The Winemaker's Wife

by Kristin Harmel

“All because I took the car for a night, many months ago?” Inès asked, hating how desperate she sounded. “Michel, I’ve apologized a hundred times. But I feel so stifled here.”

  “Don’t you think we all do?” He sat up, and even in the darkness, even without seeing his face, she knew he was vibrating with principled anger. “You can’t just run away when things get difficult!”

  “I wasn’t running away! I just needed to breathe.”

  “Breathe?” Michel choked on a laugh. “Do you know how lucky we are? How lucky you are? All of France is starving, and because we live near farmland—and because the Germans want to keep us happy in order to keep the champagne flowing—we have enough to eat, enough to heat our home. We still have a way to make money, to make it through the war. There are people in the cities who would kill for that, Inès. Do you understand?”

  “Of course.” And she did; on her return from Reims, in the light of day, she had seen living skeletons clutching ration tickets and standing in lines that snaked for blocks. “It’s just that you still have a purpose, Michel. You still get to be you. Who have I become?”

  He looked away. “These are trying times for all of us.”

  “You don’t understand. I’m—I’m not happy.”

  “For God’s sake, Inès!” Michel shoved the blankets aside and climbed out of bed. “Is that all you think about? Your happiness?”

  He stormed out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind him, before she had a chance to reply. In his absence, the tears came, and she angrily wiped them away. Didn’t she know better than to let his words hurt her?

  Now, in the deep darkness of the night, with Michel’s criticism washing over her, something stirred in Inès, something angry and righteous, and she threw the covers off, shivering as she groped around for the cardigan Céline had knit for her, a gift for the holidays that had embarrassed her, for all she’d gotten Céline in return was a tube of lipstick, purchased on the black market through a local vigneron’s young son. It had seemed at the time a great luxury, for many women were resorting to using beetroot to stain their lips. But Céline had merely given her a pinched smile and a murmured merci before turning away in unspoken judgment.

  Inès was sick of feeling useless, shallow, and unprincipled. She knew she wasn’t as knowledgeable as Michel, Céline, and Theo were about what was happening with the war, but that didn’t mean she didn’t care. And though she wasn’t particularly good at anything having to do with champagne production, she was tired, too, of Michel making her feel as if she no longer had a place here. She was going to go tell him that before she lost her courage.

  She lit a lamp and shoved her feet into her decaying boots. They had once been warm and solid, but they’d been worn so many times the soles had mostly disintegrated, and there were holes in the toes. Still, they were all she had, and they would provide some measure against the wet freeze outside. She slid into her fraying overcoat, pulled on a wool cap, and slipped out the back door into the deep, bleak evening.

  Even with the lamp lighting her way, it was almost impossible to see through the inky night. Still, up ahead, from the entrance to the cellars, she could see a faint wash of light, and she knew Michel was belowground. It was time to confront him face-to-face after months—no, years—of being made to feel useless.

  As she descended from the silent, snow-swept world above, her footsteps landed dully against the stone. They were loud enough that Michel should have heard her coming, so she was puzzled when the light drifting out from one of the winding tunnels far ahead to the right didn’t waver. Didn’t he hear her? She almost called out, to let him know it was only her, but a small, vindictive part of her took some comfort in the idea that he might think she was a German soldier approaching. He deserved to feel ill at ease on his own turf, as she so often did.

  But when she rounded the corner into the dimly lit cave, she gasped, for it wasn’t just Michel standing there; there was another man, tall and swarthy, and they were both scowling and pointing pistols at her. Inès gave a little scream and turned to run.

  “Inès, wait!” Michel barked, taking two quick steps toward her. He grabbed her arm and wrenched her back into the cave, where the other man, whose black overcoat was swept with snowflakes and whose left cheek was marked from eyebrow to chin with a deep scar, still stood with his gun leveled at her head.

