1.3 Alenby: Champagne and Chocolate
1.3.1 Alenby Follows the Green Fedora
Newark International Airport
6:30 pm Tuesday 1 April 1987
She’s headed for the Ambassador Lounge, Alenby thought, and a heavenly vision came to his mind—Champagne. A tall glass of Champagne, well chilled, with twisted streams of tiny bubbles leisurely ascending. On the nose, hints of apples and citrus fruits, and fresh-baked sourdough bread. He put himself in the picture—sniffing, sipping, occasionally tossing a bon mot to the lady with the shiny brown eyes. He picked up his flight bag and followed her.
Alenby had long felt that diversions of the romantic genre were seriously overrated—hours diverted from food and wine, and all for nothing but an occasional spasm of pleasure. And he knew very well that a gentleman who has lost his valise, and consequently lacks reserves of linens and underwear, and who moreover suffers from various personal shortcomings in the virility department as well as plumbing problems of a particularly embarrassing nature, would be better off avoiding an entanglement with a person of the weaker sex. But neither those considerations nor the seduction of Champagne deterred him from following the green fedora out of the elevator, even though the owner's swinging stride took her along the corridor in the direction away from the Ambassador Lounge.
She was very thin, he’d already noticed that, and he’d noticed her swanky gait. Perhaps she was an actress, a ballerina, a fashion model? That last was ridiculous, of course. She was too short to be a model. She was even shorter than himself—far shorter in fact.
On the other hand—and this curious fact struck him for the first time—everyone in the airport was shorter than himself. Not only shorter, and also thinner by far, despite his recent success with Dr Fatkid's diet.
What might be behind this apparent outbreak of malnutrition? If he had not been preoccupied with his pursuit, he might have supposed that people were not eating enough red meat, consequently running short of iron and other high-quality proteins. Or maybe scrimping on milk and the other dairy products so vital to maintaining adequate calcium levels.
But the oddities piled up so fast he would have been overwhelmed anyway. The missing valise, the curiously low check-in counter, no attorney on the line, the short thin people everywhere, and now as he noticed for the first time, the way the short thin people were dressed.
In a word, elegantly. In suits and dresses and hats of various fashion epochs including most noticeably that of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, all expressed in clothes well cut from attractive cottons, silks and synthetics. But here was another enigma—no wool. Not one of the short, thin people in the airport wore wool.
Wool: Alenby’s thoughts followed a familiar path. Striding along after the lady in the green fedora, he found comfort in the hang of his flannel slacks and their fluent adjustments to his every movement. He rubbed his knuckle on the lapel of his jacket and felt the soft nubbiness of that most luxurious of fabrics. Why all these little people, otherwise correctly turned out, should spurn wool was beyond his comprehension! He murmured a soothing mantra, one of his most deeply-held beliefs: There is no substitute for wool. He felt calmer.
He slowed down. He did not wish to overtake his quarry. A harassment suit would be damnably inconvenient, especially now that his attorney had apparently been replaced by a vendor of growth-inhibitors. Also, Alenby felt tired of walking. His feet always felt hot and itchy whenever he walked any great distance. The latest nonprescription athlete's-foot remedy, Nodor, had done little to relieve the discomfort and the regrettable odor resulting from of that affliction, and prescription medications for the problem seemed to be ruled out by the risk of interactions with the powerful meds he was already taking to keep his health in tip-top shape.
So he felt in a way relieved when he saw the woman slip into one of the Air France offices that lined the corridor, quickly closing the door behind her. He advanced far enough to read the name on the brass plaque: Philippe de Something, Director of Ground Operations.
Did she pause, look back for an instant? Yes, she might have—did, actually, with a smile and that flashing liquid-brown glance. And yes, there was something ineffably glamorous about chocolate-coated cherries. Of all cherries for the purpose, he felt that the Montmorency was the best variety. One needed the sweetness of chocolate offset by that bracing dash of tartness….
Smiling to himself, Alenby turned about and quickened his steps in the direction of the Ambassador Lounge. One dreamed of Montmorency cherries dipped in a dark, unctuous chocolate fondue. But now, one needed a drink—yes, Champagne.
