A Suspiciously Familiar Scent - 4
As I worked through the second-floor cleaning, the conversation I’d had with Janette floated back to me.
It’ll cost a bit, but… what if we turned it into a dance studio and rented it out? Just because the space is big doesn’t mean it has to be for dance alone.
Not a bad idea.
Bathrooms were already installed on every floor, so that was fine. The essentials came down to windows, flooring, and thorough soundproofing. A dance studio didn’t need anything grand. After that, it was mostly a matter of securing a business permit and whatever other paperwork the city required, and we’d more or less be done.
“Excuse me. Were you up here?”
I was in the middle of vacuuming up the leftover water when yesterday’s guest walked toward me. I switched the machine off and found myself looking straight into Marie’s violet eyes. No matter how I looked at them, that color had never come from nature.
“Yes. Did you sleep well? How was the bed?”
“Comfortable and lovely. The house is so spacious they even gave me a room of my own. It felt like having a hotel suite to myself.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Her praise put me at ease—probably the landlord in me talking.
“What brings you all the way up here, though?”
“Ah. I came to ask if you’d be willing to interpret for me.”
“Interpret?”
What was this about? The request was so out of left field that my curiosity stirred on its own.
Marie went on.
“Yes. Somehow word got out that I’d entered Korea, and I received a message asking me to help with something. Through an acquaintance.”
“Help with something… You mean heavy labor?”
I wanted to say nogada, but I softened it. The substitute lost all the sticky, compressed flavor that word usually carried.
“It does involve effort, but it’s not hauling or carrying anything myself. It’s wine-related.”
“Ah… wine.”
Right—she’d introduced herself as a sommelier. The forgotten detail clicked back into place, and I found myself nodding before I could stop.
“Did someone suddenly leave their post and ask you to fill in?”
“Filling in is right, but the reason is different. A difficult guest requested that I handle the mariage.”
“Mariage… you mean wine pairing? Matching food and wine.”
“Yes, exactly. You know the term well?”
“I picked it up somewhere along the way.”
Mariage. I’d heard it constantly when I’d lived with Marie in the French palace. I never quite understood the feeling of it myself, but the nobles and royals had adored it.
“So you need an interpreter? Aren’t there people there who speak English…?”
“I’m not sure. There might be, but I’d feel much more secure with someone whose French is smooth. Of course I’ll pay you for the day.”
Better someone you know than a stranger. I couldn’t argue with that. Anyone’s heart leans toward the familiar, even a little.
Still—they’d invited Marie specifically. They wouldn’t have failed to prepare someone who could manage English, or at least someone who spoke it. There was another motive in the air. “She’s a little familiar, so I’ll ask her” felt like thin broth with no salt at all.
“All right. What’s the schedule?”
“This evening at six. They said they’d come pick me up… I haven’t told them where yet.”
If she’d said to come to the house, she was being careful about drawing eyes. Otherwise she would simply have ordered them here.
“Then I’d like them to pick us up somewhere away from the house… Would that be all right?”
“Of course. Thank you so much for helping.”
A soft curve settled on Marie’s lips. Even as she smiled gently, something sharp glinted underneath. Strange.
“The kind of high-end restaurants people talk about can be fussy in all sorts of ways. You know they care about dress codes and the like, right?”
Back at the house, the moment I mentioned I was heading out for a one-day interpreting gig, Janette’s eyes lit up—as if she’d been waiting for exactly this.
“I know.”
After surviving among outrageously extravagant nobles, how could I not? That temperament had come down like tradition.
“So we should go buy you a suit first. Having at least one tailored won’t hurt, will it?”
“You’re not wrong, but… nothing too expensive.”
“I’ll keep it reasonable. Don’t worry.”
Janette finished getting ready with the bright eyes of a child. Same as on previous outings, she put on a hat and sunglasses—only this time it was a rather large baseball cap instead of a wide-brimmed one. Her clothes were plain, too: jeans and a shirt. On a body as striking as hers, even plainness looked deliberate… but anyway.
