Page 17 of The Widows of Champagne

Gabrielle

I t came as no surprise that von Schmidt failed to keep his word. In the span of a few weeks, he confiscated over 30,000 bottles of champagne from the Chateau Fouché-LeBlanc cellars, then sent them to his superiors back in Berlin. The action had earned him approval, and a written commendation, but not the promotion he so clearly sought.

The only good that came from his duplicity, to Gabrielle’s relief, was that her counterfeit wall had withstood the comings and goings of his soldiers. Von Schmidt’s men had been so focused on stealing her family’s champagne they’d paid little heed to the cave itself.

Unfortunately, Gabrielle’s neighbors suffered even greater losses. In total, German soldiers stole more than two million bottles from the Champenois . Something had to be done to protect the wine. She was not the only producer to come to this conclusion. When she contacted her father-in-law, Maximillian Dupree invited her to his home to discuss the problem.

Gabrielle told no one about the meeting, not even her grandmother, and left the chateau under the cover of the black moonless sky. She chose a bicycle for her mode of transportation, which allowed her to keep to the vineyards and off the main roads.

The closer she pedaled toward her father-in-law’s property, the more her mind pulled away from confiscated champagne and German occupation and turned to her deceased husband.

Benoit’s death had been so unfair. So unnecessary. A wagon wheel had fallen on his leg, trapping him for hours before one of their workers found him. He’d downplayed the injury, hiding his pain until gangrene set in. It had been too late to save the leg. Or, as it turned out, his life. He’d sought morphine to dull his pain and died in a drug-induced stupor. Gabrielle had prayed while he suffered, and again during his final hours. God’s response had been silence.

She’d learned her lesson, and now relied only on herself. Although there were times she felt lonely, it was better that way. Simpler. Also, better, simpler, to set aside her grief and consider what she would say when she arrived at her father-in-law’s chateau. She would not speak of Benoit. That much, she promised herself.

Max himself opened the door. Gabrielle felt a pang in her chest. It hurt to see the echo of her husband in the face of his father.

Shifting uncomfortably, she shoved her hands in her pockets. In the next instant, she found herself pulled into his muscled, vigneron arms. She hesitated, almost recoiling in pain, then hugged him back. “I have missed you,” she whispered.

“And I you, ma chérie .”

Gabrielle wanted to cling to him. It had been too long since she’d seen Max. The last time had been at the anniversary party. Their conversation had been brief and stilted. Now, feeling that same awkwardness, she stepped back and studied the man who’d once been both friend and surrogate father.

He’d aged, and gone paunchy around the middle, but Maximillian Dupree was still a very handsome man. Dark hair with threads of silver at the temples, a lean poet’s face and soulful, impassioned eyes.

This is how Benoit would have looked had he survived into middle age. The thought brought a bittersweet smile to her lips. Max returned the gesture, and again she had to swallow back a wave of emotion. He had the same look around the mouth as his son.

“You are the last to arrive,” he said.

“I... Oh.” She hadn’t known there would be others.

“Come, Gabrielle, time is of the essence. We must be quick. We’re meeting in the library.” He led her through the cavernous hallways, the same ones she and Benoit had roamed as children. She could close her eyes and know the way. Each twist and turn was as familiar as any in her own home.

Max paused outside the room and indicated she enter ahead of him.

The space was full of men she knew on sight. Most sat, some stood, one leaned against the bookshelf. She counted half a dozen grape growers and twice that number of champagne producers. All were at least twenty years her senior, some contemporaries of her grandmother.

One in particular caught her eye, the head of Mo?t & Chandon. Count Robert-Jean de Vogüe was well respected among the Champenois , a natural leader. It was rumored he had connections to the Vatican and was related to most of Europe’s royal families. His brother, Bertrand, the powerful head of Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin, was, Gabrielle noticed, missing.

“I trust you know everyone.”

She nodded, then went through the ritual of greeting each of the occupants of the room, saving de Vogüe for last. He was a striking man in his late fifties, his coloring almost swarthy, his green eyes deep-set and solemn. Like several other men in the room, he’d been a close friend of her father’s. And had great respect for her grandmother.

