Chapter 12
Sven let out a long breath when the German soldier drove into the courtyard of what looked like a vineyard.
So this was Chateau de Chênes. Behind the main building he could just see row upon row of vines, swaying in the gentle breeze.
The house was covered in gray plaster, adorned by a double door whose red paint had flaked off badly thanks to wind and weather.
The red tiled roof had faded in the sun, and the window shutters were the same dull shade.
The plaster had fallen off one gable end, exposing a brick wall.
Next to the house stood an enormous oak. The sight of the huge tree, its crown rustling in the breeze, made Sven’s heart leap.
It reminded him of home.
Everything he had been through since leaving home suddenly felt tangible the moment he saw the oak, making him think about the person he had been before he left Sm?land.
He thought about his mother, and how worried she must be right now.
He wrote to her every week, and she would be waiting for his next letter.
He hoped he would get the chance to write her again soon.
And Father . . . Did he ever wonder about Sven?
Did he worry? Maybe he didn’t even want to see his son.
But if Sven managed to go home on leave, then he would be able to show his parents his medals, tell them what he’d achieved.
Surely Father would forgive him then? He would see that Sven had changed.
The stately tree’s branches spread over the roof of the house, casting long shadows across the gravel as the German slowly drove forward. The stones crunched beneath the wheels of the car, and the soldier swung the vehicle in a wide arc before pulling to a stop.
“I think we’ve bought wine from here a few times,” Max said. At first Sven thought he was going to get out and come inside with him, but to his relief, Max simply gave a brief nod. “Good to meet you.”
“Thanks for the ride,” Sven managed before the German drove away.
Slowly Sven exhaled, then he headed for the red-painted double door. He knocked and waited. The right-hand door opened a fraction, then the gap widened with a long, drawn-out creak.
A wary face appeared—a woman in her late forties, possibly younger. The war had aged people. A man came to join her. The woman was wearing an apron over her skirt and a pair of sturdy boots. The man was dressed in work clothes.
“Good afternoon,” Sven began. “I’ve brought the wooden boxes for the special harvest of 1935.
Where would you like me to put them?” He held up his bag.
This was a coded message that he was supposed to deliver when he arrived.
If he received the correct answer, then he would know he was in the right place.
The woman looked inquiringly at him, which immediately put Sven on his guard. Had he got it wrong? He was a couple of days early; whenever the resistance movement saw an opportunity, you had to take it. Maybe the couple hadn’t been informed?
The man cleared his throat. “Next to the workshop, on the right-hand side.”
Thank goodness—the correct answer.
Sven held out his hand. “Sven Steen.” He spoke quietly—you never knew who might be listening.
“I wasn’t expecting you for a day or two.”
“We had to move the trip up. We heard reports that the Nazis were taking action in several places, but I guess no one got around to telling you—my apologies.”
“Welcome,” the woman said, stepping aside to let him in. They shook hands. “So you got a ride?” she said, raising her eyebrows.
“Yes, from a German soldier. He checked my papers and was heading in this direction—apparently he’s stationed in the village.”
The couple introduced themselves as Juliette and Hugo, Madame and Monsieur Latorre, before showing him into the kitchen.
It was a simple country one, with a large table and a wooden counter.
Pans hung from hooks above, and light flooded in through a narrow window that faced the front of the house and the giant oak.
“Here we are.” He placed his bag on the table and unpacked the boxes.
Juliette nodded. Picked up one box and slid open the loose piece of wood. She took out the documents and read each one before passing it to her husband.
“We’ll fix it—it’s good that we found out now,” she said.
Sven had no idea what she was talking about. He never knew what was in the papers—he was just a messenger. It was best that way, because if he was captured, he wouldn’t be able to reveal anything.
“Would you like something to eat? We’ve just finished our lunch, but there’s some left.” Juliette nodded toward half a dark—almost black—loaf of bread with a few vegetables beside it. Food they presumably intended to save for dinner, but felt obliged to offer to their guest.
“We don’t have much to offer in these times of rationing.”
“I’m fine, thanks,” Sven said, even though his stomach was rumbling. “I might take a walk into the village and buy myself something to eat. I have a return ticket booked for the day after tomorrow. It seems credible for me to stay for two nights, if I’m your relative.”
