The Vineyards of Champagne

by Juliet Blackwell

  “There’s a name for that?” asked Rosalyn, and took a bite of the delicious fresh baguette.

  “You don’t even want to know how many words the French have to describe all types of bread, bread creation, and bread consumption,” said Emma, letting her head fall back on the headrest and breathing out a weary sigh. “I’m telling you, it’s a religion.”

  The ice from the other night had long since melted, but a heavy mist hung over the fields of cereal grains, lucerne, and wheat. Old fences, tractors, and other farm equipment studded the landscape. Doors to caves were nestled at bottoms of hills, like Hobbit houses. Tucked into the valleys of gentle, rolling hills were little villages full of stone houses topped with red roofs.

  Rosalyn gazed out at the passing countryside and felt . . . if not happy, then at least not terribly unhappy.

  The moment she became conscious of it, guilt washed over her. Thoughts of Dash flooded back: their honeymoon in Paris, walking hand in hand through the Napa vineyard, how proud he was of her painting, how much he loved her eyes. Most piercing was the memory of how she had run from his hospital room that last time.

  She forced her mind away from that image, focusing instead on the old letters she had been reading, on the idea of these very same villages burned and bombed by the invading German armies. What would it have been like to see enemy soldiers marching through these cobblestone streets? She imagined the chalky blue and green shutters shut tight against aggressors, giving the houses the look of charming fortresses or sleeping hulks.

  They passed a marker, this one a stone angel, no doubt standing over yet another list of war casualties. There was something calming about being in a place that had experienced so much suffering, yet refused to forget.

  “Emma,” Rosalyn heard herself say, “you and Blondine mentioned that this area owes its success to the widows. Do you suppose it was because they were widows that they accomplished what they did? Or were they just extraordinary women regardless of their marital status?”

  “Good question,” said Emma. “I read that Madame Pommery set up a retirement fund for her workers, and founded a mother’s fund. That was pretty forward-thinking of her, and I would assume it had to do with her own understanding of the precarious economic situation facing women and children at that time, especially when the husband died.”

  “Madame Pommery founded an orphanage, as well,” Blondine said. “It wasn’t uncommon for wealthy widows. I agree with Emma. I think they understood the special challenges women and children faced. And back in the day, veuve was a respected form of address—especially for women of means. Widows had much more freedom than women with living husbands.”

  “Some champagne producers put veuve in front of their names, just for the status of it,” added Emma, “even if they didn’t have any widows in the family—or, at least, none who were involved in the business.”

  “Scammers from the start, huh?” said Rosalyn.

  Emma waved a hand in the air. “You have no idea. This place was chock-full of scammers—producers would find some ditch digger named Pérignon, and establish a new ‘house of Dom Pérignon.’ Champagne has tried to reinvent itself as a very classy area, but its history was a bit wild.”

  “I had no idea la Champagne was so full of drama.”

  Emma snorted. “Wherever there are people, there will be soap operas.”

  Rosalyn smiled and gazed out the window, pondering the irony of her landing in Champagne, of all places, the land of widows.

  “But yes, it’s all about the widows here in Champagne,” Emma continued.

  Rosalyn opened her mouth to tell Emma and Blondine that she, too, was a widow. It wasn’t a secret, exactly, so much as a private thing. But she hesitated. Her loss weighed her down like a stone, and it was relaxing not to have to think about it, not to be a widow, every moment of every day.

  “I’m excited to see the house,” said Blondine. “But I remember there were rumors that the Bolze family collaborated with the Nazis during the war.”

  “How old is Madame Bolze?” Rosalyn asked.

  “She’s in her eighties now, which means she was just a child at the time. But still. What would it be like to know your wealth comes from such a history?”

  “Today she’s just an old lady who might be able to help us with something. Anyway, there are always rumors about such things,” said Emma, and turned to Rosalyn. “There was a shortage of glass during the war, and it’s possible the Bolze bottle makers sold to some people they shouldn’t have. But the truth is, there’s always someone somewhere making money off war.”

