Burgundy

by Janet Hubbard

  “Speaking of boredom,” Max said as she watched her father approach. “Hank doesn’t know what to do with himself, and he’s only been here a few hours.”

  “It’s the country. One doesn’t have to do anything.”

  Hank was upon them. “Your mother is settling for a nap. I’m going to drive to the café for a café.”

  “Don’t expect anyone to speak English.”

  “I’ll manage.” They watched him walk across the lawn.

  “I have to sleep,” Max said.

  “Good. I’ll return for dinner.” She gave him a light kiss, said à toute, and within half an hour she had sunk into a deep sleep. She awoke to the sound of her father’s voice drifting up the stairs. It was dark outside. She propped herself up against a big pillow and listened. “An American girl is missing,” he said. “A couple of guys were talking about it at the café.”

  “What did they say?” Isabelle asked.

  “A guy who spoke English explained it to me when I asked. He said that she had created a bit of a sensation in the village because of her odd appearance. Dyed white or silver hair, pale skin, and blue eyes that make you feel singed when she looks at you. He picked grapes alongside her up in Chablis. He said she stayed the winter with the old lady on the hill, but rumor had it she had run off with an Arab in Lyon. The bar patrons speculated that something bad has happened to her.”

  Max climbed up out of her dreams and headed to the shower as a way of avoiding hearing any more of the story. Both of her trips to France, first to Champagne, then to Bordeaux, had ended up with her solving a murder case—in each case the murder of someone either she or Olivier knew. The last thing she wanted to think about was a girl gone missing.

  Chapter Four

  Olivier drove up the narrow, cobblestoned street leading to his mother’s childhood home in Viré, a latecomer to the fame of other Burgundian villages. The drive brought on a rush of fond memories. He and his brother could run freely through the streets of the old village when they were children. A favorite path led up to the cemetery, overlooking the village and sometimes, far beyond, Mount Blanc was visible. Above the cemetery was another, mostly unused, road where they raced their bikes, veering off onto trails through the vineyards.

  His parents had kept a car there, and the family traveled back and forth to Paris on weekends. His maternal grandparents were alive back then, and they sent their teenaged grandsons out to work in the vineyards during the harvest. It was intense labor, but both boys looked forward to spending a couple of weeks with a diverse group of people who came from all parts of the world. His brother became passionate about winemaking, and after graduating from the university, went to Australia to work, and ended up staying there.

  Olivier passed Alain Milne’s house and thought he might give him a call. Alain’s father and his father before him had made a regional white wine. As the area was handed no appellation until a decade ago, the growers were just starting to catch up to the explosion of global wine culture that existed an hour north.

  He and Alain had worked together in the vineyards, and stayed in touch until a few years ago. The last Olivier knew, Alain had become director of one of the local co-ops, where wines were created from grapes sold to them by many farmers in the area. The majority of his yield were lovely white wines that held their own with the more famous whites from further north, but because the area had not become classified until the nineties, prices were still affordable. Viré, the cooperative, had the generic name “Mâcon-Village,” but most of the wines they produced had the appellation Viré-Clessé, quite well-known now, with prices that were competitive, depending on the plot where the grapes were grown. Olivier had followed Domaine Chaland Viré-Clessé and the well-known producer Domaine Michel. He was looking forward to sipping a local wine tonight.

  The late afternoon air was chilly. He entered the two-story house that had large-tiled floors and dark beams running across the high ceilings of the kitchen and salon, and immediately got the fire going in the kitchen stove, then went upstairs to prepare his room. He stood for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness, before opening the shutters to allow sunlight to flood the room. His earliest paintings, mostly landscapes, were on the walls. Several pieces of sculpture sat on top of a bookcase filled with hundreds of books. His parents had traveled extensively when he and his brother were adolescents, and picked up artifacts from various countries in Africa, which were displayed on additional shelves.

