an unexpected aspect of her new acquaintance, something pure and heartfelt and unapologetic. Her lips parted as she prepared to ask a question—
“Are you ready to order?”
It was the Bishop leaning over their table.
Of course they are not ready to order, the Count wished to shout. As any fool can see!
If the young man were wise, he would send the Bishop packing and ask the young lady to go on with her question. Instead, he dutifully picked up the menu. Perhaps he imagined that the perfect dish would leap off the page and identify itself by name. But for a hopeful young man trying to impress a serious young woman, the menu of the Piazza was as perilous as the Straits of Messina. On the left was a Scylla of lower-priced dishes that could suggest a penny-pinching lack of flair; and on the right was a Charybdis of delicacies that could empty one’s pockets while painting one pretentious. The young man’s gaze drifted back and forth between these opposing hazards. But in a stroke of genius, he ordered the Latvian stew.
While this traditional dish of pork, onions, and apricots was reasonably priced, it was also reasonably exotic; and it somehow harkened back to that world of grandmothers and holidays and sentimental melodies that they had been about to discuss when so rudely interrupted.
“I’ll have the same,” said our serious young lady.
The same!
And then she glanced at her hopeful young acquaintance with a touch of that tenderness that Natasha had shown Pierre in War and Peace at the end of Volume Two.
“And would you like some wine to go with your stew?” asked the Bishop.
The young man hesitated and then picked up the wine list with uncertain hands. It may well have been the first time in his life that he had ordered a bottle of wine. Never mind that he didn’t grasp the merits of the 1900 versus the 1901, he didn’t know a Burgundy from a Bordeaux.
Giving the young man no more than a minute to consider his options, the Bishop leaned forward and poked the list with a condescending smile.
“Perhaps the Rioja.”
The Rioja? Now there was a wine that would clash with the stew as Achilles clashed with Hector. It would slay the dish with a blow to the head and drag it behind its chariot until it tested the fortitude of every man in Troy. Besides, it plainly cost three times what the young man could afford.
With a shake of the head, the Count reflected that there was simply no substitute for experience. Here had been an ideal opportunity for a waiter to fulfill his purpose. By recommending a suitable wine, he could have put a young man at ease, perfected a meal, and furthered the cause of romance, all in a stroke. But whether from a lack of subtlety or a lack of sense, the Bishop had not only failed in his purpose, he had put his customer in a corner. And the young man, clearly unsure of what to do and beginning to feel as if the whole restaurant were watching, was on the verge of accepting the Bishop’s suggestion.
“If I may,” the Count interjected. “For a serving of Latvian stew, you will find no better choice than a bottle of the Mukuzani.”
Leaning toward their table and mimicking the perfectly parted fingers of Andrey, the Count gestured to the entry on the list. That this wine was a fraction of the cost of the Rioja need not be a matter of a discussion between gentlemen. Instead, the Count simply noted: “The Georgians practically grow their grapes in the hopes that one day they will accompany such a stew.”
The young man exchanged a brief glance with his companion as if to say, Who is this eccentric? But then he turned to the Bishop.
“A bottle of the Mukuzani.”
“Of course,” replied the Bishop.
Minutes later, the wine had been presented and poured, and the young woman was asking her companion what his grandmother was like. While for his part, the Count cast off any thoughts of herb-encrusted lamb at the Boyarsky. Instead, he summoned Petya to take Nina’s present to his room and ordered the Latvian stew and a bottle of the Mukuzani for himself.
And just as he’d suspected, it was the perfect dish for the season. The onions thoroughly caramelized, the pork slowly braised, and the apricots briefly stewed, the three ingredients came together in a sweet and smoky medley that simultaneously suggested the comfort of a snowed-in