As usual, Maman has had the last word.
FOURTEEN
SOLINE
We do not create love from thin air, using philters or glamours or any other manner of manipulation. We do not create love at all. We merely shepherd its expression and assure its survival.
—Esmée Roussel, the Dress Witch
3 March 1943—Paris
I have closed the shop for good, not that anyone noticed.
Maman was buried quietly in a cardboard casket covered with cloth, because there was no wood for a proper coffin. Flowers appeared on the stoop, small posies tied with bits of ribbon or twine. And of course, the letters—dozens of envelopes pushed through the shop’s letter box, heartfelt remembrances from brides Maman helped find happiness over the years. So many seeming miracles, accomplished with a handful of stitches and a little bit of magick.
I’ve saved some of the letters, bundling them together with a length of ribbon. They’re Maman’s legacy to me—a collection of her happy endings. It helps to read them now and then, to know she will be remembered. But life must go on. Death is everywhere these days. On the radio and in the papers, in the camps and on the battlefields, the prisons and field hospitals. To most, Esmée Roussel is just one more missing face in the queues, but I feel her absence keenly.
For as long as I can remember, she has been the voice in my ear, directing my work, shaping my thoughts—shaping me. And with her gone, I suddenly feel unshaped. I’ve never been much more than Esmée Roussel’s daughter. Suddenly, I’m not even that.
After years of clandestine work, I have finally finished my dress—a Soline Roussel original—but there seems little point in starting another. As Maman predicted, there are no brides in Paris because there are no grooms. Unless one counts the boche, which I do not.
My life has simply lost its rhythm. I have no one to cook for, sew for, care for, and I’m at a loss to see what comes next. My world, never more than a few miles wide, has shrunk to a handful of rooms, with entire weeks passing when I do not venture outside. But my hoard of supplies has dwindled alarmingly. It is time to rejoin the living in the food queues.
It’s a drizzly Wednesday morning. I grab my umbrella and my ration cards and head to the shops. It’s a meat day, and the queue at the butcher’s is already spilling out into the street, thin faces all in a row, sharp with hunger and mistrust. I take my place among them, sharing my umbrella with the woman behind me.
It’s impossible to ignore the talk rippling up and down the queue. Murmurs of diphtheria and the tuberculosis that killed Maman. Children with rickets. Babies born too weak to survive. People dropping dead of starvation in Poland. And the question no one speaks aloud—how long before it’s us?
But worse than the threat of hunger, for me at least, is the smothering weight of boredom. I need something to fill my days, some way to be useful again, or I’ll run mad. A few of the couture houses are still open: Lelong, Grès, Schiaparelli. But they’re dressing the Nazi wives now, and Maman wouldn’t approve of me having a hand in that. Not that I’d ever get my foot in any of those doors. Sadly, I haven’t the slightest idea what else I might be fit for.
And then one morning, I ride Maman’s old bicycle to Neuilly-sur-Seine, on the outskirts of the city, to trade two skeins of lace—more prized than beef on the black market and twice as hard to find—for some butter and a handful of eggs. I’m near the American Hospital when a trio of ambulances grinding up the street sends a shiver through me. Sirens aren’t uncommon on the streets of Paris—far from it—but I don’t think any of us has gotten used to that jarring, plaintive wail. We all know what it means. More butchered men. More widows.
I watch, transfixed, as they pass through the hospital gate and into the large front courtyard. There’s a clamor as the sirens die, a bustle of slamming doors and swarming uniforms as the drivers spill out to unload their cargo.
Hospitals all over France are overflowing. We’ve all heard the horror stories: doctors performing amputations from sunup to sundown, nurses so overwhelmed they often collapse from lack of sleep, volunteers changing linens and manning bedpans—anything to lighten the load.
Before I realize what I’m doing, I’ve abandoned my bicycle in the shade of a chestnut tree and am marching toward the courtyard. After two years of caring for Maman, changing her linens and helping her bathe, washing her bloody handkerchiefs and dosing out her sleeping draughts, I’m no stranger to the baser duties of nursing. Suddenly, I see a way to fill my days and be useful.
