Bennett Sisters Mystery, Volumes 1-2, page 16
“This is what you say.” He shrugged dramatically, palms skyward, his voice high like a girl’s. “Ah, monsieur, peut-être.” He grinned at her. “Believe me, they will not ask.”
And they didn’t. An hour later they were back on the road, instructed in the proper sniff, swirl, and spit routine, and marginally familiar with the modern stainless steel tanks of the mixing room, the limestone soil, and the barrels stacked in the chai for aging. Odile Langois had been cool and efficient, her brother Gerard moody and brusque.
On the drive back Pascal shook his head in sympathy. All that fancy technology, he said, good for nothing.
“Without ‘mis en bouteille au château’ — bottled on site — on the label the wine will go into a cheap bottle at the super-marché. Or even,” he crossed himself, “a wine in a box.”
“God forbid.”
“I don’t know why he bothers to age it. He will not make serious money from his wine until he can set up bottling.” Pascal seemed angry about the whole setup. “All those barrels and a very fine aging chai and expensive modern equipment and yet no bottling.” He was quiet a moment then said quietly, “I have heard Gerard is active in politics for vignerons, grape-growers and small wineries. Be careful of him.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is ambitious, that’s all.”
“Because there’s no grand cru on his label?” She knew that much, that grand cru and premier grand cru were the grand, old class of Bordeaux wines. “Is this about the strike they keep talking about?”
“What strike?”
“The growers. The newspaper says they’re planning some big strike to protest foreign grapes coming into this country for wine.”
“It is just politics.” He glanced at her knees. “Gerard has no label at all, just juice in a jug. But it is good to improve yourself, be something more than when you were born. Don’t you agree?”
“I’m an American. Striving always.”
“So Gerard is a closet American?” They laughed. No one could be more French than Langois, so serious about the grape and a little bitter about his ambitions.
“And you? Did you strive to be a roofer?”
“My father was one, my grandfather also. From a rooftop, my grand-papa told me, you can see the world.”
“So you were born into it. Me too. My father was a lawyer, and all my sisters are.”
“All?”
“Yup. Five sisters, all lawyers.”
Pascal put his hand on his heart. “Zut alors. I see them coming toward me like Charlie’s Angels but in more clothing and briefcases snapping. Ready to — how do you say? — kick my ass.”
* * *
He pulled the Citroën into the tiny garage two blocks away from Albert’s, a space he rented from an old lady. They walked back toward rue de Poitiers. Back to reality, she thought, feeling the strange lightness of the morning at the winery and laughter with Pascal.
At the corner the gendarme lounged against a wall, smoking. He straightened at the sight of them but held his ground. His uniform was always perfectly pressed. Merle wondered if he lived with his mother, or who was the woman who took such care. Did the vain bastard press it himself?
Pascal nodded to him, as if they were acquaintances. She simply stared at him, turning back as they walked toward the house, to stare over her shoulder. Just to give a good dose of what he gave her. He fumed, clenching his jaw, then crushed his cigarette on the sidewalk.
The front door was unlocked. Pascal told her that was a very bad idea, leaving the door open like that. “You must tell Tristan to always lock the door.”
Fernand had made progress. The water heater, sitting out in the bathroom like a fat friend who won’t leave, was hooked up and filling the water. The floor was torn up for drains to connect with ‘big smelly,’ the fragrant drain, and three intakes poked through the back wall for the toilet, kitchen sink, and bathroom sink. Luc was busy outside chipping away a last hole for the shower line.
There was a note from Tristan saying he was practicing until six. The tournament was Saturday and he hoped to compete even though he was a beginner. On the roof Pascal began to pound.
Merle grabbed her notebook and escaped. The gendarme had disappeared from the corner. At the post office she waited her turn at the internet kiosk, slipping her smart card into the slot. She checked her email, wrote cursory notes to her sisters and parents, read one from Annie wanting details, gave them all Albert’s phone number and said the house repairs went well. Then she did a search for information about the making of French wine. There was a long, juicy site sponsored by the Bordeaux Wine Office that she printed out.
