‘Why are you so sure there isn’t?’ I said.
‘Why?’ De Marcehal gave me a pitying smile. ‘Because, my dear Drummond, there can’t be. I was at the Saint-Oen estate myself not long ago. The vigneron’s records there attest that only forty dozen cases of the 1929 were produced altogether. Consider. A scant forty dozen cases spread over all the years from then to now, and with thousands of connoisseurs thirsting for them. I assure you, the last bottle was emptied a generation ago.’
I had not intended to come out with it, but that superior smile of his got under my skin.
‘I’m afraid your calculations are a bit off, my dear de Marechal.’ It was going to be a pleasure setting him back on his heels. ‘You see, a bottle of Nuits Saint-Oen 1929 is, at this very moment, resting in my company’s cellars.’
The revelation jarred him as hard as I thought it would. His jaw fell. He gaped at me in speechless wonderment. Then his face darkened with suspicion.
‘You’re joking,’ he said. ‘You must be. You just told me you’ve never tasted the vintage. Now you tell me—’
‘Only the truth. After my partner’s death last year I found the bottle among his private stock.’
‘And you haven’t been tempted to open it?’
‘I resist the temptation. The wine is dangerously old. It would be extremely painful to open it and find it has already died.’
‘Ah, no!’ De Marechal clapped a hand to his brow. ‘You’re an American, monsieur, that’s your trouble. Only an American could talk this way, someone who’s inherited the obscene Puritan pleasure in self-denial. And for the last existing bottle of Nuits Saint-Oen 1929 to have such an owner! It won’t do. It absolutely will not do. Monsieur Drummond, we must come to terms. What price do you ask for this Saint-Oen?’
‘None. It is not for sale.’
‘It must be for sale!’ de Marechal said explosively. With an effort he got himself under control. ‘Look, I’ll be frank with you. I am not a rich man. You could get at least a thousand francs – possibly as much as two thousand – for that bottle of wine, and I’m in no position to lay out that kind of money. But I am close to someone who can meet any terms you set. Monsieur Kyros Kassoulas. Perhaps you know of him?’
Since Kyros Kassoulas was one of the richest men on the Continent, someone other magnates approached with their hats off, it would be hard not to know of him despite his well-publicized efforts to live in close seclusion.
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘And do you know of the one great interest in his life?’
‘I can’t say I do. According to the newspapers, he seems to be quite the man of mystery.’
‘A phrase concocted by journalists to describe anyone of such wealth who chooses to be reticent about his private affairs. Not that there is anything scandalous about them. You see, Monsieur Kassoulas is a fanatic connoisseur of wines.’ De Marechal gave me a meaningful wink. ‘That’s how I interested him in founding our Societe de la Cave and in establishing its magazine.’
‘And in making you its editor.’
‘So he did,’ said de Marechal calmly. ‘Naturally, I’m grateful to him for that. He, in turn, is grateful to me for giving him sound instruction on the great vintages. Strictly between us, he was a sad case when I first met him. A man without any appetite for vice, without any capacity to enjoy literature or music or art, he was being driven to distraction by the emptiness of his life. I filled that emptiness the day I pointed out to him that he must cultivate his extraordinarily true palate for fine wine. The exploration of the worthier vintages since then has been for him a journey through a wonderland. By now, as I have said, he is a fanatic connoisseur. He would know without being told that your bottle of Nuits Saint-Oen is to other wines what the Mona Lisa is to other paintings. Do you see what that means to you in a business way? He’s a tough man to bargain with, but in the end he’ll pay two thousand francs for that bottle. You have my word on it.’
I shook my head. ‘I can only repeat, Monsieur de Marechal, the wine is not for sale. There is no price on it.’
‘And I insist you set a price on it.’
That was too much.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘then the price is one hundred thousand francs. And without any guarantee the wine isn’t dead. One hundred thousand francs exactly.’
‘Ah,’ de Marechal said furiously, ‘so you really don’t intend to sell it! But to play dog in the manger—’
Suddenly he went rigid. His features contorted, his hands clutched convulsively at his chest. As crimson with passion as his face had been the moment before, it was now ghastly pale and bloodless. He lowered himself heavily into a chair.