No one notices me. There’s so much going on, men scurrying in every direction, orders being shouted as the American drivers scramble to unload the casualties. Bandaged eyes. A shattered jaw. A leg grotesquely twisted. A palm-size bit of shrapnel jutting from a hastily dressed chest wound. A boy no older than me with a blood-soaked stump where his right arm should have been.
A wave of nausea washes over me as I take it all in, the courtyard tilting dizzily as I fight to keep down my breakfast. I cover my mouth, willing the faintness to pass as I search for the shortest route back to my bike. And yet, I can’t seem to make my feet move. I just stand there, paralyzed and clammy, caught between the overwhelming urge to flee and the need to render whatever aid I might be capable of.
In the end, the choice is made for me. One of the drivers—the one who seems to be in charge—suddenly notices me standing very still amid the chaos.
“Tell Alice we’ve got seven total,” he barks at me. “Three critical.”
Alice?
I blink at him, then turn to peer over my shoulder. When I find no one there, I turn back to him and blink again.
“Parlez-vous anglais?” he snaps in nearly perfect French.
“Oui. I mean, yes. Yes, I do.”
He narrows his eyes, surveying me from head to heel. There isn’t much to see. I haven’t bothered with my appearance since the shop closed, and I’ve bothered even less today. I’m wearing a pair of old culottes, practical when one must get around on a bicycle, and a plain white blouse with one of Maman’s cardigans over it.
“Are you a volunteer here?” he asks, in English now.
I look around awkwardly, then blurt the first word that comes into my head. “Oui.”
“Then get a move on. Seven and three.”
He turns away before I can ask him anything else and resumes barking orders. With my eyes averted, I pick my way around several stretchers and head for the entrance. There’s no guard posted, I realize, no sign of a German anywhere, which seems odd. You can’t go a block without tripping over a Nazi these days.
Inside, the chaos is more controlled, somber and antiseptic, like a hive where every inmate knows its purpose and goes about it with grim determination. Nurses, dull-eyed with fatigue, bustling about in their crisp whites and practical shoes. Volunteers crisscrossing the receiving area with carts and basins and armloads of linens. Soldiers in wheelchairs, clustered in corners and along walls, rehashing the glories of battle or smoking cigarettes and staring into space.
It’s overwhelming but exhilarating, too, to be standing in the middle of so much activity. Paris has fallen under a kind of spell since the Nazis arrived, as if the city itself has gone into hibernation, hoping to sleep until the nightmare is over. But the doctors and nurses, and even the volunteers, can’t afford to hibernate. They’re on a mission, and suddenly I desperately want to be part of it.
I catch the eye of a nurse with a head full of coppery curls beneath her starched cap. “I’m supposed to talk to Alice,” I say tentatively.
“There,” she responds with a hike of her thumb. “The one with the clipboard. If you run, you might just catch her.”
I catch up with Alice as she’s about to push through a set of double doors. “Excusez-moi.”
She turns, gray eyes wide beneath iron-colored brows. For an instant, she looks genuinely amused. “You must be new. No one says excuse me around here. What do you need?”
“A man outside—the one in charge of th
e ambulances—sent me to say seven total, three critical.”
The steely brows shoot up, all traces of amusement gone. “Right.”
And with that, she’s off, snapping out orders in a voice that can be heard long after the doors swing shut behind her. Moments later, the first stretchers appear, accompanied by a flurry of low voices and scuffing feet. I watch uneasily as they disappear through a different set of doors marked TRIAGE, wondering how many, if any, will go home to their families.
The bustle quiets once the wounded have been dispatched, and I suddenly feel exposed and out of place. Before I can ask who I should talk to about volunteering, a woman I recognize as the mother of one of Maman’s brides spots me and makes her way over. She wears no makeup, and her usually impeccable coif has been reduced to a few hastily applied pins.
“You’re Madame Roussel’s girl, Soline.” Her face softens when I nod. “I heard about your maman. Je suis désolée.”