The line behind her grew longer, techno-savvy seniors and tourists. Ignoring them she entered ‘Justine LaBelle + Bordeaux’ into the search engine. Nothing but hospitals in Quebec. She went to a French white pages site. This time she got three matches. Scribbling down the numbers she checked her time. One minute left. She entered ‘Monastères + Dordogne’ in hopes of finding Sister Evangeline’s convent, in case she was a nun. One hit, a Carmelite convent fifty miles away. Then the old woman behind her began to smack her cane on the marble floor.
Back at the house a large truck was unloading at the curb. The beds were here, with bedding, and the dining chairs with rush seats. She ferried the chairs in and grabbed Luc to carry her mattress upstairs. She had decided on a soft yellow the color of sunrise for the bedroom. One day she’d paint it, when she could face that much cheer.
Upstairs she pulled white sheets over the mattress, their clean newness mocking the state of the house. She buried her nose in the fresh linen, savoring its starchy, unspoiled odor. Life could be as simple as virgin white pillowcases. At least for a moment.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The lush evening scents of moist earth and roses were ruined by the smell of the cigarettes. Last two, and then the pack was done.
It was very late. The surrounding houses were dark. A faint glow on the rooftops from a faraway streetlight, nothing more. Stars were strewn across the sky, millions of them, more than she’d ever seen. As if that milk bucket in the sky had been refilled and spilled using full-fat cream for once.
Merle watered the grapevine and the pear tree and stamped on the loose earth filling the trench. She had tried and failed to sleep. She was so far from home. She had a strong desire to call someone, to speak to her family. The village was beginning to feel very small, especially without a telephone. The distance felt good for awhile. She didn’t want her family worried. But now she felt very alone, cut off from the world. How were her parents? Had Elise found a job? Were the cousins swimming in the pool? Did Annie have a new boyfriend? Had anyone asked questions about her character or checked her criminal record?
She and Tristan had a real meal in the garden, made at home, then returned the rollaway cots to the hotel. She’d actually cooked in her new French house. Her new French house — what a phrase! As if it belonged to her, as if she would build a life here. It gave her a moment of wonder, and lightheadedness. But she woke up before midnight, the thought that Weston and Marie-Emilie had slept in that room heavy on her mind. They had conceived Harry there. There was something wrong with that. But what? What could be wrong with a married couple bringing a baby into the world?
The pissoir sat dark, still wound up with orange tape, off limits. It had to be a woman, or a child. The skeleton was small. Who had been so hated, so unloved, that they were encased inside a wall and forgotten? It was sad, as sad as the fresher death of Justine LaBelle. She thought of the Bordeaux phone numbers in her notebook. Tomorrow she would get a cell phone. She would get back into the mix, call her sisters. Damn the expense.
Looking at the million stars, picking out constellations, the what-what suddenly slammed into her head, loud and insistent as ever. She clamped her hands over her ears. What the hell did it want? What question was it asking? What? What?! She didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to know what the question was. But it wouldn’t leave her alone.
Stop! But it shouted again, the siren cry of the unknown: What? What?!
Then she remembered Dr. Murray, the gray-haired, ruddy-complected psychologist. He had peered at her with watery blue eyes full of compassion. It had been hard to look at him, she thought she might start crying. Weeks ago at Tristan’s evaluation, what had he said? They had a short, clinical discussion about grieving, about the way different people handle the mourning period. He said you couldn’t make rules, set schedules for recovery, for normalcy. That you had to listen to whatever was going on inside you. You had to respect your subconscious, or it would be your demon. Better to listen to your demon, to try to understand it, than ignore it and pay a worse price, he said.
Okay, listen. She took her hands off her ears and closed her eyes, tipping her face to the starlight. I’m listening. What is the question?
