Across Eternity

by O'Roark, Elizabeth

  I glance at Marie, poor Marie. Still so in love with Father Edouard and still so unwilling to admit it. Her face has been alight since the word church was uttered. If she’d bend an inch the poor man would give up his collar and take up farming in the blink of an eye.

  “Yes, let’s go,” I say firmly.

  “You see?” cries Yvette. “Amelie is the guest and it’s what she wants, so it’s settled.”

  I don’t want to be on the same side as Yvette for anything. It makes me wish I’d disagreed. Yvette, however, smiles at me as if we are now friends. And as soon as Marie and Henri go outside, she corners me in the kitchen and gives me a hug.

  “Thank you for making Henri see reason,” she says. “I’m going crazy here.”

  I shrug, turning away from her. Thinking I didn’t do it for you.

  “You have so much influence over him,” she continues. “But I guess you’ve known the family a long time. Did you ever meet Henri’s mother?”

  I’m slow to answer. I don’t know what Marie and Henri have told her and it feels like a trap of some kind, but captivity has left me suspicious of everyone.

  “Yes,” I reply cautiously.

  “What was she like?” she asks. “Henri gets distressed when I ask about her. Her death is such a sore subject with him, even now.”

  “I’m not sure anyone fully recovers from the death of a parent,” I reply mildly, hoping she drops it.

  “I want him to give me her wedding band and he will not,” she says. “He says it’s an heirloom and should go to Marie.”

  Ah, this is what she’s after. “I doubt the ring was anything to write home about,” I reply. “They married in the early 1900s and had no money.”

  “His father had a Cartier watch. Henri wore it the night we met. You know how much a Cartier watch costs? Besides, you don’t keep trinkets in a safe deposit box,” she argues, her voice laced with irritation.

  My head jerks up as a sudden memory sweeps over me.

  Just days before I left for 1918, Henri went to Paris. I’d asked if I could come and he’d said no, that it would be a dull trip and also a dangerous one, since part of the day involved being around the unseemly sort of men who forge documents and procure things—by which I’d assumed he meant condoms—from the black market.

  Marie asked him, grinning, if he’d be going by the safe deposit box, and his face lit up with a sweet, boyish smile, quickly suppressed.

  “Yes,” he’d told her. “I thought I might.”

  It could have meant anything, but even at the time it felt odd. Even at the time I’d asked what was in the safe deposit box and …what was it he said to me?

  That’s for me to know and you to find out.

  Was Henri going to give me the ring? And if so, why is he refusing to give it to his wife?

  * * *

  Yvette is already in bed, after a long day of doing nothing, when Marie comes into the kitchen with the red dress in hand.

  “That won’t fit,” I tell her. I’ve gained weight since I arrived and was glad to see the return of my cleavage, but I’m still much thinner than I was the last time. “And I don’t think I’m going anyway.” I’m not spending the whole damn night watching Henri care for his pregnant wife, watching Yvette with her proprietary hands all over him.

  “Oh, but you must,” urges Marie. “It won’t be the same without you. The dress can be taken in.”

  “I’m just not in the mood to—”

  “Henri won’t feel comfortable leaving you here alone,” she says, wincing. “If you don’t go, none of us go.”

  “Why would he care if I’m here alone?” I ask.

  Her smile is brief, and sad. “Because he’s scared you’ll leave.”

  It makes little sense, but I don’t push her on it. I try on the dress and she pins it along the sides and the hips so that it skims the curve of my waist rather than obscuring it entirely. I’m standing on a chair while she touches up the hem when Henri walks in.

  He stands in the threshold of the door with a look of pain and want on his face, and I wonder if he’s remembering the last time I wore it. That night when he came up behind me in this dress, his breath along the shell of my ear, and told me I was exquisite. When he told me he’d been worried about what would happen that night.

  What did you think would happen? I’d asked him.

  That everyone would discover a secret I wanted to keep for myself, he replied.

