The Winemaker's Wife

by Kristin Harmel

  “It’s a relief to have many of the men back,” Inès said to Michel over an early dinner on the Wednesday before the first grapes were to be picked. Since he’d returned from his short stint in prison several months earlier, speaking of de Gaulle and resistance, there had been even more distance between them, and she missed him, even when he was sitting right across the table from her. “Perhaps we will have a chance now to spend a bit more time together once the harvest is done.”

  “Inès, that’s hardly the issue.” He didn’t even look at her. “These men were being forced to work for Germany, and now they’re home and safe. We should be thanking God for their freedom!”

  “Yes, of course, I know.” Inès could feel her cheeks flaming. It seemed that everything she said these days was incorrect or somehow offensive. She scratched her arm. “I only mean that I was hoping we’d have some time to ourselves one of these days. We both work so very hard, and you’ve been so tired . . .”

  “Inès, we’re at war. What do you expect?” Michel put his spoon down and sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just worry sometimes that you don’t grasp the magnitude of what’s happening here.”

  “I’m not an imbecile, Michel.”

  “I know you’re not. But Céline understands what’s going on, and I can’t understand why you—”

  “So you are comparing me to Céline.” Lately, whenever Inès dared comment on the way the Germans had impacted their lives, Michel seemed barely able to contain his annoyance, but whenever Céline spoke about the same matters, he paused and listened intently. It was a small thing, Inès knew, but it hurt her just the same.

  “Of course not. It’s just that the weight on my shoulders feels very heavy right now, and—”

  “Then let me help!” Inès blinked back tears, because she’d made the mistake of crying in front of him more than once in the past few months. His response was never to comfort her anymore; it was to turn away in frustration, and she didn’t want to lose him again right now. She wanted him to hear her, to understand that she wasn’t nagging him. “I’m your wife, Michel. I should be sharing the burden.”

  He stood abruptly. “Excuse me, Inès. I have some things to attend to.”

  “But . . . you didn’t finish your dinner,” Inès said in a small voice.

  “I’m not hungry,” he said, though that wasn’t possible. The rations were getting tighter, the food quality poorer. They were lucky to live in the countryside, where they were able to grow some vegetables and keep a few chickens and rabbits, but still, there was never enough to eat. “I’m going to head back down to the caves. Don’t wait up.”

  He was gone before she could say another word. In silence, Inès finished the rest of her soup, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, the rest of Michel’s, too. As she washed the dishes, Inès glanced at the clock on the wall, the inexpensive one the Germans had left behind when they toted away Michel’s generations-old grandfather clock. Five minutes before seven. It was still early, and Inès knew that with nearly an hour of daylight left, and with Michel likely swallowed by the cellars for the remainder of the evening, she’d once again be lonely. It wasn’t fair; he wasn’t the only one tortured by the war, worried about the fate of the business.

  She put the dish towel down, smoothed her skirt, and made a decision. She would go into Reims for the night to see Edith. What harm could that do? Though the main city was only sixteen kilometers away, she hadn’t been there in months because the tasks around the champagne house were so never-ending and arduous, and because Michel didn’t like her to travel alone. But if he wanted to treat her as if she were useless, she wasn’t going to sit around and grovel. Besides, she missed her best friend terribly. More than that, she missed her old life, the one she’d had before Edith had met Edouard, before Inès had followed Edith to Champagne, before everything had become so difficult.

  Without giving herself time to rethink the decision, she dashed up the stairs, threw on the first decent dress she could find—a red one with butterfly sleeves and a long A-line skirt that swished at her calves, which she’d bought in 1938 just before she’d left Lille—and added her black two-inch pumps, the soles of which had grown so thin that it was uncomfortable to be on her feet for more than an hour or so. But before she’d met Michel, they’d been the shoes that made men do double takes, and she wanted to be looked at like that tonight. She couldn’t remember the last time Michel had gazed at her admiringly.

