The Lost Vintage

by Ann Mah

  We quickly covered the remaining downhill stretch, and then the cabotte was before us, strangely smaller up close than it appeared from a distance. The entrance was simply a hole in the stone wall, with no door to close against the elements, the frame built low so that we stooped to enter. Inside, the room was close and chill, with streams of wind and sun coursing through the entry, and needles of cold air piercing the dry stone walls. In the center of the small space, a charred black heap hinted at a hearth.

  “Look, Bruyère,” Nico beckoned to his wife. “I left my initials here.” He pointed at the letters chiseled into the stone. “And here’s Papa.”

  Heather knelt by the wall. “Who’s this?” She pointed. “B.Q.C.”

  Nico squatted beside her. “That’s my grandfather. Benoît Quilicus Charpin. And A.U.—that’s his brother—Albert Ulysse. And here . . . hmph.” He pointed at another set of letters that read A.U.C. “That’s strange. I guess this must be Albert again, le petit insolent!”

  “It’s a good thing Nico didn’t insist on family names for our kids,” Heather said to me drily.

  Louise was craning her head around the cramped interior. “But where do you sleep?” she asked, her brow creasing into a charming little frown.

  Jean-Luc shrugged. Anywhere. “Là, ou là, ou là . . .” He began pointing at various spots on the dirt floor.

  “It is so very . . . rustic!” Louise’s enthusiasm seemed to be dampening.

  “We didn’t come here for the luxury.” Jean-Luc smiled.

  “I’m starving!” Heather announced. “Shall we have our goûter in here? What do you guys think?” She threw a doubtful look around the cabotte. “Or maybe outside is better?”

  “I should have brought the camp kettle—we could have made tea.” A wistful note crept into Nico’s voice.

  We trooped outdoors, finding a sheltered spot against the side of the cabotte. Heather began rummaging through the backpacks, handing out various items—a picnic blanket, which Nico and Walker unfurled, bottles of water and lemonade, bars of chocolate, boxes of shortbread cookies, a heavy brick wrapped in foil that turned out to be a quatre-quarts—a homemade buttery pound cake.

  “When did you have time to do all this?” I asked her, reaching for the cake.

  “Me?” She brushed crumbs from her lap. “I didn’t do it. It was him.” She nodded at Jean-Luc, who was pouring lemonade.

  “He baked a cake? No way. He doesn’t know how to cook.”

  “Before she left for Spain, his mom taught him to make a few things. She insisted—said otherwise he’d be living on Mac-Do and pasta. Actually, he makes a pretty mean boeuf bourguignon.”

  I bit into the cake—which was moist and rich, flecked with vanilla—and regarded Jean-Luc as I chewed. “Personally, I prefer the vanilla from Tahiti,” he was saying to Louise, who was sitting cross-legged beside him, her knees pale and slender through the holes in her jeans. “It has a more floral note.” Was this the same guy who had once declared cooking and childcare le travail des femmes—women’s work?

  “Du fruit, Jeel!” Louise held up a banana, her sharp features brimming with laughter. “To eat after the cake. You promised!”

  He grinned and grabbed it from her hand, demolishing it in three bites.

  “Now let’s go look for wild blackberries. I thought I saw some over there in that sunny patch.” She scrambled to her feet and the two of them wandered away.

  “Come on.” Heather noticed me watching them, and sprang to her feet, her shadow falling across my lap. “Let’s check out the cabotte.”

  Inside the stone hut, Heather found a stick and poked at the pile of scorched logs. “I have to admit, I’m finding it a little hard to see the charm of this place. It kind of reminds me of . . . I don’t know, a medieval prison? Just add some iron bars on the door.” She swept a hand out, indicating the uneven stone walls, the rough dirt floor, the hobbit-size entry gaping like a missing tooth. “Did you really camp here?”

  “It’s not so bad at night, with a fire.”

  “Out here completely alone? In the dark?” She shivered. “Non, merci! I’m going to clip some sprays of vine branches. Don’t you think they’ll be pretty on the dining table?” With a dramatic duck of her head, she stepped outside.

