And Gram was nodding. “See, Lily,” she said, “if you’d only practice . . .”
And at that moment, Lily remembered Poppy’s letter. Give Gram a hug. She loves you more than you know.
She sat back, glad Gram was there in the kitchen instead of far away like Nagymamma. She listened to Albert playing, his head bent over the violin, his fingers moving on the strings, as the sound of the rain grew less and then stopped altogether, and in the window she could see a pale, late sun edge the horizon.
“This one, this waltz,” Albert said, “is Nagymamma’s favorite.”
But before he had played more than two or three notes, Lily remembered something else. “Good grief,” she said, “my library book.”
“The book in the rowboat?” Albert asked. “It must be soaking wet.”
“Come on, Albert,” she said. “We have to get it out of there, dry it off, something. And we have to look for Paprika.”
They left Gram with her tea, and as Lily went out the door, she turned back to see Albert leaning over Gram at the table, kissing her cheek. “Szeretlek,” he said.
Then Lily was down in the boat, with four inches of water in the bottom, handing it up to him. “Mrs. Hailey will have a fit,” she said. “She said it was a lovely book.”
Albert looked at it, water dripping from the edges, the dye running. “I know this book,” he said. “I have read it in school. It’s about the French Revolution, a million years ago.”
Lily raised her hand. “Albert,” she said. She sank down on the wet seat, her feet sloshing in the water. “Oh, Albert. The French Revolution. I know where my father is.”
She looked up. “He’s been trying to tell me all these weeks. Madeline and The Three Musketeers. Roland, the French hero. All in France. That’s why he sent me to Mrs. Hailey. He knew she’d tell me there wasn’t a book called The Promise.”
Albert was frowning. He didn’t know what she was talking about.
“His promise, Albert. That’s what he meant. He promised I’d know where he was, that he’d tell me without the censors knowing. It took me all this time.”
And she began to smile, because Albert looked so silly standing on the dock with Gram’s pink afghan over his shoulders and the dripping book in one hand, and because she knew where Poppy was. And then she remembered war news, and all the men who were being killed as army tried to fight its way across France. Let Poppy be all right, she thought.
Chapter 25
Lily counted the days on her fingers It was almost time for St. Albans, almost time for the sixth grade and Sister Benedicta.
It was almost time to say goodbye to Albert.
They had sent the letter to Poppy two weeks ago, she and Albert, both of them writing together, trying not to blot the tissue-thin paper. Albert had showed her the creased scrap of cardboard with spidery black writing before he copied it carefully: Ruth Orban, Maison-Mère Filles de la Sagesse, Rue de la Santé, Paris.
“We can’t count on it,” Lily had told him. “Maybe I’m wrong, maybe Poppy’s not in France.”
“Yes,” he said. “I know.”
She didn’t mean it, though. She knew Poppy was there. She was sure of it. And she kept remembering what he had said in the rowboat. “Right behind the armies will be people like me. We’re the ones who’ll help put Europe back together again.”
Find Ruth . . .
For the first time, Lily paid attention to the war. Mrs.Hailey lent them a huge map of France. They hung it in Gram’s kitchen, and tried to guess how long it would take Allies to get from Cherbourg, to Caen, to Rouen, and last to Paris. And as Lily moved her finger slowly from city to another, she could almost feel Poppy there.
In the meantime they swam and fished. Albert caught a skate and a sea robin and put them gently back into the water. Lily caught a fluke once and, for the first time, a flounder.
And then on Tuesday they had an argument. They didn’t speak to each other for three days, and all because of the new movie at the Cross Bay Theatre.
“I am not climbing those stairs,” Albert had said. “I am paying money, and I am walking in through the front door. I am not a thief.”
“I don’t have money,” Lily had said.
“I will lend—”
“No”
“I will give—”
“No.” She didn’t know why she was so stubborn, why she was so angry with him. She spent two afternoons in the rowboat by herself before he appeared again at the dock.
“I have come to swim,” he said at last.
