Chapter Five #2
‘The Germans can have this with pleasure,’ Monsieur Piquemal said, shaking his head. ‘Either that or we pour it away.’ He beckoned across the room. ‘Mathilde, come taste this and give us your opinion.’
‘What does she know about wine?’ Rambert muttered, pushing back his chair and stalking out of the room.
‘Don’t mind Emile,’ Piquemal told Mathilde. ‘He doesn’t approve of women in the winery. It’s all right, I’ve told him you’re becoming indispensable.’ Which probably made Rambert dislike her even more, though Mathilde didn’t care about that.
Eventually a covered truck pulled into the yard and a man who had to be Herr Weber climbed down from the passenger seat, holding a clipboard in one hand and his hat with the other as the wind threatened to tear it away.
He was a large man with a paunch that he tried to conceal under a voluminous double-breasted jacket.
‘Might as well get it over with,’ Monsieur Piquemal muttered, straightening his shoulders, and went out to greet the visitor.
Mathilde watched through the window as the two men shook hands.
Crates of wine had been stacked by the wall, leaving the cellar racks sadly depleted; about a quarter of the Domaine Piquemal’s various vintages was left, along with roughly a hundred crates of red and rosé belonging to their neighbours.
There seemed to be some sort of problem, though: rather than loading the crates, Weber turned his back on them and waved the clipboard towards the cellar, his jacket flapping.
Emile Rambert joined the two men and Mathilde hurried outside as well, to find out what was going on.
‘We have a shortfall,’ Weber was saying.
‘I repeat, what you have here isn’t enough.
I must take all the wine in your cellar. I know there is more.’
‘But this is what we agreed,’ Monsieur Piquemal replied. ‘You’ve counted the crates; you can see it’s all there.’
‘Circumstances have changed,’ Weber said. ‘Other suppliers have let me down.’
‘Yet as I’ve explained,’ Monsieur Piquemal told him, ‘at least half of what remains belongs to other people. It isn’t mine to dispose of.’
‘That makes no difference,’ Herr Weber replied. ‘They will be fairly recompensed.’
‘Kurt, these are smallholders,’ Piquemal said. ‘You know what it will mean, stripping them bare. Are you so desperate for wine that you’ll leave us with none at all?’
‘It isn’t a matter of desperation,’ Weber snapped. ‘A quantity of wine is required for export, as agreed by Vichy, and I am here to collect it. Now either you bring out the remaining bottles or we will do it ourselves.’ He raised an arm and two burly men jumped down from the lorry.
‘But you can’t!’ Mathilde exclaimed. ‘That’s theft.’
Weber turned his gaze on her. ‘And who might you be?’
‘Mathilde, go inside,’ Monsieur Piquemal told her. ‘We’re dealing with this.’
‘I’ll fetch the rest of the wine,’ Rambert said. ‘She can help me.’ He took Mathilde by the arm and wheeled her around.
‘All of it, remember,’ Herr Weber called after them. ‘I shall inspect the cellar once you’ve finished.’
‘You’re just going to let him?’ Mathilde hissed as Rambert dragged her away, his fingers digging into her flesh.
‘What else do you suggest?’ he replied. ‘Now shut your mouth and do as I say. At least this way we can save some of it.’
He led her past depleted racks of wine bottles to the back of the cellar, where he finally released his grip, dropped to his knees and grasped a small iron ring set low into the wall.
Mathilde watched, rubbing her elbow, as the lowest brick began to move.
Rambert slid it out, then removed the bricks above, which were already falling into the gap he’d made, and those on either side.
The mortar in that section of wall had been removed, so the bricks were merely wedged on top of each other.
In a few seconds, he had exposed an opening about a metre square, leading on to darkness beyond.
‘We’ll have to let at least half the stock go or they’ll get suspicious,’ he said. ‘But we’ll stow as much as possible of the good stuff in here.’
And so they worked. For every crate that was wheeled outside, one went into the hiding place. Herr Weber’s men had started loading up the truck and the additional stock was placed to one side so the extra bottles could be logged and counted.
‘It’s taking you a long time to bring out very little,’ Weber said to Mathilde on her third or fourth trip, peering over her shoulder. ‘What are you doing in there?’ He started walking towards the cellar.
She hurried after him. ‘It’s a complicated process. We have to log each crate, you see, according to the winegrower—’
Weber wasn’t listening, and he’d almost reached the cellar entrance.
Mathilde hurried ahead to stand in front of him, blocking his path.
‘May I appeal to you, Herr Weber, as a reasonable man,’ she began, raising her voice, ‘not to take all the wine we have. Next month there’ll be a party to celebrate burning the vine prunings and—’
‘That’s of no interest to me.’ He thrust her out of the way and was about to step inside when a particularly fierce gust of wind buffeted them both.
‘Your hat!’ Mathilde cried, as Weber’s fedora went flying into the air. ‘Wait, I’ll fetch it.’
