We ended up back near the kitchen again. I thought the tour was over and started to thank Jean when he said, with the closest thing I thought he could come to excitement, “But it’s not over! I haven’t shown you the secret cellar.”
“The secret cellar?” I didn’t bother to conceal my fascination. “The one where you hid some of your wine from the Nazis during the Occupation?”
“Oui!” said Jean. “Stay right here. Don’t move. I must fetch the ladder.”
“Ladder?” I asked Franck after Jean disappeared again in the direction of the front hall. “Aren’t cellars underground?”
“Not this one,” Franck said. “Which is why the Germans never found it. I would help him with the ladder of course, but I know Jean wouldn’t like that. He likes to do things his own way.”
Five minutes later, just when I was beginning to wonder if Jean had not, in fact, forgotten about us, he reappeared carrying an old wooden ladder.
“Voilà!” he said, and set it up in the hallway where we stood. I peered up. The ceilings were so high that it was difficult to see, but it looked as though the part of the wall above the ladder had a panel inserted into it.
“This is underneath the stairs,” Jean explained as he set up the ladder. “Do you see?”
“Yes.”
“I know better than to offer to climb up there and open it for you,” Franck said to his uncle.
“Yes. I should certainly hope you think better of offering that, when I am perfectly capable of doing it myself,” Jean riposted.
He methodically checked the ladder and then began to climb up. He was about two and a half meters off the ground when his wife, Franck’s aunt Jacqueline, came around the corner with a dishtowel in her hand.
“Jean!” she shouted up at him. “What in heaven’s name are you doing up there? You’re going to fall down and kill yourself.”
“I’m just getting something,” Jean said, unruffled.
“Get down,” she ordered. She had been a nurse, Franck had told me, and she had a gift for making people do what she knew was best for them. Everybody, it seemed, except her husband.
“No,” he said, calmly. “I will not.”
Jacqueline had no choice but to wait beside us for Jean to come back down. Her arms were crossed, and her features wore an expression of exasperation. Still, her lips were twitching with a repressed smile. It seemed with Jean, Jacqueline had met her match.
“Do you have any idea what he is getting out of there?” she asked Franck.
“We’re not privy to that information…yet.” Franck’s lips curved into a smile.
Mémé came rushing around the corner calling Jacqueline’s name. She narrowly missed the ladder that Jean was using. He was at the very top now. From my vantage point it looked as though he was struggling to open a very old lock of some kind.
“What is Jean up to now?” Mémé asked, rolling her eyes.
“Getting something out of the secret cellar,” said Jacqueline.
“Ah!” Mémé looked considerably placated. “Bring down something worth our while, Jean!” she called up. “It’s not every year I turn eighty after all!”
With a grunt of effort, Jean managed to get the secret door open. A puff of dust showered down on us, and a musty smell permeated the air.
“Be careful!” Jacqueline ordered him, but it was quite clear that Jean had his own agenda, and it did not include paying heed to his wife’s instructions.
“I just hope he doesn’t fall through the floorboards,” Jacqueline muttered. “Though it would serve him right… Stubborn as a mule.”
Quite some time later, Jean emerged out of the small hole out onto the ladder again. He was covered in dust and cobwebs and what appeared to be stray strings of mold, but this didn’t appear to impair his good humor in the slightest. In his hand he held a bottle that didn’t even look as though it was made of glass.
“Ohhhhhh…good choice,” Mémé said. She clearly recognized the bottle.
“What is it?” I whispered to Franck, my curiosity getting the better of me.
He shook his head, but his eyes sparkled with mischief. “Surprise,” he said.
It took quite some time for Jean to get to the bottom of the ladder, but when he did he looked exceedingly pleased with himself. He turned the bottle he was holding around. It was a pockmarked terra-cotta and looked like it had just been excavated from an archeological dig. He turned it to show me the hand-written label that was stuck to the side.
Cognac, it read. 1867.
“That’s not the date is it?” I pointed at the swirling cursive. “Like, the real date?”
Jean nodded. “Oh yes. It was my great grandfather’s bottle, I believe. Would you like to taste some after lunch?”
“Yes!” I nearly shouted, as I didn’t want there to be any confusion on the matter. I hadn’t had much experience with cognac, but I did know that I wanted to partake in this historical artifact.
“Would you mind if I took a picture?” I asked.
“Of course not,” Jean said.
“My camera is just upstairs,” I said. I pointed in that direction.
“I’ll wait,” Jean answered.
I ran up the four flights of stairs and was breathing hard by the time I got to the top. The smaller children were no longer playing on the rope, but Sandrine, Stéphanie, Olivier, and a few of Franck’s other cousins were having a heck of a time seeing how high they could swing.
“Ça va?” Sandrine asked.
The polite thing of course would have been to go over and kiss everyone hello, but I was worried that such an old bottle would simply vanish into the ether if I dallied.
I waved at them. “I’m come say a proper hello later.” I grabbed my camera and ran back downstairs.
Jean, true to his word, hadn’t moved a hair. He was still holding the bottle in the exact same tilted position. Weren’t his arms getting tired?
