Dmitri was confused and flustered. He reached for his water glass. “I mean…”
“…you mean? You mean you are finished with something other than the meal?” Nancy crossed her arms and waited.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. I mean I…”
“Are you breaking up with me?”
“No,” he said. “Yes. I suppose…”
“…No. You’re not,” she said. “I am breaking up with you. I can’t say that I’m not disappointed. I am disappointed. But you’re still a child, Dmitri. I have hope for you but the likelihood of your growing up in my lifetime is slim.”
“So you’re not upset?”
“If I am breaking up with you, why would I be upset?”
Later that night, Nancy called Slava.
“You will come and stay with me,” he said. “I have more room than I need. I have a place I am not using, if you want it.”
“It’s for the best, Slava,” she said. “It was my idea.”
“Okay,” he said. “Does he owe you anything? I will send someone to collect what he owes you.”
When Nancy starts to cry, Slava’s voice becomes a growl. “Did he hurt you?”
“Just my heart,” she said.
* * *
“My brother is big,” Nancy says. “In New York, he is big.”
“Big? What do you mean big? He’s a big man? Or is he famous?”
“I mean, connected.”
“Connected?”
“Yes. The Bratva, the Brotherhood, you know?”
Ray sits up straight. Is she saying what he thinks she’s saying? “The Russian mafia?”
“That is a coarse name. That is not my brother. That is criminals…Slava is not a criminal. He is a businessman. He is a businessman with the Brotherhood.”
“Slava?”
“Short for…Václav. It was his lawyer who negotiated with my ex-husband.”
Ray thinks about the generous deal Nancy got after three years of marriage. He can imagine the kind of negotiation it might have been. There was the advantage of a public attempt to strangle her but still, Ray can see a pit-bull lawyer with a Russian accent basically telling all involved how it was going to be – end of story. He wonders if the ex-husband is still alive. He wonders if he will still be alive in a week, or two weeks, or a month. “Jesus, you’re just telling me this now?”
“Telling what? Slava says not to talk about it and so I don’t talk about it. And what difference would it have made to anything?”
“My brother disappeared a few months after my dad died,” she says. “And then the money started coming – enough roubles to support the family.
We would get a phone call at Christmas and for birthdays, but nothing beyond these calls. He would not say what he was doing, or even where he was in the world. But he never forgot a birthday. And the money kept coming. Family is important to Slava.”
Nancy takes a sip of her whisky. She thinks of it as her whisky now. She misses her dad. Her dad did not drink whisky. Like most Russians, he enjoyed his vodka. Right now, she misses him. And yesterday, and last week, she missed him. Her life is scattered with landmines of missing and she inadvertently steps on them all the time. She thinks about what it would be like to curl up with him on the couch and watch TV, or read, or just talk for a while. She tries to remember his face from her own memory, beyond the three pictures she keeps. She remembers the Kapitán’s face better than her father’s. The Kapitán’s face was narrow and sad – he had tried to be stern and strictly military but he had failed. He was weary. More than simple weariness – he was deeply weary of the world. The Vostok military watch, which she wears every day, is a constant reminder of his kindness, and obliquely, it is a memory of her father.
* * *
If he lies to her in order to prevent her from harming herself, is it morally wrong? Ray thinks his answer is no – in this situation, with him sitting in his car at the bottom of her building, and her teetering up there, it is not morally wrong to lie. He should, and will, say anything to prevent her from killing herself. In fact, he should fabricate and elaborate. He should augment and twist and speak of love. He should admit to any absurdity. If she wants him to say something embarrassing, or true, or awful, he should say it.
Ray realizes, at this point in his life, he is morally absurd. He has been loving two women and really, nothing should stay the same. It should all change, but he won’t let it. He’s going to work with his wife – he wants to do that. And he wants Nancy to carry on – to get up in the morning and take a breath, and to keep moving forward, without him.
18½
The Vintner
Well of course, the author of this book knows exactly what was said at 2:36 p.m., March 4, 1536, in the village of Allemond, France, in a small tavern, as two men – one a vintner and winemaker, and the other, the father of the Garamond font – try to figure out if they can trust each other.
* * *
Maurice Gauguin likes Garamond instantly. He studies him as Garamond takes gulping slurps of the wine, a delicate Gamay noir, and grins with appreciation. He appears to be ravenous for the wine, as if he can’t drink it fast enough. As if he does not care if he spills or drips. As if he is exceedingly thirsty.
“This wine is beautiful,” Garamond says. “The acidity is prominent but the fruit is also strong. What is this called?”
“This wine is the Gamay,” Gauguin says. He smiles. It makes him happy when someone truly appreciates his wine. “It is a robust grape but also a difficult grape.”
Garamond leans back in his chair and looks at Monsieur Gauguin, who moves around the room with the assistance of a cane. Gauguin is a small man with intense, curious eyes. He has been wiping tables and arranging chairs as they talk. Just now he is making small adjustments to the fire in the hearth. Above the rough wooden mantle, there is a bearskin hung flat against the wall.
