The Winemaker's Wife Page 27

  “Grandma Edith—”

  “No, let me say this. Please. I learned far too late that life is simply about being good and decent to others. It’s as plain as that. But first, you must be good and decent to yourself. Find your own road. Find your own happiness. You must, my dear. You must, or you will wind up old and alone and full of regrets.”

  “Grandma Edith, why are you telling me all this?” Liv asked, her voice rising in frustration. “I appreciate all the words of wisdom, but why did you bring me here? What is it you really want to say? Or was this all just a crazy ruse to introduce me to the widowed grandson of your old friend? Because there are about a hundred other ways you could have gone about it. I mean, honestly, you could have just given me his email address and said, ‘Hey, Liv, this guy is hot and single and lives in Champagne.’ I probably would’ve bitten. I like hot guys. And champagne.”

  Grandma Edith finally cracked a smile. “I admit that I hoped you and Julien would get along. But no, that isn’t why I brought you here. Nor did I expect you to be practically humping each other in public. Is that what you young people call it these days?”

  Liv could feel herself blushing furiously. “Are you trying to mortify me?”

  “Perhaps just a little.” The older woman’s mischievous smile was back, but it was quickly swept away by a wave of sadness. “Still, to see you with him there, at the Maison Chauveau . . . Sometimes I think God works in very strange and mysterious ways.”

  “Did whatever happened there have something to do with Julien’s grandfather?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then what? What are you so afraid to tell me?”

  Grandma Edith looked down at her own hands, gnarled with age, swollen with arthritis. Liv wondered if she was mentally erasing the years, taking herself back to a time when her husband, Edouard, was still alive. “I’m not afraid, Olivia. It’s just very difficult to revisit the past when you have tried so hard to forget it.”

  “What happened, Grandma Edith?”

  “Beautiful things,” she said softly. “And terrible things. Love between two people who were following their hearts, and betrayal by one who only cared about herself. And a baby. A beautiful baby who was born right there at the Maison Chauveau, which changed everything. These are the things I brought you here to tell you, my dear Olivia, but I am finding the truth harder than I expected.”

  “Tell me. Please. Whatever it is, it’s okay.”

  “Is it?” Grandma Edith shook her head. “No, of course it is not. Still, bringing you to the Maison Chauveau today was the right thing, even if it was difficult. It’s something I should have done a long time ago. I should have brought your father here, too, Olivia, but I wasn’t strong enough.”

  “Why? What does the Maison Chauveau have to do with us?”

  It took Grandma Edith a minute to speak. “My dear, your father was the baby born there, welcomed into the world by two people very much in love. His father—your real grandfather, a man named Michel Chauveau—owned the Maison Chauveau, you see.”

  “Wait, what? So my grandfather wasn’t Edouard Thierry?” Liv’s mind spun as she stared at Grandma Edith in confusion. “Did you have an affair with Michel Chauveau?”

  “No, dear.” She took a deep breath. “You see, by blood, I was never your father’s mother. But I loved him as much as any mother could love a son. And I’ve loved you as much as a grandmother can love a grandchild. But I’ve always known it’s not enough. That kind of love can never replace what was taken from you.”

  “I—I don’t understand. What are you telling me?”

  Grandma Edith stood and put a hand on Liv’s arm. She was shaking. “I’m telling you I love you, Olivia, and I’m sorry that I’ve made all the wrong choices. Since your father was born, I’ve always tried to do my best. But it has never been enough.”

  And then, before Liv could ask another question, Grandma Edith was walking away. She went into her room, the lock clicking behind her, and Liv stared at the closed door, stunned and confused, as her grandmother’s muffled sobs seeped out from underneath.

  thirty

  MARCH 1943

  INÈS

  Michel was executed at Gestapo headquarters on the rue Jeanne d’Arc in Reims, just blocks from the Brasserie Moulin, on the same day he was arrested. Theo, furious at being betrayed, had ridden his bicycle into town, planning to denounce him, but, he later told Inès, he had changed his mind along the way. Regardless of what Michel and Céline had done, he knew he did not have the right to take another man’s life into his hands.

