the wooded hills above the chateau.
“True, but we can’t get the jeeps through the vine rows,” the major said. “Watching you, I was thinking that it would make sense to put some of the patrols on horseback. Have you got any spare horses we can use? Two or three would do it but I wouldn’t mind borrowing yours.”
“I might be using him myself,” said Bruno. “But Julien at the Domaine keeps a couple of horses for hotel guests. I’m sure he’d be happy to add them to the bill.”
Leading his horse, Bruno walked with the two men to the small stable yard at the rear of the hotel-chateau and installed Hector in an empty stall, where he snorted and then gazed at the two other horses there. Julien was happy to rent them out for the day, and after saddling the two rather elderly mares Bruno and the two soldiers set out to ride the property. The two horses knew their territory and walked slowly through the vines.
They rode back to the river, where Bruno suggested that one squad might be based at Gerard’s canoe site on the other bank. After a full circuit of the Domaine, the major pronounced himself satisfied, and they returned to the stable yard. Julien invited them in for a p’tit apero of Ricard, but Bruno said he had to go.
At Pamela’s he unsaddled Hector and rubbed him down, then drove back with Gigi to his own house to resume his cooking of the navarin d’agneau. He lit a fire in the stone cheminee and then decanted a bottle of the Pomerol that he and the baron bought by the barrel. They bottled it themselves with friends on a bibulous autumn afternoon each year. He fed his ducks and chickens and then Gigi, calling him in from his patrol of the grounds, then quickly showered and changed into khaki slacks and his favorite green corduroy shirt.
At the back of his mind, where he tried with little success to keep it, was the question of how the evening would progress. Was this to be a dinner of old friends and former lovers who had exchanged passion for simple affection? Or would Isabelle be offended if he did not invite her back into the familiar bed? Bruno knew which he’d prefer. Isabelle entranced him in ways that were beyond the usual urgings of lust, in ways that balanced the sadness that he would feel when she left for Paris again, as she always did. He chided himself for the touch of self- pity that had crept into his thoughts.
A car horn gave a cheerful double beep from the lane, echoed by the joyful yelps of Gigi. Curious, thought Bruno, that his dog was so devoted to Isabelle, while only mildly affectionate toward Pamela, who made just as much fuss over him and saw him far more often. Was there a message for him in that? Bruno thought fleetingly, as he opened the door to greet her and welcome her back into his home.
“What a lovely fire,” she said after hugging him briefly on the doorstep and then advancing into his living room. She shrugged off her coat to reveal a black turtleneck sweater and a black skirt that came to below her knees. Elegant boots of black leather and a belt of heavy silver chains completed the outfit. “I’ve never been here before when it’s cold enough for a fire.”
She reached into her bag and brought out a box wrapped in brown paper and sealed with red wax. This was the characteristic sign of one of the better bottles from the renowned cave of Hubert de Montignac, which for many Frenchmen was St. Denis’s greatest claim to fame.
“It was so nice to see Hubert again. When I told him I was eating with you he suggested I get you this, but said it wasn’t for drinking tonight. You should really keep it a couple of years.”
“Then we’ll save it for a future visit,” he said, breaking the seal and unwrapping a bottle of Clos des Ursulines Pommard ’05. “This is wonderful, thank you.”
“Hubert said it was high time you widened your horizons beyond your beloved Pomerols,” she said. “I told him how much trouble I always had in getting you to widen them as far as Paris.”
When he offered her a drink, Isabelle asked for mineral water, saying she’d have to drive back, so two glasses of wine with dinner would be her limit for the evening. Well, that seemed to define the evening ahead, thought Bruno. As he poured himself a glass of wine Isabelle turned the conversation to business.
“What did you make of Carlos’s little speech?” she asked.
“It was plausible.” He shrugged. “We know how the politicians are and I can see his minister trying to keep this summit from being overwhelmed by another GAL scandal. But I was surprised he hadn’t told us before about this prospect of an ETA cease-fire.”
