A Bridge Across the Ocean

by Susan Meissner

  She laughed lightly. “Sometimes I still ask myself that question.”

  He waited.

  “I came in disguise as a Catholic novitiate. A courier brought me.”

  “A courier? Also Résistance?”

  “He was Résistance, yes.”

  “You came all the way from Paris? By train?”

  “No, no.” Simone shook her head. “No trains. We had a truck for a little while. And some of it we walked. It took many days. Many. It was . . . difficult. It was hard to know who to trust.”

  “And where did you sleep? In churches?”

  “No. I was dressed as a novitiate but I am not one. I did not want to attract attention. It was better to sleep in the truck or in barns or abandoned houses. Sometimes other Résistance would put us up.”

  Everett sipped his wine and Simone wondered if he was done asking questions. She found herself strangely hoping he was not. They had grown close in the last seven weeks as they struggled to learn each other’s languages. They had shared the details of their childhoods, where they were born, the names of their siblings and family members, their favorite foods and music, the books they liked and the books they’d hated. She had learned everything about him all in the name of vocabulary building, and he had learned the same about her. She knew he was four years older at twenty-two, the oldest of three sons, a native of Texas, that he’d studied aeronautical engineering in college, that he had a dog back home named Beau. His mother was a schoolteacher and his father sold cars. She knew he liked baseball and Italian food and that he’d played the trombone in high school. She had told him everything about herself as well but had always stopped short of telling him about the day Papa and Étienne died and what happened in the ruined Jewish clinic afterward. She hadn’t told him about the woman at the locksmith shop who’d cared for her broken body and then taken her down to the basement where five others waited—including two young Jewish children—for assistance out of the city. She had known at that moment that she had indeed saved the lives of those people and Monsieur and Madame Didion by ducking into the old Jewish clinic. Had the Gestapo officer followed her all the way to 23 Rue de Calais, everyone in the house would have been arrested and Madame shot or tortured to reveal her sources. She had not told him about the nun at the Saint François Xavier Catholic Church who had tutored her on how to be a believable novitiate and provided her the clothes to wear.

  She wanted to tell Everett all these things, and yet she didn’t want him to know what the German with the gold tooth had done. Simone was already in love with Everett, and it was different than any teenage crush she’d had. Far different than the infatuation with Bernard. She could not imagine her life outside the cellar, where there was no war, and him not a part of it.

  “What is wrong, Simone?” he asked.

  His question startled her and she realized that two tears were now sliding down her cheek. She could not answer him.

  “Why can’t you leave this cellar?” he asked, gently.

  She shrugged a shoulder, wanting to tell him everything, wanting to tell him nothing. “I told you. The Gestapo wants me.”

  “No, I know that. But why?”

  “Because of what I did.”

  He paused a moment before asking her to explain. And when he did ask, it was as if he were her oldest, truest friend inviting her to share her most troubling secret so that he might help her carry it.

  She spilled it all then, telling him everything that had happened, from the time she heard the shouting in the shoe-repair shop to when she arrived at the wine cellar disguised as a would-be nun. She was afraid to look at him when she was done, now that he knew she had been violated in the worst possible way, and that she had killed the man who had done it. When she finally did, his eyes were glistening and he reached out to touch her face and catch the tears that were sliding down her cheeks.

  She tipped her head to lean into his palm and closed her eyes. His gentle touch was almost too much to bear after everything that had happened.

  “I didn’t mean to kill him,” she whispered. “I just wanted him to stop.”

  “What he did to you was wrong,” Everett said, his voice intense but tender.

  Simone turned her head toward him to look into his eyes. “I am a murderer.”

  He took his hand and placed it under her chin so that she could not look away again. “You are not a murderer. This is war, Simone. That man was not only a criminal and a beast, he was your enemy, the enemy of France, and the enemy of all things good and right.”

  “He . . . he made me want to die.”

  “But you are here. You are not dead. You are alive. The world will be a beautiful place again. I promise you, Simone.”

  As Everett spoke, the sun was falling across his face in brilliant strands of light, so bright that Simone found she could believe he was right.

  She slept in his arms that night.

  It was the first time since Papa and Étienne had died that she had been in the embrace of someone she loved and who loved her.

  • • •

  TWO WEEKS LATER, ON TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, the 551ST parachute Infantry Battalion landed in Valbourges and liberated Draguignan, a city located just one hundred kilometers from Henri’s wine cellar. Navy ships that had approached the coast during the night were in position when aerial bombardment began shortly before six A.M. Landing Craft Infantry fired rockets to explode mines on the beaches so that troops could come ashore at the coastal cities of Cavalaire-sur-Mer, Saint-Tropez, and Saint-Raphaël, and begin the Allied takeover of Provence. The Other D-Day would eventually lead to the liberation of Marseille on August 28, three days after Paris was retaken by the Allies.

  Everett was gone by then, though.

  As soon as Sébastien brought word to the cellar that the southern invasion had begun, he was on his way to rendezvous with the American troops making their way up through Provence.

  But he made a pledge to Simone before he left.

