She began to cry and gently Dax took her by the shoulders and turned her toward him. “It’s no trick, Caroline.”
He felt shocked at her appearance. He could see puffy black and blue marks on her face, and her clothing hung on her loosely. When he looked down, he saw the vivid red welts across the upper part of her breasts. For a moment, he couldn’t speak, then he pulled her to him. She hid her face in his shoulder, still sobbing. He tried to raise her face but she wouldn’t let him.
“Don’t look at me,” she cried harshly. “They did such terrible things. I can still feel the dirt on my face!”
“Caroline,” he said, speaking very slowly. “I’ve come to marry you. It’s the only way I can get you out of here. Do you understand?”
She shook her head against his shoulder. “I can’t marry you,” she said, her voice muffled against his jacket. “Not after what they’ve done, not after what they made me do.”
“That doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. You must listen to me.”
“No!” She tore herself from his arms. She ran to the door and huddled against it, her face averted. “You wouldn’t want me if you knew what they did. Nobody would.” She sounded hysterical. “You wouldn’t want me if you knew what I did just to stop them from hurting me! They made me—”
“Stop it!” Giselle’s voice was loud in the tiny room.
Caroline’s voice caught in her throat. For the first time, she raised her face. Quickly Giselle crossed the room. Her voice was harsh and flat. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself! You’re alive, that’s all that matters.” She caught Caroline by the shoulder and pushed her roughly back toward Dax. “Now shut up and do as he says before you get us all killed!”
Giselle’s eyes met Dax’s over Caroline’s head. She turned to the priest. “Begin the ceremony.”
The priest opened the small black book and motioned for them to stand in front of him. Fat Cat and Giselle took their places immediately behind him. The priest’s voice was gentle as he began to read:
“We are gathered here in this simple ceremony, before the eyes of God and of man, to unite this man and this woman in the bonds of holy matrimony….”
It was over in a moment. Caroline’s face was still buried in his shoulder as Giselle came toward them. Dax looked at her. “Thank you.”
The tears came suddenly to her eyes. She leaned forward and kissed him, first on one cheek, then the other. Then she put her arm around Caroline and tenderly drew her nearer. “Come, child,” she said, “I have some lipstick. This is no way for a bride to look on her wedding day.”
Dax stared at them.
Giselle suddenly became aware of his eyes. “Don’t mind me,” she said, “I always cry at weddings.”
BOOK 4
MARRIAGE and FASHION
1
The smoke hung heavily in the air of the dimly lit cellar. In the far corner the small combo made up in noise what it lacked in quality. Robert looked up as Denisonde made her way through the crowded tables. He did not get up as she came to a stop beside him. He ignored her, looking down at his pastis. “Bobby?”
He still didn’t look up.
“Come on, it’s time to go home.”
“You all through for the night?”
“Yes.”
He looked at his watch. “It’s only two o’clock.”
“There’s no business.”
For the first time he looked up at her. He gestured toward the crowded tables. “They have plenty of business here.”
“Outside the streets are empty.”
He reached across the table and took the small evening bag from her. Opening it, he emptied its contents onto the table. A lipstick, small compact and mirror, a few crumpled bills spread out before him. He picked up the bills and counted them. “Only six thousand francs?”
“I told you there was no business.”
He threw the bills back on the table angrily. “I spent more than that sitting here waiting for you.”
“I’m sorry.”
He picked up the bills again and stuffed them into his pocket, pushing the rest of the articles back at her. “I’m not ready to go yet.”
Denisonde stared at him for a moment, then put the things into her bag. “May I sit down?” she asked, almost humbly. “I’m tired.”
He didn’t look at her. “No, go sit somewhere else. I don’t want you.”
She hesitated a moment, then turned and made her way back through the tables to the bar. The bartender put a pastis in front of her as she climbed onto a stool. “He’s in one of his moods again?”
She nodded.
“He’s been sitting here all night like that. He won’t talk to anybody.” She didn’t answer.
“I don’t see why you bother with him,” the bartender said, leaning forward confidentially, “a girl like you. You should have a man who appreciates you. One who goes out and helps you in the business. He should get customers for you, not just sit there and expect you to do all the work.”
“He’s a gentleman.”
“A gentleman!” The bartender snorted. “If that’s what a gentleman’s like, give me an old-fashioned mac any time.” He went down the bar to fill an order. When he had finished, he came back. He leaned across the bar.
“You’re wasting yourself. Get rid of him, and I’ll put you onto something good. Really good; no more pounding hard pavements in freezing weather.”
She laughed. “I don’t want to go into a house. I like working for myself.”
“No house. I just got the O.K. from the boss. Get a few good girls, he told me, and right away I thought of you. Denisonde, I thought, that’s the right sort of girl for a place like this. Real class.”
Before she could answer, he left and went down the bar to fill another order. Just then the combo stopped playing, and the trio came down from the stand to the bar. The thin Negro who had been playing the drums stopped alongside her. He pulled a cigarette from a beat-up package, and stuck it in his mouth. “Hello, Denisonde.”
