Then he stood up and sighed deeply, paced up and down the vaulted corridor. It had been dug out and built after the First World War; his parents and paternal grandparents had learned from the Germans’ progress back then. The plan was to create an easy passage to the next vineyard that they could use to smuggle and hide bottles of wine, or as an escape route if they needed to flee.
Mathieu’s family had chosen to stay put when the Germans came to the village this time. It had been too late to run by the time they found out that France had capitulated and that the Germans had begun to occupy large parts of the country. The family had stayed even after the Germans reached Bordeaux; they had nowhere else to go, and they wanted to protect the vineyard as much as possible.
The cellar and these corridors had become Mathieu’s refuge.
He moved toward the hatch and took a couple of steps up the wooden ladder, taking care not to let it creak.
He was so tired of being a prisoner in his own home, but even before the war there had been rumors about him and Gerard. He had never mentioned their relationship to his parents, and they hadn’t asked. Maybe they didn’t want to know. He and Gerard had kept it a secret, as far as they were able, but once the rumors started, his parents had warned him to be careful.
Gerard’s parents, on the other hand, had been furious when they heard.
Then both Mathieu and Gerard had been called up to join the army. When Mathieu later returned to the village, Bordeaux was occupied. He and his parents tried to live as normal, even though everything had changed. That’s when they became a part of the resistance movement.
Then the deportations began. Jews and communists. Mathieu’s family helped out as best they could. They received reports from other parts of France: Men were being taken prisoner and removed from the villages, herded onto trains and buses and transported far away—no one knew where they had gone. Men who had sexual relations with other men were taken away along with the Jews and the communists. Mathieu didn’t know what the Nazis might have heard about him, but he knew that they were going around with lists asking about this and that—trying to get people to inform on their neighbors.
One cold gray day in the fall, after Mathieu had been out in the forest foraging for mushrooms, his mother came to meet him on his way back to the vineyard. She was running, her cheeks were red.
“Mathieu, Mathieu. My son, my darling son.” She drew him close.
“Mom—what’s happened?” Her gray eyes were filled with tears. She was smiling with relief even as horror was etched on her face.
She held his face between her hands. “They came looking for you. The Nazis. They came and asked about you.” She took a breath. “Come back to the house, you can’t be outside.”
Since then Mathieu had hidden whenever anyone came by. Not because he and his parents didn’t trust their friends—everyone in the village stuck together. The solidarity since war broke out had been unshakable. Still, the fewer people who knew where he was, the better. Only their closest neighbors, Monsieur and Madame Fossey, knew that Mathieu was still at home. It wasn’t clear why the Nazis had asked about him—perhaps they suspected he was involved in the resistance, or maybe they had heard the rumors about him and Gerard.
So Mathieu had stayed hidden. And although he was tired of it, he knew it was the safest option.
He had cooperated mainly for his mother’s sake, but now he felt he couldn’t stand it for a second longer. If the guest was a part of the resistance, then surely he wouldn’t say anything about Mathieu to the Nazis? If he was taken prisoner and forced to talk, then they would be lost anyway. All of them.
He would speak to his mother later in the day. But first he was going to sneak upstairs and get some fresh air before their guest came down.
It was worth the risk.
When Sven woke up on his second day at the vineyard, after a deep, sound sleep, he sat on the bed for a little while. It was still early, the sun had just risen. He opened the window and let the pleasant morning breeze sweep into the room as he listened to the birdsong. Sometimes it was hard to grasp that half of Europe was at war, in flames.
He got dressed and went down to the kitchen. Hugo and Juliette were still asleep, and he thought he would make them breakfast.
He was peeling the hard-boiled eggs when he heard a thud from the bedroom, then another, followed by the sound of whispering voices. Hugo and Juliette seemed to be talking to someone. Had they had a visitor during the night? Someone from the resistance?
Then the noise level rose, and there were more loud thuds. It almost sounded as if a fight was going on in there—was it an intruder? Sven rushed toward the bedroom door. The soldier within him was on full alert, his senses sharpened, and he glanced into the hallway to check if there was anyone else there. The voices in the bedroom were clearly agitated now.
“Please,” Juliette begged.
Was it the Nazis?
Sven flung open the door.
Juliette, wearing a nightdress and with her hair in a loose braid, was holding a young man’s shoulders in a firm grip. A hatch in the floor next to the bed was open, and it looked as if she was trying to force the young man down into the hole, while he did his best to resist. Hugo was standing to one side, watching the spectacle.
“Let him come up,chérie,” Hugo said with a sigh.
“I refuse to be a prisoner in my own home!” the man said.
Only then did they notice Sven.
The man was around Sven’s age, slim, of medium height. He had the same big gray-blue eyes as Juliette, and Hugo’s chiseled jawline. Tousled light-brown hair that made Sven think of poets and artists.
“Is everything okay in here?” he asked as he backed away. It was clear that the man was no stranger. Sven realized this had nothing to do with him, and he needed to apologize. “I’m so sorry, but I heard voices and there seemed to be some sort of argument going on, so I ...”
