CHAMPAGNE BLUES

by Nan

  Petit Meurice smiled. “Ah, there is so much to tell you. And so little time.” He turned and put a bottle of champagne into the bucket. “We shall taste only the vintage years. But, of course, you know a vintage is not so important with champagne. It is Monsieur Pommel’s blend that is important. André Bonnard knew that. It was in this room that Monsieur Pommel perfected his blend. He kept the samples behind bars, as you are now. It was in this cell that he mixed and tested and finally created the house blend that was to bear his name. This was his secret room, as it is now mine. Not even young Monsieur Pommel knows it still exists. He thinks it was destroyed during the other occupation. Bonnard was a disagreeable man, as are most dégorgeurs. Perhaps because it is such a noisy job to remove the corks. He had a violent temper.” Petit Meurice turned the bottle gently and felt it. He nodded. “How unfortunate so many people overchill before serving. Well, it was here, in this room, that Bonnard stole the formula. He threatened to ruin poor Monsieur Pommel. And so the name was changed to Pommel et Bonnard.” He eased the cork out without a sound. “Fortunately, Bonnard had no family. When he died, all that remained of him was his name.” He began filling four glasses. “I think that is what Bonnard wanted most anyway. To be part of history. Each harvest is part of history. The wine is France. Once cannot exist without the other.”

  Petit Meurice put the glasses on a tray. He walked to the bars. Lily shrugged, got up and took one. The others came over for theirs. “We shall begin with 1973 ”

  “And where shall we end?” Lily asked nervously.

  Petit Meurice smiled. “We will return to 1942.” He pointed to the blank wall. “Until you have caught up to them.”

  EMILE drove the car while Claude stared ahead at the road. “I cannot believe he killed Antoine,” Emile said.

  “It is my fault.”

  “You cannot blame yourself because Meurice went crazy.”

  “He did not ‘go’ crazy. Meurice is the same as he has always been.”

  “Le Dom, this time he did not kill a Nazi. He killed one of his own!”

  “This time, Emile, it is not so easy to know who is the enemy and who is not.”

  Emile did not respond immediately. Instead, he waited a few moments and asked with great care, “Le Dom, I have asked myself over and over, why did you bring her to the Zola?”

  “I did not bring her!” he said sharply. “She knew I was taking her watch to the jeweler, that it was across the street from where I lunch.”

  “And so the mouse ran after the cat?”

  “No,” Claude said with a sad smile. “The mouse took a taxi.”

  Emile shook his head. “It is tragic. We have won. Yet we have suddenly lost. We have suddenly become terrorists instead of patriots.” His hands clutched the wheel. “And if we are not in time, Meurice will make us murderers.”

  Claude watched the road. The chances of Emma still being alive were slight. Meurice had murdered Antoine as he had murdered the Nazis. He had twisted reality as easily as turning a bottle of champagne.

  “NINETEEN SIXTY-ONE already?” Lily reached through the bars and took the glass from Petit Meurice. “How time flies when you’re having fun.”

  “I didn’t like ’61,” Dwight said. “That was the year we toured Canada. Would you mind if I had another glass of ’62?” Petit Meurice handed him the ’61. Dwight frowned. “Now, see here, we have some rights under the Geneva Convention.”

  “You can’t make him drink the ’61 if he doesn’t want to!” Clifford shouted.

  Emma looked deep into Petit Meurice’s eyes. “Remember Nuremberg,” she warned.

  “What a wretched little town,” Lily said. “The Wurst!” she laughed.

  “You must take it,” Petit Meurice said to Dwight. “Please.”

  Dwight sighed. He sipped and shook his head. “Tastes just like Canada.”

  “I’ve never been to Canada,” Emma said, reaching through the bars for her glass.

  “You have so. We did a whole book on Canada!” Clifford frowned at Petit Meurice. He opened his mouth as though he were about to tell him off. But he couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Was that Canada?” Emma asked.

  “Six,” Clifford said, making a sixth line in the table with his fingernail. “Six glasses.”

  “Did I like Canada?”

  Clifford shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell you like anymore, Emma.”