“So swim,” she said. “You don’t need me.” But she was pulling the rowboat in, ready to put on her bathing suit and go with him.
“I’m not a thief either,” she told him.
He raised his eyebrows.
They started along Cross Bay Boulevard, waving to Mrs. Sherman, who was sweeping her walk across the street.
“Well, all right.” Lily spoke as if Albert had said something. “I’ll pay. I’ll save my money this winter, and next summer . . .” She bit her lip and glanced at him. She knew he’d be thinking the same thing. Would he come back next summer? Would he ever come back?
“I know why you were angry,” he said. “When people go away . . .”
She nodded. “Yes.”
They had just passed the As Good As New Shoppe when the door banged open in back of them. “Mrs. Sherman,” called Mr. Rowley. “The radio. Turn it on. The news. Paris is free.”
Across the street Mrs. Sherman flung out her arms. “Free.” Her face was turned up to the sky. “That beautiful city”
“They’re going to keep going now,” said Mr. Rowley, “those soldiers of ours, right to Germany.”
Lily stopped walking. Next to her Albert had stopped too. “Free,” she whispered.
The mailman rounded the corner. “Have you heard the news?” he called. “It’s the beginning of the end. Next summer we’ll have lights on the boardwalk, and the guys will be home.”
Lily grabbed Albert’s arm. “You’ll be able to write to Ruth. The Nazis will be gone and . . . Poppy will go to her.”
“Ruth,” Albert was saying at the same time. “Ruth is there. I wonder what she is doing now, at this moment.”
Two days later, they could guess. Albert treated Lily to movies and to a bag of popcorn, and they watched The Eyes and Ears of the World four times.
They saw pictures of the great Cathedral of Notre-Dame and heard the story of the little plane that had flown in just above its dome on Thursday. It had dropped message: “Tomorrow we come.”
Next to her, Lily could see Albert clutching the arms of chair. His face was turned away from her, and she knew he was crying.
She cried too, but they weren’t the only ones. She could hear the sounds of crying all through the theater. They watched the main street of Paris, the Champs Elysées, filled with two million people, old women with white hair, men with flags, children, and nuns. Young women were throwing kisses at the American soldiers, who were riding on tanks covered with flowers.
In one huge voice, the French were shouting, “Merci. Merci. Merci . . .”
Albert whispered it, “Köszönöm.”
And Lily too, “Thank you.”
Then the tricolor, France’s flag, went up on the cathedral, and people began to sing the French anthem, the “Marseillaise.”
Lily and Albert leaned forward, staring at the faces surrounding the cathedral, looking for Ruth, looking for Poppy. Lily could almost picture them there, together.
At last they stood up, blinking, and went through the lobby. “Of course, we could not see them,” Albert said. “So many people.”
“Of course not,” Lily said. “But we know they were there. And someday we’ll ask . . .”
Albert was smiling at her, nodding. “And they will tell us.”
They headed back toward Lily’s. By this time it was almost dark. They’d been in the movie for hours. Overhead the first star was just visible.
She loo
ked up at the sky. Only a few days were left of summer. And then she thought of the stars on the porch wall in back of her bed. Her mother’s stars. She’d peel one for him. He could paste it on the little cardboard with Ruth’s address. Yes, she thought, she’d give it to him before they left.
Chapter 26
ST. ALBANS, 1945
Lily was going to be late for school She pulled on her uniform and ran a comb through her hair. Downstairs Gram was calling, “Don’t forget a sweater, and if you’re looking for your boots . . .”
Lily sighed. Next Gram would remind her she had left them on the living room rug again. Lily took a quick look out at the white flakes that had begun to drift down. It had been a long winter. She was tired of snow and sleet, sick of chapped lips and colds, and the wind that rattled against the windows. It seemed as if summer would never come, and worse, that the war would go on forever.
She looked around for her books and her journal, ELIZABETH MOLLAHAN, MY THOUGHTS.
