Monique had her hands full, regrettably with the business of the wedding. Big, bluff Father Closterman had refused to conduct the ceremony, declining to be in the same house with a former German officer. As a young priest, just ordained, he had served for three years at the front, and he had seen too many dead and wounded Frenchmen, and he carried a sin within him. During the retreat of March 1918, he had manned an abandoned machine gun, mowing down rows of the oncoming Germans. That was not his sin. When the flow of battle suddenly ebbed, a wounded German officer had asked for absolution in weak but fluent French. Father Closterman had walked away, leaving the German to die unshriven. That was not his sin. His sin was that he still enjoyed the thought. When Monique appealed to his Christian charity, he had appalled her with the bitterness of his reply. "Christ didn't serve at the front, Monique, even though we pretended that he did. I cannot conduct a service for your family, a sacred marriage, with a German there. For me if a German comes in, Christ leaves."
In the end, old Father Rignot, semiretired for years and virtually senile, was pressed into service. Madame Dornpnier retired to her room for the day when she found out.
"What does it matter?" she muttered. "It is a mockery in any event. The girl is no more Catholic than Hafner."
Hafner and Dornpnier had returned, exuberant and delighted with their mysteries, refusing to tell anyone where they had been or what they had done. Madame had savaged Pierre in the quiet of his bedroom.
"Where have you been? Your place was here, not drifting off on some drunken binge with that Boche! What have you done? That German has bewitched you."
From somewhere within Dompnier's beaten psyche, a lion roared, "Be silent, woman, or I will cuff you! And be pleasant to Bruno, or else!"
He had immediately dragged Bruno to see the Dompnier lawyer, Jacques Petit, an old friend of the family, who greeted them with measured enthusiasm. Normally, when Dompnier came to see him, it was for some legal magic, some method of stretching his frail resources even thinner. This time it was different. As Hafner spoke, Petit became very attentive, his tiny physique, so appropriate for his name, seeming to swell with enthusiasm. At the end of the two-hour session, he said, "Let me summarize the agreements. First, I believe that you are being very generous, Monsieur Hafner, perhaps unreasonably so. Will Madame Hafner agree to this?"
Bruno spread his hands on the table, fingers down and flexing as if he were going to play a piano.
"Monsieur Petit, Patty is her daughter, not mine. She will of course be delighted. But the assets we are talking about are my own, and her agreement would not be necessary. I have many reasons to be grateful to her, and this is the best way I can show it."
"Then let me state things as I understand them. You wish to provide a dowry of twenty-five thousand dollars for Stephan and Patty. And you wish to enter into a partnership with Pierre for the renovation and use of the facilities in Marseilles. As consideration for this, you are willing to pay a sum equivalent to the existing mortgage on the estate, and a rental of two thousand francs per month."
Pierre actively salivated, choked, and had to have a glass of water.
"And Pierre, for your part, you will provide as a gift to the young couple your interest in the country house in Saint-Jean-le-Thomas. Correct?"
Pierre nodded.
"And what about the mortgage on that property?"
"I thought that with the estate clear, and the rental money coming in, I could borrow enough money at the bank to pay it off."
Petit agreed.
"And what will Antoinette say?"
Pierre looked worried. "I'm not sure. She should be grateful, but she will worry about the appearances."
"And how will she feel about your entering into a partnership?"
"She will applaud it, I am sure."
Bruno spoke very earnestly. "The facility is perfect for my needs, Monsieur Petit, but I cannot operate it without Pierre's active participation. I will hire people to do all of the physical work, the bookkeeping, everything, but I must have a family member who can visit and make sure that things are well."
At the end of the session, Petit had insisted on taking them both to the inn, where he ordered a magnum of champagne, and agreed to keep silent on everything until the next day, during the wedding luncheon. Pierre was so exalted that he managed a tryst with Elisabeth.
*
Orleans, France/December 19, 1930
The next morning the civil wedding had gone with a brisk efficiency Patty had not seen elsewhere in France. Only Rhoades and Petit were present, as witnesses, everyone else being deep in preparation for the religious wedding and the reception to follow.
Murray drove them back to the Dompniers' in the old Renault, Stephan and Patty sitting quietly hand in hand, Dusty riding in the jump seat facing them.
Stephan said, "I'm worried. Things have gone too well so far."
"Can you believe that Bruno and Pierre would get along so well? I've never seen Bruno like this."
Murray called back, "Bruno likes Monsieur Dompnier, and he is always generous with people he likes. Most of all, though, he wants to do business with him. He thinks there are some real possibilities for the warehouse in the south."
Stephan laughed. "It will be a miracle if he can figure out something that works. My poor father has nothing to give in return, save his stock of brandies."
Patty shook her head. Bruno could be generous—but never without reason.
The house had become beautiful overnight, alive with guests and so filled with presents that they overflowed the endless tables and had to be stacked along the hallway walls. Monique had searched the private and public hothouses for miles around, and the house was bursting with everything from blooming roses to orange trees.
From somewhere, Father Rignot summoned what remained of his senses and conducted a brisk and meaningful mass, speaking in a low, frail, but perfectly understandable voice, just audible over the joint sobs of Charlotte and Antoinette.
