Sweeter Than Wine (28 page)

Then it hit her. Eagerly, she picked up her mother's gift and held it appraisingly
to the light. With all those diamonds, it might be worth enough to buy plum trees to
replace the vines. She put the dragonfly brooch in her box and closed the lid,
already planning her next trip to San Francisco.

Sonoma, Thursday, June 26

Siegfried stalled the truck a few times before he crossed the railroad tracks by
the gray stone Sebastiani winery on the edge of town.

He finally puzzled out, through trial and error, the unfamiliar gearshift: clutch,
reverse and brake pedals on the floor, throttle and spark levers on the steering
column, and one floor lever to the left of the driver. Failing to correctly set the
steering wheel levers stalled out the engine. The leftmost pedal put the Ford in first
gear if the floor lever was upright. To shift into second gear, the lever had to be
pushed forward while the pedal was depressed. Stepping on all three pedals at
once locked the transmission.

It was, as Peter had warned, quite different from Father's Daimler, but by the
time Siegfried turned left onto the dirt road that led east to Napa, he had the hang
of it.

The truck, properly handled, eagerly traveled mile after bumpy mile. Summer
sunlight and blue sky leaked through cracks in the gray cloud cover, altering
irregular dun hills to heaps of gold tarnished by gnarled old oaks. As he passed
isolated homesteads protected by lines of cypress or eucalyptus trees, he was
stung by homesickness for sights he would never see again: the perfect mountain
cone of Haut Königsbourg, its slopes blanketed by rich green pines and glossy-
leafed beeches, its castle-crowned peak guarding the verdant plain of Alsace;
roads shaded by cherry trees and poplars; a mosaic of vineyards and fields dotted
with villages where ornate church spires guarded red, sharp-roofed houses.

Instead, around the next bend, he was treated to an immense vista of silver-
green San Pablo Bay stretching south to the Golden Gate. A red-tailed hawk flew
in serene circles overhead. San Francisco was a slash of white along the far
distant shore.

He drove on.

Rattling down the rutted Main Street in the so-called City of Napa, memory
superimposed the pastel stuccoed houses and
Winstuben
of home over
this rough little railroad town of plain wooden stair-step storefronts and telegraph
wires.

All the way to Calistoga, driving past vineyards and orchards of plums and
olives, while the stony irregular peak of Mount St. Helena crowned the sky, he
tried to shake off the mood of nostalgia.
The past is dead. Montclair's future
depends on me.

Siegfried slowed the Ford to a crawl and turned left just past a large tile-roofed
winery covered with ivy. He had arrived at Fountainview. Flat vineyards stretched
away on both sides of a narrow unmarked lane, while the Sonoma-Napa
mountains loomed high ahead. After a half-mile drive, he parked next to an
outbuilding and fetched one of the wine bottles from the case in the truck bed.

Opa
Roye had once described La Fontaine's house as a country
cottage, unpretentious yet luxurious. There was a large, rambling, English-style
garden, vibrant in pinks and purples. Wicker furniture on the verandah looked
comfortable and well-used. As Siegfried climbed the steps to the front porch he
noticed lace curtains in the windows. He remembered
Opa
telling him that
Madame La Fontaine was Alsatian, and tried to quell his anticipation. He couldn't
wait to hear a familiar accent again.

He lifted the heavy brass knocker, let it fall, and waited.

No one came to answer the door. Siegfried tried the knocker again. There was
still no response.

His heart sank. Had the family left Fountainview for the day to picnic? Had
they gone into town for some shopping?

Siegfried kicked himself for not telephoning first. But then, Alice would have
known where he was going, and his surprise would have been ruined. Well, it was
ruined anyway. He trudged back toward the truck, all his hopes dashed.

Footsteps sounded from behind the outbuilding, a painted wooden shed. A
man appeared, wearing the denim overalls of a vineyard worker and carrying a
large pair of pruning shears. "What are you doing here?" he asked in a gravelly
whisper.

There was something wrong with his voice, his face. Siegfried realized that the
man's mouth hadn't moved when he spoke, and the words were strangely
distorted, even allowing for a French accent.

"Ah, hallo," Siegfried said, uneasy under the man's baleful dark-eyed glare. "I
was seeking Mr. La Fontaine."

