The Winemaker's Wife

by Kristin Harmel

  And Inès could not, not anymore. At home, while Michel snored beside her, she lay awake, trying to bat away the voices in her head that asked questions she didn’t want to answer. The explanation Antoine had given her about the first round of Jewish deportations in July no longer made sense to her, given the Germans’ increasingly aggressive anti-Semitism. And what about the fact that all the Nazis seemed to be living la belle vie, while the French were going hungry, freezing to death in the cold? With another winter approaching, how could Antoine so calmly look the other way?

  On a rainy Friday night in early October, Inès was lying in Antoine’s arms after another sumptuous meal when she heard the roar of several trucks outside, the screeching of brakes on the street below. Antoine was snoring, and at first he didn’t stir when she tried to wake him.

  “Antoine!” she hissed again, shaking him, and he opened his eyes at last.

  “Marie?” he called out, and Inès tensed, for it was a name he’d said before, in those foggy first seconds of consciousness.

  “No, it’s me,” she said, trying to keep the hurt out of her tone. “Inès.” She didn’t know who Marie was, but Inès had long understood that she might not be Antoine’s only lover.

  “Yes, yes, of course, that’s what I said.” There was a perturbed note to Antoine’s voice as he sat up and reached for his trousers, which were hanging from the edge of the bed. “Well, what is it?”

  “I think something is going on outside.”

  Antoine climbed out of bed and moved to the window. “Yes. It’s happening,” he said.

  “What is?” She joined him, wrapping a blanket around her naked body, and she gasped when she realized what he was looking at.

  On the street below, in blackness lit only by the moon overhead and a few flashlights, uniformed Germans were dragging children from the building across the way toward French police vehicles. There were four of them, all boys, ranging from perhaps seven to fourteen. The smallest was tiny, scrawny, with a thick shock of black hair, and as he kicked and screamed and tried to shake his captor off, one of the Germans backhanded him across the face. Inès gasped as his little body went limp. He was thrown into the car with the others.

  “What is this, Antoine?” Inès finally managed to whisper past the lump in her throat, but she already knew, even before he answered her.

  “Jews,” he said without looking at her.

  “Where are they taking them?”

  “Drancy, probably.” His tone was flat. “An internment camp just northeast of Paris.”

  “But what about their parents?”

  “Already deported, most likely. There are situations like this all over, children who shouldn’t have been allowed to remain unattended when their parents were arrested. The authorities are finally remedying the problem.”

  “But . . . they’re just boys.”

  Antoine finally turned to her. “It’s not a perfect system. But with winter coming, they’ll be safer with their mothers and fathers.”

  “But—”

  “It’s not for us to worry about, dear.” His jaw was set, his eyebrows drawn together. “It’s not just children tonight, anyhow. It’s another roundup, like the one in July.”

  “Another roundup?” Inès felt breathless.

  “Yes, my dear. Standard procedure. Now, shall we return to bed?”

  But Inès couldn’t imagine sleeping, not now. What would happen to those poor children? And what if the arrests were broader this time, encompassing more than just foreign Jews suspected of wrongdoing? What if Céline was in danger? “I—I have to get home,” she said.

  “In the middle of the night? Are you mad?”

  “No. I—I just have to get back, that’s all.”

  Antoine studied her. “Ah. Is this about the Jewish woman who lives on your husband’s property?”

  Inès was suddenly light-headed. “I—I’ve never mentioned that there’s a Jewish woman there. How would you know that?”

  “There aren’t so many Jews who live in the Marne, Inès. Certain people who have seen us together have made me aware. To be honest, it’s been somewhat problematic for me. I’ve had to explain that you have nothing to do with harboring her.”

  Inès gripped the window frame for support. She didn’t know where to begin. She felt sick to her stomach. “Antoine, Céline has done absolutely nothing wrong. Anyhow, I’m not harboring anyone. She has every right to be here.”

