Christmas Dinner
Christmas was approaching. After the New Year, we would be returning to Montreal, leaving Saint-Jeannet and France until the end of my school semester in May.
“I met Renée Charles-Alfred at the boulangerie just now,” Jane informed me. I was in the studio of our house making some calculations based on data I'd recently collected at the library at l’Université de Nice.
“Prolux was on the counter; such an amazing cat,” she told me. “Renée invited us for dinner Christmas eve.”
“Very nice,” I said without looking up from my columnar pad.
“She said that they had invited Irmgard and Alfred ....”
“I'll be right with you, Jane.”
“... and Marc and Vava.”
“I'll be with you in just a minute.”
I continued with my head over my columnar pad. After a few moments, I looked up, “What were you telling me? Sorry, but I was in the middle of an important calculation.”
“I said that I met Renée at Mme Röatta's, and she invited us, along with Irmgard, Alfred, and the Chagalls, to dinner Christmas eve.”
“We better starve that day,” I advised my wife.
“Why?” Jane wondered.
“You’ve worked alongside her cook, Marie, and you know she’s famous in the region for her cuisine. Be prepared for a many-course meal.” I was already anticipating which clothes I would wear — to accommodate the quantity of food I expected we would be offered, and I, as a good guest, would force myself to eat.
“Renée also suggested we join them after dinner, for midnight mass at the local church,” Jane added.
We seemed to be the only ones excited by the invitation from our landlord who was also Chagall’s doctor.
“Irmgard is anticipating a severe case of indigestion,” Jane reported, “and Vava believes that such a late night — to include attendance at midnight mass — might be too much of a good thing, for Marc.”
“What about Alfred? What does he think about going?” I wondered.
“Alfred does whatever Irmgard asks ....”
“Or wants.”
“... so he'll go with the flow, as we used to say.”
“And Marc? Is he looking forward to the evening?”
“He doesn't know about it yet; Vava plans to tell him at lunch the day of the dinner — so as not to upset his routine.”
Anticipating critical comments from our friend Irmgard, I advised Jane to be particularly selective in what she wears — meaning a Daks skirt, a Ballantyne cashmere twin set to match, a pair of Ferragamo shoes, an Hèrmes bag, and the diamond lovebird brooch I'd given her from Van Clef & Arpels.
As for myself, I chose my latest sports jacket from my Montreal tailor, twill trousers, a subtle turtleneck, the Cleverley bespoke shoes Irmgard had yet to see, the Patek Philippe brushed-gold watch my parents had given to me when I graduated from university, and a pair of blond tortoiseshell glasses.
Nothing criticizable … I hoped.
***
At 8:00, we left our house on the ramparts and walked along the cobblestone streets to our landlord's home in the center of the village, a matter of three blocks.
“Why did we start calling him the witch doctor?” I asked as we walked past Mme Röatta's boulangerie.
“I think it was Irmgard who used the term,” Jane said.
“Yes, you're right. She called him that because she didn't consider him sufficiently qualified to be Marc's doctor, preferring Marc go to Zürich for any ailment, big or small.”
“I like him. He’s gentle, soft-spoken ….”
“And, he’s our landlord,” I added as we rounded the corner and began climbing the incline to the house.
As Saint-Jeannet was built on the side of a mountain — Le Baou — the doctor's three-storied house towered over its surroundings, as befitted the most revered person in the region. Its massive door opened onto an uneven stone entry hall, at the end of which stone steps led into the cavernous living room whose principal feature was a walk-in fieldstone fireplace. On this night, a fire blazed, both heating as well as lighting the room whose other sources of illumination were two massive gothic iron chandeliers that hung from chains hanging from the timbered ceiling, a good twenty feet above the floor.
“This ... is impressive,” I whispered as we entered.
Renée was the first to greet us. As I had said to Jane when we first met her, the doctor’s wife must have been most attractive, possibly considered beautiful, when she was a younger woman. Now in her sixties, she gave off the aura of a coquette — a charming, vivacious aged girl.