  “That’s sad but true,” said Rosalyn. “They say war’s great for commerce.”

  “I’m not sure they can be condemned for cooperating with an occupying army,” said Emma. “What was the alternative?”

  “My father’s uncle was a teenager during World War Two who was shot and killed for helping to blow up a German supply train,” Blondine said fiercely. “That was the alternative. You Australians and Americans have never been invaded and had to fight to free la patrie. You do not understand.”

  “Girl’s got a point,” Emma said, and Rosalyn nodded. “But since we’ve arrived at our destination, may I suggest we set aside seventy-five-year-old innuendo and keep an open mind?”

  Blondine turned onto a gravel driveway. Ahead of them, visible through ornate wrought iron gates, the Vieille Ruche house loomed. Surrounded by a large stone wall, it was four stories tall and built of multicolored stone in shades of red, ocher, and green.

  A boy of about ten ran to greet the car as they pulled up. “Bonjour! You’re the friends of Madame Bolze?”

  He opened the gates, and Blondine pulled through; then he closed them carefully behind them.

  “She lets us come play here sometimes,” said the boy. “My mom does work for her. Bonne journée!”

  Madame Bolze opened the door and stood in the threshold to greet them. She was short and round and unsmiling, with close-cropped silver hair. Dressed in pants and a tunic, she had the aura of a farmer’s wife more than of a grande dame.

  Rosalyn helped Emma out of the car, then handed her the crutches. Emma swayed, supporting herself on the doorframe.

  “Are you okay?” Rosalyn asked.

  “Sure. Just a little dizzy. Got up too fast.” She gazed at the tall house. “Good thing I’m not the one who has to climb up there, right?”

  Fortunately there were only three shallow steps leading to the front door landing.

  “Bonjour, madame!” Emma called out. “We are your visitors—and we come bearing gifts!”

  The basket of pâté, fruit, and fresh bread seemed to smooth over any awkwardness, as Madame Bolze spent a while inspecting the contents.

  After introductions, she waved them in. “Come in, come in. It’s cold outside.”

  They stepped into a cramped foyer with several doors, and one small hallway leading to a twisting staircase. A grandfather clock, two credenzas, and a coat stand crowded the space.

  “Put your coats there.” She indicated an overloaded rack.

  “Thank you so much for having us,” said Emma, gesturing with her crutches. “As you can see, I’m a little worse for wear, so I brought these two with me to be my legs.”

  “Of course.” Madame Bolze opened a door to a large light-filled sitting room, fronted on one side by a glassed-in solarium. They were immediately enveloped in the heat of the radiators and the sunroom.

  Everywhere were books and furniture and boxes of papers and photographs and miscellaneous items. Scattered on a small coffee table were postcards, baby photos, and documents with blocks of print and seals that looked like important legal papers. A mélange of abandoned craft projects cluttered a large round table, and knitting needles stuck out of half-finished sweaters and scarves. The walls were covered in religious icons, landscape paintings, and antique mirror
s.

  The room was crowded with too many tables and chairs, and yet there was nowhere for the four of them to sit comfortably without rearranging things.

  “I need to get organized,” said Madame Bolze. “The mother of the boy who opened the gates comes to help me a couple of times a week, but even so, I never seem to have time to get through all of this. It’s a lifetime’s worth of stuff.”

  Rosalyn wondered if everyone would become a hoarder if they lived long enough—then remembered her mother’s biannual purges, during which she threw out just about everything that had been inspired by the latest fashion trend. The echoing rooms then “forced” her to go out and buy new stuff, which might well have been the point.

  The jumble made Rosalyn more optimistic that they might actually find papers from World War One somewhere in the clutter.

  “This used to be a dovecote,” said Madame Bolze as she gestured to one section of the living room, where ancient stone steps led up to a closed-off space. Books were stacked on the steps, and within the alcove was a massive wooden desk covered with papers. Perched along a half wall that divided the room were green glass wine bottles, from the tiniest to the largest Rosalyn had ever seen.

