Sins

by Gould, Judith

  'Yes, it really is.'

  Geraldine suddenly made a face. 'But I hate to have to face my husband. I think he'll commit suicide when he sees it.' She glanced at her attendant, who waited a discreet distance away. 'Well, I'd better be going or else they'll never get finished with me on time. Usually I come in on Thursdays, but I'm flying to Palm Beach a day early this week. Virginia Simonsen is going to hold the most marvelous masked ball!' She sighed heavily. 'I do so love masked balls, don't you?'

  'Yes, I do,' Hélène, who had never been to one, answered politely.

  'Well, I must be going. It was so nice to run into you. Ta!' Then Geraldine started down the corridor after her attendant.

  Hélène stared after her. What an abominable, name-dropping woman, she thought. But she did credit Geraldine with having one thing. Exquisite—if expensive—taste.

  Vaguely Hélène wondered how the Gores could afford such high living.

  Politely Karl von Eiderfeld took the Comte's hat and coat, hung them in the hallway closet, and led him into the living room. Even though it was already dark outside, the heavy damask curtains were still drawn tightly. Only two very dim lamps were lit.

  Von Eiderfeld waved his guest into a faded French chair. 'Sit, my dear Comte. It should not be long before our friend arrives. Meanwhile, would you care for a drink?'

  'Armagnac, if you have it,' the Comte said.

  'I do.' Von Eiderfeld crossed the room to the massive armoire. When he opened the double doors, Hubert saw that the inside had been converted into a bar, complete with refrigerator and sink. Von Eiderfeld brought the drink over. 'You have the envelopes?' he asked.

  Hubert nodded and snapped open his briefcase. He took out a large manila envelope and placed it on the Directoire table beside him. 'They arrived by courier from Paris less than an hour ago.'

  'You think they are what she is coming to see us about?' von Eiderfeld asked.

  Hubert looked thoughtful. 'It's possible,' he said. 'But I rather think she doesn't even know they're missing yet. I hired the best safecracker available. He stole only what I paid him to steal. Then he locked the vault shut again. There was no evidence of a break-in.'

  Von Eiderfeld smiled with satisfaction. 'I commend you on your good work. She will have no hold over us now. Did you manage to discover where she stopped off yesterday when she interrupted her flight?'

  'I did.' The Comte took a big swallow of Armagnac. 'She landed at a private airstrip in England. Our sweet Hélène travels in some very high circles. The airstrip in question belongs to Nigel Somerset.'

  Von Eiderfeld started. 'She's still seeing him?'

  'I believe so.'

  Von Eiderfeld digested this piece of information thoughtfully. 'That is not very welcome news, I'm afraid. Somerset is one of the richest men in England. What if he comes up with the eleven million dollars for her? Then we'll have lost the battle.'

  'I don't think that will happen,' Hubert said confidently. 'Otherwise, it would already have been arranged. You don't know Hélène as I do. She wouldn't wait until the last possible moment—she would have arranged everything long ago. Besides, her ethics would never permit her to accept charity, even in the form of a loan. No, my friend. She's squirming right now. She'll never be able to raise the money.'

  Von Eiderfeld looked gloomy. 'I hope to God you're right.'

  At that moment, the telephone began to ring. Von Eiderfeld crossed over to the Directoire table and picked up the receiver. 'Yes?' He looked at Hubert and nodded. 'Have her come right up.' He replaced the receiver and smiled grimly. 'That was the desk. She's on her way up.'

  A few minutes later, Hélène arrived. She hadn't had time to change. She wore her Blackglama coat open, and the champagne Chanel suit still showed underneath it. Her hair was no longer in a chignon. It hung thickly to her shoulders, casually cut, yet eminently elegant, framing her face in lustrous waves. 'Hello,' she said stiffly.

  Awkwardly von Eiderfeld motioned for her to come in. 'Please. The Comte is already here. Can I take your coat?'

  She shook her head. 'I don't think I'll be staying that long.'

  Von Eiderfeld shrugged and led her into the living room, where Hubert was comfortably sprawled in his chair. He made no move to get up. 'Ah,' he said with a wicked grin. 'So the president has stooped to socializing with mere stockholders. Do have a seat.' He leaned sideways and patted the chair next to his.