  She drew a line down the back of each calf with an eye pencil to mimic the seams of stockings, and swiped on black mascara and red lipstick, though her supplies of each were dwindling. Her hair was a lost cause, so she clipped it on each side. Grabbing her black handbag, she went downstairs and out the back door.

  “Michel!” she called down into the entrance to the cellars. There was no reply, and she wasn’t going to waste time trooping around beneath the earth in search of someone who didn’t want to be found.

  Five minutes later, after leaving a scribbled message on the dining table, Inès headed out the front door, the keys to the Citroën in her hand.

  “Inès?”

  Inès looked up and saw Céline walking toward the main house. “Oh, hello.”

  “Is everything all right? Where are you going?”

  “To Reims,” Inès said without slowing down. She glanced up at the sky; the sun was already hanging low. She’d have to hurry in order to make it to town before darkness fell.

  “To Reims?” It was as if Inès had just told her she was planning to drive to Berlin. “Whatever for?”

  “To see Edith,” Inès said. She unlocked Michel’s Citroën, slid in, and slammed the door.

  Céline stepped up to the window and waited until Inès rolled it down. “Edith?”

  “My best friend. You remember her. The one who introduced me to Michel?”

  “Of course I know Edith,” Céline said, staring at her oddly. “But don’t Michel and Theo need the car to visit the vineyards for the harvest tomorrow?”

  “I’ll be back in the morning.” Inès turned the key and the engine purred to life, but still, Céline didn’t move. “Yes? What is it?”

  “Are you sure it’s safe? You know about the German checkpoints . . .”

  Inès had heard that the Germans were blocking roads here and there, stopping all traffic and asking the nature of each driver’s business. But she didn’t have anything to hide. All her papers were in order, tucked neatly in her handbag. “I’ll be fine, Céline. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Biting her lip, Céline stepped aside. As Inès backed out and pulled down the drive, she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Céline still standing there, her shoulders stiff as she watched Inès drive away.

  • • •

  By the time Inès drove through the outskirts of Reims forty minutes later, with the color leaching from the sky, she had realized that perhaps Céline was right.

  There had been no official checkpoints along the road, but there had been plenty of German soldiers passing by in rumbling trucks and gleaming black cars, their gazes menacing. Between the commune of Ormes and the outskirts of Reims, she hadn’t seen a single French civilian.

  Still, she made it to the Brasserie Moulin, set on the corner of the rue de Thillois and the rue des Poissonniers, without incident just before the last rays of daylight disappeared. She easily found a parking spot behind the brasserie, for the streets were already all but deserted, the curtains above the storefronts and apartments drawn tight, many of them abandoned. She shouldn’t be here, not with darkness approaching, but once she was inside, she knew Edith and Edouard would vouch for her.

  As she pushed the front door open, she was already feeling a bit lighter, a bit more like herself. But the instant she looked up, she stopped abruptly.

  She had expected the brasserie to be all but empty as the curfew neared, but instead, it was crowded, bustling, and filled with raucous laughter. It took Inès a second more to register that nearly every man in
the room was wearing a German uniform. The four soldiers at the table closest to the door stopped in midsentence and stared as she entered, and she could feel her cheeks heating up.

  Had she walked into the wrong place? She ran her fingernails up her left arm and scanned the room quickly, reassuring herself that this was indeed Edouard’s brasserie, but what had become of it? A knot twisted in the pit of her stomach.

  “Inès?” Edith hurried toward her from across the room, her hair done up in voluminous pin curls, her red lipstick perfect, her pale green dress unmistakably new. “Why are you here?” Edith hissed, grabbing her friend’s arm and steering her away from the door, toward the back of the restaurant. “And would you smile, please? Pretend you’re having a gay time.”

  “What? Why?” As Edith hustled her across the room, Inès locked gazes with a German officer, who winked at her despite the fact that he currently had his arm thrown around the shoulders of a big-bosomed woman in a tight dress.

  “Because right now you have the look of a rabbit in the headlights, my friend,” Edith said, her nails digging into Inès’s arm. “Guten Abend!” She paused at the table of decorated officers to flash a broad, fake smile before dragging Inès the rest of the way into the kitchen, through the back hall, and up the stairs into the apartment above.

