by Peter Mayle
“That’s what you tell them back at the winery, is it? But I seem to remember that the beetle came over from America in the first place.”
Christie grinned. “We don’t go into that.”
They climbed over the wall and into a stony field at the edge of the property. Max kicked at the pebbles to see if there was anything underneath that resembled earth. “Not much to look at, is it? I’m amazed anything can grow here.”
But Christie didn’t answer. She had pushed her sunglasses back into her hair, and had squatted down between the rows of vines. Looking up at Max, she held out a tiny, wilted bunch of embryonic grapes, none of them much bigger than the head of a match. “Take a look at this.”
He took the bunch from her and weighed it in the palm of his hand.
“Notice anything?” asked Christie. She didn’t wait for him to answer. “It hasn’t fallen off. It’s been clipped off. See the diagonal cut on the stem? That’s a cut made by secateurs. And look-there are bunches all the way along this row.” She stood up and peered over the vines. “Same there, as well. I’ll bet it’s the same through this whole patch.”
Max couldn’t imagine Roussel spending hours cutting off grapes that he’d worked hard to cultivate. It didn’t make sense. “That’s strange,” he said. “I bet they don’t do that in California.”
“Sure they do,” said Christie, “but not everyone-only the really serious guys. They cut off maybe two out of every three young bunches so that the bunch that’s left gets all the nourishment. That makes it more concentrated, with a higher alcoholic content. The fancy name for it is the vendange verte. It’s slow and expensive, because machines can’t do it, but in theory you get a better wine. This must be a special part of the vineyard. What’s the grape?”
Max shrugged. “I’ll ask Roussel this evening. And we can ask the wine man tomorrow. Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for that dreadful stuff in the cellar.”
Christie was looking out across the vines, a speculative expression on her face. “You know, this is a great spot. The exposure’s right; facing east, the stony ground warms up slowly, which is better for the roots, and there’s a perfect slope for drainage. You should be able to grow some good wine here. Land like this would fetch a small fortune in Napa.”
“How small?”
“Well, to give you an idea: Coppola paid $350,000 an acre a couple of years back when he bought the Cohn winery.”
Max whistled.
“Yes,” said Christie. “It’s crazy. But that’s the wine business. Have you ever heard of a wine called Screaming Eagle? Not long ago at the Napa Wine Auction, one bottle went for half a million dollars. One bottle.”
“Mad,” said Max. “How could you ever drink a bottle of wine that cost half a million dollars?”
Christie laughed. “You don’t understand America. The guy who bought it will never drink it. It’s for show, like a painting. He probably has it on a pedestal in his living room, along with the price tag.”
“You’re right,” said Max. “I don’t understand America.”
They walked through the rest of the stony patch, and it was as Christie had thought, with those unobtrusive, neatly clipped bunches lying at the foot of the vines. Eventually, they would rot and disappear back into the earth. Next year, thought Max, the cycle would start again. He hoped he would still be there to see it.
Early evening found Max watching the sun slide down while he waited for Christie to finish getting ready for dinner chez Roussel. It had been an instructive day, and he was on the phone, reporting back to Charlie in London.
“… and so by the end of tomorrow, if this guy’s any good, we should know what we have to do to sort out the vines. Now, is that property thing still on? Are you still coming down?”
“Next week. I’ve just been looking at the program. You won’t believe this, but ‘Whither the luxury villa?’ is one of the subjects for a panel discussion. I ask you. Can you imagine anything more dreary? Anyway, I’m going to rent a car in Nice and get away as soon as I can. Do you good to have some company after being on your own in that bloody great chateau. What sort of kit will I need? White tie and tails? Shorts and sun hat?”
Max was about to answer when he saw Christie come out of the front door-a transformed Christie, with her hair swept up, wearing a slim black dress and a pair of scarlet high heels that hinted at a previously hidden side of her personality.
Without thinking, Max called across the courtyard, “You look terrific.”
“What?” Charlie’s voice on the other end of the line sounded puzzled.
“Not you, Charlie. Actually, it’s a bit of a long story.”
