The Winemaker's Wife

by Kristin Harmel

  “Well, I think perhaps I have three.” He led her around a corner, and they turned right. “The first is that although this city was nearly destroyed a century ago, during the First World War, it was entirely rebuilt and restored to its earlier majesty. We are in a city that never bowed, never broke. That has always made me very proud to be a Remois. I think that’s a spirit you can find among our winemakers, too. They have weathered Mother Nature’s worst and survived.”

  They passed a courthouse and several cafés, and then Julien steered them right and left again as they walked by the town hall and a few stores. “Another thing I appreciate is that Reims is a place that protects its people,” he continued. “My grandfather found shelter here because of the goodness of a few during the Second World War, when deportations were taking place. There are dozens in the city who were not so lucky, including his parents, but the tale of my grandfather’s survival mirrors many others.”

  “What happened?”

  “There was a time in World War II when Germans were taking away Jewish citizens, sending them to concentration camps. It is a stain on France’s history.”

  They were walking through a sunlit park now, crossing to the other side, but still, Liv felt a chill. “Forgive my ignorance, but I thought deportations were more in places like Germany and Poland.”

  Julien shook his head. “In France alone, there were more than seventy-five thousand innocent people sent away to concentration camps, including many children. Only a very small number of those survived.”

  “That’s horrible,” Liv said.

  “Yes, but all around the country, including here in Reims, there were people working for underground networks to fight the Nazis and help save innocent people. My grandfather was assisted by just such a network. He lived because of the courage of those who risked it all.”

  “That’s incredible.”

  “It is.” Julien steered her down another street, and then he stopped in front of a red brick building. “And for all the horror of the Second World War, there’s another piece of beauty right here.” He gestured to the building and Liv followed his gaze. “This is where the war in Europe ended, on May 7, at 2:41 in the morning.”

  “Wait, World War II ended here? In Reims?”

  “You never knew that, did you?” He smiled at her. “There was a second treaty signed a day later in Berlin. That’s why we think of the following day, May 8, as Victory in Europe Day. But the initial terms of surrender were agreed upon right here, while your General Eisenhower, who had his command center in Reims, was upstairs.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “A man should never joke about love or war.” He grinned at her and put a hand on her shoulder to steer her gently away from the unassuming building where the course of history had been altered. “Come. Let’s head back toward your hotel, shall we? I hate to cut this short, but I do have to go get Mathilde.”

  They walked for a little while, weaving in and out of the crowd in the Place d’Erlon as they approached the fountain with the winged statue. “You mentioned back at the cathedral that you’re only a part-time lawyer?” Liv asked.

  “Oh, yes. Well, actually, it is a decision I made a long time ago so that I could spend a bit more time with Mathilde. I have the feeling that I am going to blink, and her childhood will be over. And in the end, would I prefer to have spent more moments with her, or would I prefer to have a bit more money?” He shrugged. “I am lucky to be in a position to be able to make such a choice. I have plenty to get by on, and since it’s my family’s firm, I’m able to be a bit more flexible with my hours.”

  “Mathilde is really lucky to have you, Julien.”

  He shrugged. “I’m the lucky one, I think.”

  They turned onto the rue Buirette, and Liv was disappointed to see her hotel looming ahead of them. The whirlwind tour of Reims had gone by far too quickly. “Thank you so much for showing me around,” Liv said as they stopped outside the hotel. “You’re an amazing tour guide.”

  “It was my pleasure, Liv, truly.” He moved closer, until they were just inches apart, and though propriety told Liv she should step back, she didn’t want to. “I know I don’t know you well yet, but I think you’re extraordinary. I hope that’s all right to say.”

  “Julien,” she said softly. She meant to say more, to disrupt whatever was happening between them, but she couldn’t make her mouth cooperate with her brain.

  “I really enjoyed spending time together today,” he murmured. “I hope you did, too.” And then, in what seemed like slow motion, he put his hand on her cheek, leaned in, and after a brief hesitation, brushed his lips softly, gently against hers.

