[English Story] The Winepress

"You
don't
have to
be
French
to enjoy
a decent
red
wine,"
Charles
Jousselin de Gruse used to tell his foreign guests
whenever he entertained them in Paris. "But you do have
to be French to recognize one," he would add with a
laugh.
After a lifetime in the French diplomatic corps, the Count
de Gruse lived with his wife in an elegant townhouse on
Quai Voltaire. He was a likeable man, cultivated of
course, with a well-deserved reputation as a generous
host and an amusing raconteur.
This evening's guests were all European and all equally
convinced that immigration was at the root of Europe's
problems. Charles de Gruse said nothing. He had always
concealed his contempt for such ideas. And, in any case,
he had never much cared for these particular guests.
The first of the red Bordeaux was being served with the
veal, and one of the guests turned to de Gruse.
"Come on, Charles, it's simple arithmetic. Nothing to do
with race or colour. You must've had bags of experience
of this sort of thing. What d'you say?"
"Yes, General. Bags!"
Without another word, de Gruse picked up his glass and
introduced his bulbous, winey nose. After a moment he
looked up with watery eyes.
"A truly full-bodied Bordeaux," he said warmly, "a wine
among wines."
The four guests held their glasses to the light and
studied their blood-red contents. They all agreed that it
was the best wine they had ever tasted.
One by one the little white lights along the Seine were
coming on, and from the first-floor windows you could
see the brightly lit bateaux-mouches passing through the
arches of the Pont du Carrousel. The party moved on to
a dish of game served with a more vigorous claret.
"Can you imagine," asked de Gruse, as the claret was
poured, "that there are people who actually serve wines
they know nothing about?"
"Really?" said one of the guests, a German politician.
"Personally, before I uncork a bottle I like to know what's
in it."
"But how? How can anyone be sure?"
"I like to hunt around the vineyards. Take this place I
used to visit in Bordeaux. I got to know the winegrower
there personally. That's the way to know what you're
drinking."
"A matter of pedigree, Charles," said the other politician.
"This fellow," continued de Gruse as though the
Dutchman had not spoken, "always gave you the story
behind his wines. One of them was the most
extraordinary story I ever heard. We were tasting, in his
winery, and we came to a cask that made him frown. He
asked if I agreed with him that red Bordeaux was the
best wine in the world. Of course, I agreed. Then he
made the strangest statement.
"'The wine in this cask,' he said, and there were tears in
his eyes, 'is the best vintage in the world. But it started
its life far from the country where it was grown.'"
De Gruse paused to check that his guests were being
served.
"Well?" said the Dutchman.
De Gruse and his wife exchanged glances.
"Do tell them, mon chéri," she said.
De Gruse leaned forwards, took another sip of wine, and
dabbed his lips with the corner of his napkin. This is the
story he told them.
At the age of twenty-one, Pierre - that was the name he
gave the winegrower - had been sent by his father to
spend some time with his uncle in Madagascar. Within
two weeks he had fallen for a local girl called Faniry, or
"Desire" in Malagasy. You could not blame him. At
seventeen she was ravishing. In the Malagasy sunlight
her skin was golden. Her black, waist-length hair, which
hung straight beside her cheeks, framed large,
fathomless eyes. It was a genuine coup de foudre , for
both of them. Within five months they were married.
Faniry had no family, but Pierre's parents came out from
France for the wedding, even though they did not strictly
approve of it, and for three years the young couple lived
very happily on the island of Madagascar. Then, one
day, a telegram came from France. Pierre's parents and
his only brother had been killed in a car crash. Pierre
took the next flight home to attend the funeral and
manage the vineyard left by his father.
Faniry followed two weeks later. Pierre was grief-stricken,
but with Faniry he settled down to running the vineyard.
His family, and the lazy, idyllic days under a tropical sun,
were gone forever. But he was very happily married, and
he was very well-off. Perhaps, he reasoned, life in
Bordeaux would not be so bad.
But he was wrong. It soon became obvious that Faniry
was jealous. In Madagascar she had no match. In France
she was jealous of everyone. Of the maids. Of the
secretary. Even of the peasant girls who picked the
grapes and giggled at her funny accent. She convinced
herself that Pierre made love to each of them in turn.
She started with insinuations, simple, artless ones that
Pierre hardly even recognized. Then she tried blunt
accusation in the privacy of their bedroom. When he
denied that, she resorted to violent, humiliating
denouncements in the kitchens, the winery, the
plantations. The angel that Pierre had married in
Madagascar had become a termagant, blinded by
jealousy. Nothing he did or said could help. Often, she
would refuse to speak for a week or more, and when at
last she spoke it would only be to scream yet more
abuse or swear again her intention to leave him. By the
third vine-harvest it was obvious to everyone that they
loathed each other.
One Friday evening, Pierre was down in the winery,
working on a new electric winepress. He was alone. The
grape-pickers had left. Suddenly the door opened and
Faniry entered, excessively made up. She walked straight
up to Pierre, flung her arms around his neck, and
pressed herself against him. Even above the fumes from
the pressed grapes he could smell that she had been
drinking.
"Darling," she sighed, "what shall we do?"
He badly wanted her, but all the past insults and
humiliating scenes welled up inside him. He pushed her
away.
"But, darling, I'm going to have a baby."
"Don't be absurd. Go to bed! You're drunk. And take that
paint off. It makes you look like a tart."
Faniry's face blackened, and she threw herself at him
with new accusations. He had never cared for her. He
cared only about sex. He was obsessed with it. And with
white women. But the women in France, the white
women, they were the tarts, and he was welcome to
them. She snatched a knife from the wall and lunged at
him with it. She was in tears, but it took all his strength
to keep the knife from his throat. Eventually he pushed
her off, and she stumbled towards the winepress. Pierre
stood, breathing heavily, as the screw of the press
caught at her hair and dragged her in. She screamed,
struggling to free herself. The screw bit slowly into her
shoulder and she screamed again. Then she fainted,
though whether from the pain or the fumes he was not
sure. He looked away until a sickening sound told him it
was over. Then he raised his arm and switched the
current off.
The guests shuddered visibly and de Gruse paused in his
story.
"Well, I won't go into the details at table," he said. "Pierre
fed the rest of the body into the press and tidied up.
Then he went up to the house, had a bath, ate a meal,
and went to bed. The next day, he told everyone Faniry
had finally left him and gone back to Madagascar. No-
one was surprised."
He paused again. His guests sat motionless, their eyes
turned towards him.
"Of course," he continued, "Sixty-five was a bad year for
red Bordeaux. Except for Pierre's. That was the
extraordinary thing. It won award after award, and
nobody could understand why."
The general's wife cleared her throat.
"But, surely," she said, "you didn't taste it?"
"No, I didn't taste it, though Pierre did assure me his wife
had lent the wine an incomparable aroma."
"And you didn't, er, buy any?" asked the general.
"How could I refuse? It isn't every day that one finds
such a pedigree."
There was a long silence. The Dutchman shifted
awkwardly in his seat, his glass poised midway between
the table and his open lips. The other guests looked
around uneasily at each other. They did not understand.
"But look here, Gruse," said the general at last, "you
don't mean to tell me we're drinking this damned woman
now, d'you?"
De Gruse gazed impassively at the Englishman.
"Heaven forbid, General," he said slowly. "Everyone
knows that the best vintage should always come first."