Safe Haven (45 page)

But Beth’s children were tired after their long journey and needed to be put to bed for the night. For that matter, it had been an emotionally exhausting day for everyone. His mother had been sending concerned glances his way ever since they’d left the station.

“I’m fine, Mom,” he assured her.

“I know. It’s just that Oswego is a small town, and the hotel is—”

“Maybe Suzanne decided to return to Washington,” Paul suggested.

“One can only hope.” Ellie sighed.

But when they got back to the hotel, Suzanne was waiting. She fixed her gaze on Theo, ignoring the others. To his relief his dad steered his mom straight to the elevator, and Beth and her family followed.

At the fort, Ilse had taken him aside and told him what Detlef had said. But what Theo could not erase from his mind was the way Gordon Langford had kissed Suzanne—there had been a familiarity and possessiveness in that kiss.

“Will you give me a chance to explain?” Suzanne asked.

Theo stared at her for a long moment—this woman he cared for more deeply than he had ever cared for anyone. “All right.” He led the way to a couple of wing back chairs nears the windows that faced the street. Holiday lights blinked in shop windows that had closed for the night.

She began by telling him about the first dinner with Gordon in this very hotel. “He wanted me to—”

“I know all that. Detlef explained it all to Ilse. The question is, why didn’t you tell me? Why get involved again with someone who had hurt you so badly before?”

“I didn’t get involved with him—not in the way you’re implying.”

He thought about the kiss on the platform. “Coulda fooled me.”

“I seem to remember a similar ambush at Selma’s—one where you kissed me without my permission.”

“And as I recall you kissed me back. How about today, Suzanne, did you kiss Langford back?”

She slumped back in the chair and stared out the window as he did the same.

The hotel lobby featured a fireplace and a large console radio. At the fort they had heard that President Truman planned to address the nation later that evening, and it was rumored that his topic would be immigration.

“Do you folks mind?” the desk clerk asked as he approached the radio and turned it on.

The president began speaking generally about the numbers of men, women, and children displaced and left homeless by the war. He spoke of the responsibility of all nations to care for and support such individuals. He focused on orphaned children and also on how America needed to set an example. And then he said, “There is one particular matter involving a relatively small number of aliens. President Roosevelt, in an endeavor to assist in handling displaced persons and refugees during the war and upon the recommendation of the War Refugee Board, directed that a group of about one thousand displaced persons be removed from refugee camps in Italy and settled temporarily in a War Relocation Camp near Oswego, New York. Shortly thereafter, President Roosevelt informed the Congress that these persons would be returned to their homelands after the war.

“Upon the basis of a careful survey by the Department of State and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, it has been determined that if these persons were now applying for admission to the United States, most of them would be admissible under the immigration laws. In the circumstances, it would be inhumane and wasteful to require these people to go all the way back to Europe merely for the purpose of applying there for immigration visas and returning to the United States. Many of them have close relatives, including sons and daughters, who are citizens of the United States and who have served and are serving honorably in the armed forces of our country. I am therefore directing the secretary of state and the attorney general to adjust the immigration status of the members of this group who may wish to remain here, in strict accordance with existing laws and regulations.”

Theo was not sure he had heard the president correctly, but Suzanne had no doubt.

“They get to stay,” she said. “Oh, Theo, they can stay or go or—”

It was over.

“I’m going to the fort,” Suzanne announced. She took the elevator up and retrieved her boots, coat, hat, and gloves. When she returned to the lobby Theo was waiting for her.

“Can I come with you?”

They could hear the celebration from a block away. Apparently everyone had decided to gather on the parade ground in spite of the snow. Someone had built a bonfire, and people were laughing and dancing and hugging one another.

Theo and Suzanne stood off to one side, observing the celebration for several minutes. Then Theo took her hand. “Come with me,” he said and led her to a spot behind the barracks that overlooked the lake and the lighthouse that was situated several hundred yards offshore. Between the illumination of the full moon and the glow of the bonfire, they were bathed in light.

“Look, I love you,” Theo said.” And if you love me as well, then we can work through this.” He reached in his coat pocket and took out a long and slender jeweler’s box. “I had planned to offer this as an engagement present, but under the circumstances I think perhaps we each need to follow the paths before us—you off to write stories for the
Times
and me off to help refugees in Europe with the AFSC. But while we’re finding out whether or not our paths were meant to simply cross or run side by side, I’d like you to have this.”

He pulled off his glove with his teeth and opened the hinged velvet box, removed a heart-shaped crystal pendant on a thin silver chain, and offered it to her.

“Your family has doubts,” she warned.