  She kissed back for only a second before pulling back with a gasp. “What are we doing?” She swiped her hand across her mouth.

  His eyes widened. “I’m so sorry. I thought—I mean, it seemed like . . .” He trailed off as he collected his thoughts. “I’m very sorry. I—I haven’t kissed anyone other than my wife since I married her, and I just thought . . .” He didn’t finish his sentence.

  “No!” she said. “I can’t believe . . . I would never . . .” She was stammering, and she didn’t know how to complete her thought.

  “I—I should go,” Julien said. “I must have misread the situation, Liv. Again, I’m very sorry.” He turned his back and hurried away, walking briskly toward the corner and turning left around a building without a glance back. And though she was appalled with herself, there was a part of her that missed him as soon as he was gone.

  • • •

  Back in the hotel suite twenty minutes later, Liv was sitting alone on the couch in a daze, her index finger pressed against her lips, when Grandma Edith emerged from her room in a cloud of Chanel No. 5, her lipstick freshly applied. “I’m going out for a little while,” she chirped, and then stopped abruptly when she saw Liv’s face. “What is it, dear?” she asked.

  Liv shook her head. “Nothing.”

  Grandma Edith studied her briefly and then smiled knowingly. “Ah. You have feelings for young Julien, don’t you?”

  Liv opened her mouth to deny it, but she couldn’t say the words. “Why does life have to be so complicated?”

  “But I think perhaps he has feelings for you, too, my dear. I have seen the way he looks at you. What is so complicated about that? You both deserve to be happy.”

  “Are you kidding? I could never do that to his wife!”

  “Olivia—” Grandma Edith began.

  “No. There’s nothing you can say!” Liv wiped her eyes. “How could you think I’d be okay with that?”

  “Olivia!” her grandmother said again, her voice sharper.

  “Seriously, just stop, Grandma Edith! You can’t justify this. I know that having affairs is very French and all, but I could never live with myself. How could anyone? What kind of a person does that?”

  Grandma Edith looked like Liv had slapped her. “Well, you’d be surprised, Olivia, what one can learn to live with.”

  And then, without another word, she strode out of the hotel room, leaving Liv alone in a cloud of silent shame.

  eighteen

  AUGUST 1942

  INÈS

  For six months after that first night with Antoine, Inès had been seeing the older man once or twice a month on brief visits to Reims. She always told Michel that she was with Edith, and although he’d made it clear that he didn’t appreciate being without an automobile, he’d been surprisingly open to the idea of letting her go without argument. It kept the peace between them, but Inès suspected that more than that, it kept her away from the property, one less liability to worry about as Michel continued his illicit activities. He had moved the weapons, or perhaps had sent them on their way, but either way, they hadn’t been there when she’d gone back to check a week after discovering them. Still, there were many nights when Michel slipped from their bed while Inès feigned sleep. She knew he was up to something, and that he would never trust her enough to include her in it.


  Inès knew also that Edith was aware of her affair and was appalled by it, but her friend had agreed to keep her confidence. Edith’s discretion wasn’t purely out of friendship, but out of a need to keep her own secrets, too, though it didn’t matter. She would cover for Inès if Michel ever wondered where she was, and in return, Inès would keep quiet about Edith’s and Edouard’s work spying on the Germans. Of course, Inès wouldn’t dream of betraying her friend, but it was better this way, this bartering of hidden things, this trading of lies. It kept them all safe.

  “I know you are not asking my opinion,” Edith had said late one May evening when she ran into Inès just off the Place d’Erlon. Edith was hurrying toward the Brasserie Moulin, probably from another clandestine meeting, from the wild-eyed look of her. Inès was headed to Antoine’s apartment and hadn’t even told Edith she was in Reims. “But you are making a grave mistake, Inès.”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Inès replied, unable to meet Edith’s gaze. “You have a husband who loves you.”