  Edith waited until she’d closed the door behind them before she turned to Inès, her eyes wide and her face white. “What on earth are you doing here, Inès?”

  Inès was still shaken, but she’d recovered enough to feel a wave of indignation. “What am I doing here? I should be asking you what you’re doing! You’re entertaining Germans? You’re even speaking in German?”

  A muscle in Edith’s jaw twitched. “We can’t afford to turn away business in these times, Inès.”

  “Good God.” Inès shook her head. “Are you and Edouard . . . collaborators?” She whispered the last word. She couldn’t have imagined such a thing, but what other explanation could there be?

  “No!” Edith grabbed Inès’s hand. “But what choice do we have, Inès? You must see that.”

  “I see you serving the enemy.”

  “Yes, well, the best way to beat an enemy is to become a friend, non?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Inès, why have you come?”

  The words wounded Inès. There’d been a time not so long ago that she’d been welcome without question. “To see you, Edith.”

  Edith squeezed Inès’s hand. “Please, Inès, stay here until the dinner service is over. Edouard and I will explain.”

  • • •

  Inès settled onto Edith’s worn blue sofa to wait, but soon she found her eyelids growing heavy. She didn’t realize she had dozed off until Edith shook her awake sometime after eleven, long after the restaurant should have closed for the curfew.

  As Inès came to, she saw Edith sitting beside her on the couch and Edouard frowning at her from an armchair across the room. “Did someone send you, Inès?” Edouard asked before she’d had a chance to get her bearings.

  “Send me?” Inès laughed in disbelief. “My own husband won’t even trust me to help with the bottles. I’m too clumsy, too careless. I’m unreliable. He doesn’t say it, but I know he thinks it. So no, Edouard. No one sent me.”

  “Then what are you doing here?” Edouard’s mouth was set in a narrow line beneath his mustache, which was thinner than it had been the last time Inès had seen him. Come to think of it, he looked different in other ways, too, with slicked-back hair, a pallid cast to his skin, and a sharp black suit. He was almost a caricature of a French maître d’.

  “I—I needed my friend.” Inès glanced at Edith, who seemed different to her now, too. Edith was paler, her hair shorter, her fingernails bitten to the quick. “But I didn’t expect to find the two of you in a room full of Nazis.”

  Edouard and Edith exchanged glances. “I need to tell her,” Edith said softly.

  “I disagree.” Edouard glanced once more at Inès, his gaze hard.

  “Tell me what?” Inès asked, but it was as if she hadn’t spoken.

  “We can trust her,” Edith said to Edouard. “I’m sure of it. She would never betray me. She’s my dearest friend.”

  Edouard frowned at Inès for a long time before finally turning to Edith. “Very well.” He stood and nodded to Inès. “It has been a long day. I’m going to bed.” He didn’t glance in her direction again as he left the room.

  Silence descended, and slowly, Edith turned to Inès. They looked at each other for a long time, and Inès told herself she wouldn’t be the one to speak first.

  “You have heard of Jacques Bonsergent?” Edith asked abruptly, breaking the laden stillness.

  Inès frowned. “Was he in school with us in Lille?”

  “No.” Edith glanced down at her hands. “In November he was with some friends in Paris when a German officer, very drunk, staggered out and grabbed one of the women in his group, a new bride who had married just the day before. The new husband defended his wife by hitting the German officer, and then he ran. Bonsergent stayed and tried to help the German up.”

  “Goodness! You know this Monsieur Bonsergent?”

  “I never met him. Please, just listen. Though Bonsergent denied being the one to strike the officer, he refused to give up the name of his friend. Just a few weeks later, he was sentenced to death.”

  “Just to frighten him, yes?”

  “No. He was executed by a firing squad two days before Christmas.”

  Inès swallowed hard. Why was Edith telling her such things? “But . . . that’s horrible.”

  “It was a turning point for many of us who had stayed quiet, who had tried not to become involved.” Edith met Inès’s gaze at last. “Can I trust you, Inès?”

