Sweeter Than Wine (39 page)

No!
part of him protested, remembering how kind, good, hard-working,
and dedicated to Montclair she was. But Hugh's words were undeniably true.

It could not be true. Alice, a whore? It must not be true
!

Siegfried fell asleep still trying to resolve the terrible muddle in his own
mind.

...he was walking the vineyard when the long row of vines transformed into
coils of barbed wire stretching out along the barren, artillery-pitted earth of the
Front.

Panic clawed at Siegfried's chest as he realized he was standing out in the
open space of No-Man's Land. He whirled around and saw Peter methodically
working down the row of barbed-wire tendrils, using clippers to thin out clusters of
ripe bullets hanging on the rusty wires. The new brass casings shone like polished
gold in the dim, smoky light.

The distant whump of artillery shells grew louder.

Siegfried looked around frantically. Where was he? Where was his trench?
Where were his men? Franz, Jürgen, Karsten, Helmut--surely they would not
abandon him in the middle of No-Man's Land? But the battlefield was eerily
deserted. There was only Peter's stolid presence, performing his bizarre harvest.

"Peter! Peter! For God's sake--we have to get under cover!" Siegfried
tugged at Peter's blue work shirt, but Peter ignored him, continuing his task--snip,
snip--his clippers opening and closing with slow efficiency, sending bunches of
ripe and half-ripe bullets falling to the blood-black earth.

The booming of the big guns drew nearer. The bones of Siegfried's feet
hummed with each impact. Tiny ripples began to appear in the pools of scummed
water filling the bomb craters. Cover--they needed to seek cover. When the shells
began to fall, it would not matter if the bombardment was from German or enemy
guns.

A low whimper caught his attention. It was Alice, imprisoned in a coil of
barbed wire, her face white and terrified in the dim light. Behind her, Peter
screamed, "Whose baby is it?"

Siegfried began to run towards her, but the air had become thick as mud.
The explosion of a shell deafened him and he braced himself for the numbing rip
of shrapnel in his leg--

"Shhhh, shhhh."

Siegfried awoke with a start, every muscle tensed in the anticipation of
imminent injury. He was cradled against something soft and warm, smelling faintly
of lemon.
Alice
.

He lay half atop her, his face nestled in the cotton nightgown between her
breasts. She held him tightly, murmuring to him. Her comforting touch moved
through his hair, down the back of his neck, and over his bare shoulders.

It had only been a dream. He was safe in his own bed with his wife, her thighs
pressing pleasantly against his groin, her yielding breasts soft against his mouth
under the barrier of fabric.

"Siegfried? Are you all right?" Alice's voice was low and warm, inviting his
confidence.

She stopped stroking him, and he felt her palm flatten against the middle of his
back, drawing him closer. He shifted slightly, unwilling to talk, and drew up her
nightgown, needing to bury himself in her and expel his poisonous dream in the
act of love.

Alice's breathing quickened at the touch of his hand on her leg. Against his
cheek, her nipple grew hard.

Like a bombshell tearing into his heart, the image of his wife in the beds of
other men came to him. In particular, he imagined Hugh, his high, sun-freckled
forehead flushed and sweaty as he thrust between Alice's soft white thighs.

Siegfried shuddered and rolled away from her, seeking refuge from her
betrayal behind a barrier of blankets and a turned back.

Sleepless, racked with the ache of unsatisfied desire, he was aware of every
shift and breath that told him that Alice, too, lay awake until dawn blanched the
darkness.

Montclair, Wednesday, September 24

The alarm clock's shrill jangle woke Alice from her doze. She fumbled for it,
staring blearily at the black numbers circling its white face. She was tempted to
fling it across the room. She had spent another sleepless night, enduring
Siegfried's pretense that he was alone in their bed.

Beside her, he stirred and grumbled, rolling away from the sun's rays lighting
the lace curtains. Now facing her, he opened his eyes. Just for an instant, she saw
a sleepy smile curl his mouth. Then his expression became remote.

But he said nothing.

* * *

Awake now, Siegfried saw Alice bite her lip, revealing her suffering. She was
haggard, the warm tones of her skin faded to yellowed ivory, with bluish shadows
under her eyes.