“Isn’t that a bit short?” Juliette wondered.
“Not at all. If anyone asks, I’ll say I have business in Paris.”
Juliette nodded, then pulled out a chair for him. She fetched a piece of the bread, two lovely red slices of tomato, and a glass of water and set everything out in front of him.
“Our guests don’t need to buy their own food, not even in times of rationing,” she said firmly.
Sven was too tired and hungry to protest; his mother would have been furious with him.
Now that his mission was complete, all the tension left his body, and the appetite that had disappeared during his journey came back with a vengeance.
He saw the couple exchange a dubious glance, as if they were trying to communicate something.
They both seemed hesitant and anxious. He reminded himself that his arrival had taken them by surprise.
Plus everyone was affected by the war, always on their guard, and no one was their true self.
You couldn’t ever allow yourself to trust someone completely.
Sven sat down at the table and tried the tomato. It was soft and juicy and warm, as if it had just been hanging on the plant in the sun. He looked at Juliette.
“It tastes wonderful.”
In fact, it was one of the most delicious things he’d ever eaten. He’d never had access to such fresh vegetables before, and during the war it was even more difficult to get ahold of that kind of produce.
Juliette topped off his glass of water. The bread was hard and dry, but that was because of rationing; these days, flour was stretched out by adding other things. Juliette and Hugo joined him at the table, where they drank some sort of herbal tea.
“Thank you so much for lunch,” Sven said after a while, once he’d assuaged the worst of his hunger. “But I’m going to go down to the village later anyway—I don’t want to take advantage of your hospitality.”
“No—stay here,” Juliette insisted. “You’ve had a long journey. We have enough for dinner.”
“And I could do with a hand with a broken thresher out there—it’s too heavy for me to manage on my own.” Hugo nodded toward the back of the house.
Juliette stood up. “I’ll go and get the guest room ready.”
“I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“You’re not,” Juliette and Hugo both said, practically in unison.
Sven realized that he wanted to stay for a few days.
A sense of peace had come over him when he stepped into this house, the sense of being in a home.
He hadn’t been in a home, a place where people actually lived, for such a long time.
Over the past five years he had lived in barracks, quartered with other soldiers.
Of course the vineyard was very different from his own home in many ways.
He remembered the wooden kitchen sofa where he would sit eating an early breakfast before starting work on the farm, the creaking floorboards in his family’s living room, his mother’s rocking chair and her little sewing corner.
Most things here were made of stone—the floor, the kitchen bench.
It was considerably warmer than a spring day in Sweden, and different smells surrounded him here.
But the feeling was still the same—this was a home.
When he had finished eating, he accompanied Hugo to a wooden building that resembled a barn, and that housed the machinery needed for wine production. Hugo showed him the thresher, and together they moved it into a toolshed—although the shelves in the shed were empty.
Hugo saw Sven’s questioning look. “The Germans have requisitioned most of our tools, but I’ve managed to replace the essentials.”
Several other machines needed repairing, too, and Sven knew exactly what to do.
This was his area of expertise. They worked in silence.
Hugo and Sven’s father were alike in that way—neither of them said more than was necessary.
Sven used to love it when he and his father worked side by side in silence, fixing the farm machinery.
“Is there anything else I can do?” he asked when they’d finished. He was tired after the journey, but he hoped that Hugo would say yes. Doing physical work on something tangible was familiar and relaxing.
“I’m busy plowing at the moment,” Hugo said, and Sven nodded as if he understood, though he had no idea how a vineyard operated. “We plow up the ground so that the root systems are protected against heat and drought,” Hugo told him. “It also makes the rainwater run down into the earth more easily.”
Sven followed Hugo out into the field. He studied the older man’s movements as he worked the wooden plow, then took over and tried to do the same thing while also pulling out the weeds, as he had seen Hugo do.
The feeling of working the soft earth was completely different from holding a gun.
That was more or less the only thought Sven gave to the Legion and his real mission here in France in that moment.
Then he allowed the physical effort and the expanse of the vineyard to take over.