“I don’t. I love you and will always love you on some level, but you need to follow your path—a path I hope will one day bring you back to me.”

She took the pendant from him and touched it to her lips. Behind them someone was playing a violin as the celebration continued.

  CHAPTER 23  

T
he day after Christmas Theo had to leave for training at the AFSC’s retreat in Pennsylvania while Suzanne returned to Washington to pack her things and once again turn over the keys to her small apartment to a renter—in this case the young man whom Edwin had hired to replace her at the newspaper. Her editor had been surprisingly warm and supportive about her decision to accept the offer from the
New York Times
.

“It’s a big step up that career ladder, Suzie. Don’t mess it up.” For Edwin that was about as close as she could hope to getting a hug of encouragement.

Beth and Josef and the children had returned to Wisconsin with Paul and Ellie for a reunion with Matthew and Jenny, and Ilse and Liesl were back at the fort packing up. In a matter of weeks—once the government had gotten everything in place—they would cross the Rainbow Bridge into Canada where they would receive their visas for legally reentering the United States. Suzanne loved that they would have to cross the Rainbow Bridge in both directions—it felt as if the name alone cast a light and blessing on the process. She hated that she would miss covering this final chapter of their odyssey.

The plan was that once Ilse and Liesl had gotten their visas, they would travel to Wisconsin to spend time with Paul and Ellie and enroll Liesl in school for the remainder of the school year. Then Ilse would travel back to England with Beth and Josef where she would finally be reunited with her sister, Marta.

“Oh, Theo, everything is coming together,” Suzanne said that night. They had continued their nightly phone calls and were both dreading the day when he would leave for Europe and she would leave to follow the
New York Times
assignment. Once that happened, nightly phone calls would be far too expensive.

“I have to be in New York day after tomorrow,” she told him. “I’m meeting with the editorial staff and being briefed on what they want from me. They’ll put me up for one night in a hotel, and the following morning I’ll board the train for California.”

“Do you have to spend time with the editors that evening?”

“There’s nothing scheduled. Why?”

“I thought I could come up and maybe we could have dinner and—”

“Oh Theo, could you? That would be so wonderful. Are you sure you can get away?”

“I’ve finished the training, and I was going to head up to Oswego to see how Ilse and the others are doing. I don’t actually leave for Europe until January 20. So get me the name and address of the hotel, and I’ll meet you in the lobby at six.”

On their night in New York City, they enjoyed dinner at a restaurant in Central Park that Theo had heard about. Afterward they started walking through the park and down Broadway, past the theaters, and on until they reached the terminal for the Staten Island Ferry.

“Let’s go,” Suzanne said, grabbing Theo’s hand and pulling him toward the ferry.

“Why would we go to Staten Island?”

“So we can come back—and going and coming we have a fabulous view of the Statue of Liberty.”

“Suzanne, it’s January.”

“I know, but to quote a popular song by Mr. Irving Berlin, ‘I’ve got my love to keep me warm.’ Now come on.”

They were the last two riders to board and the only two who stayed at the railing as the ferry made its slow voyage across the harbor.

“There she is,” Suzanne said, her teeth chattering in spite of the fact that Theo had his arms wrapped tightly around her. She pointed to the famous statue. “Isn’t she magnificent?”

“She’s beautiful. I can see why people coming here from overseas get all choked up when they see her. What a sight that must have been for Franz and Ilse and all the others when they arrived here all those months ago.”

“And think how their lives have changed since then. Who could have imagined?”

He rested his chin on the top of her head. “Do you think when I come back from overseas and you come back from out west our lives will have changed?”

“Probably.” She turned so that she was facing him and cupped his cheeks with her gloved hands. “I wish—”

He silenced her by laying his finger on her lips. “No regrets, okay? We are doing the right thing, and when you think about it, this is no different than thousands of scenes like this where one was going off to war and the other staying behind. Those couples were also in love, but they understood that sometimes—”

“I know. I just want to be sure that you don’t think I’m putting my career ahead of us.”

“Here’s what I think. I think that true love allows for each person to find happiness and contentment individually as well as together. You need to go do this, Suzanne—and for that matter, so do I. How can we build a life together until we’re sure of what we each want and need?”

“I love you, Theo Bridgewater.”

He kissed her. “Good to know,” he murmured. “Now could we possibly go inside? I am seriously freezing.”

Within days after the president’s radio address, Fort Ontario became a beehive of activity. Ilse could hardly believe how things changed almost overnight. The town as well as the fort were filled with extra staff from the Department of Immigration and Naturalization as well as representatives of the various charitable agencies that had helped them settle in during those first hot days of August 1944. Now the charities came to assist with resettlement plans.