The French War Bride

by Robin Wells

  “I did not. This was Yvette’s room. It was the day before she was kicked out, the day after the Germans all fled and the Americans arrived. The clothes were all Yvette’s. All of my clothes were once Yvette’s.”

  “And where is this Yvette?”

  “She is dead.”

  He must have seen something in my face, because I could tell he believed that.

  “She died of the flu. What you said about someone dying in your arms . . . I know about that. I was at her bedside. At our apartment.”

  “Where?”

  “Upstairs from Nora. When Yvette became ill, the hospital wouldn’t take her, because she was contagious. I—wear her clothes. I had none of my own that weren’t maid’s uniforms, except for the dress I was wearing when I came to Paris.”

  He flipped through the photos.

  The last one, thank God, showed Dierk and Yvette, holding hands. I felt a jolt of relief.

  “See? The camera—it was Yvette’s. Dierk gave it to her. That is why she isn’t in most of the photos. It’s because she was the one taking the pictures. And she is wearing the yellow dress I wore to marry you.”

  He looked up, his gaze still harsh. “Why did you not tell me the camera was not yours?”

  “When would I have done that? It isn’t the sort of thing I would just announce—not any more than I would have announced that the clothes were not mine.”

  He sat there for a moment. I could tell he was struggling to sort the facts. “I would like an explanation.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of everything. Who was this Yvette? Did she work with you? Was she the friend who left you the baby formula?”

  Fear—cold, gripping, paralyzing—flashed through me. If I said yes, he might put it all together. “Yvette was my dearest friend. She was like a sister to me. We grew up together.”

  “In the country?”

  “Yes. And she came to Paris with me.”

  “Was it her father who taught you English and German?”

  “Yes.”

  Why didn’t you tell me of this?”

  “Again, when would I have told you?”

  “Nora knew her?”

  “Yes.”

  “And yet neither of you mentioned her.”

  “I don’t know when it would have come up. You and I did not spend much time together before we married.”

  He knew I had a point, but he scowled all the same. He went back to the first photo, the one of Yvette and me with our hair freshly shorn. “Why the hell were you frolicking around in this picture, as if it’s all just some kind of a lark?”

  Oh, mon Dieu. How to explain? “That day—it had been the most awful, humiliating experience of our lives. We were stripped to our undergarments and put in an open truck with other women—some of them prostitutes—and driven through the streets of Paris. People spat on us and threw garbage at us and ridiculed us. It was horrible. The hotel wouldn’t even let us into the lobby—we had to go through the servants’ entrance. And once we were in Yvette’s room, we saw ourselves in a mirror for the first time.

  “That might have been the worst part of all—seeing ourselves with no hair. I wanted to die. And then Yvette said that we could cry or we could laugh; neither would make our hair grow back faster, but laughing would make us feel better about it. And she started teasing me about looking like a little bald bird, and she started clowning around, and after all of the shame and humiliation and crying . . . well, she made me laugh. And she got out her camera, and . . .” I gestured at the photos. “. . . voilà.”

  He was silent for a long moment.

  “Yvette had a powerful, uplifting spirit,” I said. “She found a way to make that horrible situation bearable. That day, after laughing together, we were able to figure out a way to hide our baldness, and we were able to survive.”

  He lifted his gaze from the photo, looked at me, then blew out a sigh. “She sounds like a remarkable woman.”

  “She was. She truly was.” I wiped at the tears that were sliding down my face.

  Elise started to fuss. I pulled her diaper bag from under the seat and rose, holding her. “I need to change her diaper.”

  —

  When I returned from the ladies’ room, Jack apologized.

  “I’m sorry I was angry. I know the war wasn’t easy, and when I learned you were a femme tondue, well, it was a shock. You were pregnant with Elise, and thinking that you . . . while you were carrying Doug’s baby . . . Well, I’m sure you only did what you had to do.”

  “I did not do that. I was shaved because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to protect Yvette.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter!” Although when I searched for a reason, there was none I could voice. I couldn’t say, You are a good man, and the opinion of a good man matters a great deal to me, because I have done many things that are neither black nor white. I want the validation that I am on the lighter shade of gray. But that was the truth of it.

  We sat in silence for a long moment. “Did you ever consider it? Going with a German?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Yvette—well, she’d had her heart broken and she was sure she’d never love again. She did not value lovemaking, but she knew it could be a crucial tool for gathering information. I could not see it that way for myself.”

  “So your head was shaved because you were trying to help Yvette,” he said at length.

  “That’s right.”

  We sat in silence for several moments, the tracks rumbling loudly beneath us. He seemed to be deep in thought.

  “Okay,” he said at length.

  “Okay, what?”

  “Okay. I believe you.”