“Merci, Madame Laval.”
“Please. It’s just Adeline these days. Have you come to help the boys, then?”
“I have. But I don’t know where to go.”
She pats my arm and gives me a little wink. “Come with me.”
I assume she’s taking me to an office somewhere, where I will speak to whomever is in charge and fill out some papers. Instead, she leads me to a corner piled with cardboard boxes. She lifts three from one of the stacks and drops them into my arms.
“Take those to the storeroom, through there and to the right, and come back for more.”
“Are you . . . in charge?”
“In charge?” She throws her graying head back and laughs. “Bonté divine! Dr. Jack is in charge here, and make no mistake. I’m just doing my bit, same as everyone else. Now, off with you. And mind where you go. It wouldn’t do to blunder into the surgery on your first day.”
I do as I’m told and find myself in a narrow corridor lit with light bulbs that have been painted blue to comply with blackout restrictions. The combined smells of alcohol and iodine grow sharper as I move down the hallway, in search of a sign that reads STORAGE ROOM.
There are so many doors, most of them unmarked, and I imagine myself walking through the wrong one or, worse, being called out for trespassing where I don’t belong. But no one seems to pay me the least bit of attention, too busy with their own tasks to notice a confused new face in the crowd.
“Are you lost?”
I start guiltily, nearly dropping my boxes as I whirl around. It’s the ambulance driver who barked at me in the courtyard. He seems taller than he did outdoors, broad-shouldered and lean in his uniform khakis, blond and tan the way only an American can be.
“I’m afraid I am,” I admit, embarrassed to be caught flustered for the second time by this man who seems to have command of himself and everything around him. “It’s my first day, and I’m . . .”
My words trickle to a halt. There’s a smear of blood on his shoulder, dark but not quite dry, and another one on the side of his neck, just below his ear, and all I can think is: Is it the blood of the boy with half an arm or the man with the metal sticking out of his chest?
Suddenly, my mouth is full of saliva, and the room begins to sway. Overhead, the blue-painted light bulbs seem to dim. Still, I can’t look away from the blood, as if it represents all the dead boys in France. All the ache, and loss, and horror.
The American seems to sense my distress and quickly relieves me of the boxes. “Are you going to be sick?”
The words seem to come from a long way off, as if spoken underwater, but eventually they register. Sick. Am I going to be sick? I turn my head and pull in a lungful of air, ashamed of my weakness in front of this stoic man.
“I don’t . . . know,” I manage thickly. “I think . . .”
Before I can finish, he has hold of my elbow and is steering me back up the corridor. We stop in front of a narrow door marked LAVATORY. He opens it and pushes me inside. “Go ahead. Don’t fight it. It’ll only drag things out.”
I blink at him a moment, then fold myself over the toilet and bring up the remains of my breakfast. It’s over soon enough, but my legs are shaking miserably, and my face is clammy with sweat. To my horror, I begin to cry.
I hear him turn on the tap, then feel something cool and wet being pressed into my hand. A handkerchief. I wipe my mouth, then blot my eyes. He takes the handkerchief and rinses it out, then carefully folds it and hands it back. “Hold this on the back of your neck. It’ll help.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“What for?”
I shake my head, blinking away a fresh rush of tears. “I’m not usually squeamish, but I saw the blood on your uniform, and it reminded me of the boy you brought in, the one with half his arm gone, and all I could think was, How many there are just like him now. And how many more who would feel lucky to have only lost an arm.”
“You’re new,” he says quietly.
I nod, wiping my eyes again. “I don’t know how I even ended up here. I left home on my bicycle this morning to barter for some eggs.”
I’m surprised when he barks out a laugh. It’s the opposite of what I’m expecting, but I suppose my response wasn’t what he’d been expecting either, and I suddenly find myself laughing too.
“You’ll get used to it,” he says when we’ve laughed ourselves out. “Okay, not used to it, but better able to cope. In the meantime, remember that everyone in this place had a first day.”
I look away. “Not like this one.”
He leans in with a sly smile. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“What?”
