by Ann Mah
Before I could respond, a car pulled into the driveway. “He’s here!” I grabbed at my bag, spilling loose change across the floor.
Heather bent and collected the scattered coins, handing them to me. “Have fun! And if you want to bring him back here later, use the back staircase. The kids,” she mouthed the last two words. And then she grinned.
Outside, I found Walker loping across the driveway, black canvas shoes crunching on the gravel. He was wearing a white button-down shirt, crumpled and untucked, a thin black tie loosely knotted, skinny jeans, once black, now faded to dark grey. “Hey,” he called, ducking his head. I reached up to give him an American-style hug just as he leaned forward to bestow two French-style cheek kisses. Our heads collided, knocking his glasses askew. “Whoops, sorry. Hashtag expat problems,” he said. And there it was again, that wry little smile, halfway to a smirk.
“So, who are we meeting again?” I asked, once we were in the car and heading toward Beaune.
“Oh right, yeah, so it’s just this bunch of expats—like I said, everyone’s in the wine biz, so no one will be raving about bulk chardonnay, or anything.” He glanced at me and I nodded. “We’ve been getting together for these informal tastings. Everyone brings a bottle and the cafés have been cool about waiving any corkage fees as long as we order food. Last week Richard brought a 2001 Sauternes. It was Ah. May. Zing.”
“How’d you hook up with these guys?”
He was silent for so long, I thought he hadn’t heard me. Finally he said, “Uh, honestly? It was through Twitter. I know, I know—totally uncool. But I’d just arrived and I didn’t know anybody and . . .” A flush began creeping along his neck.
“No, no, not at all. I’d do the same thing. I mean, hashtag wine geeks, right?” I smiled at him and he emitted a sort of embarrassed chortle.
In Beaune, we parked in the historic center and strolled to the café. I admired anew the manicured cobbled charm, the streets lined with half-timbered houses and pale stone hôtels particuliers. The town had flourished for centuries, I knew, it was the center of the Burgundy wine trade, home to its most prosperous merchants.
Walker paused on the sidewalk. “Here we are. Café de Marie.”
I glanced up at a dirty burgundy awning, the hem hanging in tatters. “Café de la Mairie? Are you sure this is the right place?” Through the window, I saw a lone man sitting at the end of the bar, an inch of beer in the glass before him. It was the type of café that had a thin film of grease coating the tables, chairs, and plastic-sheathed menus, with toilets that hadn’t seen a bleach bottle since the Mitterrand administration.
He fished a scrap of paper from his pocket. “Yep, that’s what Richard said on the phone. Come on.” He pushed through the door and I followed him inside, breathing in the sour smells of spilled beer and body odor. Except for a waiter and the solitary drinker at the bar, the place was empty.
The waiter looked up from his newspaper. “Bonsoir, installez-vous.” He waved at the empty tables and we scrambled into a booth. “Qu’est-ce que vous voulez boire?” he called, approaching our table.
I paused, waiting for Walker to order first. The waiter lifted his eyebrows. “What would you like to drink?” I finally said. Walker glanced at the wine bottle protruding from his messenger bag, and then at the waiter.
“Uh, un verre d’Aligoté?” he said, ordering a glass of local white wine.
“Me, too. Deux.” I offered a polite smile.
An awkward silence descended. Where were Walker’s friends? Did they even exist? Or was this an elaborate ruse to lure me on a date? Beside me, Walker jiggled his foot, clearly as uncomfortable as I was. I felt a rush of relief when the waiter brought over the wine.
“So, uh . . . santé.” Walker raised his glass and we clinked. “What have you been up to since the vendanges?”
“Oh, not much. Just helping Heather clear out the cave.”
A spark flickered in his eyes. “Your family’s wine cellars? I imagine you’ve got a few gems tucked away at Domaine Charpin.”
“Ah, no, not les caves aux vins—the house cellar. And the gems are more like broken appliances and moth-eaten socks. We’ve been making daily trips to the thrift store, just to get rid of it all. Although we did find this mysterious high school diploma . . .” Quickly, I filled him in on Hélène, her clothes and suitcase, the book and photos. “No one has any idea who she is. All we know is that she graduated from lycée in 1940. Did she live through the war in Burgundy? I’m embarrassed to admit, I don’t even know what happened here.”
