She was, she realized, trembling in his arms.
“Can you tell me the rest? You couldn’t have been much more than a child yourself.”
“Eighteen. It was my eighteenth birthday.” She felt him go perfectly still and guessed that he was making the connection between what she was telling him and her too-heavy imbibing on her most recent birthday, as well as on the other birthdays she had spent in his company. But the memory surged forward, assaulting her, ripping at her heart. She almost flinched, almost turned away, almost pushed the past back behind the wall she had so laboriously built over the ensuing years to contain it. Clinging to Max, breathing deeply of his familiar scent, she managed to keep going by shying away from the worst of it and concentrating on the easier, less painful details.
Tilting her head, she slanted a look up at him and adopted a faintly jeering tone. “You didn’t know I was a slut, did you? Pregnant at sixteen.”
His arms tightened around her. His face bent toward hers. His dark eyes took on a fierce gleam. “You were never a slut. You think I don’t know you well enough after all this time to know that? And if anyone else had said that about you, I’d be punching them in the face about now.”
That wrung the smallest of smiles from her. He didn’t smile back. Instead he stroked her hair, kissed her forehead and said, “Go on. Pregnant at sixteen.”
She told him about Phillippe, that she’d loved him, that he’d died. She told him about discovering she was pregnant, about her own and her family’s shock and shame, about being sent away in secret to have her baby.
She told him about the fourteen months of her daughter’s life. About how beautiful her child was, how quick to learn, how funny, how beloved.
As she talked, the other, darker images gathered strength, crowded closer, forced their way toward the forefront of her mind. Vividly colored, sharply real, and devastating.
Until finally she reached that day, her eighteenth birthday, and the handful of moments that divided the before of her existence from the after. Her voice faltered, but he murmured encouragement. Wrapped in the solid strength of his arms, her head resting on his chest so that she could hear the steady beat of his heart beneath her ear, she found the courage to go on. Husky and hesitant at first, the words tumbled out as that last, terrible memory unfolded like a movie reel in her head.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Maman! Happy birthday!”
The sun was sinking behind the mountains of the Luberon Massif, bathing the tiny provincial village of Lourmarin in a warm golden glow. Hurrying along the narrow street, walled in by whitewashed houses rising up three stories to end in clay tile roofs, Genevieve—no, not Genevieve, she’d still been Genevra de Rocheford then, although she didn’t tell Max that—looked up smiling at the sound of her small daughter’s voice calling to her, parroting the phrase she’d learned only that morning in all the excitement of waking up to her mother’s birthday, complete with a tableful of wrapped presents, a number of which were for Vivi, because Genevra hadn’t been able to resist and had promised treats.
The basket over her arm was heavy with fat Toulouse sausages, a loaf of crusty bread and two jars of fourteen-month-old Vivi’s favorite fig jam. Sent to the market by Clotilde, the former housekeeper at Rocheford whom Lillian had paid to take her in but was almost like a real aunt to her now, Genevra had left Vivi behind because there was flu in the village and she didn’t want Vivi exposed. She was looking forward to the birthday feast Clotilde was preparing featuring, among other delicacies, a casserole of Basque chicken and a chocolate cake. Having hurried, she should reach home again right on time for the meal. In fact, she could already smell its savory aroma—
Because the window was open.
The second-story window, some twenty feet above the cobblestones, had its sash thrown up. Its simple white curtains fluttered in the breeze.
On the heels of a harsh winter and a cold, wet spring, the day’s relatively balmy temperature had prompted someone—Clotilde, or perhaps Lydie from the village, who came in daily to help care for Clotilde’s elderly mother—to open the front bedroom window, presumably to allow fresh air into the winter-stuffy house.
“Maman!” Vivi waved enthusiastically, her mop of black curls bobbing, her small cherubic face wreathed in smiles. Genevra could see only her head and raised arm; her dimpled chin barely topped the sill. Then the little girl turned sideways and climbed onto something—probably the cushioned footstool from in front of the nearby chair, which she liked to push around the floor. In a moment she was standing, hanging on to one of the curtains for balance. Framed by the faded blue shutters bracketing the window, her small sturdy body was visible to her knees, or rather to the ruffled hem of her pink-sashed white silk party dress that reached just below them. Vivi hadn’t been wearing it earlier. Clearly someone had changed her dress in honor of the festive dinner to come.
Genevra realized that she could see her child in such vivid detail because there was nothing between the two of them but a distance of maybe forty meters—and air.
Ice-cold fear grabbed her by the throat.
“Vivi! Get down from there! Get away from the window!” Spurred by a dreadful premonition, she started to run. Her eyes stayed fastened on her child. “Vivi, do you hear me—get down!”
“Happy birthday, Maman!” Waving, hanging on to the curtain, Vivi bounced up and down with glee.
Genevra dropped the basket, paid no heed to the contents as they rolled clattering away down the street.
“Vivienne! Stop! Get down!” Shrieking the words, she ran as fast as she could, though her legs felt as if they were plowing through wet cement. The blood roared in her ears. Her heart pounded like it would beat its way out of her chest.
The curtain ripped.
Still clutching it, Vivi lost her balance, toppled out of the window—
“No!”
