Juliette topped off his glass of water. The bread was hard and dry, but that was because of rationing; these days, flour was stretched out by adding other things. Juliette and Hugo joined him at the table, where they drank some sort of herbal tea.
“Thank you so much for lunch,” Sven said after a while, once he’d assuaged the worst of his hunger. “But I’m going to go down to the village later anyway—I don’t want to take advantage of your hospitality.”
“No—stay here,” Juliette insisted. “You’ve had a long journey. We have enough for dinner.”
“And I could do with a hand with a broken thresher out there—it’s too heavy for me to manage on my own.” Hugo nodded toward the back of the house.
Juliette stood up. “I’ll go and get the guest room ready.”
“I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“You’re not,” Juliette and Hugo both said, practically in unison.
Sven realized that hewantedto stay for a few days. A sense of peace had come over him when he stepped into this house, the sense of being in ahome. He hadn’t been in a home, a place where people actually lived, for such a long time. Over the past five years he had lived in barracks, quartered with other soldiers.
Of course the vineyard was very different from his own home in many ways. He remembered the wooden kitchen sofa where he would sit eating an early breakfast before starting work on the farm, the creaking floorboards in his family’s living room, his mother’s rocking chair and her little sewing corner. Most things here were made of stone—the floor, the kitchen bench. It was considerably warmer than a spring day in Sweden, and different smells surrounded him here. But the feeling was still the same—this was a home.
When he had finished eating, he accompanied Hugo to a wooden building that resembled a barn, and that housed the machinery needed for wine production. Hugo showed him the thresher, and together they moved it into a toolshed—although the shelves in the shed were empty.
Hugo saw Sven’s questioning look. “The Germans have requisitioned most of our tools, but I’ve managed to replace the essentials.”
Several other machines needed repairing, too, and Sven knew exactly what to do. This was his area of expertise. They worked in silence. Hugo and Sven’s father were alike in that way—neither of them said more than was necessary. Sven used to love it when he and his father worked side by side in silence, fixing the farm machinery.
“Is there anything else I can do?” he asked when they’d finished. He was tired after the journey, but he hoped that Hugo would say yes. Doing physical work on something tangible was familiar and relaxing.
“I’m busy plowing at the moment,” Hugo said, and Sven nodded as if he understood, though he had no idea how a vineyard operated. “We plow up the ground so that the root systems are protected against heat and drought,” Hugo told him. “It also makes the rainwater run down into the earth more easily.”
Sven followed Hugo out into the field. He studied the older man’s movements as he worked the wooden plow, then took over and tried to do the same thing while also pulling out the weeds, as he had seen Hugo do. The feeling of working the soft earth was completely different from holding a gun. That was more or less the only thought Sven gave to the Legion and his real mission here in France in that moment.
Then he allowed the physical effort and the expanse of the vineyard to take over.
13
Frederic’s Paris office was in the Opera quarter. He had left his years as a sommelier behind and now worked with the family’s vineyard in Bordeaux. From his office in Paris, he represented his family’s business, plus the businesses of several other winemakers, selling their wines to restaurants, bars, and stores.
He and Bente had last seen each other three years ago, following the scandals over the unpaid bill and Bente’s alleged cheating on Henrik, and after all the stories were written about her. She had needed the temporary distraction that Frederic offered. They had met for dinner, then followed their usual route visiting various wine bars before going back to his apartment, where she spent the night. On that point he was totally reliable—one night together was all he expected, nothing more. This had suited Bente very well, though there was no denying that the burning attraction they experienced never seemed to fade.
Frederic met them in reception. His once-wavy, medium-blond hair was now cut short in a typical man-over-forty-five style. He was one of the vainest men she knew, and she was surprised that he had gone for something so practical. He looked at her with that familiar glint in his eye. They exchanged air-kisses, and when the smell of him enveloped her, her stomach flipped.
He greeted Elnaz in the same way, then shook Didrik’s hand.
“This is fantastic,” Bente said as they walked along the corridor with its dove-gray rugs. Dark woods had been used to stylish effect,with occasional details in Bordeaux red: a nod to the business’s representation of winemakers.
Frederic nodded. “Thank you. I share the office with some other smallish winemakers from all over France.”
He showed them in. Wine bottles were lined up on shelves around the walls. The room was Spartan in its decor, with neat rows of folders and only a few essentials on the desk—a notepad, an ink pen, and the computer.
As they sat down, Bente could see that Frederic was looking Didrik up and down. He was the one who had broken her heart all those years ago, not the other way around, yet here he was, behaving as if Didrik were some kind of threat.
Why did that bother her? Once upon a time she would have taken it as a compliment. Instead of going for a practical haircut, maybe her way of changing and growing up was simply acquiring the ability to see right through Frederic.
A young woman with a wide mouth and a cute upturned nose arrived with coffee.
“This is Emma, my assistant.” He gave her an appreciative look. A little too appreciative. Emma glanced over her shoulder on the way out as if to make sure that Frederic was watching her, which of course he was.
He was sleeping with her. It was obvious.
Bente found this irritating, and it bothered her that she cared. What had she been hoping for? Possibly a little fling for old times’ sake, no more. So what did it matter if he was fucking his assistant? She made an effort to pull herself together, tried to focus on the real reason they were here.
