Vintage (12 page)

“You'd do that for me?”

“Of course.” She smiled. “Why wouldn't I?”

Bruno couldn't think of how best to answer that.

Carmen came bounding out the front door and squealed when she saw them. She raced toward them and looped her arms in both of theirs, and the three of them walked home together. Moments like these always saddled Bruno with the sweet and sad knowledge of how life just tended to slip away. When was the last time the three of them had walked home from school? He couldn't remember.

He cheered himself with the thought that they'd all soon be kneading air into the dough until it felt like something alive, as the metal of the warming oven ticked. With any luck, Ella Fitzgerald would be crooning on the kitchen radio.

A well-made sandwich is an act of love. Whether it's Mom cutting the crusts off a PB&J and tucking it into a paper sack or fixing yourself a monster corned beef and Swiss with sauerkraut, aioli and tomato, plus a poached egg for good measure as a pick-me-up after a nasty lover's spat, there is always a subtext to this sacred wizardry one finds between two slices of bread. When Hillel the Elder first documented three thousand years ago the Passover tradition of wrapping lamb and herbs in soft matzo, did he know he'd set into motion a revolution of portable cuisine?

—
B
RUNO
T
ANNENBAUM,
“A N
ATURAL
H
ISTORY OF THE
S
ANDWICH,
”
C
HICAGO
S
UN-
T
IMES

T
wo days later, Bruno was lingering over breakfast while Greta fussed preparing sundries for his flight to Paris, the first stop in his quest to track down the Trevallier. He tried not to watch as she wrapped a pair of sandwiches in waxed paper and tied them with kitchen twine, making a neat little bow. He wanted to be
surprised. This was a gift of the highest order, one of the ways his mother conveyed her love for him. He couldn't recall her ever actually using those three little words, but then there is no more clear and effective way to express your feelings for another soul than preparing them something wonderful to eat with your own hands.

She filled a sack with edibles, including an entire baguette and an expensive bit of Fragnière Gruyère. His mouth began to water as he considered shaving off a slice or two on the El train en route to O'Hare.

“Did you pack a warm sweater? It might get cold at night.”

“Yes, Ma.”

“That suitcase looks too small.”

“I'll be fine.” She blushed and frowned. Greta hated flying, despite never having been on a plane. Her folks came over on the boat in the mid-thirties for obvious reasons when she was only three years old. She'd grown up with no love for either the Germans or the Vichys, which was how her parents had referred to the French. Still, she did like to brag to her pinochle clutch whenever her son was in Paris or Berlin.

“What if they don't let you take your lunch on board?”

“Stop worrying, Ma.”

“Those security people might confiscate it.”

“I don't think they're on the lookout for terrorist sandwiches.”

“I better pack you some hard-boiled eggs just in case.”

Bruno took the Blue Line to O'Hare and grew giddy. He loved to travel. And he was going back to France! If he had a spiritual home, it was most certainly Burgundy. He reflected on his good fortune. Claire had apparently spoken with Anna about funding Bruno's research for the Trevallier, and though his estranged wife was understandably reluctant, Claire's
enthusiasm had won the day and somehow she had convinced Anna to trust him with a loan. There were, of course, conditions. Bruno was to provide an itemized list of receipts so that Anna (ever the accountant) could properly track the tax write-offs. He was also to report on his progress. Finally, he was to refrain from mentioning anything to Greta, Carmen or anyone else about the loan. Claire had explained all of these rules to him carefully, and he listened intently. Claire was to continue as emissary in the whole affair. Indeed, she was the one who had delivered the cash, nearly six thousand dollars, to Greta's apartment in a plain envelope. Opening it was exhilarating. He felt like a spy in a Cold War novel. Bruno purchased a ticket to Paris first thing the next morning before Anna had time to change her mind. He also wanted to hurry because the Russian had a head start. And also, if he acted fast, he could catch one of his favorite wine events, a large, hedonistic party or “bacchanal” that took place this time every year. The wine town of Beaune would be his first stop, and he'd find a way to connect with Sylvie Trevallier there. Then it would be simply a matter of following the clues wherever they led.