  He had pulled up in time to see the soldiers drag Michel out of the building, already bloodied and bruised. They propped him against a wall, and before he could waver and fall, four Germans fired upon him simultaneously.

  Theo told Inès this after he had packed up his belongings and asked her stiffly to drive him into Reims. “Where are you going?” she asked through her tears. Baby David pulled at the front of her dress with his tiny, cold hands, searching for her breast, but she had nothing to give him. How would she keep him alive?

  “I am going south,” he told her. “There are wineries in Burgundy that can use someone with my experience.”

  “When will you come back?” Inès asked.

  “Never.” He hesitated and gestured to David. “After you take me to the train station, go see Madame Foucault. She will know what to feed the child.”

  Inès nodded and wrapped another blanket around the baby to steel him against the cold. Theo held him while they rode in silence toward Reims, Inès’s eyes blurring with tears each time she imagined Michel’s lifeless body falling to the cold ground. What had she done?

  “What will they do to Céline?” she asked as she wound the car through the narrow streets of Reims.

  “I don’t know.” He gazed out the window in silence for a long minute. “They will probably send her east. They don’t like to execute women in the squares unless their guilt is painfully obvious.”

  “And what will become of the Maison Chauveau?”

  “It’s yours now, I suppose.” Theo shrugged. “But if I were you, I’d go far, far away. Not that you can run from the truth.”

  She glanced at him and saw fury burning in his eyes. As enraged as he was at Michel and Céline, he was angry at Inès, too. He knew what she had done, or at least he had guessed at portions of it. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

  His only reply was a grunt, and when they reached the train station, he laid David gently in the front seat, closed the door, and left without looking back, his shoulders slumped, his bag slung across his back.

  Inès watched him go, lingering there long after he’d disappeared, until a German officer bent and tapped on the window of her car. “Move along, madame,” he said, his deep voice and thick accent making the words sound sepulchral.

  Inès wiped away her tears and put a hand on the sleeping baby as she pulled away from the curb. She would go see Madame Foucault. She would focus all her energy on protecting David. With Michel dead and Céline gone, Inès was all David had.

  • • •

  Madame Foucault helped Inès procure a small amount of baby formula, suggesting that she needed to register David’s arrival in order to receive the appropriate ration coupons, but Inès was terrified that if the authorities had an official record of who David’s parents were, someone would come take him away, too. So she settled for dropping by Antoine’s apartment one afternoon. Leaving David sleeping in the car, she stood at Antoine’s door and refused to flinch as she threatened to invent a story for the Nazi command that he had been working for the underground as a spy unless he could arrange for regular deliveries of infant supplies.

  Antoine had tried to laugh off her threats, but something in Inès’s expression stilled him, and he ultimately agreed.

  “But you’ll owe me,” he said darkly as she began to walk away.

  “Oh, make no mistake,” she said, tu
rning back, fury burning a hole in her stomach. “You will get everything you deserve. I won’t rest until you do.”

  He nodded, clearly taking her words as a promise and not a threat, and as he closed the door, she spat on his front step. As much responsibility as she had, as much guilt as she would always carry, at least her betrayal had been accidental, her tongue unwound by alcohol and sorrow. Antoine, on the other hand, might as well have murdered Michel with his own hands. She hated him nearly as much as she hated herself.

  She drove next to the Brasserie Moulin and carried the baby inside. Edith was behind the bar, and when she saw Inès, her eyes widened. She gestured toward the back stairs, and Inès walked quickly across the restaurant, avoiding the stares of the Germans.

  “My God, Inès, I heard about Michel,” Edith said when they were alone in the apartment. She put her arms around her friend and then stroked the forehead of the baby. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right? What happened? Is this Céline’s child?”