  The comment left me angry. Why, I do not know, since I desperately wanted his good opinion. Maybe that—the wanting—was the reason for my anger. “And I’m supposed to feel good about that?”

  He leaned forward, clearly exasperated. “What do you want from me?”

  Understanding. Validation. To feel that you think I’m a good person. Because if I can convince you, perhaps I can believe it a bit myself.

  “I honestly don’t know.” I stared at Elise, asleep in my arms. “To not feel judged, I suppose. To not feel as if you’re doing me some kind of favor.” I was immediately stricken. “Although you are, of course. Marrying me—it was a tremendous favor.” I leaned back my head and closed my eyes for a moment. “I owe you a great deal. Thank you. I have no right to complain about anything you say or do.”

  “Of course you do. It’s natural that you wouldn’t want to be thought of as a woman of . . . of . . .”

  “Ill repute?”

  He gave a sheepish grin. “That sounds really stuffy, doesn’t it?”

  I smiled back. “I’ve always wondered why one never hears of men of ill repute, even though they are equally to blame. Maybe more so, since they’re the ones who create the demand for services.”

  “You’re right. It’s unjust. But that is how it is.” He looked at me. “You don’t talk like a country girl. Your school provided you with a surprisingly good education.”

  “Yes, it did.” I looked away. Oh, how I hated all the lies that stood between us! It was time to turn the conversation in his direction.

  “What about you? You were raised in the country, as well. What did you say your father grew?”

  “He started out with strawberries, then added a small dairy.”

  “What was he like?”

  “Oh, my father . . .” His face tightened. “Lots of charm, lots of big plans. He was always off chasing a new scheme.” He gazed out the window. “I guess you would describe him as a man of excessive passions.”

  “Ah. You are very different.”

  “Yes.”

 
“And that is not by accident, I take it?”

  He smiled at me. “You are a student of human nature.”

  “I am just naturally curious.”

  “About everything and everyone?”

  “About you.” The minute I said it, I realized it sounded too personal. “Anytime someone speaks of excessive passions, well, it sounds as if there is a story there, and I am a big fan of stories.”

  “Well, then, you would have loved my father, because he could always spin a good one.”

  “Yes?”

  “After he married, my father started looking for a get-rich-quick scheme. That’s when he started brewing and shipping bootleg whiskey.”

  “What is bootleg?”

  “There was a thing in the United States called Prohibition. It was illegal to have or serve alcohol.”

  I had heard of this. The American prohibition had hurt France’s wine industry, because we lost a major export market. As a Frenchwoman, however, I could not understand it. “That is very strange. Why would the government do such a thing?”

  He laughed. “Your reaction is the one that logical people should have had. The government thought it would cure many social problems, but outlawing alcohol didn’t stop people from drinking. It just made them buy alcohol through illegal means.”

  “You mean the black market.” Here, now, was a concept I fully understood.

  “Yes. My father made a good amount of money at it. He needed it, because my mother had expensive tastes. She insisted on a large house, a piano, maids, and a nanny. But when Prohibition was repealed, his business crashed. And then the Depression was upon us, and money was tight.”

  “Oh, la.”

  “And my father . . . well, he had made very little provision for making an honest living. And then he died.”

  “That must have been very difficult for your family.”

  He nodded. “Extremely difficult. I worked and went to school and worried about money. I took over the books for my father’s business. My mother claimed she had no head for business; I think she was afraid of what she would find. And I wouldn’t have wanted her to have seen what was in those books.”

  “Why? What did you find?”

  “Father had spent money he didn’t have. We had very little. He’d mortgaged the farm. And there were other things . . .”

  “What things?”

  “Other women.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. After he died, I discovered we had virtually nothing left. And Father had not invested in fertilizer or new plows or any of the things we needed to run the farm efficiently.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I worked the farm and made the mortgage payments, and in the summer I worked as a laborer on other farms in exchange for being able to use their equipment. And then my mother remarried and moved to town. She wed the local banker, a man who was quite a bit older than she was. That’s why I was able to leave for college. I had a scholarship, so I didn’t need money for myself, but I couldn’t have left my sister, so . . .”

  “Doctor!” called an urgent voice.

  I turned and craned my head. The conductor was coming down the railcar aisle. “Is there a doctor on board?”

  Jack rose and stepped out into the aisle. “I’m a doctor. What’s the problem?”

  “A boy in car four is having a fit.”

  Jack grabbed his bag from under his seat. “I’ll follow you.” He rested his hand on my shoulder for a moment. “Excuse me.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  —

  He returned about an hour later. Elise was awake and playing with a rag doll.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes.” He sat down heavily. “It was a young man having an epileptic seizure.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “He is now, but the people seated around him were really unnerved.” He shook his head. “One woman insisted he was demon-possessed.”

  “Oh, la!”

  “The conductor wanted to put him off the train.”