  “I am coming back to you,” he said as they stood fully in the sunlight for the first time since they had met. “I am coming back for you.”

  He’d kissed her, told her he loved her, and then sped away with Sébastien, promising to write to her as often as he could.

  RMS QUEEN MARY

  ONE THOUSAND KILOMETERS OFF THE COAST OF SCOTLAND

  DECEMBER 1942

  The decks are crowded with so many soldiers they are sleeping in the galley, in the empty swimming pool, on the promenade, the staircases, in the bar, the lounges. Everywhere. They must take turns closing their eyes and dreaming of home because there are so many of them. The decks groan with the sheer weight of so many. They wear buttons—red, blue, and white—to indicate when they can eat and when they can sleep and when they may not do either.

  I don’t know what it is they must accomplish in this war they talk about. But when they aren’t laughing or sleeping or lining up in great long queues to eat, they are looking off to the misted horizon. In a few days we will step off at the harbor that welcomes us and I won’t see them again. I will never know if they were able to do what they crowded aboard these decks to do.

  They think these isolated days at sea will be a time to rest and wait. But I can feel the storm coming. I sense it all around me. I want to tell the soldiers to be brave, to hold on, to stay away from the rails. But they sleep and play cards and smoke their cigarettes and pay no attention to me. Not even when I slam doors or send a coffee cup flying. What they need is a soft whisper to break into their relentless cycle of sleeping and eating and playing cards and writing letters home. But no whisper of mine can be heard above the din of so many men.

  And then it comes. The great ocean begins to swell and sway, and it is as if the core of the earth wishes to toy with us. At first the men laugh and point fingers at those who’ve been swept off their feet. But then the bell sounds as the
storm unleashes its rage. The thousands upon thousands of men are driven inside to cower and crouch, to hold on to anything that won’t move. Soon we are tipping wildly, tossed about as if the sea were turning itself inside out. A great wall of water is gathering itself off the starboard side, like a man filling his lungs with air. The massive wave is reaching for us. It has its eye on us. It wants to send us end over end so that what was up will be down. The men are praying, cursing, shouting. They huddle in groups, some with their eyes closed tight, and some with them wide open, as though they want to see for themselves what the world looks like when it’s upside down. I reach for those crying out for their mothers; some respond to my feather touch, some brush me away, too afraid to trust that anything good is happening at this moment. If this is where it ends, I and the others shall go with them to the deep. This thought fills me with an overwhelming sadness.

  And then, just when it seems there is no way to rise up against so formidable a foe, the mighty sea takes back its boundaries, and the great wall of water flattens outward, grasping haphazardly as though to take a souvenir: a deck chair, a flag, or a curious looker who has no business being outside at the railing. As the men raise their heads to glance at one another, the sea beneath us begins to slowly fold back under like a blanket. The rain continues to fall but it is gentle now, as though apologizing for what the unruly waves had done. Some of the men laugh and whoop and holler. Some wipe the sweat from their brows or the vomit from their chins.

  Some lean back against whatever hard surface is behind them and close their eyes and murmur their thanks to God. These are the ones I go to first, so that I might catch a wisp of that holy association. When the passengers pray, I am as close to them as I can ever be. The plane between us thins to gossamer and for a moment we are in the same dimension—in that space between flesh and spirit, light and shadow.

  Twenty-two

  GERMANY

  1943–44

  To the outsider, Annaliese and Rolf appeared to be a devoted couple, content as two newlyweds could be in the throes of a devastating war that was getting more intense by the day. Rolf was supremely attentive to Annaliese, such that people would remark how clearly he loved her. She was never out of his sight; indeed, he had his arm on the small of her back every minute they were together in public. He appeared to be a man head-over-heels in love with his new bride and afraid she might disappear into thin air if he lost physical contact with her.

  Annaliese quickly learned, however, that his hand on her back meant just one thing. You are mine. At home and when they were alone, Rolf was kind and cordial as long as she was compliant. He was happy when she did what he wanted and didn’t do what he didn’t want. Annaliese had made the mistake of telling him no only once. He’d asked her playfully to serve him his breakfast in the nude one morning. When she’d declined, his backhanded slap had sent her to the floor and raised a welt on her face that lasted for five days. Whether he wanted sex or a cup of tea or the newspaper or a neck massage or his shoes shined or conversation, she was to provide it. She was his wife. It was her duty.

  When she complied with his various requests without a hint of hesitation or complaint, he was happy. Annaliese was free to write to her mother or anyone else, but Rolf read every letter she sent before it was posted, so her notes were short and full of generalities about her new life as Mrs. Rolf Kurtz. While he was at work, she was to stay in the flat and wait for him to come home. This was for her own safety, Rolf had said. Frankfurt had been bombed the year before and was still considered a prime target. He’d secured a nicely appointed apartment twenty-five kilometers away on the eastern edge of Weisbaden, a city that had largely been ignored by Allied forces. Aside from her oppressive marriage, she felt safe there, especially when she learned three weeks after moving to Wiesbaden that Cologne had been heavily bombed and four thousand people had died. She was glad her parents had decided to return to Prüm.

