The Vineyards of Champagne

by Juliet Blackwell

  “No, I am just here to pick up some files from the office,” said Blondine. “I have to go visit some accounts tomorrow before the party.”

  Rosalyn’s stomach fell at the reminder of the winemakers’ gathering tomorrow. Here was her chance to see the caves where Lucie had lived, but the thought of meeting all those people . . . At least now Emma would be going, she consoled herself.

  “You have something to wear?” Blondine asked Rosalyn.

  “Are you saying you don’t like my wardrobe?” Rosalyn asked with a slight smile.

  “It’s a very nice event,” said Blondine. “Also, it is cold down there.”

  “As a matter of fact, I brought a dress for such an occasion. In fact, I brought a few. I have a nice sweater I can pull on over it.” Rosalyn ran her hand through her hair. “But you don’t happen to know a decent hairdresser, do you? I didn’t get a chance to get my hair trimmed before leaving.”

  “There is a woman who comes to houses and does it,” said Blondine.

  “Hairdressers make house calls?”

  “There’s a lot of that around here,” said Emma, “especially in the small towns. There aren’t many shop fronts, but lots of people have skills. They mostly work off the books, to avoid taxes.”

  Blondine nodded. “But she’s out of town now.”

  Of course she is, Rosalyn thought with a sigh.

  “I could do it for you,” said Blondine, assessing Rosalyn’s hair.

  “You could?”

  “Do you trust her?” asked Emma.

  Blondine tsked loudly, and Emma chuckled.

  Before Rosalyn quite knew what was happening, she found herself wrapped in a towel and sitting on a tall stool in front of Blondine, who was armed with a comb and a huge pair of shears. Emma drank champagne, barking out the occasional piece of unnecessary advice, until Blondine stopped and yelled at her, making them all laugh.

  With a start, Rosalyn realized it was the first time she had laughed like this since Dash died.

  She felt disloyal. She felt relieved. And just as she had in the car, she felt a fleeting moment of . . . not happiness, exactly.

  But not unhappiness, either.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Lucie

  Laboring in the vines is hard work, but I relish the chance to leave the dank caves.

  Unfortunately, we have to sneak out of the cellars under the cloak of night, so as not to attract the attention of the enemy. Still, breathing deeply of the damp soil, feeling the dew under our fingers, seeing the stars and moon overhead, make us feel alive again.

  Many of the fields are furrowed with trenches and pockmarked from shells, and coils of barbed wire mar the view. But the surviving vines are heavy with fruit.

  We stoop, kneel, and bend for hours without speaking; the only sound besides the crickets and frogs is our sécateurs, snapping like locusts. The trick is to find just the right stem to cut with one hand so the cluster of grapes will fall freely into the other hand. Then the grapes are placed carefully in a basket, so as not to bruise the fruit. Monsieur Corpart could not stress this enough: Unlike many other wines, champagne must be made from undamaged fruit.

  Some of the children are quite good at the job, their small hands quick and nimble. But of them all, Topette is the star. She likes to compete with me to see who can pick the most.

  Topette lives with my family in Dakar now, and I have even shared with her my secret cave within a cave. When we return after working half the night in the fields, my mother rubs ointment into our sore muscles, and then we fall exhausted onto my pallet of blankets.

  Terrible news filters down from the champagne makers aboveground: Monsieur Corpart tells us the cellar master of Pol Roger suffered a serious head injury when struck by shrapnel, and several workers were killed while loading a wagon when a shell landed in the courtyard at Krug. At Ruinart Père et Fils, André Ruinart became ill after working in his flooded cellar for months.

  But still, the champagne must be made.

  What a joyous day it was, when we finished bringing in the harvest with only minor injuries to two women and one old man, all struck by shrapnel when they did not throw themselves to the earth in time.

  The grapes still have to be pressed for their juice, then filtered into vats, and later bottled and put to rest neck down in the pupitres. But our harvest is complete.

  Émile arrived just in time for the end-of-harvest feast for the fieldworkers.

