“Well, that is a mistake,” Antoine said, leaning in closer. “Because it’s clear to me that you are very much a woman.”
Inès saw Edith across the room watching her, and she turned away before she could be branded by her friend’s judgment. If Edith didn’t trust Inès to be a part of her world, why should Inès care what she thought? Still, Inès could see the scene through Edith’s eyes, and she knew it looked damning. Antoine Picard was nearly old enough to be Inès’s father, and yet it was quite clear from the way he had moved in possessively that his intentions were anything but paternal, even after she had mentioned her marriage. Especially after she had mentioned her marriage. She knew she should be careful.
“I should go,” Inès said reluctantly.
“Stay a little longer,” Antoine said, angling his body closer to hers. She could smell his cologne, musky and powerful. “Finish your champagne, at least. Perhaps you’ll tell me a bit about yourself.”
“Oh, well, I’m not very interesting.”
He leaned in. “I doubt that very much.”
And so, after a bit of encouragement, Inès had found herself unspooling the tale of her life, from Lille to Michel, and listening intently as Antoine explained that he had worked for the regional government for years but had taken on a new role now that the Germans were in power. “It is important to get along, so that everything goes as smoothly as possible,” he’d said, lowering his voice. “Of course I’m still one hundred percent on the side of France, but the Germans are here for now, aren’t they? It’s in everyone’s best interest to work with them, I think.”
“That’s just what I’ve been telling my husband!” Inès blurted out.
“Have you? And does he not agree?”
Inès hesitated. It felt disloyal to be criticizing her husband’s position on the Occupation, but at home, she wasn’t allowed to have an opinion. Here, this virtual stranger seemed interested to hear what she had to say. The feeling that he cared about her thoughts was more exhilarating than she would have imagined. And it wasn’t as if she was going to say anything about Michel’s hidden guns. “He seems to be getting angrier and angrier as the months go by,” she said. “But I think that kind of anger is dangerous. Stay off the Germans’ radar, and we’ll be safe, that’s what I say.”
“You’re a wise woman, Inès,” Antoine said, and as he stared at her with respect shining in his eyes, she felt herself flushing with power.
As he began to talk again, telling her about his large apartment in the center of Reims, and his corner office with a view of the cathedral, Inès was so impressed that she hardly noticed when another drink arrived. They stayed there, sharing the details of their lives, until the brasserie closed. He kissed her gently on both cheeks, his lips lingering longer than they should have, before he bid her goodbye.
“Be careful there,” Edith warned later that night as Inès stumbled toward the bedroom that had been hers before she left to marry Michel. “Remember that a dalliance in wartime comes with stakes.”
“How could you suggest that I would do such a thing?” Inès demanded, outraged, although she had been considering exactly that. Before Antoine had departed that night, he had leaned in and whispered into Inès’s ear, asking if she’d consider meeting him again the following evening. She had hesitated, but now, with Edith already assuming she could be so easily unfaithful, something in her snapped. Edith and Michel were too virtuous and important for her, apparently. But with Antoine Picard, she’d finally felt she had some value. And it wasn’t as if she were planning to sleep with him.
And yet she had. The very next night, after another day during which she’d been left alone while Edith and Edouard disappeared on secret errands, she met Antoine at the bar of the Brasserie Moulin and agreed against her better judgment when he suggested finding somewhere else to have a meal. “I know the owner of a very nice place just around the corner from the cathedral,” he whispered in her ear. “Would you like to accompany me? It might be nice to escape your friend’s watchful gaze.” He nodded to Edith, who was across the room, glaring at him, her arms crossed over her chest.
Inès locked eyes with Edith and then looked away. Edith could never understand what it meant to be discarded, for the war had only drawn her and Edouard closer. “A meal would be lovely,” she murmured. And so they departed without another glance, though Inès could feel Edith’s eyes burning into her back.
That night, Inès ate better than she had since the war had begun—four sumptuous courses at a small, dimly lit bistro called Arnaud’s—and when she’d asked Antoine how he managed to get around the ration restrictions, he’d merely laughed and said that life was too short not to break a few rules. “Besides,” he’d added with a smile, “who could blame me for wanting to impress such a beautiful woman?”
Antoine was effusive where Michel was reserved, practiced where Michel seemed like an amateur, loquacious where Michel preferred to silently brood. Instead of acting as if he were above Inès, he genuinely wanted to know what she thought of the Occupation, of the news coming from the battlefields, of the situation in which the Champenois currently found themselves. And though she knew she wasn’t as educated about current affairs as she perhaps should have been, she liked the way he listened to her when she tried to explain why she felt that people like her husband were overreacting. “You are,” he said as their coffee—real coffee—arrived, “a breath of fresh air.”
How lovely to be thought of that way, instead of as an insubstantial twig. Perhaps that was why, after a few glasses of wine and an evening of being listened to carefully, Inès finally agreed to accompany Antoine back to his apartment nearby, though she knew better. “After all,” he had said quite reasonably, “it is after curfew, and I don’t want any German soldiers harassing you. And what if you return to the brasserie and your friend is not awake to let you in? Come, you will be safe with me.”