Something to do with life, and the end of it. The finality. Harry’s death wasn’t the initial trigger, no, it had been coming on for awhile. His presence, his living self, had started it. Or something else, something only she could see or touch or feel. Something deep inside her that required answers, that refused to go stumbling through life, blinders set, doing what she “ought to.” The subconscious asked on, even when answers were scarce: What do you want from life? What is it about? What are you doing with your time above ground? What will it take to feel alive?
A fine list of ‘what-whats.’ Her lists, her sanity-keepers. The calendar with its regiment, its comforting lineup of hours. Was that the real core of the problem, insane list-making, schedule mania, calendar memorization? Or were those coping mechanisms, ways to stave off the scary chaos of the answerless questions: What is life anyway? What is death but an end to the pain of living? What happens after death? Why am I here on earth? Why was I born?
Was there an answer to any of them? No one knows why they’re born. You are simply brought forth in love. You arrive, and then everything else is guesswork. You choose a path, or it chooses you. You protest your lot, or accept it willingly. It doesn’t matter. It’s yours, you own it. And now you have to live with it.
The calendar fixation seemed, now that she’d been away from the office so long, simply a neurotic way to cope with the passage of time. That was what bothered her: Time. Tick-tock. The way it slipped away, unnoticed, so that days went by in a flash. Weeks slid by, then months, seasons. Winter blew cold and snowy then before you realized it the grass was green and you’d somehow missed the delicate onset of spring, the opening of buds. Children grew overnight from tiny kissy-face cherubs to strapping, shaving, back-talking sluggers. It wasn’t fair, it didn’t have to happen.
She felt the rock in her chest again, not so big but still there, pressing against her heart. Life didn't have to happen? Ah, but it did. Time marched on, unbidden by protest and the thin desires of the flesh. It would not stop. It would not slow for adoring mothers or trial attorneys or absent fathers. It would not stretch its languorous minutes for you or anyone. Time was an equal opportunity torturer.
How did everyone else cope? You couldn’t control time. You could schedule yourself to death, packing in every second with so-called meaningful work. You could try harder, be smarter, love more. But that was only a torture you did to yourself. It wasn’t time’s fault you accepted its reins so readily. The only thing was to accept. Accept change. Accept time. Accept death.
The moon poked up over the wall, shining a flash of light on the espaliered pear tree, its fruit now swelling and heavy. The bones that hid in the latrine for so long: who was it? Who had lived, and died here? Who cared for them, who loved and missed them?
Did it matter? Death comes to all of us — but most of all, to me. It will claim my flesh, make it weak. She thought of Harry again, as his heart seized, as the light went out of his eyes. What did he think of? Did he know he was dying? Was he afraid? She wanted suddenly to have been there with him, to have held him and comforted him and whispered to him as he went, to tell him she had loved him once even if she’d been so very neglectful for, oh, years. She wanted, she realized now, too late, his forgiveness. How would she ever forgive herself without his blessing?
Harry had moved on. He’d adapted to her coldness. He had found warmth in the arms of another woman and the soft hands of their child. She tried to imagine him forgiving her. She tried to hear his voice, those words. She tried to make them manifest on the night air: I forgive you, Merle. I was happy with my new woman, my adorable girl. Don't feel bad you didn't have it in you to love me.
But it wasn’t right; it wasn’t him. Harry didn't care about any of them, before or after his death. Not really. He didn't care enough to forgive her.
It's a mystery, how you'll die. But it wasn’t a mystery itself. No, it was very ordinary. The Big D. The Dirt Nap. It would come. And sooner than you expect.
* * *
Tristan was snoring. The evening had cooled and the turmoil in her head had stilled. Cigarettes and what-what done for the night.
As she stepped into the parlor she heard a noise under the floor. She’d put out a dozen mouse traps, baited them with camembert (for world’s most pampered mice) but hadn’t checked them recently. Grabbing the flashlight she pushed aside the cabinet, pulled up the door in the floor and shone the beam down the wooden stairs. At the bottom step a mouse was caught in a trap, the wire across his back but still alive. She picked up a length of plastic pipe and a plastic bag and started down the steps.
