Across Eternity

by O'Roark, Elizabeth

For the rest of my time in Paris, there is no sign of the time traveler. But I never leave the flat without a knife in my pocket and Philippe or Louis by my side, and it’s a relief to say goodbye to Cecelia and climb into a limo for Saint Antoine once my abilities are finally restored.

  When I arrive in 1940, to a warm April day and a cloudless sky, I want to weep with relief. I run to the house and find Henri in the living room pacing. “Thank God,” he says, crossing the room to hold me tight.

  I laugh against his chest. “I was only gone a little over a week.”

  “I know,” he says. “And Marie reminded me a thousand times that nothing had gone wrong. I just—”

  He trails off, but he doesn’t need to complete the sentence. He’s already lived through a time when our plans failed and I didn’t return. His mouth presses to mine and I inhale him, wishing I could stay just like this with him for hours and days, until I finally feel full. “How’s our daughter?” I ask when he lets me go.

  “Napping at the moment,” he says. We creep up the stairs to her room and peer in on her. She sleeps flat on her back, arms overhead, fists curled, mouth open and sated. My heart lurches with love for her. She seems happy in 1989. I just pray the years until then will be happy for her too.

  We quietly slide from the room and go back downstairs. I fully expect him to pull me to the bedroom—he seemed ready enough for it before when he was kissing me, but instead he takes my hand and leads me to the parlor.

  He runs a hand over his face, as if weary. “There has been a small change to our plan,” he says.

  My stomach drops. “Is it Marie? Is she refusing to go?”

  He bites his lip and leans toward me, pressing his forehead to mine. “No. The Germans have attacked Norway and sent troops toward the Maginot Line. Petain is ordering half of us there, and the rest to Norway. I leave Sunday.”

  I freeze. “No,” I argue. “I read everything about this. The Germans don’t attack until May twelfth. Until then, the French assume nothing will happen.”

  “Perhaps it changed,” he says. “Or perhaps history books have it wrong.”

  I try to breathe but can’t seem to manage it. Even with all the reading I did, even knowing the goddamn future, I messed up somehow. But I wasn’t wrong—I know there is no battle yet, not for another month. So why is this happening? “It’s a diversion,” I whisper. “Hitler’s making you all think he’s going to attack at the Maginot Line and then he’s going to push through the Ardennes.”

  “I still have to go,” he says. “Which means you and Marie and Cecelia will need to travel to England on your own.”

  I flinch. If it were just me, I’d refuse. But now there’s Cecelia, who can’t blink and disappear into another time at the first sign of danger. Henri is an adult and I have to let him make his own decisions, even if I disagree. But Cecelia can still be saved.

  Which means these two days I now have left with Henri may very well be the last ones we share.

  * * *

  Henri’s military-issue backpack is carefully packed for a long, cold winter. I pray it’s not that long until we see him again, knowing even as I pray that seeing him after the winter would be a best-case scenario, a stroke of incredible luck. The early battles are vicious and there are so, so many casualties. All who survive are taken prisoner, sent to work camps in Germany.

  Henri tries to persuade me that all will be well, but when I wake at night to find him watching me, or catch him leaning over Cece’s crib with a lost look on his face, I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to memorize us, as if this is the end. I’m devastated, but also angry. Angry at myself for not researching more thoroughly, irrationally angry at Henri for his refusal to disobey orders. Angry, most of all, because it keeps me from bursting into tears.

  We rise early on Sunday, before dawn. Anger abandons me and I weep like a child, pressing my face to his chest. “Don’t let them send you to Dunkirk,” I whisper, frantically trying to remember what I read. “It’s a massacre.”

  He pushes my hair back from my face and kisses me. “I have no control over that,” he replies. “All I can promise you is that one day it will all be over, and I will come to England to bring you home. No one will fight harder than I to make that happen.”

  I want to ask him to promise, but I don’t. Everything that’s happening now is beyond our control. Everything that’s happening now has already happened. I can only pray that it all turned out well.

