The Winemaker's Wife

by Kristin Harmel

  “Your father was picked up along with a few other men—all Jewish—on suspicion of conspiring to undermine the Germans.”

  Céline could feel her eyes widen. “But—”

  “Obviously false charges,” Louis said quickly. “But nevertheless, your father has been taken to prison. His parents—your grandparents—were taken a day later.”

  “No,” Céline whispered. “None of them were involved in anything. I know they weren’t.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. The Germans have begun arresting Jews on flimsy accusations. There’s someone from the local council making inquiries, and it’s our hope that your father and grandparents will be released.”

  “And if they’re not?”

  Louis exchanged looks with Michel. “They are sending Jewish prisoners east on transports to Germany and Poland, madame. But we will do our best to ensure that your family is not removed from France.”

  “You can’t give up hope, Céline,” Michel said. “If Louis says there is a chance, it is true.”

  “Please, tell no one what I’ve told you today,” Louis warned. “I will bring more news when I have it.” He climbed back into his farm truck and rumbled away before Céline could say another word.

  “Are you all right?” Michel asked once Louis’s vehicle had vanished around the bend. His hand hadn’t moved from her back.

  “No.” She tried not to imagine her father and her elderly grandparents behind bars. “I must go home to Nuits-Saint-Georges, Michel. There must be some way I can help, and—”

  “No.” Michel cut her off, his tone both gentle and firm at the same time. “You can’t. If your father is already known to the authorities, they would waste no time in ascribing meaning to your reappearance. The best way to keep safe is to stay here.”

  “But—”

  “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “I have to tell Theo.”

  Michel reached out and grasped her hands. “You mustn’t, Céline. Please, it would be too difficult to explain how you received word. Trust me, my contacts are doing all they can to secure your father’s release.”

  “Your contacts? What have you become involved in, Michel?” The surge of fear she felt over his well-being surprised her.

  He studied her for a long time. “You would never betray me.” It wasn’t a question as much as it was a statement of fact.

  “Of course not.”

  “Meet me in the cellars after sunset tonight.”

  “What will I tell Theo?”

  “Tell him nothing.” Michel’s eyes bore into her as he let go of her hands. She felt suddenly unmoored. “You are the only one I trust.”

  • • •

  For the rest of the day, Céline tried her best to act normal. When she’d returned to the caves after her encounter with Louis and Michel, she had assumed she would have to concoct a story to explain her absence, but Theo merely grunted to acknowledge her.

  She tried to turn bottles with him for a while, but her hands were trembling now, and when Theo noticed, he told her to leave. “You’re shaking the wine, Céline,” he’d said, as if she couldn’t hear the glass clattering against the wood. “Get ahold of yourself, would you? Perhaps you can begin sorting through the corks that have come in.”

  Céline hadn’t managed more than a nod, but she’d been grateful to leave the caves—and Theo—behind. Aboveground, Michel was nowhere to be seen, and as Céline headed to the barn, where they kept crates upon crates of corks, she thought about Michel and the risk he was clearly taking to help her. What favors had he called in with Louis to get news of her father? The thought made her feel sick to her stomach, but she couldn’t decline his help.

  The sun slipped below the horizon just before seven, and after Céline trudged back to her cottage, shared a small dinner with Theo, and quickly washed the dishes, she told him she needed to see if Inès had some yarn she could borrow to mend a few pairs of socks.

  “Is she back?” Theo asked without glancing up from the book he had just begun reading, something about vinification.

  “If she’s not, perhaps Michel will know where she keeps her mending supplies.”

  “Right.”

  Céline watched him for a moment. His face was lit by lamplight, his expression serious. “Theo, I’m very worried about my father,” she said quickly. She couldn’t say more without betraying Michel’s confidence, but she needed to share at least this, to give him the chance to comfort her.

  “I’m sure he is fine.”

  “But the Germans are coming for Jews. It’s beginning.”