Once she was ready, we headed straight for the department store.
Should I buy a car?
Until now I hadn’t felt the need or the urgency, so I hadn’t given it much thought. Now the idea of owning one had started to settle in. I’d gotten my license and then left it to gather dust; I needed the practice too.
“Welcome.”
We took a taxi to the department store, rode the escalator, and walked a little farther until we reached the suit section.
“Hello.”
I returned the clerk’s greeting and ordered a suit. Ready-to-wear, not custom—just something in a size that more or less fit. While I was trying on the recommended pieces in the fitting room, I heard the clerk talking with Janette outside.
“That’s your husband, isn’t he? He’s tall—he must look wonderful.”
“Yes. Being tall means the way he holds you feels nice.”
“Doesn’t it? And his proportions look good, too… How about picking up a spare while you’re at it?”
“Hmm… I’ll think about it. My husband’s opinion matters most.”
Husband.
Janette used the old-fashioned endearment without the slightest hesitation. Probably because her roots were from another age.
“My goodness. You two must be very close.”
The clerk gushed in a slightly excited voice. No pretension—she simply liked the word “husband” a great deal.
“Yes, we are.”
Janette smiled bashfully and made no secret of her pleasure. She could tell what the clerk was angling for and let it pass. Atmosphere aside, though, we stuck to the plan and bought only one suit before heading home. When I stepped out of the fitting room her eyes had brightened and wavered a little, but the impulse never hardened into buying more. She didn’t even glance at anything else.
Back home we spent the remaining hours in ordinary conversation. When the time came I changed and stepped outside. Her simple “Have a good time” only made my chest feel heavier.
“Shall we go?”
Outside, Marie was waiting. Same clean look as when we first met—shirt and long skirt—with a small bag in one hand. I nodded and glanced at the bag.
“Yes. What’s that you’re carrying? Let me take it for you.”
“Thank you. It’s not very heavy, though, and I’m more comfortable holding it myself. It’s wine.”
“Wine?”
Now that she mentioned it, the bag was long and slim, made for a tall bottle. A wine tote, then.
“I brought it just in case. Not everyone who enjoys wine is necessarily a good person.”
“From the way you put it… is it a fine wine?”
“It belongs to the group people usually call that, yes. To me they’re all just wine, but the world draws lines.”
A bitter smile touched Marie’s lips. The phrase “draws lines” carried the taste of hard experience. I’d seen enough of that myself to feel the same.
“There are plenty of cases like that.”
“So I packed it. Whether someone drinks the brand or truly tastes the wine, they’re the same in one way.”
“Which is?”
“They’re all people who drink wine.”
Marie gave a short laugh and started walking. Leading the way, her steps looked remarkably light.
Fine dining.
The phrase meant expensive meals in the literal sense—and restaurants priced to match. Dim, understated lighting, immaculate surfaces. The atmosphere itself was nothing like an ordinary eatery. The menus were rich accordingly, and because they were rich, plenty of people downstairs got ground to pieces to make it so. Not every plate could be fine.
Guests rarely thought about that side of things.
Flashy.
Seo Ji-hyuk stayed close at Marie’s side and swept the room with his eyes—the atmosphere, the setting, even the plates. Scenery most people never saw felt, to him, not merely familiar but almost insufficient. He had lived as a true aristocrat’s attendant, serving a queen, and had seen and endured the absolute limit of luxury. Because of that, the way he walked and stood, the proper distance he kept, and the tone he used when rendering Marie’s words into the other language were all exactly right.
Just like now.
“For the ratatouille, I recommend the Haute Cabrières Chardonnay Pinot Noir. The 2014 vintage.”
He took words that would have been dizzying even in Korean, heard them in French, and translated them cleanly—without a single tangled syllable.
“You’re right. There’s a real assertiveness in the way it mingles with the vegetables.”