  “And that was my husband’s office. He ran his business from here.”

  Rosalyn wondered: Had the papers been sitting there, just like that, since Monsieur Bolze died, just like Dash’s pills in the medicine chest at home? Another fruitless attempt to make time stand still.

  “So, tell me again what you girls are looking for?”

  “Monsieur Bonnet mentioned that this house used to be an orphanage,” said Emma.

  “That was before my time. I’m not that old.”

  “Of course not—I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise,” said Emma with a soft chuckle. “But you mentioned on the phone that you might have some papers from back then. The thing is, Monsieur Bonnet is certain the orphanage was founded by an Australian woman, and I have reason to think she might have been a relative of mine. My great-grandfather’s sister.”

  “I remember the Nazis marching in,” said Madame Bolze. “They came right down the main road of the village. I was at school, taking an exam, and was relieved when the teacher told us all to go home. I had no understanding of what was to come. But I know very little about the Great War.”

  “We understand,” said Emma, glancing at Rosalyn. Was Madame Bolze a little fuzzy with the details, or was she simply not paying attention? “Why don’t you tell us what you remember about World War Two? We would very much like to hear your stories.”

  Emma had an innate ability to put people at ease, to get them to talk, Rosalind thought. She would have made an excellent investigative journalist. Or a truly charming inquisitor.

  “I remember the bombings, and with poor Reims just barely digging out from the previous war, according to my father. He told me about the Smiling Angel.”

  “I heard about that,” said Rosalyn. “What a shame.”

  “It’s become a symbol of the brutality of war around these parts,” said Emma with a nod. “But I should note that the Angel of Reims was decapitated by a bomb. It’s not like soldiers scaled the cathedral façade with broadswords, or anything.”

  “Still, they are barbarians,” Blondine sniffed. “I don’t trust the Germans.”

  Bolze gave her a startled look. Rosalyn had noted the number of German-sounding surnames in the area and among the champagne houses. She had assumed that the animosity over the wars had faded, what with the passage of time and developments such as the European Union. But clearly history was alive and well in the minds and hearts of the French—and no doubt the Germans as well.

  “During the war, even paper was scarce,” Madame Bolze said as she led the way into the kitchen, crowded with a table and chairs, and decorated with painted blue and white tiles. “A lot of old papers were used to line trunks, or to start fires.”

  “People burned historic documents?” asked Emma.

  “They did what they had to do to survive. I’m just saying, don’t expect too much.” Madame Bolze opened a pie safe and extracted from a cookie jar a large key ring full of old skeleton keys.

  “If there’s anything to be found, my friends here will find it. In the meantime, I’ll wait here, if that’s all right.” Emma nodded toward Blondine and Rosalyn. “Thanks, mes amies.”

  The key ring clanked as the elderly woman returned to the small hallway, grasped the banister, and started hoisting herself up the stairs.

  “Please, madame, we can go by ourselves,” said Blondine. “You don’t need to be climbing these stairs.”

  “Nonsense,” Madame Bolze said, her progress slow but steady. “It is what has kept me alive this long.”

  As they slowly mounted the steep, twisting, creaky stairs, Madame Bolze kept talking, telling them about being estranged from a daughter and a son, and the family fights over the estate. She spoke about when she and her husband used to go to Spain for vacation, to a small town on the Costa Blanca called Calpe, how they had a boat and bought cheap goods at the pulga, or flea market.

  “I still have some of those sweaters,” she boasted, and it wasn’t hard to imagine the fifty-year-old jerseys tucked away in one of the numerous wardrobes, plastic bins, clothes racks, or chests that lined the narrow passageways. “Moroccan wool—it is the best.”

