“Damn,” Bear said. “But you did well to buy organic ones.” He took the strawberries and tasted one, handing one to Florian.
“Roses,” Florian said, chewing.
Bear closed his eyes and swallowed. “Yes, they taste more like flowers than fruit. It’s what strawberries should taste like.”
“I tasted one in the market to make sure,” Mamadou said. “Will you serve them with Chantilly?”
Florian laughed. “He’s catching on quick,” he said, pointing to the dishwasher.
“Yes, all they need is a little Chantilly, and some ice cream I’ll make using vino Santo from Tuscany,” Bear agreed. “You can help me with the ice cream, Mamadou. Go and get twelve eggs and the double cream out of the fridge.”
“And a bottle of your best vino Santo?” Mamadou asked.
“Two.”
• • •
Marine arrived at the restaurant five minutes early. A table in the window had been reserved for her—her favorite spot—and she ordered a large bottle of sparkling water as she waited for Sylvie. From there, she could watch people walking down the street, but she also had a clear view to the open kitchen and out the back door onto the courtyard. She lowered her head, to almost tabletop level, and she could see her balcony across the garden.
“Is everything all right, madame?” Jacques Oller asked. He was standing beside her, opening a large bottle of San Pellegrino.
Marine quickly brought her head up. “Yes!” she said, laughing. “I can see my apartment, just barely, from here.”
Oller said, “You don’t have far to come, then.”
“No,” Marine agreed. “About two minutes on foot.”
Oller poured her water and left. A thud then caused Marine to look up. Sylvie Grassi had just set her oversize Italian purse on the table. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, giving her friend the bise.
“Would you like some water?” Marine asked, holding the bottle up.
“Yes, please,” Sylvie said. “Have you ordered yet?”
“No, of course not. The two specials today are curry of cod and lamb chops with fresh mint”
Sylvie strained to read the blackboard that was posted on the far wall. “They both sound good.”
“I agree,” Marine said, frowning.
“What’s wrong?”
“I had curried lamb last night for dinner.”
Sylvie laughed. “Pas de chance!”
“Antoine’s special recipe for using leftover lamb.”
“So how is newly married life?” Sylvie asked. “Antoine seems to be in heaven.”
“He is. We are.”
Jacques Oller returned to take their order. “I’ll have the cod,” Sylvie said, folding her arms and sitting back.
“I will, too, please,” Marine said.
“White wine?” Sylvie asked, winking.
“Do you have classes this afternoon?”
“Nope. All done for the day. I taught a three-hour photography class this morning.”
Marine bit her upper lip. “Okay, let’s have some wine. We haven’t been together, alone, since the wedding.”
“I’ll bring you the wine list,” Oller said. “Although I can tell you that our wine of the week is a Chardonnay from the Alto Adige mountains. It would be very good with the curry.”
“Sold!” Sylvie said, looking across at Marine.
“Sounds perfect,” she confirmed.
Oller smiled and left.
“We needed a restaurant like this in Aix,” Sylvie said. She looked around and jabbed an olive with a toothpick. “It’s elegant but not snobby.”
“And it’s not trendy, with house music playing over the restaurant speakers. With those all-gray interiors that seem to be the rage.”
“And waiters with ponytails and necklaces,” Sylvie added, shuddering.
Oller reappeared with an ice bucket, the wine, and two tall, delicate wineglasses. Marine leaned forward excitedly as he opened the wine. “Will you taste, madame?” he asked her.
“Yes, please.”
Sylvie smiled as she watched her friend, who had gone from a wine neophyte to a burgeoning connoisseur in a matter of a year.
“It’s perfect,” Marine said, setting the glass down.
Oller smiled and poured the wine into their glasses. “Please, if you need anything at all, just ask,” he said before leaving to occupy himself with the other tables, which were now all full for the lunch service.
Marine took her cell phone out of her purse and snapped a photo of the wine’s label. “Alois Lageder,” she mused, turning the bottle in her hands. “A Germanic name.”
