Lost Among the Living

by Simone St. James

  As always, Alex read my expression, even in the dark, even after three years away. “I can explain,” he said.

  “You can’t,” I said to this stranger, and my voice was sad, almost a sigh. “You can’t possibly explain.”

  He stepped forward and put his hands on my face. His touch was gentle, familiar. I was suddenly warm and suddenly sharply, painfully aware.

  “Sweetheart,” said Alex Manders. “Yes, I can. I promise. Come inside and I’ll tell you everything.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It was him.

  But it wasn’t.

  His face had changed—his features grown harder, perhaps. Yet it was Alex’s unmistakable face, the face I had first seen looking down at me when I sat at my typewriter. It was his body, but the clothes were unfamiliar. His hair was longer. And the expression in his eyes when he looked at me—I could not read it. I could not read my husband’s eyes.

  He took me back to the house. I was dazed and cold, and he led me easily over the terrace. In the corridor, he stooped and picked up my high-heeled shoes, holding them out to me.

  “Put these on,” he said.

  I took them. “I don’t—”

  “They’re waiting for us in the parlor,” Alex said. “We have to go. They have questions.”

  I slid the shoes on, blindly following orders. “What questions?” I asked. “Everyone knew but me.”

  Alex’s blue eyes were bemused for a moment, and then they cleared. “I suppose we looked cozy when you walked in, didn’t we? No one knew, Jo. I just arrived thirty minutes ago. We were debating how to bring you out of the party to tell you when you came through the door.” He paused. “I didn’t know about the party. It looks like I picked a terrible night to come home.”

  To come home. The words hit me again and left me speechless, and when Alex took my arm, I followed him unresisting. He still had his hand on me when we walked back into the parlor.

  The tableau had changed. Cora was gone; Martin had pulled his chair closer to his parents, and the three of them were speaking in low tones. They went silent when they saw us.

  “Alex,” Dottie said.

  Alex steered me to a sofa and lowered me to it, then sat next to me. And that was that; after three years of mourning him, I was sitting next to my husband. He was so close that our legs almost touched and the thick wool of his coat scratched my bare shoulder. Warmth radiated from his body, heat that I knew well. I wanted to shift away, but I was suddenly aware of everyone’s attention on me—Dottie’s keen gaze, Martin’s amazed stare, Robert’s hooded eyes. I stayed in place, feeling raw and exposed.

  “So,” Robert said. “A romantic reunion.”

  “I know I owe some explanations,” Alex said.

  “Where have you been?” Martin broke in. And then, as if he couldn’t believe it, “Where have you been?”

  “Where is Cora?” I asked.

  There was a second of silence as everyone stared at me. “I sent her back to the party,” Dottie said. “She’s to tell the guests there was an emergency in the kitchen. Her parents will help her see everyone out. I think they’ll be forgiving, since this is a family emergency.”

  Next to me, Alex shifted, and I clenched my knees together, dropping my gaze.

  “It’s all my fault,” Alex said. “I’m sorry again.” He took a breath. “Since the war I’ve been a prisoner of the Germans. They took me almost the minute I parachuted from my airplane.”

  “All this time?” Robert asked, his eyebrows rising. “You look well fed for a prisoner.”

  “Don’t interrupt,” Dottie snapped at him. “Alex is explaining.”

  Alex turned his gaze to his uncle. “It was rough at first,” he said, “but I come from a good family, and I was valuable to them.”

  “It makes sense, Papa,” Martin said. “Alex has German relatives, and he knows the language.”

  “Yes,” Robert said, calculations moving swiftly behind his eyes. Despite how much he’d doubtless had to drink, he looked as sober right now as I felt. “I’m sure that was most useful.”

  “It was best to wait it out,” Alex said. “There was no use trying to get home until after the war was over. There was a bureaucratic mix-up, and I wasn’t on any of the lists.” I felt him glance at me. He must know, then—he must know how I had begged the War Office and the Red Cross for any word. I sat numb, staring at my hands in my lap, unable to meet his eyes. Alex paused only briefly, and then continued. “After the Armistice, I got sick.”