—and plummeted to the ground like a plump white bird shot out of the sky.
Panting, shaking, Genevieve broke off her hesitant recital there and wrenched herself out of the memory, because she couldn’t bear to revisit that heart-destroying scene for another second.
“Genevieve—” Max’s arms tightened around her.
“She was dead. Dead when I reached her.” Her voice was hoarse. Try as she might, the images lingered, fading but there, smoky wisps of the past that wouldn’t leave her alone. A flutter of white silk; a splash of crimson on the gray ground.
She’d thrown herself screaming to her knees beside the small still body lying crumpled on the cobblestones.
“It’s all right. I’ve got you.” Max’s voice pulled her the rest of the way out, brought her back to the present, made the images, finally, retreat.
Safe in the sanctuary of his arms, she shivered and gasped and wept hot tears into his chest. He rocked and petted her, crooning wordless murmurs of comfort until all her tears were spent, until she lay limp and exhausted against him.
“I’m so sorry, angel. So bloody sorry.” He stroked her hair, her arm, her back.
She nodded. Her eyes were closed, and the tremors that had racked her were receding. The vise that always crushed her chest when she thought of Vivi had loosened its grip. The pain was still there, but it was a softer, more manageable pain.
As if, by sharing it with him, she’d weakened its power over her.
He said, “You should have told me. Long ago.”
“I can’t...talk about it.” Taking a breath, she realized something. Her eyes opened. Her head lay on his chest, and she tilted it so that she could see his face. Like the bed, like the room, like the entire studio, he was painted in shades of purple and lavender as dawn claimed the sky. His lean, dark face was so much a part of the landscape of her existence now, so familiar, so dear, that her heart flooded with warmth as she looked at him, and that helped ease the pain, too. “I couldn’t talk about it. I’
ve never been able to. You’re the first person I’ve ever told.”
“I’m honored.” His voice was low and grave.
“I couldn’t feel anything, after. It was like—I was alive, but not really present in my life, if you can understand that.”
“I can. Soldiers who experience terrible things in battle sometimes report a similar reaction.” His hand came up, and he wiped the last lingering traces of tears from her face with gentle fingers. “To lose a child, and that when you weren’t much more than a baby yourself—it would have broken a great many people. You didn’t break.”
“I came close.”
“Not that I ever saw.” He smiled at her, a quick wry twist of his lips that did funny things to her insides. “Did I say you were brave, last night? I didn’t know the half of it.” Then his eyes darkened. “Last night—my God, Genevieve, if I had known, I would have been gentler.”
She knew he was thinking about the fierceness with which they’d come together and the brevity of her one previous physical experience, that single encounter with Phillippe. The love she’d had for Phillippe had been real, but it belonged to the girl she had been then, not the woman she was now, and had long been eclipsed by the joy and the agony that was Vivi’s life and death. What she had once felt for Phillippe was a tiny candle compared to the blazing sun of love and connection that she now felt for Max.
Pulling herself together, she let the past go.
“You were perfect,” she said, and smiled at him. Then she kissed him and crawled on top of him to prove it.
Later they had to hurry to dress and leave the studio for fear that Madame Arnault or some of the chorus would arrive for rehearsal. Faced with the choice of wearing her black swan costume from the previous night or borrowing something slightly less eye-catching from the rack of costumes, she opted for an outfit designed for a song from Girl Crazy. The neat blue dress with its white collar, cinched waist and full skirt looked enough like an ordinary day dress that she could wear it without attracting attention. The swan costume got added to the rack of costumes, where she hoped its presence would pass unnoticed until she could discreetly retrieve it.
Still too shy to dress in front of him, Genevieve made use of the bathroom, doing her best to eradicate all traces of the night they’d spent, doing a creditable job of eliminating signs of tears and lack of sleep but able to do nothing about her slightly swollen lips or the stars in her eyes. She felt lighter emotionally than she had in years, but discovering her feelings for Max had left her feeling vulnerable, too.
Emerging fully clad, not quite sure what to expect or how to behave, she found him in his boxers in the act of shaving in a mirror above the kitchen sink. She was entranced by the process—and by the sight of him in his underwear, which showed off all manner of manly muscles, while he scraped bristles and soap lather from his face. She also got her first good look at his leg: from midthigh to just above his ankle, it was crisscrossed with ugly raised white scars that, he assured her when he saw her looking at it, made the damage appear far worse than it was, as much of the mobility had been restored to the injured tissues over time. Its appearance had proved useful the few times he’d had to drop his trousers to prove his injury, he told her, but other than that he was rarely aware of it anymore.
In the absence of Otto and the Citroën, they took a bicycle taxi back to the hotel. The morning light was soft and hazy with the promise of a sunny day to come. The air smelled of blossoms and green growing things with an undercurrent of the Seine. By mutual if unspoken agreement, they’d chosen to keep the unexpected turn in their relationship to themselves, so once out of the studio there was no hand-holding, no hugs or kisses, none of that. But there was something in his eyes when he looked at her that made her heart beat faster every time she encountered it. And she—every time she looked at him, she could feel butterflies taking flight in her stomach.
