Chapter Twelve
‘Such a muddle in here,’ she muttered. ‘Most of this rubbish needs burning.’
‘The count loved his wine,’ Odile said. ‘Making and drinking it, both. He’d turn in his grave if he could see the cellar now.’
Mathilde turned on her heel, gazing around. ‘Have you not had a visit from the Weinführer?’
‘What are you talking about?’ Odile snapped. ‘Not so far as I know. Now, let’s find the wine and be on our way. I don’t like it down here.’
‘Is there another way out?’ Mathilde asked, spotting a pair of double doors at the far end of the cellar.
‘Not to the house,’ Odile replied, pulling bottles from the rack and handing them to her. ‘There’s a tunnel leading to the winery that way. The count had it built so they could roll the barrels to and fro.’
Upstairs, Mathilde took the precious wine through to the dining room and placed it on the sideboard, ready for decanting later.
This seemed to her one of the saddest rooms in the chateau, with its endless table and scores of unused chairs, looked down upon by portraits of de Courcys long dead and buried. And then she went to find the countess.
Madame de Courcy was in the gardens, wearing a pair of gloves and cutting roses for the table.
Doctor Pailleau was coming that evening, Odile had said, with the mayor and his wife, and the winemaker who’d supervised the previous year’s assemblage – the blending of wines to create the final product.
Madame Pailleau had been invited but she was apparently indisposed.
‘May I talk to you for a moment?’ Mathilde asked.
‘Of course,’ the countess replied, laying down her basket and tugging off the gloves. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask about your plans. Your probation period is nearly up, I believe.’
‘Yes, Madame, but I wanted to speak with you about another matter,’ Mathilde said, her words tumbling over themselves. ‘Concerning the cellar.’
‘Then let’s take a seat.’ Madame de Courcy strolled towards a stone bench and perched on the edge, gesturing for Mathilde to do the same. Everything she did was elegant; she just couldn’t help herself.
‘Have you heard of the Weinführers?’ Mathilde asked, coming straight to the point.
‘There was some German who wrote to me a couple of weeks ago about buying our wine, I believe,’ the countess told her. ‘I have the letter in my study. I’m not sure I ever replied. He wasn’t offering a very good price.’
‘You might not have a choice,’ Mathilde said. ‘In my previous job, a man called Kurt Weber came to the vineyard and emptied our cellar. He arrived with two men in a lorry to take the wine away and all we could do was watch.’
‘But that’s ridiculous!’ Madame de Courcy stared at her. ‘On whose authority?’
‘Orders from the Reich. He said we were lucky to be paid anything at all.’
‘And this was in Avignon?’ The countess was visibly shocked. ‘I must talk to our winemaker, Rousseau, to see if he’s heard of such a thing. I shan’t allow it!’
‘Then you might very well end up in prison, like I did.’
‘But there are no Germans here,’ the countess protested.
‘It was the French police who shot my cousin,’ Mathilde told her.
A white butterfly fluttered past on its way to a lavender bush, and Brioche collapsed at her feet with a sigh. ‘Tell me how things were in Paris,’ she said.
So Mathilde described that awful day when German troops marched down the Champs-Elysées and the hundred daily indignities that followed: constant inspection of identity cards, demands for the invaders to be saluted with a ‘Sieg Heil!’, the transformation of a favourite bistro into a Soldatenkaffee, and – far worse than any of those – the sickening, casual violence meted out with impunity to Jews of every age, from toddlers to old men.
‘You must have read about these things in the newspapers,’ she said – although now the papers only reported German propaganda.
The countess waved an imperious hand. ‘I don’t take any notice of what the papers say.
’ She gazed at the tangle of rose bushes.
‘I suppose you could accuse me of burying my head in the sand. I’ve done what I could to survive, but you’ve given me a lot to think about.
Listen, why don’t you join us for dinner tonight?
Odile might be scandalised but it would be useful for you to meet our winemaker, and the doctor will be happy to see you again. ’
She stood. ‘I should mention that Odile has reservations about you staying on here. She’s been my cook and housekeeper for a while now and I don’t want to upset her.’
‘Of course,’ Mathilde replied. ‘I quite understand.’ She’d been preparing herself for this decision and was able to accept it without betraying any disappointment.
