A Bordeaux Dynasty: A Novel

by Françoise Bourdin

  Louis-Marie didn’t know what to say to that. Jules’s nerves were frayed tonight. No wonder, after all that had happened the past few months. And the fact that the harvest was right around the corner was that much added pressure. Louis-Marie looked at Jules, sitting in Aurélien’s old chair.

  “Just thank God you went on an early morning walk,” Louis-Marie said. “And thank Lucas for being like your shadow. How many acres are left to harvest?”

  Jules’s grim expression changed. He winked at Louis-Marie and said, “Listen to you. It’s as though you were born around here!”

  Pauline burst out laughing, happy that the painful atmosphere was finally lightening. She put a hand on Louis-Marie’s, as a peaceful gesture. She felt him quiver and was delighted. And so she hadn’t lost all her power over him.

  “I wonder where Alex found all those cans,” Jules said.

  “In Mazion. …” Dominique said. Looking sorry, she continued. “Dad has had a big stock of that stuff for years. It’s an old story. Alex kept telling him to get rid of it all.”

  She felt oddly responsible for what had happened. Alex wanted to get even with Jules because of her being there, as well as his own past failures. She hadn’t tried much to help him get over his alcohol problems, and she felt right at home here under Jules’s roof, while her husband was in a hospital room.

  “That other guy,” Laurène said, “did you know him?”

  “Vaguely,” answered Jules.

  He’d told Louis-Marie the truth of the matter but didn’t feel like getting into the details with his wife. Everything that had to do with Frédérique irked her, he knew that. He still hadn’t decided what he was going to do about Marc. How could Alex be friends with such a piece of junk?

  “I never should’ve let Alex go out drinking at night when I was in Mazion,” Dominique muttered.

  “Don’t beat yourself up over it,” said Jules. “How could you have stopped him?”

  “Robert said something about detox. …” Pauline said.

  Louis-Marie shot her a look. He couldn’t stand hearing her utter his brother’s name.

  “Well,” he said, “according to Auber, Alex is going to spend a good bit of time in the hospital. He won’t be able to drink there.”

  “When Robert comes back for the harvest,” Jules said, tired of talking about Alex, “he can talk it over with his colleagues.”

  He tried to eat a bit but couldn’t. He had no appetite whatsoever, feeling utterly worn out. The cleanup job had been exhausting, but it was his anger that had sapped his energy. With every fiber of his being he’d wanted to kill his own brother. That thought had stayed with him all day long. Without Lucas, he would’ve pounded Alex’s head to a pulp. And nothing in the world, not even Fonteyne, could justify such a murderous impulse.

  I’m going to have to learn to control myself more, he thought bitterly.

  Aurélien was no longer there to protect him from himself, or to hold everyone in the family in check.

  It feels like I’m drowning. … What would you have done, Aurélien?

  “Jules? Can I ring Clothilde?”

  He looked at Laurène, looking dazed, and nodded.

  Clothilde came in with a plate of cheese, saying that Fernande had gone home.

  “You should go too, Clothilde,” Dominique said. “We’ll be fine.” She then looked at her sister intently.

  Getting the message, Laurène put a hand on Jules’s.

  “You should also go to bed, honey.”

  Jules shook his head, but Louis-Marie interjected.

  “Jesus, go to bed already. You can’t keep your eyes open.”

  Jules got up and left the room without a word. Louis-Marie watched him, feeling terrible. He knew how his brother felt, but there was nothing he could do to make things better at this point. What Alex had done was inconceivable, horrific, and he’d deserved punishment, even if Jules had gone overboard. It was high time Alex stopped attacking his family and Fonteyne.

  “What are you thinking about, honey?” Pauline asked him.

  “About us,” Louis-Marie said.

  Pauline laughed, but Louis-Marie added, “All of us.”

