A violent bombardment that leaves everyone shaken, yet somehow, miraculously, alive.
Or the Christmas Eve miracle—have you heard of it?
Truthfully, I don’t know whether or not to believe it actually happened, but I choose to. It is too wonderful a story not to. It was told to us by a medic who claimed he witnessed it firsthand.
This is the way he told the story:
Those of us who live in the trenches are at times only a few meters—or less—from the enemy ensconced in their own pits. When it is quiet, we sometimes speak to one another, or even barter for small items such as cigarettes. We are young men trying to stay alive, and when the enemy shows his human face, we are reminded that we used to be neighbors, relatives, fellow farmers, and merchants.
So, on Christmas Eve, while in his trench, a British soldier began to sing “Silent Night,” his sonorous voice filling the quiet void. You may know, my dear marraine, that this is a song originally written in German. Other soldiers joined in, and when they finished, the Germans answered in kind, singing “Stille Nacht” in the original German. From then on the singing continued, and as darkness fell, candles were lit along the line. Some say there were even some gifts exchanged, and an informal cease-fire allowed each side to collect their dead from No Man’s Land in peace.
So, there you have it. A brief break in the fighting, in recognition of our shared humanity. I imagine the officers in charge wouldn’t like the idea of us seeing such humanity in our foes.
And when the night was over, the slaughter recommenced.
Your friend,
Émile Legrand
* * *
June 1, 1915
My dear marraine,
I asked Lucie why she did not flee the city when she had the chance, and she told me a very long story. It was as though she needed to tell it, for someone to hear, to understand.
It was in August of 1914 that the refugees from the north began to arrive, a flood of Belgians, and those from Mézières and Rethel and Givet. They came by ox-drawn wagon and wheelbarrow, in carts loaded with a mishmash of furniture and other household objects, farm tools and children’s dolls.
“It was the dolls that seemed most poignant to me,” said Lucie. “Those simple little poppets, which usually bring solace and joy, were the only objects they were able to save.”
They flooded into the once-beautiful squares and parks of Reims, camping where they could. Much of the citizenry came out to cook for them and feed them. The plaza in front of town hall, which later became a scene of carnage, was full of children playing, happy to experience a respite in their journey. Their parents’ faces were deeply lined in worry; they were not able to enjoy themselves in the same way.
Within two weeks they heard the first guns, and within two days of that, the Germans arrived. They insisted a French prisoner show them the way to the mairie, but as he was not from Reims he misled them. Then they picked up another Frenchman, who might well have misled them on purpose. In any case, the Boches were enraged by the time they found the mairie. Perhaps that is why they set about shelling the city for a full half an hour, destroying several buildings and terrifying the populace—even though they had already conquered the city.
Eight days later the French soldiers returned and drove the Huns out of Reims in a glorious victory. The invaders retreated to the heights and began to bombard the town, determined to destroy what they could not have.
We have yet to see if they will succeed, if our beloved Reims will fall in on itself like so many other villages and towns, to become a city fit only for the dead.
Sending you kind wishes and respectful thoughts,
Émile Legrand
* * *
April 2, 1916
My dearest Mrs. Whittaker,
I wonder about the educational system in your country. Here in France, schools used to be run by convents and monasteries, but after the revolution, the state took over the charge of developing good citizens. Still, the teachers approach their work with no less selfless dedication than did the nuns and monks. Even after the evacuation orders, even after the Germans invaded and were in turn expelled, only to hide in the hills “watering” the city of Reims with showers of shells, every teacher stayed. If children remained, they said, they would remain to teach them.
A teacher’s profession is a consecration.
Early in the shelling a bomb crashed into the house of Monsieur Forsant, Inspector of Primary Education. He was not at home, fortunately, but he took it as a harbinger of what was to come. And so even though the schools were scheduled to open two weeks after the incendiary bombs destroyed our cathedral, Monsieur Forsant finally decided to delay the opening to an undetermined date in the future.
After much of the citizenry had fled to the shelter of the crayères, the caves that run under the city, an intrepid teacher named Madame Deresme asked for permission to open a school in that dank, dark, but relatively safe place.
Monsieur Forsant came to inspect the scene. He encountered there a bitter smell, the sight of unwashed, unkempt, and dejected women, children, and grandparents huddling together. He had to climb over beds and push aside chairs to pass, as many of the refugees had brought all their worldly goods down into the tunnels, such as they could.
It was clear the people were suffering from the physical and moral wretchedness of the loss of their possessions, their loved ones, their safety. There is a certain abasement of the spirit that accompanies invasion and war, my dear marraine, the likes of which I sincerely hope you will never experience. It is in some ways more difficult than the outright terror of the trenches, or at least it is a more insidious adversary.
In France the teachers do not believe in pampering children. The youth must learn the moral courage that is necessary to face life’s difficulties. The children are taught that they are doing their best for France, that they are displaying their patriotism, by focusing on their studies and learning well.