‘My heart,’ he gasped in agonized explanation. ‘It’s all right. I have pills—’
The pill he slipped under his tongue was nitroglycerine, I was sure. I had once seen my late partner Broulet undergo a seizure like this.
‘I’ll call a doctor,’ I said, but when I went to the phone de Mareschal made a violent gesture of protest.
‘No, don’t bother. I’m used to this. It’s an old story with me.’
He was, in fact, looking better now.
‘If it’s an old story you should know better,’ I told him. ‘For a man with a heart condition you allow yourself to become much too emotional.’
‘Do I? And how would you feel, my friend, if you saw a legendary vintage suddenly appear before you and then found it remained just out of reach? No, forgive me for that. It’s your privilege not to sell your goods if you don’t choose to.’
‘It is.’
‘But one small favor. Would you, at least, allow me to see the bottle of Saint-Oen? I’m not questioning its existence. It’s only that the pleasure of viewing it, of holding it in my hands—’
It was a small enough favor to grant him. The cellars of Broulet and Drummond were near the Halles au Vin, a short trip by car from the office. There I conducted him through the cool, stony labyrinth bordering the Seine, led him to the Nuits Saint-Oen racks where, apart from all the lesser vintages of later years, the one remaining bottle of 1929 rested in solitary grandeur. I carefully took it down and handed it to de Marechal, who received it with reverence.
He examined the label with an expert eye, delicately ran a fingertip over the cork. ‘The cork is in good condition.’
‘What of it? That can’t save the wine if its time has already come.’
‘Naturally. But it’s an encouraging sign.’ He held the bottle up to peer through it. ‘And there seems to be only a normal sediment. Bear in mind, Monsieur Drummond, that some great Burgundies have lived for fifty years. Some even longer.’
He surrendered the bottle to me with reluctance. His eyes remained fixed on it so intensely as I replaced it in the rack that he looked like a man under hypnosis. I had to nudge him out of the spell before I could lead him upstairs to the sunlit outer world.
We parted there.
‘I’ll keep in touch with you,’ he said as we shook hands. ‘Perhaps we can get together for lunch later this week.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said without regret, ‘but later this week I’m leaving for New York to look in on my office there.’
‘Too bad. But of course you’ll let me know as soon as you return to Paris.’
‘Of course,’ I lied.
However, there was no putting off Max de Marechal now that he had that vision of the Nuits Saint-Oen 1929 before his eyes. He must have bribed one of the help in my Paris office to tell him when I was back from the States, because no sooner was I again at my desk on the rue de Berri than he was on the phone. He greeted me with fervor. What luck he had timed his call so perfectly! My luck, as well as his. Why? Because La Societe de la Cave was to have a dinner the coming weekend, a positive orgy of wine sampling, and its presiding officer, Kyros Kassoulas himself, had requested my presence at it!
My first impulse was to refuse the invitation. For one thing, I knew its motive. Kassoulas had been told about the Nuits Saint-
Oen 1929 and wanted to get me where he could personally bargain for it without losing face. For another thing, these wine-tasting sessions held by various societies of connoisseurs were not for me. Sampling a rare and excellent vintage is certainly among life’s most rewarding experiences, but, for some reason I could never fathom, doing it in the company of one’s fellow aficionados seems to bring out all the fakery hidden away in the soul of even the most honest citizen. And to sit there, watching ordinarily sensible men vie with each other in their portrayals of ecstasy over a glass of wine, rolling their eyes, flaring their nostrils, straining to find the most incongruous adjectives with which to describe it, has always been a trial to me.
Weighed against all this was simple curiosity. Kyros Kassoulas was a remote and awesome figure, and here I was being handed the chance to actually meet him. In the end, curiosity won. I attended the dinner, I met Kassoulas there, and quickly realized, with gratification, that we were striking it off perfectly.
