Madame Pommery named several sections of the caves in homage to her best customers: Rio de Janeiro, Dakar, Havana, Bruxelles. My mother, father, and brother and I have made a place for ourselves in the Dakar niche, shifting stacks of bottles andpupitres—the special racks used to keep the bottles neck down—to serve as partitions. Privacy is one of the many luxuries we have lost in this war.
There is a hole nearly hidden at the back of Dakar, in the wall of our niche, and I crawl through with my candle in hand, feeling very much like Alice in Wonderland. My mother says it is inappropriate, that only rats crawl through holes in the ground. But it is difficult to keep up such arbitrary standards, even for her; she scolds me, but her attention is soon diverted by her knitting, and she is once again lost in the world of her wool, purling and counting stitches.
On the other side of the small opening is a series of crude stairs carved out of solid chalk. At the top of the steps is another small room, this one big enough only for a blanket. A couple of small shafts allow for air circulation, but nonetheless it feels a bit like a tomb. I have squirreled away several books I rescued from the rubble, and a couple I was able to salvage from our old house, from our old life: Jane Austen’sOrgueil et Prévention, a volume ofLes Contes des Frères Grimm,several novels by George Sand, and, of course,Les Aventures d’Alice au Pays des Merveilles.
I share my little cave within a cave with a gargoyle that was felled by the bombardment of our great Cathedral of Notre-Dame deReims. I have named him Narcisse, for my favorite flower and the saint’s day that falls on my birthday, October 29. Narcisse is squat and ugly, and not very large, luckily for me; he was a heavy-enough load to carry and maneuver through the hole in the wall.
When the fighting is over, the grim little fellow must be returned to take his place with the other gargoyles that guard our cathedral and watch over our city; but for now I enjoy his companionship. His scowl makes me think of my own countenance. I have placed a piece of broken mirror on a rough chalk ledge—despite my mother’s protestations that it would bring bad luck—and it shows just such a grim set to my own features, which I hardly recognize these days.
I try to smile, especially for the sake of the children. But I cannot deny that it hurts. At times my face feels as though it will crack with the strain, shattering like a mirror, as though struck by a mortar.
?When we lived in Villa Traverne, I barely noticed the stencils, the gold and silver gilt, the paintings and portraits and statuettes. In fact, I resented them; I once was severely punished for running in the hall and breaking a fine Limoges figurine.
But now, in the caves, it is a different story. Many years ago, when Madame Jeanne Pommery was left a widow, she decided to extend these caves, first carved by the Romans as they excavated stone to build their cities. She transformed giant chalk pits and quarries by uniting them with graceful galleries and niches, tunnels and passages, to age her bottles of champagne.
But that wasn’t enough; she also added art.
There are sculptures engraved on the cellar walls, and bas-reliefs of Bacchus sculpted in the soft chalk. The soldiers and cellar workers sometimes carve their initials or graffiti into the walls; I enjoy tryingto read the messages, though some are in English, which I don’t understand. I have begun my own small gallery in my little cave within a cave, carving creatures imagined from the Grimms’ fairy tales and other mythology, especially sirens. I’ve always wanted to visit the sea. The idea of sailing away is enticing; perhaps I could find a land of peace.
Now a tall rabbit is engraved in the wall, standing right at the mouth of my little refuge; he wears a vest and is checking his pocket watch for the time.
Now I see. Art is our sanctuary, our momentary escape from a world in which the bombs rain down, the injured arrive, and even thepetits enfantsare killed and maimed.
But one can gaze at the bacchanalian scene—which my mother deemed inappropriate—and imagine lolling in the peaceful forests, drunk and dancing and gay for all time.
One can spend the day scraping and spewing dust, thoughts lost in the attempt to bring forth a rabbit from the chalk walls.
My mother says there is beauty in necessity.
I say there is a necessityofbeauty.
Chapter Twenty-two
That afternoon Rosalyn had planned on visiting a producer in the village of Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, but gray storm clouds were rolling in and she was loath to give up her warm, dry room. Instead, she checked her e-mail and found an invitation to a “Gathering of Vintners” to be held in the caves under the House of Vranken Pommery. The invitation reminded guests to dress appropriately for the chill of the caves.
Even with her stomach quailing at the thought of attending a party, Rosalyn was excited by the prospect of seeing Lucie’s underground refuge.
Outside, the storm seemed to be building. Rosalyn fixed a cup of hot tea, sat down at the table in her room, and sorted through more of Émile’s letters. The missives now littered her room, spread out over every horizontal surface—the table, the cabinet, and even the floor.
June 17, 1916
Dear Mrs. Whittaker,
There is a famous sculpture on the Cathedral of Reims. Do you happen to know it? It is an angel with a sweet smile, a relic of a long-ago sculptor who had lost patience with the stoic bishops and angels of his commission. There she has stood for centuries, looking down upon royalty, upon brides and grooms, upon cardinals and bishops, upon the peasants and farmers, artisans and workers, who have streamed through the church’s doors in search of salvation and beauty and peace.
She is called the Smiling Angel, or sometimes simply the Smile of Reims.
She was decapitated in a German attack on the cathedral, her smiling visage rolling at the entrance and cracking into pieces. Lucie says the pieces were collected by the Abbot Thinot the day after the cathedral fire, and squirreled away for safekeeping. With the grace of God, she will be restored after this cursed war is over.
I have seen friends fall at my side. I have carried in baskets the torsos of men who have lost all their limbs. I was once buried alive by a collapsing trench, and am regularly doused with poison gas. These are hellish things to experience.
So why is it that the destruction of our Smile of Reims seems to me the most barbarous act of all?
At the roar of an engine outside, Rosalyn went to the window to see pulling into the parking lot a large truck towing a trailer loaded with four Jet Skis. A man in his sixties climbed down from the cab. He was handsome in the way of some rugged outdoorsmen, with a tanned face and an air of self-assurance.
Her genial host, Gaspard Blé, she presumed.
Rosalyn ran a comb through her hair, pulled on her coat, gloves, and scarf, and went out to meet him.
