Chapter 14
They went to Bente’s favorite bistro, located on a narrow street five minutes from the hotel.
A place that wasn’t in the least trendy, but was all the more authentic for that.
Classic bistro food like boeuf bourguignon and the best moules frites she had ever eaten, plus a perfect steak tartare.
Bente would be happy to eat in restaurants for the rest of her life, and she found it difficult to choose, but eventually she opted for the mussels.
While they shared a bottle of wine and enjoyed their meal, they went through the schedule for the following day.
The atmosphere was relaxed, but Bente had a feeling that Didrik was having to make an effort to join in.
Sometimes he seemed to lose himself in silent, brooding thoughts, as if he were somewhere else.
He was nothing like the carefree, popular Didrik she had seen on TV—but as long as he did his job properly, she supposed that was okay.
When they left the restaurant, the cold struck Bente’s hot cheeks.
It had been warm inside, and in the clear air her powdery, spicy perfume was much more noticeable—then it vanished completely as the wind carried with it the smells of the city and the river.
The taste of the fresh Sancerre she had drunk with the mussels lingered in her mouth, a mixture of gooseberries and a mineral-based flint.
They wandered toward the wine bar where she’d first met Camille, and where she had worked sporadically during her time in Paris.
They walked through the lively Quartier Latin, past cafés where students were drinking cheap coffee, and bookstores whose illuminated windows cast a warm glow over the streets.
Down toward Montparnasse, then onto the street where the wine bar lay—it was on the ground floor of one of the old low-rise buildings.
The facade was white plaster, with green-painted wooden panels at the bottom.
As soon as they walked in, Bente heard a shriek of delight as Marion, the owner, came hurrying over.
“Bente, how lovely! I saw Camille the other day and she said you might drop by.” Marion kissed her on both cheeks and gave her a hug. “I’m so happy to see you!”
“Marion, these are my colleagues—Elnaz and Didrik.”
They greeted one another, and Marion beamed. “Bente was one of the best sommeliers I’ve ever had.”
Bente smiled, well aware that Marion always heaped praise on all her employees.
“It’s true,” Marion insisted. “You’re fantastic when it comes to wine knowledge, but what makes you special is that you love the wines and guests equally. You always wanted to give them the very best wine experience.” Marion hugged Bente again and showed them to a table.
Being here sent Bente spinning straight back to her time in Paris.
She had been twenty-one years old when she came to Paris to study French and wine.
Marion had employed her as a waitress and table clearer.
Bente worked in the bar in the evenings, absorbing every scrap of knowledge she could glean from the bar’s qualified sommeliers and from Marion herself, and studied French during the day.
Gradually she began to assist the sommeliers more and more, learning how to match the wines with the simple dishes the bar served.
Before long Marion offered to lend her the money to train as a sommelier herself—saying Bente could pay her back via a slight reduction in her wages.
The course was run by a well-established institution in the eleventh arrondissement.
In the big dark rooms with rustic old wooden tables and hard wooden benches, the walls lined with shelves and cabinets displaying new and old bottles of wine and countless books, Bente could almost smell the corks from all the wines that had been studied and tasted.
Her tutor was Frederic Revy, a top-notch young sommelier who was considered to be something of a pop star in wine circles.
Bente fell in love at first sight. His charisma and passion when he talked about and described the wines took her breath away.
He taught his students to link everything to their personal experiences, which made it easier to memorize the characteristics of each wine.
Bente found that she associated a Bordeaux with a dusty old library, its windows open to the garden where rotting autumn leaves swirled around and the smell of the wood-burning stove tickled her nostrils.
A young Pinot Noir from Burgundy made her think of a cool evening in early summer, when the first, slightly tart strawberries were sold at Marché Bastille—the local food market in the eleventh arrondissement—the sweet, fresh smell of the river in the air.
A Beaujolais would always remind her of a particular Thursday when the students in her training course went to a wine bar a couple of streets away, and she tasted the young, fruity wine for the first time.
When they were all seated around a narrow table at the back of the bar, Frederic said: This wine is like your first, hopeless love when you were young.