  'No, thank you,' she said coldly. 'I prefer to stand.'

  'As you wish. Now, what did you want to see us about?'

  Hélène chose her words carefully. 'I have come by in order to remind you that you would both find it more. . .agreeable, let's say. . .to stop fighting me. To stop playing cat and mouse. As you may recall, we've had this kind of discussion once before.'

  Hubert smiled and rose to his feet. He walked over to the fireplace, where a log and kindling sat on the grate. He squatted down and carefully lit it. Slowly the kindling started to burn, and after a few minutes the log caught fire. The blaze threw flickering yellow light around the dim room. Hubert made a noise of satisfaction and got to his feet. 'I suppose you're referring to the 'hold' you have over us?' he asked.

  'Yes,' Hélène said.

  Hubert smiled. 'Take my advice, my dear. Go home and forget all about it. You see, we're no longer quaking with fear.'

  'I think you should take this matter more seriously,' Hélène warned. 'I could ruin you both.' She turned and fixed a glacial stare on von Eiderfeld. 'I could have you charged for war crimes. You would be hung.' Then she turned back to Hubert. 'And you. You, too, would be hung. For murder.'

  Hubert began to laugh. 'That's preposterous! Who would believe you? You'd need proof to make these slanderous accusations stick!'

  Her eyes narrowed. 'Stop playing games, Hubert! You know very well that I have the proof. The evidence is locked in a lawyer's vault.'

  He laughed again and went over to the Directoire table. He picked up the manila envelope and tore it open. Reaching inside it, he extracted a smaller white envelope.

  'Do you recognize this?' he asked, holding it up. Scrawled across the sealed flap was her signature.

  They could hear her sharp intake of breath. 'Yes,' she whispered. 'Where did you get it?'

  'Let's just say it's found its way here from a lawyer's vault in Paris. Don't blame your solicitor. It wasn't his fault. In fact, he doesn't even know that anything is missing yet.' Hubert tore the white envelope open and pulled out some old, yellowed documents. He unfolded them and held them dramatically up in the air. 'Evidence of war crimes,' he announced in a loud voice. He handed the papers to von Eiderfeld. 'Will you do the honors, my friend?' he asked softly.

  Hélène watched in horror as von Eiderfeld accepted them gravely, walked toward the mantel, and tossed them into the fire. Greedily the flames sprang up and licked at them; then they blackened and curled.

  'And now, this!' With a flourish Hubert produced a second white envelope, this one bulkier than the first. It, too, was sealed, the unbroken flap signed with Hélène's signature. 'And do you recognize this?' he asked, taunting.

  For a moment she shut her eyes. This can't be happening, she thought. It can't be. She opened her eyes. But it was.

  Hubert tore open the second envelope.

  Inside it was a reel of recording tape. He held it high. 'Evidence for murder?' he called out laughingly. Then he clucked his tongue in mock sympathy. 'Really, my dear. You should have known better than to resort to blackmail.'

  He walked slowly toward the fireplace and with a motion of disgust threw the reel into the flames. A portion of the tape unwound and snaked out onto the carpet. With his foot, he kicked it into the hearth. Then he turned to Hélène.

  Her face was white. She was staring into the fire, mesmerized. As she watched, the recording tape began to melt, exuding a stench of burning plastic.

  'See, my dear?' Hubert said pleasantly. 'You no longer have a hold over us. The past is gone and forgotten.' He snapped his finge
rs. 'Just like that.'

  She stared numbly into the flames. No, it wasn't. For her, the past would never be gone. Could never be forgotten.

  YESTERDAY

  II Rape

  1

  Saint-Nazaire, 1950

  Tante Janine lived on the outskirts of Saint-Nazaire and made a modest livelihood off her plant nursery. Her house was on a raised piece of property a quarter of a kilometer from the sea. It was built of weathered gray stone, was two stories high, and had a steeply sloping roof. On a clear day you could even see down to where the Loire emptied into the sea. That was two kilometers to the south.

