened my door and there was Caroline standing patiently in my back yard, which is never locked, holding a basket of Purple and crimson cherries, all gleaming and fresh. Also on the basket was a bunch of tulips she'd picked herself.

She must have been up with the lark.

Last night she'd said she would bring me something, but I'd forgotten. In the cosy brightness of their little white house I remember we'd been enjoying some of their mother's home cooking and happily chatting about that place she thought so mysterious, China. Caroline said if she'd only met me sooner she would have studied Chinese culture. Now she's a mathematician doing research in physics.

"Rat-tat!" went the window again.

Who is it this time? It turns out to be my neighbor again, but this time it's Lorna who's waiting down in the yard, the youngest denizen of the white house.

"Uncle Chang, here's something for you, I've just picked these, they've still got dew on them!" she said breathlessly.

In her basket were some fresh peaches.

"Why give them to me? What about your mother, your sister and yourself?" I asked. I asked a string of questions, but seeing she still hadn't caught her breath I couldn't help saying: "Surely you yourself ought to be the first to enjoy them!"

"But we have a whole hillside full of them!" Lorna laughed.

Indeed, the hillside did belong to them and they couldn't eat the whole lot on their own. So it went on, I had cherries in spring, plums in the summer, chestnuts in late summer, and the walnuts ripened in early autumn. The walnuts plopped down like shooting stars, and my neighbors and I would stoop down to rummage for them among the fallen autumn leaves. The aroma of roast chestnuts would drift across from their window to mine, as would the sound of shelling walnuts.

But I was only to have one year living next door to the white house. I moved away next spring and the white house became a fond memory. A year later I passed by the white house in springtime, but instead of my old neighbor and her daughters, it was a stranger who came to the door.

"Oh, you mean Caroline's family," said the kindly old lady. "They moved away six months ago, but are you Monsieur Chang? They left something for you, just a moment...." When she returned the old lady was carrying a parcel with a note for me from Caroline:

Uncle Chang, this packet of dried walnuts is for you, it will keep for five years. We have too many, please help us eat them. Thank you for telling us about China, and now we've gone on a one-year trip to China. I hope you will come back in a year's time and shell walnuts with us again.

Your neighbors, Caroline & Lorna

Ah, truly good neighbors! I said to myself. This little white house stands in a paradise and its inhabitants are a bit like angels themselves, I think. How I look forward to the day when we can all go picking walnuts again.