Sweeter Than Wine (43 page)

He did not care where he was headed; he was homeless, and hopeless, once
more. The silhouettes of the rounded hills were the hips and shoulders of giant
sleeping women against the faint wash of starlight. Crickets creaked with harsh
repetition:
geh-veck, geh-veck, geh-veck
.

Go away, go away, go away
.

Should he go to San Francisco, and throw himself on
Oma
Tati's
mercy? The thought repelled him but he had no choice. Her well-meaning
interference had brought him nothing but grief--worse than the fear he had
endured in that hospital on the Front, his leg rotten and stinking like the wounds of
the men dying around him.

He had healed, he had survived only to endure
this
.

Alice
. He luxuriated in a dream of returning to Montclair, begging her
forgiveness on his knees. She would place her hand on his head, her hazel eyes
glowing with tender emotion, and say softly that she forgave him. And then he
would carry her upstairs, let down her beautiful hair, and...

Siegfried stifled a groan. No such thing would happen. He had lost another
war, defeated by his own stupidity.

His feet crunched on gravel. He had arrived at the long driveway leading to the
Rhine Farm house, south of Montclair. Should he go up? Lighted windows upstairs
beckoned him, so he walked to the door, put down his suitcase, his fingers
tingling, and knocked.

"Coming!" came the faint call.

When Walter Bundschu opened the door, it appeared that he had already
retired for the evening; his graying hair was mussed, and he was tying the sash of
a paisley dressing robe. "Mr. Rodernwiller! What are you doing here?" Bundschu
exclaimed. He saw Siegfried's suitcase. "What--you're going on a trip? At this hour
of the night?"

"I am a fool, Mr. Bundschu. A damned fool who has just lost everything he
loved. May I beg a bed for the night? There is no train leaving for San Francisco
until morning."

Mr. Bundschu ushered him in, tut-tutting with understanding sympathy. "Oh,
come now! All newlyweds have their trials, but surely it can't be so bad!"

"Walter, who's that at the door?" Mrs. Bundschu appeared at the top of the
stairs, securely wrapped in a flower-print kimono, her faded fair hair hanging in two
long plaits over her shoulders. "Oh, hello, Mr. Rodernwiller! My goodness--what
happened?"

"Nothing you need concern yourself with," Bundschu said, winking broadly at
her. "I was just about to offer our neighbor a glass of wine and the advice of an old
married man. Could you make up the spare bedroom?"

"Oh. I
see
, " said Mrs. Bundschu, with sudden grave comprehension.
"Let me take your suitcase, young man. Walter, I think you should open a bottle of
the reserve port."

"I was just thinking that, my dear." Bundschu took Siegfried by the elbow and
steered him gently into the parlor. "You look awful, Siegfried--you don't mind if I
address you so familiarly?"

Siegfried shook his head. He felt like hell.

"No? Good. Please, call me Walter. Now, what exactly has happened?"

* * *

"...and then she ordered me out.
Ach Gott
, I've been the worst sort of
cad." Siegfried leaned back in his armchair some time later. He blinked away
moisture from his eyes. "I have ruined everything by my deceit. I am a fool," he
said glumly, for the tenth time. "A stupid, arrogant, lying fool."

"You certainly have got a lot to answer for," Bundschu said sternly, peering at
Siegfried over the tops of his steel-rimmed spectacles. "And I can't say I blame
your wife one bit. I would have done the same, and thrashed you in the bargain."
He leaned forward. "But are you
really
going to abandon a pregnant woman
to run Montclair by herself, without a foreman, and the black grapes still left to
harvest?"

Siegfried swallowed hard, thinking of Alice, growing thinner and paler every
day. What if something happened to her baby?
His
baby.

He set down his empty port glass. "You're right. I have to go back. Tomorrow
morning, I'll beg her to let me make amends. I will continue working for her. I'll
sleep in the cottage, I'll even eat with the pickers--"

A giant
boom
shivered through the windowpanes, making the
reflections on the smooth black glass quiver and dance. The air rang like a
monstrous bell.

"What was
that
?" asked Bundschu, leaping to his feet.

"An explosion," said Siegfried, with horrible certainty. The echoes reverberated
through the valley as the two men lifted up the window in joint effort, and stuck
their heads out to look out.