  He returned to the salon and sat quietly, enjoying the solitude. The walls were adorned with old, framed family photographs and paintings that varied from oil paintings of ancestors to pastoral watercolors. He had pulled a photograph album from a shelf and sat down to peruse it when a knock at the door startled him. He answered it and was surprised to see Alain. “I was just thinking about you when I drove in,” Olivier said, extending his hand. “Comment ça va?”

  “You’ve stayed away too long, Olivier,” Alain said. “Is your wife with you?”

  “I divorced several years ago. And you?”

  “Still married to Yvette. You remember her from high school.” The image of a tawny-haired girl with a bossy attitude fluttered into Olivier’s vision, then vanished. “Twenty years we’ve been together. Our son Roland is eighteen.”

  Olivier wondered how to recap his adult life, but didn’t have to, as Alain continued talking. “The co-op keeps me busy. And with land prices near Beaune reaching two to four million euros a hectare, our land here in the south is becoming more appealing. I wish we could stay exactly as we are.”

  “Eh, bon. You are producing reds and whites?”

  “Mostly whites. The same stuff I started out making.”

  Olivier led him to the kitchen, then disappeared into the cellar and brought out a bottle from the young neighbor who was achieving international success with his wine. “Let’s sit,” he said, motioning to the kitchen table. “I’m interested in the guy who made this wine. I knew his parents. He’s married to a beautiful Polish woman….”

  “Sure. Stéphane. He’s younger than we are. You remember we picked for his parents a long time ago?” Alain smiled and took the glass offered him.

  Olivier swished the liquid around in his mouth before swallowing. “Pas mal,” he said.

  “You prefer Stéphane’s to the co-op wine?”

  “My parents must have purchased it,” Olivier said. “It was in the cellar. But, yes, he’s doing a good job.”

  “Stéphane is now producing fifty thousand bottles that are being exported to places like the U.S. and Germany. He thinks he’s above the rest of us. I’ve stopped asking him to donate cases to our annual local wine festival. His dad used to give generously.”

  Olivier detected jealousy in Alain’s voice. “Burgundy is about the independent, young winemakers these days, both men and women,” he said. “I was just reading about that in a magazine. Even if they have no land, they want to be creative and purchase grapes in order to make a few unique cases. They share facilities.”

  Alain made a face. “It’s the new Burgundy, alright. These are wealthy guys in the Beaune area who talk the Americans into investing in them. They do it all for the tourists now up in the Beaune region. The grapes must be handpicked. No machinery is to be used. No chemicals. And they try to dictate to the rest of us.”

  “And Roland? Is he among the new and upcoming vignerons?”

  The silence that followed made Olivier assume that he had said something wrong.

  “Nah, he likes hunting a lot more than working in the vineyards. And video games. No one can beat him.”

  “That’s a world I know nothing about.”

  “You think I do? His mother has catered to his every whim. It’s not like when we were growing up.”

  Olivier thought it sounded like Yvette had the upper hand in this family.

  “You hope for the
best, that’s all I can say,” Alain said. “Which reminds me, I hope your mother will continue to let me purchase the grapes from her vines.”

  Olivier pretended ignorance. He knew his mother had a contract with Alain, but that she was seriously considering Stéphane’s request to purchase her grapes. He thought she had another year before their contract expired. “As you know, I am rarely here. I can put in a word, though.”

  Alain finished his glass. “I’ll bring a couple of the co-op bottles over while you’re here. You can compare.”

  Olivier wondered if his old friend had really just happened to stop by, or had he something on his mind. Alain sat stiffly, his hands clasped. Olivier didn’t have to wait long. “I didn’t just see your car in the driveway,” Alain admitted. “I want to talk to you about something.”

  “Of course.”

  Alain stood and began to pace. “There was a girl who showed up here last fall on an old, red Vespa to pick grapes. She wanted to start in this area and then move up to Beaune, then go up to Chablis country in the far north corner of Burgundy. She had a way about her. She got Roland out in the fields, and next thing she was taking him here and there with her. He has an old scooter, and they would take off.”

