Aaron Elkins - Dying on the Vine

“Great,” muttered Gideon. “A cultural ornament.”

“Oh, come on, Gideon, you will do it, won’t you?” Julie prompted. “All it takes is giving the awards to the winners.”

“Giving the awards to the winners, boy, I don’t know, that sounds pretty hard. I’m not sure I’m up to—urp.”

She had speared one of the ravioli on his plate and jammed it into his mouth. “Here, have a ravioli. It’ll improve your mood.”

He chewed and swallowed. “That’s raviolo , for your information. There’s no such thing as one ravioli.”

“Or maybe it won’t,” she said, and they all laughed and clinked glasses again.

John joined in, but he was still mulling over Thursday’s appointment with Rocco. “Eight o’clock in the frigging morning ,” he grumbled. “Honest to God.”

EIGHT

FLORENCEproper has a population of four hundred thousand. Include its surrounding sprawl, and you get a metropolitan area of a million-and-a-half. Arezzo proper, by contrast, holds fewer than a hundred thousand souls. And being a walled city, there is essentially no sprawl, no “metropolitan area.” What you see is what you get. You can walk from one end to the other in half an hour. Try that in Florence.

Despite its disadvantage in size, it has no lack of artistic and architectural splendors, among which is the elegant, sloping, thirteenth-century Piazza Grande, with its striking trapezoidal shape, its grand fountain, and the beautiful old palazzos, towers, and loggias that surround it. In Etruscan days it had housed the central market; in Roman times the staid, august offices of provincial government. But when Gideon and Julie arrived there after finding a parking space (not easy), it was anything but staid. A flapping red, green, and white banner stretched between fifteen-foot posts proclaimed FESTIVAL DI TUTTI I VINI DEL VAL D’ARNO in giant letters. Behind it, the square was crisscrossed with the multicolored tents, tables, and umbrellas of vendors. The happy, patently bibulous crowds made it clear that the winemakers had been unstinting with their tastings.

They’d been shooting for an arrival time of three o’clock, the start of the grape stomp and of Gideon’s “ornamental” responsibilities, but with the parking difficulties they’d run into they were late. John and Marti, traveling in a separate rental car, were doing a little touring on the way to Figline and were skipping Arezzo altogether. They planned to show up at the Villa Antica a little after six. In the US it would have been rude to arrive at dinnertime, but in Tuscany in late summer, dinner would still be an hour or two—or three—off.

“Gosh,” Gideon said, as they hunted for the stomp, “I sure hope we haven’t missed it.”

Julie responded with one of her looks. “Yes, I know you’d be just devastated.”

They didn’t have to search long to find the signs for La Gran Pigiatura Dell’uva Del Val D’arno —the Great Valdarno Grape Stomp—which was under way in a downslope corner of the square, where six contestants drenched up to their hips in purple liquid were stomping away in half-barrels full of grapes that had been set up on a stage, with the resulting pulpy fluid flowing sluggishly through hoses into ten-liter jars. Over a loudspeaker someone was accompanying them with a jazzy, Dean Martinesque version of the drinking song from La Traviata interspersed with jokey, encouraging comments. As they watched, a bell sounded, and each stomper gave way, as in a relay race, to a replacement who had been standing in back of him or her. In front of the stage were two dozen rows of folding chairs, most of which were empty because the audience was on its feet, cheering on their favorite teams with much noise and gesticulation.

“They’re awfully excited about this, aren’t they?” Julie said as they stood at the rear of the viewing area.

“I’m guessing there’s a little wagering going on,” said Gideon.

“And your guess,” said a voice behind them, “is, as usual, on the mark.” They turned to see an apple-cheeked, pleasantly plump, merry-eyed woman beaming delightedly at them.

“Linda!” exclaimed Julie with a happy little squeal, and much hugging all around ensued.

“Sorry I’m late for the stomp,” Gideon said. “I was looking forward to judging.”

“Amazing man,” Linda said to Julie. “He managed that with a perfectly straight face.” And to Gideon: “Don’t worry about it. Nico’s come to the rescue. I asked him to take over for you.”

“A wise decision. He’s more ornamental than I am.”

Linda smiled. “Well, maybe a little more, but you make up for it in gravitas.”

“That’s true,” Gideon agreed.

Nico was the baby of the Cubbiddu family, a movie-star-handsome twenty-six-year-old. And now Gideon spotted him at the microphone to the rear of the stage. It was Nico who was doing the singing and the patter. That he sounded like Dean Martin came as no surprise; he was cut from similar cloth: effortlessly charming, happy-go-lucky, ridiculously good-looking (if just a tad lounge-lizardy), totally laid-back, and perhaps a little too fond of the vino . A lock of black, oily hair even dipped roguishly down over his forehead—possibly on its own, but more likely with a little help.

“Nico’s got this well in hand,” Linda said, “and I could use a break. I’ve been working our booth since noon. What would you say to some coffee?”

She walked them up the slope to the long, colonnaded stone porch of the famous Vasari loggia at the top of the piazza, where the food vendors had set up. There were pushcarts offering panini ; pizza; plates of sausage, peppers, and onions; and various sweets: arancini , cannoli, gelato. At one end of the porch was a permanent-looking espresso bar with half a dozen tables in front of it. It wasn’t getting much business, and the white-coated barista stood with his arms folded, his chin on his chest, and his mind seemingly a million miles away.

“ Un cappuccino, per favore ,” Gideon said, giving him Julie’s request, “ e due espressi .”

It was like watching one of those “living statues” that one sees on the streets of big cities, who stand utterly motionless until a dollar is put in their offerings box, whereupon they spring robotically into action for a minute or so. The barista jerked to life at the splendid, gleaming baroque apparatus of polished levers, spouts, and tubes that was his espresso machine. Julie’s cappuccino came first. Levers were pulled, hisses were heard, and the air was filled with the thick, smooth aroma of good Italian coffee as jet-black espresso sluggishly flowed from a spout into a bowl-sized cup, covering the bottom by an inch or so. A seemingly unmeasured splash of milk was more or less flung into a metal pitcher, held under another spout, and jiggled and rotated until it was heated to a steaming froth, then poured into the cup, which it filled precisely to the point at which the stiffened froth was higher at the center than at the rim but was kept from overflowing by its surface density.

The barista looked sharply up at Gideon. “ Cioccolata ?”

“ Si, per piacere .” For Julie a cappuccino wasn’t a cappuccino if it didn’t have chocolate on it.

With a flourish that would have done credit to a circus ringmaster, the barista sprinkled powdered chocolate onto the froth and went to work on the two espressos, which were briefer, simpler operations, but no less grandly handled. All three were placed on a tray and handed to Gideon.

“They look great, thank you.”

The barista replied with a dignified half bow and Italy’s fits-all-purposes response: “ Prego .” He then used a cloth for a quick polish of the equipment and sank once again into reverie and immobility, awaiting his next customer.