Across Eternity

by O'Roark, Elizabeth

  I glance at him. “What shore?”

  “Haven’t you heard? Germans have our boys trapped on the Normandy coast. We’re sailing out tomorrow to reinforce them.”

  I think of Sarah’s warning. I feel a prickle of unease at the base of my spine. “Where in Normandy?”

  He shrugs. “Place called Dunkirk,” he replies. “We leave at first light.”

  Dunkirk. The one place she begged me not to go.

  * * *

  It takes a little over a week for us to reach the channel. The trip is relatively peaceful, and I spend it picturing my girls. I imagine Cece taking her first steps in the long grass, Sarah hovering, waiting for her to fall. I see them unaffected by rationing, though it’s unlikely, and not too worried about me, though I suppose that’s unlikely too. I picture coming home to them most of all. How long will it be? Will Cece be walking then? Will she remember me? It doesn’t matter, I remind myself, as long as they’re safe.

  When we reach the channel, I stand portside, looking north. With a looking glass, I might see England’s shores. My family is so close I can almost feel them, and it’s harder than being far away.

  Within an hour of entering the channel, we begin to hear the sounds of war, sharp after a week away from it. Soon, there are German bombers swooping low in the distance, and plumes of smoke over the water, indicating that they’ve hit their target.

  I think of everyone trapped below decks on that boat in the distance, underwater and panicking, no exit in sight. Soon, their target will be us. Please God, I beg, let me return to my family.

  The men crowd the top deck as the sound of bombing grows louder, and the rowboats are lowered, though we are far from shore and the water is rough. For some reason, I think of the story my mother told us as children, about a rickety old boat that survived an impossible storm. Of all the fantastic parts of that story—and there were many—the boat was always the bit I found most implausible.

  Over the loudspeaker, we are told to man the boats. There aren’t enough for all of us, however, which means the men push forward toward the ladder in a desperate mob, throwing elbows.

  Only four boats are filled when a bomber swings low. I hear its whine long before it reaches us and I can see the future unfold as surely as Sarah once did. I watch as the bomber’s hatch opens and two missiles are dropped in quick succession. Everyone watches—horrified, spellbound, praying for some act of God to save us. The water will be ice cold, and we are too far from shore to swim.

  Sarah warned us about the war. She warned me how Germany would break into France, and she was right. She warned me about Dunkirk, and she was right once more. She seemed convinced I would die. I pray that just this once, she was wrong.

  I dive off the boat because there’s no other option. I do it praying I’ll survive. Praying Sarah will forgive me if I don’t.

  34

  SARAH

  It’s August, a rare moment of quiet in this house. Cecelia has cried all day, victim of one of those mysterious crying jags parents always blame on teething until the real culprit presents itself. Lucien and Charlotte helped me pick fruit all morning and are now drawing at the kitchen table, a level of contentment that won’t last long. They are sweet children—but they are still children, constantly in motion.

  I peek out the window. This is how I spend my days now: looking after children, watching the road. And waiting. Waiting for the Germans to arrive and discover Lucien and Charlotte hidden here, waiting for them to take the last of our meager resources or ask for Cece’s papers. And the thing I most dread, because it’s the one I can’t defend myself against—waiting for a courier to tell me Henri is dead.

  There’s been no word, though I wrote to tell him we weren’t able to leave. I try to reassure myself that he hasn’t received my letters and is healthy and whole, still writing to us in England. But as the days drag on it’s harder to believe it.

  They’d have told me if he was dead, wouldn’t they? I ask myself this question ten times a day. Yes, I always reply. And at least he wasn’t at Dunkirk.

  The tragedy at Dunkirk was in all the papers. The French and British forces were pushed to the shore and forced to evacuate while German bombers circled, taking out one ship after another. I’d read about it in my own time, of course, but it’s different now that I can picture the men. Luc Barbier and his friend Marc were there, and no one has heard from them. They were just boys. Too young to die. They’d barely even lived yet.