  Olivier felt a slight surge of curiosity. “What do you mean, a way about her?”

  “Weird silver hair and eyes blue as a Burgundy sky.” He glanced at Olivier. “Yvette never allowed girls to pick here, and she was mad at me for saying yes to Lucy. I didn’t have to send her away because she went on her own. I heard she moved in with Madame Anne Bré for the winter. Roland went up often to hang out with her. But now he tells me she’s vanished into thin air.”

  “I heard the same story from friends in Auxey-Duresses. Madame Bré is looking for her, too.”

  “She was a damn good picker. Skinny, but all muscle.” Now it was Alain’s turn to shrug. “Maybe Madame Bré fell under her spell the way Roland did. He hasn’t shown up for a couple of nights, and my hunch is he’s looking for her. I have a tiny parcel of land up there, and I hunt there with her son-in-law. I may go and see what’s going on.”

  ***

  The only way to combat the illogical, Olivier thought, is to focus on the logical. “She’s gone,” he said. “And there is no proof that there is anything to worry about. She isn’t a child, right?”

  “She told me she was twenty-one, but I checked her passport and she’s seventeen. Turning eighteen sometime in November.”

  “She allowed you to see it?”

  He paused, “She left it lying around and Yvette found it. It’s natural to have a look, right?” He sipped the last of his wine. “I decided when I saw your car that you might be able to help, now that you are a powerful man in Paris. You were in all the papers when you broke open the counterfeit ring in Bordeaux.”

  Olivier was in a congenial mood. “I am helpless, though, when it comes to teenagers. As you may recall, I didn’t understand them when I was one.”

  The clock struck eight and Olivier realized he just had time to drive back to the Beaune area for dinner at Max’s grandmother’s. “I’m sorry, Alain, but I must leave soon. Your son is eighteen, correct? France has ended all missing persons searches for adults, you know. As for the girl, I’d have to check.”

  “I guess people have to show up dead in order to be counted as missing.”

  Olivier didn’t think he was joking.

  “Yvette blames everything on the girl. Roland’s a farm boy, and easily led astray. Tends to follow the wrong crowd.”

  “ But you see her as a positive influence. Love is at its worst and it’s best when a young man is eighteen, don’t you agree? My first time falling in love I recall as torture.”

  Alain chuckled. “I thought I’d die if I couldn’t have Yvette. I’m lucky she’s stuck with me.”

  Olivier wondered what it would have been like had his first love, Sophie, stuck with him. They were eighteen and he had fallen ill for a month after she left him for somebody else. Until Max, he had not felt lucky in love at all. His wife had left him for a horse-trainer and then his model girlfriend, Véronique, turned out to be an addict, and would have ruined his career if she could have. He saw her photo splashed across various gossip columns all the time, and each time felt relief. She had tried to come between Max and him, but he had managed to dodge that bomb.

  “I’m going to hunt sanglier up north over the weekend,” Alain said. “The wild boar are becoming a nuisance, showing up in neighborhoods and eating the ripe grapes from vineyards. They need to be thinned out. If I go up, I’ll see if you can come along. Remember when we used to hunt?”

  Olivier remembered all too well the sight of the boar as it tore through the field chased by dogs, then was shot and flew into the air, and landed beside him with an impact that shook the ground. He recalled telling his father that seeing the boar brought down was more like a car crash than anything having to do with nature. “Who will you be hunting with?” he asked.

  “Jean-Claude Villemaire. Madame Bré’s son-in-law.”

  Olivier smiled. “I am soon to be engaged to an American woman who is half-French and her grandmother and Anne Bré are good friends.”

  “An American, eh? You get around, Olivier. I just remembered, the missing girl babysat for Jean-Claude. He worried that she was a gold-digger.”

  Ah, so there is a gossip mill, Olivier thought.

  Alain continued speaking, and it struck Olivier that his childhood friend was lonely. “He thinks she’s preying on his mother-in-law after learning that her daughter had died. But Madame insists the girl has an extraordinary nose for wine, and should be trained.”