  I picked up the stick she had dropped and raised it to the ceiling, attempting to displace the roof tiles like a vigneron from another century. Sure enough, with a bit of persistence, the flat stones spread apart. As I mentally filed away this arcane bit of knowledge in case it happened to show up on The Test, I became aware of voices drifting through the hut’s interlocking stone structure. I recognized Louise’s fluted French tones: “She wants me to move to New York with her.”

  Jean-Luc’s response was an indistinguishable murmur.

  “Mais non . . . j’adore New York! But obviously, my work is here—I can’t just abandon my little bookshop. And . . .” She sighed. “Franchement, it’s not just my work—it’s my family. I feel a responsibility to remain close by.”

  “Your sister doesn’t feel the same way?”

  “She says it’ll just be for a year, maybe two, au maximum. But I know that once she sets foot in Brooklyn, she’s never coming home.”

  “Perhaps because she knows she can rely on you. It’s easy enough to move halfway around the world when someone else is picking up the pieces. I’ve been in that situation and—well . . . trust me, it’s a thousand times harder being the one who stays behind. Don’t get me wrong—I like your sister—she’s extremely funny and fun to be around. But the qualities I admire most are dependability and loyalty.” Jean-Luc’s voice deepened on the last word. “Like these tough old grapevines. Any other plant would die in this hard, rocky soil. But they love it here—they don’t mind the work. They actually thrive on it. Nope, these vines will never let you down.”

  Louise fell silent. Frankly, who wouldn’t after that speech? I heard the crunch of their footsteps, moving closer to the door of the cabotte and froze. What if they caught me in here? But to my relief the sound of their steps turned in the other direction, toward the dirt path.

  I let out my breath slowly, staring straight up at the scrap of blue sky shimmering through the hole in the ceiling. Yes, I deserved it: the eavesdropper’s proverbial fate. And even though I hadn’t heard any words directly against me, there was plenty to cause me pain. Clearly Jean-Luc’s opinion of me was abysmally low. And, sure, I deserved it. But still, it hurt.

  “Hey.” Walker spoke from the doorway, causing me to jump. He ducked and entered the cabotte, raising his face to the hole I’d made in the ceiling. “Whoa. I knew it was primitive, but this is kind of like the Stone Age.”

  I laughed. “I was just thinking that I could see this appearing as a question on The Test.” I affected a pompous tone: “Describe the physical aspects of the Burgundian cabotte, its history and role in nineteenth-century winemaking.”

  He laughed and ran a hand along the stone wall. “Speaking of The Test, did you get my email with those MW practice exams?”

  “Oh my gosh, yes. Sorry—I forgot to write back. The last few days have been kind of crazy.”

  “Yeah? How’s that? You find any more skeletons in the basement?”

  The stick slipped from my fingers, falling to the ground. I quickly knelt and retrieved it. “What makes you say that?”

  “Actually, I was joking. But—” He moved closer, lowering his voice. “Why? Did you find something?”

  “No,” I said quickly, hoping he couldn’t hear the strained note in my voice.

  “Well, if you do find something, you should definitely tell me. I know people who deal in vintage wine. Even if it’s just a couple of bottles, I’m sure they’d be eager to work with Domaine Charpin. There are rumors, you know.”

  “Oh, really?” I struggled to keep my expression neutral. “What kind of rumors?”

  “Your family used to own one of the wealthiest négociant houses in the region, back in the 1930s. Apparently your gr
eat-grandfather was some sort of genius businessman. Did you know that?”

  I shook my head faintly. My mother had never mentioned Great-grandpère Edouard’s business acumen—of course she hadn’t—but it did explain her own successful banking career.

  “Things started heading south after he died,” Walker continued. “According to local legend, the family could have survived for decades just by slowly selling off their collection of rare wine. Except, by the end of the war, all of it had disappeared.”

  “Disappeared? How is that possible?”

  “It’s a mystery. Either he hid it—and died before he could tell anyone where. Or”—Walker spoke in hushed tones—“he sold it to the Germans.”

  “Really?” My voice rose to a squeak.

  “Oh, yeah, it used to happen all the time. Hitler was crazy for French wine—not to drink, mind you—he was a teetotaler. But the Third Reich sold it at a huge profit on the international market to help pay for the war.”

