Sweeter Than Wine (14 page)

Back inside the odorous dim cavern of the winery, they all started scraping the
fungus off the tanks. Siegfried quickly fell into the rhythm of scrape-pull-throw,
breathing mold dust through the red kerchief tied over his mouth and nose as he
bared four-inch wide swathes of redwood dark as blood. The loosened mold fell in
gray shrouds to the newly-swept floor.

Faster
! The thought spurred him with every square meter of filthy wood
scraped clean. There was so much left to do before they could make wine in these
tanks.

Time passed; another hour, perhaps two. Siegfried paused momentarily to roll
his shoulders in an attempt to loosen tight muscles.

He glanced over at Alice. She had traded places with Johnny, and was
shoveling chunks of loosened mold into a wheelbarrow while the wiry Italian
peeled off great strips of the stuff from tank number two. Her oversized clothes hid
the appealing curves of her waist and bosom, but her tight chignon left the back of
her neck delightfully exposed, and Siegfried wondered what it would feel like to
kiss her nape.

As he watched, she put down the shovel for a moment, kneeling next to the
tank to help Johnny with something. When she picked up the shovel again,
gingerly, Siegfried saw the dark stains on the palms of her cotton gardening
gloves.

His own blistered palms, securely shielded now in thick leather work gloves,
gave a sympathetic twinge.

He was beside her in an instant, taking her elbow roughly. "Why did you not
say anything?" He gave her arm a shake, and she curled her hands shut, hiding
the betraying reddish blotches. "You will come with me now. To the house."

"It's nothing. They don't even hurt," Alice asserted, trying to pull away from
him. "You don't have to--"

"Yes, I do, because you will not do it for yourself," he said, irrationally incensed
at the thought of her beautiful white hands bleeding inside those filthy, inadequate
gloves. He should have known better than to allow her to perform manual labor!
"What if they become infected?" The thought of her hands, rotting with gangrene,
was too terrible to consider. Siegfried forced his voice to a calmer tone. "Please,
Alice. Allow me."

"All right." She gave a noisy huff, but allowed him to steer her out of the
winery, and down the gentle slope to the house.

As they climbed the porch stairs, the late afternoon sunlight gilded her hair,
sparking auburn and red beneath the veil of dust, warming her hazel eyes to
golden-brown. Siegfried fought the temptation to stare, open-mouthed, at her
sudden transformation into a creature of fire and amber. "Where do you keep your
bandages?" he asked.

"Upstairs. In the bathroom." She gave that noisy sigh again, and stopped on
the top step. "You don't have to pamper me, you know."

"This is selfish necessity." Siegfried was acutely aware that her elbow was
cupped in the curve of his hand like a fragile egg. He forced himself to continue
coolly, "I find we need your assistance in the winery after all."

The inside of the house was shadowy. As they walked up to the second floor,
the muffled thunk-thunk of Maria chopping vegetables in the kitchen was the only
sound.

A pale wash of light greeted them in the bathroom, the immaculate white-tiled
floor and walls glowing as if illuminated. Alice stood hesitantly in the middle of the
large room while Siegfried gathered clean towels, ointments, and bandages, and
filled the washbasin with warm water.

She caught sight of herself in the medicine cabinet mirror. "Oh, goodness, I
look a fright. Maybe I should just--"

"Your hands come first," Siegfried said firmly, leading her over to the
washbasin and deftly rolling up her shirtsleeves. The skin on her arms was every
bit as soft as he had imagined. He fought the distraction. "You can wash your face
afterwards if you use a cloth."

She dipped her hands into the hot water, sucked air between her teeth, and
pulled her hands back so quickly that droplets sprayed over the mirror.

"I know it stings, but you must be stoic," Siegfried advised, lathering up a
washcloth with soap. "It is best if you soak them for a little while." He kept his own
expression carefully blank, concentrating on the white foam spilling over his
fingers.

After a moment, she cautiously put her hands back in the water and kept them
there, catching her lower lip between her teeth. She ventured in a small voice,
"The winery is a bigger job than I thought."

Siegfried nodded, the bar of soap making tight circles against the cloth in his
hand. "I have been thinking the same thing. We must find a way to work more
quickly, or we shall not be finished before crush."