  Two days later, when Marie walked out of the hospital, she had to sit on a bench to collect herself. She’d spent a half hour at Alex’s bedside, and he hadn’t said more than a few words. His broken leg was in a cast and held up by straps, he wore a neck brace, and his face was puffed up and covered with sutures. He had tubes coming out of his arms, and he was hooked up to a slew of machines. In spite of Alex’s cranial trauma, the doctors didn’t seem too worried about his condition, but Marie was. What had become of the dapper young man Dominique had married ten years earlier? That well-behaved man with blond hair and clear eyes had given way to a bitter, aged, worn-out individual. He’d turned ugly and mean. But, in that immaculate trauma room, what Marie had also seen was a scrawny boy, abandoned and desperate. Alex was suffering, and not just physically. Stuck in his hospital bed, not being able to drink, he was forced to spend endless days thinking about what he’d done. And what his brother had done to him. Marie’s daughters told her that Alex had corroborated Jules’s version of the story when the police interrogated him. But, of course, he hadn’t filed a complaint against him. He could keep quiet, hiding behind his wounds, but he couldn’t prevent himself from thinking.

  Aurélien would’ve ended up forgiving him, Marie thought, but will Jules?

  It was the beginning of the harvest pretty much everywhere. Antoine was handling that task by himself in Mazion, with his regular employees. Fonteyne had just begun.

  Dominique and Laurène must be up to their eyeballs in work with all those laborers to feed, especially with Fernande being sick. Thankfully Louis-Marie is there to help. That’s the nice thing about large families, especially those with lots of men.

  Marie thought she should leave her bench and hurry on home, but she gave herself an extra five minutes. She rarely had time to just sit and think. And though the days were getting short, it was nice and warm out.

  Everything was so much simpler a while back. …

  Before Aurélien’s passing, before her daughters were married, when she was still a young woman, full of enthusiasm for life.

  Jules can manage Fonteyne by himself. He has the courage to face anything. But it must be so hard for him knowing it was his brother who caused him most of his headaches. I hope that Laurène supports him, that they’re happy in spite of everything. …

  Marie had lost all of her illusions one by one. Antoine wasn’t a bad husband, their little house in Mazion wasn’t unpleasant, their wine production was pretty good. Nothing horrible, but nothing great either. Dominique’s wedding had opened a door to extraordinary horizons. But today, alas, Fonteyne was a hell of bitter rivalries and heartbreak.

  What’s going to become of them all? Marie wondered despairingly.

  She got up and quickly walked to her car, now regretting having wasted so much time. She knew Antoine was anxious to hear about his son-in-law, for whom he felt genuine affection. After all, Alex had been the only one to help him when he’d gotten sick, the only one who hadn’t treated the Billots like second-class citizens. Antoine had never gotten over the scorn that Aurélien had shown him. Because they’d been friends as children, Antoine believed that he was Aurélien’s equal. Because the two families had united through marriage, he’d believed that they were on the same footing.

  Antoine’s mother was right: you don’t mix rags and towels in certain social settings. …

  For the first time in her life, Marie regretted that she never gave birth to a boy. A male heir would’ve changed everything for the better.

  A son just like Jules. Ha!

  She smiled as she walked. As long as she’d known him, Marie had had great affection for Jules. Even when he was a child, she was moved by him.

  With him, Laurène is protected, no matter what happens.

  This notion was so comforting that she sudden
ly felt cheerful. She was certain that if he really wanted to, Jules could make everything okay. She tried to chase away the image of Alex in his hospital bed. It was no surprise that Jules went berserk when he saw his field being massacred.

  If Jules is strong enough to put Alex back on the right track, I’ll be forever grateful to him.

  She passionately hoped this would happen, for the sake of Dominique, the twins, and herself. And for Fonteyne. Fonteyne, which, one day, would belong to Marie’s grandchildren.

  PART FOUR

  Laborers and team leaders, under Lucas’s close supervision, had been harvesting all of Fonteyne’s fields for several days. Omnipresent, Jules had overseen everything hour by hour—the work in the vineyards, the handling of the vats, the pressing of the grapes, the beginning of fermentation. He declared himself satisfied only once the harvest was one hundred percent complete, as though he’d feared another last-minute catastrophe. And then he presided over the closing banquet in a state of complete relaxation, a smile on his face.