  “Edith, we’re like sisters.”

  “I know. I know.” Edith examined her hands again. “You see, Edouard and I knew that we could not stand by and do nothing. And it has gotten worse, Inès. Did you hear of the German officer who was killed in the Paris Métro last month? They didn’t catch the man who committed the assassination, and so the Germans simply chose three men at random to be executed instead.”

  “What?”

  “You do not listen to the BBC, I see.”

  “It’s forbidden.” The truth was that Inès didn’t even follow the news that the Germans distributed; it was all too depressing. What else had she missed?

  Edith’s smile was sad. “ ‘A nation is beaten only when it has accepted that it is beaten.’ A quote from Marshal Foch. If we accept the things the Germans are doing to us, Inès, it is the beginning of the end. We must fight back.”

  “Fight back? But what can we do? The Germans are in control now. It’s better to just keep our heads down and—”

  “And what?” Edith interrupted. “Let them murder innocent people?”

  “But those are isolated incidents.”

  “No, they aren’t. Nor are the Jewish regulations coming down from Vichy. Do you understand what is at stake?”

  “Of course I do.” But the truth was, Inès felt lost. What could she or Edith—or even Edouard—do to stop a war?

  “So then you understand why we felt we had to do something.” Edith leaned forward and grasped Inès’s hands. “If you breathe a word of this—to anyone—Edouard and I will be arrested, probably even killed.”

  “A word of what? Edith you’re frightening me.”

  Edith waited until Inès looked into her eyes, then she spoke slowly and clearly. “We are resisting, my dear friend. We are fighting for France.”

  Inès blinked at her. “But you’re serving Germans in your brasserie! How is that resisting?”

  “Because alcohol loosens lips.” Edith released Inès and leaned back. “And loose lips mean that secrets sometimes spill out. We smile, and we cater to their every need, and always—always, Inès—we are listening.”

  “But who do you tell the secrets to?”

  Edith sat back and regarded In�
�s for a moment. “The less you know about the specifics, the better,” she said, and Inès felt a stab of frustration. Like Michel, it seemed her friend only trusted her to a point. Edith stood and yawned. “It has been a long day, Inès. Shall we head to bed now? I’m sure you’re tired, too. You’ll find your old bedroom just as you left it. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “But—”

  “We can talk then.” And with that, Edith was gone.

  That night, Inès lay in the small bed that had been hers before she married Michel, and as she stared at the ceiling, she felt more alone than ever. Inès had come here to tell Edith she wasn’t sure she was happy with Michel anymore, to ask her friend’s advice. Instead, she had stumbled upon the fact that Edith was involved in something much more important, with consequences that ran far deeper than she could have imagined. It made Inès’s problems seem silly, juvenile.

  As she finally drifted off into a troubled sleep, she wondered what it meant that Edith had decided to resist, while Inès only wanted to keep life as it was before the war. Was Edith making a mistake? Or was Inès a fool for believing that she bore no responsibility to protect France? But one thing she was sure of: she would keep Edith’s confidence. Otherwise, what kind of friend would she be?

  ten

  SEPTEMBER 1941

  CÉLINE

  With Inès still in Reims early the next morning, Theo and Michel had to rely on Henri Beauvais, an ancient vigneron and Great War veteran who’d been friends with Michel’s father, to give them a ride to Clos Vannier, in the nearby village of Écueil, to observe the first few hours of the harvest. Céline had wanted to accompany them, but Theo had been indifferent, and Michel had urged her to stay home for her own safety, something he’d been saying a lot lately. Though she knew he meant well, Céline was growing frustrated with being trapped on the grounds of the Maison Chauveau. It had been nearly a year since the first statut des Juifs had been announced, and three months since the second round of regulations had come down, barring Jews from professions ranging from banking to real estate, and giving local authorities the right to place them in internment camps should they violate any of the new restrictions. Céline was still considered Christian for the purposes of German record keeping, but they were all aware that the noose was being pulled tighter.