“How is it difficult?” Garamond says.
The vintner approaches the table, pauses as if he is wondering if this is a good idea, then sits down across from Garamond. “These grapes come into bud and flower earlier than most. It is as if they are eager to be in the glass. But sometimes these flowers are so early that a late frost will damage them. This will diminish the harvest. This is a difficulty. Add to this, its shallow roots, and the fact the soil must be just the right mix of granite and limestone in order to make the grapes exquisite. By good fortune, the land in these mountains is the right kind of soil. So perhaps, Monsieur, the soil is not a difficulty. It is, perhaps, a point of understanding. Once the grapes are on the vine, they are so thick that they must be thinned in order to assure the best fruit.” Gauguin stops. “Ah, Monsieur Garamond, all grapes require love. Love and hard work.”
“Good fortune? Not by the grace of God?”
“Pardon?”
“You said the soil was by good fortune. A curious choice of words.”
“Are these two things not the same? Good fortune is the grace of God, and the grace of God is good fortune. The wine does not care. The wine is still the same.”
Gauguin tells him about the bad years following the plague, when workers were hard to find, and the amount of cultivation dropped. During these times, the amounts of wine produced shrank substantially. But there was always something. The vineyard was too small for the Church, which controlled most of the wine production in France by way of its vast system of monasteries, and its monks, who became experts.
Gamay grapes have always grown abundantly on the Gauguin land and in the past twenty years, wine production had been slowly increasing.
“My congratulations, Monsieur. It is a delicious thing you have created.”
Gauguin watches as Garamond takes another swig. The man has been in the Allemond valley for less than a month and already he looks as if he belongs. His clothing is simple and he wears no jewellery, save for a gold rin
g on his left hand. A rustic leather baldric across his chest secures a dagger and he carries a short sword, which is a good idea since the villa in which he is living is some distance from the village.
“You have taken up residence in the Loys Durand villa,” Gauguin says. “Are you settled?”
“Yes,” Garamond says. “We are settled. My wife and I have come from Lyon.”
The vintner knows Garamond and his wife have come from Paris, but he does not begrudge him this lie. Trust has not been earned and perhaps his privacy is important.
“You have everything you need?”
“I thought so,” Garamond says. “Until I tasted this wine. Can you send someone with a dozen bottles?”
“I will bring it myself,” Gauguin says. “Is twelve bottles enough?” He assumes Garamond is well financed.
Garamond smiles. “Better make it two dozen. Now, tell me about your family. How long have you been making this wine? And how have you avoided the Church.”
The vintner tells him about the Gauguin family and the Gamay vines. He talks about the successes and failures of the past twenty years. He goes through the weather of each year, and the resulting quality of the wine. He talks about the acidity caused by the early harvests, and the sweetness caused by the late harvests. When he talks about his wife, he is adrift, as if he only half understands his own capacity for love. When he speaks about the soil he squeezes the air, as if his hands are in the dirt – as if he can feel it.
Gauguin pours more wine into Garamond’s glass. “Now, can you say why you and your wife have come to live in our little valley?
There is something about the passionate manner in which this man speaks about his family, and about grapes, and the soil that causes Garamond to trust him.
“My master, from many years ago has been implicated, and he has been executed.”
“Implicated?” Gauguin says. “I don’t follow.”
“In the Affair of the Placards. He was accused of Lutheranism. And while it is true that I am not longer his apprentice, I believe they will be coming for me.”
Gauguin nods. He thinks about what ‘coming for me’ could mean, as it was joined together with the word execution. He does not think he would like it if someone with the power to execute were coming for him. “Why would they be coming for you?”
“Because I am a typesetter, a punch cutter, and it was my typeface that was used on the placards. Because it is not a good time to be anything but devoutly Catholic. And because it is not a good time to be suspected of being anything but devoutly Catholic.”
“Oh,” Gauguin says. “I see.”
“Yes. And even though this letter form has been sold to many publishers across France, Germany, and even in Switzerland, it may as well have been an image of my face on the placards. This is the reason I am here with you, Monsieur Gauguin, in your village, far away from Paris.”
“In hiding,” Gauguin whispers.
“Yes. In hiding.”
“But you did not create the placard.”
“No. It was a publisher in Switzerland. I doubt this detail would be taken into account. The Church sees what it wants, hears what it wants, and kills what it wants. The King gets what he wants.”
Gauguin wants to ask him if he is, in fact, a Huguenot, a Protestant, but this is not something he would expect anybody in France to admit, especially not to someone he has just met. And he certainly would not expect such a confession in a public place. Especially not now, with the Roman Catholic Church on a rampage directed at the Huguenots. It would be confessing heresy. Then there is the matter of whether or not to believe him when he says he did not play a role in the publication of the brochure. Gauguin is not an ardent advocate of the Church, in that he sees the priests spreading fear, and getting fat and rich, while the little he does know of the Bible does not support the idea of fat, wealthy priests. There is a discontinuity for him. He would not frown on a man who was involved in the Affair of the Placards.
