Vintage (31 page)

A dignified old man with slicked-back white hair and a trim mustache approached Bruno.

“May I help you?” the man asked in English with a heavy French accent.

“This is Anatoly Varushkin's wine?”

Nikolai approached now.

“No . . . it belongs to a young woman, and this gentleman
will be arranging the auction,” the sommelier said, gesturing to a short, bearded Russian.

Nikolai grabbed Bruno's shoulders and gave him the double air kiss of his countrymen. “Bruno! I knew a writer of your stature would sniff out this story! Incredible, isn't it?”

Bruno turned from him and took the sommelier to the side and whispered low to him. “I think there is some mistake. I just spoke with Mr. Varushkin and he said he was leaving his collection to my care . . .”

“Do you have any documentation?”

“No, I, uh . . .”

“Very well. You see, his wife contacted me only a short time ago. She possessed a handwritten note which I verified myself against an entry by Mr. Varushkin in my ledger. It clearly stated that everything in his locker is the property of the note's holder. I'm afraid you are mistaken.”

Nikolai had followed them and was slapping Bruno on the back now. “Mr. Tannenbaum, you can help me. What an amazing turn of events . . . We spoke about this, I know, only a short time ago, and now it has come to fruition. Katya Varushkin contacted me about the auction of her husband's collection, and of course I said yes immediately. Now we will have a splendid new event on the calendar. Perhaps the best one of all. And of course we will need publicity . . .”

Bruno walked away from him and squeezed into the locker. It had been mostly emptied, but some aged bottles still stood on the racks. The two large men were packing them efficiently. Bruno plucked one bottle. A '43 Bouchard.

“An entire collection of war vintages,” came a voice at Bruno's shoulder. Parker Thomas. “Can you believe it?”

“I'm not sure,” Bruno said sadly.

“This is the story you've been following, isn't it?”

“Partly.”

“Nikolai called me right away, and I tell you, I'm itching to do it. But since you've obviously been on the case, the article is yours. Fair's fair. But if you snooze, I'm going to jump on it. Can you believe it? Some kind of defrocked gas baron is sitting on the greatest stash in the history of wine and then he finally decides to hand it over to his estranged wife after years of rotting in prison? Wow. And you got an interview with Varushkin, didn't you? In Butyrka? I can't touch that. What an incredible story, man. Let me know and I'll connect you with my editor at the
New York Times
.”

He squeezed Bruno's shoulder and walked out.

Bruno hunted down Nikolai and took the clipboard from him.

“Yes, yes, look at these. Can you believe them? Romanée-Contis, Pommards, Gevrey-Chambertins . . . you name it. A great story, no?”

“What about Trevalliers?”

“Ha, ha, now, that would be amazing. But I'm afraid—”

“No Trevalliers?” Bruno asked, incredulous, flipping through the sheets.

“I logged every bottle myself. I'm afraid that particular vintage will remain just a legend. But still . . . quite a story, eh?”

As the workers carted the cases to a bay door at the rear of the cellar, Bruno made his way back up the stairs toward the kitchen. Each lift of a foot to the next tread required enormous effort. His reversals of fortune had been so frequent and absolute that he was numb and bewildered. It was all absurd . . . especially the profession and calling of the writer. To what purpose? What expertise or experiences did he have that mattered to the
world, this broken, frumpy fellow with a cheap coat and no suitcase and a splitting head lifting himself out of a cellar where he didn't belong, in a city he didn't know? What right did he have to think that other humans should spend a portion of their preciously limited time on this lovely earth with their noses buried in pages that he had written, sentences and words leading them on a fool's quest? He was a hack. A charlatan. A huckster. And the greatest travesty wasn't the countless readers he'd deceived and led on aimless rambles, but the fact that he'd somehow inspired Claire to invest her entire future in an unwritten book.

That lonely, somber walk up the back stairs of the café was the lowest of the extraordinary array of low points that punctuated the dubious chronology of Bruno's life.

So he did what he always did in such moments. He headed for the little bar at the back of the restaurant.