  “Michel loves you, too!”

  “He doesn’t, Edith. You must understand that. He thinks I’m a fool.”

  “And the best way to deal with that is to become a fool?”

  The words cut deep. “Is that what you think I am?”

  Edith hesitated before reaching for Inès’s hands. “No, my dear friend. I think you’re sad. And I think you’re searching for purpose. But becoming someone’s mistress is not the way to find yourself.”

  “You don’t know anything about it,” Inès protested, pulling away.

  “Please,” said Edith as Inès turned to go. “Just think of what you’re doing. Think of where it could lead. I’m begging you.”

  But Inès wouldn’t look back. She knew that there was no excuse for her behavior. But how could Edith grasp what this felt like? Antoine made Inès feel alive for the first time in years. He was genuinely interested in her opinion, which was nearly as titillating as the way he seemed to know every inch of her body. He didn’t judge her when she was uninformed about something the way Michel did; he took the time to explain things so she could understand. Sometimes, as they lay in bed smoking real cigarettes Antoine had somehow procured, he would even mention someone he knew socially—the mayor of Reims, the Vichy ambassador to the United States, even the former French prime minister—and confide something that one of those important men had told him. Antoine was powerful, well connected, worldly—and of all the women he could had chosen, he wanted her.

  It had all felt very dreamlike and uncomplicated until the afternoon in August she arrived at his apartment an hour ahead of schedule and found him entertaining two Nazi officers. A Wagner opera was oozing from the phonograph in the corner, the room was filled with cigar smoke, and there were two empty bottles of brandy on the table when Inès entered using the key Antoine had given her two weeks before.

  “You’re early,” he said tersely, jumping to his feet. There was none of the usual warmth in his eyes when he looked at her.

  “It was just that I couldn’t wait to see you,” she said in a small voice.

  “And what have we here?” one of the Nazis asked, attempting—and failing—to rise from his seat on Antoine’s couch. His eyes were glazed over, his uniform jacket unbuttoned to reveal a sliver of his hairy potbelly, and Inès felt a wave of revulsion. “Is this the entertainment? Picard, you sly dog, you!”

  “No, no.” Antoine’s smile was large and fake as he steered Inès toward the bedroom. He practically threw her inside and shut the door behind her. His voice was muffled as he added, “Just a friend of mine, dropping by for a visit.”

  “A friend!” The German-accented reply filtered through the door, followed by a loud burp. “Is that what you French call your prostitutes these days?”

  Inès leaned into the door, but she didn’t hear Antoine defend her honor. Instead, he guffawed and then told the men it was perhaps best if they went on their way; he would call on them tomorrow.

  Inès emerged after silence had descended in the apartment. She found Antoine standing by the couch, aggressively smoking a cigarette, with one of the empty bottles of brandy clutched in his other hand like a weapon. When he looked at her, his eyes were wild, angry.

  “What are you doing here so early?” he demanded. “You can’t just show up whenever you please.”

  “You gave me a key.” Inès stared at him in disbelief. “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

  “Inès—”

  “You let them call me a prostitute?”

  “What was I to do, Inès?” He stormed into the kitchen and threw the bottle into the sink.

  “Defend me!” she cried, following him.

  “Do you know who those men were? That was Erhard Krüger, one of the highest-ranking Nazi officers in the Marne, and Franz Rudin, who knows Hitler personally.”

  A chill ran through Inès. “But what were they doing here? In your apartment?”

  Antoine slammed his fist onto the kitchen counter. “Damn it, Inès, do I need to spell it out for you? They’re friends.”

  “But . . . you’re a collaborator?” She knew he worked with the Germans as part of his job, and she had let herself believe that he had access to contraband items and sumptuous meals because he had money and friends in high places. She just hadn’t entirely grasped that those friends might be part of the German high command. “Antoine, how could you?”

  “Oh, Inès.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the sink and crossed the kitchen, taking her into his arms. “Please, my darling, you must let me explain.”