  I watch the road all day long, in a constant state of readiness, but my mind often drifts the way it does right now, and I picture Henri coming home. In the distance, I’ll see a tall man with dark hair. It could be almost anyone, but something inside me will say it’s him. I can feel it, the way my breath will still, the way I’ll try so hard not to let myself hope while my heart beats harder and faster. I picture him cutting through the field and then that flash of his smile, the one he saves only for me.

  I picture it so hard that for a moment it seems possible I can will him here. But the road remains empty, and my stomach drops, back to that pit of dread and fear that almost seems permanent at this point.

  How could it all have gone so wrong?

  I think back to April, when Jeannette left. Lucien and Charlotte didn’t have passports, so I couldn’t have gotten them to England, but we could at least have headed south to the free zone before the bombing started, back before there were zones at all, back before travel papers were required—travel papers denied to Jews. Except I was so certain that if I called Jeannette’s mother enough times, someone would pick up. I even considered going back a few months to get the address from Jeannette, so I could leave the children there. And then, one day, I found the address on a letter tucked in a book, and discovered the entire block was now rubble. Which meant that, had I time traveled to get the address, the children would be dead. Because of me.

  If the Germans come for them in Saint Antoine, that will be because of me too.

  What I might do, and what I might do wrong. The topic consumes me. I could go back to the days when Jeannette first disappeared, and tell my previous self to take the children to the free zone—but now fear holds me in place. Anything could go awry on the way and I wouldn’t be able to fix it, not if it meant leaving three young children out in the open, without supervision. We are alive now, and I’m terrified I might change that, the way I nearly did once already. I could travel back to the day before Marie ran off and explain to her why she shouldn’t leave—tell her I need her to take Cecelia to England so at least one of the children is safe—but if I do, I may be stripping her of a life with Edouard. And who knows what might go wrong instead?

  The questions make my gift feel more like a curse, and I’m angry about all of it. We shouldn’t be trapped. Lucien and Charlotte, children who’ve just lost their mother, shouldn’t have to live like fugitives. Charlotte shouldn’t have to stare out the window each day, hoping her mother might come back. I shouldn’t need to sleep with an ear open each night—waiting for the Germans or the constant threat of intruders, those who escaped Paris on foot and come through the farm now stealing chickens and fruit.

  I shouldn’t have to fight off this black-heartedness all over again. I don’t want to let the ugly piece of me back into the light, and I worry with every day that passes I’ll eventually have no choice.

  * * *

  Early in September, Charlotte stops staring out the window. For days she is quiet, her small face unreadable. I try to draw her out, bribe her with bits of rationed chocolate or a game, but nothing quite works. Then one afternoon, while Cecelia is pulling herself up on the bench, and Lucien marches around the room chanting some nonsense rhyme he’s made up, Charlotte climbs into my lap and presses her head to my chest. “Are you going to be my mother now?” she asks.

  I hesitate. In a way it feels like a bigger promise than I should make—if a relative appears I might be forced to give the children up, and I don’t want her to count on me if she can’t
. But what does she need most? Does she need some tenuous promise of care until a better option arrives, or does she need to believe there is someone in the world who will always love her? Agreeing means far more than she could ever realize: it’s an unholy alliance with that dark piece of me. The one that will kill what stands in my way, including anyone who tries to take her from me, even if their right to her is greater than my own.

  “Would you like me to be?” I ask. Charlotte will be eleven when the war ends, and Lucien will be seven. He won’t even remember another mother but me. I picture some hapless, well-intentioned relative finding us and trying to take them from me and taste metal in my mouth, blood pumping heavy and fast in my veins, surging with that desperate need to destroy.

  She nods, and I squeeze my eyes shut.

  “Then yes,” I say, pulling her close. It feels like the right decision, and the worst choice I’ve ever made, all at the same time.