“A sharper wine would have fallen a little short. This one locks in softly. I like it.”
The guests—two young couples—praised the pairing as they tipped their glasses. For Marie, and for Seo Ji-hyuk as well, the scene was thoroughly ordinary. Only the roles had reversed: from the ones being served to the ones doing the serving. The landscape itself was deeply familiar.
I’m getting used to this more and more.
So it hadn’t been his imagination after all.
Even while she poured and presented the wine, Marie stole glances at Seo Ji-hyuk—his French, his bearing. In a place this refined, those qualities stood out all the sharper. And in a fine-dining restaurant he claimed he’d never visited, he showed no tension at all? He even looked faintly bored?
Someone else might have decided he was simply emotionally dry, or a man without nerves. To Marie’s eyes it looked different. It was the ease of someone already too familiar with this world—someone who had lived at a higher level still.
Strange. Too strange.
Through the fish course and into the meat, it was the same. He seemed to move half a step ahead of the explanations. And the more he spoke, the smoother his speech became—at times like a man who had done this countless times before. The better Seo Ji-hyuk adapted, the larger Marie’s questions grew.
“To finish, I’ve prepared a wine to accompany the Époisses. It may feel a little obvious, but I believe you’ll find a freshness within that familiarity.”
The closing note that put a period on the arc from starter to main. Marie’s choice made that finish shine. She had paired wine with a cheese famous for its aggressive aroma and impact, and the match pushed past perfection itself.
“Good heavens. How do you get a match like this with that reeking Époisses…?”
“It’s a finicky cheese to begin with. I never would have imagined pairing it with a fresh Beaujolais.”
Every guest who tasted the cheese and wine offered unstinting praise. The finish was so powerful that calling it moving would not have been an exaggeration.
“Thanks to you, this was a truly happy meal. Thank you.”
After dinner, both couples rose together and offered their greetings. The kitchen had adjusted the seasoning under Marie’s guidance, and they made no attempt to hide how deeply the matching wines had moved them—adding, for good measure, that even the soufflé for dessert had been exactly right.
“They say they were very happy.”
“Please tell them it’s an honor to have given them satisfaction at such a fine table.”
Seo Ji-hyuk asked Marie in French, then delivered her answer in Korean. Fortunate or not, not a single person at the table understood French. He could have cursed them to their faces and no one would have known.
“And your interpreter was so smooth—there wasn’t a single hitch. Did you work professionally for the Foreign Ministry?”
One of the young wives turned to Seo Ji-hyuk, interest bright in her eyes and voice.
“No. I simply studied in the ordinary way.”
“Is that so? How curious. A renowned sommelier, and the people she knows are just as unusual.”
As the wife marveled, the rest of the party added a word each.
“In any case, we had a wonderful time thanks to you. I hope we have another chance someday.”
This time one of the young men let his eyes gleam. Beneath the wish for another pleasant evening, a quiet ulterior motive hid. Anyone else might have missed it; Marie and Seo Ji-hyuk both caught it easily enough.
Fair enough.
With a figure and face like that, a man might lose his head even with his wife sitting right there. Seo Ji-hyuk understood the impulse—and still thought the man was being far too obvious. Marie felt the same. Men who cast lines and showed their appetites: even among the educated crowds of the French court, nothing had been any different.
Which only made Seo Ji-hyuk’s unruffled calm stick with her all the more.
“Truly, thank you. Some extremely difficult people suddenly insisted on coming, and everything was in chaos…….”
Once the guests had gone, the restaurant owner approached and bowed with careful formality. The place ran on reservations only, so in principle he could have refused—but these were people with power and force behind them, he explained, and he hadn’t dared.
Marie listened quietly to Seo Ji-hyuk’s interpretation, then spoke. Her gaze was not on the owner but on Seo Ji-hyuk himself.
“Would you like to have a meal here before we leave? As thanks for the gukbap—my treat.”