  “What could you possibly explain?” But some of the anger had leached out of her, replaced by a desperation to have this whole encounter justified, for what would it say about her if she’d spent the past several months as the maîtresse of someone who was working for the Nazis? “Please, you can explain, can’t you?”

  Antoine kissed her gently, and she let him. “Oh, sweet Inès,” he said. “I know it is popular to hate the Germans now, but you must understand. They have a great vision for our country. All those who think the German Occupation will harm us in the end don’t have a clear view of history. It is our own fault that the Germans were able to take us over so quickly. They are stronger than we are, and they have a better plan for economic stability in the future.”

  “But—”

  “I thought you smarter than this, Inès,” Antoine said, his voice an octave deeper now. “I thought you were the sort of woman who couldn’t be fooled by false propaganda. Was I wrong?”

  She could feel herself blushing. “No, of course not.”

  “At the end, Inès, only those of us who choose the right side will survive. I only want what is best for France. How can you fault me for that?”

  In the silence, with his imploring gray eyes piercing her defenses, she could almost see his point. Besides, who was to say that Michel and Edith were right? Still, there was one thing that bothered her. “But the deportation of Jews last month . . .”

  He shook his head. “Inès, do you really think the Germans would remove people who weren’t causing any harm? The Jews who were taken away were all guilty of working for the Resistance in some way.”

  A lump lodged itself in Inès’s throat as she thought of Michel’s clandestine work. “But—”

  “Inès, you must understand. The Germans had no choice.”

  “But didn’t they take children, too? Certainly the children hadn’t done anything!”

  “The people who were arrested are merely being sent east to work camps, where they can atone for their crimes. It’s a kindness on the part of the Germans to allow them not to be separated from their families. It’s mad to believe that the inclusion of children was anything but a favor to these people.”

  “But the German signs around town saying that all Jews are criminals and thieves . . .”

  Antoine sighed. “Oh, Inès, certainly no one’s mind will be changed by a few posters. The posters are foolish, but t
hey mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.”

  Inès thought of Céline. Certainly the propaganda wasn’t meaningless to her. “But you don’t believe what they’re saying about Jews, do you?” she asked in a small voice.

  “Inès! Of course not!” Antoine looked horrified. “Please, you must believe me. But I also understand why those who are trying to harm the Third Reich must be sent out of the country. Inès, think about it. What would the Germans have to gain by sending innocent people away, anyhow?”

  Inès looked at him for a long time, wondering why her stomach was still in knots when she wanted so much to trust him. “I suppose.”

  “I knew you would understand, my darling.” He reached for her again and kissed her softly. “Now, shall we go have dinner? I’ve booked us a table at Arnaud’s.”

  Inès hesitated, but when she looked into Antoine’s eyes, there was no danger there, no malice. “Yes,” Inès said, and she knew that with that single word, she’d chosen a side, even if she hadn’t quite intended to. So she did her best to put their argument behind her and let him lead her out of the apartment and down to the street below. At Arnaud’s, they found an intimate table waiting for them, along with a chilled bottle of champagne, which was enough, for now, to quiet the voices of doubt in Inès’s head.

  • • •

  By October, another successful harvest had come and gone, and with the new vins clairs fermenting in their barrels, and the days growing shorter as winter approached, Inès should have felt more relaxed. After all, the Maison Chauveau was surviving the war. Of course, Céline still trudged around with a somber expression, the weight of the world on her shoulders because she had yet to hear from her family.

  Though things should have been looking up, Inès felt more unsettled by the day, because her conscience was finally screaming at her about Antoine. While he talked easily, knowledgably, about German strategy and the inevitability of Nazi world domination, Inès was finding it more and more difficult to agree with him. He was so confident that German victory throughout Europe was only a matter of time. But what if Hitler’s military wasn’t infallible? And perhaps more troublingly, what if being on the side of victory didn’t necessarily mean you could sleep at night?