  “Now, now, Clifford,” Lily chided. “Now is not the time to become a crankypuss. You don’t want to spoil our fun. I like ’61. You know, darlings, it gets better the more back you go.”

  “There is absolutely nothing to eat there,” Dwight said.

  “Where?”

  “Canada.”

  “Of course there is,” Lily said. “There’s a Trader Vic in Vancouver.”

  “You know,” Dwight continued, “you get better French food in Mexico City than you get in Montreal.”

  “I’ve never been to Mexico,” Emma said.

  “You were. We did a book.” Clifford began to laugh. “The Peso Pincher’s Guide!”

  Emma made two fists and raised them in the air. “Oh, is that the place,” she asked, moving her wrists, “with those things you shake?”

  Petit Meurice had uncorked the ’59. He filled four fresh glasses. “Nineteen fifty-nine,” he bellowed.

  “And all’s well,” Lily yelled back.

  “Now for the part I really like,” Clifford said, getting up. He raised his glass and threw it forcefully into the bathroom alcove. It shattered amid the dozens of other broken glasses. They formed a line behind him—Dwight, then Lily, and then Emma, who was still drinking the last of her champagne.

  “Say, how about some potato chips?” Clifford asked, taking a glass from Petit Meurice.

  “Now, let’s see,” Lily said. “Where were we in ’59?”

  “Don’t speak to me.” Emma walked quickly past Clifford.

  “Why not?” he asked. “What did I do now?”

  “I didn’t know you in ’59.”

  “I will leave you for a few minutes,” said Petit Meurice. “They must see me. They cannot become suspicious. It is time for my break.”

  “Three cheers for the Kidnappers’ Union!” Lily waved.

  Petit Meurice bent the bars open with his bare hands. “Here.” He handed them the 1959 bottle. “In case I am a few minutes late.”

  “He just thinks of everything,” Lily said, reaching for the bottle. “Don’t worry. We’ll wait right here.” They watched Meurice open the door and leave. No one spoke. Then Lily said quietly, “I miss him already.”

  Dwight pointed to the door. “I have an idea! I think we should try to escape.”

  Clifford banged his fist on the table. “Goddamn it! You’re right!” He stood up. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Lily emptied her glass and stood up slowly. She leaned across to help pull Emma up. “But he’ll be mad at us,” Emma said.

  They walked to the bars and held on. “Okay, now let’s get the hell out. All right? One, two, three, push!” They all pushed for a few seconds. Nothing happened. “Okay. Let’s try again. One, two, three, push!” Despite their moans and grunts, all they accomplished was to push themselves back from the bars. “Wait a minute, we’re doing it all wrong. One, two, three, pull!” They hugged the bars, pressing themselves against the metal.

  “Are we out yet?” Emma asked.

  “Sit down,” Clifford said. “Everybody sit down.”

  “Good idea,” Dwight said. “We’ll try again later.”

  Clifford scratched another line into the table. “Seven.”

  “We’re halfway there,” Dwight said. “He had fourteen bottles.”

  “Halfway to where?” Clifford asked.

  “Halfway to his killing us,” Emma said.

  Lily got up. “I will not go through that again! You absolutely ruined ’66, ’64 and ’62 for me.”

  “I didn’t mean to.” Emma got
up and followed behind Lily. “You were having such a good time planning your funeral. Services on the terrace of the Gritti. The gondola procession to St. Mark’s. The outdoor luncheon. Purple tablecloths and napkins. Poached bass with a collar of black truffles.”

  “Squisita!” Lily cried out in her most enthusiastic Italian. “Although,” she added quickly, “it should probably be sole.”

  “That Lily is going to cost you a fortune,” Clifford whispered to Dwight. “Why don’t you have spaghetti with black olives? You could save a bundle.”

  Lily shook her head in consternation. “No one I know eats spaghetti.”

  “What the hell else is there to eat in Italy?” he asked.

  “Are you talking about Italy? Or are you talking merely about the squalid boardinghouses of Naples?”

  “Italy, The boot. Italia,” he yelled. “All of it!”

  Lily poured another glass of champagne. “Firstly, there is nothing worth eating in Italy south of Florence.”

  “Nothing?” Emma asked.