  “Don’t worry, ma chère. Like the last deportation, this one is just for foreign Jews, and she was born in France, yes?”

  Her head spun. “So you knew about it all along? The arrests tonight?”

  Antoine shrugged. “I know about a lot of things. See, Inès, didn’t I tell you how helpful it is to be on the right side? With me?”

  Outside the window, the police cars were pulling away. “And Céline? Is she safe for now? Or are your friends coming for her, too?”

  Something in Antoine’s expression changed, and Inès realized too late she had misstepped. When his smile reappeared, it was cold. “Oh, my friends might come for her at some point, but not tonight.” He put a hand on her upper arm. “Now, I will ask you again: Shall we return to bed?”

  Inès could only shake her head. Her stomach churned with guilt, anger, revulsion, powerlessness.

  Antoine shrugged and turned away, but Inès couldn’t pull herself from the window, even though the poor little boys were long gone. As she heard Antoine begin to snore peacefully in the bed behind her, she closed her eyes and tried not to think about the choices she had made and where they might lead. It took her only a few more minutes to hastily dress, grab her car keys, and head for the door.

  • • •

  By the time Inès made it home to Ville-Dommange in the pitch darkness of a blackout night, she had worked herself into a panic thinking of Céline’s safety. What if Antoine had been lying? What if the authorities were coming tonight after all?

  She pulled the Citroën to a halt outside Céline and Theo’s cottage and jumped out without even bothering to cut the ignition. Theo came to the door holding a lantern, Céline just behind him in a dressing gown wrapped hastily around her. “What is it?” Theo demanded, shining the light in her eyes. “Inès, what’s the matter?”

  “I—” Now that Inès was here, she realized she was at a loss for words. What was she to say, that her lover had made her believe that Céline might be in danger? “There’s—there’s been another roundup,” she said.

  “Oh dear God.” Céline pulled her gown tighter and clutched her belly as if she’d had a sudden, sharp pain. “Where? Who?”

  “In Reims.” Inès found that she could not meet Céline’s eye. “Perhaps elsewhere, too. I—I was concerned about you.”

  “Oh, thank you, Inès.” Céline reached out to squeeze Inès’s hands in hers. Her palms were warm and strong, and somehow the contact made Inès feel even more ashamed. “You drove back from Reims in the middle of the night to warn me?”

  “I—I was worried.” Inès was too embarrassed to keep meeting Céline’s gaze. What would Céline say if she knew that for months, Inès had been enjoying the high life while things grew more perilous for the Jews of the Marne?

  “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.” Céline’s eyes were filled with tears.

  “Céline,” Theo cut in, “we should get you somewhere safe, just in case.”

  Céline nodded, turning to her husband. “Yes. Let’s go see Michel. He’ll know what to do.”

  She brushed past Inès, already heading outside, and as Theo’s gaze met Inès’s in the lamplight, she thought she recognized something familiar there, an expression of being overlooked, bypassed for something better, just as she had been. But then he turned away, and the look was gone. “Let’s go,” he grunted, and Inès followed him into the dark night.

  • • •

  Michel had been startled to hear Inès’s news, but he’d wasted no time in bringing Céline down to the caves and settl
ing her behind the hidden wall, guarded by the silent Madonna. She stayed there for two days, with Inès bringing her meals and making awkward conversation every few hours. But by the third day, they all felt confident that the roundups were over, and Céline hadn’t been on the list. She had emerged from the cellars, and life had gone on as usual.

  Except that for Inès, it hadn’t. The fear she’d felt for Céline had been real and deep, and the more she thought about it, the more she wondered how Antoine could possibly be right. He had so easily justified the Jewish deportations months earlier, and in the moment, his words had made sense. But what if Inès was the fool Michel seemed to believe her to be after all? Had she made a huge mistake by taking Antoine at his word? The questions settled in the pit of her belly, heavy as rocks.