While he talked, he looked straight at Bente, and even though she wasn’t naive enough to imagine she was his first love, she realized that the attraction was mutual.
They visited many bars together. After she took her sommelier exam, they spent the summer in Paris in each other’s company.
He took her to small wine bars in Montmartre and Pigalle; they swirled and sniffed and drank the wines.
She built up her entire stock of aromas and tastes during that period.
Cocoa beans, croissants, old leather jackets, recently fallen rain on sun-warmed cobbles, freshly picked raspberries, bales of hay, a leather girth, compost heaps.
Looking back on them now, the five years she spent here felt like a dream.
In that same period, Bente had gotten to know Camille, who was already a qualified sommelier.
During the day they studied wine together; in the evenings they worked until closing time, then hit the nightclubs and bars with their colleagues.
Frederic would come to meet them, and Bente always went back to his apartment.
They went to the wine cellars of the best restaurants in Paris, which kept their wine lists in leather-bound books as thick as the French novels she studied in her small apartment when she wasn’t hanging out with either Frederic or Camille.
She had been madly in love, both with the city and with Frederic.
She had never experienced anything like it before, nor had she done so since.
They each ordered a glass of crémant and sat down. Toastiness, crispness layered with a wonderful creamy freshness, finishing with a sharpness that gave away the wine’s origins in the cool climate of Alsace. Delicious.
The hip-hop coming through the speakers was almost drowned out by the buzz of conversation as more and more people came in. The three of them moved their chairs closer together so that they could chat.
“Great place,” Elnaz said, looking around. “Here’s to our show, and here’s to Paris.” They clinked their glasses together.
“Have you been here before?” Bente asked, and both nodded.
“A couple of times,” Didrik said, “but not with someone who really knows the city. It’s going to be so cool, hanging out here with you.”
“Your French is excellent,” she replied. Sexy, in fact, was the word that came to mind. “Have you studied in France?”
“Yes, in Lyon.”
That explained it. Just like Didrik himself, his French was accurate, with a rich vocabulary. His foreign accent, though, was obvious, the way it always was when someone could speak a language but hadn’t heard it enough to get the nuances right.
“When were you there?”
“God, it must be more than twenty years ago now. I’d just graduated from high school and went traveling around Europe on an Interrail Pass, as a kind of rebellion against my mother.”
Bente grinned. “That was brave.”
“You haven’t met my mother.”
He gave her a meaningful smile and leaned closer to pick up the water carafe. She noticed a few laughter lines at the corners of his eyes.
“I had a place at university and was all set up to start my studies, but I dropped out. Mom went crazy—I’d embarrassed her in front of her university colleagues.”
“So your mom is in the academic world too?”
“Professor of history.” He topped off his water glass, and as he set the carafe back down, his upper arm brushed her shoulder. It was the gentlest touch, but the feeling seemed to linger on her skin. Bente noted this with a sense of surprise.
“Interrailing,” Elnaz said. “That’s something I wish I’d done.”
“It’s never too late.” Didrik smiled. “I could easily imagine doing it again, but in a different way. Not just hanging out at the Prado in Madrid for hours and visiting the Colosseum and other sights. Although I would like to go back to my maternal grandparents’ hometown in Estonia.”
“Did your history-professor mom make your itinerary?” Bente’s eyes twinkled at him over the rim of her glass.
Didrik laughed. “Sounds that way, doesn’t it?” The laugh turned into a smile, and he gazed at her for a few seconds, which made her heart skip a beat. Why was she reacting like this?
Elnaz checked her phone and sighed loudly.
“What is it?”
“Palento’s got a press shoot for a drama series tomorrow, and the photographer we booked has to stay home with a sick child again.”
“Is it one of your productions?” Bente asked.
“No, it’s actually Ted’s, but I’ve helped him out with a few things. I’ll figure something out.”
Bente thought about how hard Elnaz always worked. She had no experience with Ted, but she had encountered other male colleagues who were in the habit of letting younger female employees do the grunt work.
“Why do you always have to cover up for Ted?” Didrik asked, as Bente was about to say the same thing.
“I know you think that’s what I do.”
“You’re doing it now,” Bente pointed out.