“There’s a lot he hasn’t told us,” she said, stroking Gigi’s ears as he gazed up at her in adoration. “Maybe I’ve been lucky, liaising mainly with the British so far. They do share and they tell us when they can’t.”
“You’ve spent more time with him. What do you think of Carlos?”
“He thinks of himself as a ladies’ man, holds doors open and sends flowers, but he’s too sure of himself and there are little flashes of the predator beneath the good manners. The more I see him, the less I like him, and I think he could be a very accomplished liar. That’s why I wasn’t altogether convinced by his speech today.”
“You noticed the way he put his hand on his heart?”
She nodded, grinning at the memory. “Quite the actor, our Spanish colleague.” She paused and bent down to attend to Gigi, who had rolled onto his back with his paws in the air, his eyes beseeching for a tummy rub. “What’s for dinner?”
“We’re starting with a soupe de poisson, followed by navarin d’agneau with fresh spring vegetables and then a mache salad with cheese, and I’d better get started on the rouille. Come into the kitchen with me while I do it.”
He began by setting a pot with salted water on the stove to boil for the vegetables, put a spoon of duck fat into his frying pan and tore some of the bread he sliced that morning into generously large croutons. Then he grated the rest into bread crumbs, sliced and squashed some garlic and began blending it into a paste with some olive oil and the defrosted red peppers. The croutons were fried until they were golden, and he placed them inside the oven for the interiors to dry fully.
“I like watching you cook,” she said, adding a small splash of Bergerac Sec to her Perrier. “You never seem to pause, one movement flows into the other.”
“It’s just practice,” he said, adding the navets and carrots and spring onions to the boiling water and beginning to grate a block of Parmesan cheese. He set his timer to five minutes. “What do you eat in Paris?”
“I wake up with orange juice, have a croissant for breakfast in a cafe, a bowl of soup or salad at lunch or sometimes just some fruit if I’m working through,” she said. “In the evenings, restaurants or dinner parties two or three nights a week and the rest is omelettes, pizzas and takeout Chinese or Vietnamese. My refrigerator would break your heart, just milk, eggs and orange juice and frozen pizzas in the freezer.”
“What about those things you learned to cook with me?”
“Once a month, I try to give a dinner party, usually all women, and spend a day attempting to read my handwriting from that notebook where I wrote down your recipes.” He turned to her, pleased at the thought of her cooking his dishes. She shrugged in return. “You’d be surprised how few women still cook in Paris, at least the ones I know, with jobs like mine. When I go to a dinner, it’s usually catered or bought in from a traiteur. It’s the way we live now.”
“Reminds me of that Prevert poem in the book you sent me, ‘Dejeuner du matin.’ ”
“I know it, about the guy who sits and stirs his coffee and says nothing and has his cigarette and says nothing and puts on his hat and goes and the girl is left crying.”
“It hardly sounds like France,” he said.
“Paris never was France,” she said. “Sunday brunches are fashionable now, champagne and orange juice and eggs Florentine and bagels with smoked salmon. Waffles with maple syrup are suddenly all the rage. When I got back to the office from the convalescent home, they’d bought me a waffle maker as a welcome-back present.”
She held out her glass for more Bergerac Sec. It was mainly wine now. He took the rouille and grated cheese and croutons to the table and began making the beurre manie, whisking butter and flour together to make a paste that he added, little by little, to the navarin until he judged the sauce thick enough. The buzzer sounded on the timer, and he added the vegetables to the stew and left it to simmer gently while he served the soup into two bowls and followed her to the big table in the living room. He brought the glasses, lit the candles and sat.
“Bon appetit,” he said, and her lip trembled.
“If you knew how often I remembered you saying that when I was in the hospital,” she said, and tried to laugh. “Those history books you sent me brought me back to earth, but I’m glad you read the Prevert.”
He stirred rouille into his soup, added some cheese and croutons and raised his glass to her.
“It’s good to see you at my table again, and I really appreciated the Prevert, even when a poem made me think of you.”
“Which one?”
