Jean took a long drag. “Oh, please. Don’t dredge that up,” she said before excusing herself for the powder room, motioning for Vera to follow her. When they rose from the table, a waiter appeared, deftly cleaning off the tablecloth with a thin silver instrument, banishing the remaining bread crumbs with a flourish before blending back into the blush-colored walls.
* * *
• • •
Vera and Jean reapplied lipstick in front of gilded mirrors. A young black woman in an English maid outfit sat in the corner with a silver tray placed on the side table, for tips. Jean rapidly brushed her hair with a miniature brush, moving it in quick circular motions. She shook her head, testing out her work. Then she turned to the side and smoothed down the front of her dress, staring at herself in the mirror. “Can you tell yet?”
Vera lit a cigarette and stared back at Jean in the mirror. “What do you mean?”
She smiled. “I’m pregnant.”
Vera took Jean’s gloved hand. “That’s wonderful news.”
“I’m only four months along.” Jean turned away from the mirror and leaned against the black marble countertop. “Charlie’s coming around to the idea.” She sighed, snapping her clutch closed. “Hopefully, he’ll start behaving now.” Jean bestowed her a bright quick smile, chasing away doubt. It was an enchanting trick, and one that Vera had never been able to perform. A thick wave of longing washed over her for those sequestered months, the baby untouchable and protected, floating within the chamber of her body.
They pushed through the swinging door, dropping some spare change into the silver tray first. At the end of the carpeted hallway, Sasha waited, his eyes searching for hers in the dim lighting, and she remembered when she’d seen him standing in a similar way, in a similar place, on New Year’s Eve.
* * *
• • •
In the car, Sasha lit a cigarette and suggested a drive down the coast. He kissed her on the neck and whispered into her hair, “I’m sorry about tonight. That we had to sit there with those two when all I wanted was to be alone with you. I miss you already.”
“Me too,” she said.
A gentle wind blew through the trees, the velvety May night sifting through her hair, licking her bare shoulders. She put her palm on the back of his neck, already wistful for the small glimpses of a life they might have had.
He accelerated through a yellow light, the night air potent with urgency, with the sense of having so little time left. The passing streetlamps cast a bracing white light over his face before it darkened again. He drove down the incline to Roosevelt Highway, mired in fog. She didn’t ask where they were headed. Maybe he would take her back to Las Flores Inn, where they had spent their first night together, or maybe he would keep driving up the coast. His jaw periodically tensed as they stared at the long stretch of black highway ahead of them.
* * *
• • •
He put on his signal and pulled into an empty parking lot overlooking Will Rogers State Beach. The lifeguard tower stood empty in the stark moonlight. Sasha got out of the car and went around to the trunk, pulling out a blanket and picnic basket, motioning for her to follow. She closed the passenger door and stood against it, surveying the windswept coastline, and then she gathered up her thin crepe evening gown and stumbled down the bluff, her bare feet plunging into the cold sand.
They built a bonfire and shared a bottle of red wine. They were the only ones on the beach, and Vera felt the weight of her departure accumulating, like stones gathering in the pit of her stomach. Together they stared out at the ocean, passing a cigarette between them.
She ventured, “It’s a wonderful film, Clementine. You should be proud.”
He shrugged, his forearms tightly wrapped around his pulled-up knees. “I asked my mom to come out for the premiere, it was something we always used to talk about, but she’s too busy.”
“Too busy?”
“With these women’s clubs, I guess. A club for one-world government. A club for the peaceful use of the atom. Thursday morning poetry lectures.” Chin on his knees, he kept watching the dark moving ocean. “And she’s supposed to rest.”
“Is she unwell?”
Sasha sighed. “She says it’s just indigestion, but Dubrow is worried.”
They waited for the silvery glimmer of grunions to appear along the shore, and with every crashing wave, a light show of mating fish flashed before them.
He seemed nervous, gazing out at the sea, and took a long sip of wine before steadying the bottle in the sand. “I’ve been thinking . . . about coming with you to Paris. To help you find Lucie.”
“Oh, Sasha,” Vera said, her stomach dropping with the thought of how much he would be giving up. She started to explain, but he interrupted.
“I want to go. And we have time to search for her, if I come with you now, before I need to be back for filming.”
“Sasha, you can’t abandon your movie. I won’t let you. I know how much you’ve wanted this, and to now just—” She broke off and their eyes met, his disappointment palpable. He listed all the ways in which he could help, and that she shouldn’t bear it alone, no one should, but she flung her arms around him.
Holding him tight, she whispered, “I have to do this on my own. I’ve always known it. It’s my own bright torture. It can’t belong to anyone else.”
He looked into her eyes for a long moment. “Okay,” he said softly.
The embers from the bonfire smoldered. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close again, both of them watching the waves cresting and breaking. She felt his heart beating against her back. The fire had burned down. The fish wildly flipped in the surf with the high tide rolling in, and crystalline stars dotted the sky, vibrating with so much life, vibrating with the past and the future.