“Alto Adige is on the border of Italy and Austria,” Sylvie said as she took a sip of wine. “I have a colleague whose parents grew up there during the war. They were Italian, and once a week they would walk into the Austrian side of the mountain and exchange their wine for milk and cream.”
“The Sound of Music,” Marine said.
“Yeah, with Nazis and all.”
Marine laughed and held up her glass. “To life during peacetime. At least for us. In so many other countries war is still a part of daily life. This morning another boat full of African refugees was saved by the Italians. There were more than four hundred of them . . . terrified . . .”
“Your neighbors the Roches would be at the seaside, using long poles to turn away the refugee boats. I can just see it.”
Marine buried her head in her hands. “Don’t remind me of them,” she said. “What a mistake that evening was.”
“Ah, it’s good to mix it up now and again,” Sylvie said. “Invite a few racists for dinner, see what happens.”
“Oh, speak of the devil,” Marine said, sliding down in her seat. “It’s M. Roche, coming toward the restaurant. With some guy who looks like he’s military. I’ve never liked brush cuts.”
“But he hates this place,” Sylvie said, turning around to look out the window. “Maybe he’s gonna spray-paint the front door.”
“Oh no! He is coming in.”
Sylvie swung around to face Marine. “Pretend you didn’t see him.”
But Thomas Roche and his friend, who was slightly younger, walked straight toward the kitchen, where Marine and Sylvie could see Bear Valets leaning over the stove. “M. Valets!” Roche stormed. “I have something for you!”
Jacques Oller was immediately at his side. “May I help you, sir?”
Roche brushed off the waiter with a wave of his hand. “It’s the eminent chef we’d like to speak to!”
“What an arse,” Marine whispered.
Bear rolled his eyes and put down the wooden spoon he had been using.
Roche went on, not waiting for Bear to be at his side. “Here, in my hand, is the petition, now with more than two hundred names on it!”
Marine looked at Sylvie, astonished. “How did he get two hundred signatures? I didn’t sign it, nor did Antoine.”
Bear nodded and was about to lift the petition off the bar when Mamadou came forward, stretching and twisting a tea towel between his hands. “Problem, Chef?”
Roche saw the six-foot-four African and took a step back. But his friend pointed at the dishwasher with a shaky hand and quickly turned away, then almost ran out the front door. Roche was left standing alone. “Have a good look at that petition,” he said, slowly walking toward the door backward. He raised a finger in the air for effect. “This is far from over! You can be sure I’ll be back!” He turned around and with some difficulty managed to open the door and leave.
“I’ll be back!” Florian hollered from the kitchen, in his best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.
Sylvie and Marine burst out laughing, and some of the other patrons applauded.
Marine set her napkin down, got up, and walked over to the bar. “Are you okay?” she asked Bear.
Bear smiled and shook his head back and forth. “Thank you—I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Marine,” Marine said, holding out her hand. “Marine Bonnet.”
“Thanks,” Bear said, shaking her hand. “I’m fine. M. Roche has been here before and warned me he would come again. I recognize his friend, too; he lives around the corner. I just didn’t expect grief during the lunch service.” He turned to Mamadou and said, “You sure frightened them.”
But Mamadou had disappeared. He was already back at the sink, in a small room off the open kitchen, washing pots and pans.
Chapter Seven
A Toss of the Dice
M arine and Verlaque had agreed to meet at his apartment, around the corner from Aix’s cathedral Saint-Sauveur. When her class finished at 5:30 p.m. she had called Verlaque, offering to stop by her butcher on the rue d’Italie to buy sirloin steak for dinner. “Sounds great,” he said. “Make sure he cuts it nice and thick, and then we can share it. Better that than two thin ones. We’ll eat at my house, then, if you don’t mind.”
Marine smiled. “I have a gas stovetop, too, you know.”
“I know. But I have a wine cellar. And this kind of steak needs a Grand Cru.”
