Vintage (18 page)

“You're brilliant!”

Bruno realized that during the whole operation he'd been pressed close to Lisette and he hadn't felt the slightest twinge of lust as he had the day before on the stairs. He printed out a dozen pages and then he thanked Lisette on his way back up to his room, thinking that while she was a beautiful woman now, she'd likely be even more so in ten years. This certainly was new thinking for Bruno. France was getting under his skin. France and Sylvie.

He sat for a moment at the desk enjoying the view of the hillsides and thumbing through the indexes of his research books for the name Von Speck, but didn't find it. He looked out the window back toward the distant villages of Pommard and Volnay, barely making out their church towers in the haze. Was he finished with France so early? Would he ever return?

His online research had turned up a dozen “Specks” in Naumburg, with only three dignified by the noble “Von” preface. He had also scribbled a plan of his next steps on the back of the list. It was actually more of a shopping list for what he planned to eat on the train, but adventure needs its provisions, does it not? He also jotted down timetables and train connections to Naumburg and a reminder to send another postcard to Anna.

He reluctantly left his hotel after having a coffee in the courtyard. As he passed Lisette at the counter he considered pausing to talk to her one last time, but then he saw the phone and also wanted to call Sylvie, whose cell number was starting to smudge and distort on his palm. He decided to do neither.

He took one last amble around the inner walls of the town, pausing by the unassuming door to the Marché aux Vins that
he knew led down to an underground candlelit labyrinth filled with gorgeous wines. Next came the Hôtel-Dieu, with its multicolored roof tiles and elegant spires, a delicate manifestation of northern Renaissance architecture at its best.

He passed a shop window displaying a random assortment of wines, all of them fantastic. Wine, coincidentally, was the first item on his list. When he spotted a very good price on a bottle of white Mâcon, his taste buds tingled in anticipation of the bright tang of the Chardonnay, good Mâcon being the closest thing to biting into a fresh grape. It was the precise moment of harvest captured in a bottle.

Bruno entered the shop and a gray-haired man in an apron gave a conspiratorial wink when Bruno pointed at the bottle.

“Is a good price, no?”

Bruno nodded and pulled out the envelope of cash in his breast pocket, thumbing through. When the shopkeeper saw this he tried to sell Bruno three more bottles, including a rare Romanée-Conti, all of which Bruno reluctantly declined, proud of himself for exhibiting such self-control. He still felt a tad guilty about spending Anna's money on wine, but thirty euros for a Mâcon of this stature was a steal and a necessary purchase. He stuffed it into his suitcase with trembling hands. Why shouldn't he celebrate a little? After all, he was fast on the heels of the story of a lifetime.

A bottle of wine is one of the two absolute requirements for train travel. The other is bread, a
boule
of which Bruno picked up next at a
boulangerie
that was just beginning to shutter for the afternoon. He also secured a quarter wheel of Époisses cheese, which he had double-wrapped in waxed paper lest it be seized. Bruno had heard the rumors of zealous conductors confiscating this odoriferous variety.

The next train to Dijon arrived in an hour, so Bruno had a chance for one more café au lait at the Hotel de France while reading the timetable. Budgeting wasn't his strong suit, but he wondered how many wine regions he could afford to visit on his way to Naumburg. Given the fact that Germany and France both factored heavily in his story, he had very good reason to stop, say, in Champagne, where the vineyards had often served as battlefields between those nations. Then, of course, was the Rheingau, which also had excellent wines and had seen its share of conflict. He decided on Alsace, the region being the true political football pitch between France and Germany. Its inhabitants were French citizens (for the moment), spoke mostly French and made their wines in a French style, but they had German names, lived in German houses and used German bottles. Also, his mother's family had come from the region, and despite the circumstances of their flight he suspected that she still harbored hopes of someday returning. After recounting his last trip, Greta had become visibly emotional. Alsace it would be. He wondered how many bottles he could manage to carry home in his suitcase.

Bruno pondered how a continent he viewed largely as a culinary amusement park could have such a long, vile and recent history of atrocity. How could a place so steeped in great food cultures also be so full of pain and hatred? Why hadn't more people broken bread together, and could history have changed if they had? Bruno believed so, and he feverishly scribbled notes to this effect into his notebook.

The train arrived and as he headed to the platform he composed his next postcard in his mind:

Dear Anna, all over the world, people are unhappy in different ways.

He wrote as he scanned the vacant expressions and frowning faces of his fellow passengers. He found a compartment with an empty seat and almost passed because he'd have to sit opposite a dour, matronly woman who regarded him with disapproving annoyance. There were also two hungry-looking backpackers and a businessman chatting on a cell phone. But when Bruno remembered his bread and wine, he decided that his entire view of the world hinged on its ability to transform this unhappy collection of passengers.

When we are shrouded in our own concerns, we tend to withdraw into ourselves.

The older woman's bag occupied the free seat directly opposite her, and Bruno gestured to her to move it. She did so with a reluctant sigh. Bruno slumped into his seat and tried not to allow her disapproving gaze to impale him. He also tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was having a bad day, month, life . . . and perhaps this small comfort of extra train cabin territory was a reprieve from the thousand varied challenges of simple existence.

Bruno smiled at her. She declined to respond in kind.

But perhaps we should pause and remind ourselves that we are not alone in this world.

Bruno felt a hollowness in his stomach as they left the hills of the Côte-d'Or behind. A manic mix of panic and sadness that he might never be back this way again. The weight of that fear kept him staring out the window, and he eventually dozed without speaking to his seatmates. He awoke feeling a prick of
responsibility for his traveling companions. They were making the journey together, fellow pilgrims, a cross-section of humanity not unlike those Chaucer had described gathered around the table at the Tabard Inn, and when nobody disembarked in Dijon he knew it was time to change the tenor in the cabin.