  * * *

  A week later the Germans come. There isn’t enough time to hide Charlotte and Lucien in the barn, and Lucien is still too young to stay quiet when asked. As the Germans are pulling up in front of the house, I rush the two of them to my room and lower them out the window closest to the woods.

  “Run to the end of the vineyard and wait for me,” I tell them. “Hold hands, and don’t make a sound.”

  I climb back in and head toward the door, placing the gun under a dish towel on the table. That dark piece of me doesn’t want to hide the gun at all. It wants to hurt them for doing this to us, for scaring me, for forcing me to tell a two-year-old and a five-year-old to run for their lives.

  I open the door and find two soldiers there, boys themselves. They both look embarrassed.

  “Good day, madame,” one of them says politely. “I apologize, but I’ve been sent to retrieve your cow and your chickens.”

  I swallow hard. I’m not a citizen, and no one knows Lucien and Charlotte are here, which means Cece is the only person in this house who receives a ration card, and it’s a half-ration at that. Without the cow and chickens, we will lose our eggs and milk and cheese. The vines and trees will soon be bare, so we’ll be left to subsist on tinned food and nothing more.

  I could kill them both in a heartbeat and be done with it, I think. Except they are barely children themselves, doing a job they don’t want to do. And killing them will only bring questions that will cause more trouble.

  “I need eggs and milk for my daughter,” I reply. I want to wince at the sound of begging in my voice.

  He frowns. “I’m sorry, madame.” He flushes and looks at the soldier beside him. “Perhaps you might be allowed to keep one of the chickens?”

  He’s asking the other soldier more than he’s asking me, and taking a risk. His compatriot’s eyes widen and then he gives a small, terse nod.

  I watch as they load the chickens into a cage, leaving me one, and then drive away at a snail’s pace, the cow tied behind them.

  Once they’re out of sight I place Cece in her crib and run as hard as I can to Lucien and Charlotte. I fall to the ground when I find them, pulling them against me tighter than I should.

  I can’t lose them. I can’t lose Cece. The thought terrifies me.

  And the terror makes me angrier than I’ve ever been. Angrier than is probably safe.

  35

  SARAH

  November.

  Not even officially winter, and already it’s unbearably cold. Our heated floors and fireplace offer me little comfort. I can only think of Henri. Where does he sleep now? Was he taken prisoner? Is he floating at the bottom of the sea?

  At night, after the children are asleep, I weep for him, asking one question again and again: Why can’t they just tell me what happened?

  Our lives have tightened and narrowed until it feels like there’s almost nothing left. Because I anticipated that Jeannette wouldn’t plan sufficiently, I’d already stocked the cellar with non-perishables last spring, and we live off of that and almost nothing else. I rarely get into town to buy anything more since it means leaving Charlotte and Lucien here alone, and when I do go, I only see resentment—Why should a homewrecking American be getting rations? they wonder.

  It’s not that all, or even most, of the townspeople are bad, but it only takes one of them to feel their own lot might be improved by lessening ours. And that one will give our names to the authorities, if they haven’t already. It’s inevitable. The revolver now sits on a high shelf near the table, waiting for the moment it will all come to a head. The girl I once was believes murder is wrong. But I still plan to kill anyone who enters our home and beg her forgiveness later.

  I set dinner on the table, and Charlotte’s small face falls when she sees another bit of tinned ham with powdered milk. I don’t blame her—I understand how lucky we are to have it, but I’m sick of it too.

  She picks at her food and then helps me clear the table. “What will it be like when we get to England?” she asks.

  I smile at her. It’s one of our favorite topics these days. “We will live in the country, like this,” I tell her. “You will go to school, and while you’re there, I’ll take Lucien and Cecelia to the market and we’ll buy lots of food and when you come home each day, I’ll have a big supper waiting.”

  “Will there be pie?” she asks.

  “More pie and cake than you could ever want to eat. With fresh cream.”

  “But no tinned ham,” she says firmly, wiping her hands against each other in a perfect imitation of me.

  I tuck in my smile. “If anyone suggests we eat tinned ham, I’ll kill them myself with my bare hands.”