  Six days after Inès had fled Reims in the middle of the night, Michel and Theo left early in the afternoon to check on some vines in nearby Sacy, leaving Inès and Céline alone in the cellars, where they were tasked with sorting through the bottles they’d received from their supplier earlier in the week. The quality of the glass had gone sharply downhill, yet another result of the Occupation, and before they could be filled with wine over the winter, they all had to be hand inspected to make sure they weren’t broken, weak, or otherwise compromised.

  “Inès,” Céline said after a while, breaking the silence between them. “I haven’t thanked you properly yet for what you did last week, driving from Reims after dark just to warn me. I owe you very much.”

  Inès put her hand over her mouth and shook her head. “No, Céline. It is I who owe you.”

  Céline blinked a few times. “Surely not.”

  “No. I—I fear I have misjudged you.” Inès hesitated, her eyes sliding away. “I’m ashamed to say that for the past few months, I’ve been jealous. It sounds crazy to say, I know, but I thought that perhaps there was something between you and Michel.”

  “Michel?” Céline turned red. “How could you think such a thing?”

  “I know. I’m terribly sorry. I realize I imagined it, probably because I . . . well, I feel as if I am losing my hold on my marriage.”

  “Inès—”

  “I have to do something, Céline. I keep making the wrong choices, and I—” Inès stopped abruptly before she could say something she’d regret. She wiped away a tear. “I need to become someone better, that’s all. I know that now. Anyhow, I apologize. I’m sorry for doubting you, and I’m sorry for burdening you with this now. My marriage isn’t your problem.”

  “Inès, I’m so sorry,” Céline whispered. The concern etched on her face was so deep that Inès began to sob again. After an awkward pause, Céline put an arm around her. Inès cried into the other woman’s shoulder briefly before gathering herself and stepping back.

  “Thank you,” Inès said, “for being so kind. I don’t deserve it.”

  By the time Michel arrived home an hour later, his hands and face streaked with vineyard dirt, Inès had made herself a promise. Things would be different from now on. She would break things off with Antoine the next time she saw him. It was the only thing to do. Antoine might have given her attention, but good men didn’t choose the wrong side in a war like this, and Inès was horrified that it had taken so long for her to realize that. She needed to give Michel—and their marriage—another chance.

  “Welcome home, my love,” Inès said as Michel hung his coat by the door.

  He turned to her with a frown. “Hello.” He bent to untie his boots, and when he straightened and found her still standing there, his eyebrows drew together in confusion. “Is there something else, Inès?”

  “Yes. I—I want to apologize. I want to be a better wife to you. You’re a good man, and I don’t think I’ve given you enough credit for that.”

  “Oh.” He stood and eyed her. “Well, thank you.” He hesitated. “You are a good woman, too.”

  The exchange felt awkward, like they were two near strangers. The distance between them gaped wide. “I—I love you,” Inès said, stepping closer, and as she said the words, she felt certain they could be true again. She had loved him when she’d married him. She tried hard to remember what that had felt like, the electric feeling that had coursed through her each time he looked her way.

  “Well. I love you, too.”

  “Come to bed, Michel,” she murmured, standing on tiptoe to press her lips against his. She moved into the familiar arc of his body, which now felt foreign to her. Where Antoine was sinewy and narrow, Michel was solid and strong.

  “Inès—” he began, but she cut him off with a kiss.

  “Make love to me, Michel,” she whispered. “Please. I am your wife.” She knew she sounded desperate, but she was. She needed this, something to pull her back from the edge, something to redeem her.

  “Inès—”

  She kissed him again, and this time, he kissed back. When he finally pulled her into his arms, she sighed with relief.

  She led him to the bedroom and slipped out of her dress, tugging at his belt before he could change his mind. As they fell into bed, it felt as if they were doing a well-rehearsed dance, and when Michel’s touch felt mechanical, Inès told herself that it had merely been a long time since they’d made love.

  When it was over, he held her briefly before pulling away. “I need to inspect some things in the caves. You’ll be all right?”

