Pinot Noir

by Lorraine Evanoff

  “Come on, now, Annabel,” Arnaud said. “It’s getting late and Madame Petrov is very busy.”

  “Merci, Madame Petrov, au revoir,” Annabel said, giving Madame Petrov two cheek kisses. Then she gave two cheek kisses to Evelyne and walked toward the door. Evelyne followed Annabel, revealing a slight limp, but carrying herself with grace and poise. Madame Petrov took Evelyne’s hand to keep her from going further.

  “Au revoir, Evelyne,” Annabel said, hesitating to leave.

  “Come now,” Arnaud insisted. “You can visit your friend again sometime.” His promise seemed to cheer up both girls’ enough to get Annabel to leave.

  T W O

  December 10, 2001

  Crystal blue Caribbean waters turned milky against the white sand, the rhythmic swishing was accompanied by heavy breathing and an occasional grunt. Louise pondered the view. The palm fronds casting symmetrical shadows over her paradise like prison bars.

  “If you must force it, you’re doing it wrong,” Louise said.

  Flip-flops littered the entrance to the high-ceilinged thatch-roofed structure. Bare toes spread on yoga mats and the heavy breathing continued. An athletic silver-haired woman gracefully held a plank pose, her sinewy arms in a push-up position, her strong legs and back rigid. In one motion, she bent at the elbows, lowered her body, glided forward, and lifted her head and chest up into a cobra pose. Next to her, wearing a matching wedding band on a pudgy ring finger was a man doing a shakier version of the pose and providing the grunts.

  “Relax into it,” Louise Moscow said. “Now, lower your head and raise your sit bones up to the sky, arms straight, head down, in downward dog.” The pudgy man struggled with the inverted V-pose. Louise gently pressed her hand between his shoulder blades as he strove to straighten his legs. “Bent knees are fine. Relax your neck and let your head drop gently to make sure you’re not holding any tension. Breathe.” Her coaxing seemed to relieve his strain. “Now, walk your feet to your hands and come into a standing position, Tadasana, Mountain Pose. Hands together at your heart. Let’s do one more sun salutation. Reach your arms up. Now bend forward at the hips. Let your arms fall toward your feet. Excellent. Your chakras are opening. Your efforts will be rewarded 10-fold, with an icy Gin Ginger Baker.”

  Whoops of excitement from the group sounded like birdcalls. Louise returned to the front of the class and sat on her mat. “Sit with legs crossed in Lotus Pose, hands resting on your knees. Breathe deeply. Exhale. OM.” The group hummed OM in unison, reaching the Shumann resonance of 432 Hz,2 the fundamental “beat” of everything in nature. “Remember, the last three syllables of individuality spell duality. Hands together at your heart.” Louise bowed her head. “Namaste.”

  Louise rose and walked to the bar, the yogis following like imprinted goslings. They squatted on the teakwood barstools or at tables on the beachfront terrace. Equally in her element behind the bar as on the yoga mat, Louise poured fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice into the blender, added ice, fresh ginger root, gin, and a splash of ginger liqueur, then blended until smooth.

  “That sound is like OM in another key,” said the silver-haired woman who sat at the bar in front of Louise.

  “Ha! I’m going to use that one,” Louise laughed.

  “Genius!” the husband said, reading a sign above the bar. “Do three sun salutations and get a free Gin Ginger Baker.” On cue, Louise slid the frothy libation in front of him. He sipped. “Mmmm, worth every drop of sweat.”

  His wife pointed a thumb at him and smirked. “I’ve been trying to get him to do yoga for thirty years. Cheers to you.” She raised her glass in a toast and drank. She introduced her husband and herself. “Pat and Mike.”

  “Nice to meet you, Pat.” Louise put her hand out to the woman. “I’m Karen.”

  “Actually, I’m Mike,” the woman said, shaking Louise’s hand. “He’s Pat. My mom was a big John Wayne fan.”

  Louise looked perplexed for a moment. “Oh, that’s right, Marion Michael.”

