“Go out! Go back! Go away!” she said, but despite the odd choice of words, they both got the message. She looked as though she were going to slap them, particularly Arthur, as though she expected him to be the sensible one and do something about Sam. “C'est compris?”
“No….” Sam immediately launched into frantic conversation with her. “No compris … I don't speak French … I'm American … My name is Sam Walker, and this is Arthur Patterson. We just wanted to say hello and …” He gave her his most winning smile, and something in her eyes was angry and hurt beyond anything Sam could have understood, anything he had ever felt or experienced, and he felt desperately sorry for her.
“Non!” She waved her arms at them. “Merde! Voilà! C'est compris?”
“Merde?” Sam looked blank and turned to Arthur for translation. “What's merde?”
“It means shit.”
“Very nice.” Sam smiled as though she had invited them to tea. “Would you like to join us for a cup of coffee … café?” He was still smiling at her as he spoke to Arthur, “Christ, Patterson, how do I invite her for a cup of coffee? Say something will you, please?”
“Je m'excuse …” he said apologetically, trying to remember French IV, most of which seemed to have escaped him in the face of this incredible-looking Frenchwoman. Sam was right. She was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen. “Je regrette … mon ami est très excité … voulez-vous un café” he said lamely at the end, suddenly not wanting to let go of her either, but her response was one of immediate outrage.
“Quel sacré culot … bande de salopards … allez-vous faire …” And then, with tears in her eyes, she suddenly shook her head and hurried past them, going back the way she had come, with her head down now but her shoulders still as proud as ever, walking faster in shoes they could see were well worn and too big for her, like the dark blue dress that looked as though it might have been her mother's.
“What did she say, Arthur?” Sam was already hurrying after her, and had to scurry through a crowd of soldiers who seemed to have sprung up from nowhere.
“I think she was about to tell us to go to hell, I didn't quite catch the rest. I think it was argot.”
“What's that? A dialect?” Sam looked instantly worried, French was complicated enough without worrying about dialects, but he was more concerned about losing her in the press of people on the street.
“It's Paris slang.” She had darted into a short street, the rue des Grands-Degrés, and then stopped suddenly in a doorway, and then disappeared, loudly banging the door behind her, as Sam stopped and sighed with a victorious grin. “What are you looking so pleased about?” Arthur asked him.
“We know where she lives now.” The rest would be easy.
“How do you know she's not visiting someone?” Arthur was fascinated by the intensity of his passion. He had never felt anything like it himself, but he had also never seen anyone like her. She was truly lovely.
“She'll come out sooner or later. She has to.”
“And you plan to stand here and wait for her all day? Walker, you are crazy!” Arthur shook his head in dismay. He didn't intend to spend all his time in Paris loitering outside some girl's doorway … a girl who obviously didn't want to speak to him, when there were a thousand others who would have been thrilled to show them all sorts of gratitude and passion. “I am not going to stand here all day, for chrissake … if you think …”
Sam looked nonplussed. “So go. I'll meet you later. Back at the cafe where we had coffee.”
“And you're just going to wait here?”
“You got it.” He lit a cigarette, and lounged happily against the wall of what he assumed was her building. He was thinking of going inside, but that could wait. Presumably, she'd come out again … eventually … and he had every intention of waiting.
Arthur stood on the sidewalk fuming and trying to convince him to do something more constructive with his time, but to no avail. Sam had no intention of leaving. And in total irritation, Arthur gave up, and decided to hang around with him, partially because he didn't want to leave Sam and partially because he found her intriguing too. It was less than an hour before she emerged, carrying some books in a string bag. Her hair was combed loose now, and she looked even more beautiful than she had an hour before. She saw them immediately as she stepped out of her house, started to back inside for a moment, and then decided against it. With her head held high, she walked past them, and Sam ever so gently touched her arm to catch her attention. At first she looked as though she were going to brush past, and then she stopped, the green eyes blazing, and looked at him. The look she gave him spoke volumes, but she also looked as though she understood there was no point in trying to say anything because he wouldn't understand, and what's more he didn't want to.
“Would you like to go have something to eat with us, mademoiselle?” He made the gesture of eating and his eyes never left hers. There was something very compelling about the way he looked at her, as though he wanted her to understand that he wasn't going to hurt her or take advantage of her. He just wanted to look at her … to see her … and maybe even to reach out and touch her. “Oui?” He looked boyishly hopeful and she shook her head.
“Non. Okay?” Her French accent on the single word sounded endearing and he smiled as Arthur watched the exchange, unable to speak up in his limited French. Something about the girl left him speechless. “No …” She repeated the gesture Sam had made to indicate eating and shook her head.
“Why?” He struggled to find the word in French. “Pourquoi?” He suddenly glanced at her hand in panic. Maybe she was married. Maybe her husband was going to kill him. But there was no ring there. She seemed awfully young, but maybe she was a widow.
“Parce que.” She spoke slowly, wondering if he would understand, but almost certain he wouldn't “Je ne veux pas.”