When the wedding was over, they adjourned to the massive ballroom, where linen cloths concealed every kind of table from antiques to boards on sawhorses. A huge grand piano had been pulled from beneath its white duster and tuned, and a miniature Oliver Hardy sat at the keyboard, playing continuously and beautifully. He was so short that he had to lean off the edge of the piano bench to reach the pedals, yet his up-tilted rump was so large that it overhung the bench's rear. In the center was a massive tiered and becolumned wedding cake, attended as anxiously by the local baker Sassard, the very best in the area, as if it had been a patient in a hospital ward.
"Patty, may I suggest that you powder your nose? This is going to be a long afternoon."
Stephan was right. The food was marvelous, served with good humor by ranks of young girls, family friends. But the business of the afternoon was entertainment and speeches, and the bride had to be present for it all.
"Don't worry about the comments, Patty—there will be nothing risque, none of the honeymoon jokes so popular in America. The aim is to express lofty sentiments in a friendly and a familiar style."
First came the local talent. Monique sang, quite well for an amateur. Monsieur Petit declaimed a long romantic poem of his own composition, the nuances of which were lost upon most.
The blockbuster was Madame's special treat, two young singers from the Comedie Frangaise with an inexhaustible repertoire.
Hafner kept looking at his watch. Finally a note was handed to him. He excused himself and bustled from the room. The two singers were leaving to thunderous applause when he returned. He conferred briefly with Oliver Hardy, who drew himself up as far as his five feet and two hundred pounds would permit before departing in a huff.
Hafner weaved to the center of the room and rang the chimes of the dinner bell.
"Messieurs et mesdames. Thank you for coming. Thank you for sharing our joy. And now, a special American treat. I have the honor to present to you le jazz hot."
A brass band broke into a roar
, and a beautiful black woman, clad only in loosely slung fringes of bananas, leaped into the room and began gyrating to the insistent percussion of a gleaming-toothed drum player and long tortuous riffs from the brass.
Madame Dompnier watched transfixed. The bobbing bananas revealed high, pointed, cream-colored breasts surmounted by large brown nipples, an interesting array of dark curly hair, and an extraordinary flexibility that seemed to make the deeply intrigued Father Rignot wish he had done more missionary work. Madame had fainted earlier, her head falling smartly to the table between her plate and her napkin. This time she had a firm grip on the table and as consciousness passed, simply slid limply beneath it.
Patty missed Madame Dompnier's unscheduled departure, enraptured with the athletic dancing arid the throbbing brass accompaniment.
"Stephan, is that really Josephine Baker?"
"No, but it looks like her."
The stunned silence of the crowd broke into a hum of excitement and then a roar. Bruno leaned back and yelled into Charlotte's ear.
"I tried to get the real Josephine Bakery but she wouldn't come because I was German. This little colored girl is in her troupe. And I think she's just as good as Josephine."
Charlotte got up to be with Madame Dompnier after she had been discovered and was being led from the room. Pierre had not noticed the commotion, riveted as he was on the tantalizing bananas in the middle, which seemed to be leading lives of their own.
Le jazz hot grew considerably hotter, going on for almost as long as the Comedie Frangaise singers, although it hadn't seemed that way. At the end, "Josephine Baker" made a spectacular running-somersault of an exit, and the guests gave her a standing ovation. Madame had returned, and when she saw Father Rignot leading the applause she recovered slightly.
Coffee was being served, and it was nearly time to cut and eat the cake, a tradition reserved by the Dompniers for the last event, the signal to leave.
Pierre Dompnier stood up and tapped the side of his glass. The crowd grew silent as he began a long song of praise of Stephan and Patty, of his wife, Antoinette, of Monique, of Charlotte and Bruno, and of most of the guests. Eyes were glazing and heads nodding when he finally finished. Then Bruno lurched to his feet.
He acknowledged all of Pierre's compliments and added a few of his own. Charlotte tugged at his suit jacket, trying to get him to sit down. He smiled down at her and put his finger to his lips.
"My new friends, we came here to celebrate a marriage. Let me tell you now that there are two marriages to be happy about. The first, and most important, of course, is Patty and Stephan's. May they always be happy." There were cheers, a general ringing of glasses.
"The second marriage is one of our two families in business. Pierre and I are partners in a new venture, one that will be of interest to you all."
A ripple of excitement mixed with embarrassment waved through the crowd. It was no subject for a wedding! The man was drunk, but Pierre was nodding enthusiastically. Charlotte looked at him, stricken. Madame Dompnier was breathing fast.
"And I want you to know how we are celebrating this new partnership, by celebrating our children. Pierre, stand with me."
Pierre, his beam fueled equally by brandy and greed, stood up and grasped Bruno's hand.
"We each bring different things for Patty and Stephan. Charlotte, my lovely wife, and I will give them twenty-five thousand dollars in cash, to do with what they will. Pierre and Antoinette are making them a gift of their lovely country home in Saint-Jean-le-Thomas. And . . ."
The rest of his words were drowned out in Monique's cry of pain and Madame's head hitting the table again.