‘No! Leave it alone,’ Weber shouted, dropping the clipboard and clamping a long strand of hair over the bald dome of his head.
Yet Mathilde was already running after the hat, which was cartwheeling over the ground as though it had a life of its own.
Weber chased behind her, still attempting to control his hair, while the fedora led them a merry dance further and further away from the cellar.
At last it came to rest against the side of a covered tank, and Mathilde was able to retrieve it and hand it back to Herr Weber.
He took the hat without a word, not looking at her, and settled it securely back in place.
By the time they had walked back across the yard, Rambert was unloading the final trolley load of crates against the wall.
‘That’s the last of it,’ he announced, wiping his hands. ‘You can check the cellar if you want.’
Mathilde followed Herr Weber through the arched doorway and into the quiet, shadowy place. The wine racks were bare; not a single bottle, apparently, remained. Weber nodded and turned on his heel.
‘Just a minute,’ Rambert snarled before Mathilde could leave too, and seized her by the arm.
‘I’ve a bone to pick with you.’ He waited until Weber was well out of earshot before slamming her against the wall, holding her by the throat.
‘Just pack it in, all right? I’ve had enough of your insinuations.
Mud sticks, so you’d better keep quiet or it’ll be the worse for you. ’
‘You don’t frighten me,’ Mathilde replied. ‘I’ll be keeping an eye on you in the future – and the red wine, once it’s bottled. I know what you’re up to, Rambert, and soon Monsieur Piquemal will too. It won’t take me long to find the proof I need.’
Rambert put his face very close to hers.
‘I’m beginning to find you extremely annoying.
If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of this place while you can and get a job somewhere else.
Think you’re better than the rest of us, don’t you?
You and that cousin of yours. One day you’ll both get your comeuppance and nothing will give me greater pleasure. ’
‘Pierre is more of a patriot than you’ll ever be,’ Mathilde told him coldly, shaking off his grip.
She walked out of the cellar with his eyes boring into her back and went to stand beside Monsieur Piquemal, the wind whipping her skirt against her legs, to watch the final crates being loaded into the lorry and driven away.
‘Where are they taking the wine?’ she asked, when the men were almost done.
‘To Paris,’ Piquemal replied. ‘No doubt they’ll sell it on in Germany for twice the pittance they gave us. The war has to be financed somehow.’ A muscle worked in his jaw. ‘I’d sooner have poured it down the drain.’
‘So they’ll be taking it all the way by road?’
‘No, it will be going by train,’ he said. ‘I’ve just signed the paperwork.’
‘This afternoon?’
He looked at his watch. ‘Too late now. Tomorrow morning, I imagine.’
Mathilde nodded, her mind busy. Turning to leave, she almost bumped into Rambert, standing so close behind he was practically treading on her heels. ‘Why do you care what happens to the wine now?’ he asked softly. ‘It’s gone; that’s all you need to know.’
‘No particular reason,’ she said. ‘Just curious.’
Monsieur Piquemal sent Mathilde and Rambert home early as they were all too unsettled to get much work done and the mistral was rising in fury.
Mathilde couldn’t wait to leave; she’d caught Rambert staring at her several times as though he was trying to work something out, and the thought that he might be able to read her mind made her uneasy.
It was easier to focus on what the Germans had done.
She flew home in record time with the wind behind her, burning with injustice, and flung her bicycle against the workshop wall, where it promptly collapsed with a clatter.
Pierre’s legs were stretched under a car; his whole body emerged as he slid out on a wheeled trolley and sat up, squinting at her. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
Mathilde relayed most of the story, deciding it was wiser to keep Rambert’s hiding place behind the false wall a secret even from Pierre. ‘So all that wine will be on the train bound for Paris tomorrow morning,’ she ended up.
Pierre wiped his hands on a rag. ‘Will it now?’
Mathilde knelt on the floor beside him, lowering her voice even though there was no one around. ‘Pierre, I know what you’re up to. I saw you yesterday at the cottage.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ he said, although his eyes told a different story.
‘Yes you are. You should be more careful and hide your van properly or go by bicycle next time. I found the cottage, and once you and your friend had left, I went inside.’
He looked at her in silence.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep this to myself,’ she went on. ‘But won’t you let me work with you? You can see how useful I could be.’
He frowned. ‘It’s too risky at the moment – the police are everywhere. We may have to let this one go. And I’m certainly not getting you involved.’
‘It’s a tempting prospect, though, isn’t it?’ she said innocently. ‘I can only imagine how grateful the town would be to have its wine returned. We shall have a miserable spring and summer otherwise.’
‘Let me think about it. And not a word to my wife, all right?’ Pierre propelled himself back under the car.
A small, niggling doubt surfaced in Mathilde’s mind but she squashed it down; too late now to regret what she’d just suggested. A sequence of events had been set in motion and she would have to let it play out.