Arthur spoke up then in a whisper.
“She says she doesn't want to.”
“Why?” Sam looked hurt. “We're nice guys. Only lunch … food …” He made the eating gesture again. “… café … okay? … Five minutes?” He held up five fingers on one hand. “Okay?” He held out both hands, palms up, in a gesture of helplessness and peace, and she looked suddenly weary as she shook her head. She looked as though she had had years of this, years of soldiers harassing her, and strangers in her homeland.
“No German … No American … No … No café … No …” She did the now familiar eating gesture again.
Sam folded his hands in supplication and for a minute he looked as though he might burst into tears. But at least she was still standing there, listening to him. He pointed to himself and then to Arthur. “North Africa … Italy … now France …” He pretended to shoot, he pantomimed Arthur's wounded arm, and looked at her imploringly, “One café… five minutes … please …”
She seemed almost sorry this time when she shook her head and then started to turn away. “Non … je regrette …” And then she walked away quickly as they stared after her. Even Sam didn't follow her this time. There was no point. But when Arthur started to walk away, Sam wouldn't follow.
“Come on, man, she's gone, and she doesn't want to see us.”
“I don't care.” He sounded like a disappointed schoolboy. “Maybe she'll change her mind when she comes back.”
“The only thing that'll be different is that maybe this time she'll have her father and seven brothers come and knock our teeth out. She told us no, and she meant it, now let's not waste all day standing here. There are a million other women in Paris, dying to show their gratitude to the liberating heroes.”
“I don't give a damn.” Sam wasn't moving. “This girl's different.”
“You're damn right she is.” Arthur was finally getting angry. Very angry. “She told us to take a hike. And personally, I intend to follow her advice, no matter how good her legs are. Are you coming, or not?”
Sam hesitated for a moment and then followed him, but with obvious regret. And wherever they w
ent that day, all he could think of was the beautiful girl with red hair on the rue d' Arcole with the green eyes that blazed fire and sadness. There was something about her that haunted him, and after dinner that night, he left Arthur at the table with three girls, and quietly slipped away to walk slowly down her street, just to be near her. It was a crazy thing to do, and even he knew it, but he couldn't help himself. He wanted to see her one more time, even if only from a distance. It wasn't just her looks, there was something more about her. Something he couldn't define or understand, but he wanted to know her … or at least see her…. He had to.
He stopped at a little cafe across the street, and ordered a cup of the bitter coffee that everyone drank black and without sugar, and sat staring at her doorway, and then watched in amazement as he saw her walking down the street with her string bag still full of books, and walk slowly up the steps to her house and stop there for a moment, looking for a key in her coin purse and glancing over her shoulder, as though to be sure no one was following her. Sam leapt to his feet, dropped a handful of coins on the table, and ran across the street, as she glanced up, startled. She looked as though she were going to bolt, and then held her ground with defiance. In occupied Paris, she had faced more ominous men than Sam, and she looked as though she were ready to face one more. But her eyes were more tired than angry this time when she faced him.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle.” He looked more sheepish now than he had before, and she shook her head, like a mother scolding a schoolboy.
“Pourquoi vous me poursuivez?”
He had no idea what she had said, and this time he didn't have Arthur to rely on, but she spoke more English than he had originally thought. She repeated her question to him in her gentle husky voice. “Why you do that?”
“I want to talk to you.” He spoke softly, as though caressing the graceful arms that shivered slightly in the cool night air. She had no sweater, only the ugly old blue dress.
She waved vaguely toward the people in the streets, as though offering them up instead. “Many girls in Paris … happy talking Americans.” Her eyes grew hard then. “Happy talking Germans, happy talking Americans …” He understood her.
“And you only speak to Frenchmen?”
She smiled and shrugged. “French people talk Germans too … Americans …” She wanted to tell him how France had betrayed itself, how ugly it had been, but there was no way to say all that with the little English she knew, and after all he was a stranger.
“What is your name? Mine is Sam.”
She hesitated for a long time, thinking he didn't need to know it, and then shrugged, as though talking to herself. “Solange Bertrand.” But she did not hold out her hand in introduction. “You go?” She looked at him hopefully and he gestured toward the cafe across the street.
“One cup of coffee, then I go? Please?”
For an instant, he thought she would get angry again, and then, her shoulders drooping for the first time, she seemed to hesitate.
“Je suis très fatiguée.” She pointed to the books. He knew she couldn't be going to school at the moment. Everything was disrupted.
“Do you go to school usually?”
“Teaching … little boy at home … very sick … tuberculose.”
He nodded. Everything about her seemed noble. “Aren't you hungry?” She didn't seem to understand and he made the eating gesture again, and this time she laughed, showing beautiful teeth and a smile that made his heart do cartwheels.
“D'accord… d'accord …” She held up one hand, fingers splayed. “Cinq minutes … five minute!”