And she had indeed felt protected as he took her arm and gently steered her toward his building on the rue Jeanne d’Arc. She’d felt sheltered as he guided her up the stairs with his hand at her elbow. And she had felt valued as he opened the door to his apartment and said, “I hope very much that you like it here, Inès.”
And then, as he closed the door behind them, his lips fell upon hers for the first time, and whether it was because of the alcohol coursing through her or the loneliness that had become her constant companion, it didn’t feel wrong. It felt exactly how it was supposed to feel with Michel, though it hadn’t in some time. Antoine was gentle at first, but then his kisses grew hungrier, and as he drank her in, pressing his body against hers, she felt desired. It was intoxicating, almost enough so to make her forget that what she was doing was so terribly wrong.
Although Michel still dutifully took her to bed once or twice a month, Inès had never felt this sort of desire from him. Even at the beginning of their marriage, their lovemaking had felt careful, cordial. Now it felt perfunctory at best, a man occasionally servicing his wife in the polite manner that was expected. He was the only man she’d ever been with, and until that very moment, she’d felt a dismayed kind of certainty that intimacy would always feel like that.
But Antoine, he wanted her. It wasn’t obligatory, and his mind wasn’t elsewhere. He wasn’t thinking to himself that he had more important things to do, or that she was not his intellectual equal. No, Inès could sense it in the deliberate way he unfastened her dress, his long, manicured fingers working their way carefully over each button. She could see it in his eyes when he turned his gaze to hers, could feel it in his touch as he peeled her slip away from her body and stroked her shoulders gently, could taste it in his mouth as he covered hers once again. It was wrong, and she knew it, but for the first time in her life, she could feel her body screaming at her that this was what she’d been missing.
So when at last her dress lay in a puddle on the floor, and he pulled away to ask, “Inès, may I take you to bed?” she only hesitated for a moment before saying yes. S
he thought of Michel just once, with a quick stab of guilt, as Antoine led her gently to the bedroom, but then she pushed her husband from her mind and focused instead on the man before her, who made love to her with finesse, and then fell asleep holding her tightly in his arms, like she was something to be cherished.
sixteen
JULY 1942
CÉLINE
Since the morning in February when Inès had broken a plate and driven off in a rage, she had been increasingly absent from Ville-Dommange, visiting her friend Edith once every two weeks, which suited Céline just fine. Céline could breathe when Inès was gone; she didn’t have to worry that an innocent laugh shared with Michel would be taken the wrong way, or that Inès’s anger at something insignificant would overshadow a whole day of work.
Inès had been more pleasant, too, her mood sunnier, which made everyone a bit more relaxed.
“Each time she goes to Reims, she comes back a new person,” Céline marveled to Michel in the caves one day. “It’s like magic.”
“Time with Edith is good for her, I think,” Michel replied with a small smile. “They’ve been friends since they were girls. Edith is the closest thing she has to a family.”
“Except for you,” Céline reminded him.
Michel looked startled. “Well, yes, of course.”
But Céline wondered whether the thought had actually crossed Michel’s mind before she pointed it out. After all, the gulf between Michel and Inès seemed to have widened. In contrast, the polite distance that had existed between Michel and Céline had long since vanished, and she felt closer to him than ever—close enough by mid-July to finally work up the courage to ask again to become involved in his work against the Nazis.
“No,” Michel said immediately. “Absolutely not. If there were to be any suspicion of illicit activity here, there’s at least the chance that the Germans would accept an explanation from me—or from Inès or Theo. But you . . .”
She bit her lip. “I’m half Jewish, so they would be all too happy to deport me.”
“We cannot take that risk.”
“But don’t you see? That’s just why I can’t sit idly by. Besides, they haven’t been deporting Jews from the rural regions yet, have they?”
But the next Monday, the Germans swept through Champagne and arrested forty-three foreign-born Jews, simply for the crime of being Jewish. The roundups came on the heels of mass arrests in Paris just three days earlier, in which more than thirteen thousand Jews were taken—including more than four thousand children.
It was almost too terrible to be believed, but by the end of the week, more horrific news had trickled in. According to Michel’s sources, seven thousand Jews had already been quietly removed from France and sent to concentration camps somewhere in the east. She’d received no further word about her father and grandparents from Michel’s friend Louis, and she was terrified that they were among the deportees.
“I don’t think you are in any danger,” Theo said the night after the arrests in Champagne, as he and Céline lay in bed, both of them wide awake. “It was just foreign-born Jews.”
“Foreign-born Jews,” she repeated flatly. “Like my family.”
“We don’t know that anything has happened to them,” Theo said.
But Céline knew, with a certainty she couldn’t explain. There was no chance the Germans would have allowed them to remain in prison in France when they were clearly stepping up deportations. The question now was what would become of them. Her father was relatively hearty and could probably bear the backbreaking work that would be required of him in a labor camp. But what about her aging grandparents? Especially her grandmother? “No one is safe anymore,” she said.
Theo was silent for a while. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Céline was glad for the darkness, glad that he couldn’t see the expression on her face. “It wouldn’t be up to you, Theo, if they came for me.”
“I would put up a fight.”
