61

Dinner was a feast as always, and Ante had selected a white wine to go with the salmon, potatoes and cucumber salad. The wine was unusually fresh and had a light sparkle to it. But it was by no means a sparkling wine. There was only a light pleasant tingle when he drank it. Curious to find out more about the wine, Bjorn reached for the bottle to take a closer look at the label while his colleagues dug into their portions, complimenting Ante on yet another fine meal.

"So this is what Portuguese white wine tastes like?" Bjorn remarked.
"Green wine!" Ante corrected. "It is a green wine?"
"Looks like white wine to me," Frank commented.
"Branco!" Bjorn added. "It says branco here in small letters. Doesn't branco mean white in Latin speak?"
"But it says vinho verde in big fat letters above the branco, doesn't it? What do you think that means?"
"Beats me!" Bjorn replied. "I don't speak Portuguese."
"Well, it means green wine. That is what it says: green wine!"
"Well, literally it says wine, green, white."
"So now you're suddenly an expert in Portuguese?"

Bjorn smiled at Ante. "Well, am I right, or am I right?"
"Okay, it's a white green wine," Ante admitted. "Not that I've ever come across a red green wine... But any way... The sparkle and freshness of the wine is typical for green wines."
"So it's a white wine made in a special way?" Espen suggested.
"Yeah, I guess so," Ante replied, happy to go along with Espen's suggestion.
"So there may well be red wines made this same way," Espen continued.
"I guess..."
"I wonder what that would taste like."

There was a brief silence while the wine drinkers around the table were trying to imagine a red wine with a light sparkle.

"Maybe a sweet one would be drinkable, if it was chilled," Thomas suggested.
"Sweet and sour with a light sparkle," Ante mused. "I guess that could be kind of nice."

There was another brief silence which Bjorn broke by bringing up Pedro and Lundby in the conversation.

"Do you think Pedro is behind this in some way?" Bjorn asked of the group. "I mean, Pedro is Portuguese, right? And there were an awful lot of Portuguese wines and foreign cheeses in Pingo."
"Duh... Pingo is Portuguese. Of course they have Portuguese products for sale," Ante answered, happy to get back at Bjorn.
"Well, excuse me for not knowing that," Bjorn retorted with feigned hurt feelings.
"It's hardly likely to be a coincidence that Pingo is from Portugal given that Pedro is Portuguese," Thomas continued. "And Pedro is the one in charge down there, right? So, of course he's behind this."

Bjorn had to admit that it didn't take a genius to figure out that things necessarily had to be related to those in charge of the village, but was Thomas correct in his assertion that Pedro was in charge of the village?

"What about Jan," Bjorn protested. "He owns the place. Doesn't he? Why would he let a foreigner take over?"
"You're right," Thomas answered thoughtfully. "They must be cooperating in some way."

There was again silence around the table. Then, just as Thomas was about to say something, John asked, "have any of you guys ever seen Pedro?"
"No..." Everyone had to admit that they had never seen him.
"But who else has invited Pingo to set up shop in Lundby?" Thomas protested.
"I don't know," John answered "But I don't think the man exists. I've been looking him up, and I haven't found anything."
"You googled his full name, and you didn't find anything?" Bjorn asked in amazement.
"No. Nothing, except for what has been coming out of the mainstream media."
"So, you did find something?" Thomas corrected.
"Only the official stuff. Nothing else."

The wine drinkers all looked at John with his glass of water. Then they looked at each other before breaking out in light laughter. "You really are paranoid, aren't you?" Frank blurted out with a big friendly smile.