In fact, jackets were already coming off as the guests paused after a first course-nothing serious, in view of what was to come-of quails’ eggs spread with tapenade, brandade de morue on toast, and crudités. The Roussels were there, with daughter and dog. Madame Passepartout, in dazzling autumnal hues of red and gold, had brought her special friend, Maurice, his shaved head, silver earring, and tattooed forearms marking him out as one of the region’s less conventional bank managers. Fanny had invited her chef and his wife, and, to make up a round dozen, young Ahmed, who helped in the restaurant’s kitchen.
Charlie had turned away from Max to resume his efforts to pass on to the Roussels some of the basic curiosities of the English language. “There is no sex in English, you see,” he was saying, “no le and la, which makes life much easier. Plus facile.”
“No sex,” repeated a thoughtful Roussel. “But much cricket, non?”
Max left them to plunge ever deeper into the thickets of English grammar, and followed his nose into the kitchen, where Christie and Fanny had just removed from the oven a vast, deep-sided earthenware dish. It sat on the kitchen table, the size of a cartwheel, with a golden crust of bread crumbs covering the top.
“Voilà,” said Fanny, “le vrai cassoulet de Toulouse.” Max looked at her and smiled. He couldn’t imagine any other woman who could look desirable while wearing oven gloves. She took them off and ran her fingers through her hair.
Max bent over the dish and breathed in the heavy, rich aroma, humming with the promise of cholesterol. “God, that smells good. What did you put in it?”
Fanny started to count off the ingredients on her fingers: “White beans, confit of duck, garlic sausage, salt pork, breast and shoulder of lamb, duck fat, baby onions, loin of pork, saucisses de Toulouse (of course), tomatoes, white wine, garlic, a few herbs…”
“Max,” said Christie, “stop drooling and do something useful.” She gave him Fanny’s oven gloves. “Careful when you take it out. It’s heavy.”
The dish was greeted with a round of applause when it reached the table, and Christie was given the visitor’s privilege of making the first ceremonial incision in the crust, releasing a fragrant sigh of steam. Plates were passed and filled, the wine was tasted and admired, the cook was toasted, and then, as frequently happens when cassoulet is served, silence descended on the table.
Madame Passepartout was the first to recover her voice. Emboldened by her second-or even her third-glass, she stretched over and tapped Max on the shoulder. “Well?” she said to him in a whisper that carried the full length of the table, nodding toward Christie and Charlie, “when are they going to announce it?”
“I think they’re waiting for you and Maurice to go first.” Madame Passepartout bridled. Maurice seemed to be hypnotized by something in his cassoulet.
Max called across to Charlie, “Madame here is dying to know if your intentions are honorable,” and was rewarded by a blush from Christie and a broad beam from Charlie. Translations didn’t seem to be necessary.
It was almost five o’clock before the evening chill set in and guests began to disperse. Christie and Charlie put on sweaters and went for a stroll in the vines. Others went down to the village, to recover in the café; or to nurse their stomachs in front of the television; or, in Roussel’s case, to take a nap before dinner. Max waved the last of them good-bye and went inside. He lit a fire in the kitchen and put on the Diana Krall CD that Fanny had bought him as a memento of their first dance on the night of the village fête. As he was rolling up his sleeves and contemplating the mountains of post-lunch debris, he heard footsteps behind him and felt Fanny’s arms slip around his waist.
He had to tilt his head to hear the whisper in his ear. “I don’t think you’re going to do the dishes.”
“No?”
“No. You’re going to do something else.”
He turned so that they were face-to-face. “Well, we could dance.”
Her hands moved slowly up his back. “That would be a start.”
A Note About The Author
Peter Mayle’s enthusiasm for wine dates from the time, many years ago, when he wrote advertising copy for a firm of London wine merchants. Naturally, a considerable amount of research was involved, and one bottle led inevitably to another. A devout supporter of the French Paradox, he now lives in Provence with his wife and their three dogs. This is his ninth book, and his fifth novel, to be published by Knopf.