“Renée doesn't appeal to me,” Irmgard told us one day when we were discussing the doctor and his wife. “She's always flirting, especially when Marc is around.”
“Do you have the feeling that Irmgard has problems with women?” I asked Jane a little later.
“I haven't noticed,” Jane told me. “Have you?”
“She criticizes almost every woman, including your mother when she was alive — and even her own mother ....”
“Many girls have mother issues,” Jane advised me.
“She says Olga is gluttonous because she buys delicacies in the food shops in Vence to bring back to Germany ….”
“… forgetting that such items, while plentiful in France, may not be so easily obtainable for Olga, even though she is the wife of the most revered orchestra conductor in Germany. Remember, Karl Münchinger was the founder of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra.”
“She says Christa dresses worse that a shopkeeper ….”
“To paraphrase one of Alfred’s Yiddish expressions, ‘If you’re a Princess, no matter what you wear, people will call it haute couture’….”
“That’s clever, Jane. I remember him saying of Onassis, ‘If you’re rich enough, you’re handsome and can sing, too’. She even criticizes Vava, at times ….”
“Only when Vava tells her about some commission Vava wants Marc to accept, a commission Irmgard feels is beneath a great artist like Marc ….”
“… like the sets for Die Zauberflöte.”
“The only woman she hasn't criticized is you, Jane.”
“Wait.”
Renée dressed well. Originally from Paris, she married Charles-Alfred when he came to France from his native Martinique, to study medicine.
“Do you find it strange that they never had children?” Jane asked soon after we moved into Maison Soldano, the house on the ramparts of the village.
“I've thought about it, but no. We don't, and neither do Irmgard and Alfred. It's a matter of personal choice. To me, the doctor's children are his patients, and they all idolize him,” I told her.
This night Renée was wearing a black chiffon dress that had a rather revealing décolleté ....
“On a woman of her age I would have thought she should know better,” I overheard Irmgard say to Alfred on seeing their hostess in the living room.
… and at the V, an overblown red rose made of the same material. In her ears, she wore miniature strands of brilliant stones ....
“If her husband can't afford Cartier, she should wear nothing,” Irmgard added.
… that sparkled as her head moved. Renée was a petite woman, causing her to be constantly looking up at anyone she might be talking to.
The doctor was an imposing man in his late sixties, standing more than six feet, but, with age, had developed a slight stoop. Being of a conservative bent, this night he wore a blue blazer, white turtleneck, grey flannels, and brown loafers.
“Jane, Eric, je vous en prie,” as the doctor ushered us into a small room off the living room where he offered us a choice of beverage from a trolley.
“Did you notice?” I asked Jane.
“The maple syrup?” she asked quietly so that no one would overhear her.
“He must have thought it was a Canadian eau de vie. I didn't tell him it's to be poured over pancakes or waffles.”
When Irmgard and Alfred — with the Chagalls — arrived, everyone gathered in front of the roaring fire.
Instead of her usual uniform — a Daks skirt and a cashmere twinset — Irmgard wore a wool dress, the color of ripe raspberries ….
“I love it, especially the color,” I whispered to Jane.
… with little jewelry other than her engagement ring and the ruby and emerald love bird brooch from Cartier.
“Look, Aaron, Vava’s brooch is similar,” Jane pointed out to me.
“Except that Vava’s was made from a design of Marc’s,” I told her.
Alfred looked very smart, dressed in a brownish tweed suit from his London tailer, and a pair of Cleverley shoes, almost identical to the pair I was wearing.
“They look very chic,” Jane remarked.
Marc came dressed in a variation of his own daily costume: a viyella-patterned shirt closed at the neck, tucked into a pair of non-descript trousers, and he had on a tweed jacket which he wore over London-blue cashmere cardigan.
Aside from the brooch ….
“I can’t take my eyes off it,” I said to Jane.
... Vava wore a flowing cashmere peacock-blue skirt and matching sweater.
