The Vineyards of Champagne

by Juliet Blackwell

  “The pruning cuts down on mildew and stimulates the buds to encourage new growth, which replaces the old wood.” Jérôme looked up at her for a long moment. “Rosalyn . . . I apologize.”

  “For what?”

  “For whatever I did to make you run away.”

  Rosalyn felt her cheeks burning. She straightened and focused on the steeple of the church rising out of the sea of red-roofed homes in Cochet, far in the distance.

  “You have nothing to apologize for, Jérôme. Honestly. I’m what we Americans call ‘a hot mess.’”

  He chuckled.

  Despite the cold, she felt warmth flood through her as they stood side by side, looking across the fields of neat parallel grapevines.

  “Did I say something funny?” Rosalyn asked.

  “One thing I have learned from all of my reading over the years is that we’re all a mess,” Jérôme said in a quiet voice. “Hot or otherwise. Every single one of us. Even my little Laurent.”

  “How is he? I’m surprised he’s not out here learning to prune the vines.”

  “He spent the day in the fields yesterday. But today he is with my mother; they are baking an onion tart.”

  “Well, of course. Every six-year-old should know how to prune grapevines and bake an onion tart.”

  Jérôme fixed her with that quizzical look again. “It is a joke?”

  She smiled and nodded.

  “Oh. It is not very funny, this joke.”

  “Told you, I’m a hot mess.”

  He smiled then, and they exchanged another long look, the only sounds the crackle of the fires and the snapping of the sécateurs, or clippers, as the workers snipped the deadwood from the vines.

  “Do you have a date for the festival of Saint Vincent?” Jérôme asked suddenly.

  “Are escorts required? I know the French are more formal than Americans, but that seems a bit much.”

  “You don’t need an escort. I was wondering if you would like to accompany me.”

  “I . . .” Everything in Rosalyn shrieked no. No, of course not. I’m a married woman. But she heard herself say, “I would love that. Thank you.”

  “Be aware: Escorts are not required but costumes are.”

  “I believe Blondine and Emma—my partners in crime, as you call them—have rounded one up for me.”

  “Good, then. We’ll be marching with the Cochet growers.”

  “Marching? What marching?”

  “It is a défilé . . . a parade. But everyone marches, so there are very few to witness the parade. We carry a small statue of Saint Vincent on a frame—a . . . stretcher, I think you call it.”

  “Like you would carry an injured person on?”

  “It is better than it sounds. But in any case, the défilé ends with a grand feast. You know what they say about the Champenois: We work hard, but we love to celebrate.”

  “You’re wearing a costume, too, right?”

  Jérôme gave her a crooked grin and ducked his head. “I’m told I look very good in tights.”

  Chapter Forty-four

  When she returned to the Blé Champagne compound, Rosalyn found André taking a smoke break at the edge of the parking area.

  “I wanted to thank you for the paint set,” Rosalyn said.

  “It was Emma who bought it, not me.”

  “But she told me it was your idea, and that you sought out a special one. I can’t tell you how much that means to me. Thank you.”

  “I admire your drawings. I can only imagine them in color. I hope you will share what you paint.”

  “Only if I produce something halfway decent. But again, thank you.” She paused and then said: “By the way, I know you don’t want to break a confidence, but I’m worried. Is Emma okay?”

  His hesitation said more than his words. “You must ask her directly.”

  “I will. Is she around?”

  He nodded. “In the tasting room, with Blondine.”

  She kept André company while he finished his cigarette; then they walked together toward the buildings.

  * * *

  Rosalyn stopped by Chambre Chardonnay to pick up Lucie’s letter to Doris with the news of Émile’s death. Blondine and Emma were in the tasting room, laptops open, surrounded by some of Émile’s letters as well as books and photocopies from the archive in Reims.

  Rosalyn took a deep, shaky breath. “I have to read something to you both. It’s a letter from Lucie to Doris, about Émile. It’s not good.”