“Burgundy?” she asked while walking through the Parc Jourdan on her way home from the university.
“Exactly. I have one from a village south of Beaune, not as expensive as a Côte du Beaune or a Côte de Nuits. It’s a village that has mostly pinot noir grapes, and its neighboring village, only three or so kilometers away, has mostly white—”
Marine smiled, enjoying the quiz. She stopped to watch a young mother push her daughter on a swing. “Mercurey,” she answered. “And Rully is the village next to it, with Chardonnay grapes.”
“Merde.”
“You have to give me harder questions next time,” Marine scolded, walking on. “Do you have salad fixings in your fridge?”
“No, you’d better get some arugula. Do you mind?”
“It’s no trouble,” she answered. “We can serve the steaks on a bed of arugula with olive oil, as they do in which famous Italian city?”
“Rome?”
“No, Florence, you dolt!”
Verlaque laughed and she could hear the flame of his lighter lighting a cigar. He asked, “Will you speak to me in Italian when you get home?”
“Yes, if you stop yakking and let me get off the phone to do the shopping.”
“See you soon,” he said. “I’ll take the long trip downstairs to the cellar to look for that Mercurey.”
“Watch out for the boogeyman,” she teased.
“Thanks.” Verlaque said. The apartment building’s shared cellar had a dirt floor and five or six rat traps scattered around. Every time he went down to get a bottle he dreaded finding a dead rodent in a trap. He quickly added, “I think I’m going to buy a wine fridge for the kitchen, with a glass door—”
“Your kitchen is too small.”
“I’ll take out the dishwasher.”
Marine laughed, knowing he was only half joking, and said, “The périphérique is up ahead, so I’m hanging up.”
“Yes, don’t get run over.”
“Thanks.” She hung up and slid her cell phone into her coat pocket—she had been married only a few weeks but she already knew that Verlaque would call with more food for her to buy—cheese, cherry tomatoes, a fresh baguette. She’d buy all of that anyway, and an extra treat for Verlaque.
Forty minutes later Marine was in front of Verlaque’s apartment, on a tiny street off the Place des Archevêches. She set her briefcase, purse, and cloth shopping bag down and put her key in the carved wooden door. Holding the door open with her right shoulder, she reached down and picked up the bags and then set them inside the foyer on its white-and-black marble floor.
“S’il vous plaît, mademoiselle,” said a voice from behind her. Still bent over, Marine looked up and smiled as a man in his mid-thirties reached over her head and held the door open for her.
“Merci!” she said, pushing the bags farther into the entryway and straightening up. “That was very kind of you.”
“De rien, mademoiselle,” he replied, bowing slightly and then walking away.
“C’est madame!” Marine called after him, waving her keys in the air. “Newlywed!”
She walked inside the building and picked up the bags as Antoine Verlaque came running down the stairs. “I have the living room windows open and could hear you. You should have called me when you were on the rue d’Italie,” he said, panting.
“It’s fine,” she answered. “The bags never feel heavy in the beginning—”
“I know,” Verlaque said, “until you get partway home.” He lifted up the shopping bag and her briefcase and kissed her. “The wine is breathing. You’ll love it.”
“Oh, goody,” she answered as they walked up to his fourth-floor apartment. “I shared a bottle of wine with Sylvie at lunch today. Well, she had more than I did as I had an afternoon class.”
“Where did you eat?” Verlaque asked as they walked into his apartment together and he set the groceries down on his kitchen’s white Carrara marble counters.
“La Fontaine. It was great.”
“What did you have? In detail.”
Marine recounted her cod curry. Verlaque laughed as he poured them each a glass of 2003 Mercurey.
“Mmm, this pinot is stronger than usual,” said she, taking a sip.
Verlaque tried not to smile and pretended it was natural for his wife to leave off the “noir.” “It’s a 2003,” he answered slowly.
Marine thought for a moment and then put her index finger in the air. “The heat wave.”
“Yep,” he answered. “I talked to another Burgundy winemaker who said he didn’t even like selling his 2003.”