The warm coziness of their marriage bed had become a field of barbed wire.
Siegfried's nerve-endings felt raw, exposed. Was there any greater torture than the
night he had just spent, unable to bring himself to touch his wife, unable to stop
wanting her? How could he despise Alice and desire her at the same time?

He turned away, studying the cruelly bright streaks of sun on the faded rug,
and cursed himself for imagining fanciful stories about a family of noble wine
brokers. Instead, he, a Rodernwiller, had been tricked into marrying into a clan of
whores and pimps.

Damn Tati and her meddling!

Alice made a small, hopeless sound that tore at Siegfried's heart as she threw
back the bedclothes. She padded out of the room silently, leaving Siegfried to
wrestle his demons in the knife-edged morning light.

* * *

Maria made an early lunch of sausages and fried potatoes to feed them well
before the tedious journey to the emergency meeting in Santa Rosa, but it was too
hot and smoky to eat. Fires far to the north and east were consuming thousands of
acres of brush, filling the air for miles with drifting ash.

Alice picked at her food. She wasn't hungry. She peered at Siegfried, and saw
that he was shoveling in Maria's good food as if he had been starving for
years.

"Mrs. R, if you don't eat, you'll be sorry before you get to the meeting," Maria
predicted.

"She is not going," Siegfried pronounced around a mouthful of sausage.

Alice looked up at him in shock. "What do you mean,
not going
?"

Siegfried swallowed, wiped his lips, and set his napkin down deliberately. "You
do not need to attend this meeting." He spoke at an angle across the table, as if
he could not even look straight at her. "Peter and I will go."

"I always go to the meetings!"

"You always went when you were a widow alone," Siegfried corrected. "Now I
will attend the meeting, and you will stay here."

Alice glared at him. How dare he forbid her to do anything! "I'm coming with
you. You can't stop me."

"You must take care of the baby, Alice," Siegfried said, gently. As if he cared
for her.

Maria dropped her fork, and it clattered loudly against her plate. "Please, listen
to him." She was studying her plate with passionate intensity, two spots of red
burning in her cheeks. "In this heat, over the potholes--it wouldn't be good for you.
I couldn't stand it if something happened."

"Uh...well," Peter cleared his throat, hastily. "I'll be happy to stand in for you,
Mrs. R. Just until the baby is born, of course. Congratulations, by the way," he
added, in a falsely hearty tone. He opened and closed his fist convulsively,
crumpling his napkin into a tightly compacted ball. He glared at Maria, clearly
speaking to her although his words were addressed to Siegfried. "You're a lucky
man, Sig. At least
your
wife isn't barren. A man needs a family--
sons
--to look after him in his old age."

Alice gasped, but Maria continued to push a slice of fried potato listlessly
around her plate, shrinking under the weight of Peter's baleful scrutiny.

"I am sure you will have another child someday, Peter," Siegfried said
quietly.

"Yeah, I hope so, too." Peter said, savagely mincing a sausage.

"Now, then," Siegfried said, as he leaned back and folded his arms. "Maria has
given you some excellent advice, Alice. I hope you will not argue further."

Alice itched to slap the smug expression off his face, but she was suddenly too
tired, especially with Peter and Maria against her. She threw down her napkin and
pushed herself up from the table. "Fine! I'll just go take a nap, then."

She had been hoping to shock them with her slothfulness, but to her dismay,
everyone nodded approvingly, as if naps were a normal and accepted practice
during the busiest season of the year. Maria gave her a weak smile.

Alice pulled herself slowly up the stairs by the banister and plodded to her
bedroom. She was a coward. She ought to have defended her right to attend, but
even her friends had become Siegfried's allies. She didn't have the strength to
stand against all of them.

As she sank down onto her bed, she tried to tell herself that she hadn't really
wanted to go to the horrid old meeting, anyway. Siegfried had saved her from
hours of sitting in a room filled with men who hadn't yet prepared themselves for
the inevitable.

Siegfried may hate me, but thank God Montclair has been spared the fate
of the other vineyards
, she thought, as sleep washed over her.
Thank
God
.