  Our gaze locks and the memories of it swirl between us, and then I jump from the chair without a word and go to my room, where I weep into my pillow, still wearing the dress, the pins digging into my skin.

  I cry for all the moments in our past that meant nothing. How deeply I felt them all and how badly I wish I had never left. I suppose I should consider myself lucky to learn just how shallow his feelings for me actually were, but I’m not. If someone would allow me to go back to those days, to return to my ignorance, I’d accept the offer gladly.

  20

  SARAH

  On the morning of the dance, Yvette and even Marie are aflutter, girlish and giggling.

  I am not. What could possibly change in the next few hours? I admit to myself, reluctantly, that I’d hoped the change might have to do with Yvette. People died in childbirth in 1939, still. Especially women in the country. I’ve tried not to actively wish for it, though there’s part of me that would like to. But I did, at the very least, wonder if it might fall in my lap.

  But Yvette is the very picture of health. Still not due for six weeks, and ready to dance. So, what exactly is coming tonight that somehow requires me to be here?

  Preparing for it seems to eat up the bulk of the day. Marie does my hair and I let her apply cosmetics before I start work on hers. She’s glowing tonight. Perhaps what should happen is that I tell Father Edouard to open his eyes. But even that wouldn’t require that I stay another two weeks.

  I descend the stairs when we’re finally ready, and my eyes go to Henri, so beautiful in his suit—the shirt crisp and white, the jacket straining around his broad shoulders. And he is looking at me too, as if he’s helpless to do otherwise, as if there is no one else in the room. It’s not until Yvette coughs politely that I realize she’s here as well, also in red, and looking none too pleased to see me.

  “Poor Amelie,” she says. “You’re truly skin and bones, aren’t you? And tan as a day laborer. But don’t worry. Someone will still dance with you, I’m sure. Henri, who’s that friend of yours always going on about wanting a wife? Gerard? Will he be there?”

  Henri’s jaw sets. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, walking out of the house.

  I sigh, internally. As bad as the last dance was, this one is shaping up to be worse.

  * * *

  The dance is held in the same mansion where, once upon a time, I watched Henri flirt with Claudette Loison. It’s still daylight when we arrive, and it seems as if the entire town is walking there. I raise a brow at Marie. “Are we the only ones who drove?” I ask.

  She cuts a quick glance at Yvette. “Most people are saving their rations in case they need to flee.”

  Henri parks right in front of the mansion, and together the group of us enter the ballroom, where there’s no sign of war or deprivation. The mood is festive, and there’s a glass in every hand.

  “I can’t wait to dance,” squeals Yvette, squeezing Henri’s hand.

  Henri and I have only danced once, really. In the moonlight, while he hummed a tune next to my ear. If anyone comes out here, they’ll see you dancing with your cousin, I’d said.

  He’d smiled at me then, a smile I’d come to know well, once we became intimate. I’m sure you realize they think we’re doing a lot more than that, he’d replied.

  The memory steals the breath from my chest and I turn, pushing through the crowd to escape them, only to find myself face-to-face with Andre Beauvoir.

  “I would like to apologize,” he says.

  I stiffen. I’m
not interested in Andre’s apologies. A man who was completely sober when he shoved his hand up my skirt and then called me a whore has not suddenly realized he behaved unbecomingly. He’s just realized he should have been smarter about it.

  As much as I’d like to offer him a few choice words, though, and as much as I’d like to tell him that I’m now capable of far worse than swinging a crutch at him to defend myself—I can’t make things worse for Henri and Marie. Andre’s family employs much of the town, and with the Germans coming, he’ll have even more to hold over the Durands’ heads than he did before.

  “What I did was unforgivable,” he adds. “I was misinformed about you and your cousin, but that’s no excuse. I just don’t want there to be any ill will between us, as I understand you’ve decided to stay.”

  You’re so full of shit, Andre. It’s only for the Durands that I offer him a tight smile. “No harm done,” I reply. “I appreciate the apology. But I’m definitely not staying.”