  “Yes, but if my great-grandfather sold the wine to the Germans, we’d have the money to show for it,” I pointed out.

  He shrugged. “Maybe he sold it at a loss? Honestly, at this point, who knows? It wasn’t a glorious time for Burgundy. A group of winemakers actually gave a parcel of vines to Maréchal Pétain as a gift. Part of the Hospices de Beaune, some of the best land in the region. Like I said—there weren’t a lot of heroes coming out of the Côte d’Or.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “More than seventy years after World War II, and the Resistance has been so glorified, hardly anyone remembers that the majority of French people were cheese-eating surrender monkeys.”

  I blinked. Even just a few days ago, I would have argued with him. But right now I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to defend France. Instead, I lifted my chin so that the wind bit my cheeks.

  “In any case, if you do happen to find something in the cellar, you should tell me.” Walker continued. “Like I said, I’d be happy to put you in touch with the right people—and I’m sure there’d be an extra finder’s fee in it for you, too. Just keep it in mind.”

  “Guys?” Heather called, popping her head through the doorway. “We should probably start heading back. The sun’s already starting to go down.”

  Outside, I found the others packing up. Nico was gathering trash, and Jean-Luc and Louise were stuffing the picnic blanket into the narrow mouth of the backpack, which involved much squealing and giggling on her part. We began walking home, the narrow path forcing us once again into a single file. Aside from the sound of our shoes scuffling on the dirt path, and the never-ending birdsong that twittered from some unseen perch in the foliage, the vineyards radiated with a majestic silence born of centuries of doting care. Soon, I thought, the thinning vine leaves would fade to brown, and an army of viticulturists would attack the bare branches, trimming them for winter, burning piles of clippings at the sides of the road. I dropped behind the others, kicking my feet into their shadows. The beauty of this land still took my breath away, but now I was acutely conscious that it was merely a shell, hiding the rot within.

  11 FÉVRIER 1941

  Cher journal,

  The thing I never realized before this winter is what a nuisance the cold is, a steady drip, drip, drip, until suddenly the proverbial vase has overflowed. Take, for example, this morning. I had every intention of leaping out of bed and starting the kitchen fire before the others came down to breakfast. But when I awoke, I found it snowing—again—and the courtyard and garden heaped with indistinguishable white, icy mounds. My apron was frozen—as usual, because it’s always wet from the washing up when I take it off at night—and frost covered the toes of my clogs. My housedress is wilted with grime. It has been at least three weeks since we last washed our clothes. The effort of heating the water, and then wringing and drying the wet laundry—immense on even the mildest of summer days—has proved gargantuan in this bitter weather, with our hands permanently swollen with cold. Instead, we have simply readjusted our limits of tolerance.

  For a minute, I considered diving back into bed—still faintly warm—and staying there for a few more minutes. Then the image of Albert swam before me—those enormous eyes the color of burnt sugar, that peaky little face—and I forced myself to dress in the stale clothes, so that he wouldn’t have to face another school day without at least a warm drink in his tummy.

  Of course when I got downstairs and tried to light the stove, I remembered why my shoes were frozen. I had gone into the courtyard last night to bring in some logs so that they could dry overnight. Unfortunately, the recent blizzard, along with the temperatures that creep up and down below freezing, mean the woodpile is soaked through; even after hours inside, the logs were still damp this morning. Madame would not be pleased, but I had no choice. I threw a wet log onto the dying embers where it hissed and filled the kitchen with smoke, so that when Madame came down she already had a scowl on her face.

  This winter has been the worst I have ever known. Add to this the coal shortages, the ever-niggling problem of rationing—clothes, fuel, food, all of it unattainable—and I sometimes wonder if I’ll first freeze from the outside in, or starve from the inside out. Supper yesterday was two rutabagas each, adorned with the thinnest sliver of ham. I can’t remember the last time we had calf’s foot jelly or a bit of plain sole to offer Benoît—once the poor boy’s entire diet. Madame counts every mouthful that passes his lips, so fretful that he will grow thin and take ill again. We have bread on only the most special of occasions. Butter? Jam? Those are merely fond memories of yore. Oh, if only I was warm, I could bear the hunger. If only I was full, I could bear the cold.