  31

  SARAH

  The first day without Henri feels endless. Marie is upset too, and we avoid each other’s eyes as we get through the day. All our valuables—the money, the jewelry, my wedding ring—are packed, leaving us little to do. In a few days, we will watch Jeannette’s children while she goes to Paris to say goodbye to her dying grandmother, and I wish the children were already here—it would be good to have something to fill my head right now other than thoughts of Henri.

  That night, as I sit down to dinner and begin feeding Cecelia a bit of mashed apple and ham, Marie’s eyes fill. I’ve spent the entire day trying not to cry, but if she starts now, I won’t be able to stop. “Please don’t cry,” I rasp, my voice beginning to wobble. “I’m keeping myself together right now for Cece’s sake, but barely.”

  She presses her hands to her face. “I’m not crying over Henri,” she says.

  I grip the spoon in my hand with unnecessary force. Henri may die, while Edouard is ensconced safely behind the walls of a church. It seems as if, just this once, Marie could think of someone else. “Edouard again?” I ask, struggling to keep the acid from my voice.

  Her tongue darts to her lips and then her eyes close. “I’m pregnant,” she whispers.

  The spoon in my hand clatters to the floor. I stare at Marie, unable to even process what she’s said.

  “I didn’t want Henri to know,” she says, putting her forehead in her hands. “He’d blame Edouard.”

  I shake my head, so dumbfounded it’s hard to find my voice. I thought they might have exchanged sweet words and perhaps a kiss. Never, ever, did I think Edouard would allow it to go this far. He shouldn’t have. He shouldn’t have slept with her, and should have been careful if he did and…I have so many criticisms, so much judgement, I don’t even know where to start.

  “How could he have slept with you and then just left?”

  “It wasn’t his fault,” she says. “He tried to stop it and I wouldn’t let him.”

  Edouard is a grown man, and a priest. Marie was a twenty-two-year-old virgin who, as far as I know, had never even been kissed. I’m hard-pressed to imagine she’s solely at fault here. “There’s no possible way he doesn’t bear some responsibility.”

  “He asked the church to relieve him of his duties and find him another position. They said no. All his training is in theology and he’s not qualified to do anything else. He’s been looking for teaching positions, but with the war, no one is hiring, and he won’t marry me until he can support me. He thought I would be safer in England with you until he found something.”

  You’d also be safer if he hadn’t knocked you up. “Does he know?”

  She shakes her head. “He’s only been able to get me one very short note because they’re punishing him for breaking his vows, but he’s still looking for a way out.”

  Edouard and Marie were careless only in the same ways Henri and I have been—but this changes everything. Now there will be two babies to care for in the British countryside, where food will be scarce, and doctors even more so. Perhaps some of the bitterness is more selfish: I want nothing more than to have Henri’s child one day, something that will never happen, while everyone around me seems to get pregnant unintentionally.

  I force myself to take one calming breath and then another, because Marie is not at her most rational and there’s no place for my unhappiness in this conversation. What now? It’s possible that this is the prophecy unfolding—that Marie is the hidden child and will now produce the circle of light. But even i
f she isn’t, Edouard deserves to know about his child.

  “You need to let Edouard know before we leave,” I sigh. “Maybe he refuses to let a woman support him, but when he realizes it means his child will be raised fatherless, he might relent a little.”

  “I don’t know how to find him,” she whispers. “I suppose I could ask Monsignor DuPree in Paris, but I’m worried I’ll get Edouard in trouble.”

  I couldn’t care less if Edouard gets in trouble, I want to snap. Edouard deserves to get into trouble. But it’s not a response Marie will listen to. “Then lie,” I tell her. “Tell him Edouard is your cousin and you fled from Germany hoping to find him in Saint Antoine.”

  “You want me to lie to Monsignor DuPree?” she gasps, wide-eyed.

  “Oh, so lying to a priest is a greater sin than sleeping with one?” I snap. “I love you like a sister, Marie, and I’ll support whatever decision you make, but this isn’t the time to be quibbling over minor ethical dilemmas.”

