The French War Bride (31 page)

1946

M
y worries increased as we left the hotel. Jack had asked the concierge for directions to the train station, then headed the other way.

“Where are we going?” I clutched Elise as Jack guided us down the crowded sidewalk.

“We need to pick up something.”

“What?”

He grinned down at me. “Your photos.”

“My . . . photos?” I froze, and was almost knocked down by a man walking close behind me. “From the camera? Oh, I can't possibly afford . . .”

“Oh, it's my treat. I saw an all-night photo shop around the block, so I took the film last night while you were in the bathtub. They said the pictures would be ready this morning.”

“That is very considerate of you,” I managed. It was, of course. Very considerate and kind and . . . nosy. Or was it just my paranoia? Oh, la—what was on that roll of film? Yvette had owned the camera.

I hurried beside him as he turned into the store.

Jack greeted the man behind the counter. “I'm here to pick up some photos. The name is Jack O'Connor.”

“Oh, yes.” He smiled at me. “Your hair looks much better now than it did in the pictures.”

I must have looked shocked. I remembered, gratefully, that I was not supposed to understand English.

“Don't you want to look at them?” Jack asked. “I'll hold the baby.”

“Not now,” I said. “Later, when I'm sitting down.”

“We'll have plenty of time on the train.” He handed me the packet, and I tucked it into my purse. We went back outside, into the noisy, chilly air, and crossed the street, where he hailed a cab.

“Penn Station, please,” Jack told the driver.

—

The ticket clerk looked down at a printed schedule. “It's a twenty-two-hour trip to Chicago, and then you'll have to change trains. From there you'll take a train to Williston, North Dakota, and change trains again. That's about a fifty-six-hour trip. Then it's just a twelve-hour trip on to Whitefish.”

“All right,” Jack said. “How many days are we talking?”

“With wait time between trains, four.”

Jack blew out a sigh. “Okay. We need two tickets for the whole way, with separate sleeping berths for the overnight portions, please.”

The man peered over his wire-rim glasses, his expression curious. “It's just you and the missus, right?”

“Well, yes—and the baby.”

“One double berth should work. The baby can sleep in one of your suitcases. That's what most folks do. There's just enough space on the floor.”

“We'd like separate berths, please.”

“Separate?” He glanced at me and back at Jack, then quickly looked down. “I'll, um, see what I can do. We're awfully full up, what with the war over and everyone being transferred around and trying to get home and such.” He went to a Teletype machine, keyed something in, then pulled out a small piece of paper. He carried it back to the window. “I'm sorry, but you'll have to double up for at least part of the trip, if you want to leave today. If you insist on separate berths the whole way, you'll have to wait . . .” He punched more keys. “Whew—looks like three weeks. We've got a bunch of military movements coming up.”

“Three weeks!” Jack exclaimed.

The man's eyebrows rose. “You two are married, right? So there's really no reason that you can't share.”

“Well, yes. It's just . . . well, we . . . I—I—I snore.”

Jack was a hysterically horrible liar! I don't know if it was my fatigue, Jack's obvious discomfort, the clerk's confused expression, or a combination, but I couldn't help it; I burst out laughing.

Jack stared at me, his expression so odd I thought he was signaling me to corroborate his story.

“He snores like a freight train,” I said. “It usually doesn't bother me, but, well, I'm pregnant, so I don't sleep very soundly. But we'll be fine with a double berth.”

The clerk smiled, his eyes friendly. “Congratulations on the new little one! My wife is expecting, too.”

He turned back to his machine, but Jack continued to stare at me. It was then—only then—that I realized he was looking at me strangely because I'd understood, then spoken, English.

My heart sank. Mon Dieu! I'd made it through the war pretending that I couldn't understand a word of either German or English, keeping my secret for years. One day in Jack's company, and I'd already given myself away.

I turned aside, pretending that Elise needed rocking, and stared at the passengers streaming off a train while Jack paid for the tickets. I was sick with anxiety.

He carried both of our suitcases, but still managed to take me firmly by the elbow. He steered me toward a bench. “I didn't know that you spoke English.”

“I—I don't,” I responded in French. “N-not much.”

“You seemed pretty fluent a moment ago.”

“I—” I bounced Elise as I tried and failed to think of an excuse. I was too nervous to sit down.

A nerve flicked in Jack's jaw. He was angry. Very angry.

“Where does a Normandy farm girl learn to speak perfect English?” he asked in English.

It was futile to continue the ruse. I responded in his language. “My English isn't perfect.”

“You seem to understand me quite clearly. Don't pretend you don't.”

I lifted my shoulders.

“When did you learn?”

“As a girl.”
Stick to the truth. Act as if you are forthcoming
. “It so happens I speak German, as well.”

“Good God.” He stared at me. “How?”

Tweak the truth. That way the story rings true.
“My friend's father was a linguistics professor.”

“A linguistics professor—in a rural farming community?”

Have a logical explanation. Keep it simple.
“He was paralyzed. A—a motor accident. He and his wife and daughter moved there to live on his father's farm. He taught my friend and me and my brothers English and German. He tutored us after school and in the summers.”

“And your parents went along with this?”

“My parents were simple, but they understood the value of a good education. They wanted a better life for me and my brothers.”

“Why did you hide this from me?”

“I . . . didn't. You spoke French so well that it just never came up.”

His lips were tight, and his eyes flashed. I wasn't afraid of him, exactly, but I was glad we were in a public setting so he couldn't give his temper full rein. “You never once tried to talk to me in my own language, and you let me translate everything everyone has said since you got here. Why? Why on earth—
why
?”

Elise pulled at my hair. I adjusted the collar on her dress. “It just seemed awkward.”