“It’s a babe, isn’t it? You’ve got a babe there. Bastard.”
The Roussel mansion came as a surprise. Max had been anticipating a dilapidated collection of farm buildings, but instead he found himself driving up to a Provençal hacienda. True, it was constructed of concrete, that special raw pink concrete which is forever raw and pink, impervious to the softening effects of time and weather. But it was vast, with long, low wings extending on either side of a central two-story block, steps leading up to an enormous tiled terrace, a meticulously landscaped front garden, and enough decorative wrought ironwork-trellises, gates, and curlicued railings-to open a showroom. For a peasant with an ancient tractor, Roussel seemed to be doing rather well for himself.
They found him on the terrace, a cell phone pressed to his ear, a frown on his face. Seeing them climbing up the steps, he finished the conversation and walked across to greet them, putting on a smile as he came. This evening, it was Roussel en tenue de soirée, wearing black trousers, crisp white shirt, and black waistcoat, for all the world like Yves Montand about to do a turn onstage. The pale strip of untanned skin across the top of his forehead was the only sign that he spent most of his life outdoors with his cap on.
“Monsieur Max! Mademoiselle! Welcome!” He was clearly rather taken with Christie’s outfit, lingering with exaggerated gallantry over her hand as he gave her bosom a surreptitious appraisal. “We must have an apéro-no, first I show you my little property.”
He took them round to the back of the house, where they were greeted by a chorus of squeals and barks coming from a squirming pack of mud-colored hounds. They were in a long, fenced-off run with a large wooden hut at one end built in the Alpine style, decorated with fretwork flourishes, more like a chalet than a kennel.
“Chiens de chasse,” said Roussel, waving a proprietorial arm. “They are impatient for September, when the season starts. Nothing eludes them-boar, snipe, partridge…”
“Postmen?” said Max.
Roussel winked at him. “Always the blagueur. But you should see them hunt, a magnificent sight.” He led them away from the kennel to an area enclosed by a stone wall that framed a picture of cultivated perfection-row upon row of vegetables, separated from one another by low box hedges and pathways of raked gravel. “My potager,” said Roussel. “I was inspired by a photograph of the gardens at Villandry. This is more modest, of course. Would you care to see my black tomatoes?”
They marveled at the black tomatoes, admired the small grove of truffle oaks, and exclaimed with wonder at Roussel’s pride and joy, a lifesized sculpture of a wild boar rampant-le sanglier rose-executed in the same emphatic pink concrete as the house. Everything was immaculately maintained, and the property had evidently cost a considerable amount of money. Perhaps an inheritance, Max thought, or it might be that Roussel had made a lucrative marriage. That must be it. In any case, it was not what one would expect from a man who habitually dressed like a scarecrow down on his luck.
The glories of the garden dealt with, Roussel took them back to the terrace to meet madame, a swarthy, smiling woman with the shadow of a moustache and a taste for bright orange accessories. She distributed pastis, they clinked glasses, and stood in amiable silence, searching for conversation. Max congratulated them on their view while Christie, recovering from her first-ever encounter with past
is, did her best with smiles and sign language to compliment madame on her unusually vibrant earrings.
And then, with a rumble of wheels, the Roussels’ daughter, a more delicate version of her mother, emerged from the house with a movable feast-a trolley laden with slices of fat-dappled sausage, wedges of pizza, tapenade on squares of toasted bread, slivers of raw vegetables with an anchoiade dip, olives both green and black, radishes with white butter, and a thick earthenware terrine of thrush pâté, with the unfortunate bird’s beak protruding from the dark meat.
“Ah,” said Roussel, rubbing his hands, “a few small mouthfuls to encourage the appetite.”
Max nudged Christie. “Pace yourself.”
She looked at the trolley. “This isn’t dinner?”
Max shook his head. “Afraid not.”
For a few moments, nothing was heard except murmurs of appreciation at the display of food, which seemed to act as a signal for Madame Roussel to excuse herself and return to the kitchen with her daughter. Roussel took a knife to the thrush pâté and spread some on a small square of toast, which he presented to Christie. She took it with barely concealed reluctance, her eyes still on the beak as she whispered to Max: “What else is in there? The head? The feet?”