  Emma and Blondine listened intently as she read Lucie’s letter aloud.

  He lies beneath one of the millions of horrifying white crosses marking the final resting places of too many young men, studding the land in a painful mockery of the vines.

  Blondine gasped and her hand flew to her mouth. “Mon Dieu . . .”

  “I take it you never read this one?” Rosalyn asked Emma.

  “I never got that far,” said Emma, shaking her head, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. “I started reading from the beginning. Damn. I knew it was likely Émile didn’t survive, as so many did not. But . . . damn.”

  Rosalyn finished reading them the rest of the letter just as Gaspard came into the tasting room from the office. Upon seeing the women surrounded by papers and books, he made a disparaging sound. “Are we becoming an archive ourselves now?”

  “It’s history, Papa.”

  “That’s the problem with this country,” Gaspard groused as he went to the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee. “There’s no room for the here and now. Everything’s focused on the past. I thought you had more sense than that, Blondine.”

  “I’d love a coffee. Thanks,” said Emma, though he hadn’t offered.

  “I really . . . I just can’t believe it.” Blondine sniffed loudly.

  “It’s hard to accept,” said Rosalyn. “He seemed so alive through all these letters.”

  “What in the world’s wrong with you women?” demanded Gaspard as he measured coffee grounds into the cone.

  “It’s Émile,” said Blondine in a flat tone. “He died. Émile’s dead.”

  “Émile who?” asked Gaspard.

  “Émile Legrand.”

  “I don’t know an Émile Legrand,” Gaspard said. “Do I know an Émile Legrand?”

  “He’s the man who wrote these letters we’ve been reading,” said Emma. “The World War One soldier.”

  “Oh. Well, I’ve got news for you,” Gaspard said, china rattling as he prepared two mugs. “He would be long dead by now anyway. He was writing a century ago.”

  “Honestly, Papa,” said Blondine.

  “It is incredibly sad,” said Emma, ignoring Gaspard. “But what about Lucie’s happy news?”

  “That she was pregnant?” asked Rosalyn.

  Emma nodded. “That’s something beautiful, at least.”

  “But Émile never knew he was going to be a father,” said Blondine. “How sad is that?”

  “The child might not have survived,” said Gaspard. “I read it someplace, a while ago. In the caves a lot of the young died of disease and malnutrition, and without a father . . .”

  “Really, Papa.” Blondine shook her head and blew out a long sigh. “Ça suffit, oui?”

  “Is there any way we can find out what happened to Lucie and her baby?” Rosalyn wondered.

  “André has tracked down every Maréchal he can find, but no luck. Of course, she may have remarried and changed her name,” said Emma. “Or relocated. A lot of people started their lives over elsewhere after the war. Maybe she couldn’t stand the thought of remaining in Reims after everything that happened.”

  “At least you could find this Émile fellow,” suggested Gaspard as he set a cup of coffee in front of Emma. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Oh, Papa . . .”

&
nbsp; “No, your father has a point this time, Blondine,” said Emma, looking thoughtful. “Let’s find Émile’s grave. According to Lucie, he was buried at Châlons-en-Champagne. There are massive cemeteries from World War One, and most of them keep good records. They might even give us a clue as to Lucie’s whereabouts, since she was his widow. Who’s up for a road trip tomorrow?”

  “Count me in,” Rosalyn said.

  “Me, too,” said Blondine.

  “Not me,” Gaspard said. “I have work to do, unlike some people.”

  “You weren’t invited,” said Emma.

  * * *

  On the way to the cemetery the next day, Emma asked André to take a detour to a town called Haumont-près-Samogneux.

  “We forget how ancient these lands are,” said Emma. “This town was founded to celebrate the Gallic sun god. There was an altar here in the first century AD.”

  As they approached the outskirts of town, a sign indicated that Haumont-près-Samogneux had been designated Un village mort pour la France.