  “Why? Is it likely to happen again?”

  “Not anytime soon. He took some medicine that will prevent it. I spent more time calming down the conductor and his seatmates than I did actually treating him. Fortunately, his destination is the next stop.”

  “What causes epilepsy?”

  “There are lots of theories, but sometimes we see it begin after brain trauma. We’ll have a lot more of that with the war veterans returning. But in about half the cases, it appears to be hereditary. There’s a lot of good research going on right now, and in the next few years, we should have better answers and better treatments.” He looked at me. “I’m surprised you know what it is.”

  “I’ve read about it.”

  “For a farm girl, you’re awfully well read.”

  “Well, I’m interested in a lot of topics. But speaking of well read—as a small-town doctor, you will have to know about all sorts of different diseases and disorders.”

  He nodded. “And one of the most important things to know is when I don’t know enough and when to refer a patient to a specialist.”

  The train started to slow. “Cleveland,” called the conductor. “Next station stop, Cleveland.”

  Jack rose again. “I’m going to go help my patient and his mother get off the train.”

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  “Well, he may be feeling a little weak. We’ll get some supper after this stop, okay?”

  “Yes.”

  I watched him go, thinking he was one of the kindest, most considerate men I’d ever known. His fiancée was one lucky girl, indeed.

  I also uncharitably wondered if she deserved him. Did she have any idea just how special he was?

  51

  KAT

  2016

  I know I said I would keep quiet, but I just can’t do it anymore. “Of course I knew he was special,” I huff.

  “Yes,” Amélie replies. “I see that now.”

  “You were falling in love with him.”

  She nods. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was. I didn’t want to be, but I couldn’t help it.”

  “Jack always had that effect on women. He was so good-looking.”

  “Yes, but his appeal was far more than his appearance. What was truly devastating was his kind heart.”

  “Kind!” I glower at her. “You think it was kind of him to practically jilt me at the altar?”

  “He felt terrible about that,” Amélie says. “If you knew him at all, you must realize how difficult that was for him.”

  It couldn’t have been more difficult than it was for me. I sniff. “So did you seduce him that night?”

  “Non.” Amélie crosses her legs. “We slept in the bunk beds. He was a perfect gentleman. He took the top bunk. He gave me privacy to undress and ready myself for bed. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. It was on the second train that everything changed.”

  Now we are getting somewhere. I lean forward.

  “Are you sure you want to hear this?” Amélie asks. “Perhaps it will be too painful.”

  “No, no, no! Don’t you dare stop now!”

  She dips her head in a graceful nod. “All right, I will continue. But you must be quiet and let me talk.”

  “I will.”

  “I realize this will not be easy for you to hear.”

  “Please. I want to know.”

  “Do you want to hear the things he said about you?”

  “Oh, yes. I especially want to know that.” Unless you are making it up to hurt me.

  “It might make you angry.”

  “I have been angry for years.”

  She lifts her brows and gives a little smile, as if I have said something amusing.

  “I will be
come angry only if I think you are lying to me or not telling me everything,” I say.

  “I have no reason to lie or withhold information—if you are sure you can bear to hear it.”

  “You cannot tell me anything that will make me hurt worse than I have already,” I say.

  “All right, then. Here goes.”

  52

  AMÉLIE

  1946

  We changed trains in Chicago the next morning. We handed our tickets to the conductor and he led us to a Pullman car, where the porter greeted us with a big smile and carried my bag through the doorway to a room immediately to the right. Jack carried Elise.

  I paused at the door. “This can’t be right.”

  The porter looked at the ticket. “Oh, yes, ma’am. This is your room. Says right here.”

  “But . . . it looks like there’s just one bed.”

  “That’s right. A double.”

  Or maybe a triple. The bed took up the entirety of the room. There was barely space to get in it or around it. There was certainly no space to put a cot, or even for a person to stretch out and sleep on the floor.

  The porter showed off the room as if it were his pride and joy. “An’ over here, you have a toilet an’ a wash sink behind that li’l wall. An’ that li’l space right here in front of it will work great as a spot for the baby to sleep in a suitcase.”

  Jack cleared his throat. “This room—it isn’t what I paid for. It’s much too fine.”

  “Sometimes the agent will upgrade a lucky client. The ’spensive rooms don’ always sell out.”

  An upgrade. This was what I had gotten for saying I was pregnant. I looked at Jack and knew he was thinking the same thing.

  Jack cleared his throat. “Well, um, is there any way we can change to just two bunks in a sleeping car?”

  “You don’ like this room?” His eyes grew wide and round.

  “Well, it’s very nice,” Jack said, “but it doesn’t seem right.”

  “It don’ cost you no more.”

  “Still, could we just have two bunks?”

  His forehead wrinkled like a prune. “Why you wanna change?”