  “What happened?” Dottie asked.

  “Influenza,” Alex replied. “I nearly died. They transported me to a hospital near the Polish border while I was feverish. En route, I was somehow stripped of my papers and my identity disks—I was unconscious at the time, and I have no idea what happened. But I woke up in a hospital east of Breslau, half delirious, with no identity. Eventually, as I slept, it was determined that I was a German, and they began the paperwork to keep me there.”

  Influenza. I remembered lying alone in our bed in the Chalcot Road flat, my throat scraped raw, my every nerve and muscle alive with pain.

  “My God, Alex,” Martin said softly. “What a mess. I’m amazed you lived through it.”

  “When I started to recover,” Alex said, “I was told only that I was going to be sent home. It gave me great comfort for a while, until I realized I was to be kept in the wrong country. I had no papers, no proof of identity, and my German relatives fled the country at the beginning of the war. I had somehow been identified as a German airman who had gone missing three months before—they thought I had been taken captive by mistake. My RAF uniform was long gone by then, and I was in hospital clothes. I had to convince them that I wasn’t who they thought I was.”

  “They didn’t notice when you told them they were wrong?” Robert asked.

  “Of course they noticed.” If Alex was irked by Robert’s skepticism, he showed no sign. “I told them I was English. But I was speaking to them in fluent German, so how could they know I was telling the truth? The paperwork they had said otherwise. I was far from the consulate, which was already overwhelmed, and I had no money. You have no idea of the chaos in that part of the Continent in the aftermath of war. I eventually spoke to the right people and convinced them, but it took time.”

  “Three years of time,” Robert said.

  “Papa,” Martin chided.

  “You’re home now,” Dottie said. “You’re back with family, where you belong. That’s what matters. I assume you were eventually taken up by the proper channels?”

  “Yes,” Alex said. “It was the War Office that finally got me home. I traveled to London, but found that Jo was gone from our flat with no forwarding address. So I found myself a motorcar and came straight here. I didn’t wish to write first, or even to telephone. I thought you might know where Jo could be found, and I couldn’t wait.” He put a hand on mine, where it sat lifeless in my lap.

  It was all I could do not to pull away. I made myself sit still, and if he noticed that my hand was cold beneath his warm one, he gave no sign. I stayed silent. In that moment, wild horses could not have dragged the first word from my lips.

  It was lies. Alex’s own words confirmed it. The War Office sent me home. I had seen the file only weeks ago; there was no mention of influenza or lost papers. That fact made every word that had just come from my husband’s mouth untrue.

  I risked a glance at Martin to see if he showed any sign that he knew. But Martin was sitting rapt, his elbows on his knees, watching Alex. Dottie had a gleam of admiration in her eye, and even Robert had subsided, propping an elbow on the back of Martin’s chair and listening with a half smile on his lips.

  My heart was pounding in my chest. Alex, the Alex I had known and loved, was lying—to his family, to me. That was terrifying enough. But what stole the breath from me was the fact that still I
did not know where my husband had been for three years. What kind of secret would he bury so deeply he would lie to everyone he loved? Had he worked for the enemy? Had he found another woman? The thought made me sick.

  Alex had secrets—years of them. What if somehow Frances had found out? If she had innocently learned something he needed buried, what would he do about it? Would he beg special permission to visit Wych Elm House in private, then push his cousin from the roof? How far, exactly, would he go?

  The family was still speaking—Dottie was saying something about limiting gossip about Alex in the village—but suddenly I couldn’t stand any more. I shook Alex’s hand from mine and stood. “I’m very tired,” I said. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Are you all right, Cousin Jo?” Martin asked. “You’ve had quite a shock.”

  My lips were numb and I could barely force myself to speak. “I’m tired,” I said again. “Good night.”

  From his seat on the sofa, Alex took my hand where it dangled limply at my side and squeezed it as he looked up at me. “I’ll be up in a moment,” he said.