  “Yes, this is David.” Inès took a deep breath as Edith reached out to stroke the infant’s arm. “And as it turns out, he’s Michel’s son, too.”

  Edith’s head jerked up. “What?”

  “Oh, Edith, what have I done?”

  Through sobs, Inès told her friend the whole story, and as she did, she could feel Edith withdrawing, pulling away from her. She couldn’t blame her friend, but Edith’s physical recoil from Inès’s sins only served to solidify Inès’s own shame.

  “I don’t know what to do now,” Inès said. David stirred, began to cry, and Inès pulled out the bottle she had prepared from the last of Madame Foucault’s formula.

  Edith took David gently from Inès’s arms, then she took the bottle, too, offering it to him with such tenderness that Inès’s heart ached. David gazed up at Edith with wide eyes while he gulped down the creamy liquid, and she cooed at him, tears filling her eyes, too. “It doesn’t matter what you have done,” she said. “All that matters now is keeping this baby safe.”

  “Of course it matters what I’ve done, Edith. Please, stop with the platitudes.”

  “Fine, have it your way.” Edith rocked the baby gently, but her tone was firm, hard. “Michel was a good man. He did more for the cause than you will ever grasp. Was he a good husband to you? Perhaps not, but can you say you were a good wife?”

  “No,” Inès whispered. “I know I was not.”

  “Céline will die, too, you realize.” Edith’s tone had softened a bit.

  Inès looked up, anguish twisting her heart. “What? No, I think they’ll ship her east, to a work camp.” But she knew she was fooling herself to hope that the camps were anything other than what Samuel Cohn had described, a place where most people disappeared upon arrival.

  “She will almost certainly not survive,” Edith said, her eyes glinting with tears.

  Inès swallowed hard and stared down at her own hands as if there might be blood on them, visual evidence of the guilt she would always bear. But they were white, unmarred, and the lifelines on her palms disappeared inexplicably into infinity. “There’s a chance, though,” Inès said.

  “Yes, there’s a chance,” Edith admitted. “But in the meantime, you must protect their child with your life.”

  “Yes, of course.” But as she watched Edith soothing the baby, singing to him softly, rocking him gently until his tiny eyelids began to grow heavy, she had a sudden realization. “May I ask you something?”

  Edith looked up from David, her small, peaceful smile disappearing. “Go ahead.”

  “Why have you and Edouard not had a baby?”

  Edith sighed. “We tried before the war. And then we stopped, because it felt too dangerous to bring a child into a world like this. But after a while, we realized that life is too short.” She turned her gaze back to David, stroking his face as he slept, and when she spoke again, her words were so soft that Inès had to strain to hear them. “So we began trying again, more than a year ago. But it seems God does not want us to be parents.”

  “Or perhaps you’re destined to raise this baby,” Inès said, and Edith’s head snapped up.

  “What?”

  “Think about it, Edith. What do I have to offer David? I’m selfish, foolish. I’m responsible for stealing his parents from him. You were born to be a mother. I was born to be alone. I’m no good for anyone.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  Inès could see the answer written in Edith’s eyes, and as her friend turned away, Inès felt her own cheeks burning in shame.

  “I could take over your work with the underground,” Inès said. “You would be safe. You could keep David safe.”

  Edith looked back at her, her eyes wide. “You can’t be serious, Inès. Do you really think anyone will trust you after what has happened?”

  “But—”

  Inès began to cry, and instead of coming closer, Edith backed away, still clutching David. “Inès, I love you, but you can’t just snap your fingers and undo what you’ve done.”

  “I know. I know! That’s why I have to do something. Anything! I have to redeem myself.” This was what was meant to be. Inès knew it without a doubt. If Inès left the baby with Edith and simply vanished, Edith would have no choice but to become a surrogate mother to the child until Céline returned, and David would have the love he deserved, from someone who was good and kind and worthy of him. “I’m sorry, Edith. Will you watch David for just a little while? I—I just need to go to Ville-Dommange to pack a few things, and then I’ll be back tonight. After that, you won’t have to worry about me again.”