  She stares at her hands for a long time, saying nothing. And then she rises with tears in her eyes. She kisses Cece on the forehead, and then me, in turn. “I’m sorry,” she says, heading for the stairs.

  32

  SARAH

  It seemed odd, Marie’s tearful apology.

  But it all made sense when I found the letter she’d left the next morning. She wasn’t apologizing. She was saying goodbye.

  Dearest Amelie,

  I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me. I would not be doing this, but you and Cece no longer need me, and my place is here, or wherever Edouard is. I know he will find a way to be with me and take care of his child no matter what the circumstances, and even if it means I’m stuck in France during the war—even if it means I don’t survive the war— that’s preferable to an entire life without him. I’ll write you in England once I’m settled.

  All my love,

  Marie

  I stare at her neatly formed words for several long minutes, jolted from them only when I hear the sound of my joyful daughter babbling in her crib. The house already feels quieter without Marie, and the truth is I’m terrified to be doing this alone, even though it’s me, not Marie, who cares for Cece, and there’s little to be done on the farm in the week before we leave the country. Instead of three adults with one baby, it will be just me and Cecelia. Now that the troops have been mobilized, I won’t be the only person fleeing the country, which means the ship may be crowded and porters may be scarce. I don’t want to undertake it alone.

  Mostly I’m frightened for Marie. In a few weeks, bombing will begin and there will be a mass exodus from Paris. People will wind up abandoning their cars and their belongings, sleeping by the side of the road and dying there too, from hunger and thirst and German attacks. Marie will either be a part of that, or worse—she’ll be a Jew trapped within the Occupied Zone when the war begins, unable to get away.

  As far as I can tell, she left everything behind—all the cash we took from the accounts, everything of value. She’s floated by her entire life with someone there to catch her when she fell. Her mother and Henri and, during captivity, me. I doubt it even occurred to her how badly things might go.

  She isn’t a child, but in some ways she’s as ill-prepared as one. How am I going to leave without knowing she’s okay?

  * * *

  Three days pass without word. I call the monsignor’s office and they refuse to tell me Edouard’s whereabouts, which means they probably refused to tell her too. So why isn’t she home?

  The next morning, I meet Jeannette at the train station in Saint Antoine to take Lucien and Charlotte. The station is far more chaotic than normal. “What’s going on?” I ask when I find her, as people push past us, carting trunks and hatboxes.

  “Everyone is fleeing Paris for the countryside,” she whispers over the children’s heads. “They think the Germans will punish us for assisting Norway. But where’s Marie? She didn’t come to help you get the children home?”

  I hesitate. It’s still possible Marie will return with her tail between her legs, either unable to find Edouard or having discovered he wasn’t as honorable as we thought. She won’t want the whole town knowing she’s pregnant with the priest’s child. But Jeannette is a friend, and not a parishioner. It might seem slightly less risqué to her than it would to others.

  “Marie has left,” I admit with a sigh. “She’s in love with Father Edouard and has gone to Paris to find him. She says she’s not coming on the trip.”

  Jeannette’s mouth forms a small, shocked circle. “Does he reciprocate her feelings?”

  Does he? I’d have sworn to it, once upon a time. But now he’s slept with her and left, and perhaps his excuses make sense, or perhaps they are merely excuses. Though I don’t have much experience with men, Marie has far less, and her love for Edouard is so unshakeable I don’t think she’d be capable of doubting him regardless of the situation. I shake my head. “I don’t know. But there’s nothing to be done,” I tell her. “The monsignor won’t give me any information, and she’s an adult. I can’t force her to come with us.”

  “I’ll go to the monsignor’s office myself once I’ve seen my grandmother,” Jeannette offers. “Have no fear, my friend. Unlike you and Marie, I’m not scared of priests. Nor am I attracted to them.”

  I sigh. “I’m no longer finding Edouard so handsome myself.”