He found the sommelier there gazing out over the dwindling clientele. Bruno took a stool and the man regarded him with a mixture of professional indifference and boredom.

“Pouring anything?” Bruno asked.

“I have very nice bottle of Montrachet open.”

“You wouldn't happen to have a '43 Trevallier, would you?”

“That's not possible.”

“No?”

“In my not-so-insubstantial lifetime in wine, I've seen no evidence of that vintage. It's a rumor. A legend. If it ever did exist, it was consumed a long time ago by those who stole it. There is a good chance it was never even produced or even just blended in with the regional swill in an act of contempt or defiance. Many vignerons did this. I've talked to most of the older ones in my travels.”

“Humph,” Bruno said. Here was the man who should write
the book about the Trevallier, he thought. He fished around in his pockets, turning up a last, wadded hundred-ruble note. He unfolded it and laid it on the counter.

“Will this get me some of that Montrachet?”

“I'm afraid not.”

“Well, what, then?”

“
Vin de la maison
.” The old man retrieved a magnum bottle from the counter behind him and poured a glass for Bruno, taking the note. “A glass of
vin ordinaire
for the gentleman,” he said in French.

The phrase struck Bruno. He'd heard it so often before, but perhaps because of its humility he'd never really dwelled on it.

“What was that?” Bruno asked.

“Oh, pardon, I said a glass of our
everyday wine
for the gentleman.”

“
Vin ordinaire
?”

“Correct.”

Bruno laughed and the last two remaining customers turned and looked at him. He seized a glass from behind the counter and took the bottle from the sommelier, pouring a second glass and placing it in the man's hand.

They clinked a toast, and Bruno tossed his back, slapping the sommelier's shoulder and heading for the door, the wine tracing its way to his belly, warming him, helping him to lift the dark veil of defeat from his shoulders just enough to let in some light.

Despite all of the wrong turns this story was taking, he felt it still tugging at him. And he had to follow it to its conclusion, wherever that would lead.

Dessert isn't a course. It's the end of a process. It's been unfairly caged as an excess, as gluttony topped with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. But it needn't be. Its role is to merely complete the cycle, and to bring harmony and closure to the orbit of the life of a meal.

—
B
RUNO
T
ANNENBAUM,
T
WENTY
R
ECIPES FOR
L
OVE

B
runo rang Morty again and waited for him to pick up. The phone booth was on the center aisle of a boulevard, with three lanes of traffic on either side. He finally made a connection, though it was difficult to hear between the cars and static on the line.

“Yeah?”

“It's Bruno.”

“Where the hell are you?”

“I'm in Moscow. Long story.”

“I'm not even going to ask. Well, what do you want this time?” Even through the bad connection, Bruno could pick up the impatience in Morty's voice.

“I need some info. On the Trevalliers.”

There was a pause. Bruno heard Morty already flipping through catalog pages. “Don't tell me you found the '43 . . .”

“I think I'm getting close.”

“Well, why didn't you say so?” There was a long pause, the sound of Morty rifling through his bookcase. Then came a thump and the crackle of a spine. “Okay, I got the book out.”

“Tell me, did Trevallier ever put their name on
vin ordinaire
?”

“In the old days . . . sure. But that's their rotgut . . . why would anyone care about that?”

“But they stopped?”

“Yeah. Lot of the fine brands did that. They don't want their name on the cheap shelf. They just sell the worst of it off to a negotiant. Or sell it under a different label.”

“Or pour it down the drain like Sylvie Trevallier?”

“Right . . . in fact, the last year they made the table wine was . . .”

“The year Sylvie took over.”

“Bingo.”

“That's what I needed to confirm. Thanks, Morty.”

“So you're going to find it? For real?”

“I think so. I have one more stop.”

“What else can I do to help?”

“Well, since you asked . . .”

“Uh-oh.”

“I could use a loan. I'm flat broke and stuck in Russia.”

There was a pause as Morty thought. “My usual percentage? On the whole thing?”