  Inès screamed again, and Michel tightened his grip. “For God’s sake, Inès, shut up!” He turned to the other man and said, “It’s okay. This is my wife.”

  “Your wife,” the man repeated flatly, but it took another moment for him to lower his weapon. When he finally did, he continued to glare at Inès, his small black eyes slits of suspicion. “What is she doing here?”

  But Inès was no longer listening, for she had seen what was behind the men. Three wine barrels, the kind that were used to age the single-vineyard wines before they were blended, sat with their heads pried off. It wasn’t wine inside the barrels, though; it was rifles, dozens of them. “Michel?” she breathed, unable to pry her eyes away.

  “Now she’s seen us!” barked the man. “She knows. This wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “Go,” Michel said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “You’ll take care of it?” Now the man’s fury was aimed at her husband. “You know Fernand doesn’t tolerate mistakes.”

  “I’ll fix it.” Michel’s tone was stiff, controlled, and his nails dug into Inès’s arm so hard that she winced. “Now go.”

  “Fernand will hear about this.” The man cast one more look of seething fury at Inès, then slipped from the cave, his footsteps somehow silent in the night, as if he were a ghost, someone who had never really been there at all. But when she finally dared to glance at Michel, she knew from his expression that she’d imagined none of it.

  “Do you want to tell me what you’re doing?” he hissed.

  “Do you want to let me go?”

  Michel instantly released her, as if surprised to realize he’d still been holding on. Inès rubbed at the spot where his fingers had been, and an expression of guilt flitted over Michel’s face before it hardened into something colder.

  “Inès, why are you here?”

  “You’re going to act like I’m the one doing something wrong? What is this?”

  “What is what?” His attempt to move in front of her, blocking her view of the rifle-loaded barrels, might have been laughable if the stakes didn’t feel so high.

  “The guns, Michel. The barrels full of guns.”

  His expression changed then, anger cracking into guilt, and then fear. “You can’t tell anyone, Inès.”

  “Do you really think I would?”

  “I don’t think you would betray me on purpose, but—”

  “But what?” She cut him off, her frustration bubbling over. “But what, Michel? You don’t think this is a betrayal?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “How could you put us in danger this way?”

  “Ah, so you’re worried about yourself.” Michel’s voice had taken on a familiar frigid, superior edge, and it made Inès furious.

  “How dare you act like I’m being selfish? If the Germans found these weapons, they’d arrest all of us, Michel, not just you. We’d be put to death, Theo and Céline, too! Do you understand the danger you’re putting us all in?”

  “I’m not the one putting you in danger! Can’t you see that? It’s the damned Germans!”

  “But we’re safe if we play by their rules!”

  “Play by their rules? There are no rules! We have to fight back, and—”

  “We just have to keep our heads down! You said so yourself!”

  “Non!” Michel’s shout echoed through the caves, and he glanced around, suddenly conscious of the racket they were making. “Non,” he said more quietly. “We have tried that. For nearly two years now, Inès, we’ve played along. But I’m done.”

  “So you’re doing what? Smuggling weapons? For whom?”


  He ignored her questions. “Maybe we’re safe, but what about the ones we can’t protect? There are rumors, Inès. They’re coming for the Jews soon, just like they did in Germany. How can we stand by and let our friends and neighbors be taken away for nothing? For the mere fact of their birth?”

  Something shifted in Inès as Michel averted his eyes. “Are you talking about Céline? You’re doing this to protect her?”

  “I mean all the Jewish people in our community. Does it matter that I wish to protect Céline, too?”

  She stared at the cache of weapons for a long time, trying to form the words her heart wanted to say. “Yes, it matters, Michel. It matters very much. Why is it more important to you to protect Céline than to protect me?”

  “How can you ask that? You’re relatively safe because you’re Christian. She is increasingly defenseless.”

  “And what if the Germans came looking for me because of what you’re doing here?”