  It wasn’t quite the pillow talk she’d been expecting, and she tried not to compare his abruptness to the gentle care Antoine always took with her after they’d been together.

  “What about dinner?”

  “I’m not hungry, Inès. Thank you.”

  “Will you stay for a little while, Michel? Here? With me?”

  He was already pulling his clothing back on, reaching for his boots. “I need to get to the bottles.”

  “Bottles?” she couldn’t resist asking. “Or guns?”

  Something flickered in Michel’s eyes, and when he spoke again, his tone was cold, terse. “Bottles. Like I said. Get some rest, Inès.”

  Inès was still awake when Michel returned to bed hours later, smelling of chalk and night. She closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep as he slipped beneath the covers beside her, his back turned, as far away from her as he could possibly be.

  nineteen

  OCTOBER 1942

  CÉLINE

  After the troubling conversation Céline had with Inès about the other woman’s marriage, her stomach fluttered with guilt for the rest of the day. Inès was a better person than Céline gave her credit for, wasn’t she? Some of their conversations earlier in the war had made Céline believe that Inès didn’t grasp the plight of the Jews, but last week had proven otherwise.

  Céline wondered if she had been too eager to join Michel in treating Inès as if she were a naive simpleton. If she had taken the time to be kinder to Michel’s wife, to talk to her, would Inès have gotten things so wrong all those months ago? Inès wasn’t stupid. She was young, and she’d turned her back on most news of the war.

  Michel had been frustrated about that, angry that Inès didn’t understand the stakes, and he’d stopped talking to her about anything serious because of it. But he’d been wrong to assume it was because Inès was incapable of grasping the situation. No, like Theo, Inès had closed her eyes to something terrifying, finding comfort in easy explanations. It was what so many people were doing, and Céline understood that now. She wished that she, too, could pretend that none of this was happening. What if she lived in a world in which her biggest problem was that she was feeling things for Michel that she shouldn’t have been—not that she was terrified every day that her father and grandparents were being carted off to their deaths, and that she would be next? It was all too much.

  She supposed that was why, when she had crossed paths with Michel alone in the cellars one evening nearly three months earlier, fueled by loneliness and despair, she had silenced the doubts in her head for a few seconds and reached up to steal a single forbidden kiss. El
ectricity had shot through her whole body, her lips tingling with the taste of him. She’d known it was wrong, of course, but Michel was as alone as she was, and she had seen the hunger in his eyes when he looked at her lately, the desire. Still, what had she done? “I’m so sorry,” she had begun, mortified as she backed away. “I should never have—”

  But Michel had pulled her to him immediately, lacing his fingers through her hair and kissing her deeply. “My God, Céline,” he’d murmured. “I’ve been waiting so long to do that.”

  “But Theo and Inès . . .”

  “. . . are not the people we thought they were,” he said firmly. “Céline, don’t you feel it? This connection between us? I’ve known for so long that I love you. Don’t you feel the same?”

  She’s felt breathless, buoyed with hope for the first time in years. Tears in her eyes, she whispered, “Yes.” A week later, they’d made love for the first time, alone in the cellars, and Céline had known there was no turning back.

  Now, her heart full of things she knew she’d regret, she waited until Theo fell asleep before slipping out of bed and out the back door with a lamp.

  The coolness of the cellars enveloped her as she quietly descended the winding stone steps and made her way toward one of the caves in the back, down the long hall, right, left and then right again down a narrow passage. In the back of the cave was a room partially obscured by a brick wall, a room no one would notice if they weren’t looking for it. There was a blanket on the floor there, hidden between two enormous rows of racked bottles, and she sat down, pulled it around her, and waited.

  She sat there for almost an hour, and had just begun to panic when she heard footfalls on the stone floor leading toward her hiding space. She stood and squinted into the darkness as a shadowy figure appeared at the entrance to the cave, lamplight surrounding him like a halo.