“In the Côte d’Or? During World War II?” He shook his head slowly. “It was grim. Just like everywhere in France. Occupation, deportations, executions, starvation . . . all of that. It was hellishly oppressive.”
“What about the Resistance?”
“Well, the Demarcation Line was near Chalon-sur-Saône. I think that’s only about twenty miles away. I’m sure there were a lot of illicit crossings to and from the Occupied Zone and Vichy France. Probably a fair amount of organized resistance, too.”
“I wonder if that’s how she disappeared. Hélène.”
“Maybe.” He fiddled with a napkin. “Of course at this point, everyone claims they were part of the Resistance. No one was a collaborator.”
The front door opened and our heads swiveled toward it, looking hopefully for Walker’s friends. But it was just a grizzled old guy, shuffling in to buy a pack of cigarettes.
When Walker turned around again, his expression was more exasperated than crestfallen. “Sheesh!” He drained his glass. “Where the hell are they?”
“It’s okay.” I reassured him. “They probably got stuck in traffic or something.”
But after two glasses of wine and a shared cheese plate, still no one had appeared. Finally, around nine o’clock, the waiter brought us the check and told us he was closing in five minutes.
“No, no—let me get this,” Walker said, removing a few notes from his billfold. “Please, I feel like I owe you one. Tonight has been kind of a disaster. You must think I made those people up. I swear to you, I’m not a deranged lunatic.”
“I just Googled ‘signs of a sociopath’ in the bathroom,” I teased. Actually, I liked this version of Walker better—he was calmer, more genuine—and I felt myself relaxing a little.
We walked back to the car slowly, lingering for so long in the shadows of Beaune’s medieval ramparts that I thought we might kiss. But then I moved out of step, and the moment passed. Instead, I found myself holding his hand, his palm dry and warm against my own. It was still early, but most of the shops were shuttered. The café where Heather and I sometimes had coffee after the market spilled over with light and people. I glanced at the awning: Café aux Deux Maries. Beside me, Walker gave a little start, whipping his head around to stare through the window.
“You okay?” I asked.
He dug into his pocket and produced a set of car keys. “Yeah,” he said, pressing a button and unlocking the doors. “I thought I saw someone I knew. But I was wrong.”
On the brief drive back to Meursault, we chatted about our favorite wine writers, and when we pulled into Heather and Nico’s driveway, we made plans to visit a few wineries together, before exchanging cheek kisses. I did not invite him upstairs via the back staircase, or any other staircase.
But later, as I was brushing my teeth, something occurred to me. Café de la Mairie. Café aux Deux Maries. Had he confused the two? They sounded almost identical, especially if you didn’t speak French. But Walker spoke French, didn’t he?
I thought back to our conversation at La Paulée. Hadn’t he mentioned it then? Perhaps he had exaggerated his fluency—perhaps he felt shy about his accent or shaky grasp of irregular verbs—perhaps Walker, despite his hipster glasses and Brooklyn pedigree, wasn’t as sophisticated as he wished to appear. I could certainly sympathize—after all, I’d had my share of linguistic mishaps. I chuckled a little, remembering all the times I had mixed up the words “salé” (salty) and “sal
e” (dirty).
I was still thinking of Walker as I switched off the bathroom light and made my way down the long corridor to my bedroom. Climbing into bed, my mind drifted back to La Paulée and when I closed my eyes to sleep, I felt the grip of Walker’s hands upon my own as we whirled around the dance floor, spinning round and round through unfamiliar steps.
3 JUILLET 1940
Cher journal,
Alors, it has come and gone, the day I have dreamed about for so many years: my graduation from the Lycée de jeunes filles à Beaune. And in the end it was not the triumphant occasion of my imagination, but rather a memory I wish I could erase. In fact, I wish I could forget the entire nightmare of the past few weeks.
