Chateau of Secrets: A Novel

by Melanie Dobson

  I wanted to scream. Hurl something through the window. Run.

  So many people had compared Austin’s charisma and charm to John F. Kennedy’s. Is this what Jackie felt like the first time she found out about her husband’s affairs? Angry and ashamed.

  Perhaps she felt trapped in their marriage, but I wasn’t trapped. There was still time for me to walk away.

  My heart heavy, I wiped away my tears and stepped back into the lobby. My father and Marissa had both warned me that Austin might be hiding something, but I’d ignored the waving of their red flags.

  The elevator delivered me to the eighteenth floor, to a long hall lit with golden wall sconces and masked with mirrors. All it needed was smoke to complete the illusion.

  My stomach rolled when I heard a woman laugh in the Edwardian Fifth Avenue Suite, like Megan laughing in the Vales’ home. In front of the suite was an alcove with a stiff leather bench, and I sat, wishing I could break down the door.

  Instead I pulled out my phone, looked at the text I’d almost sent on the sidewalk. The one asking Austin to turn around.

  If I’d sent it, he might have turned and slammed the car door before I saw the woman with him. Years or even decades might have passed before I learned the truth.

  My stomach curled at the thought.

  Austin’s mother might have tolerated her husband’s infidelities. Countless politicians’ wives before me might have looked the other way. But I could not.

  Slowly I began to delete each letter in my original text. Then, taking a deep breath, I began to type again.

  I made it to NYC, I wrote. You here?

  This time I heard his laugh blending with hers. Were they mocking me? I wiped away the last of my tears.

  A few minutes later, he texted back.

  Crazy storm, huh? I’m here. In meetings already.

  So this is what he referred to as a meeting? Bitter, I joined in their laughter.

  My phone flashed again with another text.

  I miss you.

  His audacity infuriated me.

  Right . . . I typed. Casual bait to catch my fish. Whatcha meeting about?

  He texted right back. Budgets. Boring stuff . . .

  Doesn’t sound a bit boring to me.

  His reply came at lightning speed. U ok???

  I stared at the phone for a moment, and the aching in my heart almost drowned out the anger. There was still time to run away. Pretend that everything was fine.

  Yet I couldn’t do it. Perhaps the meeting really was providential.

  I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes.

  Laughter no longer bled through the door in front of me, and I wondered what might be going through Austin’s head. Usually he knew the game plan of each player around him before he calculated his next move. Perhaps it was good to make him a little nervous.

  Slowly I began to type again, anger fueling me. I’m just great. When were you planning to tell me?

  Sorry, he wrote. I didn’t think budgets interested you . . .

  They do now.

  What do you want to know?

  This time I didn’t hesitate as I typed. I want to know the name of your girlfriend.

  I leaned back, relief filling me as the words vanished on my screen. The truth was the only thing that would free both of us.

  Where are you?!?

  I took a deep breath before I texted him back. Sitting outside your door.

  Seconds later, Austin Vale stood before me in the doorway, dressed in a white robe, the Plaza insignia embroidered on his chest.

  “What are you doing—” he demanded, stumbling over his words. I’d never seen Austin flustered before.

  “I was going to surprise you.” I tucked my phone back into my purse. “Apparently I succeeded.”

  His mouth gaped open. I’d never seen Austin at a loss for words either.

  Standing, I eyed his attire. “Do you always conduct budget meetings in a bathrobe?”

  He glanced down at the robe as if he’d forgotten it was on, and then he raked his fingers through his dark hair. What had appeared so handsome to me hours before suddenly looked fake. Plastic. Why had I kissed those lips with such fervor? Lips that told me they loved me and then lied.

  He motioned back into the room. “I was just getting dressed for a meeting. I didn’t mean to confuse you—”

  Inside my heart was crumbling, but I had no choice—I had to cling to the thread of strength dangling within me. “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about—”

  Then she—the woman he didn’t know—stepped into the doorway behind him, wearing a matching robe. Her triumphant smile was nauseating. “My name is Starla,” she said, mocking me. “Starla Dedrick.”

  Austin ignored the woman, his eyes focused on me. “This is not what it looks like.”

  “Of course it is.” The bitterness in my laugh made him wince. “How much are you paying her?”

  Starla’s smirk began to fade. “I think I’ll let you two work this out alone.”

  Austin glanced both ways before stepping into the hallway. Then he shut the door behind him. “You are supposed to be on your way to Normandy,” he said as if this problem was somehow my fault.

  “You are supposed to be faithful!”

  “I don’t love her—not like I love you.” He looked so genuine, so pathetic. I didn’t feel sorry enough to run back into his arms, but I wavered. For the briefest of moments.

  Then I remembered. Lisa had asked if I was meeting Starla—the old family friend—to shop in New York. My hands sank to my sides. “How does your sister know her?”

  Austin dug his hands into the pockets of the robe. “Starla and I dated in college.”

  I almost wished that he’d hired her for the day.

  “I love you, Chloe.” He reached for my hands, but I yanked them away. “Truly.”

  I wanted to pull every hair out of his head. One at a time. “I can’t believe this, Austin.”