  His gaze flickers to Henri and Yvette—who both watch us. Henri’s eyes are so dark they look black from where I stand.

  “Not everything was as you thought it would be?” he asks.

  Yvette’s hand rests on her stomach and she smiles up at Henri. It’s a full-wattage smile, but it strikes me, suddenly, how normal she is. A pretty girl, certainly, but without the advantages Marie and I share. She doesn’t glow when she smiles. A man wouldn’t slow to look at her or whip his head back as she passed. It should make me feel better, but instead does the opposite. After all of Henri’s assurances that normalcy was overrated and that there was nothing wrong with my gift, she’s the one he chose. Not me.

  “It’s exactly as I thought it would be.” I can hear the sound of my teeth sliding against each other. It’s exactly what I should have expected. My mother taught me countless times that no one could truly love me as I am, and it turns out she was right.

  With another forced smile I go to the bar. The gift that saved my life, the one that keeps me from getting drunk—it’s not absolute. I was still drugged in 1918, just not as much as the others. So perhaps drunkenness isn’t an impossibility for me.

  I’ll just need to work a little harder at it than anyone else.

  “Four shots of whiskey, please,” I tell the bartender.

  “Make it eight,” says a voice behind me.

  Luc Barbier stands there. I met him at the last town dance, where he flirted and bought me a drink and tried to convince me to run away to Paris with him. He hasn’t changed much in the past year but he looks older—in a good way. His boyish charm is still there, but it’s a bit more roguish now, and weary.

  His hair is shorter and there’s a grim determination behind his smile that wasn’t present back when we met. “You’ve changed,” I comment.

  He holds my eye for only a moment. “I enlisted. I’m home on leave after six months defending the Maginot Line.” He pulls one of the shots off the bar and raises it. “What are we drinking to? The reunion of old friends? Or the blessings of fertility?” he adds with a nod toward Henri and Yvette.

  “All of the above,” I reply, slamming the first shot and proceeding to the second.

  “I won’t even have to try to get you drunk,” he says. “You’re doing my work for me.”

  I look at Luc, who was handsome before and is extremely handsome now. I gave myself to Henri without a second thought, under the impression that it was special somehow, and he only waited three months to replace me. So, perhaps I shouldn’t wait another year to replace him. Perhaps special is a myth that serves no purpose.

  “Who says you’d have to get me drunk?” I reply.

  His eyes sweep over my face, slowly. His lashes are long, and his smile is languid and sad all at once. As if he knows, like I do, that the end is coming, and recognizes the only thing to be done for it is to live while you still can. His hand goes to my hip, something slightly possessive in the press of his fingertips.

  “I don’t actually take advantage of drunk women,” he says. “And I don’t take advantage of heartbroken ones, either.”

  I shrug. I like him better for how unexpectedly honorable he’s being right now, even if it’s not exactly part of my plan. “Your loss,” I reply, throwing back the third shot.

  “Not so fast,” he says. “Give me a chance to fix your heart first. Let’s go to Paris.”

  “How is Paris going to fix my heart?”

  He grins. “Drinking and dancing in the world’s most beautiful city can cure more problems than you might think.”

  Luc’s friends Jean and Marc slap him on the back. “You know he only enlisted because beautiful American girls love soldiers,” says Jean. “Don’t let him fool you with his idealistic nonsense.”

  “You’re talking to my future wife, Jean,” Luc replies. “Let me keep the magic alive through our honeymoon.” He winks at me. “Paris?”

  The whiskey is beginning to work its magic. I don’t feel like I’ve had three shots, but I feel like I had one and it’s a good start. And no one said I had to remain in Saint Antoine for whatever Cecelia is so worried about. Except Henri has been watching from across the room the entire time, and right now his jaw is clenched tight. I’ve got no doubt he’ll try to stop me, and I’m not in the mood for his paternalistic bullshit tonight. I glance behind me at a door that is painted so that it appears to be part of the room.

  “Why not?” I reply. “But I might need some help getting out of here without an argument from my family. You three go out the front and I’ll meet you.”

