The French War Bride (32 page)

“I think you just answered it.”

He looked away, but a nerve twitched in his jaw. He was pretty good at keeping a poker face, but he had little tells.

“So you are concerned about what Kat will say about our . . . arrangement?”

“Yes. She won't like it.”

“How do you intend to tell her?”

“Well, first, I thought I would tell her father. He'll understand that this was the right thing to do. His opinion is very important.”

“To her, or to you?”

He looked surprised at the question. “To both of us, I suppose. Then I'll take Kat aside and I'll assure her, first, that there is nothing romantic between you and me.”

The words stung a little bit.

“And then I'll tell her about Doug,” Jack continued.

“You haven't told her?”

He shifted on the seat. “She knows a medic died saving my life, but I haven't told her how it affected me.”

“It can be hard to put emotions on paper.” I put my hand on his arm, a spontaneous gesture of sympathy. The moment I did, I was keenly aware of the muscles of his arm, of the heat radiating through his jacket. I pulled my hand away. “It will be much easier to talk when you are face-to-face.”

“I hope so.” He looked away. “Sometimes I find it hard to talk to people.”

“You seem to have no problem with me.”

“That's true.” He smiled. “Maybe it's because we both experienced the war.”

“Yes.” My thoughts flickered back and forth between his comment “there is nothing romantic between you and me” and the way his arm had felt under my palm. I forced myself to carry on the conversation. “Do you think Kat's feelings will be hurt?”

He tilted his head, considering the question. “No, not really. As long as word of our marriage doesn't get out in Wedding Tree, I think she'll mainly just be inconvenienced.”

“Inconvenienced?”

“Yes. That I'll have to spend six weeks in Reno in order to get our annulment, and that we'll have to postpone the wedding.”

“I'm so sorry I put you in a bind.” I was genuinely chagrined. “If you want, you can head back to Louisiana from Chicago, and I'll go on to Montana by myself. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier.” In fact, traveling alone would give me the option of going somewhere other than Montana.

“No. It would be too difficult for you to manage with the baby—and Kat and I can't marry until the annulment is finalized, anyway. Besides, I told Doug's parents I was coming, and I always try to keep my word.”

“That's very admirable.”

“Yes, well, I believe in being trustworthy. Too many people aren't.”

I suppressed a shiver. Dear God, I hope he never learned the truth about me! “I sense some interesting stories behind that statement.”

“I don't know how interesting they are, but yes, I've had some experiences.”

“Tell me about one.”

He gazed out the window at the passing cityscape. “When I was a boy, my friend Tim lived at the horse ranch next to our farm. Tim had asthma. It wasn't a well-understood condition at the time; people called it ‘weak lungs.' His father had taken him to see the local doctor—that would be Kat's father, Dr. Thompson—several times. The best that he could offer was a shot of epinephrine for an acute attack. They didn't have inhalers then—at least, not in rural Louisiana.

“Dr. Thompson thought that Tim had allergies, probably to hay, dust, and horses, and suggested that he stay away from them. Well, this didn't sit well with his father, who expected Tim to help out and eventually take over the business, so Tim continued doing all the things that could make his condition worse.”

“Oh, la,” I murmured.

“At the height of the Depression, a shyster came by Tim's home claiming he had a cure. He had a special tonic and a harness-like device. He said that if asthma sufferers wore it at night, it would pull back the shoulders and open up the lungs. Tim's parents couldn't afford it—like everyone, they were barely scraping by—but they bought the contraption and a year's supply of the medicine anyway.

“Tim told me that the harness hurt so bad that sometimes he'd just lie in bed and cry like a baby. When he'd take the medicine, his heart raced and his face sweated and he lost his appetite. But he was determined to stick with it, both because he wanted to be cured and because his parents had invested so much in it.

“Over a few months' time, Tim lost a lot of weight and looked awful. And then, on the way home from school one day—we used to walk together to and from school, which was a couple of miles from our farm—he had a horrible asthma attack.” Jack closed his eyes for a moment.

“I tried to help him, but he couldn't breathe. Finally someone came along in a car and picked us up and took us to town to Dr. Thompson's office. By the time we got there, Tim was dead.

“Dr. Thompson was mad as hell when I told him about the device and the medicine. He said it sounded as if the medicine had cocaine or amphetamine in it, which would only exacerbate the condition, and that the salesman's lies had killed Tim just as sure as if he'd shot him. He said Tim's parents were fools for falling for a snake-oil pitch. He calmed down by the time the parents got there—he didn't want to make them feel any worse than they did—but he did tell them that the treatment had been worthless.

“Tim's mother died of a stroke within the year. Everyone said it was the stress and grief, and I don't doubt it. Tim's father took to the bottle, and he ended up losing the farm. The other kids went off to live with relatives in other towns.” Jack stared out the window. “And meanwhile, that self-serving, lying quack was still out there, deceiving other people desperate for a miracle.”