He ceremoniously flipped the window tray down and smoothed out his bandanna as a tablecloth. He pulled out the
boule
, flakes of crust scattering on the matron's black slacks. She brushed them off with a huff, but he could also see, out of the corner of his eye, her nostrils flare at the warm and nutty scent of the lovely bread. One of her eyebrows arched. He heard the stomach of one of the backpackers—an undernourished-looking young woman with dreadlocks—growl, and he knew he was, in his own small way, changing the world.

Anna, we are surrounded by humanity, awash in it. And it is our choice to either brood in the silent cocoon of our own troubles or to break bread with our fellow travelers.

Bruno sawed the bread with a pocketknife while the businessman pretended to read his newspaper and the backpacking couple looked on with open, famished stares. It was clear by the time he'd divided five slices that he intended to share. The dreadlock girl's stomach growled again, and everyone chuckled this time. Bruno's eyes met a friendly gaze, and suddenly, with the simple ragged slicing of his pocketknife, the cabin-mates were now a small family.

When Bruno produced the Époisses and began to remove the rind, there was an audible murmur of appreciation as its tart pungency filled the compartment. Somewhere between the odor of overripe fruit and smell of the body of someone you care
about, the variety can be offensive to the uninitiated. But the cohabitants of this compartment all seemed to understand that the salty-sweet taste of Époisses was well worth its bombastic emanation. Bruno smear-sliced the cheese and the businessman carefully folded his newspaper and smoothed it on his lap as a makeshift table. The matron dug into her own purse and produced a small souvenir jar of Moutarde de Bourgogne. She ceremoniously gave the top a twist, sacrificing the vessel for the good of the company.

Bruno responded by digging into his own bag and producing the bottle of Mâcon. When he popped the cork, the backpackers applauded. But the matron won the duel with a final dig through the bag at her feet after which she produced three proper souvenir wineglasses.

The food was distributed. The backpackers proffered a pair of tin cups and they all drank the Mâcon until the bottle was empty. A short while later, and from outside the car, it would have seemed that the compartment held a raucous reunion of old friends. Bruno told stories of his daughters, and, as the wine loosened his tongue, shared the outline of his quest, which all the travelers assured him was the foundation for a compelling story and perhaps even a bestseller. The backpackers, who were Australian and taking a year off post-university to do everything they could think of to delay adulthood and employment, largely through the use of credit cards, dashed off the train at the stop in Mulhouse and returned breathless with bottle of Épernay and some beignets from the station bakery. The matron was on her way to Strasbourg to meet with her estranged sister to settle affairs around the commitment of their mother, who was suffering dementia, to institutional care. The businessman had just completed a circuit of three trade shows and hadn't seen his
wife or two young sons in a month and was debating if he should take a junior position in his father's furniture repair businesses at a greatly reduced salary that would at least keep him close to home. When he revealed that his wife was expecting a baby girl the following November, good use was made of the Épernay, the golden sparkles creating an instant celebration.

By the time they reached Strasbourg, the cares and joys of the entire company were Bruno's own. They embraced upon departure. Bruno and the matron wept and they wished each other well. They knew the names of the siblings, parents, children of all in the group as wallet and cell phone photos were shared around, though Bruno realized as he walked through the station that they hadn't even learned each other's names, but it didn't matter. They were all fellow travelers on the surface of the same celestial orb. He felt more strongly than ever, with a belly full of bread, champagne and cheese, that every meal was meant to be a communion. He was warm and happy inside. He stopped at a
tabac
kiosk and purchased a phone card and a postcard.

He paused at a bench to jot down the postcard he'd been composing in his head, describing his new friends from the train and mourning the fact that he'd never see any of them again. He dropped the note in a post box. He knew that Anna would receive this little report three to seven days later, or longer, depending on the fickle gods of international mail. Or more likely Claire would be the one to intercept it since she always checked the mail first. And after it had been read and passed around, Claire would be the one to save it and pin it to her wall or stuff it into her collection box under her bed. She was as emotionally invested in his adventures as Anna, and Bruno was determined not to let them down.

He took out his phone card. He wanted desperately to call
home and hear Anna's and the girls' voices. But when he found a phone, he noticed Sylvie's fading number on the palm of his hand, and he dialed that instead.

*      *      *

“What do you want?”

“It's Bruno.”

A pause. Then, “Did you leave something here?”

“My heart.”

Unrestrained laughter, then, “
Merde,
Bruno. What is it you Americans say? Bullshit!” She pronounced it
bool-sheet,
which he found endearing.

“May I at least stop by to see you again on my way home?”

Another pause. “That would be fine. When?”

“Not sure. Whenever I finish my research.”

“I've already told you everything I'm willing to share.”

“That's not what it's about.”

“Then just call me. Maybe I'll be here. Maybe I'll be too busy. How did you get this number, anyway?”

“I looked it up on your phone while you slept.”

“That's devious.”

“Would you have given it if I had asked?”

“Definitely not.”

“Then aren't you glad I'm devious?”

“Perhaps. Is that all?”

“That's all.”

“
À la prochaine,
Bruno.”

“Until next time, Sylvie.”

Phlaumenkuchen is a dish that understands its role. To those used to rich desserts that scream for attention, this German plum tart might seem out of balance . . . a tad too acidic, a bit dry, not enough refined sugar. But then the phlaumenkuchen has no desire to upstage the moment, and it is happy to accompany a coffee, or a touch of brandy, a glass of eiswein, not to mention casual conversation. It is a facilitator. A reason to visit Grandmother. An excuse to meet with a former lover for whom you still have feelings. To understand this is to realize the true understated glory of this humble cake.

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