  “You’re going to make a perfect wife,” he says with a grin, and my heart folds in on itself. Because Henri said those words once too, and he apparently meant them no more than Luc does now. Perhaps it’s time I came around to this way people have of saying things they don’t mean. If I’d realized sooner that this is how the world works, I’d be so much better off right now.

  * * *

  I find Luc and his friends within two minutes of exiting the hidden door and am quickly shuffled into his car. “How do you have the petrol for this?” I ask. “I thought everyone had to save it.”

  He gives me another of those smiles of his. “I have my methods.”

  Jean leans between us from the back seat. “He means he has his father’s checkbook and can buy whatever he wants on the black market.”

  Luc merely laughs. “Yes. That’s the bulk of my method.”

  Jean and Marc try to open a bottle of champagne out the window and I glance at Luc. What kind of man is wealthy enough to afford things no one else can and decides to enlist in the military anyway? Shouldn’t he be like Andre, coasting on the family’s success and assuming it puts him above the rest of us?

  “How did your family feel about you enlisting?” I ask.

  I see a hint of that sorrow in his eyes again. “My father passed away last fall,” he says. “He was never especially proud of me in this world. I can only hope he’ll become proud of me in the next.”

  I sigh. Luc joined up out of guilt, but that’s the kind of guilt that will get him killed, and I’d like to see him survive what’s coming.

  “There will be lots of chances to prove you deserved his esteem,” I say. “Don’t blow it all on this.”

  He glances at me. “I feel I should say the same to you,” he says. “I can’t imagine why Henri chose Yvette. If it’s any consolation, I feel certain he’s regretting it now.”

  I’m inclined to agree with him, but it doesn’t change anything. “He’s not regretting it enough for my liking.”

  His mouth tips up at the corner. “Keep spending time with me.” His palm spreads over the back of my hand for only a moment. “I can assure you we’ll make him regret it more.”

  * * *

  We arrive at Le Tigre, a bar deep in Montparnasse a little over an hour later. It’s a relief. Twenty years may have passed, but the idea of being anywhere near Montmartre, where I was taken captive, terrifies me.

  Looking around, you’d never know
there was a war going on. Women are dressed more flamboyantly than ever, and most of them carry strange satin bags or boxes with them. “What are those things?” I ask Luc as we walk to the table. “I was here only a year ago. Handbags that large can’t have suddenly become fashionable.”

  He looks at them and shakes his head. “Those are gas masks. It’s become all the rage among rich women to carry them in matching bags for exorbitant amounts of money.”

  I sigh. “They should be saving every penny for what’s coming.”

  “What do you mean?” he asks. “This phony war won’t continue much longer.”

  “Your country just lost a decisive battle and went running home with its tail between its legs. You can’t still be under the impression the Germans aren’t a threat?”

  “We were trying to punish them for what they did to Poland and we lost. But they’ll never get into France. The Maginot Line is well defended, and they can’t possibly get through Ardenne. The terrain is too difficult.”

  It’s the very philosophy that will allow the Germans to invade without obstacle next spring. I’d like to tell him that, but I can’t, and it’s a reminder that there is a vital piece of me he can never know, much as Mark could not. That was the beauty of being with Henri, or at least part of it—I didn’t have to hide from him.

  He hands me a glass of champagne and I drink it to the bottom and place it on the counter.

  “I think you should teach me to dance,” I say.

  “I’m happy to teach you anything you want to learn,” he says with an intentionally lecherous grin, which makes me laugh. Luc may not be everything I ever wanted, but he makes me happy, and it’s been so long since I felt happy that I barely remember the experience.

  We each finish another flute of champagne and then he pulls me to the dance floor, painstakingly teaching me how to do the Lindy Hop. Henri once suggested I should know the dance because it was named after Charles Lindbergh, and the memory—even though we were fighting at the time—saddens me. It led to what followed, when he came up behind me, his breath at my ear, and finally let me know what was in his heart.