Crossings

by Danielle Steel

  “It's been an awful long time, Liane … too long …” He stood very still and she reached her arms up around his neck and kissed him.

  And very gently he pulled her toward him. There were no words needed for what they felt, as suddenly where they were, or where they had been for the last year and a half, no longer mattered. Their bodies seemed to surge together as her clothes seemed to melt away beneath his hands and his towel fell and he gently picked her up and carried her to the bed, and he devoured her with his lips and his hands, and she lay breathless with pleasure. It was hours before they lay side by side again, drowsy with contentment. He rolled over on one elbow to look down at Liane. She was more beautiful than ever.

  “Hello, my love.”

  She smiled up at him with sleepy eyes. “I've missed you, Nick … even more than I remembered.” She kissed his shoulder and his chest, and ran a finger lazily down his arm. It was even better between them than it had been before. Added to passion was something warm and easy and familiar.

  At last at ten o'clock they got up and Nick strolled around the room, comfortable without his clothes, it felt as though they had always lived together. He looked over his shoulder with a smile as he fished a pack of Camels out of his jacket. “Well, I guess we blew dinner. Are you starving?”

  She laughed and shook her head. She hadn't thought about food since the first time he had kissed her. “Maybe they'll let us forage around in the kitchen.” But they were surprised, when they got dressed and went downstairs, to find that the dining room was still open, and they took a quiet table in a corner and enjoyed a candlelight supper of champagne and smoked salmon. For dessert Nick had apple pie à la mode, which wasn't in keeping with the rest, and she teased him about it.

  “The military is giving me bad habits.” But she shared it with him, and they laughed, and eventually went back to their room. There was a bright moon overhead, and the room was quiet and cozy. And almost before they closed the door he pulled her back to their bed and they made love again, and Liane drifted off to sleep at last in his arms with a happy smile on her face as Nick lay awake for a long time and watched her.

  he next morning, they woke up and ordered breakfast in their room. They sat naked on the bed and nibbled off each other's trays of croissants and Danish pastries, while Liane drank English breakfast tea and Nick drank black coffee. And as she looked up at him with a smile he grinned.

  “Nice, isn't it, Liane?”

  “Nice isn't the word for it.” It was very different from her old life with Armand, it was different from anything she'd ever known before, yet at the same time it felt as though she had always lived it. Almost instinctively she had known what they would eat for breakfast, and she knew he drank his coffee black. She even knew just how hot he liked his shower. And as she sat in the bath afterward while he shaved, he whistled and she sang and then they sang a duet together.

  He grinned when they were through and turned to her with a towel wrapped around his middle. “Not bad, eh? Maybe we should audition for a radio show.”

  “Sure. Why not?” She smiled. They both got dressed and went for a long walk on the beach, and then they strolled past some of the shops and art galleries. He bought her a little walrus carved out of wood, and she bought him a small gold sea gull on a gold chain.

  “Will they let you wear that on your dog tags, to remind you of Carmel?”

  “Let them try and stop me.” They were silly trinkets but they each wanted something to remind them of Carmel in the months to come. And then she bought little presents for the girls and Uncle George, and they went back to their hotel to snuggle cozily in the big bed until they went downstairs for another late dinner.

  On Sunday they stayed in bed until after noon, and Liane hated to get up. She knew that they'd have to go home soon and she didn't want their idyll to end. She sat in the bathtub with a distant look in her eyes, staring at the soap in her hand. Nick read her mind as he watched her. He touched her head gently and she looked up and smiled.

  “Don't look so sad, love. We'll come back.”

  “Do you think we could?” But who knew when he'd ship out. It could be any day. But he read her mind again.

  “We will. I promise.”

  They checked out of the hotel an hour later, after they made love “just one more time,” and Liane giggled afterward as she wagged a finger at him.

  “You know, you're giving me bad habits and I think this is habit-forming.”

  “I know it is. I had withdrawal for seventeen months last time.”

  “So did I.” She looked at him sadly. “I used to dream about you at night. The night I ran into you at Mrs. MacKenzie's I heard your voice and I thought I'd finally lost my mind.”

  “That's how I felt when I looked across the room and saw you. That used to happen to me all the time in New York, I'd look down a street and there you were, walking away, with the same blond hair, and I'd fly down the street to see and it was never you. A lot of women on the street must have thought I was crazy. And I was …” His eyes reached deep into hers. “I was crazy for a long, long time, Liane.” She nodded.

  “We're still crazy now.” They had stolen three days, and they both knew that what they had was something they couldn't keep. It was only borrowed.

  “I'm not sorry. Are you?”

  She shook her head. “I thought of Armand yesterday … and what it must be like for him in Paris … and yet, somehow, I knew that what we were doing wouldn't change anything for him. I'll still be here for him when the war is over.” Nick knew it too, and he didn't resent it. It was something about her that he had always accepted … almost always. … He also knew that Europe was having a terrible winter, but he assumed that she knew it too. And there was no point talking about that. There was nothing she could do for Armand, and he knew how much she worried.