Now at the terminal, Bruno carried his small wicker suitcase in one hand and clutched a laden paper bag from his mother's deli in the other. Greta's fears proved unfounded, and though TSA sent his plastic-wrapped baguette through the X-ray machine a second time, he made it to the plane with his lunch intact.

While finding his seat, Bruno, being a largish fellow, elicited a look of horror from the woman in the aisle seat who was holding a baby when he asked if he could scoot into the middle spot. A teenage girl with a nose ring and black lipstick was pinned between his shoulder and the window and was likewise
none too pleased to be spending eight hours squashed next to him.

“Don't worry, I don't bite,” he announced.

But he was quick to make friends using Greta's ingredients to good effect, and by the end of the flight he had made sandwiches for his entire row as well as the folks across the aisle. The young mother even entrusted him with the baby while she stretched and used the restroom, and the child fell asleep, a dozing bundle of heat pressed to his chest, her breath sweet against his beard. His eyes grew misty at the nearly forgotten memory of holding his own daughters in this way.

At Charles De Gaulle Airport, Bruno found a postcard featuring the famously bored gargoyle on Notre Dame and he scratched a summary of the flight to Anna. In the past he'd sent frequent postcards during his travels on book tours and while writing articles for
Wine Spectator
and the like. Claire thought it would be a good way for him to report his progress to Anna. She had first suggested that he report on his journey via direct messages on Twitter, but Bruno had looked at her as if she were speaking another language.

“When you get back, we're going to have to work on your integrated marketing strategy,” Claire said, exasperated.

“Where do you get such absurd notions?”

“In school. We had a class on it.”

“So that's why they've dropped Latin?”

He bought stamps and a
carnet
of Métro tickets from a tobacco stand. He had a few hours until his train left for Dijon from the Gare de Lyon, so he made quick stops at Place de la Concorde and then Abbesses to have a coffee and a beignet at his favorite café across the plaza from the Bateau-Lavoir, where Picasso had once lived. The tables on the cobbled plaza were
empty save one, where a pale woman with haphazard brown hair scribbled into a notebook. She was younger than Bruno, and something about the way she wore her hair pulled back made him think of Anna at that age. He recalled vividly the very moment he'd first spotted his wife.

It had been his first big review, a traditional and uninspiring Chicago steakhouse, though he was still tickled by the blank expense check publications issued to reviewers in those days, one of them burning inside his jacket pocket. The hostess had just seated him when he spotted Anna on the far side of the room, lit by a hanging Tiffany lamp, leaning over a table and laughing easily with an elderly couple. Their eyes met briefly and she smiled, though he was afraid he'd imagined it. She was beautiful without trying, her skin pale, her cheeks flushed, her unruly curls haphazardly pulled into a noncompliant bun, the depth of her green eyes making him dizzy. Other servers crisscrossed in front of her and Bruno closed his eyes, leaned back his head and whispered,
Let her serve me, let her serve me, let her serve me.

And suddenly, there she was, a hand on his shoulder, the closest thing he'd ever experienced to an answered prayer: “Sir, are you okay?”

Bruno opened his eyes and gazed at her openmouthed, issuing a sort of gurgle. She furrowed her brow in concern and pushed up her sleeves like she was considering the Heimlich, but he snapped out of it.

“I'm fine,” Bruno said finally, and then she offered a smile at his awkwardness, the corners of her eyes pinched with mirth, and he was floored.

“Can I get you something to start?”

“Um . . .” Bruno stammered. This was unlike him. He was
generally gregarious and never shy when it came to women. But with Anna, his tongue was tied. “Do you take these?” he blurted, thrusting the magazine check forward. He wasn't supposed to tip his hand as a critic, but at least they'd be sure to take extra care with his food.

“Of course,” she said. “So you want some time to look at the menu?”

Bruno nodded stupidly.