De Vogüe was also in charge of this meeting. He waited for Gabrielle to take a seat beside her father-in-law to begin. “I cannot stress enough the importance of secrecy. Whatever is said tonight must not be repeated. Do I have your word?”

Every head bobbed in agreement.

“Excellent. Now, as you are aware, the German authorities have appointed Otto Klaebisch to serve as weinführer over our region. He will oversee champagne purchases for the Third Reich.” De Vogüe paused, made eye contact with several people in the room, including Gabrielle. “Originally, this selection seemed a good one. Klaebisch is a connoisseur and understands how we do business.”

The man on Gabrielle’s immediate left raised a fist. “Better to be shoved around by a winemaker than by a beer-drinking Nazi.”

“As many of us thought,” de Vogüe acknowledged. “However, Klaebisch enjoys the trappings of military life and appreciates the power that comes from his new position.”

De Vogüe could be describing Helmut von Schmidt as well.

“The weinführer has requisitioned my brother’s chateau.” De Vogüe’s gaze held steady on Gabrielle. “He threw Bertrand and his family out onto the streets with no worry where they would go.”

Gabrielle gasped. She had not heard this news, but now understood the man’s absence.

With de Vogüe’s gaze still on her, several heads turned in her direction. She could easily decipher their unasked questions, the speculation as to why her home had been requisitioned and yet, unlike de Vogüe’s brother, the LeBlanc women had been allowed to stay.

She confronted their suspicion directly. “I believe,” she began, eyes only on de Vogüe, “von Schmidt has treated us differently because we are a houseful of women.” Though she hated saying the words, she could not dismiss the truth behind them. “He does not consider us a threat. He repeatedly says our gender is weak.”

The room fell silent as each man considered what she’d stated without inflection or emotion. Many, she knew, agreed with von Schmidt’s estimation, although none said so now.

As if this settled the matter, de Vogüe continued the meeting. “My main purpose for calling us together is to discuss what German occupation means for our immediate future. I met with Klaebisch this afternoon and I am afraid the news is not good.”

A low rumble spread throughout the room.

Lifting a hand, de Vogüe went on to explain. “We will only be allowed to sell our champagne to the Third Reich and its military. Also, German-controlled restaurants, hotels and nightclubs, and a few of Germany’s friends such as the Italian ambassador to France and Marshal Pétain at Vichy. The marshal, I am told, enjoys large quantities of our special cuvées .”

The room erupted in angry expletives, while Gabrielle’s heart sank. Her hope soon followed. There could be no more doubt that the self-proclaimed leader of the French people had allied himself with the enemy. This was the final blow to any hope that the government would grow a backbone.

“What price are we to expect for this privilege of supplying our enemies with France’s greatest treasure?” someone taunted from the back of the room.

De Vogüe quoted a number that was tantamount to robbery. “We either sell to the Germans at this dismal price,” he added, “or we go out of business. Those are our only choices. And I’m afraid there is still more unsettling news. We are to supply the Third Reich with two million bottles of our champagnes every month, distributed among our houses in whatever quantities we decide.”

Shocked silence met this additional revelation.

It was an impossible number. Angry curses shattered the library’s already dismal mood. “This will ruin us,” one of the producers claimed.

While others agreed, Gabrielle looked to her father-in-law. He returned her stare with the eyes of a man who’d survived bad harvests, the loss of his wife, then his only son. He did not appear beaten. His expression was fierce, as if to say: We will not crumble. We will fight.

De Vogüe answered questions, then brought the meeting to an end with one final proclamation. “If we are to survive German occupation, we must band together formally.”

He laid out his plan. Answered more questions. Then set the date for their next meeting.

As the room emptied, Gabrielle hung back at her father-in-law’s request. She knew that expression. It was the look of a concerned parent to a favorite child. “I don’t like you living under the same roof as a German soldier.”

In that, at least, she could alleviate his worry. “Helmut von Schmidt is an overreaching wine merchant who wears a soldier’s uniform. It is not the same.”