The man's eyes narrowed in sullen dislike. "I am Jean Aramon, Monsieur La
Fontaine's foreman. What do you want with him?"

Siegfried hefted his bottle. The wine inside caught the light, garnet filtered
through dark green glass. "I am Siegfried Rodernwiller, an acquaintance of
Monsieur La Fontaine. When will he be back?" Siegfried spoke in French, and
instantly knew he had made a mistake.

"'Back?' He won't be 'back' for several weeks,
boche
," Aramon rasped.
"And if you were indeed acquainted with
M'sieu
and
Madame
La
Fontaine, you would know they live in San Francisco, and only come here to take
summer holiday and for crush. Now, get off this property."

"Could you at least give Monsieur La Fontaine my regards when he returns?"
Siegfried asked desperately. He could not believe his poor luck. It had taken him
nearly two hours to drive to Fountainview. He held out the bottle of wine.

"I said,
out
, you filthy German pig!" the other snarled, the upper part of
his face contorting as he swung his long-handled pruning shears like a sword.

Siegfried stepped back and parried the blow with an unthinking motion born of
long hours of bayonet practice. There was a numbing impact and the bottle
exploded in a shower of liquid and long, jagged shards of glass. Only the neck
remained in his hand. Red wine spilled like blood onto the dust of the road.

The foreman brandished his weapon again and the lifelike mask concealing
his face fell off. A hole gaped where a nose belonged, and where his lips had been
was a mass of pink scar tissue puckered into a permanent sneer. Siegfried
recoiled: he had seen similar scars on men whose faces had literally been torn off
by shrapnel.

Hanging onto the shreds of his dignity, Siegfried spread his hands in surrender
and dropped the bottle remnant. It landed close to the false nose, the faintly
smiling sculptured lips. Although they had been on opposite sides of the late
conflict, Siegfried felt an uneasy kinship for Aramon, a fellow casualty. "I will leave
now," he said, then slowly backed towards the Model-T.

"Good riddance!" Aramon spat. Hatred emanated from him like a bad smell,
but he did not attack while Siegfried cranked the truck to a reluctant start.

He was a mile south of Calistoga before he noticed that there was blood
mingled with the wine staining his right hand and shirtsleeve. He had not felt the
cut before; now, perversely, it began to sting mightily. He cursed and bound his
purple-stained handkerchief around his palm, tightening the knot with his teeth and
a grimace.

He drove without seeing the road.
I am a coward
. He had backed down
from a fight, hoping to avoid trouble. What kind of a man was he? He couldn't even
face down an insolent farm hand. A wounded man.

And he hadn't gotten the contract. Shame rose sour in his throat. He was
penniless, worthless. It was no wonder Alice did not want him.

On a desolate stretch of sere countryside he heard a sharp
swop
! from
the front end of the car. The Model-T lurched and abruptly listed to one side.
Siegfried stamped on all three pedals, bringing the car to a slithering white-
knuckled halt. He emerged to inspect the damage.

The tire was in tatters. It had burst and could not be patched. And the spare
was also flat, unrepaired from yesterday's misfortune.

"
Verdammter Reifen!
" Siegfried kicked the offending wheel. He spent a
few moments more venting his wrath on the silent black hulk. "
Verdammtes
Fahrzeug
!"

He was shaking. His hand hurt, his stomach burned, and a headache throbbed
behind his eyes. He had missed dinner; now it looked as though he would miss
supper, too. He wished he had gotten Maria to make some sandwiches for him,
but he had only the remaining bottle of wine. And that was not, as he well knew
from hungry nights in the trenches, a sustaining meal by itself.

He rummaged in the toolbox mounted on the running board for the tire-repair
kit and pump. He applied a vulcanized rubber patch to the flat spare, then waited
impatiently until the cement dried. He slammed air back into the tire with vicious
bursts of the pump handle. The task, so easy under Alice's admiring gaze
yesterday, took him nearly an hour and half and left him weak with impotent
rage.

When he re-started the motor, the kick-back of the crank almost broke his
thumb. The steering wheel fought him and it seemed hours later when he finally
reached Montclair's long drive. Dusk and fatigue blurred the vines and the white
house above. In a daze he started driving up the hill. As the engine sputtered and
died halfway up, he remembered, belatedly, what Alice had told him about backing
the truck up the slope.