  They drove slowly back by the coast road again, and got home at eight o'clock, after stopping for a quick dinner just before they reached San Francisco. She hadn't called home all weekend and she hoped the girls were all right, and she noticed that Nick hadn't called Johnny either. It was as though just for those three days they belonged to each other in another world, and no one else and no other world had ever existed. They talked about the children in the last half hour of the trip and Nick sighed.

  “I know he'll be all right. But I worry so damn much about him.” And then he turned to Liane. “I want to ask you something … something special. …” Her heart raced, she knew suddenly it would be important.

  “Sure. What?”

  “If something happens to me … when I'm gone … will you promise me that you'll go see him?”

  For a moment Liane was shocked into silence. “Do you suppose Hillary would let me?”

  “She never knew about us. There's no reason why she wouldn't. And she's remarried now.” He sighed again. “If I could, I'd leave him with you, then I'd know he'd be in good hands forever.” Liane nodded slowly.

  “Yes, I'll go to see him. I'll stay in touch with him over the years.” She smiled gently. “Like a guardian angel.” But then she touched Nick's hand. “But nothing's going to happen to you, Nick.”

  “You never know.” He looked at her in the darkness as they pulled up in front of her uncle's house. “I meant what I asked you.”

  “And I meant what I said. If that happens, I'll go to see him.” But it was something she couldn't bear to think about.

  They got out of the car, and he put her bag in the front hall. There was no one around. The girls were already in bed and she hoped that they wouldn't see him, but he hadn't wanted her to take a cab from his hotel so he had brought her home. She turned to him then just outside the door and they kissed for a long time.

  “I'll call you in the morning.”

  “I love you, Nick.”

  “I love you, Liane.” He kissed her again and then he left, and she went upstairs to her bedroom.

  rmand sat in his office, blowing on his hands to warm them. It had been a
ghastly few weeks, with rare snow and ice on the streets of Paris, and all the houses held the cold. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd been warm, and his hands were so cold now he could barely write, even after rubbing them together for several minutes. As a liaison between Pétain and the Germans, he had moved his offices the month before, and he was now in the Hotel Majestic with the Verwaltungsstab, the German administrative offices of the High Command. Their corresponding military arm was the Kommandostab, under the command of Staff Colonel Speidel. Unfortunately, he had had to take André Marchand with him, and the young assistant was so excited to be in the same building as the Germans now that he always appeared rigid with zealous devotion, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for Armand to conceal his hatred for him.

  And Armand's responsibilities these days were even more extensive than before. The Germans had finally come to trust him. He spent many hours with their Propaganda Abteilung, in order to help impress on the French what a blessing had befallen them in the guise of the Germans. And he had frequent meetings with Staff Colonel Speidel, and General Barkhausen to discuss what they referred to as “War Booty Services.” It was here that Armand was secretly able to wreak havoc and sidetrack a lot of the treasures earmarked for Berlin. They simply disappeared and the Resistance was blamed, and no one seemed more irate than Armand. And as yet, no one suspected. And he also had frequent meetings with Dr. Michel, of the German Ministry of State Economy, to discuss the current state of the French economy, the controlling of prices, chemical industries, paper manufacture, labor problems, credit, insurance, coal, electric power, and assorted other minor areas.

  Most of the big hotels had been taken over by the German High Command. General von Stutnitz, the Military Commander of Gross-Paris, was at the Crillon, Von Speidel and the others at the Majestic. The Verwaltungsstab were conveniently located near Armand's home in the Palais-Bourbon, and Oberkriegsverwaltungsrat Kruger, in charge of the city's budget, was at the Hotel de Ville. And General von Briesen, commander of the city of Paris itself, was at the Hotel Meurice, although eventually General Schaumburg took his place, and remained at the Meurice because he found it so enchanting.

  And throughout the city posters in French issued terrifying warnings regarding information passed, acts of sabotage, violence, strikes, incitement to riot, or even the hoarding of articles for daily use, which were all punishable “with the utmost severity,” by a War Tribunal. And inevitably there were frequent violations, mostly by members of the Resistance, who, the Germans immediately informed the public, were “communist students” and who were shot publicly to teach everyone a lesson. Public executions in Paris were all most commonplace by 1942, and the atmosphere in the city was subdued and depressing. Only in the hidden Resistance meetings around Occupied France was the atmosphere one of excitement and tension. But everywhere else the cities and the towns and the countrysides seemed blanketed in silent oppression. And not only were the Germans out to get them, but the elements appeared to be too. All that winter, people had been dying like flies from the cold and the shortages of food. As Armand looked around him he saw a dying nation. And the Germans had long ceased pretending that the “unoccupied South” would go untouched. They had moved in there too, and now all of France was swallowed up. “But not for long,” De Gaulle still promised on his broadcasts from the BBC in London. And the most amazing man of all was a man called Moulin, who was almost single-handedly responsible for spurring on the Resistance. Without anyone understanding how he managed, he made constant trips to London to the organization of Resistance fighters waiting there and then would manage to infiltrate back into France again, to give everyone hope and new spirit.