  “You’ve got to face it,” Dwight said. “Southern Italy is even worse than Southern California. And everyone knows that Rome is merely another Chicago. All architecture. It’s north of Rome that Italy really works.”

  “I only eat in Florence, Bologna, Milan and Venice,” Lily said.

  Clifford shrugged. “You know Fat Angelo’s near the railway station in Milan?” He tried to refresh her memory. “He’s got this counter with eight, maybe nine stools . . .”

  “Was I ever there?” Emma asked.

  “Don’t you remember? He used to give you extra bread to fatten you up?”

  Emma began to cry. “It’s the curse of my life! I’m too thin and I’m too rich!”

  Clifford turned away from Emma. “So what do you like, Dwight? Switzerland?” Clifford asked sarcastically. “Safe. Clean. Expensive.”

  “Antiseptic,” Dwight said. “Besides, dear boy, you can’t trust a country that’s never gone to war.”

  “You can forget about Sweden, too,” Lily added. “You have to be so careful lest you’re hit by all those people jumping out of windows.”

  “When they’re not committing suicide, they’re taking baths,” Dwight sighed.

  “Of course, I know you two don’t understand the difference.”

  “I don’t like Holland,” Clifford said.

  “It’s too flat.”

  “The streets are paved with herring.”

  “I, for one, can never relax in Germany,” Lily said.

  “I know I was in Germany,” Emma recalled. “They tried to fatten me up there too.”

  “All those overstuffed people with their overstuffed beds,” Dwight said.

  “Still, darling, they’re not half as annoying as the Austrians.”

  Clifford shook his head. “They think they’re the French of Germany.”

  Emma sighed. “Such endless forced gaiety.”

  Lily made a sweeping gesture with her arm. “One enormous coffeehouse sinking in a sea of Schlag.”

  “It’s the same with the Belgians. They think they’re the French of Holland.”

  “Why do they all want to be the French?”

  “The Czechs are the French of Poland.”

  “London isn’t what it used to be,” Dwight confessed, “now that it’s become a suburb of Saudi Arabia.”

  Lily shook her head. “They’ll soon be serving dates at teatime. No doubt St. Paul’s will be demolished to raise a mosque.”

  Clifford frowned. “I’ve never understood the Irish. If they’re not killed tragically by thirty, they’re failures.”

  “Have you ever found a comfortable bed in Greece?” Lily asked Emma intently.

  “You know, my problem is I can never keep awake long enough to have dinner in Spain. It’s always past my bedtime.”

  Dwight rapped his knuckles on the table. “And something must be done about the Portuguese language. All those ‘zh’s’ and ‘ão’s’!”

  “Do you like Hungary?” Clifford asked Lily.

  “Only if I’ve just come from Rumania.”

  “What’s wrong with Rumania?” Emma demanded.

  “Nothing. If I’ve just come from Bulgaria.”

  “Clifford loves Yugoslavia,” Emma admitted. “I think he wants to retire there. All that scenic poverty. I hate it.”

  Lily shrugged. “But darling, surely you thrive on poverty. Good God, you’re the only people in the world who managed to find the squalid side of Monte Carlo.”

  “I know a dirt-cheap casino two blocks from the Negresco,” Clifford said.

  “Was I there?” Emma asked.

  “Sure. It’s where the workers gamble.”

  Lily sighed. “There is simply no place left.”

  “Even Paris,” Dwight said.

  “Especially Paris!” Lily poured the last of the champagne into her glass. “One would think the United Nations could protect us against the Parisians.”

  Dwight smiled and shook his head. “You know, Lily, hard as it is to believe, the Parisians are probably saying the same thing about us.”

  “Not about me,” Lily snapped.

  “God knows, I’m not defending them,” Dwight said. “But I suppose I can understand their resentment. If I lived there, I wouldn’t want hundreds of thousands of foreigners clogging things up.”

  “There’s no place left,” Emma said.

  “Nothing to discover.” Lily sighed.

  “The tourist shall inherit the earth,” Dwight said.

  “But not the moon!” Clifford proclaimed.

  “Which moon, Cliffy?” Emma reached for his hand. “Was I ever there?”