  My mother accuses me of having quite forgotten my fiancé, and I do believe she is correct. Émile brought me another note from that gentleman; it was short and full of instructions for what I must do to remain a lady under wartime circumstances.

  I asked Émile to sit beside me at the harvest party. Maman frowned when she saw Émile brush my hand with his, but then, coughing into her handkerchief, she looked away, and with the rest of us, she offered up a toast to the end of the war.

  This time I sent a much longer note with Émile for him to give to his commanding officer, my fiancé. I thanked him once again for the earbobs, the comb, and the cheese, and with a sincere apology wrote that the war had changed everything and that I was breaking off our engagement.

  * * *

  One day a Madame Deresme, an experienced maîtresse, stopped by Dakar. With her was an older gentleman I had heard of but did not know personally, a Monsieur Forsant, superintendent of schools for Reims.

  Superintendent, now, of ruined and empty schools.

  Madame Deresme had the idea of opening a school right here, in the caves. What was needed, she said, was a routine, a schedule, a semblance of regular life that would take our children into the future.

  The caves go on for many kilometers, so even though they are already housing thousands of troops and civilians as well as a hospital and a bakery and a grocery and a café and a winery operation, there is plenty of room to set up a school.

  There are different chambers for classes and an exercise yard or gymnasium. The so-called gymnasium is considered especially important so that the children, deprived as they are of fresh air, will not fall ill and can express a child’s natural enthusiasm and energy.

  We build partitions from the cases of champagne and cover the chalk walls with straw matting decorated with wallpaper rescued from a ruined interior decoration shop. We bring in potted plants that wilt soon enough from lack of sun, but nonetheless brighten the corners. Desks and chairs are scavenged from the ruined schools aboveground. We put up the flag of France, as well as those of our allies, the British Union Jack and the Australian Union Jack with its Commonwealth Star.

  The school under the House of Pommery is named for General Manoury. It is a mix of boys and girls, and our little scholars follow a strict daily routine based upon the national curriculum. One could almost fool oneself that things were normal, except that unlike a typical school, six cows are stabled nearby to provide milk—my brother, Henri, has discovered his talent as a milkman—and there is a gas mask at the ready for each and every student.

  Though I was never particularly attentive to my own school studies as a child, I now work as an assistant to Madame Deresme. I help the children with their history and geography, remembering the lessons as my father once taught me. Among my daily duties is to be sure there is always a lamp left burning in the deepest caves, in case of further evacuation. We are ever fearful that a shell might collapse the highest floors of the cave system.

  While I doubt my letters reach Émile, I write to him to tell him what I am doing. He loves books of all kinds. He would be pleased.

  I do believe my little Topette is proud to see me there, as well, standing at the head of the class. Like me, she is not a natural student, more suited to action than to contemplation. But as Madame Deresme tells the children every day, it is their duty to study hard so that they may lead France into the future.

  Th
ey are like the champagne, encapsulating the hopes of a nation. We must wait for them to mature so they can lead us toward the future.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  The next day Rosalyn put on a long-sleeved silk wrap dress and topped it with a long cashmere sweater, sprinkling her wrists with lavender oil, and tried to psych herself up for the party. She felt hypersensitive and fragile, as though she were dressing a wound.

  What kept her going was the image of Lucie living down in those caves. Rosalyn wanted to see where the young woman had spent the war years, to see if she could discover any sign of her, maybe even find the little niche that she and her family had claimed for their own.

  Emma dashed those hopes as André drove them toward Reims.

  “We can poke around a little tonight, of course. But they’ll have most of the tunnels cordoned off—don’t want wayward guests getting lost down there, or stealing vintage secrets or whatever it is they’re afraid of. No, we’ll have to get permission to explore if we want to find where Lucie really was. But for now, how about a quick tour of Reims?”

  Emma pointed things out as they navigated the city. “As you can tell, a lot of the architecture is relatively new, as so many buildings had to be rebuilt after World War One. The Second World War was somewhat kinder to our poor Reims, but left its mark, as well. The Rémois have been put through it.”