Garamond looks at Gauguin. He can see the questions floating in the air. “I am a punch cutter, a typesetter, and perhaps someday, a publisher,” he says, finally. “I am a wine-lover. And I am a man who loves his wife. I try to leave religion, God, and holiness to the bishops and the priests. I am not qualified to be holy. I am only devout.” He pauses and drinks more wine. “I am very devout.”
Gauguin smiles. He is missing a tooth on the upper left side of his mouth. “I too am a man who loves his wife, and wine. And I too am devout. I would say that I am enthusiastically devout.”
Gauguin glances quickly around the empty room and assures himself that they are alone. “Between you and I and this wine, the Church in Allemond is small, so God mostly lives in the grapes. And in the mountains. And the water. And in the soil.”
“The blood of Christ,” Garamond says, raising his glass.
“Yes, the blood of Christ.”
“Do you ever become concerned about the possibility of the Church hearing you?”
“No, Monsieur. This does not worry me. I worry more about my wife than I do the Roman Catholic Church. She is a strong woman who fears God and loves the Church. And she is not afraid to share her mind. Have you met Natalii? She also fears that under this devout surface, my soul is in peril. She worries about my holiness, about my unholiness.”
Garamond thinks he heard a hard disdain in Gauguin’s voice as he spoke of the Church. “I have not had the pleasure of meeting Natalii,” he says.
“Once you meet her you, you will know. She is formidable.”
“To women and wine and unholiness, then,” Garamond says, standing and raising his mug. “And by wine, I am including the God of the Roman Catholic Church.”
Gauguin stands and drinks. When he sits down he begins to worry. He plays with the handle of his cane, the shaft of which conceals a rapier. “Who is it that will be coming for you, Monsieur?”
“The King’s men. Men from the Parlement de Paris and the thugs from the Faculty of Theology.”
“Are you certain these men will be coming here?”
“It is not if. It is when. It is only a matter of time before I am accused of Lutheranism. Or of being a heretic. Or both.”
Gauguin stands up, a little unsteadily, and places his right hand on his heart. “Then you shall have protection. I swear it. I and all the people of Allemond shall protect you.”
The men agree that Garamond will be called by a different name, except when they are alone.
“I shall call you Monsieur Emile Durand, to honour the villa in which you have made your home,” Gauguin says. “To everyone in the village you will be called Monsieur Durand. It is a protection.”
Even though he and Marie Isabelle have become false Durands, Garamond never inquires as to the whereabouts of the original Durands. He assumes they were victims of the plague. Their benefactor, a publisher in Geneva, had arranged the villa, and they didn’t ask questions.
* * *
Sometimes a lie will pull hard to the left, like a flat tire on the freeway, and then it is completely out of control. You know it’s going to fly off the rails the second it’s out of your mouth. It’s usually some almost-innocent stretch of the truth, and someone pushes back, your bluff is called, and then you’re spinning around in circles on an icy mountain highway, a cliff on one side and a wall of granite on the other. Or, in a split second, you are standing naked in the middle of a room and everyone is judging – there’s a bright light on every wrinkle, imperfection and inadequacy. Or one of your past professors from university is standing outside your building downtown with a megaphone, shouting to all that pass, telling everyone you’re a fraud, announcing to the world that you have no idea what you’re doing.
This lie that flies off the rails was so innocuous it was just barely a lie. You didn’t even give it a second thought, and yet, when you started to speak, everything slipped out of c
ontrol. Claude Garamond and his wife, and their sixteenth century road trip, are a lie just like that.
* * *
A week later, Garamond is in the village to pick up more wine and Natalii is talking about Spanish soldiers crossing the border into France.
“Spain has invaded us, Monsieur,” she says, shaking her head.
Garamond shrugs. “There is always a war somewhere, Madame. Thankfully, there is also wine.” He nods toward her – a sort of salute.
“You do not take an interest in the conflicts?” Natalii is not judging, rather, she is curious. “It is France, Monsieur. It is your country.”
Garamond looks at her. Her smock is not modest, in that it is low-cut and too tight for her chest. He does not mind this immodesty. Her eyes are playful and interested. Her skin is pale. Her hair is the colour of fall grass; she has braided it and pulled it to the side so it rests in front of her shoulder. She wears a necklace – a silver chain with a medallion – one of the saints.
“My dear Natalii,” he says. “I am very interested in the wars of men. But war is a playground for kings and queens. It is a lust for power, and a lust for celebrity. It is often an ideological argument, a religious argument – a different way of being, a different religion, a different god, a different way of thinking. And many people die as a result of these differences.”
“This is true, Monsieur. Many people die as a result of the wars and campaigns.”
“And to what end?”
“I do not know, Monsieur. So that France remains France?”
He is grateful that she did not suggest honour or glory, or advancement. “And when will it be enough? Does a mother in Italy love her children any less than a mother in France? Does a father look upon his daughter with less love in Spain than in Italy or Briton?”
This Is All a Lie Page 9