* * *

Siegfried stopped the truck at the Montclair gates and walked over to the
mailbox, where the mailman, a ruddy-faced fellow with grizzled hair and whiskers,
had just pedaled up on his bicycle.

"Mornin'--terrible day, ain't it?" Mr. Tester complained at Siegfried's greeting,
wiping his forehead with a large red handkerchief. He pointed northwest toward an
ugly tower of khaki smoke rising high into the sky. It was unthinkably huge to be
visible from so far away. "I heard the fire's nearly out of control, way north of
Healdsburg. I wish it'd start rainin'."

"Not until after harvest!" Siegfried exclaimed. He was sorry for anybody in
danger from fire, but his grapes needed at least another day of sun to develop the
right amount of sugar.

"Didn't they pass a law against the harvest? Damn politicians," Tester said,
rummaging in his satchel. "Ah, here you are." He handed Siegfried a small bundle
of mail. "There's a real nice envelope for you from Mr. La Fontaine. Hope it's good
news for you!" He waved, and remounting his bicycle, continued on his way down
the road.

Siegfried held the envelope, struck dumb with anticipation. Here was his fate,
wrapped in creamy linen with an imprinted name and address.

"So--what is it?" Peter demanded. "Did you ask La Fontaine for a contract?"
His eager gaze was riveted on the envelope. "That was damned clever of you,
Sig."

His fingers trembling, Siegfried tore an edge down one short side of the
envelope, and extracted the thick note paper from within.

My Dear Mr. Rodernwiller:

While I am sensible of the debt of gratitude which I owed to your
grandfather, I am most heartily sorry to inform you that I have already contracted
for as much additional wine, over the products of my own vineyards, as I may sell
within the license granted Fountainview.

I may, however, in future, have the need and the sanction to sell a greater
volume of wine than, at present, I am allowed. If such occurs, I will gladly consider
your offer to provide me with the highest-quality Burgundy from Montclair. I do
recall with great fondness the superb vintages that your grandfather used to make.
If you can match them, you will be his worthy inheritor.

I remain yours most sincerely,

Charles La Fontaine

"
Ach Gott
," Siegfried grunted.

"Don't tell me--he turned you down? God damn." Peter slumped in the
passenger seat of the Model-T. "What do we do now?"

Siegfried set his teeth and put the truck in gear. "Now we go to the
meeting."

* * *

Santa Rosa, Wednesday, September 24

The sun was an evil penny in the tawny pall of smoke covering the sky. Flakes
of ash fell like dead snow as Siegfried and Peter climbed the steps to the Sonoma
County Courthouse.

Siegfried wrenched open the door to the Supervisors' chambers and a babel of
voices escaped the crowded room. Every winemaker and grape-grower in the
county from Agua Caliente to Windsor--representatives from over two hundred and
fifty businesses--had come to this meeting.

Peter followed Siegfried toward a pair of seats remaining open, amidst a
gaggle of Dry Creek vineyardists from west of Healdsburg. The Sonoma
contingent had already filled up the rows closest to the speaker's podium, and all
were shouting at one another.

Mr. Victor Piezzi, President of the Association, appeared at the speaker's
podium, but no one noticed for a while. Eventually pockets of silence grew. Then
there was a concerted scraping of chairs and almost everyone sat down. There
were more attendees than chairs, though, so the walls were lined with standing
men.

Piezzi got right down to business. "As you all know, Judge Van Fleet ruled
Wartime Prohibition constitutional. He stated that wine grapes are a food or fruit to
be conserved for the army, which means we will not legally be able to make wine
from this year's grape crop."

Although this was no surprise, a discordant groan answered the bald
statement of fact.

A small man stood, holding his hat against his chest. "I'm the manager at the
Asti vineyard. We've converted to grape juice. I can recommend this as a measure
to avoid a total loss on this year's crop."

"You're a big operation!" an anonymous voice called out. "Most of us little guys
don't have the facilities to switch over to refrigeration--or the money!"

"Those Prohibition biddies give me a pain! 'Just make grape juice!'" Peter
muttered to Siegfried. "You can't
stop
fermentation once the grapes have
been pressed!"