  “I’ll never do this again.” He took another step forward. “Nothing will change between us.”

  I picked up my handbag off the bench. “It’s already changed.”

  I rushed back toward the elevator doors. Thankfully, they opened right after I pushed the arrow.

  The last sound I heard from the eighteenth floor was Austin Vale, the distinguished gubernatorial candidate from Virginia, banging on his hotel room door, begging his girlfriend to let him back inside.

  PART TWO

  Do not judge your fellow until you have stood in his place.

  —RABBI HILLEL

  ETHICS OF THE FATHERS

  Chapter 17

  August 1942

  Juif. The vile word was woven into the star on the boy’s black vest. Eyes wide, the boy stared into the window teeming with croissants and bread, but the branding prevented him from entering the bakery in Saint-Lô.

  When the child lifted his head, Gisèle met his gaze. He couldn’t have been four years of age, but his face was gaunt, his eyes flush with fear, like one of the prisoners she’d seen laboring along the road into town.

  She lifted her hand to greet him.

  “Don’t encourage him.” Turning, Gisèle watched the baker lift a woven basket onto the counter.

  “But he looks so sad,” she said as she handed him her coupon for bread.

  Monsieur Cornett glanced down at the coupon and then looked back at her. “He’s manipulating you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he’s a dirty Jew.”

  The baker’s words made her cringe, as if the child were a dog or a maggot instead of a hungry boy.

  For decades France had been a haven for the Jewish people escaping persecution in Germany and Austria. Thousands of Jews—like Nadine’s family—found refuge among the French, but since the Germans had liberated the northern districts of her country, they’d inundated France with propaganda about the threat of Jews.

  How could any
one believe the Nazis’ propaganda, the wretched manipulation and lies? Their frightening obsession with harassing even the youngest and oldest Jews had infected some of her neighbors, their blatant hatred sickening her.

  The baker brushed the flour off his apron and disappeared into the back room to retrieve her ration.

  The Germans seemed to be everywhere now—living uninvited in the homes of people in Saint-Lô, playing like chums with the children after school, patrolling the streets of the city to enforce order during the day and the curfew at night. They’d set up a headquarters in the town center for the entire French district of La Manche, across from the prison that they’d filled with people brave enough to resist their occupation. And even before her uncle passed away, they’d forced Lisette to work for them.

  Still she feared that too many French people had begun to identify with their occupiers instead of fighting against them. Some French men and women were simply resigned to the occupancy, while others joined their occupants in despising the Jewish population, fanning the flames of bitterness until it raged in their hearts. Hatred, it seemed, was a powerful unifier of even the greatest enemies.

  Hatred for the Nazis had also unified those resisting them. The more regulations the Germans inflicted on them, the faster Michel’s resistance cell grew. Her brother’s group now included dozens of men, former business owners, farmers, soldiers, schoolboys who’d become men during the occupation. They left for weeks at a time, wreaking havoc on their occupiers across France.

  The Nazis had confiscated most of the wirelesses in the town, but Gisèle had kept hers, listening to it in Papa’s office and relaying the information to her brother. Charles de Gaulle was hiding in London, but he spoke regularly to the people of France on the wireless.

  “France is not alone,” he’d pronounced. “She has a vast empire behind her.”

  When Gisèle heard his words, hope rekindled in her heart. Perhaps the entire world hadn’t given up on them. With the help of others, perhaps they did still have a chance to win back their country.

  “Whatever happens, the flame of the French resistance will not be extinguished,” de Gaulle had said. Then he urged the resistance to cut telephone wires, sabotage the railways, print underground newspapers that promoted freedom for the French people.

  Her brother and his men continued to stoke the embers of their freedom, and when they returned to the tunnels, she provided food and water for them.

  The Nazis tried to regulate what the French people planted and what they ate, even from their own gardens. But no matter how hard they tried, it was impossible to monitor every apple and carrot stick.

  She and Émilie didn’t need bread from the bakery—the families who farmed their property continued to supply flour and cheese and vegetables to Gisèle and Émilie in abundance—but they had to use their ration coupons so the Germans wouldn’t suspect. As the months passed, Émilie had taught her how to bake bread and cook the leeks, potatoes, and cabbage. Émilie knew the food they prepared wasn’t for the orphanage, but she didn’t ask questions. It seemed best for all of them not to question.

  She glanced back out the window again and saw the child peeking around the glass. Where were his parents?

  Last month the Germans mandated that the Jews living among them—even those born in France—wear the stars on their coats. If Jews refused to wear it, the Germans threatened a penalty of imprisonment, but Nadine thought wearing the badge was a greater threat than refusing. Gisèle was terrified as to what would happen to her friend Nadine if she didn’t wear the star. Her daughter, Louise, had been born more than a year ago now, and Gisèle had tried to convince her friend to wear the star for Louise’s sake, but Nadine refused.

  Until the government began requiring the badges, Gisèle hadn’t realized how many Jewish people lived near Saint-Lô. Now their city seemed to glow yellow from the fallen stars. Instead of finding safety, their haven had crumbled.