“How terrible!”

“Yeah, it was.”

“Was that what made you want to become a doctor?”

“That was part of it. I'd already been thinking in that direction, and having Tim die like that—well, it made me want to learn how to help people, instead of just being a bystander.”

I thought of how I'd felt when the Nazis had firebombed the farmhouse and I'd sat in the cart, not knowing what to do. My heart went out to him.

“Tim was the first person to die in my arms,” Jack said. “Two years later, my father was the second.”

“Oh, Jack!” I breathed.

He stared out the window, but I don't think he was seeing the outskirts of the city. “We were fishing on a lake—I was rowing the boat, and he was casting a line. All of a sudden, his fishing pole clattered to the bottom of the boat, and he grabbed his chest and keeled over. I scrambled over to him—I nearly tipped over the boat, trying to get to him—and he was unconscious. I yelled to some other men fishing from the shore, then rowed over to them as fast as I could. They helped me take Dad home and put him to bed. Dr. Thompson came, and, well, Dad never woke up.”

“I'm so sorry! How old were you?”

“Fourteen. I felt terribly guilty, thinking I should have been able to
save him. I asked Dr. Thompson what I should have done differently. He said there was nothing. He said it was a heart attack, and that I had done all anyone could.”

“Oh, Jack.”

“Dr. Thompson said I'd probably make a good doctor myself someday, but I felt discouraged. A few weeks after the funeral, I went by his office and had a conversation with him. I asked, ‘How can you stand having patients die of things that you can't help?' And I'll never forget what he told me.”

I leaned toward him as the train swayed. “What did he say?”

“He said, ‘A doctor isn't God. I don't care how well trained you are, you can't always keep someone from dying. But very few people make it from birth to death without having a sore throat or breaking a leg or having some other health problem. So whenever a patient dies, I try to remember that during his or her life, I or another doctor probably helped them. We can't fix everything, but we help where we can.'”

“He sounds like a very wise man.”

“Oh, he is. I admire him more than anyone in the world. I really look forward to going into practice with him.”

I studied him from the corner of my eye while pretending to smooth Elise's hair. “It's convenient that you fell in love with his daughter.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just . . . you're fortunate he'll get to be your father-in-law.” And he had spoken more passionately about Dr. Thompson than I'd ever heard him speak about the fiancée. But perhaps this was just his way. “Is his daughter interested in medicine also?”

“Oh, no. The sight of blood makes Kat queasy. But she's like her mother, so she'll make a very good doctor's wife.”

At the time, I thought
il l'assomme avec des fleurs
—he's knocking her with flowers. I've since learned the English phrase: damning her with faint praise.

1946

W
e went to the dining car for lunch, and when we came back to our alcove, Elise fell asleep in Jack's arms. I leaned back my head and closed my eyes for a moment, my purse in my lap. The motion of the train and the rhythm of the track lulled me to sleep. A clatter suddenly jolted me awake. I opened my eyes to discover that my purse had fallen open on the floor. To my horror, photos were spilled all over our feet.

“I'll get them,” Jack said. He passed Elise to me before I could form a protest, then dropped to his knees and began picking up pictures. “I was wondering when you were going to look at these.” He picked up a picture of us at the restaurant, and then of us at our wedding. He suddenly froze, staring down at a photo in his hand.

I leaned forward to see the picture, and felt my blood turned to ice. It was a photo of Yvette and me—together, smiling, our arms out like birds, our heads shorn. The shadow of swastikas were faintly visible on our scalps.

He held the photo in front of me, his face red, his mouth a hard line. “What is this?”

“Oh, that—that's nothing.” I tried to take the photo from him. My first instinct was to make it disappear, to downplay it, to act as if it were not important.

He twisted away and continued holding it. “This is not nothing.” He picked the other pictures off the floor, then riffled through them.

My stomach turned. I thought I would be sick.

“You were a femme tondue.”

“It's—it's not what you think. I wasn't . . . I never . . .”

He held up another photo—and then another. Oh, mon Dieu—they showed Dierk, shirtless in bed, leering at the camera. Dierk in his uniform at a restaurant table. Dierk by the Seine.

“Don't lie to me. I know all about it, how the French turned on the women who had slept with the enemy. I was there. I saw it in rural France.”

“It is not what it seems. It is not! I never slept or made love or even kissed a Boche. I was simply trying to help my friend—to keep her from being stripped and shaved and I didn't know what else. In the chaos of the moment, the mob grabbed me, as well.”

The next photo—oh, how horrible!—was of Dierk and me at a table at a sidewalk café, the one day I had joined Yvette and him for Sunday lunch. Dierk's hand rested on the back of my chair.