And do you know that first Christmas, hundreds of pairs of new shoes were sent to the children by people all over France? And a soldier managed to bring a Christmas tree through the dangerous section. They lit candles and sang patriotic songs, and the children recited poems. The soldiers billeted there in the caves were the appreciative audience, along with the mothers and grandparents.
When Lucie described the vivid scene, I was reminded of the Christmas Eve armistice. I take comfort in the way humans insist on creating moments of meaning, and peace, and joy, even in the most trying of times.
As Lucie says: The human spirit does not want to die; it is a resilient thing.
With all my best wishes,
Émile Legrand
* * *
After reviewing the website for Blé Champagne, Rosalyn realized Emma had a point—the website’s English version was at best awkward, and often downright wrong. She approached Blondine about it, and the two of them quickly developed a routine: Many mornings Blondine would rap on her door with croissants and coffee in hand, and they would sit at the table and eat breakfast while Rosalyn suggested changes to Blé Champagne’s website as well as to other marketing materials.
In exchange, Blondine helped Rosalyn work through the rather gruesome list of unknown vocabulary she had gleaned from Émile’s letters.
Blondine winced in distaste at the ghastlier descriptions, and some phrases she was unable to decipher, but she knew many others: obus meant “shell, bombardment.” Une abeille, or a bee, referred to a bullet. Un Boche was a German. Un crapouillot, a little toad, was a small mortar. Un groin de cochon, a pig’s snout, meant a “gas mask.” Le séchoir, the clothesline, referred to the rolls of barbed wire that crisscrossed the battlefields—it had earned the nickname because soldiers became entangled on the wire as they ran, and remained hanging there, even in death.
“No time for language l
essons today,” Blondine declared one morning. “I have been remiss—I must show you our facilities here. You run around all of Champagne, but haven’t yet seen our own operation. My father will kill me to know this. So, after le petit déjeuner, we shall take a tour, yes?”
After they had enjoyed flaky, butter-soaked croissants and downed rich coffee, Blondine showed Rosalyn their champagne-making process and the chilly storage caves built directly into the hill behind the loading dock.
“Probably you know all about the méthode champenoise,” said Blondine.
“As you know, I’m more of a red wine connoisseur. I would love a refresher course.”
“The méthode champenoise involves the deliberate initiation of a second fermentation, which is responsible for the bubbles,” Blondine explained as she pointed out the wine-making equipment. “Primary fermentation takes place in tanks to transform the juice into wine. Bottle fermentation, known as the prise de mousse, is when the wine begins to effervesce.”
The bottles were capped with metal tops, like soda. Then the wine was carefully cataloged and allowed to rest for several years in A-frame racks called pupitres that positioned the bottles on an angle, nose down. The bottles were regularly “riddled,” or turned a bit to collect the debris produced by the yeasts and sugars, which would otherwise cloud the wine.
“It was the veuve Clicquot who figured out how to get rid of the deposits.” Blondine pointed to a demonstration bottle that was mounted in front of a light. When she whirled it, sediment floated around within it. “Once the sediment has collected in the neck of the bottle—which takes a long time—it is dégorgées.”
“Dégorgées means ‘disgorged,’ right?” Rosalyn asked, unsure of the translation.
Blondine nodded. “We freeze just this last part of the neck. Then the bottle is pointed nose down, and the cork or cap is removed very rapidly. The frozen liquid containing the sediment is forced out by the pressure, and then the bottle is corked again before too much fizz or champagne is lost.”
“That sounds . . . tricky,” Rosalyn said, remembering how replacing the watercooler bottle in Hugh’s office involved the combined efforts of the entire office and sales staff, and they still managed to spill half the contents on the carpet.
“It takes a lot of skill. Now most of it is done by machine, but it was done by hand for centuries, and sometimes still is. A professional riddler can jiggle fifty thousand bottles a day, and a good disgorger is worth his weight in gold.”
“I’ll bet.” Rosalyn tried to imagine a business card printed with Professional Riddler or Experienced Disgorger. “And then the missing wine is replaced by the dosage?”
“Oui. The dosage is a fortified wine with a little sugar and sometimes a special ingredient. This is the winemaker’s secret. See the markings set on the piles of bottles over there?” She gestured to a small A-frame sign atop a stack of champagne. “That is a secret code known only to the winemaker. In the larger cellars such as Pommery and Mumm, the winemakers ride through the caves on bicycles. It is the only way they can get around to check on the inventory. It is very prestigious to be a cellar master in Champagne.”
As Blondine spoke, Rosalyn recalled the lectures from her oenology classes. Champagne was made of only three grape varietals: Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier, and Pinot Noir; and when made exclusively from Chardonnay grapes, it was called blanc de blanc. There were different levels of quality: Grand cru was the best, then premier cru, and finally appellation Champagne.
“Some of the smaller producers sell most of their crops to the big champagne houses but make their own champagne as well,” said Blondine. “It is more distinctive, since they are much smaller operations.”
“Have you tasted the champagne from Comtois Père et Fils? Do you think I should try to represent it back home?”
