The Resistance Girl

by Jina Bacarr

  ‘Mon Dieu, how many titles do you have?’

  ‘My given name is John Lawrence Revell but I answer to the Earl of Aspenbrooke, Fifth Duke of Greychurch, and the Baron of Candemore.’

  ‘Oh, my, that’s all?’ I utter with more than a twinge of sarcasm and the raising of a blonde penciled brow. ‘What’s the royal world coming to?’

  ‘This, my darling.’ He pulls me into his arms, stroking the bare skin on my back with his fingers, leaving trails of fire that singe the soft ruffles fluttering on my shoulders. I don’t pull away though I should, begging for one more moment in his arms.

  ‘I’ve never met a woman like you, Sylvie. We have something beautiful between us. Let’s not ruin it.’

  I shake my head. ‘I wish I could say, “yes, we can make it work”, but I know how this story ends. I’ve played too many poor shop girls who fall in love with the handsome lord of the manor only to have their hearts broken by the end of the fourth reel.’ My nerves are stretched taut, my emotions ablaze with regret when I say, ‘I can’t see you again.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘I’ll always remember Monte Carlo… and the fireflies. Adieu.’

  I turn on my heel and walk briskly out of the hotel and back toward the casino. He calls after me, but he doesn’t follow me. Did I expect him to? I won’t go running back. I have my pride. I feel played.

  I’m an actress, he’s a duke.

  End of story.

  16

  Sylvie

  One for the road… maybe

  Monte Carlo

  1938

  ‘Brandy… make it a double.’

  I order a drink at the casino bar, then stare at it for I don’t know how long. I’ve been sober for a while and this is the first time a glimmer of temptation triggers me to take a drink. I ignore the curious look from the elderly gent sitting next to me nursing an empty pocketbook with a bottle of vodka, pressing in as close as he can to see if I’m who he thinks I am. I keep my head down. I don’t need him butting in. If I want a drink, I’ll have one. Funny, I never had the craving when I was with Jock before I found out he’s a duke, never went down that road.

  The road that leads to heartbreak. And it’s crushing my willpower.

  I put the brandy to my lips, then somehow put it down… I know it’s waiting there for me. The craving is so strong I want to gulp it down like a common drunk, be done with it and then hate myself. Then start all over again. Instead, I sniff the pungent smell of alcohol like it’s an elixir promising a soothing, wonderful, healing relief. A pretty story I tell myself to put a lovely spin on it so I can wash away the guilt.

  Something holds me back.

  Call it instinct or the tools I learnt at the sanitarium to deal with my addiction, or plain luck when a too-suave gent with the heavy smell of garlic and cigar smoke on his breath sits down next to me on the other side and starts chatting me up.

  Whatever the reason, I push away the brandy.

  I want that drink. Instead, I grab a vacant chair at the roulette wheel and plunk down my derriere on the red velvet cushion. I toss down five thousand francs, all the time berating myself. How could I let myself fall head over heels in love with a man who can never love me back?

  Me. The illegitimate child of a prostitute falling in love with a playboy duke.

  It only happens in moving pictures.

  Except this is no picture.

  This is real life. Mine. And there is no happy ending.

  I gather up the chips the croupier gives me in exchange for the cash and the wheel turns. That horrible clicking sound fills my ears and all I hear is, Do it… do it… get a drink… you know you want to.

  And I do. I don’t want to feel pain anymore, I want to fall down, down into that abyss of nothingness and float away in a dream.

  Just one sip and I’ll be okay…

  The heat inside me grows with every moment I sit at the gaming table, watching the spinning ball, my head twirling, my entire being craving a drink so bad it feels like someone stabbed my gut with a knife. I clench and unclench my fists. Anything can trigger a relapse. Anxiety. Devastating disappointment. Sorrow. I fought it before, but this is different. My heart isn’t just broken, it’s stamped with a big red X, reminding me what I am. I’ll never be good enough for Jock and I’d die rather than the gossips find out about me and hurt him. I can see the headline in the London scandal sheets. ‘Playboy Duke breaks the heart of French actress in Monte Carlo’. Then the reporters will go digging like they always do, and the studio will feed them my official bio, find out I’m three years older than Jock and they’ll use the ‘older woman’ angle. That’s bad enough – what if a royal watcher finds out the truth? I’m flattered Jock wants to be with me though he’s flaunting tradition, dating a commoner and an illegitimate one at that.