Patty cut the cake with her new father-in-law's sword, and the crowd gratefully withdrew. Less than an hour after she had begun the destruction of Sassard's masterpiece, everyone was gone, and the postmortems were going on.
In Madame Dompnier's bedroom, Monique's hysterics had come under control when she realized that the gift of the country house was really a small matter. She finally comprehended that the main house was saved, and that this would be her inheritance.
"Wait, there's more."
Madame leaned forward, her equilibrium distressed by the hard full circle of her emotions from unending hatred of the Hafners to what was going to have to amount to love.
"Bruno gave me the cash for the country house's mortgage. It is free and clear, just as this house is. We are free at last, able to live a little." His mind leaped forward to the cognacs he would cellar, the Armagnacs he would drink.
Madame's voice was dry and brittle. It was too good to be true. "And what do we have to do? What is: this about that wretched warehouse in Marseilles?"
Pierre raised his eyes heavenward. This woman would have thrown Jesus's wine away because she hadn't tested the water.
"He has an import-export business of some sort. I will help him with it. It will be like old times."
Monique spoke up. "I will help too. I like Marseilles."
Downstairs in the library, Bruno was excited.
"Charlotte, this is the best deal we've ever worked. We have a legitimate business in France, just when there are wars starting in Spain and in Africa."
"You don't know anything about French law or French customs. Why do you think you can do business here?"
"That's the beauty of it. Don't underestimate old Pierre—he's very shrewd. And that midget lawyer of his, Petit, he knows his way around as well."
"Does he know the kind of business you are in?"
"Of course! I told him right off, and he approved. He even made a suggestion. There are nationalists in Libya who want the Italians out. He knows how to reach them. The man is a gem."
"And Monique?"
Bruno was momentarily confused, thinking Charlotte had learned about Monique's romps with Dusty. Then he realized she was talking about Monique's role in the project.
"Pierre says that she's dependable. Look what she did organizing this wedding! It was perfect. I'm going to put her on the payroll, too."
Charlotte was silent. "Well, I can't fault you on a thing, although I damn near dropped my drawers when that jungle bunny jumped in the door."
"She was good—she livened things up after all the poetry and singing."
The only dissonant note of the evening was when he announced that Dusty and Murray were staying behind to set things up in Marseilles.
*
En route to Paris/December 19,1930
Stephan was having trouble with the Voison that Charlotte had given them as a wedding present from her own funds. It was new, and try as he would to keep the speed down during the break-in period, it would leap ahead, reflecting his own anxious desire to put Orleans behind them and to get started on their married life.
He glanced over at Patty, and she was crying.
"Why are you unhappy?"
"This is supposed to be my only wedding, and Bruno Hafner insisted on being the bride."
Stephan laughed. "Cheer up. If you have a funeral, he'll insist on being the corpse, as well."
She turned on him, furious. "I'm serious, Stephan. I doubt if your mother and father even remember that I was there. They fell in love with Bruno, probably the only two people in the world, counting my mother, who ever did."
Stephan shifted down to thread his way around the war memorial in the village square, then accelerated.
"Nonsense. They know Bruno bought his way in. You are their daughter now, the mother of their grandchildren."
Patty burst into tears.
"It's not going to be much of a honeymoon. My period just started."
Stephan looked at her in dismay, not because of the honeymoon. He had wanted the baby. They had been on a honeymoon for three years—and no pregnancy. Was there something wrong with her?
Or perhaps with him?
***
Chapter 5
Wright Field, Ohio/March 11, 1932
Winter played its usual final dirty trick on Ohio, sweeping frigid wind across
Lake Erie to change a well-intentioned warm-air mass into a glistening sheet of ice. The ethereal beauty of budding leaves nestled in crystal ice jackets like green flies in clear amber was lost on drivers whose cars had careened into ditches.
Shedding water like a seal, Major Henry Caldwell sprang upstairs two steps at a time to the new offices of the Design Branch. His thin-soled brown shoes were caked with mud, victims of the endless construction and reconstruction going on at the new base. He winced when he pulled off his trench coat. "I fell on my ass out there; it's solid ice from Cleveland to St. Louis."
"Just be glad you're not flying, chief. Anyway, don't worry about it. Hoover is going to straighten the weather out right after he fixes the economy."
Hadley Roget sat imperturbably in the Sears herringbone suit he had bought two years ago and faithfully worn to work every day since. The clothes fitted his slender frame no better than the bureaucracy suited his taste.
He tossed a standard Army manila folder to Caldwell and stretched back in his swivel chair, cradling his unruly white hair in lean fingers, blanched clean of grease and oil by the months of paperwork. The folder carried a green coordination sheet on its cover, a penciled stepladder of recommendations for rejection.
"Here it is again, Henry, all signed, sealed, and disapproved."
Caldwell, slender and hard-muscled, a tightly wound bundle of energy, hefted the folder. Inside were Roget's carefully drawn plans and calculations for his radical "fifty-five-foot wing," named for its proposed length. Two years ago, knowing that Roget Aircraft was skating along the familiar narrow line demarcating starvation and oblivion, Caldwell had hired him for $250 a month—big money at Wright Field—on the basis of a sketch and a letter describing an idea.
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