  Theo scanned her face, then returned his attention to his book. “Céline, you mustn’t believe the rumors. Your father will be perfectly all right. Now go see Inès before it gets much later. Take a lamp. It’s growing dark.”

  She stared at him, her eyes watering, before grabbing her overcoat and hat and slipping out the back door into the cold night. The remnants of the day still lingered at the horizon. When she reached Michel’s door, she glanced at her own cottage. All the curtains were drawn tight; Theo wasn’t watching her. He probably hadn’t given her a second thought since returning to his book.

  She took a sharp right and headed for the entrance to the cellars. Once she was belowground, she lit her lamp, cleared her throat, and called out, “Michel?”

  There was no reply at first, but then another light came to life from deep in the caves, and she heard footsteps. Soon after, she saw Michel round the corner ahead and gesture to her. “Come, Céline,” he called.

  She hurried toward his light, conscious of the inelegant slap of her wooden soles against the stone floor. Michel was in a storage cave deep in the cellars to the right, and by the time she reached it, he had retreated back inside.

  “What did you tell Theo?” he asked instead of greeting her as she entered the cave and saw him standing behind several wine barrels.

  “That I needed to borrow something from Inès. I don’t think he listens much to me these days anyhow.”

  Michel frowned, and Céline feared she had gone too far. He and Theo had once been quite close, and Céline knew they still considered each other friends, even if their perspectives about the war differed. Besides, it certainly wasn’t Céline’s place to be criticizing her husband in front of the man who was technically his boss. But then Michel beckoned her deeper into the cave. “I know just how you feel,” he said. “There’s something I would like to show you.”

  Céline moved closer, her curiosity piqued as Michel set to work prying the head from one of the barrels. Surely he hadn’t called her down here to discuss wine. Perhaps she had done something wrong when she’d last cleaned the barrels, but she couldn’t imagine Michel summoning her to the cellars late in the evening to chastise her, either.

  Still, nothing could have prepared her for what she saw when Michel finally set the barrel head aside and beckoned her closer. She peered into the barrel, then stumbled backward when she realized it was full of long guns.

  “Michel!” She pressed a palm to her chest in a desperate attempt to slow her suddenly racing heart. “What on earth is this?”

  “This is how we will win the war,” he said calmly, still watching her closely.

  “No,” she protested. “No, no, no. This is too dangerous, too—”

  “It’s something I must do.” His voice was low, confident. “There are many of us, people who live by the rules in plain sight, but work to undermine the German authorities.”

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  “I’ve been wanting to do something since the day the Germans first arrived in Ville-Dommange. But it was difficult to find a network to work with at first. Few people around here know me well, which is proving an asset, but early on it presented a challenge. I needed to earn their trust.” He paused and glanced back at the guns. “I’ve been involved for the past few months, since one of the organizers admitted how helpful it would be to move supplies in and out of the caves.”

>   She swallowed hard. “Why are you showing me this?”

  He set the head back on the barrel, and the air seemed to return to the room. “Because, Céline, I want you to understand that there are people fighting against the Germans. That there’s hope for your father and those like him.”

  “But why you?”

  “Because I cannot sit idly by while innocent people suffer.” He took a step toward her, and then another. His breath was soft and warm on her cheek. “Because this war is destroying us. Because if we do not stand up to injustice now, who do we become? We are French, Céline, and that means we fight for liberty. For equality. For brotherhood. It is in my blood. I cannot do things differently.”

  Céline stared at him, rooted to the spot. “But if the Germans find you—”

  “They will not.”

  “But if they do—”

  “It is a risk I take.” He reached for her hand. “I just wanted you to know that you are not alone.”

  Tears stung her eyes. “Does Inès know?”

  “Yes.” He hesitated. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted you to know, too. She found me last night. I had to tell her the truth.”

  “My God, and she left this morning for Reims . . .”

  “She will not betray me.” Michel’s tone was firm.