  Armand had only dared to meet with him once or twice. For him it was much too risky, and most of the time he dealt with him indirectly, particularly after the famous Edict of July 15 of the year before, when the Germans cracked down on art treasures all over France, demanding that any item valued at more than one hundred thousand francs be reported at once by their custodians or owners. It was these records that Armand was so busy destroying and misplacing in the winter of 1941 and the early months of 1942, and he knew that single-handedly he was already responsible for salvaging millions of dollars worth of treasures for France, in spite of the Germans. But more important than that, he was attempting to save lives, and that was becoming more and more dangerous for him. And for the last few weeks he had been sick from the desolate cold that attacked Paris. But he said nothing of it in the letter that Liane received the day after she got back from Carmel. All she could glean from it was that his work was going well. Yet she heard something else in his letter. Something she had never heard before. A kind of despair that almost reached desperation. She sensed through the things he didn't say that France was not faring well at the hands of the Germans, worse than anyone knew. And she stood at the window for a long time, looking out at the Golden Gate Bridge, after she had read the letter.

  “Liane? Is something wrong?” Her uncle had not yet left for work, and he had been watching her from the doorway. Her whole body seemed to sag and her head was down, and when she turned toward him, he saw that she was crying. But she shook her head and smiled through her tears.

  “No. Nothing new. I had a letter from Armand.” It had been smuggled out by Moulin during his most recent trip to London, but she couldn't tell her uncle that. Even he couldn't know about Armand's ties to the Resistance. Armand had told her to tell no one. And she hadn't, except Nick. But she trusted him completely.

  “Did something happen?”

  “I don't know. He just sounds so sad … it's all so depressing.”

  “War isn't a nice thing.” The words were trite but true.

  “He almost sounds ill.” She knew her husband well. And her uncle refrained from saying he didn't wonder a traitor would be ill at the destruction of his country.

  “He'll be all right. He's probably just lonely for you and the girls.” She nodded, suddenly feeling the first spear of guilt slice through her.

  “I suppose he is.”

  “How was your seminar in Carmel?”

  Her eyes lit up in spite of herself. “It was lovely.”

  He asked her no further questions and they both left for work. She told Nick about the letter from Armand that afternoon when he picked her up at the Red Cross office. But he could only think of one thing, and his eyes searched hers in sudden panic. “Have you changed your mind about us?”

  She looked at him for a long time and then shook her head. “No, I haven't. It's as though I have two separate lives now. My old one with Armand, and now this with you.” He nodded, relieved, and she sighed. “But I feel terrible for him.”

  “Does he seem to be in any particular danger?”

  “Not more than usual, I think. I didn't get any sense of that in his letter. Just a sense of terrible depression, mostly for France.” She looked up at Nick. “I think he cares about that more than he cares about himself, or about us. His country means everything to him.”

  Nick spoke softly. “I admire him.” And then he took her home, and joined the family for dinner. After dinner, he played dominoes with Liane and Uncle George, and then he went back to his hotel, and she found herself wondering when they would be together again, as they had been in Carmel. Women were not allowed in his hotel, and she wouldn't have wanted to go there anyway. But the next weekend, he solved the problem for them by suggesting that they reserve a room at the Fairmont. There was one problem that they didn't have, and others did. Neither of them was short of funds. But they had enough other problems. She, worrying about Armand in France, and he worrying about Johnny.

  She listened that weekend, when he called his son, and she watched him with her girls, and she knew how much he missed the boy. He had a wonderful ease with children. And after they took the girls home, they went to dinner, and then back to the room they had rented at the Fairmont. The girls had been invited to spend the night with a friend, and she had told Uncle Geor
ge another story he hadn't questioned.

  “Do you think he suspects about us, Nick?” She smiled up at him as they lay on the bed in their room and drank champagne and ate peanuts. This time they didn't go to the Venetian Room. They wanted to be alone. Nick looked amused at her question.

  “Probably. He's no fool. And he's probably done plenty of this in his day.” She knew that herself, but she wondered.

  “He hasn't said a thing.”

  “He knows you too well for that.”

  “Do you think he minds?”

  “Do you?” Nick smiled gently and she shook her head.

  “No, he wishes I'd divorce Armand and marry you, I suspect. “

  “So do I—I mean I suspect the same thing.” He was quick to clarify when he saw the look in her eyes. She was desperately afraid that she was being unfair to Nick. She was a married woman, after all, and could offer him no part in her future. “Anyway, don't worry about it. As long as the vice squad doesn't show up, or the press, we'll be fine.” She laughed at the idea. They were registered in the hotel as Major and Mrs. Nicholas Burnham.

  They drifted on like that for quite a while with dinners and long walks in the afternoon, and stolen weekends at the Fairmont. They managed another quick hop to Carmel after a few weeks, but in February things began to get tense for Nick. Singapore fell to the Japanese, and Japanese land forces had taken Java, Borneo, the Dutch East Indies, and several islands in the South Pacific. The Japanese were so pleased with themselves that General Nagumo had retired north to Japan. And Nick expected to be shipped out at any moment. He somehow assumed every week he would hear, but still he didn't. U.S. aircraft carriers were making hit-and-run raids on the Gilbert and Marshall islands south of Japan, battering successfully at Japanese positions, but the main strongholds could not be won from the Japanese.