The porch light came on. She was waiting for him.

His humiliation was complete.

* * *

Alice ran down the hill. Her initial relief on hearing that Siegfried had gone had
turned eventually into annoyance that he hadn't said where he was going, but
exasperation had long since deteriorated into worry. "Are you all right?" she
called.

As she drew nearer, Siegfried climbed slowly out of the truck, moving stiffly.
He steadied himself on the doorframe, and stood staring at the Ford as if he
couldn't quite comprehend what it was doing there, a charcoal gray shadow in the
mauve twilight.

Her steps slowed as she saw dark stains on his shirtsleeves and caught the
reek of stale wine.
He's drunk!?
"Don't worry about the truck," she assured
him soothingly. "We can move it tomorrow morning."

"I'm not--" he said haltingly. "I'm sorry about..." he waved vaguely, and
staggered.

Alice suppressed the urge to catch him. She had never seen him under the
influence before; she didn't know if he'd fall over, be sloppily grateful, or start
swinging at her. "Why don't you come inside?" she coaxed. "I'll fix you some
supper and some hot coffee."

"Supper," Siegfried echoed. "Yes. That would be good." He pushed himself
upright, and tottered up the hill.

Alice was unsure of her diagnosis by the time they entered the house. Even
though the scent of wine was stronger than ever, Siegfried was white as a sheet
instead of being flushed with drink. Then she saw the bloody handkerchief
bandaging his hand. Had he been fighting again? "What happened?"

"Nothing. I broke one of the bottles. I should wash up." He wandered toward
the stairs.

She caught at his sleeve. If he fell in this condition, she couldn't carry him.
"Why don't you use the kitchen sink while I make sandwiches?"

* * *

Siegfried washed his hands in numb silence, grateful for Alice's solicitude.
When he collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table, she placed a plate of thick-
sliced roast beef sandwiches before him. He fell upon them as Alice ground coffee
and set water to boil.

After the first few bites, his headache began to recede. He was appalled at
how soft he had become. After all the privations he had suffered during the War,
missing only two meals had put him into this weak and quivering state.

Alice, her color high, poured coffee for him. She did not sit down.

Siegfried finished one sandwich and then started in on the second one, letting
the pleasant sound of Alice's bustling about the kitchen flow past him. The next
time he lifted the coffee cup to his lips, his hands had stopped shaking. He finished
the last bite and pushed his plate away with a contented sigh, astonishingly
revived. He cleared his throat and steeled himself to tell her the unhappy news of
his day. "I am sorry to have taken your truck without asking you."

"No, no, that's all right," Alice said, fidgeting with a fork in the sink. She refused
to meet his eyes. "You don't have to account for every minute to me."

"I went because--"

"You should know--" Alice bit her lip. She reached into the pocket of her apron,
drew out a crumpled envelope. "This arrived in the mail today."

Siegfried took the proffered envelope and pulled out the letter.

My dear Mrs. Roye,

I regret to inform you that I am unable to testify to the quality of the wines
produced by the Montclair vineyards as I am unfamiliar with your products.

When we do grant a license to produce wines used in the Holy Sacrifice, we
require that they be produced under the direction of practical Catholics who have
the proper reverence and appreciation for the holy purpose for which they are to
be used.

Thank you for your inquiry, and God bless you.

Very sincerely yours,

John Hanna

Archbishop of San Francisco

"...I suppose he felt that wine made by a woman wasn't appropriate for Mass.
I'm sorry you won't have the chance to offer him your wine," she was saying in a
low voice, very fast. "It looks like Wartime Prohibition will go into effect, so this
harvest we can sell table grapes, grape juice, grape syrup, even raisins. But Hugh
was right. We should pull out the vines after this harvest and plant plums."

Plums? Plums for prunes
?

The last of the dishes landed in the sink with a muted clatter.

"Alice."

She kept her back to him. "You're a wonderful vintner. I would hate to see you
waste your skills here on just plain farming. You should practice your art where it
will be appreciated." A long pause. "But, of course, you're welcome to stay here
until you find a new position."