  “To the moon!” Dwight said, raising his glass. It was empty. “Where the hell is the waiter? Why are those people never around when you need them?” He turned the bottle upside down. Lily turned her glass upside down. Clifford shrugged.

  “There’s no champagne on the moon,” Lily pouted.

  “No matter,” Dwight toasted. “The moon is the only place left to go.” They raised their empty glasses.

  Lily smiled. “Of course, you two should take the dark side. It’s cheaper.”

  “We’ll open the Luna Crescent,” Dwight said. “Peacefully located on the Sea of Tranquillity. Moon-drenched private beaches.”

  Lily got up and continued the brochure. “Staffed by only the most elegantly striped Venusians selected for their slavish devotion to galactic housekeeping.”

  Clifford rose angrily. “Avoid astronomical prices! Cliff and Emma offer the moon on five dollars a day. Including an unlimited-mileage moon buggy.”

  Lily narrowed her eyes. “Don’t dare miss our One Small Step for Man disco. Catch a falling star from the terrace as you dance a phase away to such lilting tunes as ‘Miami Over Moon.’ ”

  “Why not browse among the mooney-saving bargains in our gravity-free shopping center?”

  Lily thrust an arm in the air. “The Luna Crescent has its own exclusive promenade deck from which our guests may watch the cow jump over.”

  Clifford banged his fist on the table. “Goddamn it! You’ve done it again! You’ve fucked up another planet!”

  “The man is a lunatic!” Lily sat down and began tapping her foot. “What the hell kind of service is this? Where is that son of a bitch with the champagne?”

  Dwight shrugged. “Perhaps if we tried again to open the bars. One of us could find him and bring him back.”

  “Well, for God’s sake, let’s not just sit here!” Lily got up. “C’mon, you two. Here’s a chance to use your brains. Push!”

  As the four of them leaned against the bars, the outer door opened. Lily yelled at Petit Meurice. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “If you think we’re going to recommend this place, you’re crazy!” Dwight shouted.

  “I don’t care what it costs, I want my own table!” Clifford said. “And where are those goddamn potato chips I ordered?”

  “Are we out yet?” Emma asked, still p
ushing against the bars.

  Petit Meurice reached for a new bottle and four fresh glasses. “One of my very favorites. Nineteen fifty-five.”

  “It’s about time,” Clifford said, angrily hurling his glass into the alcove.

  “I have friends at Michelin!” Dwight threw his glass down.

  “All right,” Emma said, tossing her glass, “one more for the moon.”

  “We might have died in here,” Lily yelled, smashing her glass. “How incredibly thoughtless of you to leave your station! Next time, I damn well expect you back here before the bottle is finished!”

  Petit Meurice smiled. “I will not be leaving you alone anymore.”

  JUST as they were about to arrive in Epernay, Emile pulled off the road next to an unmarked van. “Le Dom, I wish you would let me stay.”

  Claude grasped Emile’s hand. “No. You must return at once.” He got out of the car and, without looking back, opened the rear door of the van.

  Edouard jumped up from the bench and helped Claude in. He banged twice on the partition to signal the driver. “What are we to do?” he asked nervously.

  “Have you the envelope?”

  Edouard opened it and began handing Claude its contents. “The used ticket from Paris. The conductor will say he remembers you because of the gold cigarette case. Actually, the conductor remembers you because his brother was Michel Limond, who helped us mislabel the Berlin shipments. The cab driver, René Cluny, sends his regards. He will say he left you near Pommel’s storage building. One of the maintenance staff, a young boy named Claude Dupret, who says his father named him after you, will tell them he saw you enter the south entrance to the caves. And last, there is this.” He handed Claude a gun.

  “It will be traced to Meurice?”

  “Yes. But I cannot believe we have come to this.”

  “Nor I.” Claude checked that all the chambers were loaded and then put the gun in his pocket.

  The van pulled into the covered garage that led directly to the Château Montaigne-Villiers. The inner corridor had a stone floor. Its white walls were lined with portraits of the Montaignes and the Villierses. Claude walked quickly toward the Salon d’Est. Without knocking, he threw open the door. Isabelle sat crocheting. Robert paced angrily. Le Comte stared out the window. They turned quickly. “There is no time to lose!” Claude shouted. They ran down the corridor after him.