Blondine paused for a moment. “I haven’t tried it, no. But his family’s wine-making collection is impressive. Comtois has the biggest collection of corks in France, or so they claim.”
“That’s a lot of corks.”
“It is,” said Blondine with a nod, perfectly serious.
“Why doesn’t Jérôme want to open his collection to the public?”
Blondine shrugged. “Who knows? Everyone says he’s been in a bad mood ever since his wife ran off, but I think he must be overwhelmed. Jérôme is doing everything himself, with a very small staff. If he cannot produce enough grapes or wine, he cannot save the winery. The historic collection must be the last thing on his mind.”
“Well, that makes sense.”
“Also, he has never been fond of tourists, and naturally the collection brings tourists to him. His father spent most of his time and his fortune on the collection, buying ancient winepresses and transporting them to the Comtois cellars. I think Jérôme resented this, and I don’t really blame him. It must be hard to be expected to give up your career in Paris to come back to this small village to save the business your father has nearly bankrupted.”
“It sounds like you know Jérôme well.”
“Not really, but Cochet is a small village. We were raised here, went to the primary school and played together as children. But then he went off to university in Paris, and after that, we rarely saw him anymore. No one expects him to stay long.” She checked the readout on her phone. “Now I must go to work in the office. My father will arrive soon, and we will have a special dinner in celebration of the Epiphany. So you cannot eat potato chips for dinner tonight.”
“Thank you for the invitation,” said Rosalyn. “I am looking forward to it.”
And truth to tell, she was.
Chapter Twenty-one
Lucie
Living in the caves is a kind of death. But no, that is not apt.
Death, the priest assures us, is a land of milk and honey, a wondrous promise of rewards for a life well lived. Living underground is a slow torture of the spirit, a thousand cuts to the soul, countless jarring shocks to the natural order of things.
This war has turned the world upside down. Poison gases waft on the gentlest summer breeze; warm blood seeps into the earth to nourish the roots of the ancient grapevines. Soldiers in trenches gnaw on hardtack as unyielding as stone while their feet turn doughy with rot. Women and children tend the grapevines under the cover of night, but remain shrouded in cool darkness during the brightest hours of day.
The dead lie unburied and unconsecrated aboveground, while the living cower deep beneath the surface of the earth.
The world, upside down.
Ours is a constant search for light. The caves are dim, lit only by precious oil lamps or candle stubs. In the largest pits there are pyramid-shaped skylights at the very top; there is always a competition to stand beneath these, to be able to look out to the sky and search for the bright blue of day, the fluffy white of clouds, an occasional passing bird.
Of course, in the case of a direct hit, the poor soul underneath will be pierced by glass shards. Such is our lot.
Madame Pommery named several sections of the caves in homage to her best customers: Rio de Janeiro, Dakar, Havana, Bruxelles. My mother, father, and brother and I have made a place for ourselves in the Dakar niche, shifting stacks of bottles and pupitres—the special racks used to keep the bottles neck down—to serve as partitions. Privacy is one of the many luxuries we have lost in this war.
There is a hole nearly hidden at the back of Dakar, in the wall of our niche, and I crawl through with my candle in hand, feeling very much like Alice in Wonderland. My mother says it is inappropriate, that only rats crawl through holes in the ground. But it is difficult to keep up such arbitrary standards, even for her; she scolds me, but her attention is soon diverted by her knitting, and she is once again lost in the world of her wool, purling and counting stitches.
On the other side of the small opening is a series of crude stairs carved out of solid chalk. At the top of the
steps is another small room, this one big enough only for a blanket. A couple of small shafts allow for air circulation, but nonetheless it feels a bit like a tomb. I have squirreled away several books I rescued from the rubble, and a couple I was able to salvage from our old house, from our old life: Jane Austen’s Orgueil et Prévention, a volume of Les Contes des Frères Grimm, several novels by George Sand, and, of course, Les Aventures d’Alice au Pays des Merveilles.
I share my little cave within a cave with a gargoyle that was felled by the bombardment of our great Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims. I have named him Narcisse, for my favorite flower and the saint’s day that falls on my birthday, October 29. Narcisse is squat and ugly, and not very large, luckily for me; he was a heavy-enough load to carry and maneuver through the hole in the wall.
When the fighting is over, the grim little fellow must be returned to take his place with the other gargoyles that guard our cathedral and watch over our city; but for now I enjoy his companionship. His scowl makes me think of my own countenance. I have placed a piece of broken mirror on a rough chalk ledge—despite my mother’s protestations that it would bring bad luck—and it shows just such a grim set to my own features, which I hardly recognize these days.
I try to smile, especially for the sake of the children. But I cannot deny that it hurts. At times my face feels as though it will crack with the strain, shattering like a mirror, as though struck by a mortar.
* * *
When we lived in Villa Traverne, I barely noticed the stencils, the gold and silver gilt, the paintings and portraits and statuettes. In fact, I resented them; I once was severely punished for running in the hall and breaking a fine Limoges figurine.
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