“I’ve been doing this for almost a year, and I still toss my cookies at least once a week.”
I don’t know whether to believe him or not, but I’m grateful for his kindness and am about to say so when I’m interrupted by a conspicuous cough.
“Let’s go, Romeo,” a voice calls gruffly from the hallway. “Time to move out.”
Romeo.
I feel my face go red. This disembodied voice—whoever he is—thinks he’s interrupting a rendez-vous romantique, which is what anyone coming across a young French girl and a handsome American huddled in a bathroom would think.
Romeo blows out a breath. “Yeah, yeah.” For the first time, I notice how tired he looks. “Tell Patrick I’ll be right there.” He waits until he’s sure we’re alone again, then smiles sheepishly. “Sorry. Duty calls.”
“Of course.” I hold out the soggy handkerchief, awkward again.
He glances at it and grins. “Hang on to it. I’ll be back.”
I watch him go, then turn on the tap to rinse out the handkerchief. It’s made of fine cotton, expensive, with a thin satin stripe woven through at the edge. My hands go quiet when I see the bit of red in one corner. For a moment I think it’s blood, then realize it’s a monogram. It seems strange, like finding a silver tea service in the middle of a battlefield. What kind of soldier carries monogrammed handkerchiefs? I hold it to the light, peering at the letters picked out in fancy script—A.W.P.
I spend the rest of the day looking for his face in the corridors and wondering what the letters stand for.
FIFTEEN
SOLINE
Before proceeding, one must be certain the lovers are destined for happiness. It is not a matter of attraction. Rather, it is a question of capacity. The potential to be happy must be there in both parties. If it is not, no charm, however skillfully worked, can guarantee a happy outcome.
—Esmée Roussel, the Dress Witch
10 March 1943—Paris
A week has passed with no sign of my American Romeo. I bring the handkerchief with me to work every day, hoping for a chance to return it. Not because I’m worried he might need it—a man who carries a monogrammed handkerchief in a war zone will have plenty more just like it—but because I want him to know I’m still here, that I haven’t quit.
In fact, I’m getting used to the place, the smells and sights, the long hours and war-battered fac
es. I give sponge baths and fill water pitchers, deliver meals and empty bedpans. I even help write letters to sweethearts. The hardest part has been learning my way around, to know which doors are off-limits and which are allowed, which ward holds which type of casualty, and the quickest way to get to the mess when I finally get a break. And that’s where I am when I finally see him again—Romeo.
I’ve just finished a letter for a Canadian airman with two broken arms when I look up from my coffee cup and see him in the doorway. I can tell from his expression that he’s been there awhile, watching me, and I feel my cheeks color.
My pulse skitters as our eyes meet. He’s smiling that big American smile of his, lounging against the doorframe with his arms folded across his chest. When I return his smile, he drops his arms and heads for my table. There’s a bandage on his forehead, a bruise at his temple.
“You’re still here,” he says, grinning. “I wasn’t sure you would be.”
“You’re hurt.”
He shrugs, rubbing a hand along his jaw. “One of the field hospitals got caught short, and I was stuck for a few days. Things got a little hairy one night, but we managed. Anyway, it looks like you’ve settled in for the long haul.”
“I had no choice. I owe you a handkerchief.”
His blue-green eyes flash mischievously. “My plan worked, then. I’m glad.”
I feel timid suddenly, and breathless, and giddy, and I find myself wondering if this was how Maman felt the day she met Erich Freede. “The monogram,” I ask shyly. “A.W.P. What does it stand for?”
“Anson. My name is Anson William Purcell. Now you.”
“I’m Soline Roussel.”
“Pleased to meet you, Soline Roussel.” He holds out a hand. I take it, briefly startled by the warmth of his fingers. “So how are things? Easier now that you’ve found your footing?”
“A little, yes. One of the other volunteers has taken me under her wing. She knew my mother before she passed away and has been very kind.”
His grin disappears, his face softening. “I’m sorry about your mother. When did she die?”
The Keeper of Happy Endings Page 11