A few minutes after Irmgard, Alfred and the Chagalls arrived, Marie, the cook, announced,
“Madame est servie,”
… and we walked into the adjacent dining room.
Like the house itself, the dining table was imposing, refectory in style, and fashioned from an enormous oak tree, as I did not notice a seam; it must have measured six feet across. By the linen used to set the table, Renée's taste must have been in the frou-frou domaine, for there was lots of lace bordering the cloth and serviettes. Six large silver candlesticks were spaced along the middle of the table, and in its center, a huge arrangement of wild flowers, including roses grown in the gardens of the village, set in a decorative faïence bowl.
“From Moustiers-Sainte-Marie,” I guessed.
Once we were seated, the doctor wished everyone a happy and healthy New Year, “Particulièrement pour maître Chagall, pour le succès de sa musée Message Biblique, nous lui et Vava souhaitons bonne santé et une longue et heureuse vie.”
Marie served the first course: a consommé with something mysterious floating on the top.
“What do you think it is?” Jane asked, in an undertone.
“I have no idea,” I said, “but it tastes awfully good. At times like this, it’s best not to know — nor to guess.”
With the soup, Marie and her helper poured a regional wine.
“I think this is the wine we purchased from that fellow at the base of the road,” I told Jane on tasting it.
“Qu’est ce que c’est?” Marc asked, pulling out a piece what was floating on top of the consommé and holding it up.
“Leave him, Vavchin,” Irmgard told Vava who appeared to be scolding her husband.
After the consommé came a fish, surrounded by what resembled a cream sauce, and decorated with parsley.
“Better eat the parsley,” I advised Jane. “It might be the only healthy thing we'll be served tonight.”
“J’aime le poussin sans sauce,” Marc told Marie.
“Bien sûr, maître.” Marie took his plate back to the kitchen, returning a moment later with a plate on which the fish was adorned with a bouquet of parsley on top — and no sauce.
“Merci,” and Chagall lifted the bouquet of parsley and handed it to Vava, “Pour toi, cherie.”
Following the fish — which neither Jane not I could identify — came a pâté.
“Do you think it's duck?” I asked, skeptically.
“Just eat it,” Jane told me.
By this time, being unaccustomed to eating more than Alfred's suplunch in the evening, I was ready to call it quits. I wondered if the doctor had some Fernet-Branca on his liqueur trolley?
... when Marie came in with a steaming casserole and set it in front of the doctor. The doctor lifted the cover, letting out puffs of steam and savory aromas.
“Ahhhhh,” was heard from everyone ... except from Jane and me.
“How can I excuse myself and fetch my bottle of Maalox?” I joked, quietly, for only Jane to hear.
Bowls were passed forward and Charles-Alfred ladled a hefty portion of what the casserole contained, into each.
“What do you think it is?” Jane asked, looking rather hesitantly at the bowl in front of her.
“Marc, mange simplement une forchette ....”
“Pourquoi?” Chagall asked, looking longingly into the bowl the serveuse had placed in front of him.
“Tu doit dormir ce soir.” Vava told him, removing his bowl and replacing it with a plate on which there was a small portion.
Next came a roast. By this time neither Jane nor I cared all that much what it was — beef, veal, pork, or any other type of meat the French eat — we only prayed that by the time the doctor served us there would be little left to carve.
“I'm so glad I decided to wear the one pair of trousers I hadn't brought to my tailor to take in,” I told Jane as we were walking home after the midnight church service.
“I'm wearing a combinaison ....”
“And you feel like the stuffed sausage we ate tonight?” I laughed, but I understood. We both had a good swig of his Maalox the moment we opened the door.
More courses left me aching, but I had been raised to be polite — so I suffered ... in silence.
Finally, the cheese course was ushered in from the kitchen. It looked very rich.
“C'est la crème de gorgonzola,” Marie announced, proudly, and set the cheese in front of Renée.
“I've read about it,” Jane mentioned to me as the others oh'd and ah'd. Even Irmgard appeared to be delighted on seeing it. “It's made with 100% matière grasse,” Jane told me.