Night or day the cellar was pitch black, no worse than her basement at home except the dirt floor smelled of mold. The mouse was pushing himself in circles on the step, one foreleg functional. No sense prolonging the misery. She whacked him hard over the head. With a flick of the wrist she scooped him, trap and all, into the plastic bag.
Where did she put the other traps? She shone the light into the far corner, behind the tall stack of kegs. Another success, a fat dead mouse. She kicked the old rug rolled in a long sausage. Prime rodent hideout. She’d put a trap at each end of the hole. Another kick then two mice dashed out by her foot, vaulting the trap, causing her to jump backwards and lose her balance. She fell into the kegs, smashing three of them in a loud snapping and crumpling of wood.
Swearing, she got to her feet and brushed herself off. She’d dropped the bag and the flashlight. It shone over her shoulder against the back wall where the kegs were stacked. As she picked up the light she moved closer to the wall. Something was different about this wall.
A light went on upstairs. Tristan bent over the trap door. “Mom?”
“Sorry. Checking mousetraps. I couldn’t sleep.” She ran her hand over the wall. It was wood, and not a wall at all. “Put some shoes on and bring that manila envelope down here. In the cabinet. Left drawer.”
Tristan came down the steps in white socks, tennis shoes, and plaid boxer shorts, his blanket around his shoulders. He held out the envelope. “What’d you find?”
She brushed the spider webs off the wooden planks of the door. A wrought iron lock was set into the surface. There was no handle, just a key hole. “A door.” She rummaged in the bottom of the envelope.
“Wait, Mom. Maybe it’s another skeleton,” Tristan said.
“You think so?” She held up the big key.
He shrugged, frowning at the sealed door. “Could be anything.”
She’d seen one skeleton this week; two wouldn’t make a huge difference. Besides, there was no skeleton in here, she knew it. What were the odds of finding even one pile of human bones in your homestead?
“Hold the flashlight.”
He trained the beam on the keyhole. Jiggling the key, she felt for how it turned, if it turned. Left, right, she pushed it in and out, back and forth. Debris dribbled down the wood, ash or mildew. Then it turned.
Merle looked at Tristan, her face lit up in the beam. She pulled on the key. The door wouldn’t budge. “Hit the corners of the door with the flashlight,” she ordered, smacking it with the heel of her hand. He banged around with the light until she told him to stop. “Let’s try again.” She heard the ping of wood separating, then, with a jerk on the key, it opened an inch.
“Stick your fingers in and pull,” she said. They each put a foot on the back wall and pried the door six inches wider. “Give me the light.”
The door stopped eight inches from the floor, as if to keep floodwaters out. She wedged her knee in the opening and put her face up to it.
“More bones?”
“No.” She swung the light back and forth. “Bottles.”
Prying open the door farther they squeezed inside the old wine cave. The room was only five feet deep but as wide as the house. The racks were about half full, up to chest height, but lots and lots of bottles. She brushed off a bottle and sucked in a breath.
How long had this wine been here? Since Weston’s day anyway. Dust and mold lay thick on the bottles. She pulled out one, rubbing the label. ‘Château Pétrus.’ That was the label Albert said was very fine. The label was crude and brittle, almost shattering at her touch.
A beautiful, ancient space with a vaulted ceiling and carved racks, this was the traditional place to store one’s wine in France, underground, at a constant temperature, in darkness, much like Gerard’s fancy oak barrels. Merle counted the bottles quickly. Twelve cases, a hundred-forty-four bottles of wine.
“It must be old,” Tristan said, pulling a dusty bottle from the rack and blowing on the label. “1947. Yeah, that’s old. Do you think my grandpa hid this here?”
“He stored it here anyway.” Why had he never sold it, or taken it with him to the U.S.? Had he died before he had a chance to import it? “Hold up the light to this one.”
Inside the bottle the wine looked dark as ink. Some sediment had collected along one side. But the corks looked decent, intact. The lead covering had held. Sixty years though, a long time for neglected bottles. It was probably spoiled.