  The harvest had been vital for Fonteyne, as the company found itself in an extremely precarious financial state. The wine sale held in the summertime had relieved the situation without fixing it. Jules was struggling with heavy financial commitments but refused to slow down the modernization of the equipment. The purchase of Frédérique’s apartment had complicated the situation further, even though Louis-Marie and Robert had done everything possible to help him out.

  Varin remained careful and reserved concerning the ongoing trial. Jules had the backing of the judge, and his position as head of the estate wasn’t in jeopardy, but it was possible that he would soon have to make payments to cover Alex’s shares. Many points had been decided in Jules’s favor, but Alex and his attorney weren’t giving in. Alex was still in the hospital and had a difficult recovery. He remained obstinately silent, refusing to see his wife and his brothers. Only Marie could sit at Alex’s side and hold his hand without him getting angry. Even Robert had hit a wall when he tried to talk to him.

  Louis-Marie experienced the harvest with a level of excitement and joy he hadn’t expected. He’d taken an interest in every aspect of the operation and felt like he was a kid again. He’d discreetly followed Jules around, observing in silence the intense activity surrounding the process. Pauline, who’d reluctantly stayed on to try to fix things between them, eventually understood that she’d lost her husband for good. If he’d only been taking refuge at Fonteyne at the beginning, he now felt he belonged there.

  Pauline avoided making grandiose declarations. She let Robert leave by himself and, two days after, took the train to Paris with Esther. On the platform, she told Louis-Marie that both should take a bit of time before coming to a final decision, and he’d agreed with an expression of indifference that chilled her to the bone.

  After the harvest, in October, Jules started to ride Bingo every morning. Bernard whitewashed the stable for him and fixed it up.

  November was dark, cold, and rainy, and during the last days of the month, snow began to fall. Laurène was expecting her baby at the end of the year. For the past several weeks, Jules had been particularly gentle and attentive to her needs. He had stopped making love to her but surrounded her with affection just the same, and waited with excitement to become a father.

  Dominique was already planning Christmas and taking care of her sons as well as the house. Fernande had been given antibiotics but absolutely refused to take a break from work.

  Jules and Louis-Marie spent long hours together, very much preoccupied with Fonteyne’s financial situation and its administration. They talked endlessly about labels, corks, shipping crates, merchants, market prices, vintage. Louis-Marie was a good student, but Jules was demanding.

  “Come on, man,” he’d often say. “You’re not thinking this through!”

  Jules never talked about the future, knowing about his older brother’s uncertain situation. Once or twice a week, Jules asked Dominique about Alex’s condition. He never commented. No one knew what he thought, how he was feeling about his brother. He hadn’t set foot in the hospital and had never asked Auber about him, even though the doctor came to Fonteyne on a regular basis.

  Each time she managed to escape Mazion, Marie was welcomed at the house. She cuddled with the twins, gave her daughters some advice, and then headed back home with a heavy heart. She never dared talk to Jules about Alex, though she was ashamed of her own cowardice after every visit to Fonteyne.

  On the morning of November 28, Jules saw that it had snowed all night long. He stepped onto the terrace and followed an overexcited Botty as he ran down the steps. Jules played with his dog in the snow like he was a kid. He was still throwing snowballs at Botty when Louis-Marie showed up on the terrace.

  “You’re up early,” Jules said, and then took aim at his brother.

  The snowball hit Louis-Marie right on the cheek, and he rushed down the steps. But, wearing only slippers, he slid and crashed to the ground. Jules shouted with joy and jumped on his brother, Botty on his heels. The two men rolled around in the snow for a while, then got up, wet and out of breath from laughing.

  “And how are you going to feel when I come down with pneumonia?” Louis-Marie asked. “Who’s going to do all the work around here then?”

  Jules gave his brother a big smile and said, “You’re right. Let’s get some coffee and warm up.”

  They went back into the house and headed for the kitchen, where they found Fernande standing in front of the oven. Lucas, sitting at the end of one of the long benches, greeted them with a smile.