“I think it’s delicious,” she said, taking another sip.
“Me, too,” Antoine agreed. “It has the perfume and velvetiness typical of Burgundy but the punch of a—”
“Côte du Rhône.”
“Exactly.” He picked up the bottle and looked at the label. “Alcohol content fourteen percent. That’s unheard of in Burgundy. Which is why that one vintner didn’t want to sell his . . . He said it was unrepresentative of their region.”
“I get it,” Marine said. “All that terroir stuff.” She winked at her husband and put on an apron. “I’ll make the salad, you prep the steaks to grill?”
They worked quietly side by side, listening to the public radio station’s nightly jazz show. Marine swayed back and forth, slowly pouring olive oil into her salad vinaigrette as Gregory Porter sang. Verlaque got out a mortar and pestle and began to grind peppercorns.
“Why not use the pepper grinder?” she asked, looking over at him.
“Bear told me about this,” he answered, bending into the task. “He said it’s a classic prep job in any kitchen, and I thought the steak deserves this treatment.”
“Can you flambé the steak in cognac for us?”
“Sure.” Verlaque picked up a handful of crushed peppercorns and rubbed them into the steaks with the palm of his hand. He turned on the gas burner.
“Something odd happened at lunch,” Marine said. “Thomas Roche stormed into La Fontaine with some crony and shoved a petition to stop the outside expansion in Bear’s face.”
“You’re kidding?” Verlaque asked. “What did Bear do?”
“He didn’t have to do anything,” she replied. “His dishwasher came forward to protect him and Roche’s friend fled. Literally fled. Roche wasn’t far behind him.”
“Excellent!” Verlaque said. “That guy is such a schmuck.”
“Let me know when the steaks are almost finished,” Marine said, taking off her apron. “I have a treat to put on them.”
“Salted butter from Brittany?”
>
“Even better,” she answered. “Truffle butter. I stopped in at André’s cheese shop and bought you some. Plus three cheeses for dessert.”
He smiled. “Thank you. You already had enough shopping to do. You know, I used to get Arnaud to buy me groceries. When we got married I stopped; I’m not sure why. Should we get him to continue? The kid can use the money and you’ve seen his muscles. Carrying groceries isn’t a big deal for him. He’s on the university volleyball team.”
“Fine with me,” Marine said. “And he knows what you—we—like.”
“I’m—we’re—lucky to have such nice neighbors.”
“Mmm,” she said, sneaking another sip of wine. “How did Arnaud’s father die?”
“Cancer or heart attack,” Verlaque answered. “I can’t remember. Arnaud was about thirteen.”
Marine thought about the cheeses and the steaks they were about to eat and her husband’s paunch. Antoine Verlaque had played rugby while at law school, but that had been a long time ago. As if reading her thoughts, he lifted up the wine bottle. “Red wine,” he said. “Good for your health.”
• • •
Verlaque tapped his empty wineglass three times. “I have a piece of chèvre to finish, but no more wine.”
“Classic problem,” Marine said, pouring the last of the wine into his glass.
“Save some for yourself.”
“No, I’ll have a cognac instead.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Would you like a cigar to go with that?”
“I’m not there yet,” Marine said, laughing. She walked across to the Art Deco liquor cabinet and poured herself a cognac, sniffing it before she took a sip. “No classes tomorrow, thankfully.”
“What did you teach this afternoon?” Verlaque asked, popping the last of his cheese into his mouth, then walking over to the living room to sit in his favorite leather club chair.
“History of law.” She sat down on the sofa opposite him and kicked off her ballet flats. “I threw in some Rabelais and Montaigne.”
“Ah, Montaigne is your man of the moment.”
“It was easy to fit him in,” she answered. “He was a lawyer after all, and he called for legal reform in the sixteenth century. There was widespread corruption among lawyers, and Montaigne saw that ordinary citizens avoided the law instead of seeking it out.”
The Curse of La Fontaine Page 7