Lucie
Reims, France
1916
The clicking of my mother’s knitting needles is the metronome measuring the minutes, hours, months spent in the perpetually cool, dim caves. The sound reverberates off the chalk walls.
When there comes a pause in the shelling, the able-bodied dare to slip out into the aboveground world. To feel the sun on our faces, to breathe deeply of the air—however rank with smoke, it is better than the stale air within the caves—and to tend to the wounded. We comb through the charred ruins of our once-beautiful city for anything of use: an unbroken teacup, a child’s toy, ripped blankets, or sweaters that can be unraveled for their wool.
My mother’s hands were once soft from a lifetime of ease. Now those same hands reclaim old misshapen sweaters with an avarice that astonishes me, unraveling the yarn, winding it into a hank, soaking it in water to relax the crimp of the stitches, sometimes even dyeing it: pale yellow with onion skins or grayish purple with discarded grape musts.
Before, my mother taught me how to sit with my knees together, how to move gracefully, and when to smile. Those skills have no place in the caves. But another lesson I have learned from my mother: Yarn remains fundamentally unchanged, no matter its pattern. It is still wool. It might be singed, abandoned, stripped from a corpse. It might be unraveled altogether, a twisted, knotted rat’s nest of fibers. But it can be cleansed and untangled and knitted back together again. It can take a new form. The shape may be different, but the wool is fundamentally the same.
The human spirit does not want to die; it is a resilient thing.
That first year of the war, without any hale young men, without the aid of decent horses or farm equipment, and with German bullets and shells raining down from the hills, we made up our minds to bring in the harvest. That first year, and the second, and the one after that. Every September, when the heat of summer begins to cede to the chill of autumn, when the cellar master declares the fruit has reached its pinnacle of sweetness, we venture out under cover of darkness to pick the grapes. We haul them belowground, capture their juices, and lay the bottles to rest in the cool, dank caves.
We bring in the harvest, knowing that our beloved champagne will be drinkable only long after the war is over. A Victory Vintage to be savored in celebration of the end of war.
Women. Children. The elderly.
We bring in the harvest.
We make the wine.
Chapter One
Rosalyn
Napa, California
Present day
There’s one major problem with your little plan,” said Rosalyn, patting the dossier Hugh had dropped on the desk in front of her. According to the itinerary, she was booked on an AirFrance flight to Paris departing from San Francisco the day after Christmas. She was to stay a couple of nights in Paris, then pick up a rental car that had been reserved in her name and head for Champagne, less than a two-hour drive northeast.
“What problem? I booked it myself.” Hugh nodded and gave her an exaggerated wink. “First class—that’s the ticket. Get it? The ticket?”
“But I don’t like France. Or the French. Or champagne, for that matter.”
“Are you saying you dislike la Champagne, as in the region of France,” asked Hugh, “or le champagne, the bubbly nectar that is celebrated the world over?”
“Both, as you very well know. Not a fan.”
Hugh’s only reaction to her ill humor was a broad smile. Rosalyn’s boss was a bear of a man who dwarfed the cramped winery/import office located in the lovingly renovated garage of his sprawling Napa Valley vineyard home. Standing several inches taller than six feet, the ironically named Hugh Small had the well-padded physique of a man who entertained frequently and enjoyed his own excellent cooking—and wine—a tad too much. His graying brown hair was wild and scruffy, and his clothes so sloppy that, if he hadn’t been so well-known in the valley, the locals might have assumed he was one of the wanderers who camped among the vines, cruising the highways of Napa and Sonoma for dregs in bottles left on picnic tables by well-to-do tourists on wine-tasting jaunts.
Ten years earlier, Hugh had fulfilled a lifelong fantasy by purchasing a vineyard in Napa. He quickly realized just how hard it was to get established in the wine-producing business, and branched out into importing and selling select vintages from France and Spain through his company, Small Fortune Wines.
Hugh’s favorite joke: “How do you make a small fortune in the wine business? Start out with a large fortune.”
Today Hugh’s light blue pullover sweater sported a moth-eaten hole over his heart. Rosalyn stared at it, pondering its significance. Hugh had more than enough heart for the both of them.
“Honestly, Hugh,” Rosalyn persisted, trying to keep a lid on the vague panic simmering somewhere deep within her, “I know most people would jump at the chance to go to Champagne, all expenses paid, but I really don’t enjoy traveling. You’re sure you need me to do this?”
He nodded. “Andy’s still at the hospital with his wife and their preemie; he couldn’t possibly leave now.”
“Couldn’t you go? I could stay here and run the office.”
“I need a wine rep in France,” he said. “And you’re a wine rep.”
“Just barely.”
“And you speak French.”
“Just barely.”
“And you’ve got a palate. Better than mine. Besides,” said Hugh as he sorted through a stack of mail, tossing several envelopes into the recycling bin, “it’s downright embarrassing that you’ve never been to France. What self-respecting wine rep has never been to France?”
“I have been to France.”
“Once. And if I’m not mistaken you went to Paris, which is no more representative of France than New York City is of the United States. And admit it: You enjoyed your time there.”
Snowflakes glittering on their scarves as they stood under the lamppost at the corner of Rue des Abbesses and Rue Lepic. Tipsy on wine and after-dinner cognac. Giggling as they watched a man slip silently down the snow-covered cobblestone streets of Montmartre, their breath coming out in wispy clouds, mingling in the frigid air.
“It’s our laughter,” says Rosalyn, lifting her mittened hand as if to capture the mist. “Come back!”
Dash grabs her hand, warming it with both of his, kissing it. “Plenty more where that came from, Rosie. A lifetime of laughter for my beautiful bride. I promise.”
Dash had lied.
“Of course I enjoyed it,” Rosalyn said when she realized Hugh was still watching her, awaiting an answer. “It was my honeymoon. That was different.”