  I need a brandy, champagne cocktail, vodka. Anything to wash away the pain.

  I grab a handful of chips and squeeze them tight. Maybe if I stay at the table… maybe I can beat the craving… maybe.

  I toss down one chip after another… white, pink, not caring if I win or lose. A numbness spreading over me I haven’t felt since that night in Montmartre.

  I make a wager with myself, the same wager every alcoholic makes when they’re ready to relapse. If I win the spin of the wheel, I walk away; if I lose, I drink the brandy.

  What are the odds of me winning?

  Right… I want that drink.

  I linger a minute, then two, planning my move, thinking; the anticipation is almost as good as the high. I put all my chips on one number.

  Rien ne va plus… no more bets.

  The ivory ball spins round and round. I can’t stop watching it. I see my life spinning out of control. My hand shakes… my bottom lip trembles… and suddenly I see the face of Father Armand and his caring eyes bluer than a summer sky, his warm hand taking my cold fingers in his and helping me up the steps of Sacré-Coeur… then the stink of my sins making me gag when I enter the holy place… and afterward how it took months to wash away the smell of what I was.

  A disgusting drunk. And an addict.

  Is that you want again? The vomit stuck in your throat? The shakes… the smell of urine coming off your silk dress because you’re too drunk to go to the loo?

  No, I don’t.

  Then think of Jock. The man loves you. Even if you let him go, you don’t have to let go of your pride. Never forget, you’re a star and if you take that drink, you’re letting down that sixteen-year-old who had the guts to take the ridicule and insults to get where you are.

  Are you such a coward, you can’t take this now?

  A long shudder goes through me, like I’m waking up from a bad dream. Instead of that horrible clicking, I hear the sound of rushing water in my ears… a cleansing.

  I can’t relapse. I can’t. I’ve worked too hard, too long to find my sobriety.

  I get up from the table and don’t look back. I hear the croupier announce the winning number. I’m not listening. Not this time. It doesn’t matter to me where the ivory ball lands.

  I’ve already won.

  ‘I’m not letting you go like this, Sylvie. I must see you again.’

  I should be surprised when Jock waylays me at the hotel. I’m not. I look at him with longing, but I can’t linger. The express train leaves tonight from Menton station less than ten kilometers from the hotel. My reservation is for tomorrow, but I can’t wait. Can’t keep my passion for this man under control if I stay. I’ll take any seat available. First class, second… third, whatever.

  ‘I’m leaving Monte Carlo, Jock. Or should I say, Your Grace. I’m taking the Blue Train back to Paris.’

  ‘Then I’ll come with you.’

  ‘You can’t, my manager Emil won’t understand.’

  ‘You don’t understand, Sylvie.’ Jock rakes his hand through his dark hair, frustrated. His suave charm has been forsaken and replaced by a raw hunger in his voice that torments me so when he says, ‘I�
��m in love with you.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re saying, Jock. If you were John Lawrence Revell, British millionaire, we might have a chance. But where I come from, dipping your toe into the royal pond can stir up a whole can of worms that can’t be put back. I don’t fit into your world. Believe me, it’s better this way, no one gets hurt.’

  ‘I can’t change who I am, Sylvie, neither can you. That doesn’t mean we can’t be together.’

  ‘Don’t you see, Jock, this is all a dream. I’m under contract. I have film commitments.’

  ‘And I have lands to run, family business to oversee, financial dealings to fulfill, political obligations. It doesn’t stop me from loving you. We’re in this together, to support each other, love each other. With the shape the world is in right now, God knows how long before Hitler plants his boot into the rest of the Europe.’

  My eyes widen. ‘You don’t believe that.’