  The nursery surrounded the house on all sides. Every square centimeter of space was put to good use. There were four big hothouses and dozens of long, glass-covered pits in which Tante Janine grew the seedlings which the townspeople would buy in the spring to plant in their own gardens. All around these odd structures, the earth was tilled and used for planting seasonal vegetables and flowers. There wasn't a patch of useless grass to be seen. Wooden planks served as paths between the flowerbeds and the vegetable patches.

  Two additional structures were situated quite some distance from the house—a smelly three-sided bunker used for storing manure and compost, and a shed where the gardening tools were kept and in which they made wreaths or floral arrangements for funerals or an occasional wedding. For a long time, funerals had outnumbered weddings by ten to one.

  A stone wall surrounded the property. Attached to it was a big wooden sign that faced the road. It read: 'JANINE JUNOT.' The black-and-white paint was peeling and blistered.

  During Edmond's and Hélène's first winter there, things had not gone well at the nursery. At that time, Saint-Nazaire was considered to be of extreme strategic importance by both the Allies and the Nazis.

  First, there were the German installations—namely the U-boat base. Many of the U-boat wolf packs that infested the Atlantic originated from here. They depended on the Saint-Nazaire base for supplies, servicing, and repairs. It was the ideal spot, since much of the equipment they needed was already there from before the war. Saint-Nazaire had been known for its shipyards since the nineteenth century.

  Second, and more important, the town was part of what the Allies called the Saint-Nazaire Pocket. This was considered to be the chief infiltration point into France from the Atlantic coast. As a result, Saint-Nazaire was nearly devastated.

  Each time the British and the Americans pounded the installations, Tante Janine would burst into tears. Not that she was sorry about the U-boat base being demolished. But the nearby explosions reverberated all the way to her nursery and shattered the glass that covered her hothouses and pits. When that happened, the vegetables she had been nurturing so diligently would be in danger of exposure to the cold. For a while she managed to patch up everything as best as she could. Then came a particularly heavy bombing and the glass was shattered beyond repair. In a single night, every last seedling had frozen and died. When spring came, there was nothing to sell. It was a very lean year.

  But 1944 did bring a moment of jubilation. On August 26, General de Gaulle marched triumphantly down the Champs-Elysees. At last, Paris was liberated. Frenchmen were in tears. The war was as good as over. Just like Maman had predicted, the Boches were being driven out of France and pushed back across the Rhine.

  Like everyone else, Edmond and Hélène had greeted this news with joy. Now it would not be long before the family was reunited. But as month after month crept by with still no word from Maman, Papa, Catherine, or Marie, they slowly began to lose all hope of ever seeing them again. From the grown-ups, terrible fragments of stories about the Germans filtered down to them. Stories that were beyond their comprehension. Stories that just couldn't be true. Stories about what happened to those who were carted off by the Nazis. Stories about the camps.

  In the beginning, Tante Janine had been relatively friendly. Then in May 1945 she 'turned.' Perhaps the realization that Edmond and Hélène were now solely her responsibility finally dawned on her. One thing was only too clear. She was stuck with two hungry mouths to feed. Two growing bodies to clothe. And times were bad. As a result, she began to strike out at the 'cause' of her frustrations. The children.

  Hélène would never forget the first time she and Edmond were subjected to Tante Janine's fury. It was on the fifteenth of May, a day that had started out smoothly enough. The afternoon sun was still shining strongly, and there was a sharp nip in the air. In the distance, Hélène could see the fishing boats bobbing out in the bay. Their bows bit into the waves and their gray patched sails billowed in the wind. Trouble seemed far away.

  Instead of playing by herself, Hélène decided to help Edmond repair a section of the shattered hothouses, so they went out scavenging for pieces of broken glass. These would be cut into smaller squares, which would then be inserted into the hothouse frames. Luck was with them that afternoon. They found a large piece—big enough to cut into at least six squares. Carefully they carried it back to the nursery, and everything went fine until Edmond tried to cut it. For one reason or another, the piece splintered into shards.

  Tante Janine threw a fit. Viciously her hand slashed across Edmond's face. Then she yanked his hair so hard that she tore out a fistful.