“And wind up dead? There would be no point.”
In the silence where his reply should have been, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine Theo standing up to a handful of French policemen, or maybe a few uniformed Germans. She couldn’t visualize it, but she could see Michel there in her mind’s eye, one of his contraband rifles trained on the officers. “Run,” he would urge her in that low, confident voice. It was enough to make a tear slip down her cheek, for as sure as she was that he would defend her, she was equally sure he would be executed for it. She could never live with herself if she let that happen.
“Céline?” Theo eventually broke the silence. “When did you stop believing in me?”
She opened her eyes. “Pardon?” But she’d heard him.
“I’m your husband. You should trust me to fight for you.”
“I know.” But how could she explain it? There hadn’t been a single moment that her feelings toward him had changed. It had been a slow, steady slide. “It’s not that I don’t believe in you, Theo. It’s that I fear you don’t really understand what we’re fighting for.”
“What? Of course I do.”
“But you’ve been so immersed in your job that you’ve barely looked up to see the world crumbling around you.”
“You would fault me for working diligently?”
“No,” Céline replied. “It is just that in times like these, champagne production is not the most important thing.”
“So we should all just stop working? Let society collapse?”
“Hasn’t it already?”
“But if we just keep holding on a little longer . . .”
“Then what?” Céline demanded, sitting up in bed. She suddenly felt furious. “What happens if we hold on, Theo? No one is coming to rescue France. And what happens when the Germans have finally purged all the foreign-born Jews? Who do you think will be next? You’ve seen the signs around town. They’re not going to stop! How can you suggest that holding on will be an answer to anything?”
“You are too emotional.” Theo sat up beside her and grasped her hand. “Céline, I know you’re worried about your father and grandparents, but—”
“But what?” She pulled away from him. “Don’t you understand that with every day that passes with no word from them, I imagine the worst?” She felt powerless, frightened, and angry at people like Theo—people who were willing to sit back and let it all happen, because it wasn’t happening to them.
“You are worried, Céline, and that’s reasonable. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“Oh, Theo.” Céline threw the sheets off and got out of bed. “Don’t you see? You’ll never be ahead of anything, for you’re content merely to follow.”
• • •
The next day, Theo had disappeared by the time Céline awoke on the couch. He’d left a short note asking her to get started with the riddling while he inspected a vineyard with Michel. We will be back before noon, he’d added. The words were as cold and detached as he himself had become.
Céline dressed quickly in a cotton dress and her wooden-soled shoes and headed for the cellars, longing for their chill. The July day was already shimmering with heat, the air oppressive. As she descended the stone steps, she exhaled and then filled her lungs with the subterranean coolness, tinged with the sweet, familiar scent of minerals married to yeast.
“Céline? Is that you?” Inès’s voice came from somewhere deep in the cellars, shattering Céline’s sense of calm.
“Hello, Inès!” Céline called back, her voice full of as much faux friendliness as she could muster.
“Oh good! I could use your help!”
Inès emerged from one of the caves ahead and waved cheerfully as she waited for Céline to approach. “Hello,” Inès said brightly. “You’re looking well this morning.”
“Um, thank you,” Céline said, confused by Inès’s good cheer. “You look well, too.” It was true, Céline realized; Inès appeared reinvigorated; her cheeks were pink, her smile broad. “
What are you doing?”
“Michel asked before he left if I could pull ten or twelve barrels so we can begin scrubbing them out this afternoon. But I can’t quite reach them, and I was wondering if you could possibly support me as I climb up, just so I don’t fall.”
“Yes, of course.”
Céline grasped Inès’s arm and helped her up onto a large overturned barrel so she could reach a bit higher. Inès stood on tiptoe and pulled an empty barrel down from the shelf, grunting with the effort. “Here,” Céline said, reaching for the barrel, “give it to me.”
In fifteen minutes, they had pulled down the dozen barrels Michel had requested, stacking them at the entrance to the cave. “Thank you,” Inès said, her cheeks flushed. “I couldn’t have done that alone.”
Céline smiled. “You’re stronger than I realized.”
“I think that living here has forced me to develop muscles I did not know I had.” Inès held up a narrow arm and flexed a nearly nonexistent bicep. “Heavyweight champion of the world!”
The two women giggled, and Céline felt a rare sense of camaraderie between them. Where had this version of Inès been hiding?
“Céline?” Inès asked after they had sobered. “Are you worried?”
“Worried about what?”
“Michel.” The mirth was gone from Inès’s face now, replaced by something unfamiliar. Was it sadness? Fear? Inès appeared suddenly vulnerable, almost childlike.
“What do you mean?” Céline asked carefully.
“He said that he told you about the guns. Whatever he’s doing, Céline”—she gestured into the depths of the tunnels—“it’s dangerous, isn’t it? I think he’s making a mistake, don’t you?”
Céline opened her mouth to reply, but a faint sound from overhead stopped her. It was an approaching vehicle, and as she and Inès both looked toward the ceiling of the cellars, a bad feeling formed in the pit of her stomach. “It’s too early for Michel and Theo to be returning,” Céline said.
“You’re right.” They exchanged glances and, without another word, headed for the stairs.
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