Blondine frowned and made atsking sound.
“Honestly, it has been a nice change of pace,” Rosalyn continued. “The only problem is that I’m not getting any work done. No one seems to be around.”
“We allow the vines to rest from mid-December to mid-January, so a lot of people leave town for the holidays. Like me! It is a tyranny, working on the farms, following the agricultural schedule. I don’t know why anyone would go into this business.”
“Aren’tyouin this business?”
She twisted her mouth. “Only because I have no choice, really. There is a great deal of pressure to keep the family business going. And my father...” She shrugged. “You will see. Gaspard is a bit of a despot.”
Rosalyn was concentrating on understanding the French, and wasn’t sure she caught everything. “What do you mean—he is a despot?”
“You will see soon enough, when you meet him. Besides, I am the only one who can speak English with our clients.”
Rosalyn couldn’t help but notice that, so far, Blondine had spoken only in French to her.
“My father will return soon to prune and tie up the vines; he likes to begin early, when he can get a good crew together. We will show you.”
Rosalyn nodded, though she wasn’t especially interested; she had seen plenty of vines being tied up in Napa every season. But listening to Blondine made Rosalyn realize just how far away Napa and the Small Fortune Wines office were. She was in daily e-mail contact,and had been gone only a week, but it seemed like more. Cochet felt like another world.
She was a jumble of contradictory emotions: On the one hand it was a profound relief to be somewhere new and foreign, where she wasn’t a widow, where people didn’t know about the sorrow she carried. At the same time, she was loath to let go of the grief. It felt like her last tangible connection to Dash.
Rosalyn realized she had lost the thread of what Blondine was saying, though it appeared not to matter. Blondine seemed to leave no thought unarticulated, and rarely required a response. As they walked along, she pointed out the house of this person and that, complained about how few services there were in town, and bemoaned the lack of aboulangerie. The nearest gas station was the one that Rosalyn had found two villages over, where she had encountered Jérôme Comtois.
They passed the old stone church with a small cemetery, surrounded by a walled garden. Rosalyn noted that the slabs of stone and crypts were aboveground, similar to those she had seen on a trip with Dash to New Orleans. Many were topped with silk flowers and framed photographs of the lost beloved.
“Nearly every village in France, no matter how small, has a church,” Blondine explained, noting her interest. “But things have changed; there are not enough priests to go around, or enough old people to attend services, so we have to share priests—that’s why mass is celebrated here only every four or five weeks. You can drive to different villages if you want to attend mass each Sunday.”
“Are all French people Catholic?” Rosalyn asked.
“Bien sûr,”she answered quickly. “Of course. At least, in the countryside. We are raised Catholic, though we’re not allCatholic. Not like the old days. Now we get married and buried in the church—that’s about all. Not many people go every Sunday, mostlyjust the old people. There are a few Protestants... but most are still Catholic.”
Blondine pointed out the auto repair shop as they passed by. “An old priest runs that auto repair shop.”
“Really? A priest?”
“An ex-priest, I suppose, though once a priest, always a priest. But he was asked to leave the church.”
“What did he do?”
“He fell in love,” Blondine said with a little sigh. “I think this is very romantic. Don’t you? Imagine leaving the church for the person you love.”
Rosalyn smiled. “I suppose it depends on how one feels about his commitment to the church. I don’t know much about it. I wasn’t raised Catholic.”
“You weren’t? What are you?”
“I’m... not much of anything, I guess. My background is sort of generalized Protestantism.”
Rosalyn said this last, “generalized Protestantism,” in English since she couldn’t fathom how to translate it.
Blondine turned to her, a frown marring her smooth brow.“Je ne comprends pas.”
Rosalyn relapsed into French, saying: “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t grow up in a churchgoing family. So, the priest was asked to leave the church because he fell in love with a woman?” Rosalyn asked, hoping to change the subject. “That seems harsh.”
“Oh no, the reason it was so shocking wasn’t that he fell in love, but that he fell in love with aman.” She lifted one eyebrow and gave Rosalyn a significant glance. “I don’t think I have to tell you that this is not California. These things are still whispered about in small towns here....” She let out a sigh. “ButIthink it’s a romantic story, to give up so much for the one you love, whether woman or man.”
“Are they still together?”
She shook her head. “It is very sad. His love was killed in the Algerian war.”