  “What does that mean—the whole town died?” asked Rosalyn.

  “It’s been unoccupied since the battle of Verdun, in 1916,” said Blondine. “And it’s not the only one. There’re Bezonvaux and Beaumont-en-Verdunois, and lots more. Several others in the region of Meuse alone. The Rémois had a tough go of it, but at least the city didn’t die altogether.”

  “Were all the villagers killed?” Rosalyn asked.

  “No, most of them fled before the worst of the fighting,” said Blondine. “But they were never able to return.”

  “Something like eighty soldiers were buried alive when the town literally collapsed under a massive bombardment,” said Emma. “In addition to that, bombs and gases poisoned the earth, and so many bodies were left to rot—animals and human—that the groundwater was poisoned.”

  “Quel dommage,” Blondine said. “I get frustrated with Cochet at times, but I can’t imagine if someone told me that I could never go back.”

  André pulled to a stop, and they got out and walked the area, now curated as a historic site. There wasn’t much of the town left to see; a small chapel and memorial had been erected decades after the war, but otherwise all that was left of the village of Haumont-près-Samogneux was a few crumbling walls covered in vines, and small verdant mounds disguising the rubble of collapsed buildings. They passed by the metal hull of a huge reddish bomb sticking up out of the ground, the only tangible sign of the brutality that had been visited on these grounds.

  Despite the violence the area had seen, birds chirped, and the damp earth smelled fresh and green.

  Rosalyn was reminded of the remains of Mayan pyramids that she and Dash had toured in Yucatán, Mexico. But those ruins were thousands of years old; the once-thriving village of Haumont-près-Samogneux—which had been full of people and businesses, farmers and bakers, where people had fallen in love, had children, endured heartbreak, and lived their lives—had been reclaimed by the hungry forces of nature after only a century.

  Here and there cardboard cutouts showed life-sized black-and-white photographs of former inhabitants, now long gone. Their faces beckoned eerily, ghostlike against the green backdrop of encroaching forest.

  “Come on,” said Emma. “Enough fun for today in the town that died. Let’s go look at a cemetery.”

  They continued on to Châlons-en-Champagne.

  “At the American and Australian cemeteries, many of the graves have been adopted by local French families, who bring flowers and tokens of remembrance,” Emma said. “Which is about the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Blondine nodded. “The Americans came into the war late, but they were an essential part of the victory. And of course the Australians were here all along. They bled for France, and people here don’t forget that.”

  The cemetery consisted of thousands of white crosses marching in neat, orderly rows along the softly rolling hills. As Lucie had written, their parallel queues seemed to mock the grapevines.

  At the reception center, Blondine looked up Émile Paul Legrand on a public computer database.

  “He’s not listed,” she said, shaking her head.

  “He must be,” said Emma. “Surely Lucie was notified correctly as to where her husband was buried.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Blondine. “Didn’t you see the memorial outside for ten thousand unknown soldiers? Things were chaotic. There must have been many families who never learned the fates of their loved ones.”

  “True, but Lucie mentioned this cemetery specifically,” Rosalyn pointed out. “Maybe it’s an oversight?”

  “Let’s ask,” said Emma.

  The man in charge, Monsieur Dervin, was a balding fellow in a sweater vest and thick spectacles. They gave him Émile’s name and town of origin, and he had them wait for twenty minutes while he did some research.

  When he emerged from his office, he declared: “There are scratch outs.”

  “What does that mean?” Blondine asked.

  “A lot of people were misidentified during the battles and immediately following the war,” said Monsieur Dervin.

  “Didn’t they carry identification of some kind?” asked Blondine.

  “Bien sûr. Soldiers wore a plaque d’identité, a bracelet with a metal disk that was engraved with the soldier’s name and rank. Unfortunately, many fell off or were switched. There was so much blood and mayhem, you see, and many of the bodies were not”—Monsieur Dervin lowered his voice—“complete. Other brave men died in a manner such that their bodies could not be retrieved for some time, and were thus rendered unrecognizable, even to their comrades. Injured soldiers were often misidentified, their papers lost or mixed up during a hurried evacuation, for example.”