"I was afraid of that. D-do you have any ideas?"

"Sometimes it can help to make the work a little more interesting." His hands
stilled as Siegfried relived memories of a half-finished trench and the discouraged
faces of his men, weary with what seemed pointless digging. He returned to the
present with a start. "I have found that offering small prizes for progress often
spurs the men along."

Unexpectedly, Alice nodded, sending a ripple of water through the washbasin.
"Something like a contest?"

"Yes, exactly. Perhaps we might offer as a prize something that Maria has
baked, or..." He paused, considering. "Have we the funds for a bonus?"

He expected Alice to immediately dismiss the notion, but she surprised him. "If
it's a small one. What did you have in mind?"

"Nothing, yet." Siegfried reached into the water, and picked up her unresisting
hand. "This will also sting," he warned her, before tenderly dabbing at her raw
palm with the soapy cloth. She gasped and stiffened, but suffered his attentions
without complaint as he finished gently cleansing one hand, and started on the
other.

He patted them both dry with a clean cloth, then directed her to seat herself on
the closed lid of the commode.

Siegfried knelt before her like a supplicant, the bathroom tiles cool and hard
under his knees as he smeared her palms thickly with Vaseline. She gave a tiny
twitch. "That tickles!"

"
Halt still
," he said, automatically, and remembered with surprised
pleasure his mother's efforts to doctor him after some mishap when he was a boy.
He had been perched on the old wooden stool in the kitchen, squirming
uncomfortably while
Mutti
dabbed something on his scraped knees that
stung horribly. "Hold still, Friddy," she had said, repeating it in her American-
accented German. "
Halt still."

"
Halt still, Ah-lees
," Siegfried whispered to the soft hands lying so
trustingly in his.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing," he mumbled, hastily wiping the excess Vaseline from his fingers.
Then he reached for a roll of gauze and wound a long strip around her hand. Not
too tight, or the circulation in her fingers might be impaired; not too loosely, or the
bandages would be worse than useless, trapping dirt and infection against her
broken skin.

"You should have been a doctor," Alice commented.

"No, I am a vintner, but also somewhat of an expert," he said, ruefully showing
Alice his own bandaged palms, "when it comes to blisters."

She smiled fleetingly, and he finished tying off the bandage ends.

He held her hands for a long moment after finishing, studying the bluish-green
branching of veins in her slender wrists. He rubbed his thumb unconsciously over
her pulse. Her skin was so tender there, like a baby's...On impulse he bent his
head and kissed her bandaged palms.

Alice inhaled sharply, and he realized what he had done. His face grew hot.
"To help them heal, my mother always--" He hastily let go, and tried to make his
tone matter-of-fact. "You must wear thick gloves like mine until your hands
heal."

"It's all right." Alice said, addressing his embarrassment, and coloring as well.
Her white-wrapped hands briefly rose to touch his hair. "Thank you, Siegfried."
She stood up quickly. "Let's get back to it."

* * *

"I believe that went well," Siegfried said in an undertone as Julio, Tony, and
Johnny went back into the winery with a noticeably brisker step. He and Alice
stood at the winery entrance, where she had just announced that the best worker
would be awarded a daily bonus. Herculio trotted past them, and disappeared into
the blinding sunlight outside.

A loud scraping sound startled them, and they turned towards the doorway,
leaning out into the daylight.

Herculio reappeared, dragging something large around the corner of the
winery.

"It's about time to start scrubbing down the outside of the first tank. Where do
you want this, Mr. R?" he puffed.
This
was the remnant of an old aging
barrel, long since sawn in half to form a deep vat.

"As near the winery doors as possible," Siegfried answered, his heart
lightening at the young man's initiative. "And we will need a great quantity of fresh
water. Do you think you might find somewhere a pump and a hose long enough to
reach here from the pond?"

"Sure. I saw some in the back. Coming right up!" Herculio disappeared in a
rush.

Alice grinned wryly. "Well, they certainly seemed to like the idea of the extra
money."

Siegfried smiled back at Alice. "With the
right
crew, anything is
possible."