  “You shouldn’t get up so early,” Jules told Fernande.

  “She won’t listen to me,” Lucas said with a sigh.

  “If you don’t take it easy, you’re really going to get sick.”

  Fernande grumbled something inaudible, annoyed that Jules was right and that she couldn’t get over her constant fatigue.

  “Both of you go to the office,” she said. “I’ll be over with your trays in a minute. Go on! It’s too cold in here. …”

  “Why don’t we keep the heat in the kitchen on at night?” Jules suggested.

  “Because we’ve never done it before,” she said. “I turn it on when I arrive in the morning and that’s good enough.”

  Jules rolled his eyes and gestured at Louis-Marie to go. As soon as they arrived in the office, Jules started a fire.

  “I love this kind of weather,” he said, stacking the logs in a precise way.

  “It’s not bad for the vines?”

  “No, not this time of year. You know that.”

  “I hope we have tons of snow for Christmas.”

  Jules glanced at Louis-Marie over his shoulder. His brother seemed more serene than he had been in the summertime.

  “Are Pauline and Esther going to come?”

  “Esther, absolutely. As for Pauline, I honestly have no idea.”

  Louis-Marie walked toward the rising and crackling flames.

  “I miss my daughter,” he said. “I think she’d be happy if she lived here, with the twins. …”

  Jules nodded silently. He let Louis-Marie decide whether to go on or not. He blew on the kindling to activate the flames.

  “I wish Pauline had made a decision during the harvest,” Louis-Marie said. “But she couldn’t. She’s like a child, and making choices always terrifies her.”

  Louis-Marie sat on the floor, right next to Jules who was kneeling in front of the hearth.

  “I’m going to stay at Fonteyne,” he said. “You’re going to be stuck with me until the day you die.”

  Jules slowly turned to him, a radiant smile on his face.

  “Nothing could make me happier,” he said simply.

  Jules hadn’t said it just to be polite. He really did mean it. Louis-Marie was beginning to be indispensable, not merely useful. He’d relieved Jules of a lot of tasks at a time when he was struggling with an excessive amount of work and responsibilities. Louis-Marie had tried, as best he c
ould, to cover for the double absence of Aurélien and Alexandre. And that had enabled Jules to breathe easier, to cope with all he had to deal with.

  “At first,” Louis-Marie said, “I stayed because I wanted to give you a hand. You couldn’t handle all that madness by yourself, and you never would’ve accepted the help of a stranger. But I really took a liking to it all. Even I’m surprised to what extent. I should’ve missed Paris after a few months, but I never did. On the contrary, the very idea of going back there depresses me. I actually sent the paper my resignation last week. I’m officially done with them at the end of the year.”

  Jules lit a Gitane, patiently waiting for the rest.

  “I’m staying here, and I’m going to work with you,” Louis-Marie continued. “If that’s okay with you, it goes without saying. And I can probably freelance for local papers just to keep from getting too rusty.”

  “Are you sure about this? If you find an editor for your novel, you don’t want to be stuck living out in the boonies, do you?”

  “I did find an editor,” Louis-Marie slowly replied.

  He fished a letter out of his robe pocket and handed it to Jules. Louis-Marie must’ve read it a hundred times already.

  “Holy smokes,” said Jules as he saw the letterhead. “That’s a big-time publisher. And you still want to stay here? You don’t want to start a new career as a novelist?”

  Louis-Marie shook his head, amused.

  “It’s not that simple,” he said. “Between you and me, I think I’d know if I had any great talent. But this book, I needed to write it. I think that it … freed me.”

  “From Pauline?”

  Jules immediately regretted having blurted out the question out so bluntly.

  “Yes,” his brother said, slowly. “In a way. …”

  The fire was generating a lot of heat, and they moved away from the hearth. Jules took his place behind the desk, while Louis-Marie sat across from him. They looked at each other in silence for a while. Then Fernande knocked and set down their breakfast tray. They waited until she’d walked back out of the room before resuming their conversation.