“Monsieur Grenouille?”
“Oui.”
“Merci.” I nodded, tears still in my eyes.
“Ce n’est rien. It is nothing.”
I held the ice to my throbbing elbow and sipped on the cool water while customers came in and out of the shop ordering fresh baguettes and other meticulously artful treats. Monsieur Grenouille served each of them with a wide smile and some friendly banter, so different from the encounters I’d grown used to with him.
When the shop finally cleared out, Monsieur Grenouille came back over to check on me. I handed him back the now almost completely melted bag of ice and a soggy handful of napkins from the bag’s condensation, and let him know my elbow was feeling better. He cleared away the items as I dabbed the corners of my eyes with the cloth napkin and set it down. “You’ve been more than gracious. I’ll get out of your way soon. In fact, you’ll be happy to know I’m probably leaving Maubec as early as I can get on a flight.”
“You’ve finished your little project, then?” he asked, his condescension clear from the slight upturn of his nose.
“No, not quite. I got taken for a fool, and now all I want to do is go home.”
He squinted, confused. “Taken for a fool? I don’t understand . . .”
“Oh, taken for a fool means when you’re kinda—”
“Non, Mademoiselle, that I understand. I just don’t know what you mean. How were you deceived?”
“It’s a long, complicated story. I’m not sure you would understand. You might even think I had it coming.”
“Had it coming?” he said slowly, trying to work out the right translation. “Now that phrase I am unsure of?”
“It means you’d probably think I deserve what I got.”
“I guess that all depends? What did you get?” he asked plainly.
“Kicked in the teeth, that’s what,” I said, not even sure where I’d start if I were to explain. “Can I ask you something?” I didn’t know exactly why I’d chosen Monsieur Grenouille to be my sounding board but figured he wouldn’t have any problem being painfully frank, something I desperately needed at this moment.
“Go ahead.” He pulled out a chair and dropped into it, seemingly grateful for the chance to get off his tired feet.
“Did you ever trust someone? I mean, really trust them. Believe they had your best interest at heart only to find out they betrayed you in the worst possible way?”
“What is that expression? Let me think if I can do it justice in English.” He focused his eyes, trying to work out just the right words to use so I would understand his meaning, and finally said, “The hardest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies.”
“Exactly. I loved Rhys. I trusted Rhys. And I was wrong about him. And now, all this time, I thought Kate had been my friend, but it turns out, I was very wrong about that too. Seems I’m either an incredibly terrible judge of character, or there’s something about me that gives people the impression I’m dispensable.”
“I don’t know this Rhys you speak of or this Kate, but if she hurt you, you should let her know. It does no good to hold on to the pain of the past. I can assure you of that.”
I thought back to his outburst that day with Madame Archambeau and Elliott at the corner table in his shop when he pounded his fist and said the town had been through enough, heartbreak seeping through his every pore. I thought I now had an inkling about the pain he was referring to. Reaching into my bag, I unzipped the small inside pocket and pulled out the picture Father François had let me hold on to at Saint Orens. I set it down on the table and slid it over to Monsieur Grenouille. He picked up the photograph, his eyes growing larger and larger.
“Where did you get this?” he exclaimed.
“It was in the archives at Saint Orens.”
His face lit up with recognition. “Those are my parents, Ginette and Alain Grenouille.”
I got up and stood behind him. “I know,” I said, using a rigid finger to point to the other two couples. “And that’s Luc and Imène Adélaïse, and Marthe and Grégoire Archambeau beside them.”
He turned the picture over and looked back at me. “What’s that? What’s DP mean?”
“It stands for Dutch-Paris. Your parents. The Adélaïses. The Archambeaus. They were all part of a Resistance network that helped people escape France during World War II.”
“I was only two years old when they disappeared. My brother was just a few months. My grandparents were Nazi sympathizers, and I was forbidden to even speak their names. The little I know about what happened to them, I’ve spent my life trying to piece together.”
“Monsieur Grenouille, what I’ve been trying to piece together is that day in your shop, you said Bastien was somehow to blame for what happened. How would that even be possible?”
“Not Bastien. I misspoke. His grandfather and namesake, Sébastien Munier.”
“Château Mirabelle’s vintner?”
“So Bastien did tell you?”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Apparently not everything.”
Monsieur Grenouille went behind the counter and pulled out two small glasses and a bottle that, based on its brownish color, I guessed to be whiskey. He uncorked the top and poured us each a shot’s worth before sitting back down. He lifted the glass in the air and threw back the entire thing in a single gulp. I followed suit, but being unaccustomed to a drink that strong, I launched into a coughing fit of epic proportions. He chuckled and encouraged me to chase the shot with some water, which finally stopped the outburst.
“You are wrong, you know,” Monsieur Grenouille said. “Sébastien Munier wasn’t Château Mirabelle’s vintner, he was the vigneron.”
“I’m not sure I know the difference.”
“A vintner makes the wine but does not have involvement in farming the grapes, whereas a vigneron cultivates the grapes and also makes the resulting wine. From what I understand, Sébastien Munier was the very best vigneron in the Provence region, personally selecting every vine at Château Mirabelle. His Chenin Blanc became the stuff of legends and put the winery on the map.” He refilled his glass and continued, “Of course, the Adélaïses enjoyed having a profitable vineyard, but wine was not a particular passion of theirs, and they left most of the day-to-day operations to Monsieur Munier. That is, until 1942.”
“Right, of course. That’s when the Adélaïses joined the Resistance?”
“Oui, that’s when they started to use the winery as a cover. As far as I know, Sébastien Munier wasn’t political. I don’t think he cared for anything really beyond his precious vineyard and mostly turned a blind eye to what the Adélaïses were doing. But I have to imagine that at some point, their covert operations started to get in the way of his winemaking. From what I have been told, he tried to buy the winery from them, but because they were using it as a means to transport weapons and even people, they refused to separate it from the estate.”