  Michel didn’t answer. As she glowered back, something flickered in his eyes, and in that instant, Inès found herself wondering whether he loved her anymore. There was no warmth in his expression now, no forgiveness. He saw her as the enemy, a threat. She hadn’t been a perfect wife to him, but she deserved more than this.

  “Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?” she asked.

  “Inès, it doesn’t concern you.”

  “Of course it does,” she said softly. “You don’t trust me, do you?”

  “I . . .” Michel hesitated. “It’s not that. It’s just—I can’t involve you in this.”

  She took one last look at the rifles, and felt a strange sensation of pieces slipping into place, the future being locked in. “Well then, good night,” she said, then she turned away and retraced her steps into the blank, frigid night. Somewhere in the distance, a lone dog howled, and as the wind picked up, Inès could feel tears freezing on her cheeks.

  • • •

  In the morning, Inès slept late without meaning to. Now that they were in the dead of winter, the sun didn’t rise until well past eight in the morning. Most days, Inès was up much earlier, stoking the fire, readying the house for the day ahead, brewing ersatz coffee made from malt and acorn for Michel, scrounging up what she could for a small breakfast. But last night’s discovery had left her drained, and since Michel never returned to bed, there was no one to wake her.

  She went to the window and peered out into the cold morning, but the footprints in the snow were long gone, all traces of the shadowy visitor and Inès’s argument with Michel already erased. She quickly dressed for the day, piling her hair into a bun and pulling on the sweater Céline had made for her. But it quickly felt itchy and oppressive, so she took it off and shoved it back into a drawer.

  When she finally made it downstairs, she could hear sounds outside the window as she began to put away the dishes stacked on the counter. She recognized Michel’s voice, and then Céline’s high-pitched laughter. Something shifted in Inès, and she gripped the counter to steady herself. Michel was laughing now, too, the deep sound of it drifting in through the windowpane. Anger dug its spikes into Inès’s skin. She was the one who knew her husband’s secrets, who had agreed to bear the risks of his decisions, and he was outside entertaining Céline?

  She pulled aside the curtain slightly. Michel stood just centimeters from Céline as he leaned in close to murmur something. Was Inès imagining something romantic between them? That was crazy, though, right? Inès thought she knew her husband well enough to say that he would never betray the vows of their marriage, but last night had proven that she didn’t really know him at all.

  Céline laughed again at something Michel said and they stood staring at each other for a long moment. It was the kind of look lovers shared before they kissed. But then Céline pulled back, and Michel turned to go toward the caves. Still, Inès had seen enough.

  She wouldn’t be made a fool of. She wasn’t going to sit here in sleepy Ville-Dommange, playing the role of the submissive wife, while he made dangerous decisions about their future and flirted with the wife of his chef de cave. She smashed the dinner plate she had been drying against the floor, and out the window, she could see Michel’s head snap in her direction. He started toward the house, but she was already turning away, heading for the stairs to pack a small suitcase.

  She didn’t care anymore that Michel needed the car; let him catch a ride with one of his shadowy friends if he had to. If Michel had decided that Inès wasn’t enough for him, and that he needed to risk her life in order to protect Céline, then so be it. She was going to Reims.

  thirteen

  FEBRUARY 1942

  CÉLINE

  After Michel disappeared into the main house, Céline wondered whether Inès had seen her talking to him and had misinterpreted the conversation. Had she been laughing too hard with him? Had her body language betrayed the increasing closeness she felt to him? Certainly she’d been feeling things she shouldn’t, but she hadn’t acted on them, of course. She would never do that.

  In reality, Michel had only asked her whether she was quite well. “You look a bit under the weather,” he’d said, and she’d laughed, explaining that Theo had recruited her last night to taste a few different vintages of Chauveau, to make sure his 1938 was developing consistently, and that perhaps she’d had too much. Michel had still seemed concerned, though. “I don’t mean to pry,” he had said, “but if there is something weighing on your mind, you can always come to me.”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” she had replied. After all, what would she say—that his concern meant a great deal to her, because her own husband seemed not to care at all? That she felt lonelier than she ever had, and that sleeping next to Theo now felt like sleeping with a stranger? That she couldn’t bring herself to speak her fears about her father aloud to Theo anymore, because she knew he would react with a shrug and then change the subject to fermentation or the health of the vines? All of those things would be a betrayal of her husband, and so she merely shook her head and said, “I—I should begin work.”

