No problem. I’m still at work with Ellie, will take a look as soon as I get home.
Camille responded immediately:
Say hi to Ellie—tell her she has to come back here and dance on the tables with me.
Bente smiled. She was so grateful for her little gang. She and Camille had remained friends even after Bente left Paris for Stockholm, TV appearances, and a job at one of the city’s Michelin-starred restaurants. Camille had also been one of her staunchest supporters after Bente’s TV career came crashing down and she was swept up in a storm of negative attention and publicly humiliated. Her two friends had gotten to know each other when Bente took Ellie on a weekend trip to Paris a year or so ago.
She and Ellie finished the tasting, then cleaned up and changed out of their work clothes before setting the alarm and locking up. The March evening was chilly, and Bente was glad she had chosen her warm coat and pushed her wool hat into her pocket at the last minute. She pulled on the hat and tied her belt.
Ellie set off toward the subway while Bente cut across Mariatorget and climbed the stairs to her sister Hanna’s enormous apartment, which was blissfully empty tonight. Her sister was working late, and her mother, Agneta, was visiting a girlfriend. Bente was looking forward to a couple of hours of much-needed peace and quiet.
She missed her own apartment so much—her little Parisian-style flat in Stockholm’s Söder district. She was currently renting it out; she had brought her most precious possessions here, and put the rest in storage. It was a temporary solution until she had saved sufficient capital to be able to move back. Right now Bente and her mother were both parasites, living off Hanna’s enormous success in the tech world. Fortunately she had plenty of space.
Bente’s mouth felt dry from the wine, and tea would probably only make it worse, but she was craving a strong Earl Grey. She boiled the water, dropped in an overfilled infuser, and spooned in plenty of honey. She blew on it and took a cautious sip; the heat hurt her tongue, but the honey soothed her mouth.
She grabbed her thick woolen sweater from the hook by the double doors and stepped out onto the crescent-shaped balcony with attractive wrought iron railing, which overlooked the square. The murmur ofconversation from Hotel Rival drifted through the air; people crossed the square, entering and exiting it from the surrounding streets. In the distance was the constant hum of the traffic on Hornsgatan.
She sat down on the garden furniture that was left out all year round, took out her phone, and looked closely at the photo Camille had sent. There was nothing on the bottle apart from the brass plaque; obviously the label had perished on the seabed.
At the bottom of the plaque was a date—1944. Bente tried to zoom in on the branches of the oak tree so she could read the inscription, but the image was too blurred.
Can you send me a sharper image?
A second later the screen flashed, and a clearer photo appeared. She took a sip of her hot tea and zoomed in again.
The wordsSaknar digappeared between two of the branches. Then:Din, and down the trunk:Dejje.
Miss you
Your Dejje
She sent the translation to Camille and got an immediate response.
How strange. Could it be a message to someone?
Bente nodded to herself. It could be. Her screen flashed again:
The bottle is going to be sold at auction along with the other wines. It would have been great if we could have told its story.
Bente understood that sentiment more than anyone. She replied:
What do you know?
Camille repeated what Bente already knew about the ship being sunk just before the end of the Second World War. Then she added:
According to the ship’s log, the origin of the cargo was Bordeaux.
Bordeaux. The west coast of France. Bente took another sip of tea while she waited. The three dots were pulsating.
Hard to set a price when we know only the year and geographical location. Thanks for the translation anyway!
No problem, Bente answered, ending with a kiss emoji.
She put down her phone and gazed out over the treetops in the square; tiny drops of moisture had formed on the branches. After several minutes, she went indoors and, feeling inspired, headed for the well-stocked wine refrigerator and picked out a Bordeaux. From a simple château, not very expensive; she just wanted to savor the moment.
She opened the bottle and poured herself a glass. She figured she could use the rest for her next YouTube episode, which she was going to record the following day. The topic of Bordeaux could be good; she hadn’t talked about classic wines in a while. Recently she had focused on smaller producers with a more modern style.
She took her father’s old waterproof jacket from the hallstand and put it on before going back out onto the balcony. It was pretty cold out there now.