  She laughs. “What about powdered—"

  There’s a sound outside. Boots on the front step.

  And the door is still unlocked.

  The plate in Charlotte’s hand falls to the ground and shatters. I stand frozen before I remember my plan and spring into action, darting across the kitchen for the revolver.

  Kill whoever is at the door, the first part of the plan. It doesn’t feel real now, even as I repeat the words.

  The door opens. I point the gun just past it, ready to fire. “Halt!” I yell.

  In spite of my fear, the desire to punish our intruder throbs in my veins. If he sets one more foot inside this house, I will put a bullet in his head, and some part of me will enjoy it.

  “As you wish, little thief,” comes a low voice in reply.

  My hands shake. It’s too much. It’s too good to possibly be real. I’m scared to believe it.

  “Henri?” I breathe.

  He steps into the light. Thinner, and tired, but him. As beautiful as ever. “Is there another man who calls you little thief?” he asks, with a smile I’ve missed more than I even knew. “I thought in that one way, I might have been original.”

  I set the gun on the counter behind me and run to him from the kitchen, throwing myself into his arms, weeping like a child. He seems impossibly tall now, perhaps because he’s so thin, but he’s still my Henri. His clothes are in tatters and stiff with dirt, but beneath it is the same skin, the same smell, the same broad hands against my back, holding me as if I’m all that’s keeping him from falling overboard into a stormy sea.

  “Don’t leave us again,” I whisper.

  “My poor little thief,” he says. “Has it been awful here?”

  “It’s been awful wondering if you were alive or dead for the better part of six months,” I reply.

  “I’m home now, though I wish to God I hadn’t found you here,” he says. “When Marc told me you’d stayed behind I—”

  Cece begins to cry too, unsettled by all the excitement, or perhaps just feeling left out. I release her father and his face lights up at the sight of her before he takes in our other guests and turns to me with a raised brow.

  “Our family grew while you were gone,” I tell him quietly.

  He blinks once, putting it all together, and then smiles, twining his fingers through mine. “I always wanted three children,” he sa
ys.

  I lead him to the table and he sits with Cece in his lap, chatting with Lucien and Charlotte, while I get him a plate.

  He glances up at me as I place the food in front of him. “It’s late. I’m surprised Marie isn’t home.”

  My teeth sink into my lip. Marie’s been gone so long I’d almost forgotten he would expect her to be here. There’s a lot he doesn’t know, and he will definitely not be pleased. “She’s...gone. She went to Paris right after you left. I—”

  “She left?” he repeats incredulously. “She left you here in this situation alone?”

  I shoot a quick glance at the children. “The situation here didn’t change until she was gone, and it’s...complicated.”

  He looks sick. “But she’s alright?” he asks. “She survived the bombings?”

  I bite my lip. “I assume so. I think we might have heard from Edouard if she didn’t.”

  He raises a brow. “Edouard?” he asks. “Why would we hear from Edouard?”

  “You’re going to be an uncle,” I tell him, and his jaw falls open as he puts it together. I can see his thoughts even before he voices them: in his mind, his sister is painfully sheltered and innocent, still fragile from the ordeal in 1918. If she’s pregnant, it’s because she was forced, or manipulated. “I know you want to blame Edouard, but Marie played a heavy role. She admitted it herself. And the fact that she never came back means they’re probably married by now,” I reply.

  His nostrils flare. “If he hasn’t married her, I’ll—”

  My hand folds over his. “I know. But right now, you need to focus. The child she carries might be…what everyone has waited for. You’re home and safe, and hopefully she is too. Under the circumstances, it’s more than we could hope for.”

  We both take a quick glance at the children: Cecelia, who could easily have been swept away by Yvette, and Lucien and Charlotte, who’d lost both their parents before the war had even begun in earnest. “You’re right,” he says softly. “There were many times when I thought I’d never have a moment like this again. Thank God I was wrong.”