Chapter 36
LUCIE
May 8, 1945, V-E Day, St. Denis Convent, Southwestern France
Morning light, the color of syrup, poured into the dormitory. Suddenly, the church bells began ringing, a great breaking wave of joy cutting through the stillness.
Lucie sat up in her cot, gripping her knees to her chest, and waited for Camille to wake, tracking the steady rise and fall of her breath, her lank hair fanned out on the pillow, the dusting of copper freckles on her nose. Her eyes flickered open and she fisted the sheet for a moment before jumping up and flinging her arms around Lucie.
“It’s over, Lucie! It’s over. The war is over,” she said breathlessly. The other girls stirred, sitting up in their cots, bleary-eyed, wondering about all the fuss, but then, as quickly as a match sparks a flame, they were clamoring for their smocks and dresses, for their stockings and ribbons, their voices rising into a crescendo of exaltation and worry, of speculation and wonder.
The heavy wooden door swung open and Sister Ismerie stood there beaming before bellowing out: “Charles de Gaulle announced on the wireless that the war has been won! The Germans have surrendered! Girls, get dressed. We will meet in the dining hall at half past eight.”
Lucie dressed, watching Camille and the others, happiness radiating off of them as bright as the sun. It was hard to look too closely, knowing she would never experience this feeling in the same unbridled, careless way. Her mind raced with the terrible questions that had haunted her for years, and today, she feared, would be the revelation of her fate. Images from the tapestry hanging in Sister Ismerie’s office rushed before her eyes: Jesus encircled by flames, furious angels descending, St. John supplicating beneath a roiling sky, decrying the apocalypse. Where were her parents? Would they come for her now? Was it too late? And Agnes . . . what had happened to her? She never forgot the expression on Camille’s mother’s face when she heard Lucie had come from Oradour-sur-Glane, as if it were a cursed place.
She tried to pull on her tights, her hands shaking: the punishment for her sins would be the revelation that her parents would n
ever return. Breaking into a sweat, she chastised herself for speaking out of turn in class, for not listening, for having dirty nails, for the bad things she and Camille often whispered about the nuns, huddled under the covers at night, giggling over the gray wiry whiskers that sprouted from Sister Margot’s chin, and Sister Ismerie with all that garlic stuck up her nose, to fight the grippe, she said, but no one believed her—it was the devil she feared.
Bending down, she fastened the buckle on her shoe, sliding the thin leather strap through the metal clasp, when suddenly, Camille threw her arms tightly around Lucie’s waist, lifting her up a few inches from the ground, spinning them both around the room. Lucie went rigid, overwhelmed by the spinning, the noise, but then her chest loosened with warmth as Camille’s voice rang out, “Don’t be afraid! I’ll never let go!”
* * *
• • •
A few hours later, carloads of families began arriving at the convent to celebrate, honking in a cloud of dust. Some even waved the French flag out of their car windows, the blue, white, and red rippling in the wind. Brothers and sisters tumbled out of the cars, while parents nervously stood in the courtyard, waiting for their daughters to emerge from the convent.
Lucie stood watch from the dormitory window, praying that one of these cars might be the big black one her father used to drive, and then her mother would open the car door and peer around expectantly. Lucie barely remembered her face, but she would recognize her—of course she would. She held her breath, hope pounding through her, while a sense of desertion crept over her chest, like an insidious, thick moss.
All the girls were outside now, hugging their siblings in the bright sunlight, the parents laughing and chatting with the Sisters. Someone had brought a basket of ripe plums, and Lucie noticed the bright red juice running down their wrists as they feasted on the fruit, swatting away an occasional bee. And then a little white dog leapt out of the window of a parked car, racing around the crowd in happy circles, the circle growing larger and larger with each lap. The children laughed at the misbehaving dog, and the parents applauded when a father opened a champagne bottle, the cork popping out, sailing over the dog. The church bells continued to ring.
At the edge of the crowd, Camille stood between her parents, hugging them close. They were tall and fair, and Lucie thought they appeared as virtuous and benevolent as the good kings and queens from fairy tales, but they would spirit Camille away, back to their enchanted land, and Lucie would be left here, alone. Hugging herself, she watched the empty road.
Chapter 37
VERA
June 1945, En Route to Paris, France
On the voyage over, Vera kept having the same dream. Lucie jumped into a swimming pool and sank to the bottom. Vera dove in after her, but when she reached the bottom of the murky blue basin, she couldn’t find her. Then she looked up and saw Lucie floating on the surface, the distorted sunlight filtering through the water, backlighting her body, a blurry silhouette. Vera propelled herself upward, trying to swim as fast as possible, but she could barely move, the water resistant and viscous. She woke up still struggling to break the water’s surface, to save Lucie, but she had a cruel certainty it was too late. Sitting up and switching on the light, she reached for the nightstand, to touch the envelope that contained Gussie’s address and the red ribbon.
