Black Diamond - Martin Walker [63]
“He had the son of an old army friend to stay for a weekend, maybe ten days ago,” said Roland. “An Italian-sounding name or maybe Corsican. It began with an S. He was a middle-aged guy, a fancy dresser. Sanni or Salani or something like that.”
“Savani?” asked J-J.
“That’s it. Savani. I’d seen him before. It wasn’t the first time he stayed at Hercule’s place.”
“The man who sponsored Vinh’s citizenship papers,” said Bruno, exchanging glances with J-J.
“I think it would have been the son of Capitaine Antoine Savani,” the baron interjected. “He ran the Deuxième Bureau in Saigon back when Hercule was stationed in Vietnam. He’d have been Hercule’s boss. I met the son, Pierre or Paul, a couple of times at Hercule’s place.”
“Hercule had a lot of Vietnamese visitors as well, from being stationed there in the fifties,” Nicco said. “He had quite a social life, old Hercule. Anyway, let’s drink to him, a great friend and a good hunter.”
After the toast, Bruno turned to the soup, and the baron lifted the lid from the pot of venison hanging over the fire and began to stir, breathing in the rich smell of the wine sauce.
“Ah, that’s good,” he said. “You added some black pudding?”
Bruno nodded from his place by the soup. “But now comes something else,” he said, and took from his pocket the truffle he had found in the woods, holding it up for all to see.
“Putain, but they’d give you a million centimes for that one up in Paris,” said Nicco. “It’s a real black diamond, black as night.”
“Gigi found it this evening, just before we came here. And since it’s Hercule’s dinner, that makes it Hercule’s truffle, and we’ll enjoy it for him.”
Bruno passed it around, and each man took a slow, reverent sniff. Then Bruno began to shave the black diamond into the soup, its scent expanding with the warmth of the pot and filling the room.
Hubert opened another bottle of champagne and refilled the glasses. The mayor washed two big lettuces that he had brought from his greenhouse, and Sergeant Jules began to make his special vinaigrette. Roland chopped garlic and parsley for the pommes sarladaises, and one son spooned duck fat into two giant frying pans, while the other dried off blanched potatoes. Bruno grated nutmeg into his simmering soup, tasted it and added salt before stirring in the pot of thick cream brought by Stéphane. Jo donned a thick glove to take the long spit from the fire and eased a pigeon onto each of the warming plates. From the stove he took the reduction of red wine and stock that he had made and poured it into a saucepan of cabbage and bacon he had prepared. Bruno never ceased to be amazed at how these cooking tasks were done almost automatically, the legacy of dozens of hunters’ dinners such as this and feasts for family and neighbors after the annual slaughter of a pig.
At last all was ready, and they headed into the baron’s adjoining dining room, where more logs were crackling in the stone fireplace. Reflections of the flickering lights of the candles on the long table of chestnut, darkened with age and decades of polishing, danced on the array of carafes, each with its cork beside it to identify the wine within. Bruno brought in his soup, and the baron took his place at the head of the table. The foot of the table was left empty, reserved for their absent friend. In his place stood a framed photograph of Hercule taken the previous year, standing beside a deer he had shot. The baron gestured J-J to sit at his left and Bruno at his right, and the others arranged themselves along each side.
The table, which the baron claimed had been in the same place since the chartreuse was built three centuries earlier, was more than three feet wide and could easily have sat half a dozen more. At a sign from the baron, Hubert served the first of the wines as they all remained standing, waiting for the customary toast. Hubert poured the last of the carafe