Jack's eyes narrowed as he waved the photo in my face. “You expect me to believe you?”

A sense of despair engulfed me. “That was not my camera. My friend—she took the photos.”

“The very best conclusion I can draw is that you were bosom buddies with a woman who slept with German soldiers.”

“It wasn't like that. Well, it became that way, at the end . . . but she only did it to gather information for the Resistance.”

“An undercover agent, I suppose.”

I wasn't familiar with the term, but I recognized the sarcasm in his voice. “It so happens she provided some very important information.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Why should you not?”

He flipped to another picture and held it out. I wanted to slide under the seat. There I was, my arms out like a swan's wings, my head bald as an egg and marked with a swastika, gallivanting around a luxurious room.

“This is not the grim time in Paris you described.” His voice was low and controlled. It was scarier than if he had shouted. “Look here. That is your dress in the armoire. That is your hat on the rack. You obviously lived there.”

“I did not. This was Yvette's room. It was the day before she was kicked out, the day after the Germans all fled and the Americans arrived. The clothes were all Yvette's. All of my clothes were once Yvette's.”

“And where is this Yvette?”

“She is dead.”

He must have seen something in my face, because I could tell he believed that.

“She died of the flu. What you said about someone dying in your arms . . . I know about that. I was at her bedside. At our apartment.”

“Where?”

“Upstairs from Nora. When Yvette became ill, the hospital wouldn't take her, because she was contagious. I—wear her clothes. I had none of my own that weren't maid's uniforms, except for the dress I was wearing when I came to Paris.”

He flipped through the photos.

The last one, thank God, showed Dierk and Yvette, holding hands. I felt a jolt of relief.

“See? The camera—it was Yvette's. Dierk gave it to her. That is why she isn't in most of the photos. It's because she was the one taking the pictures. And she is wearing the yellow dress I wore to marry you.”

He looked up, his gaze still harsh. “Why did you not tell me the camera was not yours?”

“When would I have done that? It isn't the sort of thing I would just announce—not any more than I would have announced that the clothes were not mine.”

He sat there for a moment. I could tell he was struggling to sort the facts. “I would like an explanation.”

“Of what?”

“Of everything. Who was this Yvette? Did she work with you? Was she the friend who left you the baby formula?”

Fear—cold, gripping, paralyzing—flashed through me. If I said yes, he might put it all together. “Yvette was my dearest friend. She was like a sister to me. We grew up together.”

“In the country?”

“Yes. And she came to Paris with me.”

“Was it her father who taught you English and German?”

“Yes.”

Why didn't you tell me of this?”

“Again, when would I have told you?”

“Nora knew her?”

“Yes.”

“And yet neither of you mentioned her.”

“I don't know when it would have come up. You and I did not spend much time together before we married.”

He knew I had a point, but he scowled all the same. He went back to the first photo, the one of Yvette and me with our hair freshly shorn. “Why the hell were you frolicking around in this picture, as if it's all just some kind of a lark?”

Oh, mon Dieu. How to explain? “That day—it had been the most awful, humiliating experience of our lives. We were stripped to our undergarments and put in an open truck with other women—some of them prostitutes—and driven through the streets of Paris. People spat on us and threw garbage at us and ridiculed us. It was horrible. The hotel wouldn't even let us into the lobby—we had to go through the servants' entrance. And once we were in Yvette's room, we saw ourselves in a mirror for the first time.

“That might have been the worst part of all—seeing ourselves with no hair. I wanted to die. And then Yvette said that we could cry or we could laugh; neither would make our hair grow back faster, but laughing would make us feel better about it. And she started teasing me about looking like a little bald bird, and she started clowning around, and after all of the shame and humiliation and crying . . . well, she made me laugh. And she got out her camera, and . . .” I gestured at the photos. “. . . voilà.”

He was silent for a long moment.

“Yvette had a powerful, uplifting spirit,” I said. “She found a way to make that horrible situation bearable. That day, after laughing together, we were able to figure out a way to hide our baldness, and we were able to survive.”

He lifted his gaze from the photo, looked at me, then blew out a sigh. “She sounds like a remarkable woman.”

“She was. She truly was.” I wiped at the tears that were sliding down my face.

Elise started to fuss. I pulled her diaper bag from under the seat and rose, holding her. “I need to change her diaper.”

—

When I returned from the ladies' room, Jack apologized.

“I'm sorry I was angry. I know the war wasn't easy, and when I learned you were a femme tondue, well, it was a shock. You were pregnant with Elise, and thinking that you . . . while you were carrying Doug's baby . . . Well, I'm sure you only did what you had to do.”