Madame de Courcy and the chateau had been good to her: she’d regained her strength and established a new identity, and now she could move on to Marseille or take her chances somewhere equally anonymous.
Yet how would Yves know where to find her?
‘There’s one last thing I wanted to say,’ she told the countess, dismissing the thought from her mind, ‘and it’s probably the most important. We hid some of our wine – in Avignon, I mean. Perhaps you should follow our example. And sooner rather than later, before the Weinführer arrives.’
Madame de Courcy gave her a long, impenetrable look. ‘I imagine that’s what your husband would have done,’ Mathilde added, bracing herself for a rebuke.
‘Quite possibly,’ the countess said. ‘Whether it’s sensible is another matter. Let me consider the idea, along with everything else you’ve told me.’
Odile did, indeed, find it strange that Mathilde should have been invited to eat with the countess that evening.
‘Well I never,’ she repeated, shaking her head.
‘What’s the world coming to? You’ve still got to help me cook the meal, though – don’t go thinking you’re too high and mighty for kitchen work now. ’
‘Of course,’ Mathilde said. ‘I don’t really know why Madame’s asked me and I’m dreading the whole thing, to be honest.’
‘It’s because you’re educated – anyone can tell – and you look the part.
’ Unconsciously, Odile put a hand to the birthmark on her cheek.
‘But just remember: you’re neither fish nor fowl – ni chair, ni poisson – not one of us but not one of them either.
You probably think I envy you but I don’t, not in the slightest.’
Mathilde remembered these words when she was sitting at the ridiculously long dining table that evening, wearing one of Amélie de Courcy’s smarter frocks.
She wondered incidentally how the countess felt, being constantly reminded of her daughter, and whether she would be allowed to take any of these clothes with her when she moved on.
Judicious placing of candelabra created the illusion of intimacy as the six of them ate dinner in a pool of golden light: nettle soup, followed by poached chicken with carrots and potatoes, cheese and an apricot tart.
Despite her reservations the conversation flowed, eased by plenty of the delicious wine, and she lost herself in it.
The mayor’s wife was an artist, and they talked about the extraordinary prehistoric cave paintings that had been discovered the year before in the Dordogne.
There was also a lively discussion around the table of various wine vintages, and dire predictions for that year’s grape and olive harvest. Fertiliser and copper sulphate had disappeared, weeds were out of control now most of the plough horses had been lost to the Germans, and to cap it all, orders had come from Vichy that half the wine from the larger vineyards should be distilled into fuel.
The winemaker, Monsieur Rousseau, looked at his glass with a sigh. ‘We shan’t be drinking wine like this for a while. Fuel is all this year’s harvest will be good for.’
‘Yet there are others far worse off than us,’ said the mayor, Monsieur Rochefort: a genial, talkative man in his forties.
He went on to describe a visit he’d paid to an internment camp outside Marseille, where thousands of foreign Jews, mostly German and Austrian, were being held while they waited for visas to escape to any country that would accept them.
Conditions there were appalling. ‘And God knows what will happen to the poor souls in the long term. They’re certainly not welcome in France. ’
‘Enough!’ Madame de Courcy clapped her hands. ‘This talk is too depressing for the dinner table. Fleur, would you fetch another couple of bottles? We might as well drink them before the Boche do. And then you can go to bed – you must be tired after a long day’s work.’
Everyone declared that more wine was a splendid idea, and a buzz of happier chat broke out around the table.
Dismissed from the charmed circle, Mathilde was overcome by a sudden longing for her husband and the life she had lost, a life she’d shared on an equal footing.
There had been so many happy evenings in Paris before the war: noisy suppers in their apartment with friends.
She wondered whether she would ever see them again.
Odile was right: she didn’t fit in here – or anywhere else for that matter.
She rose early the next morning as usual, but Madame de Courcy was already waiting for her downstairs, wearing work clothes and a determined expression.
‘I’ve been mulling over what you told me and have come to a decision,’ she said, drawing Mathilde to one side.
‘I agree we can’t let Vichy empty our cellar, if that’s really what you think might happen.
I spoke to the doctor about the matter, too, and Monsieur Rousseau, and we’re all in agreement.
Georges and Odile know my plan also, but nobody else.
We must hurry – there’s no time to lose.
I found another letter from this Weinführer person in my study and he’s threatening to descend on us at any moment. ’