  “I didn’t like Marion, so I took Michael, which became Mike.”

  “Michael is a great name,” Louise filled glasses on a tray.

  “This is a great place,” Mike said. “Are you on SixDegrees.com?”

  “No Internet,” Big Steve said, carrying a bucket of ice out from the kitchen and pouring it into one of the bar sinks.

  “This is Éti,” Louise said, easily slipping into their undercover names.

  “How do you get the news out here?” Mike asked.

  “TV,” Big Steve aka Éti said, pointing to a questionably dusty Sony Trinitron behind the bar. Being a huge black man, Big Steve always came off as intimidating at first, until he grinned. “Welcome to paradise!” Big Steve went about his work, wiping glasses and serving customers. But his eyes were in perpetual motion. He took the tray of drinks and left the bar to distribute them.

  “Quite an imposing man,” Mike said.

  “Éti? We go way back,” Louise said, quickly changing the subject. “Can I top you folks off?” Without waiting for a reply, she emptied the remaining contents of the blender into their glasses.

  “So, you’re not on SixDegrees?” Mike asked again.

  “We don’t advertise. The only way to find this place is through a certified PADI dive master,” Louise said.

  “What did you do before this?”

  “School teacher.”

  “A teacher!” Mike laughed. “That’s why you’re such a good yoga instructor.”

  “I’ll take a yoga mat over a chalk board any day.”

  “Don’t you miss civilization?” Mike asked.

  “Let me see.” Louise’s pretended to think about it. “Nope. Not for a minute. If I want a bath, I walk a few yards and jump into the clearest waters in the world. The saltwater is better than any hair gel, and coconut oil is my moisturizer.”

  Louise had completed her adjustment to island life. After the precarious beginning, and her yoga breakthrough, she had gone native and was now quite convincing in her new role. After her mini-breakdown, she convinced the “protection program” – mostly her father – to allow her to get off the island every six months or so to attend Iqbal Singh’s yoga retreats, and soon her modest initiation into that spirituality morphed into a new lifestyle as Singh’s most ardent pupil. The master even allowed her to teach yoga techniques to others, and she became a certified instructor.

  The combination of the yoga and the Tiki bar had become the talk of the islands, and even tourists who weren’t divers found their way by boat and came to her shores. She was radiant in the adjustment, her soft skin effortlessly hydrated by the humidity and her blonde hair naturally highlighted by the sun. Her sparkling eyes the color of the green sea glass dangling from her hand-made mobiles were also in constant motion.

  After a while, weary from spirits, sea and sunshine, the customers hopped back on the dive boat to the mainland for siesta.

  “I’m gonna take a break,” Louise said, wiping her hands with a bar towel.

  “Go on. I got dis,” Big Steve said.

  “Call me when the afternoon dive boats arrive.”

  Louise slipped out the back down a pathway to her bungalow and changed out of her yoga pants and into a bikini. She wrapped a sarong around her hips and walked down the path to her private beach. She switched on jazz sitar music and opened to the bookmarked page of a first edition, A Course in Miracles, by Helen Shucman. But her neck was tight, and she couldn’t focus.

  She got up and removed her sarong. Then, as though on wires, she did gravity-defying yoga poses. She bent at her hips pressing her upper body down against her legs, then placed her hands on the ground and lifted her legs into a handstand. She held for a minute, taking in the full effect of the blood flowing to her brain and to see things from a different perspective.

  The sound of a violin lilting over the sitar music set her thoughts to Jean-Philippe and Paris and how she had gotten to the island in the first place. She had been enlisted by the CIA and
FBI for an inside job, a strategy that had exceeded expectations. But when the dust had settled, she had lost the job, the Paris apartment, and her fiancé, Jean-Philippe. The only consolation prize was a letter in the mail from Jean-Philippe, containing a check for a million dollars, proceeds from the sale of a Stradivarius violin sold through the offshore company she had helped him set up.3 She would gladly have exchanged the money for the love of her life.