An orange glow rose up over the trees. Siegfried's heartbeat quick-marched.
"My winery! My winery is burning!"

Footsteps sounded outside the library door, then Mrs. Bundschu flung it open.
"Walter, what's going on? What was that noise?"

"There's a fire. The Montclair tanks just exploded! Telephone the fire
department. I'll take the car and see what we can do!"

As Bundschu stopped at his door and bent to slip galoshes over his bare feet,
Siegfried sprinted outside and began cranking the Bundschu's parked Ford.
Lieber Gott, ich bitte Dich,
Siegfried prayed as he turned the handle with
desperate strength.
Let Alice and our baby be safe. Please, God.

The engine caught on the upstroke, springing to life with a vicious growl. Clad
in his pajamas and robe, Bundschu came trotting out of the house and jumped into
the car as Siegfried put it in gear.

"I
know
I put out the fire under the still," Siegfried fretted. He took the
ruts in the ridgetop road leading to the back of the winery at a far higher speed
than he would have dared in daylight. Fortunately, the side-lights on the old car
shone brightly enough. "I sent Peter away, and then I put the fire out. I know I
did!"

"Won't know what happened till we get there," Bundschu tried to soothe
Siegfried. "Keep driving, son."

They jounced and skidded as he took a turn too fast. Bundschu hung on for
dear life, and craned forward beyond the range of the side lamps. He clucked his
tongue.

"What?" Siegfried demanded.

"The winery's a solid wall of flames." They both flinched as another boom rent
the night. "I'm so sorry."

The car's tires slid across dirt as Siegfried smashed all three pedals to the
floor. He was out before the car came to a full stop at the loading platform, running
down to the winery entrance.

He tried to outrun the thought that now he would never know what flavors this
child of his hands would have shown at maturity.

He stopped short of the building. It was no use trying to save it. Even if the fire
department arrived now, there wasn't enough water in the pond to begin to put out
a blaze like this. The roof was ablaze, as was the interior of the stone building. The
stones cracked and popped from the heat, and oozed wine from cracks. The fire
laughed as it devoured his precious cooperage.

A gush of liquid two feet deep sloshed out as the front door gave way. The
broken, burning tanks were bleeding wine. Splashing runnels cascaded down the
path. The wine put out the fire at the door's foot, but the old wood lintel burned
blue.

Siegfried stood staring at the inferno, turned to stone by the Medusa face of
fire at the winery's entrance, her snaky locks writhing skyward.

The heat blistered his skin. He retreated, and heard Bundschu shout, "The
house--the house is burning, too!"

Siegfried ran downhill, racing the river of wine, heedless of slippery gravel and
slick mud, sliding and leaping as his heart stood still. The back wall of the house
stuck out a tongue of fire. He lengthened his stride.

As he rounded the corner by the vegetable garden, he saw Maria, dressed in
her nightgown. She sat on the ground against the picket fence, seemingly
insensible of the flood of wine that foamed around her. She held something in her
arms--something large, and dark, and limp.

Firelit tears streaked her cheeks. She rocked back and forth. Her eyes gazed
in Siegfried's direction, but she did not register his presence.

Siegfried crossed himself.

Peter's body lay in Maria's arms, his sightless eyes open. Something had
smashed in one side of his head. The shoulder of Maria's gown was stained with
his blood.

"Maria!" Siegfried gasped. "Maria! Where is Alice?"

Her face turned blindly in his direction. "Hugh Roye killed my husband." She
started shaking, and her next question was pitifully plaintive. "What am I going to
do?" She bent her head, resting her cheek against Peter's untouched hair. "What
am I going to do?" She resumed rocking back and forth over her husband's
corpse.

Terror seized Siegfried.
Hugh
. He had come, and set the fire. Peter
must have surprised him at it and paid the ultimate price trying to defend
Montclair.

In another moment he spotted Hugh, a shovel dangling loosely from one hand,
standing near the smoking porch steps. As Siegfried approached, Hugh did not
turn around. He seemed mesmerized by the burning house, lit in lurid reds by the
flames leaping from the winery.

"
Du Scheißkerl
!" Siegfried grabbed his cousin from behind, and shook
him like a rat. Hugh's head snapped back and forth and he almost fell. Siegfried
grabbed his shirt collar and hauled him around. "How could you do this!" His
hands slid up and closed around Hugh's throat.