  I had no time to see the reaction of the others as I pulled my hand from his and stumbled from the room.

  • • •

  In my bedroom, I pulled the pins from my hair. I took off my shoes again and tossed them next to the wardrobe. Then I stood in the middle of the room and wondered what to do.

  I glanced at the bed. Part of me wanted to sleep, or at least make the pretense of it—to lie down and pretend that today, which seemed to have begun a year ago, when I got out of bed to take pictures, had never happened. But another part of me was more awake than it had been in years—perhaps ever. The fog I’d felt over my mind, over my existence, had broken up, been blown away by the reappearance of Alex Manders in my life.

  I’ll be up in a moment.

  He would. My husband may be a different man from the one who left me in the train station in 1918, but I knew as certainly as I knew my own name that he would very shortly come upstairs to my bedroom. And he would know exactly which room it was.

  I could lock the door. There was that. It would keep him out for tonight at least. But how long, exactly, did I think I could avoid him? Did I want to?

  I walked to the basin, poured water into it from the pitcher, and washed my face, scrubbing vigorously. Alex was a liar, and perhaps even a murderer, but he was also the smartest man I knew. He wasn’t just the man who had loved me and married me seven years ago. If he was my enemy now—and I had to admit that I had no idea exactly what he was—then I needed my wits about me. I needed a plan.

  He didn’t give me the option of locking the door. As I was drying my face, he knocked quietly. “Jo,” he said.

  I dropped the towel and opened the door, blocking his way. “I don’t suppose there is any way I could make you leave me alone?”

  Something flashed across his expression—hurt, I thought—but he covered it quickly. “That’s a little harsh after three years,” he said.

  I stared at the column of his neck where it disappeared into his collar. I knew exactly how that warm patch of skin tasted. “I said I was tired.”

  “I can make a scene in the corridor if you like. There are guests in all the rooms, and I hear Miss Staffron lodges across the hall.” He paused. “Jo, I have to talk to you.”

  I stepped back and he brushed past me, closing the door softly behind him. I was still wearing the peacock dress, and I felt the feathers waft against my legs. “Sit down,” he said.

  “You needn’t explain,” I said as I remained standing. “I heard all of it. Influenza, hospitals, missing papers. It was very heroic.”

  Alex sighed. “Goddamn you, Jo.”

  I made myself look up at his face, the face that still, after all this time, was the handsomest face in the world to me. The shadows of my bedroom made it look familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I toyed with the idea that I was being hard on him—that I was wrong, and he’d been telling the truth—but then I remembered his file.

  Things are about to become more difficult for you. Colonel Mabry had known.

  “If I find a hospital east of Breslau,” I said, “and I write them about you, what do you think I’ll find?”

  “You’ll find a record that I was there, suffering from influenza, and that I was mistakenly identified as a German.” The words were flat; he sounded tired. But when he stepped out of the shadows, I saw something almost sad in his eyes, something that changed and softened when he looked at me. “It was very carefully done,” he said quietly.

  I felt my shoulders sag at the admission. I blinked and put my hand to my mouth. “Oh, God.”

  “It’s important,” Alex said, “that they believe the story. I convinced them, though Robert still has a few doubts. But I can’t convince you, can I? I think I knew that from the first. Now, sit down, dear wife, and I’ll tell you what actually happened.”

  I backed away from him. Without thinking, I sat on the bed and scooted to the farthest corner, my stockinged feet on the coverlet, my knees pulled up. Then I realized what I had done.

  “No,” I said to him as he came toward me. “Oh, no. This is not a reunion. Don’t even think it.”

  Alex went still for a moment, and then he pulled the room’s wooden chair out into the middle of the floor, facing the bed, and sat on it. I heard the breath sigh out of him.

  It was too dark, so I leaned over and switched on the bedside lamp. The light from beneath the china shade dimly illuminated his face. “Talk,” I said.

  “May I take off my jacket?”

