SAVING MYSELF FROM DROWNING was pure physical reflex. My mind was moving just as frantically, first with recriminations. I was furious at myself, falling for a lure that even the most stupid of fish would have shaken its head at in disgust. Then Edouard Morel came to mind even though he was a man I had never met. I had mentally dismissed him as simply unaccounted for, but a more sinister answer now loomed. His wife considered him missing because she hadn’t had contact with him for two weeks, but he might be dead also. He might be the secret ingredient in a red wine of the current vintage—just as I would be if I didn’t get out of here.
The atmosphere just above the surface of the wine was choking. Alcohol has a lower specific gravity than water so as the grapes fermented and produced alcohol, the liquid went down in gravity, meaning that I sank deeper. It was the opposite of being in the Dead Sea—I was in the Red Sea.
The “cap” of grape skins floating on the surface looked solid—especially, to a drowning man—and I tried to lay my arms on top of it and get some support, but it let me sink, heedless of all the wine I had given support to through the years.
How ignominious! That was my main thought. Sent here on a wine investigation and I get drowned in a vat of red wine!
I thought about conserving my energy and floating with only my mouth above the wine. How long would it be before someone came by, though? Would I have to wait for a shift change?
I shouted for help a few times and then realized that English was the wrong language. I tried the French Au secours but I have always found it a silly expression and have not been able to believe that it ever brought a serious response. I tried to find a projection of some kind on the slimy wooden walls but there was not as much as a badly hammered nail.
The wine tasted awful. I wasn’t deliberately drinking it, having other things on my mind, but sinking so low into it and still lower when I moved made it inevitable that I swallowed some. It was raw and vile. How could a drink taste so bad now and so good later? I hoped there would be a “later.”
Time passed and I passed out. At least, I supposed I did. It was probably the fumes. When I came back to hazy life, I was still floating. People walk in their sleep—can they swim in their sleep? I called out feebly, first in French, then in English. I didn’t feel up to running through the languages of the numerous nationalities likely to be represented among the migrant workers.
I was dimly aware of voices but had no idea where they were coming from or what they were saying. One of them seemed to getting more urgent, more strident, and I was dimly conscious of something moving near my head. Through a stupor that was part intoxication and part panic, I could see bars that crystallized into the shape of a ladder and I reached for it. I hung on with one hand and was slowly heaved out of the red morass. Partway up, hands grabbed me and hoisted me clear.
Simone Ballard was furious. I think she blamed me for spoiling a couple of thousand liters of what might otherwise have turned out to be perfectly good wine. The invective with which she might have bombarded me was, however, mitigated by the presence of the gendarme, Aristide Pertois.
It was his face that I saw first as I was pulled out of the vat: the flat, black eyes behind the round spectacles, the bristly black mustache, and the perpetually raised eyebrows. There seemed to be a genuine query in them now, though, and it seemed to be What on earth are you doing in there? I was sitting in Simone’s office in a shirt and pants several sizes too big for me and I still stank of raw, fermenting wine, but my head was clearing.
“I was just wandering around when I leaned on the rail; it gave way and I fell in.” Well, perhaps it wasn’t the answer but it was an answer.
Aristide turned to Simone. He had been standing by the office door, saying nothing until now. “Don’t you have safety checks on the rails and walkways?”
“Of course we do,” she snapped.
“Then how did—”
“I don’t know.” Her manner was glacial.
“I’m sure the wine will be all right,” I said in a placatory voice. “In the days of pigeage, even several monks didn’t spoil it.”
She regarded me in stony silence. Aristide rubbed his nose and said nothing. They both knew what I was referring to: In the Middle Ages, naked monks used to jump into the wine vats several times during the fermentation process to make sure that the skins mixed properly with the juice. The practice was known as pigeage. It was the only occasion throughout the year when the monks had anything approximating a bath and it was universally accepted that calls of nature were not demanding enough for the monks to climb out of the vat. There is still ribald speculation in the wine trade as to the effect on the quality of the wine.
“I was here to make a few more inquiries,” said Aristide in a neutral tone. “When I got out of the car, I heard a voice shouting for help. I ran inside at once and went to where I could hear splashing.”
The door opened and an arm reached in to place a clear plastic bag on the floor. It oozed red fluid inside and Simone glared at it, then at me.
“You’ll want to get your clothes to the cleaners before they are ruined,” she said.
“Yes. I do.”
I glanced at Aristide. “Thanks,” I said.
He nodded and I headed for the door, carrying the sack in one hand and holding up the baggy pants, which were way too large for me, with the other. I tripped on one leg of the pants in an unintentional imitation of Buster Keaton.
No one laughed.