I snapped about a dozen photos. “My father isn’t going to believe this.”
“What? You don’t have bottles this old back in Canada?” Jean said with a mischievous smile.
“Definitely not. 1867 was the year that Canada was born as a confederation. I think the Canadians were all too preoccupied to be making cognac.” Then again, the French had kept making wine and spirits throughout two world wars and countless other upheavals. Their tenacity was extraordinary.
“Well…I’ll tuck this away for right now…,” he said when I was finished. “There’s not enough for everyone, you know. You’ll see it again after lunch.”
Throughout the lazy morning, quite a few people—those who had far to drive before work on Monday—left. People had come from all over France—Paris, Marseille, Normandy—even though all of Franck’s closest family still lived in a small circle in Burgundy.
We played another game of pétanque and, this time, Franck’s team won, much to my chagrin. Roland was on my team and firmly placed the blame for our loss on my shoulders. I hadn’t, he chastised me, been drinking my kir fast enough. Mémé happened to be outside for a few seconds at the moment of Franck’s victory, and she agreed with Roland’s assessment.
“Kir is not merely a drink,” she said in that definite way of hers. “I consider it medicine. How do you think I can outlast all you young things?” She gave me an affectionate swat with the dishtowel she always seem to have in her hand. “Kir! That’s the answer!”
When the sun was high in the sky, people began to gravitate back to the basement, where the tables from the night before were all cleaned and set with fresh paper tablecloths in a sunny yellow and blue combination.
Franck nodded towards them. “Those are Mémé’s favorite colors. No beige for her.”
Huge bouquets of flowers adorned the table, many of which had been brought for the birthday girl by guests the night before.
Again the meal began with kir and gougères, which miraculously whetted what I had previously believed was my non-existent appetite. How did Burgundian
s do it? Apart from Roland, there were very few overweight people, and yet everyone could tuck away more food than I ever believed possible.
Mémé threw open the doors again to show all of the dishes from the previous day and a few new ones as well. Franck’s uncle from Provence had assured that bottles of red and white wine were placed between every four guests or so.
The atmosphere was slightly more subdued than the night before, surely due to lack of sleep and the fact that we were all still digesting; but it was a warm, cozy kind of subdued. Franck glanced over at me between forkfuls of tabouleh salad, and his eyes glowed with pleasure. I wasn’t sure I could live without this now. I wasn’t sure I could live without him. Yet, somehow, I would have to in less than three months.
Jean came in with the bottle of cognac after the desserts and served Franck and me each a glass.
The cork was black with age and incredibly aromatic. The liquid was a rusty shade. I wondered for a brief moment if it was possible to get botulism or something nasty from very aged alcohol. I decided I didn’t care. It would be worth it to taste cognac from 1867. This cognac was made before the two world wars, just after the US Civil War had ended with the assassination of Lincoln, and before cars and electricity and airplanes and computers… I wondered about the person who had painstakingly made it and bottled it. What had they been going through? What sort of pain or pleasure had been surging forth in their lives. Were they in love? Were they in pain? Were they worried or were they happy?
Jean nodded that it was time to taste. I took a sip. I had been bracing myself for the fire of hard alcohol, but the remarkably mellow liquid was soft and almost sweet. It was delicious. Franck and Jean, both quite the connoisseurs of strong alcohols, sighed in profound satisfaction.
“That is incredible,” I said. “I can’t believe I’m drinking something this old.”
“It’s sublime,” Franck said, taking another sip and savoring every bit.
Jean smacked his lips. “Still as good.”
“Thank you so much,” I said to Jean, earnestly. “Thank you so much for sharing this with me.”
Jean turned a little pink and flushed. “De rien.”
That was the attitude of Franck’s whole family regarding their incredible warmth and hospitality. De rien. It’s nothing. De rien. It’s normal. It’s the Burgundian way of doing things.
After lunch, most of the other people left, and, in the corner of the garden, Franck and I found a secluded stone bench that was hidden by a huge cherry tree.
We kissed lazily and contentedly. At one point I sighed deeply.
“What was that for?” Franck laughed.
“I’m just happy,” I dropped my head so that it fit in the crook of his shoulder. My breathing slowed down to match his. “Happy, contented…and full.”
Franck wrapped his arm around me and pulled me closer. “That’s the way you should be.”
He kissed my forehead and the bridge of my nose, and suddenly I felt tears falling from my eyes.
I tried to wipe them away without Franck noticing, but he put his hands on my shoulders and held me back so he could inspect my face.
“Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know where the tears are coming from.” I wiped them away, but they kept falling. “I just—” I shook my head, the words suddenly blocked in my throat behind a tangle of feelings. “I don’t want to leave all of this. It feels like it’s just getting started.”
Franck picked up my hand and kissed my palm. “It is just getting started.”
“But I have to go back to Canada.” We had both avoided this reality up until that moment and had never broached it straight on.
“So you have to go away for a while.” Franck shrugged. “Maybe I can come join you in Canada when my military service is finished in September.”
“But for you…leaving your family…work…immigration—”
Franck stopped my doubts with a kiss on my lips. “We will find a way,” he said, finally. The certainty in his words anchored me. “Maybe our next chapter is supposed to happen in Canada.”