The solution, of course, was for them not to look at each other. But that was hard to do. She wanted to look at him, to touch him, to spend every available moment with him. Despite the newfound happiness bubbling inside her, she was supremely conscious of the darkness and danger all around them, and that they had so little time.
She couldn’t think about it. If she did, it would spoil the few days they had.
With Max, relying heavily on his stick again now that they were back in public, a few steps behind, she was walking through the Ritz’s lobby toward the lift when she spotted Emmy.
Her sister was seated alone at a table in the outdoor patio, sipping from a delicate china cup. To all outward appearances, she was a guest idly watching the comings and goings in the lobby. Clad in a fashionable fur-trimmed coat and a cloche hat, her hair freshly bobbed, Emmy looked completely at home in her surroundings—and totally different from the Emmy whom Genevieve had encountered in the elevator, or out front on the place Vendôme.
She knew the moment her sister saw her. Emmy paused for the merest fraction of a second in the act of lowering her cup back to its saucer. Across the busy lobby, their eyes met. Then Max caught up to her, said, “Something wrong?” into her ear, and Genevieve realized that her step had faltered at the same time that Emmy had hesitated with the cup.
Shaking her head, she smiled up at him and walked on. Together they took the lift up to her suite.
But everything had changed. Anxiety fizzed like soda pop beneath her skin. Emmy’s presence in the lobby almost certainly meant one thing—she had news. Genevieve didn’t think it could be good. Despite all the years in which they hadn’t seen each other, some things hadn’t changed, and what she’d read in Emmy’s posture was fear.
Max went up with her. His plan was to use the telephone in her suite to start laying the groundwork for her “special performance” in Spain. The hotel telephone system wasn’t secure, but then the calls he would be making were perfectly legitimate. And if the Germans were listening in, the calls would reinforce the reason behind her sudden decampment with her troupe to Spain.
She hadn’t told Max who her mother was, or that her sister was the friend she’d been meeting and was, not coincidentally, with the SOE, none of that. Her family had remained suitably anonymous—Maman, my sister—as she’d told him about Vivi.
Now she was faced with a dilemma: Emmy was there, in the hotel, clearly needing to meet. Should she tell Max? The radical alteration in their relationship since she’d last talked with Emmy dictated that she should. Even if she hadn’t been entirely certain that he would do his utmost to rescue rather than execute her mother for her sake before, she was now.
Then she remembered the ruthless efficiency with which he’d dealt with Touvier. And him saying, I’m a soldier.
She loved him. She had, and would, trust him with her life. But with her mother’s—suddenly she wasn’t so sure.
What she urgently needed to do was nip down and talk to Emmy. While Max was safely on the telephone. Depending on what her sister had to say, that might help her decide.
Berthe, pale and looking as though she hadn’t slept well, hurried out from the vicinity of her bedroom to greet them as they walked into the suite.
“You’re safe.” Berthe beamed with relief. “Of course, I knew you were with M’sieur Max, so I wasn’t worried...much.”
Reminded of Pierre’s fate, and Touvier and the raid, Genevieve felt unwelcome weight settle back onto her shoulders.
“Was there any more trouble after we left?” she asked.
“With the boche, there is always trouble. At least we were allowed to go.” As she spoke, Berthe bustled around, opening the curtains so that the morning light poured in, twitching cushions on the sofa into greater plumpness. “Are you hungry?” Her glance encompassed Max, who’d walked on into the room while Genevieve still stood near the door. “Do you want me to call down for breakfast?”
“Genevieve left her finale costume at the studio,” Max said before Gene
vieve could reply. “Otto should be downstairs with the car by now. Do you think you could go to the studio and retrieve it, then drop it off by the theater so it will be ready for tonight?”
It was all Genevieve could do not to blink at him in surprise. Max interested himself in many things about her performances, but not her costumes. Having Berthe do what he’d suggested would have ordinarily never occurred to him. He wanted to get Berthe out of the way.
She didn’t think this sudden wish to be private with her was because he wanted to whisper more sweet nothings into her ear.
It didn’t require genius to conclude that he’d noticed her moment of recognition in the lobby when she’d spotted Emmy and meant to demand an explanation.
Her heart stuttered as she shot a veiled glance at him. He stood in the center of the room now, all handsome, affable elegance as he smiled at Berthe. But she knew him.
Behind the outward appearance of good humor lay suspicion.
She wasn’t going to get away from him before he got his explanation. The question was, should she lie?
Panic dried her mouth.
“Yes, of course,” Berthe said.
That wasn’t a surprise. Genevieve couldn’t remember a time when Berthe hadn’t agreed to do whatever Max wanted. But from the look Berthe shot her as she grabbed her coat, Berthe, too, suspected Max’s motives for wanting to get rid of her. That look commiserated with her, said something like Uh-oh, what did you do?
As Berthe left, Genevieve walked to the window and looked unseeingly out at the bustling square.
The door clicked shut. The silence that followed grew so unnerving that Genevieve finally had to turn around.
Max leaned a shoulder against a nearby wall, arms crossed over his chest, stick leaning against the wall beside him, looking at her. The smile was gone.
The Black Swan of Paris Page 35