  “Whatever you’ve done, whatever has happened, Inès, I will always worry about you. You will always be my friend. I will always love you like a sister.”

  Inès smiled sadly. “We both know I don’t deserve that.” She kissed David on the top of his head, inhaling the milky scent of him, and then she backed away.

  • • •

  When Inès pulled down the drive to the Maison Chauveau, the place where she’d built a half-life with a husband who was never coming back, she found a gray-haired man in a suit standing at the front door, jotting something in a notebook. At the sound of her approach, he turned and squinted at her, waiting as she got out of the car and approached tentatively.

  “May I help you?” Inès asked.

  “Madame Chauveau?” The man was wearing tiny round spectacles and a thin black tie.

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, hello. I am Georges Godard, the Chauveau family lawyer. Perhaps you remember me from your wedding?”

  She wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a crowd, but he was undoubtedly familiar. “Yes, of course, Monsieur Godard.”

  “Madame Chauveau, please allow me to say how sorry I am for your loss. I understand that Monsieur Chauveau is deceased.” His expression was compassionate, though it looked a bit forced.

  “Yes.” She bowed her head. “Thank you.”

  “I’ve come by to see if I can offer my assistance.”

  “Your assistance?”

  “You see, with Monsieur Chauveau deceased, the property will pass to you, his only living family.” He swept his arm around, indicating the entire Maison Chauveau. “He saw to it. It will take some time for the paperwork to be completed, but I wanted to make myself available in case you need some assistance running things.”

  She blinked at him. “You’ve wasted no time in coming, have you?”

  “Monsieur Chauveau asked me to help you, in case anything ever happened to him. But I trust that your winemaker will be able to assist you, too? A Monsieur Laurent, I believe?”

  Inès shook her head. “He’s gone. For good.”

  “I see. But you will be staying on, then?”

  Inès hesitated. “No. I don’t think I will. Not for now, anyhow.”

  “Well, perhaps I can help manage things until your return. For a small fee, of course.”

  So that’s what this visit was about. Inès retu
rned his thin smile. “Of course.”

  As he launched into a long-winded suggestion of a winemaker who currently worked for Ruinart in Reims, Inès found herself nodding along, her heart not in it. But here, on a silver platter, was a solution she hadn’t even known she was looking for, someone to keep the Maison Chauveau from ruin, even if that came at a price. She would need to ensure that there was a future in this place so that one day, David could inherit his birthright.

  Monsieur Godard handed her some papers that smelled of fresh ink. “I took the liberty of drawing these up in case you were interested in entering into an agreement with me to help manage the Maison Chauveau.”

  As she took them, she could see this meeting for what it clearly was—a shakedown. But she was too tired to care. She didn’t need Michel’s money. She didn’t deserve it. Let Monsieur Godard profit while she was gone if he wanted to. “I will read them over and sign them tonight.”

  His smile faltered. “Wouldn’t it be more convenient to sign them now?”

  She ignored him. “You can pick them up tomorrow at the Brasserie Moulin, in Reims. Good day, Monsieur Godard.”

  “Wait,” he said as she moved past him to let herself into the house. “My wife wanted me to ask you something.” He hesitated. “There’s some gossip in town that the winemaker’s wife was arrested, too.”

  Inès swallowed. “Yes.”

  “And what of her baby? She was pregnant, yes? My wife heard that Madame Foucault delivered the baby just before Madame Laurent was taken by the German authorities?”

  Inès’s dislike of Monsieur Godard had now deepened into disgust, but she realized this was an opportunity. His eyes gleamed as he leaned forward, hungry for gossip, and Inès arranged her features into a mask of despondency. “Thank you for your concern, monsieur, but the baby died just yesterday. His lungs were not strong enough in the end.”

  “Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that.” But Monsieur Godard didn’t look sorry at all; he looked like the cat that had eaten the canary.