It was easy to understand why. As de Marechal had put it, Kyros Kassoulas was a fanatic on wines, a man with a single-minded interest in their qualities, their history, and their lore, and I could offer him more information on the subject than anyone else he knew. More, he pointed out to me, than even the knowledgeable Max de Marechal.
As the dinner progressed, it intrigued me to observe that where everyone else in the room deferred to Kassoulas – especially de Marechal, a shameless sycophant – Kassoulas himself deferred to me. I enjoyed that. Before long I found myself really liking the man instead of merely being impressed by him.
He was impressive, of course. About fifty, short and barrel-chested, with a swarthy, deeply lined face and almost simian ears, he was ugly in a way that some clever women would find fascinating. Somehow, he suggested an ancient idol roughhewn out of a block of mahagony. His habitual expression was a granite impassivity, relieved at times by a light of interest in those veiled, ever-watchful eyes. That light became intense when he finally touched on the matter of my bottle of Saint-Oen.
He had been told its price, he remarked with wry humor, and felt that a hundred thousand francs – twenty thousand hard American dollars – was, perhaps, a little excessive. Now if I would settle for two thousand francs—
I smilingly shook my head.
‘It’s a handsome offer,’ Kassoulas said. ‘It happens to be more than I’ve paid for any half dozen bottles of wine in my cellar.’
‘I won’t dispute that, Monsieur Kassoulas.’
‘But you won’t sell, either. What are the chances of the wine’s being fit to drink?’
‘Who can tell? The 1929 vintage at Saint-Oen was late to mature, so it may live longer than most. Or it may already be dead. That’s why I won’t open the bottle myself or sell anyone else the privilege of opening it. This way, it’s a unique and magnificent treasure. Once its secret is out, it may simply be another bottle of wine gone bad.’
To his credit, he understood that. And, when he invited me to be a guest at his estate near Saint-Cloud the next weekend, it was with the blunt assurance that it was only my company he sought, not the opportunity to further dicker for the bottle of Saint-Oen. In fact, said he, he would never again broach the matter. All he wanted was my word that if I ever decided to sell the bottle, he would be given first chance to make an offer for it. And to that I cheerfully agreed.
The weekend at his estate was a pleasant time for me, the first of many I spent there. It was an enormous place, but smoothly run by a host of efficient help under the authority of a burly, grizzled majordomo named Joseph. Joseph was evidently Kassoulas’ devoted slave. It came as no surprise to learn he had been a sergeant in the Foreign Legion. He responded to orders as if his master was the colonel of his regiment.
What did come as a surprise was the lady of the house, Sophia Kassoulas. I don’t know exactly what I expected Kassoulas’ wife to be like, but certainly not a girl young enough to be his daughter, a gentle, timid creature whose voice was hardly more than a whisper. By today’s standards which require a young woman to be a lank-haired rack of bones she was, perhaps, a little too voluptuous, a little too ripely curved, but I am an old-fashioned sort of man who believes women should be ripely curved. And if, like Sophia Kassoulas, they are pale, dark-eyed, blushing beauties, so much the better.
As time passed and I became more and more a friend of the family, I was able to draw from her the story of her marriage, now approaching its fifth anniversary. Sophia Kassoulas was a distant cousin of her husband. Born to poor parents in a mountain village of Greece, convent bred, she had met Kassoulas for the first time at a gathering of the family in Athens, and, hardly out of her girlhood, had married him soon afterward. She was, she assured me in that soft little voice, the most fortunate of women. Yes, to have been chosen by a man like Kyros to be his wife, surely the most fortunate of women—
But she said it as if she were desperately trying to convince herself of it. In fact, she seemed frightened to death of Kassoulas. When he addressed the most commonplace remark to her she shrank away from him. It became a familiar scene, watching this happen, and watching him respond to it by then treating her with an icily polite disregard that only intimidated her the more.
It made an unhealthy situation in that household because, as I saw from the corner of my eye, the engaging Max de Marechal was always right there to soothe Madame’s fears away. It struck me after a while how very often an evening at Saint-Cloud wound up with Kassoulas and myself holding a discussion over our brandy at one end of the room while Madame Kassoulas and Max de Marechal were head to head in conversation at the other end. There was nothing indecorous about those tete-a-tetes, but still I didn’t like the look of them. The girl appeared to be as wide-eyed and ingenuous as a doe, and de Marechal bore all the earmarks of the trained predator.