“Sure.”

He heard Morty punching buttons on his calculator.

“Okay. How much you think you need?”

*      *      *

At the airport, Bruno picked up a Sunday edition of the paper. He pulled out the
New York Times Magazine
and dropped the rest in the trash bin. While he waited for the train he read Parker Thomas's article in its entirety. It was well done, dipping into the history of the Constanoff Collection, some background on war vintages, the free market free-for-all that created Varushkin and his ilk, and then the final rediscovery of a treasure trove in the basement of a “shabby bistro in Moscow's student quarter.” Overall, it was a nicely written travelogue. Thomas dropped in a gratuitous tip of the hat to Nikolai's auction and tourism racket, and then he focused the remainder of the article on the modern and more affordable counterparts to these classic wartime vintages, complete with scores and a helpful sidebar mentioning where to find them in some of the larger liquor store chains like BevMo! and Binny's.

Bruno wasn't angry. Thomas had offered the story to him first. And he had even mentioned Bruno in the piece and hinted that he was working on the larger story: “The path to the Constanoff Collection is still shrouded in mystery and legend. With characters like the oligarch Anatoly Varushkin and noted novelist and food essayist Bruno Tannenbaum lurking in the shadows, this wine critic can only guess what the next chapter will be for the world's lost vintages.”

Bruno left the magazine next to his empty espresso cup on the café table when he heard the track called for his train. He sought an empty car so that he could be alone.

It was early afternoon when he arrived in Beaune and he was unimpressed as always with the sleepy train station for what was the epicenter of the wine universe. He was one of three passengers who disembarked, and he walked the ring road along the
old medieval city walls and then veered southwest on the D974 toward Pommard.

It was hot, and a dog lay panting on the cobbled street in the shadow of the fountain in the village square. Bruno wiped sweat from his brow as he headed upslope west of the village. When he reached Sylvie's she was in the courtyard working on the Bobard tractor, and the sad blue machine looked as if it hadn't moved in the weeks since Bruno had left. She pulled her hands out of the tractor's entrails, her arms and face covered in grease and sweat, and she allowed a half smile of disbelief when she saw him.

“Where's your mechanic off to?” he asked.

“Claude left me,” she said, wiping her hands on a rag and walking toward him. “He's now working for the Bouchards for twice the salary. I'm fairly sure he doesn't get to fuck the owner, though.” She offered both cheeks to be kissed, which Bruno did, breathing in the delicious tang of oil mixed with sweat rising from her body. “And I'm terrible when it comes to machinery. This godforsaken thing. How are you with tractors?”

“I understand that this is how you steer it,” Bruno said, tapping the wheel. “Otherwise, I'm relatively useless.”

“That's unfortunate.”

He followed her to the shade where she had a jar of well water. She drank from it and offered it to Bruno as they stood watching the heat shimmer rise off the vineyards beyond the stone wall.

“So what can you do?”

“Well, I can cook . . .” Bruno said, furrowing his brow and thinking hard. “Light household chores. Shopping for groceries. Laundry, though it tends to get away from me. I'm also open to performing any sort of unskilled labor providing there's not too much heavy lifting. Oh, and I'm pretty good at whistling opera.”

Sylvie thought for a minute, frowning. “I suppose that'll have to do.” She smiled briefly and walked back toward the tractor, calling over her shoulder, “You can stay in the room above the garage. If Claude left anything, just throw it out. See if you can find something to fix in the kitchen. I expect I'll be famished in two hours.”

Claude's room was perfect. There was a simple writing desk, a single bed and an old picture-tube television, which Bruno turned to face the wall. A pinup magazine lay on the nightstand, which he tossed in the trash only after leafing through it briefly. The airbrushed models, while glorious in their nakedness, were also as sexually appealing as plastic dolls. Bruno thought of the three moles on Sylvie's rib cage below her left breast, her collar-and hip bones, the rolls on her stomach that hid her navel when she sat up in bed, and lust began its stirrings somewhere in his bottom half.