Roussel smiled at her, pointing to his mouth and nodding his encouragement. “Jolly good,” he said, drawing on the limited English vocabulary he had picked up from Uncle Henry. “Stick it to your ribs.”
“Claude,” said Max, “there’s something I wanted to ask you. You know the vines at the end of the property, beyond the wall? I took a look at them today, and I noticed that a lot of the young grapes have been cut off. Is that a good idea? I mean, I’m no expert, but it seems like a bit of a waste.”
Roussel took his time to answer, his tan and white forehead crinkled in thought, his lower lip out-thrust. He sighed, a melodramatic gale of air that made his lip tremble. “People will tell you,” he said, “that vines must suffer, but that poor parcel of land is beyond suffering. Nothing but stones and dust”-he paused to shake his head-“putain, even the weeds complain. If I didn’t thin out the bunches, we wouldn’t have grapes; we’d have pinheads. Pinheads,” he repeated, holding up a forefinger and thumb a millimeter apart.
He drained his glass, and searched the trolley without success for the bottle. Muttering about his wife letting them die of thirst, he went indoors to fetch more pastis.
Max took the chance to tell Christie what Roussel had said about the grapes. Looking around, she tipped the remains of her drink into a glazed urn containing a neatly tailored shrub, and shook her head. “I don’t buy that,” she said. “Nobody goes to that kind of trouble unless… you know what? Why don’t you ask him…”
But he was back, brandishing a bottle and some of his best cocktail-party English. Refilling their glasses, he beamed, and with an accent that had very little to do with any known tongue, cried, “Bottoms away! Air of zer dog! Pip pip!”
Christie edged closer to the glazed urn, waiting for an appropriate moment to jettison at least part of the mixture-forty-five degrees of aniseed-flavored alcohol-that was already starting to make her head swim.
Before Max had a chance to return to the subject of the grapes, Roussel moved closer to him, putting one weather-beaten paw on his shoulder. “Tell me, Monsieur Max,” he said, “just between us, of course: what are your plans for the house?”
Max considered the question for a moment, tempted to provide Roussel with some grist for the village gossip mill: a weekend love nest for the Marseille soccer team, an ostrich farm, a school for wayward girls. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I’m still settling in. Anyway, there’s no need to rush things.”
Roussel patted his shoulder and nodded. “Very wise. A place like that, right in the heart of the Luberon, is impossible to find nowadays. English, Germans, Americans, Parisians-they’re all looking for houses down here.” He removed his hand from Max’s shoulder and used his index finger to stir the ice cubes in his glass. “Best to take your time. Be sure to let me know if you should decide to sell. And attention.” The dripping finger was wagged in Max’s face. “Never trust a real estate agent. They’re all bandits. I could tell you stories you wouldn’t believe. But where are my manners? We are ignoring mademoiselle.” He looked across at Christie, standing by her urn, smiling. Roussel nodded approvingly at the sight of her empty glass, offered her his arm, and the three of them went into the house for dinner.
The interior of the house was as perfectly maintained as the garden, with an equally impressive array of ironwork-over-wrought iron, even more complicated in its twirls and entanglements than the selection in the garden. The tiled floors and the dark wooden furniture gleamed with care and polish. No wall was without its niche, and no niche was without its framed photograph-portraits, for the most part, illustrating the Roussel dynasty, with several studies of camouflage-clad men, chests thrown out, displaying their furred or feathered victims.
Roussel led them through to the dining room, where an entire wall was dedicated to the pleasures of the hunt. There was an iron-barred cabinet, fully stocked with rifles; a stuffed fox snarling from the confines of its glass-fronted prison; an enormous sanglier head, mounted on a wooden shield and surrounded by more photographs of Roussel and his fellow warriors; and, hanging over the long dining table like a pungent shroud, the reek of garlic.