Kassoulas himself was either unaware of this or remarkably indifferent to it. Certainly, his regard for de Marechal was genuine. He mentioned it to me several times, and once, when de Marechal got himself dangerously heated up in an argument with me over the merits of some vintage or other, Kassoulas said to him with real concern, ‘Gently, Max, gently. Remember your heart. How many times has the doctor warned you against becoming overexcited?’ – which, for Kassoulas, was an unusual show of feeling. Generally, like so many men of his type, he seemed wholly incapable of expressing any depth of emotion.
Indeed, the only time he ever let slip any show of his feelings about his troublesome marriage was once when I was inspecting his wine cellar with him and pointed out that a dozen Volnay-Caillerets 1955 he had just laid in were likely to prove extremely uneven. It had been a mistake to buy it. One never knew, in uncorking a bottle, whether or not he would find it sound.
Kassoulas shook his head.
‘It was a calculated risk, Monsieur Drummond, not a mistake. I don’t make mistakes.’ Then he gave an almost imperceptible little shrug. ‘Well, one perhaps. When a man marries a mere child—’
He cut it short at that. It was the first and last time he ever touched on the subject. What he wanted to talk about was wine, although sometimes under my prodding and because I was a good listener, he would recount stories about his past. My own life has been humdrum. It fascinated me to learn, in bits and pieces, about the life of Kyros Kassoulas, a Piraeus wharf rat who was a thief in his childhood, a smuggler in his youth, and a multimillionare before he was thirty. It gave me the same sense of drama Kassoulas appeared to feel when I would recount to him stories about some of the great vintages which, like the Nuits Saint-Oen 1929, had been cranky and uncertain in the barrel until, by some miracle of nature, they had suddenly blossomed into their full greatness.
It was at such times that Max de Marechal himself was at his best. Watching him grow emotional in such discussions, I had to smile inwardly at the way he had once condescendingly described Kassoulas as a fanatic about wines. It was a description which fitted him even better. Whatever else might be false about Max de Marechal, his feelings about any
great vintage were genuine.
During the months that passed, Kassoulas proved to be as good as his word. He had said he wouldn’t again bargain with me for the precious bottle of Saint-Oen, and he didn’t. We discussed the Saint-Oen often enough – it was an obsession with de Marechal – but no matter how much Kassoulas was tempted to renew the effort to buy it, he kept his word.
Then, one dismally cold and rainy day in early December, my secretary opened my office door to announce in awestruck tones that Monsieur Kyros Kassoulas was outside waiting to see me. This was a surprise. Although Sophia Kassoulas, who seemed to have no friends in the world apart from de Marechal and myself, had several times been persuaded to have lunch with me when she was in town to do shopping, her husband had never before deigned to visit me in my domain, and I was not expecting him now.
He came in accompanied by the ever dapper de Marechal who, I saw with increased mystification, was in a state of feverish excitement.
We had barely exchanged greetings when de Marechal leaped directly to the point.
‘The bottle of Nuits Saint-Oen 1929, Monsieur Drummond,’ he said. ‘You’ll remember you once set a price on it. One hundred thousand francs.’
‘Only because it won’t be bought at any such price.’
‘Would you sell it for less?’
‘I’ve already made clear I wouldn’t.’
‘You drive a hard bargain, Monsieur Drummond. But you’ll be pleased to know that Monsieur Kassoulas is now prepared to pay your price.’
I turned incredulously to Kassoulas. Before I could recover my voice, he drew a check from his pocket and, impassive as ever, handed it to me. Involuntarily, I glanced at it. It was for one hundred thousand francs. It was worth, by the going rate of exchange, twenty thousand dollars.
‘This is ridiculous,’ I finally managed to say. ‘I can’t take it.’
‘But you must!’ de Marechal said in alarm.
The Specialty of the House Page 50