  He pointed to names that had been crossed out and replaced with other names. “Like this one, here—you see?”

  The three women leaned in to study the handwritten records that had been scanned into the computer. A few of the names had lines through them along with notations.

  “Émile Paul Legrand . . . Legrand . . . ,” Monsieur Dervin repeated, as he scrolled through the lists, searching the names. “Yes, here he is. . . . Émile Paul Legrand was a scratch out. He was at first believed to have been killed in action, but see here? Much later he was found among the wounded.”

  “Wait—you mean he survived the war?” Emma demanded.

  Monsieur Dervin nodded. “I have no idea how long he survived, but according to these documents, one Émile Paul Legrand from Reims was not killed in action as initially reported.”

  “When was this?” Emma asked.

  “Toward the end of nineteen seventeen. According to the notation—see this, here?—Legrand was evacuated to a military hospital near Nantes. He suffered a head injury and lost his left hand. Due to his severe injuries, he was unable to communicate.”

  “When was the scratch out made?” Rosalyn asked. “When did they realize the mistake?”

  He shook his head. “This I cannot tell you. However, it was likely after the war had ended, when he had recovered sufficiently to tell them who he was.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  Lucie

  I wonder if the history books will record that twenty petits enfants, and many more adults, gave their lives for the grape harvests. Is it worth it? That is a question I ask myself every day, every hour, every minute.

  Another year, another harvest.

  Our baby, Narcissa, is left with a neighbor, as my mother is fading fast. I spoon honeyed tea into her mouth, but she has stopped eating altogether. I’m sure I don’t know what I’ll do without her.

  Émile gone, and Maman, too?

  Father hardly reacts to anything anymore; I fear he will not long be with us, either. And sweet Henri tries his best, but he spends more and more time with the animals, which is where his talents lie.


  At least I have Topette, who has become like my little sister. Mother has taught her how to knit, and she is quite the protégée, knitting sweaters and balaclavas for the soldiers, and for those of us who tend the fields. It is said the war cannot last much longer. When everyone has finally put down their swords, I will go with Topette and Narcissa to find my beloved Émile’s grave site, and then we shall visit the ocean. Perhaps one day we will travel to Australia to visit Émile’s marraine, Madame Whittaker. She writes to me now instead of Émile, and has promised me that our dear Narcissa will be taken care of, always.

  She writes that she wants to come visit, after the war.

  Topette and Narcissa and I—and Madame Whittaker, too. We will find a way to carry on.

  We have no other choice.

  Chapter Forty-six

  How did it go?” André asked when Emma, Blondine, and Rosalyn returned to the car, still reeling from the revelation that Émile Legrand might have survived the war.

  “The plot, as they say, thickens,” Emma said.

  “While you were gone,” André said, “Madame Bolze called.”

  “Why did she call you instead of me?” Emma asked.

  “I met with her after you offered my services as chauffeur, remember? She likes me.”

  “Everyone likes you. What did Madame Bolze have to say?”

  “She remembered the name of a woman she knew from school whose mother lived in the caves as a child,” said André, referring to a small notebook. “Her name is Madame Jeanne Bisset, and she lives outside of Ay. She might know something about the woman you’re looking for. Madame Bolze gave me her phone number.”

  “That sounds promising,” Rosalyn said.

  “Ay is en route to Cochet, if you would like to stop,” André mentioned.

  “Well, then, no time like the present,” said Emma, then pulled out her phone, dialed the woman’s number, and asked if they could drop by for a visit.

  Madame Bisset lived in a well-appointed but humble home on a very busy road. Inside, photographs of grandchildren and great-grandchildren graced the walls, and hand-crocheted blankets covered the backs of the couch and several chairs.