  “Yes,” I said, leaning back and hugging my knees again.

  He rose from the chair and shrugged the wool coat off; then he unknotted his tie. “Don’t worry,” he said, glancing at me. “I heard you. I’m just uncomfortable, that’s all.”

  When he had finished—he wore a white shirt beneath the jacket, his movements as crisp and elegant as I remembered—he draped the jacket and tie over the back of his chair and sat again. He crossed one ankle over the other knee and regarded me, his hands folded neatly over his stomach. He looked tense and controlled, aware of his every movement. Deliberately, he went very still.

  “You,” he said slowly to me, “are more beautiful than ever. I have spent three years imagining you with your hair down.”

  Something twisted inside me, hard, but I mirrored him and kept still. I did not speak.

  He looked at me for another long moment, simply looking, and then he spoke. “I’ll start at the beginning,” he said.

  “Please do,” I snapped, the tension getting to me.

  He seemed to think it over, choosing his words. “I lived here for a time. You know that, right?” He saw my expression and nodded. “I know I never told you. My favorite hobby was to sit on a spot near the cliffs of the shoreline and watch the boats. The Ministry of Fisheries is just down the coast. Have you seen it?”

  I nodded. He leaned back, and his gaze traveled up the wall, looking into the past as he continued to speak. “I suppose I dreamed of being a brave sea captain, as boys do. But I spent so much time in my observation spot that I began to notice something among the boats. A pattern. There were vessels coming and going regularly—simple boats manned by researchers, mapmakers, other civilians. And then one day a boat entered the harbor that had guns.”

  “Guns?”

  Alex nodded. “This was 1907, remember. We were not at war. The Ministry of Fisheries isn’t a Royal Navy installation. But gunboats began to enter the Ministry’s harbor, stay a few days, and leave again. In a regular pattern.” He thought back again, lost in memory. “I was fifteen and impetuous, and I thought gunboats were romantic. So one day I made the three-mile trek to the Ministry itself, intent on seeing one of them up close.

  “The Ministry is gated and guarded. I walked right up the drive to the gate, but before I could say anything
to the guard, a motorcar pulled up. I was dazzled, because a motorcar was a wonderful thing in those days. A man leaned out and asked me my business. I told him I wanted to know what the gunboats were for. He looked at me for a long moment, and then he told me to come with him. Then he told me his name.”

  My mind had already worked ahead. “Colonel Mabry,” I said.

  Alex paused, surprised. “You were always quick, Jo,” he said. “Yes, that’s who it was, though he wasn’t a colonel then. I take it you’ve met him. He isn’t supposed to be here, but I suppose he’s decided to continue as the curse of my bloody life.”

  I blinked at the hostility in his voice. My own anger at Colonel Mabry paled next to that chilled fury.

  “Mabry told me nothing, of course,” Alex continued. “He didn’t take me to see the boats, which disappointed me. Instead, he sat me down in an office and questioned me extensively. I told him everything I had seen, the patterns of the gunboats’ movements, their shapes and sizes, the days and times I had seen them come and go. He asked if I had made notes of what I’d seen, which of course I hadn’t. He questioned me about my family and my background. I was bursting with my own questions, but he was as forthcoming as a marble slab. He finally told me that I was an intelligent, observant boy, and that when I got older he’d likely have a job for me.”

  I blinked. “A job?” I said.

  Alex nodded. “I didn’t know what he meant at the time—it only became clear to me later. He meant a job in intelligence. Specifically, military intelligence.”

  “In 1907?” I asked, incredulous. “The war was seven years away.”

  “In certain circles of government, Jo, the war was a long time coming. For some of them, the question wasn’t whether we’d have a war, but when. To this day, Mabry hasn’t told me exactly what was going on at the Ministry during those months, but I now believe they were using the harbor as part of a program to test gunboats in the open sea. The Kaiser was already of interest to our government, you see, as was his armament campaign, but Germany was not yet a dangerous concern. Yet Mabry was filing me away for future use, which is what he does.”