  She wondered how he could be so sure. “And Theo?”

  Michel frowned. “I know I have already asked you to keep the news about your father from him. And I must ask that you keep this from him, too. This isn’t an area of the cellars he frequents, and I know he leaves the care of the barrels mostly to you and Inès. I don’t think he will stumble across this. I’m sorry. I know that puts you in a difficult position.”

  “But why tell me, then?”

  Michel studied her. “Because I trust you. Theo, he is a great winemaker, but sometimes I fear he cares more about prestige than he does about morals. We’re in the midst of a war, and honestly, Céline, I don’t give a damn about how our champagne tastes right now, or what kind of a profit we turn. I care about people surviving.”

  “I do, too.”

  “Then trust me.”

  This time, it was Céline who took a step closer. “I do,” she whispered. “I always have.”

  Time seemed to slow as they leaned closer to each other. But just before their lips could meet, Céline pulled back, blinking. “I—” she began.

  “I’m sorry.” Michel moved quickly away. “I should—I should get back to this. And you should return to Theo before he becomes concerned.”

  “Yes, right.” Céline hesitated. “Michel?”

  “Yes?”

  She was still shaken by the step she had very nearly taken across a line, a point of no return. But she was sure of one thing: that she couldn’t let Michel do this alone. “I want to help,” she said.

  “Absolutely not.” His answer was instantaneous. “It is too dangerous. Especially for you, Céline.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “That is exactly why I must do this. If the Germans have taken my family, I no longer have anything to lose.”

  “But I do,” Michel said. “And I cannot lose you.”

  fourteen

  JUNE 2019

  LIV

  By her third day in Reims, Liv had scoured the Internet for any references to Edouard Thierry and the Brasserie Moulin, but she’d found little, save for a website that had reprinted the same historical information that appeared on the menu. She had even called the restaurant that morning and muddled her way through asking the manager about Edouard and his role in the Resistance.

  “I know only the things you’ve already read,” the manager replied in English, apparently recognizing Liv’s accent. “I’m sorry I can’t be more help.”

  So when Grandma Edith swept out of her bedroom at eleven thirty in a cloud of perfume, her eyes twinkling as she suggested a lunch out, Liv was relieved. Perhaps this meant her grandmother was ready to reveal what had compelled her to bring Liv here. Liv was increasingly sure that it had to do with the mysterious Edouard Thierry.

  “I have to make just one stop before we eat,” Grandma Edith said as they headed out of the hotel into the late morning sunshine. “I hope you don’t mind. It’s just a short walk.”

  They strolled in companionable silence for a while, passing the enormous church that Liv could see from her window, which looked just like Notre-Dame in Paris. “When I first came to Reims,” her grandmother said, stopping to let a group of schoolchildren pass, “the cathedral hadn’t yet been entirely rebuilt. It was decimated during the First World War. It’s incredible to see it now in such wonderful shape.”

  Liv looked up at the massive building in confusion. Its soaring twin towers filtered the sunlight, while hundreds of statues looked down on them from high overhead. A carving of Jesus hanging from the cross above the entrance to the left looked like it had been there for hundreds of years. “What do you mean it was decimated?”

  Grandma Edith pursed her lips. “They don’t teach any of this in your American schools, do they? You see, this was one of the hardest hit areas in all of Europe during the Great War. The front line was just a few kilometers outside town, and Reims might as well have had a target painted on it; the city was bombed so often and so severely that the people who lived here moved their schools, their hospitals, their whole lives, into the crayères—the old chalk quarries, which are used for champagne storage—beneath the earth. More than eighty percent of the city was completely destroyed, and the cathedral itself suffered very heavy damage.”

  “Really? You’d never know from looking at it.”

  “Yes, well, we don’t all wear our scars on the outside,” Grandma Edith said. “But if you look closely, you can see the chips in the stone from the shelling. This whole city was a different place then. Do you notice all the art deco buildings? The ones that look a bit like they belong in Miami Beach rather than rural France?”