Of course, we had been listening to the news bulletins on the wireless all this time—Papa, Madame, and I—our silences growing ever longer each evening when Papa clicked it off. So I knew that Belgium had fallen—oh, horrible omen—and I knew the Germans had been attacking. And yet the information was so disheartening, so conflicting and faltering, it was hard to understand the actual situation. I believed the radio commentators when they assured us that our troops were valiant. I believed that our army was valiant—braver, stronger, and better prepared than Les Boches. I believed that we would rest victorious, and that France—la belle France, our beautiful homeland—would remain indomitable, because we, le peuple français, had a special role in the world. I believed all of this without question, because that is what they taught us in the schoolroom. And now I realize how foolish I was. Me, who has dreamt of becoming a scientist—how could I have accepted it all so blindly, without any analysis?
Looking back, I think my faith started to crumble when the first cherries began to appear on the tree in our garden. I remember because Albert had been pestering me to climb the tree and pick some fruit for him, no matter that it was still hard and green. Finally, I resolved to scramble up there—if only to prove to him that the cherries were as inedible up close as they appeared from the ground—and that is when I first saw them: people. Walking. From my perch in the tree, I could see the main road as it stretched into the distance, and along it a thin line of figures. They were moving slowly in small groups, loaded with large objects—suitcases and heavy sacks, I later discovered, small pieces of furniture, mattresses, more birdcages than I would have thought probable—mothers carrying small children, dragging under the merciless afternoon sun. At first it was a steady flow, but after a day or two, it had grown into a swarm, an impenetrable column of humanity choking the road, stretching for miles, trudging, trudging, trudging—and then, as German aircraft sprayed a deadly scattershot of bullets—trampling, trampling, trampling. People moved in a white panic, none faster than the fleeing French soldiers, who cast their weapons aside so they could run right through the vines when the roads became too congested.
The domaine’s distance from the main road protected us from the onslaught, but still, the boys were terrified. Truthfully, we all were. Only Papa remained calm. To those who made the detour to our house, he offered water and wine, a bowl of soup, clean rags to bandage bloody feet, shelter in our barn. For the sake of Madame and the boys, he tried to muffle the panicked whispers of defeat, humiliation: “the Maginot Line, pierced”; “the French army, in retreat”; “Paris has fallen”; “they’re coming.” They’re coming.
“You cannot flee? You will remain here?” a young mother asked when I refilled her jug with water. When I nodded, her dry lips moved in a grim whisper: “Dieu vous bénisse.”
“God bless you, too,” I responded automatically. She shot me a look as if I was not quite right in the head. Then she and her three children limped back toward the road to continue their journey south.
I can scarcely bear to write about what happened next. The Germans swept in like angels of death, ripping through the Côte d’Or on tanks and motorcycles, hard sunlight glancing off their goggles. A small unit tore into Meursault at lunchtime and in the space of an afternoon they had established a village checkpoint and gathered us at the école to verify our papers and announce everything “verboten.” We are forbidden to go outside after nine o’clock at night. We are forbidden to keep firearms, to listen to foreign stations on the wireless, to allow even a pinprick of light to escape our blackout curtains after dark, to help or shelter any enemies of Germany, but especially English soldiers. Of course we are forbidden to refuse any German demand. We are expected to collaborate with the German authorities, faithfully.
The lieutenant in charge is a thin-lipped man who speaks hideous, broken French. As he shouted his commands I felt Madame stiffen, even as Papa placed a hand upon her arm. She had feared the worst, but it appears that we will not have to face the indignity of hosting a German soldier in our home—not yet, anyway. I had been steeling myself for the news—our house is one of the largest in the village, and one of the most beautiful—and when the lieutenant announced that he and his men would remain based in Beaune, for now, my limbs shook like aspic.
Madame alternates between passive acceptance of the present and frantic preparation for the future. At the table, she gabbles with relief. “At least this time we will be spared the horror . . . I still remember La Grande Guerre like it was yesterday . . . I lost a cousin, you know . . .” (At these words, Papa’s face turned stony.) During the day, she scurries about the house in a panic, hiding all her treasures—the silver and linens, books and bits of jewelry, the antique porcelain vases flanking the mantelpiece, smoked hams and crates of jam, even the fine copper jelly molds from the kitchen—all tucked away under lock and key.