“Do you think so?”
Franck nodded. “Why not?”
I let out a watery laugh. “I’m warning you—the cheese selection isn’t nearly as good.”
“That is a serious problem.” Franck’s mouth twitched. “But if you are there, I can perhaps manage to bear that hardship.”
I couldn’t seem to get a word out, so I just squeezed his hand harder.
“You going back to Canada doesn’t have to be the end,” Franck said. “Me, you, my family, your family, our lives together… If you want, it can be just starting.”
I was about to try to tell him just how much I wanted that when Franck’s aunt Jacqueline appeared, armed with her beautiful camera. “Coucou, les amoreux!” she said. There was always an unmistakable energy behind her voice. “I realized I don’t have a good photo of you two!” she said and peered through the viewfinder at us. I wiped my face surreptitiously and smiled brightly.
“Ah! You‘re perfect just like that,” she said. “Don’t look up at me. Look up at the sky.
She snapped the shutter several times.
“You can show this to your children and grandchildren,” she laughed, then rushed off to take more photos.
CHAPTER 34
“You mean you don’t know how to drive a stick shift?” Franck asked, appalled. We were driving to Beaune in his father’s car, but taking a roundabout way—a very roundabout way from the looks of it, as we neared a patch of forest that I didn’t recognize, but that I was fairly certain was nowhere near Beaune.
“No. I learned on an automatic and took my driving test on an automatic.”
“And they gave you your license?”
“In Canada you can pretty much get away your whole life without driving a standard.”
“But an automatic isn’t driving.”
“Sure it is. It gets me from Point A to Point B in a car. That’s driving.”
Franck stopped the car. We were just outside the forest. We’d passed the last village—another one I didn’t recognize—about five minutes previously.
He turned to me. “That’s it! I have a moral obligation to teach you to drive standard. It’s an essential life skill like swimming or learning to ride a bike or winetasting.”
“Winetasting is an essential life skill?”
“Bien sûr.”
“I have to be back in Beaune in two hours to give a speech at the Ursus meeting,” I reminded him. I was the keynote speaker at some sort of regional Ursus Club gathering that evening. I was already dressed for it in a summery white skirt and a white silk sweater.
“I remember.” Franck leaned over, unclipped my seatbelt, and pulled me roughly over the gearshift and into his lap. “How could I forget, with you sitting beside me looking so lovely and pristine? I just want to—”
“What?” I laughed at him between kisses.
“Mess you up a little bit.”
The idea of being messed up by Franck was immensely appealing, but I couldn’t miss the speech. Over two hundred Ursus members were waiting to hear me.
I swatted his hands away. “After my speech. Promise.”
“It’s your fault for being irresistible,” he muttered, but gently deposited me back onto my seat and got out of the car.
“If we can’t do…anything else, I can at least teach you how to drive standard. It will only take you a few minutes to learn,” he said, ushering me in the driver’s seat and then walking around to the passenger’s side.
I placed my hands on the steering wheel. It felt strange, after not driving for ten months. I briefly thought of the “No Driving” rule, but this was a road in the middle of nowhere, and I was with Franck—what could possibly happen?
“I should tell you now that I almost failed my driver’s test in Canada,” I admitted. “I got the maximum amount of demerit points that one can get and still pass. I’ve never been gifted at manual things.�
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“You’ve never had a teacher like moi,” Franck insisted, and slid the keys in the ignition for me.
He instructed me to feel the pedals at my feet. My first instinct was that, compared to an automatic, there was one too many. I wasn’t at all sure where my feet should go. He explained patiently, but at the same time I could tell that he did not fully realize how counter-intuitive driving standard felt for someone who had never done it before. Or maybe it was just me.
He took my hand and placed it over the gearshift and rested his hand over top of mine. He switched the gears, sliding from one notch to another.
“This is neutral. This is first, second, third, fourth, fifth….reverse. Do you get it?”
I nodded. I did, but that didn’t mean I could do it by myself. Franck showed me the pedal again and demonstrated how to ease off the clutch while pressing on the accelerator. He placed a lot of gentle little kisses on my neck and hands as he was demonstrating, which made me think there were many other things I would rather be doing with Franck than learning how to drive a stick shift.
“Here we go.” Franck turned the key in the accelerator. The car lurched forward and then stalled.
“Did you have your foot on the clutch?” Franck asked.
“No. Should I?”
“Yes. That is rather important. Push your foot down on the clutch the whole way.” This time the car lurched about five meters before shuddering to a halt.
I glanced over at Franck. “I told you this wasn’t going to be easy.”
Franck got a determined look that I had begun to recognize. “You just need to practice a few more times.”
The farthest I managed in numerous attempts was about ten meters, just a few meters past the entrance to the woods. Even though it felt as though I was doing everything Franck was telling me to do, the car’s wheels just spun and we didn’t go anywhere—not even a lurch forward.
“Merde.” Franck gestured at me to turn off the car. He went outside and inspected the tires. I rolled down my window.
My Grape Year: (The Grape Series #1) Page 29