"Stop! Stop it! I didn't--!" Hugh clawed at Siegfried's hands but was unable to
loosen their strangling grip. His lips moved:
Alice is still inside!

The unvoiced words left Siegfried feeling gutted. He flung Hugh roughly out of
the way and ran up the porch steps. The kitchen door was burning, thick wisps of
smoke coiling up to the night sky, so he followed the porch around to the front
door. The door knob refused to turn. He rattled it with wild incomprehension, trying
to force it open. It had
never
been locked as long as he had been living at
Montclair.

He pushed himself away from the unyielding door with a frustrated growl. He
scanned the exterior of the house, then dashed several steps to his right. Pulling
back his arm, he punched a hole in the parlor window.

The impact numbed his hand, but there was no time to stop and examine it.
He reached through the hole, forcing his forearm through the barrier of jagged
shards, and fumbled open the small metal latch. Then he was able to slide the
window up with a mighty heave and scramble over the sill, awkwardly tumbling
inside.

The house was black with choking smoke. Siegfried rolled to his feet and
shouted Alice's name, doubling over in a fit of coughing.

He groped for the parlor door, then blundered down the front hall. Acrid clouds
of smoke billowed from the kitchen, and flames hissed and crackled in the dining
room. Red streamers of light reflected off the hallway walls.

Siegfried slammed shut the dining room doors, trying to keep the fire from the
stairs for another minute. Then, dangerously lightheaded and gasping for breath,
he ran upstairs. He pushed open Alice's bedroom door. "Alice!"

She lay curled on the bed, limp and unmoving. Siegfried's heart contracted
painfully.
Was she hurt
? He shook her shoulder. "Alice--wake up! The
house is on fire!"

Alice muttered something incoherent and tried to roll away from him. A wave of
pure alcoholic fumes rose up as the empty green
grappa
bottle fell from her
fingers.

Of all the times to abandon her habit of moderation!

He bent, scooped her up from the bed, flung her over his shoulder in a
fireman's hold, and stumbled back out into the hallway. His throat and lungs raw,
Siegfried coughed steadily as he descended stair by stair, gripping the sturdy
banister, his precious burden balanced carefully. A hot draft blew upwards, and he
tried to hurry his painfully slow descent, but the blinding smoke grew turgid in a
living nightmare. He wanted to run, but he could not.

At every step down, his knees felt increasingly rubbery. He could not see for
smoke, and tears, and darkness. He was aware only of the solid wood under his
feet, and the warm bulk of Alice's body.

After an eternity of reaching down cautiously with his foot for the next step, he
realized that he was at the bottom of the staircase. Dizzy now, he wavered as he
clung to the rounded newel post. He marshaled the last dregs of his strength to let
go of the newel and sprint to the end of the hall. He knew the tall square of the
front door stood guard there. He just couldn't
see
it. It was an unattainable
distance away down the dark hallway.

He took one step forward, but a cold, tenacious, winter-in-the-trenches chill
seized him deep in his bones. He couldn't feel his arms any more. He glanced
sideways to make sure Alice's legs and derriere were firmly encircled by his grip.
He froze in horror.

A huge, dark stain spread over her white nightgown, starting where his right
arm crossed the back of her thighs.
The baby!
Please, God, don't let her
lose our baby!

He locked his knees together. The roaring of the fire was drowned out by a
shrill whine of blood in his ears. He had sworn to save Montclair--or die trying.

He had failed. Utterly failed. He had worked so hard, and yet brought nothing
but ruin.
Ah-lees, I am so sorry.
He pressed his cheek into the soft curve of
her hip. She squirmed, feebly, then fell still.
Ah-lees.
Was she dead,
too?

The smoky darkness filled with blue and yellow sparkles. He tried to take
another step forward, but someone had amputated his legs. He did not feel his
body hit the floor.

Montclair, Thursday, October 9

Alice was having the strangest dream. She was hot, and someone was
jumping on her stomach. Her head hurt, and everything was swinging wildly about.
She coughed, trying to keep nausea at bay, and tasted smoke. But she did not
quite wake up from her
grappa
-induced stupor because Siegfried had his
arms around her, and that meant she was safe. But why did it feel like she was
hanging onto him...
upside-down?