Amid the shock of these events—grimly capped by news of the “Armistice”—the baccalauréat exam in March had begun to seem like something from another lifetime. When the results arrived, I delayed opening the envelope, not because I was afraid I had failed—I hope this doesn’t sound boastful, but I had been studying quite diligently these past few months—but because the world had been turned upside down. Everything that had been so important to me—the bac, escape from Madame’s critical eye, the dream of studying and living away from home—now seems completely ridiculous. Frivolous. I am repulsed by the idea of living so close to Paris, with the Boches crawling over the city and its suburbs like dirty cockroaches. I would be terrified to be so far from Papa’s protection.
I held the sealed exam results in my lap, and before I opened them, I forced myself to admit that the dream of attending Sèvres next year is impossible. Not next year, and maybe not ever. Then I sliced the envelope and read the results. They made me cry even more than if I had failed the entire thing.
And so, we arrive finally at today: la cérémonie de remise de diplômes—our “Commencement Exercises,” as they say in English (am I allowed to even write in the language of the enemy of the state?). This morning, Papa hitched Pépita to the farm cart and drove us to Beaune. In the end, it was just the two of us, because Madame had a nervous attack and took to bed, insisting that the boys remain with her. Upon arriving at the lycée, I found only a handful of my classmates—the others had stayed home, or fled south with their families, I don’t know which. But Rose was there with a fetching pink cloche pulled over her dark curls and a nosegay of magenta peonies in her hand, and I was glad I’d worn my new green silk day dress. After Madame Grenbole presented me with the Science Cup, Rose squeezed my arm and pressed the flowers into my hand, and whispered she would have been sick with envy were it not for the absolutely pathetic selection of prizes (a few paltry classics and a vast assortment of volumes penned by belovedly Vichy authors). “How does one choose from this bounty?” I murmured, gazing at the array. And then we both giggled. I admit, at times the competition between us has been cutthroat—but now it doesn’t matter at all. Rose will matriculate in September, and I will remain here in Meursault.
Our headmaster, Monsieur Leconte, gave an awkward speech—he seemed to have excised any reference to “the future” from previously prepared remarks—and then he picked through the diplomas and handed th
em to the scant few of us there. After this, instead of a reception, we simply milled about until it felt too uncomfortable to stay any longer.
Perhaps wishing to lift my spirits, Papa suggested we have lunch in Beaune, but my head had started to ache, and so we returned home. Despite the bright summer heat, the day had started to feel portentous, especially with Monsieur Leconte’s speech full of pointedly innocuous literary references, and the school choir forgoing “La Marseillaise” for the rather less rousing “Maréchal, nous voilà!” (sung in honor of our dear new leader, Maréchal Pétain, of course). I began to wish Leconte had simply sent us our diplomas by post, instead of this half celebration, which felt more ominous than anything else.
And yet . . .
Writing this account tonight has reminded me of the refugees who hobbled to our door. I think of those poor souls with their bloodied feet and bewildered faces, with their homes—their entire lives—left behind them, and my self-pity seems preposterous. They are homeless now, their possessions limited to what they can carry, many of them separated from the people they love most in the world. When I think of being separated from Papa and my brothers . . . I am weeping as I write this. And yet, here is the truth that I have not admitted to anyone since I climbed the cherry tree: I am afraid.
Chapter
6
Sunday lunch at Uncle Philippe’s house was a weekly tradition. But on this Sunday morning, Heather was so frazzled it seemed like she had never before dined at her in-laws’ table. She clattered around the kitchen throwing jars of tapenade and bottles of wine into a voluminous wicker market basket, wrapping a pear frangipane tart in parchment paper for transport, swiping her eyelashes with mascara, tying and retying the belt of her wrap dress until it fell just so—all while barking orders upstairs.
“Anna, I hope you’re wearing the dress I put out for you! No, not the leggings! Mémé already thinks we’re slobs—let’s not prove her right by showing up in athleisure wear.” This last part was muttered under her breath. “Thibault! What happened to your shirt? Well, what were you doing with the ketchup? No, it’s food. You can’t use it for fake blood . . . yes, you have to change. Just go and change. Nico, are you dressed yet? Nico? Nico! We’re going to be late!” She spotted me waiting by the kitchen door with my coat on. “Well, at least somebody listens to me. Thanks, Kate. But you might want to make yourself another cup of coffee, or something.” She sighed and glanced at her watch. “At this rate, we won’t be leaving until next Tuesday.”