“A simple meal,” said Roussel as they all sat down, “such as a man might have after a day’s work in the fields.” It began with caviar d’aubergine, a cold purée of eggplant, and a plate piled high with the rolled, stuffed parcels of meat known in Provence, for some reason, as larks without heads. Roussel made a tour of the table, pouring heavy red Châteauneuf from an embossed bottle, and the sight of wine reminded Max of the next day’s rendezvous with the man from Bordeaux.
“I’m sure Nathalie Auzet told you about tomorrow,” he said. “She’s found an oenologue to come and look at the vines.”
Roussel finished pouring the wine into his own glass, with a roll of the wrist to catch the last drop, and sat down. “She called me tonight, just when you were arriving.” He shook his head and sighed. “These Bordelais-they think they can drop in whenever it suits them. But don’t you worry about it. I’ll deal with him. I’m sure you have better things to do. Leave it to me.” He raised his glass, aiming it first at Christie, then at Max. “To America! To England! To the entente cordiale!”
Christie was hungry, and being unused to Provençal hospitality-which refuses to take no for an answer-made the mistake of finishing her first headless lark rather too quickly. Madame Roussel replaced it at once, serving with it another dollop of aubergine, and giving her a thick slice of bread to mop up the juice. This time, alas, there was no urn to come to her rescue. She noticed that Max was eating very slowly, nodding and smiling as he listened to one of Roussel’s monologues.
“People will tell you,” Roussel was saying as he uncorked two more bottles, “that if you eat the tops of five raw cabbages before drinking, you can take as much wine as you like without suffering.” He made a tour of the table, topping up glasses. “Roasted goats’ lungs are supposed to do the same, although I personally have never tried them. But best of all, so they say, are the beaks of swallows, burnt to a cinder and then ground to a fine powder. You put a pinch or two of the powder in your first glass of wine, and anything you drink afterwards will have no effect on you at all. Voilà.”
“Fascinating,” said Max. “I must make a note to buy some beaks.” He caught Christie’s eye and translated for her, seeing her smile gradually freeze when he came to the swallow’s beak recipe.
She shuddered, and took a long swallow of wine. “These guys and their beaks. Haven’t they heard of Alka-Seltzer?”
The meal moved slowly on to the main event, brought ceremoniously to the table in a deep iron casserole: a stew of wild boar, almost black with wine and blood-thickened gravy, accompanied by a gratin of cheese and potatoes and a further topping-up
of Châteauneuf. Christie looked with dismay at the steaming plateful put in front of her, enough for an entire pack of famished dogs. Max loosened his belt. The Roussels attacked their food with undiminished enthusiasm.
There were, inevitably, second helpings. There was cheese. There were great wedges of tarte aux pommes, shiny with glaze. And finally, with the coffee and diamond-shaped almond biscuits, there was a compulsory snifter of Roussel’s venomous homemade marc.
By this time, Christie was anesthetized. She had arrived at that stage of overeating reached by certain species prior to hibernation and was barely capable of movement or thought, conscious only of an instinct to curl up in a quiet, dark place. Max was little better, and even Roussel had begun to show signs of wear, making only a token effort to persuade them into another glass of marc.
It had been, as Max assured Madame Roussel on the doorstep, a memorable evening. After a round of kissing and handshaking, he steered an unsteady Christie across the terrace and folded her into the car.
“I thought you did very well,” he said as they were driving home. “ California would be proud of you. I’m sorry to have put you through all that-I had no idea it was going to be such a marathon. Are you feeling OK?”
There was no reply. And when they reached the house, Max had to carry her, a dead weight smelling faintly of marc and almond biscuits, from the car. He took her upstairs, laid her on the bed, took off her shoes, and pulled a blanket over her. As he was putting a pillow under her head, she stirred, and whispered from the depths of her stupor, “No more. Please. No more.”
Thirteen
Max sat on the raised rim of the bassin, his head between his knees, wondering if the heart attack would come before or after breakfast. The heat of the morning sun and the overindulgence of the night before had turned what was normally a pleasant run into an exercise in masochism. He groaned, went over to the fountain, and put his head under the flow of cool water.