The Discovery of Chocolate by James Runcie

Author:James Runcie [Runcie, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Fantasy, Modern, Romance
ISBN: 9780060959432
Goodreads: 906980
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Published: 2001-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

V

The estate lay close to the Vienna Woods and was well regarded both for its dairy produce and for its apricots, which were harvested each July and August. Indeed, the family was famed for the resulting cordials, brandies, compotes and preserves.

The lady of the house was a tall, dark-haired and nervous woman, as slender as her husband was portly. In fact they seemed to be the exact opposite of each other: Franz being small, blond, weighty and prone to excess perspiration, forever dabbing a handkerchief on his forehead; whereas his wife was pale, powdered and thin. Together they had produced three children: Katharina, aged ten, who performed the duties of a mother when her own was too debilitated to do so, Trude, an opinionated daughter of eight, and Edward, a troublesome and energetic son of three.

On the afternoon that I arrived in Vienna, the family was involved in the making of an apricot preserve. A wooden table had been set in the middle of the orchard and the children ran amidst the trees, selecting the fruit and placing it gently in narrow wicker trays. Pedro followed them with enthusiasm, barking happily, jumping up at them, and even, at one point, picking an apricot himself by leaping up and dislodging it with his nose as if it were a ball with which to play.

It was a beautiful summer’s day, and the green of the trees stretched out before us as if an artist had laid them out on a palette: lime, verdigris, and Prussian green; emerald, pine and terre-verte.

Franz was clearly delighted to be home, and clasped his wife with unbounded affection.

‘Bertha, my joy, my life, my wife.’

‘You are home at last. Now I can rest,’ she said. It was clear that motherhood exhausted her.

‘I have returned with a charming new friend, my treasure.’

His wife broke off the embrace and turned to me.

‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance,’ she said guardedly, wiping her hand on her apron before holding it out for me to kiss.

She had been slicing apricots on the table, cutting them into halves, and removing the stones, before placing them into shallow white bowls. ‘We are making a compote,’ she announced, ‘and then the children will bake a cake.’

Her husband reached down and plucked up an apricot.

‘I love this fruit more than anything in the world,’ he said, letting it rest in his hand, rolling it gently backwards and forwards in his palm. ‘Look at its roundness and its simplicity. It is the greatest treasure we own; so short is its season, so rare its beauty.’

He held the apricot up in the sunlight.

‘Have you ever seen anything with a finer glow? Look at the blush on it. Admire its colour. It is the purest of pale orange, the mirror of creation. When I see a perfect apricot I know that God is good.’

‘All things mirror God’s creation,’ Bertha offered, and, indeed, it seemed that afternoon we were perhaps in a very Eden, surrounded by the laughter of children.

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