She thought back to her last morning with Sasha, the sky promising rain. He’d driven her to Union Station, and during the car ride, the pit in her stomach grew heavier and heavier, the air between them dense with sadness. Through the window, even the palm trees looked sober against the gunmetal sky, no longer their frivolous selves. At the station, she would catch the train to New York, a journey of over three days. From there, she’d reserved a berth on one of the first ships traveling to France. Most of the passengers were war brides, sailing back to reunite with their husbands, who had remained in the army, stationed across Europe, and during her first few days on board the other women assumed that she too had a sweetheart awaiting her, which made the separation from Sasha even more bittersweet. She still felt his strong embrace in the drafty station, the way he insisted on waiting with her until the very last call to board, their hands tightly intertwined. He said to expect letters, and she promised to write, and he looked at her with the hope that this was only farewell, not goodbye, never goodbye.
* * *
• • •
Smoking on the deck of the ship, Vera strained to see the coast of France through the misty horizon, but another day still remained before they would dock at Marseilles. Various pieces of information cycled through her mind as she prepared herself for what, if anything, she might uncover. When they had first learned about the massacre last summer, the extent of it was unclear, but she had been methodically amassing information, discovering six people had escaped the massacre, none of them children, and one woman survived by throwing herself out the back window of the church. These details trickled out of news reports from France, and from Katja, who sent news. Her husband, Robert, a member of the Resistance, had returned home from prison last month. She wrote that he weighed only eighty pounds.
Stubbing out her cigarette on the railing, she realized that she didn’t miss Max, even though she had once envisioned that he would be here with her, on their way back.
A few days before her departure, she returned to their house to retrieve some clothes for the trip. Not expecting Max home, she used her old key, letting herself in, only to find Hilde in the kitchen preparing coffee, the counters immaculate and gleaming. She had been singing a popular song, her heavy Dutch accent bending the English lyrics into a faintly recognizable version of Sinatra’s “Head on My Pillow.” When she saw Vera, she emitted a surprised yelp, and then glanced down at her stocking feet, as if Vera had caught her exposed.
“I’m sorry, Hilde. I should have rung the bell. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Regaining her composure, Hilde said, “Mr. Volosenkova is in the garden.” She arranged the chrome coffeepot onto a tray with some biscuits and napkins.
“I only came to retrieve a few things. There’s no need to disturb him.”
“Oh.” She tried to assume a neutral expression, but Vera could tell that she was affronted. Hilde had always favored Max, showering him with great sympathy after Vera left. Even beforehand, she did little favors for him, such as ironing his cravats and organizing his desk, whereas she often left Vera’s skirts unpressed, and ignored tiny stains on Vera’s blouse cuffs, which Vera would discover later when she was already out and it was too late to change.
She thrust the tray toward Vera. “I was just about to take this out to him.” Softening, she added, “He will be so happy to see you.”
* * *
• • •
Vera found him sitting in one of the wicker garden chairs that she had always intended to throw away. He was leafing through images of paintings by Churchill, bucolic scenes of Cannes and Antibes, printed in Life magazine.
She carefully lowered the tray onto the coffee table, overhearing Max’s muffled laughter from behind the pages. She sat down across from him, adjusting her blouse, and felt the sun pierce through the clouds. The morning had been rainy and soft when Sasha left for work.
He cast aside the magazine. “I wasn’t expecting you.” His unshaven face, and the coolness in his voice, unsettled her. He smiled thinly, smoking a cigarette brand she didn’t recognize, and despite how fastidious Hilde was about his clothing, she detected a small rounded stain on his white collar, which was slightly frayed at the edges. His remoteness made something inside her lurch forward in an attempt to retrieve their old dynamic.
She commented that he looked thinner, and he scanned her face; she tugged off her gloves. “I didn’t mean to barge in like this. Hilde was quite surprised.”
“You can come home whenever you like.”
“I didn’t think you would be here, on a Thursday.”
; He explained that he’d been working around the clock on the musical Good News and had taken the day off. “They want the score to sound lush and melodious, like Brahms but not as difficult. Fluid and digestible.” He paused, allowing the irony to settle over his comment. “Turns out I’m quite good at that.”
She nodded, and a warm familiarity flickered between them, reminding her of all the times they had discussed his discontent with the studio, and how she’d consoled him. Sitting before her now, he appeared satisfied with the work, describing the high demand for this type of music in cool objective terms.
Squinting into the sun, he added, “I hear you’re running around with an American director.”
She studied the overgrown grass, and the thought of Max and Sasha meeting each other made her cringe, while at the same time another part of her wondered what it would be like. She already knew what Max would say: Sasha came off as brash, too American, a roguish filmmaker with a New York accent, from a poor family, from some shtetl—what could they possibly have in common?
Everything and nothing, Vera thought.
Max leaned forward. “And he’s a war hero?”
“Yes,” Vera said, noticing that the whites of his eyes looked milkier. “But I’m leaving for Paris tomorrow.”
“Is he accompanying you?”
“No.”
The scent of Hilde’s spiced honey cake wafted through the open kitchen window, and the sound of a faucet running and then turning off sounded oddly reassuring, as though the ordinary hum of domesticity could muffle all this unpleasantness. The screen door banged shut as Hilde emerged from the house carrying out the honey cake. Vera’s mouth watered. She had forgotten to eat this morning, having drunk too much coffee, and now her legs felt unsteady.
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