  Rosalyn didn’t catch everything Madame Bolze was saying, focused as she was on Blondine’s legs in front of her. Blondine was wearing chic high heels, as usual. How did she manage, first on the ice, now on these stairs? It might have been very American of her, but Rosalyn was glad she was wearing comfy boots.

  Finally they arrived at the fourth floor, which the French counted as the third floor. Madame Bolze tested a locked door handle. “I keep it locked. There are a lot of family heirlooms up here.”

  Rosalyn tried to imagine the intrepid thief who would make his or her way up to this level, past all the rest the house contained.

  Madame Bolze tried several keys in the ancient lock until she finally found the right one. She pushed the door open and stuck her gray head in, as though to be sure they weren’t disturbing anyone. After a moment, she stepped back.

  “Bon. There is an old black steamer trunk in the corner. It has been there since before we moved in. I do not know if it contains what you are looking for, but my father-in-law bought this house after the Second World War, so . . . it is possible.”

  Madame Bolze turned and began her slow descent down the stairs, holding tightly to the metal banister, the treads creaking underfoot.

  Blondine and Rosalyn looked at each other.

  “Do you suppose there’s someone living in here?” asked Rosalyn in a low voice.

  “It sort of felt like she was checking for someone, didn’t it? Probably just ghosts.”

  “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts,” Rosalyn said in English, parroting a film from childhood.

  “Comment?” Blondine asked.

  “Never mind. You don’t have earthquakes in this area, do you?” Rosalyn asked. Everything about the old house suggested it would tumble down at the slightest provocation—if not because of the crooked timbers, then due to the sheer tonnage of junk on every floor.

  Blondine shook her head. “I’m more worried about fire, myself.”

  “Oh great,” said Rosalyn, realizing there was no way out of the house other than the cramped stairwell, or a window. “Now I am, too.”

  “Good thing we don’t smoke, eh?” Blondine said. “Allons-y.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  The attic space itself was like the rest of the house, but more so: Objects were piled high, a few covered with sheets, most not. They zigzagged their way between piles of musty books and old magazines, cardboard boxes and decrepit small appliances, the air smelling of dust and abandonment.

  Rosalyn moved a box aside and jumped back
in alarm.

  “A mouse?” Blondine asked.

  “No . . . a painting.”

  A stern-looking older woman stared out of a gold-framed oil painting, tight curls on the side of her head, lace at her throat and wrists.

  “Speaking of the veuve Clicquot,” said Blondine, peering over her shoulder. “That looks very much like a famous portrait of her. She was . . . intimidante.”

  “This one certainly looks intimidating. In English we would say ‘formidable,’ but that word means something different in French.”

  “Back in the day, women in portraits were either young and beautiful or old and scary.” Blondine gazed at the portrait, her head tilted to one side. “I’m not sure what that means, really, but maybe this woman was also a widow, ready to rule the world.”

  “And more than a little annoyed,” said Rosalyn.

  Blondine laughed. “Yes, more than a little annoyed. I said those wealthy widows were impressive, not that they were a lot of fun to be around.”

  They made their way farther into the cluttered attic room, pushing aside a sewing mannequin, a baby’s cradle, and a stack of dining chairs.

  Blondine picked up what looked like a large scrapbook that was sitting on a small cupboard. “Oh, my grandmother had one of these.”

  “What is it?” Rosalyn came to see the book, which held embroidered scraps of linen.

  “A young woman’s journal, from nineteen twenty-seven. These are samples of how to fold napkins for different sorts of occasions. It’s the sort of thing a well-brought-up young lady was expected to know before marriage. Can you imagine a life like that?”

  “It’s a far cry from Pilates classes and Netflix marathons—that’s for sure. But it’s also sort of sweet, thinking of a girl putting that book together.”

  Blondine nodded and replaced the scrapbook where she had found it.

  Part of Rosalyn wanted to flee the dusty attic—now that Blondine had put the fear of fire in her head, she felt a certain sense of urgency—but another part of her wanted to sit and sort through these boxes. Because while it was junk, it was old French junk.