“Jean-Claude.”
He leaned his back against the bar so he could look at her and out over the room at the same time. “Bobby hasn’t said a word all night.”
“There wasn’t any trouble?” she asked anxiously.
Jean-Claude shook his head. “No, we’re kind of used to Bobby by now. Everybody’s walking wide around him.”
“Good.” She glanced back over her shoulder. Robert was still staring down into his drink. “I wish he’d come home. He’s in pain.”
“How do you know?”
“I can always tell. I knew it the minute we came out tonight. I couldn’t work for worrying about him. That’s why I came in early.”
“You’re really gone on him, aren’t you?”
She looked at Jean-Claude. “He’s alone, he needs somebody.”
“From what I hear, he doesn’t have to be alone.”
“What do you hear?”
“That man was around again last night. You know, the one who was asking about Bobby?”
“Did Robert talk to him?”
“No. Same as usual, he told him to go away. After that Bobby went out and didn’t come back until just before you did. From what the man said, Bobby’s papa wants him to come home.”
Denisonde didn’t answer.
“That boy’s a pure fool,” Jean-Claude said. “He don’t have to spend his life sitting in joints like this.”
“The war did some funny things to people.”
“I was in the war, and I’m the same as I always was.”
Denisonde looked at him out of the corners of her slightly slanted eyes. “You were lucky.”
The bartender came over to them. “I got a live one for you, Denisonde,” he whispered. “Down there at the end of the bar.”
Denisonde turned slowly. A small man, almost insignificant in his gray suit, stared back at her. She looked at the bartender and shook her head. “No, thanks. Bobby doesn’t like me to pick up anybody in here.”
“Don’t
be a fool. He’ll meet you outside, and Bobby will never know. Five thousand francs.”
“No, thanks.”
Jean-Claude’s voice came from behind her. “That’s the man I was telling you about, the one Bobby wouldn’t talk to. He must have just come in.”
Denisonde looked down the bar again. Suddenly she made up her mind. “D’accord,” she said to the bartender. Quickly she scooped up her bag from the bar and glanced back over her shoulder at Robert. He was still staring into his drink. She got off the stool and went out the door.
She shivered a little at the cold night air and pulled her coat around her. She walked down to the corner and stepped into a doorway. A moment later the man came out and walked down toward the corner.
“Over here,” she hissed from the doorway.
The man turned and came toward her. “M’am’selle,” he said politely.
“The bartender said five thousand francs.”
Without a word he reached into his pocket and came out with a few bills. She took them and put them into her evening bag. “Your place or mine?”
“Your place.”
“Follow me. It’s just around the corner.”
Denisonde walked briskly past him and turned the corner. About halfway down the street she turned into an apartment house. They stood silently in the hallway as she opened the door of her apartment.
“The bedroom’s over here,” she said, leading the way. She threw her coat onto a chair and closed the door. She began to slip out of her dress, when she noticed that he was still standing there. He hadn’t made a move. She let her dress settle back around her.
“What’s the hurry?” he asked. “I’ve paid you five times the rate. Let’s talk first.”
She shrugged and sat down on the edge of the bed. “O.K., if that’s what you want.”
He took off his coat and sat down on the edge of the chair facing her. He took out a package of cigarettes. “May I smoke?”
She shrugged.
He lit a cigarette, and after a moment he said, “His father wants him to come home.”
“Why talk to me?” she said. “Talk to Robert.”
“He won’t listen.”
She held out her hands expressively. “I’m not keeping him prisoner here. Robert can leave any time he wants to.”
“His father will give you one million francs if you can get him to come home.”
“His father doesn’t have to give me anything. If Robert wants to he can go.”
“You’re not being very smart. A million francs is a lot of money. You wouldn’t have to live like this. You could do anything you wanted.”
“I can do anything I want now. Robert isn’t holding me any tighter than I’m holding him.” She got to her feet. “You tell his father that if he really wants him back the only way is by coming here and talking to Robert himself.”
“His father is a proud man. He wouldn’t do that.”
“That’s the baron’s affair, it’s his son. There’s nothing I can do.”
He sat there silently for a moment smoking his cigarette. “The baron is a dangerous man to have for an enemy.”
“The baron is also a sensible man. He knows that Robert is safe with me, that I am looking out for him.”
The man didn’t answer.
“Is there anything else?” she asked in a tone of finality.
“Yes,” he said, getting to his feet. He began to take off his shirt. “Five thousand francs is a lot of money for just conversation.”
***
Robert was still at his table when she came back into the cellar club. She stopped beside the table and silently dropped the banknotes on the table. Without glancing at her, he picked up the money and stuffed it into his pocket. He got to his feet. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
Silently she followed him back through the club and out into the street. They walked round the corner and up the stairs to their apartment. Denisonde closed the door and bolted it as he went into the bedroom. In a few moments he returned and his hand lashed out suddenly, catching her across the face. She fell backward into the chair in stunned surprise.
