The Crowded Grave

own slender purse.
    Bruno felt straw under his feet and the smell of horses was very strong. Through the blindfold he sensed a glare of light. He was steered forward and then turned, and he heard the rest of the party lining up behind and around him.
    “This is the one,” he heard Pamela say, and someone took his hand and placed something round and smooth in his palm. He felt a stem. It was an apple. Then the blindfold was removed and he was temporarily blinded by the flare of light.
    “Bruno, this is Hector,” Pamela said. “Hector, this is Bruno, your new master, and he’s going to give you an apple.”
    A soft muzzle brushed against his hand as Bruno’s vision cleared and he found himself looking into the intelligent eye of a horse the color of a perfectly ripe chestnut. Its ears were alert and pointed, its mane dark and its teeth white and strong as gently it took the apple from Bruno’s paralyzed hand.
    “You can stroke him,” came Pamela’s voice. “You can even ride him if you want. He’s yours. Happy birthday, dear Bruno, from all your friends.”
    “We began collecting at Christmas, just after you got those Chinese kids out of the fire. Everybody who signed the card contributed to your gift,” said the mayor, as they took their places around Pamela’s table, every leaf installed to stretch it to the fullest extent.
    A generous serving of
pâté de foie gras
studded with truffles lay before each guest, with a glass of chilled Monbazillac to accompany it. There were two more plates beneath the foie, two more wineglasses at every place, and from the array of knives and forks and spoons that surrounded his plates Bruno knew that a feast lay in store.
    There was an empty place, and then Ivan bustled in from the kitchen to fill it, sweeping his chef’s toque from his head and sitting down, raising his glass to Bruno. He must have closed his restaurant for the evening to be here, and from the look of him Ivan was doing the bulk of the cooking.
    “No,” he said when Bruno began to speak. “I’m not allowed to tell you the menu. I can say it’s half English and half French, but that’s all.”
    “The foie comes from the cupboard full of preserves that our friend Hercule left to me in his will, and I’m pleased that something of him is with us tonight,” the baron said. “And that’s Hercule’s wine in the carafes, a Château Haut-Brion, ’89.”
    “Hercule bought four cases through me
en primeur
when I told him it was going to be one of the great wines,” said Hubert from down the table. “Back then, I got it for him at three thousand francs a case. Then that American Robert Parker gave it a hundred points, and the prices went through the roof. These days, if you can find it, the prices start at a thousand euros a bottle.”
    Bruno looked down the table, where places were set for twenty people and a row of carafes of the richly dark wine stood glowing before them. Most of a case of Haut-Brion, he thought, and looked across at the baron and raised his glass.
    “To Hercule,” he said. “Would that he could be here with us tonight.”
    He savored the foie gras and its truffles, the creamy, refined richness of the foie and the earthy perfume of the truffleblending warmly together, two opposites that attracted each other and together created something much grander. He sipped the last of his Monbazillac as the plates were cleared, and then Ivan brought in the first of five large tureens, each with its own ladle, and began by serving Bruno.
    “Écrevisses à la nage,”
Ivan announced, crayfish atop a broth of celery and fennel, onions and carrots. “I used the same Bergerac Sec that our friend Julien has provided to drink with this course.”
    “It’s the one I made with Hubert’s advice,” said Julien, piling freshly opened bottles onto the table. He looked years younger than the dispirited man he had become when his wife was dying, and before the mayor had arranged for the entire town to invest in his vineyard. “We’re calling it
cuvée
Mirabelle, after her. It’s sixty percent sauvignon blanc, thirty-five percent
sémillon
and five percent
muscadelle
. At the Domaine we’ll be making twice as much of it this year.”
    A spoon was being tapped on a glass at the far end of the table. Bruno looked up to see Ivan standing there.
    “Now for the English course, courtesy of Pamela,” he announced, and on cue, Pamela entered bearing a giant silver dish on which steamed an entire