* * *

"Who wants chocolate cake?" Maria called from the winery entrance. Tools
dropped with a clatter, and the men crowded eagerly around her, avid for a treat in
the middle of a Friday afternoon.

Alice put down her long-handled scrub brush, and followed the rest of the crew
outside.

It was the fourth day of cleaning the winery, and Siegfried's suggestion had
already worked miracles. Yesterday, Herculio had walked away proudly with a
nickel when the day ended, because his pile of filth outside the winery was nearly
twice the size of anyone else's. And the outside of the first row of tanks was nearly
finished.

Only ten more to go
, Alice thought.
We might finish before harvest,
after all!

She spotted Siegfried's telltale blond hair and wandered over to him. "Why
wasn't there a contest today?"

"Oh, but there
was
a contest," Siegfried assured her around a mouthful
of cake, with the same sunny smile Bill had always used when evading the
truth.

"Oh yeah?" Johnny asked, overhearing. "I didn't hear nothing about no
contest."

"Today's contest was: who can get the dirtiest?" Siegfried announced. "Mrs.
Verdacchia, you must be our judge. Who among us wins the prize?" His blue eyes
were bright with mischief in a face darkened by smears of grime.

As the winery crew hastily formed a ragged inspection line, Maria shifted her
empty tray, resting it on her hip. Smiling broadly, she peered at the assembled
crew, checking over each man in turn before giving a tiny shake of her head and
moving on to the next.

Alice, intentionally standing at the far end of the line, frantically fished in the
pocket of Bill's old Levis for one of his large handkerchiefs. The jeans were very
baggy on her--she had needed to punch a new hole in one of Bill's belts this
morning so that they would stay up.

As Maria pursed her lips and rejected yet another candidate, Alice scrubbed at
her face and neck. She had spent the day
inside
tank number one, ankle-
deep in a sticky mess that reeked of mold and vinegar. Only she and Bernard had
been able to fit through the tiny round openings at the bottom of the aging tanks--
and he had his own tank to clean. It had been dark, and lonely, with her scraper, a
scrub brush, and a portable electric lamp for company, and she had found herself
missing the now-constant banter between Siegfried and the crew.

"Mrs. R.!" Maria said, pointing, a dimple indenting the corner of her mouth.

Alice hurriedly stuffed the kerchief back in her pocket. "Yes?"

"You win the contest!" Siegfried called gleefully from the other end of the
line.

"What's my prize?" Alice asked, suspiciously. She didn't like the impish grin on
Siegfried's face as he advanced towards her.

"A bath!"

"Oh, no...no!" Alice backed away.

Maria clapped a hand over her mouth in a vain attempt to restrain her
laughter.

"No--definitely not--Siegfried, don't you dare--no! Don't! Aaaaaaaah!" Alice's
protests were ignored as Siegfried bent, pushed his shoulder against her middle,
and easily scooped her up over his shoulder. "Let me go! Please!" She hung
upside-down against his back as he strode forward, his arms pinioning her thighs.
As she pounded ineffectually at his back, Herculio's deep laugh boomed out,
followed by a chorus of masculine chuckles.

"Oh yeah, Mr. R. You show her who the husband!" Bernard called out in his
reedy voice. "She don' give you no trouble then."

"Siegfried!" Alice wriggled madly and tried to clutch handfuls of his shirt. But to
no avail. He was headed for the large rinsing vat standing nearby. He bent forward
as he came up to the rim of the vat, and sent her backwards into the cool water
with an enormous splash.

"Noooooo--" Her shriek turned into a splutter. As she sat up and cleared the
water out of her eyes, she saw Siegfried clinging to the side of the vat, convulsed
with laughter.

You beast!
she thought, hot for revenge. She brought her hands
together in the special way that Bill had taught her during their too-brief
honeymoon at the Sutro Baths in San Francisco.

She was amply rewarded by Siegfried's startled recoil when a long jet of water
hit him in the face. As he stood there, looking silly and wet and startled
momentarily out of laughter, she squirted him again. He shook his head in a spray
of droplets, and his smile returned, even brighter.

Alice carefully took aim at Herculio. "I think," she said, as Herculio jumped and
shouted. "We could all use a bath." She splashed the water invitingly. "Care to join
me in Montclair's luxury swimming pool?"