The Pink and The Red

Nazis cackled as they pulled us outside into the frigid night and doused the trellises with kerosene. Fires crackled as we were put onto our knees in the backside of our little vineyard. Rows of grapes began to burn, their long-suffering stalks that once reached towards the sun, perished beneath the dark German sky. The crackling tinder of crumpling vines sang softly a requiem to a realized dream. Their songs grew louder as we kneeled on cold dirt in the bleak and terrible night.

In front of us, tempestuous flames leaped higher from our home rendering searing, whistling sounds that rose octaves in chorus. “They’re the pansy Jews”. A haranguer said a twisted smile revealed broken teeth made more menacing by the light of flame. I looked over to Tom, seeing him by strobing flame-light, his eyes shed anguished tears.

His lips quivered, moving to form words, when the shot rang, droplets glistened as they fell from him. The blaze pulsed, and in the darkness he fell. Until the glow swelled again and I saw Tom’s head resting on the cold hard ground. His caliginous eyes looked at me, reflecting men and flame, mouth ajar from unspoken words. His vacant corpse, haunting eyes, terrified me. I fell away from him. Away from the man I loved, sputtering, and shaking my head from grief and terror. I crawled back away until my hands fell upon a smoldering piece of vine, I cried out. Soot from the trellises above fell on me.

A black silhouette approached, a chrome skull flashed “You sniff out the other of your kind” a darkened face said. All I could do was scream, I screamed until my lungs hurt, screamed until he reamed the stock of his gun into me, until dead, I was deemed.

My arthritic hands throbbed, as I uncorked the bottle. I carried it over to the table, that overlooked the vineyard. Carefully I poured the wine from the bottle into the Bordeaux glass. The merlot ran smoothly, its heavy body clung to the sides as it dribbled down.

I brought the glass close to my face peering over its edge, appraising it. The wine was a good red not too deep, not too light. Citrusy melodies of black cherry and plum played inside of my nose. On the palate it was soft, delicate, a light tannin structure and a bit minerally, with a taste of cherry, plum, and a hint of oak. I let it sit on the palate, and was surprised to find how long it lingered, and how slowly the pleasant flavors faded like the final notes of a pianist. Unlike a concerto, there was no uproar of thunderous applause at its conclusion, just my delighted appreciation. I wrote my observations down on the tawny notepad:

One worthy of Tom

It had been an arduous journey getting to this point, but at last, the vines had taken, and over the years had laddered up the trellises and once again reached toward the sun. I now had large enough of a vineyard, to put my wine to market. I sat down, looking over the small field and rolling hills with similar chalets and vineyards.

Post-war had been a strange time. The world had been ecstatic at the fall of Nazism. For many it marked the end of their persecution, fortifying their belief that good always triumphed over evil; for they had been liberated. For me, it was different, my kind was still reviled and forced to live in the dark. Though they didn’t throw me into a concentration camp, they shunned me, forcing me to live in exile, alone in Italy. This wasn’t anything new, things had always been this way. I had hoped that things would change post-war, but they hadn’t, they remained callous and disgusted by my lifestyle.

Tom had taught me not to be ashamed, he believed that if we could make something beautiful, something to share with the world, that we could win the world over. Hence, he sought to create the perfect merlot, something beautiful and savory with which he would gift the world.

Defiantly determined, he’d set out to grow the merlot grapes. The vines struggled as we did, to find purchase in those inhospitable soils, to seed and expand, to find acceptance from the locals who preferred Riesling to the bastard merlot. Until one day he’d found a vine as tenacious and optimistic as himself, and it grew in that unfriendly dirt and bloomed and bore grapes until it succumbed on that evil night.

I just hoped that it would endure and avoid provoking that rapacious thing hiding in the dark corners inside of every person. That unnamed demon that dements the masses, which in a blink of an eye turned friendly neighbors into rabid animals. I fear for the day, that it will come back out of the dark, after festering inside the ravenous hearts of hateful men.

The world I’d long since decided, was allergic to pure-hearts, so much so that it does everything in its power to crush and deform them. Because of this antipathy, long gone was Tom’s freckled nose and laughing eyes. It only left me, an empty husk of a man, for I wasn’t good enough to die, and a single grapevine.

After they’d left me for dead, I had managed to save this single vine. I carried it with me, tending to it trying to keep it from dying. Defiantly determined to not let Toms vineyard succumb and perish, to save but a shred of good, and nurture it. I’d eventually moved here with it, and though I had not found acceptance at least my grapes had. The land was kind to them.

Tom hoped that sip by sip, to prove to the world that we too had value, that a couple of “pansies” had made something good. I had added my personal touch to it, the label I had designed read “Tom’s Merlot”, in sprawling cursive text set before the background of a pink triangle.

Every day, every hour, I wished he was with me in this little chalet, to enjoy this temperate weather, drink our wine, laugh our laughs, to breathe in the fresh floral air, and be reignited with his optimism, joy, and sense of purpose for these had long since forsaken me. Desperately I needed just one good thing to come, and as I tasted the wine, I knew that at least Tom’s legacy had a chance to live on.

I braced myself, trying to drink enough wine to work up the nerve to go through with it. He had been reaching out to me in whispers and dreams, he was there whenever I tried to escape him. Escape this vacuous feeling and empty fear that he wanted me to look at him. He wanted to talk to me but I wasn’t sure I could handle it. Oh, how I’d tried before but couldn’t stand it, I’d run up and away until his apparition faded.

I rolled up a sleeve and wrapped the tourniquet high up my arm. A vein bulged under my wrinkly skin, and I found an old scar which I pushed the needle into, tracking into the vein. I depressed, the syringe feeling the fluid rush into my veins. I undid the tourniquet, feeling the sweet relaxation, and darkness on the periphery ensnare me its grip. Closing my eyes dreading what would come next.

“Hey John”

My heart skipped a beat, I squeezed my eyes tighter, already leaky. Slowly I opened them, and he sat there across from me, his face pale and listless. His legs were crossed and he held up a glass of wine. He held the glass up studied it as I had before then sipped the wine. It gurgled out from the wound in his chest, further staining his grey cardigan.

I wanted to run from this carefully placed setting, the wine, the chalet and Tom. But I stayed there, shaking from grief, trying to stay steadfast in my resolve. It was awful to see him dead, lifeless, but somehow animated. Worse though, I feared that he wouldn't love the jaded, senescent man that I'd become; I feared more than anything else that I would dissapoint him.

I’d spent years ensuring that everything would be right, I hoped he liked everything. The anxiety about how he would regard me, whether or not he could forgive me was dreadfully worse than any I'd known before. Shakily I dabbed my teary eyes “Is it good Tom?” He smiled at me and took a deep long sip, no longer did he bleed color returned to his face, “It is smashingly good” he said with a smile. Tremulously I raised my glass of merlot, joyous tears I cried. Like I’d dreamed, we had our first date since the day he died.