  This sounds like a fable, thought Olivier. A stranger enters a village, creates minor chaos, and a fascinated curiosity develops among the townspeople. “She’s a teenager who sounds a bit lost. Not very different from your son, perhaps.”

  Alain stood and pulled a business card from his pocket. “Here’s my mobile number if you want to hunt. They don’t allow women in the hunt club, but your fiancée could help with the food. Yvette will be in charge. She feels like it’s her God-given responsibility to look after Jean-Claude since his wife passed.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed, as Olivier once again couldn’t think how to respond. The two men said good-bye.

  Olivier’s phone rang and he picked up quickly when he saw it was Abdel. “Ça va?”

  “Oui. I am with my cousin in Lyon.”

  “Oui?”

  “It’s probably nothing. My cousin sold a Vespa, back in early September, to a friendly American girl who chatted him up while he was doing the paperwork. He said she told him she needed the Vespa to travel at sonic speed, as she was dodging a man who might be intending to murder her.”

  Olivier couldn’t believe his ears. “Red Vespa? Silver hair?”

  “Ring in her nose. Oui.” Pause. “You know her?”

  “She is everywhere. Like the cold fog that descends and stays on our skin here in Burgundy. Only, at the moment, the general opinion is that she has disappeared.”

  “That’s odd. She stopped in yesterday at my cousin’s to have something minor fixed on the Vespa. She told my cousin that she has been living in Auxey-Duresses, but when she heard her uncle had learned her address, she took off. He told her he was glad she had not been murdered, and she laughed and said, ‘it’s always a good day when you’re not murdered.’”

  Olivier wondered why it seemed everyone was objectifying the people in their lives. Even Abdel was speaking of “the girl” and “my cousin.” “What’s your cousin’s name, Abdel?”

  “Ali. The girl is Lucy.”

  Olivier felt impatient. By now he was driving through the elegant village of Meursault next to Auxey-Duresses. “An old friend of mine from Viré stopped by earlier and said his son is a Lucy follower, and he’s going up to see if he can find them. Th
e woman she was staying with in Auxey-Duresses wants to declare her missing.”

  “Ali will be upset to hear this.”

  “How is he?”

  “He’s a pain in the ass. Swears he’s not on opioids, but has friends who are. I’m keeping a close eye on him.”

  “What about Lucy? Any drug use there that you know of?”

  “Ali wouldn’t tell me if she was.”

  “She’s too young to be roaming all over creation. If she’s not back in Auxey by tomorrow, let’s pick her up and see what’s going on.”

  “D’accord.” They said good-bye, and Olivier realized that his efforts to learn what was going on with the girl were time-consuming, and done to appease two women who suddenly seemed to have a lot of control over him.

  Chapter Five

  Max looked up as Olivier entered the salon where she was enjoying an apéritif with her family. “You look beautiful,” he said softly in her ear as he kissed her cheek, then greeted everyone else. She was wearing a one-piece black jumpsuit. Simple and elegant. A fire was going in the fireplace. Hank and Juliette sipped a kir royal, a champagne and cassis combination. Isabelle greeted Olivier warmly, and Max knew from a remark she had made that she, like everyone else, was expecting Olivier to propose. She watched as her grandmother introduced him to her friend Anne Bré, who stood all of five feet, and was dressed in black pants and sweater, and black high-heeled boots. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and the bangs that grazed her eyebrows, along with the strength and vitality radiating from her, gave her a gamine-like quality. Exactly how I want to present at sixty-five, Max thought, though at five-ten I’m hardly the gamine type.

  Anne was curious about Olivier’s opinion about a certain Bordeaux wine and he gave a lengthy explanation. “Will you be remaining in Bordeaux?” she then asked Olivier, who hesitated a second before saying, “No. I will be joining the antiterrorism magistrates in Paris.”

  So that’s what’s going on, Max thought, but why didn’t he tell me? The answer felt obvious to her: he had decided to carry on without her. She felt a slump within.