“Awkward?” He scowled at me. “As if translating everything wasn't awkward for me! What kind of answer is that?”

“I wanted to tell you, but I couldn't find the right moment, and then it had gone on so long that it seemed as though I'd lost the opportunity. I just didn't know how.”

“How about saying, ‘By the way, I speak English beautifully?'”

“I didn't want you to think I had a problem with your French. I—I didn't want to be rude.”

“Rude?” A vein stood out in his temple, beside his eyebrow. “You thought making me translate everything was being
polite
?”

When he put it like that, I felt like an idiot. “I didn't say anything at first, because I was in the habit of hiding the fact I could understand what was going on around me. And then, when I realized I should tell you, well, it had gone on so long that I was embarrassed.”

“Whoa. Hold it right there.” He put up his hand.

Elise chose that moment to start crying. She no doubt could feel the tension between us. “Excuse me,” I said. “I need to find a place to change her diaper.”

—

When I returned, Jack seemed to have calmed down quite a bit. He waited for me to sit on the bench and settle Elise on my lap, then he sat down beside me. “What did you mean, you became used to hiding the fact you could understand what was being said around you?”

“Well, you know I worked for the Resistance during the occupation. I continued to do so after I moved to Paris. I got a job as a maid at a hotel and used my language skills to spy on German officers.”

“You worked while you were pregnant?”

It made me very nervous, talking about myself. I was afraid I would say something that would contradict what I'd already told him. “Yes. I didn't show very much, and I am clever with a needle. I was able to hide my pregnancy until the very end. I worked until a month before Elise was born.”

He sat still for a moment. He no longer seemed angry. “You said something to me in France about going through Nazis' coat pockets and suitcases. This is what you did at the hotel?”

I nodded. “I went through their belongings and I listened to their conversations. None of them imagined a maid could understand their language.”

A train roared into the station on the far track, heading the opposite way. It slowed and squealed to a halt. That's what I needed to do with this
conversation, I thought—get it on another track, going in a different direction.

“I had to work because I was destitute and homeless. But I don't suppose you'd know anything about that. You said you learned French from a nanny, so I assume your family is very wealthy. I suppose you look down on me because I'm poor.”

“Oh, no! No, I don't blame anyone for being poor. And you're wrong; my family wasn't wealthy. We fell on extremely hard times after my father died.”

The rumble of another approaching train made it impossible to talk. Elise fussed as the train grew closer and louder and the air grew heavy with the scent of diesel. The brakes squealed, and the engine slowed as it passed by us. At length it stopped, the passenger cars in front of us.

“This is our train to Chicago,” Jack said.

—

We ended up in a private alcove with seats facing each other that would fold down into a bed, with a bunk bed on top. Heavy green curtains, which would give privacy at night, were tied back at the sides on brass hooks.

Boarding the train and getting settled provided a much-needed distraction. Elise was in a playful mood, which helped dispel the tension between us. I didn't give Jack a chance to start questioning me again; as soon as the train began moving, I posed questions of my own. “You said your family fell on hard times when your father died. Does that mean you once were wealthy?”

“No. Well, my mother . . . she came from a family of means in Charleston, and she was accustomed to the finer things. She was a debutante, and my father was a strawberry farmer in Louisiana.”

“How did they end up together?”

“They met during the Great War and fell madly in love. Her parents objected to him, but she ran away and married him anyway.”

“Goodness!”

“She should have listened to her parents. Their differences . . . well, you can hardly imagine a more unlikely pair. Lots of turmoil, lots of
arguments, lots of shouting matches.” He shook his head. “One thing about growing up in a household like that—it teaches you what you don't want your life to be like.”

“I would imagine so.”

“That's one reason I'm marrying my fiancée. I want a home life that will be calm and peaceful.”

It struck me as an odd thing to say. “And how do you know your fiancée will be provide such a thing?”

“Well, she's just like her mother, and I'm very much like her father. He's very rational and logically minded, and she's home-oriented and sociable. I feel like I've seen a prototype of what our lives will be like.”

“So that's the reason you're engaged?”

“I think it's a very good reason.”

“What about love?”

“Well, that, too, of course.”

“You didn't mention it.”

“I didn't think I had to. I'm marrying her, aren't I?”

“I see.” I was not sure that I did. “What is her name?”

“Kat.”

“Like the animal?”

“It's short for Katherine. But she has big green eyes like a cat.”

“She sounds beautiful.”

“Oh, she is.”

“Do you have a picture?”

“Yes.”

He pulled a professional photo out of his wallet. I felt a stab of jealousy; the woman looked like an actress or a model. “She's gorgeous.”

He smiled. “Yes.”

“What has Kat been doing while you've been away?”

“Going to college.”

I felt another stab of envy. “What is she studying?”

“Home economics. She wants to be the best wife and mother possible.”

“I see.” I didn't understand how college could help with that, but then, there was a lot I didn't know.

“So . . . how did you two meet?”

“Through church. I suppose I'd known her all my life, but we connected because her father was a doctor and I wished to talk to him about the profession.”

“Did you date all through school?”

“No. She is two years behind me in school, so I didn't start dating her until a few months before I graduated high school.”

“Was she your first girlfriend?”

He shook his head. “There was another girl, Beth Ann, when I was younger. She moved away.”

“Did you love her?”

“Well, I thought I did, but when you are so young . . . well, it's easy for emotions to overtake you.”

“And did your emotions overtake you?”

He cut a look at me. “You mean the way yours did with Doug?”

I felt a blush along the roots of my hair. “I suppose that's what I'm asking.”

“I don't think that's an appropriate question, do you?”