Marrying Off Mother Read Free Page B

kissed by everyone, including the doctor. Then we all — including Esmeralda — went back into the house where Monsieur Clot insisted on opening one of his best bottles of wine (a Chateau Montrose 1952) and we drank a toast to the pig of pigs who was being fed chocolate peppermints by Madame Clot.
    â€˜Monsieur Durrell,’ said Monsieur Clot, ‘you may think perhaps that we made a disproportionate amount of brouhaha over the disappearance of Esmeralda.’
    â€˜Not at all,’ I said, ‘it is most upsetting to lose such a fine pet.’
    â€˜She is more than just a pet,’ said Monsieur Clot, in a hushed and reverent voice, ‘she is the champion truffle pig of Périgord. Fifteen times she has won the silver cup for the most sensitive nose of any pig in the quartier. A truffle may lurk twenty centimetres beneath the forest floor and fifty metres away from Esmeralda and she will find it unerringly. She is like — she is like — well, she is like a pig Exocet.’
    â€˜Remarkable,’ I said.
    â€˜Tomorrow morning at eight, if you will be so kind as to come, we will take Esmeralda into the forest and you shall see for yourself the powers that she possesses. And then if you would do us the honour of staying to lunch we should be delighted. I may say that my wife, Antoinette, is one of the finest cooks in the district.’
    â€˜Not only the finest cook, but the most beautiful,’ said the doctor, gallantly.
    â€˜Yes, indeed,’ said the muscular young man, fastening upon Madame Clot a look of such burning adoration that I was not surprised to learn that his name was Juan.
    â€˜I should be delighted and honoured,’ I said and, finishing my wine, I took my leave.
    The next morning was crisp and sunny, the sky as blue as a forget-me-not, the mist lying in tangled shawls among the trees. When I arrived at the farm, Monsieur Clot, in his disjointed way, was putting the final touches to Esmeralda’s toilet. Her hooves had been rubbed with olive oil (the first pressing), she had been carefully brushed and special eye drops put in her tiny eyes. Then came the final touch. A minute phial of Joy was produced and a few drops were placed behind each of her drooping ears. Finally, a soft muzzle of chamois leather was put on her snout to discourage any inclination she might have to devour the truffles she found.
    â€˜Voilà,’ said Monsieur Clot, triumphantly, waving his truffle spade. ‘Now she is ready for the hunt.’
    The next few hours were instructive, for I had never seen a truffle pig at work, least of all one so brilliantly versed in the art as Esmeralda. She walked through the oak forest that abutted Monsieur Clot’s farm with all the slow dignity of an elderly opera singer making yet another farewell performance. As she walked, she crooned to herself in a series of falsetto grunts. Presently she stopped, lifted her head, eyes closed, and inhaled deeply. Then she walked to the base of a venerable oak and started to nose at the earth and leaf litter.
    â€˜She has found,’ cried Monsieur Clot and, pushing Esmeralda to one side, he plunged his spade deeply into the forest floor. When the spade emerged it had balanced on it a truffle the size of a plum, black and redolent. Pungent and beautiful though the truffle scent was, I could not understand how Esmeralda, coated as she was in Joy, could detect the fungus’ presence. However, to prove it was no fluke, during the next hour or so she found six more, each as rotund as the first. We carried these back in triumph to the farm and handed them over to Madame Clot who, her face flushed to a delicate pink, was busy in the kitchen. Esmeralda was put in her spotless pen and given her reward, a small baguette of bread split down the middle and stuffed with cheese, and Monsieur Clot and I regaled ourselves with Kir.
    Presently, madame called us to the table. Juan had — I think in my honour