  Liv nodded. The juxtaposition of the old and new had struck her from the start.

  “That’s because so much of what is here today was constructed just after the war, in the 1920s. That was the style at the time.”

  “Were you here in the twenties, then?” Liv asked.

  “Don’t be daft. I was just a small child then.”

  “Well, I never knew until yesterday that you’d spent any time in Reims at all, so forgive me for not having your mysterious time line straight,” Liv grumbled.

  “If you have a question, just come out and ask it.”

  “Fine. Let’s start with something simple. You lived here for a while, right? How old were you when you got to Reims?”

  Grandma Edith narrowed her eyes, and Liv was sure she wasn’t going to answer, but then she said softly, “Eighteen. It was 1938.”

  “So did you come here with Edouard?” Liv pressed. “Or did you meet him when you got here?”

  “Don’t pretend you understand the past.” Grandma Edith picked up the pace, turning right onto the rue du Trésor.

  “I’m not,” Liv protested. “I understand none of this. That’s the point. I’m just trying to figure out what happened to you.”

  “And I am trying to tell you,” Grandma Edith countered. “It is what I brought you here for, Olivia. But you have to let me do it in my own time.” Before Liv could reply, her grandmother stopped abruptly in front of a squat brown building and pushed the intercom button to the right of the entryway. A buzzer sounded, unlocking the door, and Grandma Edith pushed it open. “Wait here. I just have to deliver something upstairs.”

  Liv glanced at the small plaque to the right of the front door: Cohn Société d’Avocats. It was, Liv realized, Julien Cohn’s law firm. “I’ll come with you,” she said.

  “No. This is a private matter.” Grandma Edith hurried inside, letting the heavy door swing closed behind her.

  Liv tried the door, but it was locked, so she buzzed upstairs, hoping she would be granted entrance as easily as her grandmother had been.
<
br />   “Your grandmother says she’ll be down shortly,” said the tinny female voice that came through the intercom.

  “Oh. Merci,” Liv replied, feeling foolish.

  When Grandma Edith reappeared a few minutes later, Liv was surprised to see Julien a few paces behind her. “Well, hello,” he said with a smile.

  “Hi.” She could feel her cheeks suddenly flaming, and she turned away, embarrassed. What was wrong with her?

  “Your grandmother mentioned you two were going to lunch,” he said, “and she invited me along.”

  “Um, okay.”

  “Manners, Olivia,” Grandma Edith said sharply. She turned and began walking before adding over her shoulder, “Julien is our guest.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry.” It wasn’t that Liv minded the charming, perfect-haired lawyer joining them; it was just that if Julien came along, it was unlikely Grandma Edith would be spilling any secrets. Liv gave Julien a small, polite smile as they fell into step behind Grandma Edith, who was bulldozing through the pedestrians clogging the crowded sidewalk.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Julien said as he kept pace.

  “I was just hoping my grandmother would be ready to talk about Edouard and the Brasserie Moulin today.”

  He smiled. “And you think your grandmother is a woman who can be rushed?”

  “I’m delusional, I know.”

  Julien laughed, and some of Liv’s frustration melted away. She gave him another smile, this time a real one.

  “Here we are!” Grandma Edith announced from up ahead, waiting for Liv and Julien to catch up. She had stopped outside a tiny brasserie with a few empty tables outside, overlooking the edge of the Place d’Erlon. “I have read wonderful things about this place on Facebook.”

  “Your grandmother is on Facebook?” Julien murmured.

  “I had no idea she even knew how to email,” Liv replied.

  Julien opened the door for Grandma Edith, who flashed him a flirtatious smile as she slipped inside. Liv rolled her eyes as she followed her in. She waited with Julien just inside the entryway as the older woman exchanged a few words with a waiter, who gestured outside and grabbed three menus.