  That was the beginning. For over a year, this kind of abuse continued. There was no telling what might trigger it. Edmond and Hélène were helpless. Their only relief came when Tante Janine made one of her sudden, unexplained trips to Paris. There was nothing they could do but suffer these rages in silence, and usually it was Edmond who had to take the brunt of them. Perhaps because he was the elder. Perhaps because he had the bigger appetite. Every night Hélène prayed fervently, begging God to have Maman and Papa come to rescue them from Tante Janine. But God turned a deaf ear.

  Then, a year later, everything came to a head. Weeding among tiny lettuce seedlings, Hélène accidentally mistook some of them for weeds.

  'Which of you idiots pulled these?' Tante Janine demanded.

  'I did,' Edmond lied. He knew that a beating was imminent and that his body could absorb the blows much more easily than Hélène's.

  'You idiot!' Tante Janine raged. 'You good-for-nothing!' She reached down, snatched up a slat of wood that was lying there, and angrily began to beat him across the back with it. Hélène screamed for her to stop it, while Edmond took the blows in silence. When it was over, he got to his feet, swayed unsteadily, and stumbled into the house.

  Hélène ran after him. There were only two bedrooms. Tante Janine slept in one; they shared the other. When Hélène got upstairs, Edmond was already throwing his few belongings together.

  'What are you doing?' Hélène asked in sudden panic.

  He laughed mirthlessly. 'What does it look like? I'm packing.'

  'But, Edmond!' Her voice was desperate. 'Why?'

  'I'm leaving, that's why! I can't stand living here any longer.'

  'I'm sorry, Edmond!' she pleaded. 'I'll make it up to you. It was all my fault!'

  He shook his head. 'No, it wasn't your fault. It's that woman. She's a bitch!'

  'Please don't talk like that.'

  Savagely he turned to her. 'Well, she is! And I'm not going to stay here waiting to be beaten half to death. Anyway, I'm tired of slaving away for her.'

  'But where are you going to go?'

  'I'm joining up with the fishing fleet. Let the old bitch look after her own stinking weeds!'

  Hélène's eyes glistened with tears. 'And me?' she asked softly. 'What about me, Edmond?'

  He came close and took her in his arms. He was wet from perspiration and smelled strongly of sweat. 'Little French Girl,' he said gently, 'until I can arrange otherwise, you're going to have to stay here.'

  'But I can't!' she sobbed. 'Not without you!'

  'You can and must. To get away from here will take money. I swear I'll save every penny I earn. Then we can go away together.' Gently he extricated himself from her and stuffed his belongings into a pillowcase. '
Now, wipe your tears.'

  She nodded solemnly. Sniffing, she wiped her eyes. 'Edmond. . .'

  He looked up. 'Yes?'

  For a moment she didn't speak. Then she clutched him in sudden desperation. 'You won't leave me here for good with her, will you?'

  He looked at her. The fear and loneliness in her violet eyes tugged at his heart. 'No, Little French Girl. All we have is each other. Nobody can ever separate us. Not after what we've gone through together. Neither the Boches nor that bitch can keep us apart.'

  Fearfully she looked up into his eyes. 'And the sea?' she asked softly. 'What if the sea separates us?'

  Suddenly he grinned. He looked very sure of himself. 'Even the sea won't be able to do that.'

  2

  Hélène sat in the back of the classroom. Mademoiselle Gribius always put her best-behaved pupils there. This way the troublemakers would be in the front where she could keep her eye on them. The bell sounded. The girls automatically glanced toward the door. From out in the hall came the noises of slamming doors and the stampeding of feet. Restlessly they looked back at Mademoiselle. They were anxious to be dismissed. Home economics was the last class of the day.

  Mademoiselle slowly got out of her chair and walked around to the front of her desk. Her hawklike eyes searched the room through the thick lenses of her eyeglasses. There was a look of approval on her thin lips. Not one girl had moved a muscle. Their eyes, yes. But that was all. They knew better. If one of them made an attempt to gather up her things before class was dismissed, they would all be kept behind for an extra five minutes.

  'Ecoutez!' Mademoiselle's sharp, clipped voice carried to the back of the room.