Invitation to Provence(68)
Rafaella sighed. She knew from Jake that Bao Chu was in bad shape, though at least now she was receiving the best medical care. “I can’t tell you not to worry, ma petite, because your grandmother has been ill for a long time,” she said gently.
Little Blue lifted her head, fixed her large blue eyes on Rafaella, and said, “Grandmère, how do you die?”
Rafaella took a deep breath. She could hardly tell the child that the true answer to that question could only come from personal experience, though sometimes she’d wondered if you did not die little by little from life’s blows. She thought about it, then finally said, “We believe that when you die, you go to sleep. Sometimes it’s sudden, an accident perhaps. Sometimes it takes a long time to get there, like with Bao Chu. And sometimes it’s peaceful and sweet and gentle, and you have time for a long good-bye with a smile in the eyes. My own father died like that, as though he were happy finally to go.”
“Will Bao Chu die like that?”
“I hope so, child.”
“And you too, grandmère Rafaella? Will you die with a smile in your eyes?”
Rafaella thought again about dying, as she had many times these last few years. “I will now, Little Blue,” she agreed.
“And then will I see Bao Chu and you again?”
Rafaella thought about that. “It is said that if we believe, we shall all be reunited in heaven.” Little Blue heaved a sigh of relief and said thank-you. Then together they ate Rafaella’s breakfast of boiled eggs and toast, and for the moment the subject was forgotten.
53
EVERYONE WAS UP EARLY, dressed in shorts and T-shirts with their hair tied back, ready to pick grapes—except for Rafaella and Juliette of course, though they promised to come inspect the work at lunchtime and bring some of Haigh’s “refreshments.”
Scott met them at the base of the west hill, which was already crawling with itinerant pickers, their big scissors glinting in the already hot sun as they snipped off the fat bunches of grapes and laid them carefully in large straw baskets. Scott was all business this morning and he barely gave Clare a glance. He simply took them to a row of vines, demonstrated how to cut a bunch of grapes, and showed them the perfect, round, ready-to-burst fruit that needed to be cut, and the other lesser bunches they should not cut. Then he warned them to be careful of the wasps that were always a scourge at the vendange, wished them luck, and left them to get on with it.
Clare looked at Franny. “It’s back to my roots,” she said, tying up her hair, “right where my family started, in the fields, only then I was picking onions not grapes. Doesn’t seem like there’s much difference to me—hard work is hard work.”
And it was. After an hour Franny’s back ached and Clare had been stung twice. Two hours later even Little Blue had slowed down. Three hours and they were sweating under the grilling sun, praying that Haigh and the refreshments would arrive soon. They stopped to gulp sun-hot water from plastic bottles, then hauled their baskets to the trailer, where the grapes were inspected and trundled off to the chai, ready to be destemmed and sorted. Then it was back to the hot hill to pick more.
Franny knew she would never feel the same way about a bottle of wine again. She wiped the sweat from her face and thought longingly of quitting and a cold shower. She could see Jake farther up the hill, working methodically along his row. He was already much farther than she was, and she sighed and got on with it.
When the chateau’s car finally wound its way slowly up the hill, Scott called a lunch break. The workers scattered into the shade to eat their cold potato omelettes and sandwiches with a good slug of red to wash it all down, and the party from the chateau straggled wearily back to the courtyard, where trestle tables covered with a red-and-white-check oilcloth were set up under the stone arches. Hands and faces washed, wasp stings taken care of, the new workers dropped thankfully into their chairs, watching hungrily as Haigh laid out his offerings: a crisp salade ni?oise, the same cold potato omelette the migrant workers were eating, long baguettes, and huge platters of ham and cheeses.
“So how do you like manual labor?” Scott said to Clare.
She grinned and bit into a slice of the potato omelette. “I like the reward,” she said. “This is wonderful. I’ll ask Jarré to show me how to make it.”
“Jarré?” He looked at her, surprised.
“He’s giving me cooking lessons. I start tomorrow. Maybe when I go back to California, I’ll get a job as a chef.”
“You’re going back then?”
The thought of leaving made Clare suddenly sad. “Let’s not talk about it.”
“Okay. But you know I’m getting used to having you around. I wouldn’t want to have to move that into the I’m-missing-you category.”
“You wouldn’t, huh?” She was doing that flirty thing with her lashes again.
“Look,” he said, “the harvest and the crush are my busiest time. I never know when I’ll be able to break free, but when I do, will you have dinner with me? Please?”
“You mean you and me? Alone?” She was laughing at him.
“Alone,” he said firmly and she nodded and said okay. After lunch, it was back to picking. Franny found it hard going, but Little Blue, fueled by the food, had found new energy. Jake was on his third row and Franny still hadn’t finished her first. She thought her arms would break from lugging the heavy basket that the itinerant North African pickers, who roamed the south each year for the grape harvest, carried so easily on their heads. Soaked with sweat, her hands stained purple with juice, her hair a tangled, sticky mess from constantly sweeping it back under her hat, filthy and tired, she was glad when Scott said the chateau workers could call it a day, though the rest of them would keep on until the hillside was finished.