  People wouldn’t hate the Jewish people if they were blessed with a friend like Nadine. Nadine Batier was a French citizen, a devout Catholic. Her husband had been one of the favorite teachers at the secondary school until the headmaster in Saint-Lô terminated his position last term, citing the fact that he was no longer qualified to teach. They all knew the truth—the administration didn’t want the husband of a Jewish woman teaching their children.

  She couldn’t comprehend why they would dismiss André because of the blood in his wife’s veins. How was his family supposed to survive without work? But the Germans had taken his job away and now they wanted to brand his family.

  When Monsieur Cornett returned, he glanced back out the window. “Why is he still here?”

  The boy looked away. “Perhaps he’s waiting for his parents.”

  “They were probably arrested last night.”

  A tremor of fear flared up her spine. “Why would they be arrested?”

  “How would I know?” he replied. “They rounded up dozens of people around Saint-Lô.”

  He handed her the bread and she tucked it under her arm. “Where did they take them?”

  The baker shrugged.

  She shivered. There had been rumors of the Germans rounding up Jews in Paris, and she’d been afraid they would begin to gather the Jews here as well. Had André and Nadine heard what happened? Probably not—they rarely left their home these days.

  She had to warn them.

  As she moved toward the door, she ripped a large piece of bread from her loaf and held it out to the boy on the street. The boy stared down at her offering. When his gaze bounced back up to her, she saw fear mirrored in his eyes. Purple remnants of a bruise circled his eye, and for a moment, she flashed back to that horrific night when she and Michel had found Papa’s body by the lake, his face battered by the Germans.

  Had they beaten this boy as well?

  Her heart felt as if it would rip into two pieces.

  Instead of taking the piece of bread, the boy turned and ran. Stunned, she stood and watched him disappear into an alley.

  Did he think she was trying to trick him?

  Someone brushed up against her, an old woman wearing a brown-and-green scarf over her head. She kissed Gisèle on one cheek, and as she leaned to kiss her second cheek, she whispered, “He is afraid.”

  Gisèle clung to the woman a moment longer. “But why?”

  “Because they are watching him.”

  The old woman continued her walk, swinging a basket in her arms. Gisèle looked up at the windows across the street and then down the lane of shops. Two soldiers stood on the street corner, guns at their sides to maintain order.

  Since the occupation, the German soldiers had stood alongside the Russians forced into servitude as guards or soldiers for the Wehrmacht. After two years of captivité, the unwelcome presence of both the Germans and the Russians seemed permanently etched into the streets.

  Sirens blared around the corner and an ambulance rushed toward her, the lights flashing. She hopped back onto the sidewalk and watched it race up the hill, toward the hospital.

  The baker’s words echoed in her mind. How many Jews had the Germans taken away last night? And where had they gone?

  She prayed the Batiers, like the boy in Saint-Lô, hadn’t been among them. She had to check on André and Nadine, but yet . . .

  Her gaze wandered back to the alley where the boy had run.

  The soldiers were everywhere, and the familiar fears threatened her. But she could not succumb to the paralysis of fear, not if the Germans were planning to take this child too.

  Setting the bread in her basket, she waited until the soldiers shuffled down the street, and then she pushed her bicycle into the alley. The boy cowered beside an empty trash can, his head tucked into his knees. As if he could shrink into the wall and she would never know he was there.

  She sat down beside him and held out the bread again.

  This time he took it.

  “Where are your parents?” she asked.

&nbs
p; He wiped his face on his sleeves. “They had to leave.”

  “Are they coming back?”

  “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “They said they couldn’t take me with them.”

  As loudly as her heart cried out for her to hurry to Nadine’s, she couldn’t leave this child here, alone and hungry.

  “Outside of town,” she whispered. “There’s a home for children.”

  He shook his head. “Not for children like me.”

  She swallowed. It was a Catholic orphanage, but surely they would take in an abandoned child, no matter his religious background.

  When he finished his piece of bread, she offered her hand. “I cannot leave you by yourself.”

  He eyed her hand for a moment. “What if they don’t want me?”

  A tear fell down her cheek. “Then I will find another safe place,” she promised.

  He took her hand.

  — CHAPTER 18 —

  “Pretty Woman” blared on the cab’s radio as my driver navigated the streets of Paris. “No anglais,” he’d said when I climbed into the car at the airport, yet as he maneuvered through the morning traffic of Paris, he had no problem belting out the English lyrics to this song.

  It seemed so surreal—cruising past the celebrated museums and architectural treasures of this great city as we listened to American pop songs.

  From Gare Saint-Lazare, I would board a train to Carentan in Normandy, and Marguerite, the woman hired to care for the château, was supposed to pick me up at the train station. Riley Holtz would arrive tomorrow afternoon to begin filming.

  Between my confrontation with Austin and my lack of sleep, my head felt like it had been crushed. My mind raged with anger, but my heart wouldn’t cooperate. It just felt shattered.

  My phone lit up again, and I glanced down at Austin’s number. I’d lost track of the times he’d called and texted since I left the hotel last night. Or was that two nights ago? I’d lost track of time altogether.

  I declined his call.

  As the cab crawled through a narrow street, I rolled down my window, and the aroma of warm pastries and strong espresso wafted into the cab. Morning had dawned in France.