“I did not do
that.
I was shaved because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to protect Yvette.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“It does matter!” Although when I searched for a reason, there was none I could voice. I couldn't say,
You are a good man, and the opinion of a good man matters a great deal to me, because I have done many things that are neither black nor white. I want the validation that I am on the lighter shade of gray.
But that was the truth of it.

We sat in silence for a long moment. “Did you ever consider it? Going with a German?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Yvette—well, she'd had her heart broken and she was sure she'd never love again. She did not value lovemaking, but she knew it could be a crucial tool for gathering information. I could not see it that way for myself.”

“So your head was shaved because you were trying to help Yvette,” he said at length.

“That's right.”

We sat in silence for several moments, the tracks rumbling loudly beneath us. He seemed to be deep in thought.

“Okay,” he said at length.

“Okay, what?”

“Okay. I believe you.”

The comment left me angry. Why, I do not know, since I desperately wanted his good opinion. Maybe that—the wanting—was the reason for my anger. “And I'm supposed to feel good about that?”

He leaned forward, clearly exasperated. “What do you want from me?”

Understanding. Validation. To feel that you think I'm a good person. Because if I can convince you, perhaps I can believe it a bit myself.

“I honestly don't know.” I stared at Elise, asleep in my arms. “To not feel judged, I suppose. To not feel as if you're doing me some kind of favor.” I was immediately stricken. “Although you are, of course. Marrying me—it was a tremendous favor.” I leaned back my head and closed my eyes for a moment. “I owe you a great deal. Thank you. I have no right to complain about anything you say or do.”

“Of course you do. It's natural that you wouldn't want to be thought of as a woman of . . . of . . .”

“Ill repute?”

He gave a sheepish grin. “That sounds really stuffy, doesn't it?”

I smiled back. “I've always wondered why one never hears of men of ill repute, even though they are equally to blame. Maybe more so, since they're the ones who create the demand for services.”

“You're right. It's unjust. But that is how it is.” He looked at me. “You don't talk like a country girl. Your school provided you with a surprisingly good education.”

“Yes, it did.” I looked away. Oh, how I hated all the lies that stood between us! It was time to turn the conversation in his direction.

“What about you? You were raised in the country, as well. What did you say your father grew?”

“He started out with strawberries, then added a small dairy.”

“What was he like?”

“Oh, my father . . .” His face tightened. “Lots of charm, lots of big plans. He was always off chasing a new scheme.” He gazed out the window. “I guess you would describe him as a man of excessive passions.”

“Ah. You are very different.”

“Yes.”

“And that is not by accident, I take it?”

He smiled at me. “You are a student of human nature.”

“I am just naturally curious.”

“About everything and everyone?”

“About you.” The minute I said it, I realized it sounded too personal. “Anytime someone speaks of excessive passions, well, it sounds as if there is a story there, and I am a big fan of stories.”

“Well, then, you would have loved my father, because he could always spin a good one.”

“Yes?”

“After he married, my father started looking for a get-rich-quick scheme. That's when he started brewing and shipping bootleg whiskey.”

“What is bootleg?”

“There was a thing in the United States called Prohibition. It was illegal to have or serve alcohol.”

I had heard of this. The American prohibition had hurt France's wine industry, because we lost a major export market. As a Frenchwoman, however, I could not understand it. “That is very strange. Why would the government do such a thing?”

He laughed. “Your reaction is the one that logical people should have had. The government thought it would cure many social problems, but outlawing alcohol didn't stop people from drinking. It just made them buy alcohol through illegal means.”

“You mean the black market.” Here, now, was a concept I fully understood.

“Yes. My father made a good amount of money at it. He needed it, because my mother had expensive tastes. She insisted on a large house, a piano, maids, and a nanny. But when Prohibition was repealed, his business crashed. And then the Depression was upon us, and money was tight.”

“Oh, la.”

“And my father . . . well, he had made very little provision for making an honest living. And then he died.”

“That must have been very difficult for your family.”

He nodded. “Extremely difficult. I worked and went to school and worried about money. I took over the books for my father's business. My mother claimed she had no head for business; I think she was afraid of what she would find. And I wouldn't have wanted her to have seen what was in those books.”

“Why? What did you find?”

“Father had spent money he didn't have. We had very little. He'd mortgaged the farm. And there were other things . . .”

“What things?”

“Other women.”

“No!”

“Yes. After he died, I discovered we had virtually nothing left. And Father had not invested in fertilizer or new plows or any of the things we needed to run the farm efficiently.”

“What did you do?”

“I worked the farm and made the mortgage payments, and in the summer I worked as a laborer on other farms in exchange for being able to use their equipment. And then my mother remarried and moved to town. She wed the local banker, a man who was quite a bit older than she was. That's why I was able to leave for college. I had a scholarship, so I didn't need money for myself, but I couldn't have left my sister, so . . .”