Between her visits he ate ravenously and tried to plan something clever to say. But for perhaps the first time in his life he was at a loss for words. Every time she reappeared he was mute. He grew so frustrated that after she brought the final bill he pounded the table with his fist, drawing attention from the other diners.

He realized while leaving that he'd forgotten to leave a tip on the check. He of course didn't have any cash, so he skulked back into the restaurant and wrote a poem on a bar napkin:

Words lie unused on the floor

Frightened to the shadows by your radiant grace

The sweet remembrance of this little defeat

A lovely regret I'll carry

As long as I breathe

He signed it and left his telephone number, passing it to the bartender for delivery, certain that if it even reached her it would be immediately discarded. Surely she'd had this effect on customers often.

“Never,” she said three weeks later, when she actually did call him. “Actually it's the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

Bruno stared into his coffee for a long time. The woman at
the café was now gone. He still had time before his train left, so he took the Métro to Censier-Daubenton and hurried on to the market on Rue Mouffetard. He stood at the end of the narrow street, which was blossoming with colorful stalls and awnings, momentarily overwhelmed by the churn of pedestrians with cloth bags and shopping trolleys with protruding baguettes and sausages. A dozen distinct smells accosted him at once and he felt the urge to kneel and genuflect, thinking that this was what it must be like for the devout when they enter a church or synagogue. Because his mother's family leaned Catholic and his father's halfheartedly practiced Judaism, Bruno's parents had compromised by generally avoiding religion. They worshipped instead through food. He'd inherited the religion of the table and felt that God dwelt there, and in street markets like this one.

It took him twenty minutes for an initial reconnaissance before he finally purchased one perfect tomato and a cucumber with character. He picked up a baguette, an aged, ample
saucisson de laguiole
and some goat cheese of indeterminate origin, a sample sliver of which brought him close to tears. He asked the
fromager
to lop off a square of butter onto some waxed paper, and his chores were complete, his stomach rumbling merrily. He purchased a cheap paring knife from a kitchen vendor and headed back to the Métro.

He bought his ticket at the Gare de Lyon, opting to pay the extra thirty euros for first class, figuring he was due a little splurge. He could budget more carefully toward the end of the trip.

*      *      *

Bruno heard the station announcement, thinking at first it was part of his dream. But when he choked mid-snore and cracked
an eye he saw that they'd arrived. He leapt from his seat and slipped through closing doors. The train rattled away, leaving him standing dazed on a concrete pad with weeds growing in the cracks. The station was deserted save for a large, lone man on a bench in a long dark coat and hat reading a newspaper. A cat lazed in a patch of sun between the far rails, clearly unconcerned about the prospect of traffic.

From the station, Beaune looked like a sleepy town of little consequence, but to Bruno and anyone else who lived for the grape's elixir it was the center of the known universe.

He was parched, so he ordered a Fanta at the Hôtel de France across from the station. For some reason the orange soda always tasted better in Europe than it did in the States.

The town had barely outgrown its medieval footprint. He crossed the ring road and passed between a pair of houses that had been producing wine since before France's first revolution. Thinking about the cobwebby magic stacked in their ancient cellars, he suddenly felt insignificant in his own little quest.

He found a small hotel with a vacancy that was built right into the old, crumbling city walls. It was a series of small towers of rough-hewn stone, confining but tastefully appointed with a delightful little courtyard beyond the lobby where he could take his coffee in the morning. His mood lightened considerably when the young woman at the desk smiled at him and complimented him on his French. Her name was Lisette, and she had a sunny, unadorned demeanor that made him think of a wholesome Burgundian farm lass. She insisted on carrying his suitcase to his room at the top of the hotel's single tower, hefting it up the steep, narrow staircase that wound up into the darkness. Her skirt was very short, and he admired the striations of muscles in her thighs and calves for a moment before tearing his gaze away.

She arrived at the top landing and unlocked the door with a rusty, ancient key and revealed a chamber with bare stone walls, a small writing table and a plush, massive bed. She set down his suitcase and began the quick tour, not even breathing hard, while Bruno leaned against the wall panting and mopping his forehead with his bandanna.