His face was contorted with anger. “How many times have I told you to change the sheets after you’re through work for the night?”
2
The sharp knifelike pain raced through him and Robert moaned softly in his sleep. Vaguely he felt her hand soothing his cheek. “Denisonde,” he whispered, then fell back into the uneasy blackness. He still heard the screams echoing down damp stone corridors, the heavy clump of the soldier’s boots on the cement floor outside his cell.
He moaned again in his sleep, then suddenly sat up. He reached out his hand; he was alone in the bed. “Denisonde!” he screamed, fear mounting uncontrollably. “Denisonde!”
The bedroom door opened. “I’m here, Robert.” She held out a glass. “Drink this.”
Gratefully he took the glass and sipped the warm liquid. It was sweet and soothing. “I thought you had gone out,” he said huskily.
“You know I wouldn’t do that.” She took the empty glass. “Now try to go back to sleep.”
He stretched out again, his hand still clutching her fingers. Already the opiate was clouding his eyes. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
She watched and when he was asleep she went out into the other room. The coffee was hot on the stove and she took a cup to the table and sat down. Idly she glanced at the clock. It was almost noon. She reached for the telephone and dialed a number. A girl’s voice answered.
“Yvette?”
“Oui.”
“Are you dressed?”
“Oui.”
“I have a date I can’t keep.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-five hundred francs.”
“It’s not worth it,” Yvette said quickly. “I give you half, there’s nothing in it for me.”
“You don’t have to give me half. I’ll take five hundred francs.”
“D’accord. Where do I meet him and how will I know him?”
When Denisonde put down the phone she stared at it for a moment. There were too many like this. She had lost too many customers lately, but there was nothing she could do about it. She could not leave Robert when he was so sick.
She sipped at the coffee and lit a cigarette. Men were such fools. Even with whores they liked to feel they were something special, and when she didn’t show up for a date that was generally the end of a client. And in the two years she had been with Robert she had lost far too many. Most of her steadies were gone and everyone knew that the foundation of any girl’s business was the repeaters.
For the last few months, in order to earn enough for them to live on, she had taken to the streets again like a rank beginner. Twice already she had been picked up by the flics, but luckily she had been able to talk her way out of it. She stared thoughtfully at the bedroom door.
Something would have to be done soon. What it would be she did not know. Only the man asleep behind that door knew. Only he could supply the answers. Even now she didn’t know the whole story of what had happened that day he appeared at her door two years ago.
The war had been over for almost a year, and for a while they had lost touch. His father had come back from America and Robert had gone to work in the bank. The one time he had come to see her, oddly enough, he had taken her out to tea. Nothing more.
She had looked at his thin drawn face across the table. “You still have pain?”
“A little. But the doctors assure me it will pass in time.”
“Your sister, she is all right? I hear she married that South American.”
“Dax? Yes, she is with him in the United States.”
A memory of the dark intense face came to her. “I hope she is happy.”
He looked at her sharply. “What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know.”
“The war changed many things for my sister and me. I don’t know if either of us can ever really be ha
ppy again.”
“You will be happy again. In time the war will recede. Look around you; already people are beginning to forget. You will, too.”
Robert had glanced around the crowded tearoom. Suddenly his lips tightened and he got to his feet. He threw a banknote on the table. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
She had followed him into the street. He turned and looked at her. I’ll walk you back to your place.”
“I don’t want to take you out of your way. You must be very busy.”
His lips twisted wryly. “I am; my father has acquired the world’s busiest errand boy. Me.”
“I’m sure he has other plans for you.”
“If he has he’s keeping them a secret.” He put a hand under her arm. “Let’s go.”
“You sound angry. Is it my fault?”
“No, it’s not your fault. Really.”
When they had reached her building she had said, “Would you like to come up?” He had shaken his head.
She was silent for a moment, then held out her hand.
“Thank you for the tea,” she had said, almost primly. “It was very nice.”
“Denisonde?” He held onto her hand.
She looked up into his eyes. They were darkly somber. “Yes, Robert?”
“Is there anything you want? Anything I can do for you?”
She laughed, shaking her head. “There is nothing, thank you. I have everything I need. I manage very well.”
“You do.”
“Robert, what is wrong? What is it?”
“Nothing.” Then his voice had turned bitter, and he had dropped her hand. “There must be something wrong with me. I don’t manage very well at all.”
She had watched him turn the corner before she had gone up to her apartment. Right then she had sensed that he would be back. How, when, or why, she was not sure. But he would come back. And she was strangely sad because she knew that when he did it would not be good for either of them.
Later that same afternoon Robert sat at his desk studying the papers in front of him. The heading across the top of the first sheet fascinated him:
DER KUPPEN FARBEN GESELLSCHAFT
Beneath it were fifty other pages, each containing the details and balance sheets of the many different companies which had made up the largest industrial complex in Germany. During the war these companies had been the primary targets for all Allied bombers. Now they were merely pieces of paper on his desk.
The Adventurers Page 40