The Summer Home

Chapter 1

THE LAST TIME I visited my family's summer villa, I was still attending the girls' school in Paris. Maman had planned a weekend trip in the middle of the term, insisting on bringing Nicolas and I with her despite Papa's protestations.

"It will be a lovely time," Maman's wide eyes fluttered from behind her fan. To me, she was the most fashionable woman in Paris—if not all of Europe, with her glass beads, fur muffs and flapper dresses. To Papa, she spent money frivolously.

"Vi and Nicolas will come with me. You are always telling me how I ought to spend more time with the children, after all." Maman stepped closer to Papa, placing a dainty hand upon his shoulder. 

The unusual sign of affection made his sharp features soften, even if only for a moment. In that single moment of warmth, I understood why my serious, strait-laced father had fallen so desperately in love with Maman. 

"I want the children to enjoy themselves. You bore them to death with your lectures and sermons. Can you not allow them one weekend of excitement?" Maman's mascara-rimmed eyes widened, making her look more like a little girl asking her father for candy than a grown woman.

He sobered immediately, the thin moustache above his lips flattening into a straight line. "This is unacceptable, Martine. I will not have my children traipsing the countryside while they are meant to attend classes. Especially Vivienne. Her teachers have said she must improve her work, or she will never be accepted into the Sorbonne in a few years."

The disagreement had escalated into a terrible fight, with Maman packing her belongings into several enormous trunks and vowing never to come back, pulling Nicolas and I behind her. I wasn't even able to change out of my ink-splattered school smock before boarding the train from Paris.

Maman loved what the locals affectionately called La Belle Maison, hosting lavish parties in the open courtyard whenever she could. La Belle Maison had been in her family for generations, welcoming established guests when they visited Bordeaux in the summer months.

The warmth of Bordeaux wine and comfort of leisurely walks along the sun-drenched banks of the sprawling Gironde River seemed to abate her colourful moods, which is perhaps why I came to enjoy the villa just as much as my mother. Every trip to La Belle Maison seemed full of fresh possibilities. 

But as Nicolas and I stood in front of the villa almost four years after our last visit, it was utterly unrecognizable. The stone exterior that had once seemed polished was now weathered, ribbons of ivy climbing past the chimney. The pale blue paint of the shutters on the windows was chipped. An overgrown jungle of vines, marigolds, lavender and brambles crowded the paved path meandering up to the front door. The once-sparkling balconies were tinted red with rust.

As shards of glass and stone crunched under the soles of our shoes, I realized age was not the only thing that had drastically altered the appearance of La Belle Maison.

Like the rest of the country, Bordeaux had been ravaged by German bombers. As we drove in my brother's automobile from Paris to the country through the heat of summer, enveloped by an exodus of other refugees, we passed the ruins of cities and towns left decimated by the air raids. The rubble of farms, churches, houses and shops only reinforced Nicolas's steadfast belief that we had lost the war. 

Though the skies had been quiet that day, I feared what may happen at night, when the heavy veil of darkness concealed enemy planes. Not that the Germans cared to hide their brutal assault on innocent Frenchmen, women, and children.

A withered hand pushed back the curtains in one window. My heart leapt up in my chest as I saw Madame Le Sueur, her eyes gleaming with recognition.

When she bounded through the doors and caught me in an embrace, I was surprised to feel tears clinging to my eyelashes. Nicolas and I had seen so much devastation in the past two days that I had not expected to cry at meeting my old friend. Our reunion was a happy one, not sad.