  She blessed the yoga techniques for getting her through the last three months. Ever since September 11th, 2001, she felt the old isolation symptoms returning, especially being far from her friends and family during that tragic time. Adhering to the yoga therapy eased the pain of the loss and allowed her to gain perspective on it, while admitting to herself there was a lingering need to help out, to go somewhere and solve some aspect of the post-9/11 world. She was craving some different type of action.

  She moved through punishing yoga poses, raising her heart rate and triggering profuse sweat. After that first lesson with Iqbal, yoga had become a self-medication. As her technique evolved, so did her ability to create inner calm from life’s chaos. Louise finished and rested in child’s pose.

  “Karen, the first dive boat just got here,” Big Steve said, using her island name in case anyone could hear.

  She remained in the fetal-like pose, letting her heart rate return to normal. “Is it already after 3 o’clock?”

  “Yep, gotta bunch-a thirsty divers.”

  “No drinking while diving, so they will want booze.”

  “Hungry too. I got the conch salad ready.”

  “What would I do without you, Éti?” Louise sprang up to a handstand that continued into a walkover and back to her feet. She followed Big Steve up the path stopping at the outdoor shower. She pulled the chain and the rainwater rinsed away sand, sweat and sorrow. She tied the sarong around her hips and caught up with him.

  “Feelin’ better?” Big Steve asked.

  “Paradise just isn’t the same after 9/11,” Louise admitted.

  “You comin’ down with rock fever again?”

  “Maybe.”

  They entered the bar, which was now bustling with customers, all of whom turned to look at Louise. Unflustered by attention, Louise wore her beauty like secondhand clothes, humbly salvaged for a new life.

  “Karen!” The dive master greeted Louise with a hug.

  “Larry! How’s the dive season looking this year?”

  “The recession and 9/11 haven’t helped.”

  “But divers will always find a way to get out there.”

  “We should get you back out there,” Larry prodded. “You’d be the main attraction.”

  “I’ll practice balancing a ball on my nose.” Louise lined glasses up on the bar. “What can I get you folks?”

  “Diver’s Delight for everyone,” Larry said. “I’ve been bragging about it all morning and expectations are high.”

  “Conch salad and Gin Ginger Bakers coming right up. There are live conchs out in the beds if anyone wants fresh conch penis,” Louise said, turning heads.

  “Who wants penis?” Larry yelled to the divers, which were a mix of couples and single men and women, all highly experienced divers and avid lovers of the sea. Only one hand went up for conch penis, a gregarious man in his late forties.

  “Robert wants conch penis!” Larry said.

  “Okay,” Louise said. “Follow Éti!”

  Half the group followed Big Steve out to harvest a live conch. The rest of the group hung out at the bar with Louise.

  “Now for the sane people,” Louise said, filling glasses with her special cocktail. The people on the beach cheered, Louise turned up the music and it was a party. She grabbed her Polaroid camera and went out to the beach. It took a steady hand to extract the conch penis without damaging it. Louise snapped photos as Big Steve performed the procedure and dangled the clear noodle-like penis over Robert’s mouth. He slurped up briny delicacy and grinned.

  “Aphrodisiac!” Big Steve said.

  “Look out, everybody!” Robert exclaimed.

  Louise continued to take photos as two more divers performed the ritual. Then they all headed back into the bar. Louise set out platters of salad, bread, and cheese, then mixed another batch of drinks.

  Big Steve placed large bowls of fresh conch salad on the bar.

  “Pièce de résistance,” he said turning the music louder.

  Robert approached Louise. “I heard there was a specialty drink being served?” His irresistible charm and dimples caught her off guard.

  “Is this your first Gin Ginger Baker?” Louise asked.

  “Yes, I was busy eating conch penis,” Robert said.

  Louise poured him a cocktail and one for herself. They clinked glasses.

  “To paradise,” Robert said.

  “To conch penis,” Louise said.

  T H R E E

  December 11, 2001

  The sound of steady thrashing and a stifled moan reached a crescendo of agony in a final release, then silence. Sun rays refracting through the stained-glass window illuminated Jean-Philippe’s glistening brow. Wisps of dark hair stuck to his jawline creating a wild frame for his face. His eyes were like black agates trained on the figure of the Virgin Mary gazing down on him.