  That’s when she’d heard the sound of something breaking inside, and Michel had rushed off, cursing Inès under his breath.

  Twenty minutes later, Céline and Theo were working side by side in the cellars, riddling bottles in silence, when there was the sound of a car engine roaring to life overhead.

  “Is Michel going somewhere?” Theo asked without breaking his rhythm. With both hands, he continued to turn two bottles at a time an eighth of a revolution to the right, barely disturbing them in their pupitres, their wooden A-frame racks.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Would you go check?” Theo didn’t look at her as he continued to turn bottles at lightning speed. She envied his effortless skill—though she tried to keep up, she felt like a novice in comparison.

  Céline brushed her hands off on her pants as she rose. She grabbed her overcoat and hat from the bench by the door and hurried down the main passageway of the cellar toward the stairs, emerging aboveground just in time to see the Citroën pulling down the drive, its taillights reflecting off the narrow patches of snow that hadn’t yet melted. Michel was staring after it, his fingers laced behind his neck.

  “She’s leaving again,” Michel said. They watched the car until it disappeared around the bend. “Merde,” he muttered. “After last night . . . Christ.”

  Michel’s jaw was set in anger, and for once, Céline didn’t know what to say to him. She wondered what had happened between Inès and Michel the night before, but it wasn’t her place to ask. “I’m sorry,” she said, knowing it wasn’t enough.

  “I just—I thought she was different.” Michel said the words quietly, almost as if talking to himself.

  Céline understood exactly what he meant, for it was how she felt about Theo these days, too. “War has a way of revealing who we really are.”

  He looked at her, surprise in his eyes. “Yes. It does.”

  They held each other’s g
aze until they were interrupted by the sound of an approaching engine in the distance. Had Inès’s conscience kicked in? But it wasn’t her; there was a dirt-streaked farm truck turning from the main road through their front gates. It rattled noisily toward them, sputtering from its makeshift fuel.

  “It’s Louis,” said Michel, starting down the drive.

  As the man parked beside Michel and got out of the truck, slamming the door behind him, Céline recognized him as the son of one of the vignerons they had been buying grapes from for years. He glanced at Céline, and without exchanging pleasantries, he began to speak to Michel in low tones. It was clear that she had no part in the conversation. She had just turned to retreat back to the cellar when Michel called out for her. “Céline, could you please come here?”

  She looked back and saw both men watching her. Something about their impassive expressions made her stomach twist in fear. “Is something wrong?” They didn’t answer, so she walked over to them hesitantly.

  Michel put a hand on the small of her back, his touch so light she could barely feel it. Still, it comforted her. “Céline, do you know Louis Parvais?”

  The other man, a bit younger than Michel with thick black eyebrows and an impressive beard, nodded at her, his dark eyes somber.

  She nodded back. “I believe we’ve met briefly. Bonjour, monsieur.”

  “Bonjour.” He seemed to be waiting for Michel to say something.

  “Céline,” Michel said. “Louis has brought news. He, ah, delivers messages from time to time.”

  Céline glanced quickly at Michel and then at Louis. Was he the messenger Michel had told her about? “What is it?” she asked.

  “It’s news from Burgundy,” he said, glancing at Michel once more before his gaze settled on her. “I’m afraid your father and his parents have been arrested.”

  Céline’s knees felt suddenly weak, and she swayed on her feet. Michel steadied her, his hand firm on her back now. “It will be okay,” he murmured, but she knew it wouldn’t be.

  “What happened?” she managed to say.