  ‘I do.’ He holds my gaze as he slowly and with great care runs his fingertips over my cheek, then settles in the dimple on my left cheek. ‘You’d be surprised what you hear at the baccarat table. I’ve been privy to certain conversations with British dignities and the consensus is not good. The Foreign Office is convinced over the next several months, Hitler won’t stop with enslaving the German people with his politics. He won’t be happy until he has all of Europe under the Nazi flag.’

  ‘He’d never try that in France.’

  His deathly silence worries me.

  The Germans in Paris?

  Impossible.

  ‘I’m coming to Paris next month, Sylvie. Please, I want to see you. Besides, Winnie says you’re good for me, how she hasn’t seen me smiling so much since I met you.’

  I nod. ‘She’s a charming young girl, full of promise.’

  ‘Don’t I know it, and she admires you, Sylvie. I’ll bring her with me. She can be our chaperone. After all, mon bel ange, I never would have met you if it weren’t for Winnie.’

  Then before I can pull away, he kisses me and crushes me against his chest, the faux diamond pin on my red gabardine suit digging into my chest. My lucky charm because it led me to him. Everything I told him is true. I’d be giving the gossips the keys to a scandal that could ruin us both, but the way he looks at me, holds me, I can’t let him go. Jock has made up his mind and so have I. We have to be discreet, carry on like secret lovers meeting in out-of-the-way hotels or rented villas. I’ll never let go of our secret… or the faux diamond pin… or Jock. Every excuse I have melts under his kiss. I should stop him, but I can’t.

  How can I turn down a duke?

  I hold on to him tight and his promise our love will survive.

  Even as the tensions in Europe escalate and the world prepares for war.

  17

  Juliana

  A picture is worth a thousand heartbreaks

  Ville Canfort-Terre, France

  Present Day

  I can’t resist peeking at the last page of Sylvie’s diary from 1939 and it’s a doozy.

  A cliffhanger. Like one of her Ninette serials.

  I sip my warm tea; I’m getting used to its sweet taste. After reading this, I need something with a kick as I try to focus on the handwritten pages. I never imagined my grandmother was so passionate.

  And an alcoholic. The pain she suffered tears me apart, reliving what I went through with my mother all over again albeit in a different way. Alcoholism is a disease. And watching Sylvie nearly relapse brings back so many memories as I watched my mother’s dementia steal her life away. I try to hold back my anguish, but the tears running down my cheeks end up in my tea, salt mixing with its sweet taste. Like Sylvie’s fantastic life. It makes me sad, yet I’m so proud of her. It’s a lot to take in and even more so when I’m struggling to find out what made her turn against France. From what I read in her own words, it doesn’t sound like her.

  Then why did she do it?

  I sit back in the sixteenth-century walnut chair and finish my tea, thinking.

  I cry over the heartache Sylvie went through with Jock, laugh at their meeting in the casino, sigh over their romance, and then totally freak out when Sylvie breaks up with him.

  Such different times they were, how people had such disdain for children born out of love without marriage. How my own horizon changed when I found out I was the child of an unwed mother, though I never faulted Maman for her choice. It’s different in the twenty-first century (then why am I so hung up on my roots?). It’s not something I’d discuss with Sister Rose-Celine. I wonder if she’d understand. She’s such a darling, sitting with me for hours and listening to me lamenting over French idioms I haven’t used for years and struggling with interpreting Sylvie’s looped and flowery handwriting. I’m disappointed the sister isn’t here now. She left to take a well-deserved nap (I hate seeing her falling asleep in her wheelchair in what has to be an uncomfortable position). I often forget she’s in her eighties, she’s so dedicated to our cause to find out everything about Sylvie.

  I can’t wait to tell her what happens when Sylvie meets this dashing duke.

  ‘I thought you said Sylvie and the duke broke up, and now they’re hanging out in Paris together?’

  I try to explain to Sister Rose-Celine their on-again, off-again, on-again relationship as we switch between English and French.

  ‘It was a crazy time with the world on the brink of war,’ I tell her, ‘but upper class Parisians didn’t want to believe their city was in danger from invasion by the German Army. Champagne flowed and pretty women in haute couture ruled the day.’