  “We fly unto thy patronage, O Holy Mother of God. Despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us from all dangers, O Ever Glorious and Blessed Virgin.”

  Jean-Philippe raised the cat o’ nine tails again for the next sequence of lashings.

  “Such sanctification is a dwindling practice.”

  Jean-Philippe ceased his ritual, recognizing the voice as though it were his own. He rose to his feet gathering the loose ends of the whip in his left hand and the rosary in his right, then folded both into his vestment sleeves.

  “Father, what brings you here?”

  Jérôme de Villeneuve stood face to face with Jean-Philippe. A mirror image except Jérôme’s dark mane was streaked with gray.

  “My only son has become a recluse. I am concerned.”

  Jean-Philippe waved his hand indicating the place of worship. “This is my home now, Father.”

  “Working undercover was one thing. But this abstinence and religious devotion is excessive.”

  “I made a commitment,” Jean-Philippe said.

  “You fulfilled your obligations.”

  “Would you have me relinquish my moral obligations just because I solved one case?”

  “You saved our family from scandal and ruin,” Jérôme said. “Criminals were trying to extort us and destroy our name.”

  “So, I saved the family name and now I should move on?”

  “Do you intend to do this undercover work indefinitely?”

  “Interpol has more important cases than my inheritance.”

  Jérôme’s usual diplomacy skills were being tested. Exasperated, he went for the jugular. “Your mother needs you.”

  “Mother needs me?”

  With clenched jaw, Jérôme conceded. “I need you. You are the sole heir…”

  “A good name is more desirable than great riches. To be esteemed is better than silver or gold.”

  “Jean-Philippe…”

  “Father.”

  “Yes, son?”

  “No. Father Jean-Philippe.”

  Jérôme took a breath then continued. “We are praying for you to come home. Live your life.”

  “The life I knew is gone forever.”

  “You can pick up where you left off…”

  Jean-Philippe cut him off, “As long as it’s without Louise. Yes, so you have said.”

  “Our family name was already in peril. The international banking scandal Louise Moscow was involved in would have completely destroyed us. Then she conveniently disappeared…”

  Jean-Philippe’s grip tightened on the whip. He bowed his head to hide his anger. “This is my life for now, Father.”

  Jérôme made one final plea. “Your mother and I expect you
to carry on the family legacy.”

  “An inheritance claimed too soon will not be blessed at the end,” Jean-Philippe replied.

  “You have a bible verse for everything, yet you abandon your own family.”

  Jean-Philippe locked eyes with his father’s. “I promise you, when my work here is done, I will return. For now, this is where I belong.”

  Jérôme conceded the battle. He took a sealed envelope from inside his jacket. “This is why I came. To give you this.”

  “What is it?”

  “I did not open it. But it looks official. Apparently, they didn’t know how to contact you, so they delivered it to us.”

  “Please give Mother my love.” Jean-Philippe took the envelope and embraced his father.

  “We will be waiting for you when you are ready to come home.” He turned to leave, his silhouette fading down the aisle and out of the cathedral.

  Jean-Philippe unclenched his hand that held the whip and eyed the pattern of the woven leather embedded in his palm. Placing the whip under his arm he opened the envelope and read the notice. He returned to the statue of Mary, knelt down on the cold stone floor and resumed his penance, striking more forcefully than before.

  After ten more blows, the mortification of the flesh was complete. He was grateful for the salvific practices he had learned while working undercover in the monastery. Not only had the cover served him in his Interpol investigations, but immersing himself and fully assimilating into the spiritualism had given him the strength to endure the emptiness of life without Louise. Jean-Philippe rose, the throbbing in his knees dissipating as he strode past the medieval fresco of Saint Dominic kneeling before the crucifix clutching an instrument of discipline. Jean-Philippe donned a wide-brimmed black hat that hung by the door, but it did little to counteract the blinding sun as he exited.