  She pulls Lucien and Charlotte close, pressing her lips to their foreheads in turn. “Behave for Amelie, my angels, and I will be back to put you to bed.” Lucien’s eyes tear up and he clings to her leg, refusing to let her go. It makes me wonder how I will ever be able to leave Cecelia the next time I return to modern days, when she’s older and aware of what is happening.

  I drop to the ground. “She’ll be back tonight,” I say, pulling him against me. “Shall we make a pie to celebrate her return?”

  He’s too young yet to understand the concept of pie, or to be bought off by it, but when he sees how excited Charlotte is, he dries his eyes.

  I walk home, pushing Cece in her pram while Lucien and Charlotte hold hands beside me. The walk is peaceful, but once Lucien is at home, I realize just how much my life will change once Cece is his age. He’s a human missile, endangering himself constantly, and I soon give up on the idea of pie and devote myself mostly to keeping Charlotte entertained and Lucien alive.

  Late in the afternoon, I begin to anticipate Jeannette’s return and collect their things, but dusk comes and goes with no sign of her. I serve the children a cold dinner of tinned ham and milk and bread, the best I can do given the situation.

  Soon, it’s Cece’s bedtime, but I can’t allow Lucien to run wild while I put her to bed, so all three children are awake—and cranky—as the hours pass.

  By nine PM, the last train from Paris has arrived and moved on, and there is still no sign of Jeannette. That’s when the small, niggling fear in my chest that began this afternoon and seemed paranoid at the time begins to bloom and grow.

  Jeannette is a good mother, a careful mother. She wouldn’t have failed to return, and she wouldn’t have failed to call…but she did.

  We have forty-eight hours until we must leave for Calais. I sit in silence, watching Lucien pull books from the bookcase, finally allowing myself to ask the question I’ve been avoiding all night. What happens if she’s not back in time?

  * * *

  The next morning, Charlotte is waiting by the door for her mother, and Lucien climbs into my lap. “Maman home soon?” he asks. His hopeful little face makes my heart twist in my chest.

  “I’m not sure,” I tell him. “Sometimes the trains are slow.”

  I long for Henri, or even Marie. I don’t want to be the only adult in this house, the only person to make the decisions I must. If we don’t leave for Calais tomorrow, we will miss our boat, and once the war begins in earnest in a few weeks, we may not get another chance to go. But who can I possibly leave Charlotte and Lucien with? Jeannette had no other friends in
town, and right now, thanks to the war, anti-Jewish sentiment is running high. I doubt anyone would even be willing to take them in. Finding her mother in Paris and delivering the children there is really the only reasonable option, though I shudder at the idea of the children in Paris a few weeks from now.

  I find Jeannette’s address book in one of the boxes she brought over. Her mother is listed simply as Maman, no last name, no address. I dial the phone number listed there. It rings and rings but no one picks up—I can only assume because she’s at the hospital with Jeannette’s dying grandmother. And I can’t exactly call the hospitals in Paris asking for Maman, a woman whose first and last names I don’t know.

  As night falls, I finally admit the truth to myself. Jeannette is gone, and all my careful plans will need to be abandoned. Until something changes, I remain one hour from the enemy, with three children considered Jewish under German law.

  33

  HENRI

  On the morning of May 20th, I’m the only man smiling as I line up for morning rations. It’s the day Sarah, Marie and Cecelia are due in the Cotswolds, after several weeks in Cambridge with friends of mine. And though we’ve not received any mail here yet, when Sarah arrives at the house we’ve let, my hope is that she’ll find a stack of letters waiting from me. I’ve written each day since I left.

  “What’s with the smile?” asks my commanding officer. “You’re aware we’re at war, Durand?”

  It would be hard to miss. The sound of artillery fire is ever present, and growing louder by the minute. The Germans will take Norway any day now. “My fiancée arrives safely at the house we let in England today,” I tell him. “I’m just relieved.”

  “Well, soon you’ll be able to wave to her from the other shore.”