  They drove by picturesque parks and peaceful squares; Rosalyn tried to imagine them full of refugees and the injured.

  “The Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims,” said Emma as André pulled up by the vast church. “It is as impressive a Gothic tour de force as the Notre-Dame in Paris, in my view. It even has a similar, massive stained-glass rose window and the lacy stone details common to the style. Lord, I hope they’re able to repair Notre-Dame de Paris as well as they did this one. André, let us out here, if you don’t mind, and we’ll get the wheelchair out of the back. Rosalyn simply must see inside.”

  Climbing to the top to see the gargoyles, the winding stone staircase with grooves in the center of the treads from centuries of footsteps, Dash right behind her. Goofing around on the wooden staircase that led to the great bell, imagining the hunchback hanging from the rope. Kissing while overlooking all of Paris, feeling—literally—on top of the world.

  The memory brought the familiar pang of loss and regret, but it also made her smile.

  “Hard to imagine it was destroyed in the war,” Rosalyn said a while later, as she pushed Emma in the wheelchair down the main aisle of the cathedral. “It looks so whole.”

  “It was a wreck,” Emma said. “I’m sure there are photos in the gift shop, but just imagine it without a roof, or anything else made of wood. It all burned.”

  Rosalyn studied the ornate ceiling overhead, the intricate woodwork forming the choir loft, and the ornate pipe organ.

  “The main structure remained basically intact because it was made of stone,” Emma continued. “But it was just a shell. After the war the Rockefeller Foundation stepped in and contributed a lot of money for it to be refurbished. Don’t know if you noticed, but we drove by a Carnegie library on our way into town. Rockefeller and Carnegie, two millionaires who used to compete in philanthropy. Those were the days, huh?”

  Rosalyn imagined the scene as Emma had described: the molten lead raining down, setting the thresh on fire; the wounded men, the nurses, and the townspeople scrambling for safety. What utter, horrifying mayhem.

  “And all these stained-glass windows had to be replaced, of course,” Emma said as they reached the apse in the back, off of which radiated several small chapels. Late-afternoon sunlight spilled through the glass, splashing bright jolts of color onto the gray stone floors. “This group was designed by Marc Chagall, and those are by Imi Knoebel.”

  “Beautiful,” Rosalyn murmured, her mind not on the stunning stained glass but on what it must have been like within the cathedral during the bombardment that smashed through the glass.

  “Enough with the sepulcher air in here,” said Emma. “It’s sunny out. Let’s go check out the façade.”

  They had entered the cathedral from a rear door, so they skirted the building toward the north portal of the west façade of the church.

  “More than two thousand sculptures grace this place,” said Emma. “Literally tons of angels and royalty—I think only Chartres Cathedral has more.”

  “And more than a few gargoyles, as well,” said Rosalyn.

  “Yes, aren’t they charming? These aren’t nearly as famous as the ones of Notre-Dame de Paris, but then Victor Hugo never wrote a book about this place. Still, they’re pretty cool. Apparently a lot of them fell off during the shelling. The townspeople retrieved them and kept them safe, and then they were remounted after the war.”

  “That’s a lot of sculptures, all right,” said Rosalyn, her eyes skipping over the numerous huge figures, almost twice life-sized, set in rows along the façade. They weren’t posed stiffly; on the contrary, some appeared to be chatting among themselves, while others tilted their heads down toward the visitors.

  “I take it that’s the famous Smiling Angel of Reims?” Rosalyn asked when her eyes alit on a winged seraph with a full smile on her—or his?—face.

  “I find it a tad creepy,” said Emma, gazing at the angel. “But don’t tell anyone; they take their Smile very seriously around here.”

  “Well, it’s been through a lot. Hard to keep smiling after your head’s been cut off.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Seems to me that’s the mark of a true stoic.” Emma checked her phone. “Speaking of stoicism, looks like it’s time we headed over to the champagne house. We’re fashionably late. Ready to party?”