I felt a pain stretching from one end of my now over-stuffed stomach to the other end ... and wished I had had the foresight of stuffing my trouser pockets with Tums.
The final course of the meal, that had begun at 8:40 and was now approaching 11:30, was brought in by Marie — flaming: a Grand Marnier soufflé, and beside it, a mound the size of Le Baou, of fresh raspberries.
After having drunk all or part of four different wines of varying colors — white, red, burgundy, and rosé — the serveuse, Marie's assistant, poured a glass of Besserat de Bellefon for each person.
“Thankfully it's brut,” Jane gasped, taking her first — and only — sip.
“I was dying for a glass of water,” I told Jane when we reached home at 1:30 in the morning and I had gulped down two glasses from the faucet in the kitchen sink.
“You always criticize guests back home when they ask for water,” Jane reminded me.
“I promise, really, I promise ... never ... ever to refuse a guest, if I should be asked,” I sealed with a kiss.
It was 11:50 when the last of the soufflé passed from plates to the guests’ digestive systems ....
“I don't think I'll make it to the church,” I said to Jane as I tried to get up from the table.
… and all but Jane and me appeared to have retained their cheerful spirits of the season.
“Mon bon docteur,” Marc addressed Charles-Alfred as we walked together toward the front door of the house, “j'èspere que tu seras disponible demain?” but Vava took her husband's arm and began walking the short distance to the village church before the doctor could answer his patient.
“Did you hear Marc?” I asked Jane, as we, too, proceeded to the church.
“I'm glad Charles-Alfred is our landlord,” Jane said.
“Why?”
“Well, if he wants his rent, he'll be sure to cure us ... should we have a problem during the night,” she laughed.
The church was all lit up, with spotlights shining on its façades and lighting the cobblestone path leading to its entrance where the priest stood, greeting his parishioners, blessing each as they entered. When the doctor approached, the priest first greeted him as a friend, then proceeded to spend somewhat more time bestowing his blessing, bowing up and down several times before the doctor and Renée passed into the sanctuary.
“I thought he was davening,” I said, amused.
The priest then proceeded to give Marc and Vava his benediction. I watched Marc raising his hand as though he were about to bless the priest. Vava took her husband's hand in her own, thanked the priest and ushered her husband through the passageway to their seats, in the front row.
The church was built to service a small village population, and this Christmas eve it was full.
“Reminds me of Kol Nidre back home,” I passed across Irmgard to Alfred, but Alfred did not appear to be amused.
Inside, the church was ablaze, illuminated by candles everywhere. In front of the pews hung a life-size crucified Christ made of plaster and painted in earth tones, its head crowned with thorns from which streaks of red appeared to be dripping from the dull grey flesh. Other than the figure of Christ there was little adornment evident.
Simple.
As the bells of the church chimed midnight, the door of the church opened and a procession of youths from the village, dressed in white robes, each carrying a large taper, singing what, to me, sounded like Gregorian chant, proceeded up the center aisle and formed three rows in front of the altar. The priest said mass, in French, after which members of the congregation filed to the front, to receive his blessing and a wafer dipped in wine.
The church bells struck: 1:00.
Outside the stars lit the clear sky, enabling Alfred to lead Irmgard, Marc, and Vava to his car at the entrance to the village, while Jane and I walked the short distance to our house.
It had been an evening to remember.
Author’s Biography
E.P. Lande, born in Montreal, has lived in France, Vermont and now in S. Carolina. As Vice-Dean, he taught at l’Université d’Ottawa. He has owned and managed country inns and restaurants. Since submitting three years ago, more than 125 of his stories have found homes in publications all over the world, “Expecting” nominated for Best of the Net. His debut novel, “Aaron’s Odyssey”, a gay-romantic-psychological thriller, and “To Have It All”, a psychotic thriller, have recently been published in London. “Dancing With Katie”, an Argentine tango sweet romance, will be published this year.