  Madame maintains a purposeful appearance for the boys, but indulges her misery by throwing me black looks and sharp words when she thinks no one is looking. The Cercle du patrimoine is on hiatus because of the glacial temperatures and without this bracing outlet, Madame’s resolve has weakened. This morning at the breakfast table, I saw her poking at a clammy boiled potato and if I could guess her thoughts, I would hazard they were the same as my own: How long can this go on?

  I was teasing the last translucent scrap of skin from Albert’s potato—we’ve begun to peel them cooked because it wastes less flesh—when Papa appeared. He looked so awful—eyes glassy with fatigue—that I immediately poured him a cup of the barley coffee we’re trying to accustom ourselves to drinking. He sat and sipped it, staring into the distance.

  “Do you want anything to eat?” Madame asked.

  “Non.”

  “Where have you been?” Her voice was controlled, but suspicion leached through the surface.

  “Pruning.”

  Cher journal, it was obvious he was hiding something for there has been a meter of snow covering the vines for at least a week.

  I think Madame observed the same, for she replied: “It’s snowing again.”

  “For Christ’s sake, do you think of nothing but the weather?” Papa shouted. He shoved his chair back from the table so that our “coffee” slopped from the cups and he stomped from the room. Albert started to cry and Madame let him climb into her lap at the table, which is usually forbidden.

  After I had bundled up the boys and walked them to school, I lingered in the village hoping to buy some food—a scrap of meat or bread, a few grams of sugar—anything to help cheer this miserable day. We have a fistful of ration tickets but the shops are always empty. How are the people in cities surviving? Without the vegetables stored in our cellar, our chickens and rabbits, I am certain we would starve.

  When I returned, the house was quiet. I knew Madame was out at the chicken coop because I could hear the hens squawking as they fought each other for crumbs. The door to Papa’s office was closed. I came up here to my room to finally scribble a few lines to Rose—she had written me from Sèvres, a few days ago; a brief letter, but fascinating, all about her coursework—and I wanted to respond quickly. I opened the top drawer of my desk to retrieve my fountain pen and right away I saw the unfamiliar pie
ce of paper—a mimeographed leaflet titled “33 Hints to the Occupied.” I dare not copy any of them here, cher journal, but suffice it to say I gulped the text down as if I’d been dying of thirst, and then read it several more times until tears of relief stung my eyes.

  Who had placed it in my desk? Obviously it wasn’t Benoît or Albert—they are much too small. Vieille Marie quit nearly six months ago. We haven’t had any other visitors to the house for weeks. That leaves only my stepmother or Papa. I’ve been considering them both.

  My initial impulse is that it cannot be Madame. After all, she is an enthusiastic member of the Cercle du patrimoine and her regular praise of Vichy’s values—“travail, famille, patrie!” (work, family, homeland!)—appears abundantly sincere. Recently, however, the new deprivations have soured her. She joked the other day that the only genuine information printed in the newspaper is the announcements about rations, which detail how many coupons we need for various food items—everything else is censored or false, even the death notices. Except it wasn’t really a joke because her laugh was so cold it sent chills down my spine. Yes, the persistent hunger and cold are certainly turning Madame against our jailers. But still. Distributing Resistance tracts? Honestly, I don’t think she has the nerve.

  That leaves Papa. Papa who has remained in a distant fog ever since the surrender in June. Papa who seethes with anger and shame. Papa who disappears for hours without ever providing a plausible explanation of his whereabouts. Papa who listens to the BBC service every single night.

  Yes, I am certain it was Papa who put the leaflet in my drawer. But why did he do it? Perhaps it was just a petit bonjour—a small gesture to raise my lagging spirits. We all do it from time to time—call the Germans by nasty little names—Les Fritz, Les Boches, Les Doryphores (the latter because they’ve ravaged the potato harvest, like the gluttonous beetles they resemble)—or just happen to dress in the bleu-blanc-rouge colors of our beloved flag. Yes, of course it was my dear Papa.