She had written her way through the winter . . . to Poppy, and Albert, and Margaret, but most of all in the journal, to Sister Benedicta. Once she had told about the way the sea rolled and churned when it stormed, and how homesick she was for Gram’s house on stilts. Another time she had written about Albert, and the day they had said goodbye.
Lily closed her eyes now, thinking about that last afternoon of the summer. The tide had been high and the ocean a deep blue. She had walked with him out to the jetty. They had stood there balancing themselves on gray rock, and she had taken the star out of her pocket for him then, one of her mother’s from the porch wall. Almost without thinking, she had stood on tiptoes to give a quick kiss on the cheek, and they had both laughed.
Lily thought about Sister Benedicta now. “Some people never have a friend like that,” Sister had said. “You were both lucky, Lily, even if it was only for the summer.” And then she had tapped one finger on the journal. “You have promise, Lily.”
“How did you know about that?” Lily had asked, thinking about Poppy and the books.
But Sister hadn’t meant that at all. “I mean promise as a writer,” she had said.
Lily started downstairs for breakfast this morning, saying the word in her head, promise, half listening as Gram called, “Hot cereal on a cold day.”
Lily hated hot cereal. “I’m late,” she began. “I don’t have time for . . .” But she never finished the sentence. She heard the noise of the key in the front lock, and stopped halfway down the stairs. She had heard the sound of that key so many times, and now she felt the blast of cold air coming up as the door opened. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe because she knew who it was, knew who it had to be.
And then she was flying down the stairs, reaching out, as Poppy pushed a duffel bag in ahead of him, and held out his arms for her. A moment later, Gram came down the hall. He held them both, the three of them rocking for a minute until Gram said, “I smell the oatmeal burning.”
They went into the kitchen, Gram bustling around to make tea, and Poppy leaning against the wall, his eyes closed. “I’ve thought about this,” he said.
They sat there almost the whole morning talking, school forgotten. Poppy told them about his ship passing Rockaway, and seeing the Ferris wheel rising up in Playland like a ghost. He told them about France, and how he felt when he stood watching as the flame at the grave of the unknown soldier was lighted again.
Then at last, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pile of pictures, Lily’s mother in her wedding dress, Lily in the rowboat, Gram standing on the dock. Last was a picture of a girl in a Jeep. She was holding an umbrella and smiling.
“Ruth,” Lily said, tracing the girl’s face with her fingers.
“Ruth.” Poppy leaned forward. “I took your letter . . .”
“Mine and Albert’s,” Lily said.
Poppy nodded. “I went to the convent, the Daughters Wisdom, they’re called . . .”
“And she was there.”
“No.” Poppy shook his head. “Albert’s mother and father had written a newspaper in Hungary, a brave newspaper, and the nuns were afraid to keep her in Paris. Instead, they smuggled her out one night, and took her west, took her to a convent in Saint-Laurent, a convent with horses and cows and a river, the Sévre . . .”
Poppy reached out for the picture, smiling. “She had a dozen mothers there. One to teach her English, one to teach her French, one to show her how to milk the cows and make cheese—”
“And did you see her?” Lily asked in a rush. “Did you tell her about Albert? Tell her about me?”
“Yes to all of that,” he said. “I showed her your picture.”
“And Albert . . .”
Poppy put his hand over hers. “She said she missed Albert every day. She’s waited through this whole war to go to Canada. She said she felt sad because she hadn’t said goodbye to him.”
Lily sat there looking at Poppy, wanting to ask what he had told Ruth, almost afraid to hear. “What . . . ?” she began.
“What did I say?” he asked her, smiling. “I told her that saying goodbye didn’t matter, not a bit. What mattered were all the days you were together before that, all the things you remembered.”
Lily took a deep breath. She squeezed Poppy’s hand.
Chapter 27
1945
It was summer at last. Lily was wedged in the backseat of Poppy’s old Ford with the suitcases, and bags, and rolled-up sweaters. Her feet, resting on Gram’s tackle box, were tangled in a mess of fishing line.