  “I don’t know about the party,” said Rosalyn, “but I’m more than ready to see those caves for myself.”

  * * *

  “You go on ahead,” said Emma as they passed through the large reception area ahead of the entrance to the caves. Works of art were scattered throughout, including a giant sculpture of an elephant standing on its trunk. “I’m going to look for a freight elevator. Otherwise, I’ll have to hire some strong folks to help André carry me down those steps.”

  “Are you sure?” Rosalyn asked. One hundred sixteen steps sounded daunting enough with two good legs; she couldn’t imagine trusting someone to carry her down them.

  “The party’s in the caves,” said Emma. “Therefore, I am going into the caves. Don’t look so worried, Rosalyn! I’ll be fine. I’ll see you down there. Go!”

  Rosalyn went, eager to see—and especially to feel—the caves for herself. The broad stone steps led straight down, the chalk ceiling arched over them. What must it have felt like to descend these steps with the sounds of your city being bombarded in the background?

  Blue lights flashed as she descended more than one hundred steps into the belly of the earth. The lights gave the disconcerting sensation of entering a discotheque or an underwater cave, but the stagnant air told another story. The chill set in about halfway down; she pulled her sweater tight.

  Cables running along both sides held baskets, which were now simply used as a display, but in the old days this was the way bottles were sent up to the surface.

  Rosalyn had read that there were more than eighteen kilometers of caves under the Vranken Pommery house alone, and a total of two hundred fifty tunnels and wine cellars under Reims as a whole. When she looked left and right, noting dim corridors radiating off the main tunnels, it wasn’t hard to believe.

  As Emma had predicted, many areas were cordoned off, and greeters stationed regularly along the way shooed tonight’s visitors toward the party. As she walked slowly toward the event, Rosalyn took in everything she could: piles of bottles topped with specially coded placards, and hundreds of pupitres holding champagne bottles nose down. Modern art installations studded the tunnels: everything from an upside-down bouncy castle to huge mobiles made of ref
lective glass.

  Graffiti had been carved into the chalk walls: dates, names, slogans, drawings. Markings by those who had dwelled in this perpetually cool, damp place.

  Rosalyn ran her fingers along the wall, which coated her fingertips in a damp white film. In some areas water dripped through the walls and ceilings, wetting the floors and creating stalactites overhead. The caves were reinforced with brick and concrete here and there, but primarily they were pure chalk and limestone.

  The sounds of music and conversation drifted down the crayères from the party venue, but Rosalyn took her time, drinking it all in.

  She wished she were alone down here, free to explore . . . with an excellent flashlight.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The Gathering of Vintners was held in one of the larger pits, which had ceilings at least forty feet high. In the cave’s ceiling was a small pyramid made of glass, which served as a skylight. It was dark outside now, but Rosalyn imagined how vital it must have been for those living down here to know when the day had dawned, even if only through a tiny window forty feet overhead.

  “Rosalyn, I thought you would never make it!” Gaspard called out after spotting her near the entrance. “Don’t tell me Emma finally ceded to good sense and stayed home?”

  “Does ‘ceding to good sense’ sound like Emma?” Rosalyn asked with a smile. “No, she sent me on ahead while she arranges a way to join us. Knowing Emma, it won’t be long.”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “That Emma. She never gives up. But you know what they say: Tant qu’il y a de la vie, il y a de l’espoir.”

  While there’s life, there’s hope. It seemed a little melodramatic, but considering they were standing in caves in which people had found refuge from wartime violence, it felt appropriate.

  Gaspard pressed a flute of champagne into her palm, held her elbow lightly as he introduced her to some local vintners, and then gestured to a massive bas-relief frieze carved into the chalk on one side of the cave: a bacchanalian scene of nymphs frolicking with grapes and wine. “In the nineteenth century, Madame Pommery wanted to beautify the chalk pits, to make them more than mere storage space. She commissioned many beautiful tableaux such as this one. And that tradition is continued today, with exhibits of modern artists throughout the cave galleries.”