1.3.2 Alenby Distracted
Ambassador Lounge, Newark International Airport
6:45 pm Tuesday 1 April 1987
Deep pile carpet, crystal chandelier, a few short, thin neatly dressed people standing about—all perfectly correct. And all new. One didn’t remember any Ambassador Lounge at Newark Airport. Before Alenby had time to worry about this new puzzle, a short, thin waiter with bushy eyebrows materialized at his elbow, bearing a tray of small and exceedingly slim flûtes of Champagne.
"Champagne, Excellency?"
Alenby took up a flûte, glanced at it briefly, sniffed, sipped...frowned.
"E. Leclerc '84, Excellency," supplied the waiter.
"E. Leclerc," Alenby repeated in a tone that would have been equally appropriate to a finding of E. coli. "Frankly," he went on after further consideration, "I am surprised this E. Leclerc was deemed worthy of bottling as a cuvé, let alone a vintage." He made to drain the flûte, but discovered he had already done so.
"Yes, Excellency, very perceptive of you if I may say so. Most of our passengers, even in Ambassador class, take this Champagne to be the product of the relatively reputable estate, Lafayette. Air France has to economize, of course, but it is regrettable that they have chosen to cut here, in the very lifeblood of our service. Will Excellency care for another?"
Alenby accepted a second toy-sized flûte and examined it with elaborate attention. The waiter was right, he thought, about the airline’s economizing in the wrong place. Not only did they offer bubbly of less than barely adequate quality, but they served it in ridiculously small glasses. And another thing:
"Hum, you say this is E. Leclerc’s 1984 vintage."
"Yes Excellency, the 1984 vintage—"
"But it’s remarkably advanced for an ’84 from the Vallée de la Marne, as I assume this is from the hints of Pinot Meunier in the nose. It's as if it were put up in half-bottles."
"Oh no, not at all Excellency," said the waiter, failing to conceal his surprise at the error. "We receive all our Champagne in bottles. Well, sometimes in magnums, to be sure, but definitely bottles in this case. Regular 37.5-centiliter bottles."
Alenby smiled warily. The fellow must be joking. A bottle is three-quarters of a liter, and 37.5 centiliters is a half-bottle in anyone’s language.
But the waiter’s face wore the stolid expression of conviction in his area of expertise. He wasn’t joking. Alenby was baffled. A bottle equal to a half-bottle? What a contradiction! Another enigma to add to the mystery of the disappearing suitcase....
On further consideration he perceived a small area of order: It seemed perfectly correct that half-sized people should be accustomed to Champagne poured from half-bottles into half-sized glasses. Here at last was something that made sense.
"Another, hem, E. Leclerc, Excellency?"
"Thank you, my good man!" Alenby took up a flûte—or as he persisted in thinking of it, a demi-flûte—with the optimistic feeling that he was about to untangle the problems that beset him.
But the feeling was short-lived.
As he lifted the flûte he happened to comment favorably on the enhancement of various common fruits—Montmorency cherry, cape gooseberry, bergamot and so on and so forth—under a glaze of chocolate fondue. Just a light-hearted remark, to which the waiter’s response—bushy eyebrows raised, suddenly ashen complexion—seemed absurdly inappropriate. It was as if one had made some embarrassing gaffe, like taking coffee with dessert instead of waiting for the mignardises.
"Does Excellency realize what he is suggesting?" the waiter asked after he had regained his power of speech. "I must advise Excellency most emphatically that it is company policy to avoid mention of prohibited substances! Pure raw chocolate is permissible, of course, but the candy-chocolate abomination used in glazing—never! Carob, now, carob is possible. Carob-coated cherries, Montmorency cherries if you will, but—"
Alenby recoiled, frowning. Carob? Ridiculous! Carob lacked the unctuous gleam of chocolate, and it lacked that curious kick on the palate delivered by the Valrhona sort of thing. The idea simply didn’t square with the norms of civilized society, let alone its ideals!
The emotional disturbance had its usual effect: He imagined his inner snake making a sudden escape attempt by way of his rectum, and he felt the abominable anal stinging and itching familiar to sufferers of colitis or whatever it was. But he remained calm. His flight was yet to be called. He still had time to stop in at the toilet to apply the new British medication, R-solace, to the affected area.