They were going back to Rockaway, back to the house stilts, back to the Atlantic Ocean at last.
The Ford had new tires now, and gas in the tank, and three of them, Lily, Poppy, and Gram, sang all the way with the breeze coming in through the open windows. “ ‘Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divy . . . ’ ”
Lily knew they were almost there when they passed Margaret’s house. The bottom-floor windows were still shuttered, but the one in the attic was shiny and almost black in the sun’s reflection. Margaret wouldn’t be there this summer, might never come back to Rockaway. Eddie was still lost somewhere in France, and Gram had heard that Mrs. Dillon couldn’t bear to be there without him.
“Listen, Lily . . .” Gram turned in the front seat, tucking strands of her hair into her bun.
Lily could feel it even before she saw it: the bridge, and the galumping sound as the tires hit each plank.
“It’s saying, ‘Wel-come back, wel-come back.’ ” Gram raised her plump arms in the air. “Alleluia.”
Lily nodded a little, but the bridge wasn’t saying that for her. It was saying, “Al-bert’s gone, Al-bert’s gone.”
She pressed her forehead against the car window, staring at the marshes, watching a seagull as it swooped down toward the pale reeds. She didn’t want Gram or Poppy to know her eyes were prickling and her throat was tight.
“The same,” Poppy said. “I told you. It’s all the same.”
Lily and Gram looked at each other, nodding, remembering. It would never be the same.
And then they were there. She hardly waited for the car to stop moving before she was out the back door, running for the sand and the water. She kicked off her shoes and left them on the empty boardwalk, peeling off socks halfway across the beach.
Today the water was almost calm. Tiny waves folded on themselves, then slid out to sea, leaving small fingers of foam on the damp sand.
Lily waded in, bunching up her skirt. The water was icy cold on her feet and ankles, numbing. She looked out at the gray triangular rock that jutted out near the end of jetty, the place where she and Albert had first looked for Europe.
Suppose she never saw Albert again?
She leaned over to cup her hands in the water, to splash a little on her face. Her skirt, let loose, plastered itself against her legs.
She dug her toes into the sandy bottom, picturing her words sliding out to sea the way the waves did out to Europe. “You’re my best frie
nd, Albert,” she whispered, “the best friend I ever had . . .”
Then Poppy was in back of her, his strong hands around her shoulders, pulling her into the dry warmth of his shirt.
They stood there for another moment before they went toward the boardwalk together, Lily picking up one sock looking around for the other one.
And then she saw the cat, standing there, watching her, ready to run.
Lily could feel the dryness in her mouth, the sand beginning to blow against her face, stinging. “Paprika?” she asked. Slowly she held out her hand.
Chapter 28
“
Poppy, look,” Lily said. “It’s Albert’s cat. The Orbans must have kept her after Albert went back to Canada.”
Lily climbed the boardwalk steps slowly as the cat stood there, moving back a step each time she moved forward.
“It’s me,” Lily said, her hand out, reaching. “Don’t you remember?”
And then the cat was in her arms, its orange coat short, rough, and warm from the sun. Lily bent her head, rubbing her chin against the cat’s head, listening to the sound of its rusty purring. She thought of Albert, and last summer, and Ruth.
Now the church bells were chiming five. Lily followed Poppy along the path to the house. Gram had opened the door and the windows on the porch. “Blowing the winter out,” she said, looking up. “And here’s Albert’s cat.”
Still holding the cat, Lily wandered out to the porch and leaned on the screen. She smelled the bay and listened to the water lapping against the pilings.
Someone was fishing from a rowboat, probably one of the kids from Broad Channel. Lily raised her arm to wave, and smiled as the girl waved back.
Under her feet, the porch floor was gritty. Any minute Gram would be calling, telling her to give it a quick sweep, and find the sheets, and get her bed ready. Lily reached for her book and flipped through until she found the star. She had taken it off her ceiling last night as she packed. She put a dab of glue on it and pasted it behind the bed with the others, smiling a little. Then she went into the kitchen for the broom.
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