“You argue semantics when you should be thinking in terms of caution.” His hand rested briefly on her cheek, then dropped away. “That uniform he wears makes von Schmidt a dangerous man.”

“What would you have me do, Papa?” She used the name she’d called him when she was still a girl. “Would you have me surrender the house that has been in my family for two hundred years because others have been forced to do the same?”

“I would have you be smart.”

“I am not a reckless woman,” she responded firmly, so he could not fail to understand her meaning. “You know this, Papa.”

“What I know is that you will take excessive risks. It is in your nature. You have too much of your grandmother in you.”

He was wrong. Gabrielle didn’t have enough of Josephine in her.

“And yet, I will still make my request.”

As if he’d been waiting for his cue, de Vogüe returned to the room and took over the conversation. “You, Madame Dupree, are in an interesting position to serve your country.”

She did not know how to respond.

“I trust you heard General de Gaulle’s broadcast from London?”

She nodded. “He urged the people of France to resist the Germans.”

It had been a call to action. Opportunity within opposition. But then the Germans had come to Reims. And they had looted. Burned down buildings. Requisitioned her home. During it all, Gabrielle had thought only of her family and their champagne house. Now, de Vogüe was asking her to think of her country. It was not hard to understand what he wanted her to do. “You want me to spy on von Schmidt.”

“It would be a simple matter for you to track his comings and goings. Perhaps monitor his correspondence when possible. Who does he invite to his table, and what is said when he thinks no one but his friends are listening?”

Grandmère would call this God’s providence. And maybe, Gabrielle thought, she would be right. Maybe this was God’s will for her life, a purpose that went beyond herself. Odd, that her mind would accept this, when her heart could not. She wanted to do her part for France, she did. But not at the risk of her family.

Your family is already at risk.

And Gabrielle had already set a plan in motion that would harmonize with de Vogüe’s request. The sooner the enemy was vanquished, and von Schmidt was expelled from their home, the better. “How would I get this information to you?”

“You and I will never meet,” de Vogüe said. “You will report directly to Max.”

“You are comfortable with this arrangement?” she asked her father-in-law.

He nodded. “For the good of France.”

It could be done, she knew. But not without risk.

Max touched her hand. “Gabrielle, I know we ask much of you. But not as much as we ask of ourselves.”

“How would I get the information to you?”

“We would set a regular meeting time and place. Somewhere in public that would not draw suspicion.” Max thought a moment. “Perhaps on Sundays. We could linger in the church, a concerned father-in-law checking in on his daughter-in-law.”

The suggestion— linger in the church —made her stomach twist in nausea. Max knew what he asked of her. He’d been standing beside her at Benoit’s funeral when the priest had served up his platitudes, then walked away when she’d asked the difficult questions about good men dying too young and God’s random cruelty.

No, not the church. She would find another way. “What if I discover something that can’t wait until Sunday?”

“Then we’ll meet in the vineyard. At a spot we both know well.” Max’s smile turned sad. “Three rows east of my family’s chapel, halfway between the first and second hill.”

Of course she knew the place well. It was the site of Benoit’s fatal accident.

Not there, Max. Anywhere but there.

Her father-in-law took her hand, tears in his eyes. “Is it not fitting? We will join forces to save lives on the very spot where we lost the one life we couldn’t save.”

There were so many ways Gabrielle could respond. She could snatch her hand away. She could rail. She could simply walk out of the library. Or she could point out that Benoit hadn’t actually died in the vineyard. He’d hung on for months, in pain and misery. None of those things would bring her husband back. “How will we know what time to rendezvous?”

It helped to focus on specifics. In times of uncertainty, taking action mattered. That’s what she told herself, what she tried to believe.

Max explained a seemingly uncomplicated code they would use via the telephone. “After each exchange, we will reset the code.”

A good precaution, she thought. “It appears you’ve thought of everything.”

His smile was genuine, but still held hints of sorrow. “All that’s left is your agreement.”

She gave it, for the good of France. “I’ll begin tomorrow.”