“You'll have to drink fast and their coffee is pretty hot …” He felt as though he were flying as he took the string bag from her and led her across the street to the cafe. The owner greeted her as though he knew her, and seemed interested by the fact that she was there with an American soldier. She called him Julien and they chatted for a moment before she ordered a cup of tea, but she refused to order anything to eat until Sam ordered for her. He ordered some cheese and bread, and in spite of herself, she devoured it. He noticed then for the first time, how thin she was when he looked at her closely. The proud shoulders were mostly bones, and she had long graceful fingers. She sipped the hot tea carefully and seemed grateful for the steaming liquid.
“Why you do this?” She asked him after she had sipped the tea. She shook her head slowly. “Je ne comprends pas.”
He was unable to explain even to her why he felt so compelled to speak to her, but the moment he had laid eyes on her, he knew he had to.
“I'm not sure.” He looked pensive, and she seemed not to understand. He threw up his hands to show her he didn't know himself. And then he tried to explain it, touching his heart, and then his eyes. “I felt something different the first time I saw you.”
She seemed to disapprove and glanced at the other girls in the cafe, with American soldiers, but he was quick to shake his head. “No, no … not like that… more …” He indicated “bigger” with his hands, and she looked sadly at him as though she knew better.
“Ça n'existe pas … it do not exist.”
“What doesn't?”
She touched her heart and indicated “bigger,” as he had.
“Have you lost someone in the war? …”He hated to ask, “Your husband?”
Slowly she shook her head, and then not knowing why, she told him. “My father … my brother … the Germans kill them … my mother die of tuberculose. … My father, my brother, dans la Résistance.”
“And you?”
“J'ai soigné ma mére … I … take sick my mother …”
“You took care of your mother?” She nodded.
“J'avais peur”—she waved her hand in annoyance at herself, and then indicated fright—“de la Résistance … because my mother she need me very much…. My brother was sixteen …” Her eyes filled with tears then, and without thinking he reached out and touched Solange's hand, and miraculously she let him, for an instant at least, before drawing it away to take another sip of tea, which gave her the breather she needed from the emotions of the moment.
“Do you have other family?” She looked blank. “More brothers? Sisters? Aunts and uncles?”
She shook her head, her eyes serious. She had been alone for two years now. Alone against the Germans. Tutoring to make enough money to survive. She had often thought of the Resistance after her mother died, but she was too frightened, and her brother had died such a pointless death. He hadn't died for glory, he had died betrayed by one of their French neighbors. Everyone seemed to be collaborating, and a traitor. Except for a handful of loyal Frenchmen, and they were being hunted down and slaughtered. Everything had changed. And Solange along with it. The laughing, ebullient girl she had once been, had become a smoldering, angry, distant woman. And yet this boy had somehow reached out and touched her and she knew it. Worse yet, she liked it. It made her feel human again.
“How old are you, Solange?”
“Dix-neuf …” She thought about it for a minute, trying to find the right numbers in English. “Ninety.” She said quietly and then he laughed at her, and shook his head.
“No, I don't think so. Nineteen?” Suddenly, she realized what she had said, and she laughed too, for the first time, looking suddenly young again and more beautiful than ever. “You look terrific for ninety.”
“Et vous?” She asked the same question of him.
“Twenty-two.” It was suddenly like boy-and-girl exchanges anywhere, except that they had both seen so much of life. She in Paris, and he with his bayonet, killing Germans.
“Vous étiez étudiant? … student?”
He nodded. “At a place called Harvard, in Boston.” He was still proud of it, even now, oddly enough with her it still seemed to matter, and he was doubly proud when he saw a light of recognition in her eyes.
“ 'Arvard?”
“You've heard of it?”
“Bien sÛr … of course! … like la Sorbonne, no?”
“
Probably.” He was pleased that she knew it, and they exchanged a smile. The tea and bread and cheese were long gone, but she didn't seem so anxious to leave now. “Could I see you tomorrow, Solange? To go for a walk maybe? Or lunch? … dinner?” He realized how hungry she was now, how little food she probably had, and he felt it his duty to feed her.
She started to shake her head and indicated the books in the string bag.
“After? … or before? … please … I don't know how long I will be here.” There was already talk of their leaving Paris and moving on to Germany, and he couldn't bear the thought of leaving her. Not now … not yet … and maybe not ever. It was his first taste of puppy love, and he was totally in her thrall as he gazed into the green eyes that seemed so much gentler now, and so full of wisdom.
She sighed. He was so persistent. And in spite of herself, she liked him. During the entire Occupation, she had not made friends with a single German, and certainly no soldier, and she didn't see why the liberation should be any different, and yet … and yet, this boy was different. And she knew it.
“D'accord,” she said reluctantly.
“Don't look so excited,” he teased and she looked confused as he smiled, and took her hand again. “Thank you.”
They stood up slowly then and he walked her to her door across the street. She gave him a formal little handshake and thanked him for dinner, and then with a resolute sound, the heavy door closed behind her. As Sam made his way slowly through the streets of Paris, he felt as though his whole life had changed in only a few hours. He wasn't sure how, but he knew that this woman … this girl … this extraordinary creature … had come into his life for a reason.
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