The Winemaker's Wife(13)
“But who knows when the Nazis will change their mind? It’s better to be cautious.”
In truth, Céline’s absence would be a relief; Inès wasn’t sure she could take any more of the other woman’s brooding silence. In the past few weeks, Céline had withdrawn into herself even further, talking only to Michel and Theo curtly about wine production. Inès wondered how on earth Theo managed to bear her coldness behind closed doors.
Herr Klaebisch arrived promptly at eight in the morning, accompanied by two German soldiers who hung back and mumbled to each other. The weinführer was a tall man, his black hair greased, his jowly face punctuated by a wide, beak-like nose. His hooded eyes seemed to glint in the morning light as he gazed around their house, taking everything in. “Thank you for receiving me,” he said, his French as impeccable as that of the beady-eyed officer who had led the looting of their house in June. “You will show me to the cellars now?”
Inès trailed along after Michel and Herr Klaebisch, surprised to hear the almost friendly conversation between the two. The weinführer was asking about the composition of the local soil, and Michel was expounding about how the sand mixed with the native chalk in the vineyards west of Reims helped keep the vines moist, even in dry weather. Inès couldn’t help but think that the German must already know this; he’d been in Champagne for months and in the wine trade for years. But he seemed to be listening intently.
“And yet the harvest this year was a failure,” Klaebisch said mildly as they descended into the cool darkness. “We must do better next year. This region is very important to the führer.”
“But of course you understand that when our labor force is taken away, it is impossible to get the most out of the vineyards, oui?” Michel replied. “You know that this year’s yield was down by eighty percent. Here, we are doing the work of many men to make the champagne. Even our wives are helping with the labor.”
Klaebisch didn’t respond for a long moment, and Inès feared that Michel had overstepped. But then they reached the bottom of the stairs, and the weinführer cleared his throat. “Monsieur Chauveau, I understand your plight, but in wartime, we all must make do with less, ja?”
“Of course.”
“Then I imagine you will find a way. I have always found the French very resourceful.” As Klaebisch made his way down the narrow hall that ran the length of the main tunnel, the thud of his boots echoed in the heavy silence. He walked the rows of racks, pausing to peer at bottles here and there, but he didn’t say another word, and neither did Inès or Michel. As he drew closer to the statue of the Virgin Mary that guarded the false wall, Inès forced herself to breathe normally. She couldn’t help a small sigh of relief when Klaebisch finally turned back toward the cellar exit without noticing anything amiss.
“A beautiful collection,” he said once they had all ascended the winding stairway and exited into the chilly morning. He pulled a small notebook from his pocket and jotted something down, squinting at the page and pursing his lips. Finally, he looked up. “I understand you oversee the production with the help of a chef de cave named Laurent?”
“Yes, Theo Laurent.”
“I should like to meet him. Perhaps the next time.” Klaebisch didn’t wait for a reply. “In any case, we will begin with a thousand bottles of your 1935 cuvée de prestige and an equal amount of your thirty-six. Prepare them for shipment immediately. Reichsmarschall G?ring will be quite pleased indeed.”
He gestured to the soldiers, who were still lingering by the front door, and together they left in silence. Inès and Michel watched from the front drive until their truck disappeared behind the hills in the distance.
? ? ?
By the new year, a small rebellion against the Germans had begun. Soon after his arrival, Herr Klaebisch had met with the Commission de Chalons, the regulatory body for the champagne houses, and ordered 350,000 bottles of champagne each week from across the region, paid for with inflated marks, all to be stamped Reserved for the Wehrmacht. Only after those orders were met were the houses allowed to sell champagne to their own countrymen, but there was never enough left to make much of a profit. Now, winemakers were using dirty bottles, bad corks, and second-rate cuvées in shipments bound for Germany, and some in the region were positively giddy with the idea of pulling one over on the Germans. Inès knew that Michel was proceeding cautiously, but even he couldn’t resist the lure of making the Germans look foolish.
“I like to imagine G?ring and Himmler dining together in Berlin with one of our best bottles,” Michel said one cold evening after he had invited Theo and Céline to join them in front of the roaring fire in the main house for a bit of warmth.
“A thirty-five grand cru,” Theo interjected with a gleam in his eye.
“Bien s?r.” Michel grinned. “They won’t even notice the specks of dirt.”
Theo chuckled. “Or the fact that the bottles are actually lousy nonvintage wines from thirty-seven.”
“Aren’t you worried about getting caught?” Inès asked.
“Everyone is doing it, Inès,” Theo said with a shrug.
But a week later, Klaebisch paid them an unexpected visit, arriving by chauffeured car on a snowy afternoon, accompanied by a uniformed German toting a long gun.