  But despite Wiesbaden’s relative safety, Rolf didn’t allow her to be on her own. The first time she’d gone out while Rolf was at work was merely to take a stroll and see if there were any ballet studios downtown. Rolf had been livid when he’d come home from work to find a brochure for a dance class sitting on the kitchen table.

  “You were to wait for me here in the apartment,” he’d said. He hadn’t raised his voice. He usually didn’t. That was a sign of being out of control. And Rolf was never out of control.

  But he was angry.

  “I . . . I was waiting for you here!” Annaliese had replied, fear rippling her words like she was speaking into wind. “I was right here when you got home, just like you asked.”

  “What I said was you were to stay in the flat until I got home. There was no asking. I was very clear on that! I don’t want anything happening to you. It’s not safe.”

  “But there is nothing for me to do here in the flat and—” Annaliese had not seen the blow coming. One second she was standing there talking to her husband and the next she was on the floor, the right side of her face on fire.

  “How dare you tell me I am not providing for you. Do you know how much this flat is costing me? Do you know how many girls would love to trade places with you and live where you live? What an ungrateful thing to say.”

  “I’m sorry, Rolf,” she’d whispered.

  “And I was going to take you out tonight. I was in a good mood when I came home. And now you’ve ruined it.” He’d turned to fill a tumbler with brandy.

  Annaliese had risen, trembling, to make amends. Rolf was much easier to take if he wasn’t angry. She’d walked over to him and put her arms around his middle, laying her head against his back. He liked contrition almost as much as he liked submission.

  “Forgive me? Please?” she begged. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  He’d hesitated and then placed his hand over hers. “Don’t let it happen again, Annaliese. You are not to so much as touch that front door unless it’s to go into the basement if there’s an air raid. Do you understand?”

  She told him she did.

  Annaliese tried to keep the swelling on her face at bay, but the blow had been too intense. The black eye disgusted Rolf. For the next five days she was instructed to come to bed with a pillowcase over her head so that he didn’t have to look at it.

  A month into their marriage, she worked up the courage to ask him if he might allow her to take a ballet class to keep up with her skills. Annaliese had figured he had been so enchanted by her performance in Sleeping Beauty, he’d surely think this was a good idea. If she could just get him back to the place where he’d been when he first met her, maybe he would treat her the way he did then. She was itching to dance. The war, her marriage, and her separation from Katrine and home were suffocating her. If she could escape onto the ballet floor, perhaps she would survive her terrible isolation.

  “Ballet class?” Rolf frowned. They were sitting at the dining table finishing supper. His tone suggested it was the strangest idea she could’ve come up with.

  “Yes. I know how much you love it when I dance.”

  The frown disappeared and Rolf laughed. Annaliese smiled nervously, unsure why he found this funny.

  “You’re joking, right?” he said.

  “Well . . . no.”

  Rolf set down his fork and began to speak to her as if she were a child. “Do you really think I would want you to dance for other people again?”

  “Other people?”

  “Honestly, Annaliese. Why would I want anyone else looking at you the way I was looking at you when I saw you at the ballet?”

  “But—”

  “You want to dance? Is that what you want?”

  “Um. Yes.”

  Rolf sat back in his chair and put his napkin on the table. “You can dance for me. Go put your things on and then come out here and dance for me. Go on.”

  “What? Now?”

 
“Of course now. You said you want to dance. Dance. Dance for me. Go on. Put on your things.”

  “I . . . I didn’t mean I wanted to dance right now.”

  “So you don’t want to dance?” he asked, his tone mocking.

  “Not right now, Rolf.”

  “So you want to dance for other people, but not for me.”

  “No! That’s not what I meant!”

  “Go get your ballet things. All of them. Go get them.”

  “Rolf—”

  He slammed his open palm onto the table. The dishes shook and Annaliese jumped in her seat.

  “Go get them.”

  Annaliese rose from her chair, went into their bedroom, and came back a few minutes later with her leotards, ballet slippers, and toe shoes in her arms. Rolf stood and swept them out of her hands and into his own. He strode past her, into the kitchen, and tossed everything into the kitchen garbage.

  Then he turned to her. “You take those out of the trash and I’ll break your arm.”

  He left the room and Annaliese just stood there, staring at the tangle of satin ribbons and pink leather and black fabric. For a moment she was willing to risk the broken arm just to have them back. But then she realized that it was the ballet that had led Rolf to her. If she hadn’t been in Sleeping Beauty, he never would’ve met her. If she had never known ballet, she would be home in Prüm right now and this nightmare of a life wouldn’t exist.

  And yet, if she had never known ballet, she would never have met Katrine.

  She slumped to the floor next to the garbage and wept without making a sound.

  Rolf hated it when she cried.

  The next day when she went into the kitchen, the trash had been emptied. She made Rolf his breakfast; he kissed her good-bye and then reminded her that she was not permitted to touch the handle of the front door unless there was an air-raid siren. He would know if there was one.