  It’s like a romantic soap opera. According to the diary, they continue to see each other through the late summer of 1939 and throw caution – and propriety – to the wind and fall in love. What I find odd is Sylvie never mentions the duke by his given name. Only as ‘Jock’, a nickname, as if keeping her word not to reveal anything about their love affair.

  Which presents an interesting dilemma.

  Without a name or where he lived, it’s nearly impossible to find him.

  I could do a search on the Internet on every duke from the era and try to figure out who he was, but I’m running out of time. I’m hoping Sylvie names him somewhere, in a second diary perhaps… and gives us clues where to find it. I can’t believe she didn’t continue the story. In the meantime, I send a text to Ridge filling him in and while I’m waiting to hear from him, Sister Rose-Celine and I devour the rest of the diary.

  ‘And it wasn’t just Paris, Sister,’ I tell her, grabbing a handful of chocolate nonpareils. ‘All over Europe, the society crowd wasn’t paying attention to what was happening in Germany and the rise of the Nazi Party.’ With Sister Rose-Celine’s charming pleading, the nun heading up the kitchen is only too happy to give me a never-ending bowl of chocolate candy. ‘Sylvie talks about their exciting adventures from summer 1938 to early autumn 1939. Yachting off the coast of Ireland, dining in London at the Savoy, touring the flamenco bars of Madrid, and then…’ I pause for emphasis. ‘Hiding out at the Hôtel Ritz in Paris to escape the watchful eye of the press.’

  ‘Ooh la la,’ Sister Rose-Celine says with a chuckle. ‘This is getting juicy.’

  ‘Sister!’ I admonish her.

  ‘I’m not so old-fashioned I don’t watch movies on my phone, mademoiselle,’ she says wryly. ‘Tell me what happens next.’

  She makes me smile with her adorable sense of humor.

  ‘If you won’t be offended, Sister, but I have to warn you, it’s not always roses and lollipops for Sylvie and her duke.’

  She loves my American expressions.

  ‘I won’t be.’

  ‘Bien. Then I’ll tell you Sylvie writes about the wonderful, romantic nights they spend with each other both at the hotel and her apartment in the Trocadéro, then meeting secretly in her old place in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.’ I explain how Sylvie is fond of her old neighborhood and keeps the place as her hideaway even after she’s famous.

  The sister wrinkles
her nose, sniffing. ‘I wonder if the duke was your grandfather.’

  I shake my head. ‘My mother wasn’t born until 1944.’ I sigh heavily. ‘I don’t think we’ll ever know…’

  I won’t even whisper the creepy thought in my brain, that he could have been a Nazi SS officer.

  I can’t go there.

  I continue. ‘Sylvie writes they both know nothing can come of their affair, how her duke commands the role of wealthy landowner, dutiful son to a mother he adores, protector of his society-wild, little sister, and how he took his place in Parliament as Hereditary Peer after his late father’s death.’

  A major clue to his identity. I bet Ridge can help me, but I’m not ready yet. I want to do this on my own.

  ‘What else does she say?’

  ‘She’s at the height of her career,’ I read, munching on chocolate while Sister Rose-Celine grabs a handful, too. ‘I’m no fool, Sylvie writes. If I want to stay on top, I have to build security for myself. I have no one. Except her duke, she adds, though she fears he may be lost to her if there’s pressure to end their affair. We write secret letters to each other and meet in Marly-le-Roi, eighteen kilometers outside Paris in an old hunting lodge turned hostellerie. Sylvie fears their affair is doomed as storm clouds gather over Europe. It’s 1939… and her lover is tapped for a position in the Foreign Office with the rumblings of war echoing loud and clear.’

  I stop eating, chocolate halfway to my mouth. ‘I can’t believe it, Sister. Her duke returns to England, weeks go by before she hears from him. And then…’

  ‘What does she say, mademoiselle? Please.’

  ‘She says the news is devastating. Something about the duke doing his duty to God and country… and his family, and it’s over between them. She doesn’t explain more than that.’ I look up at the nun, feeling lost. ‘That’s the last page in the diary, Sister. It’s dated 5 September 1939 and I have no idea what happened to Sylvie and her whirlwind romance with her duke.’