A Splendid Gift (4 page)

With her cheek against the puppy’s tiny velvet ears, she looked up at him. “I’ve bought you a small present.” She placed the little dog beside his feet.

Clasped in her hand, she held a scrap of paper. Her tutor had translated exactly what Silvia wanted to say to him, so she could now pepper her sentences with a little French.

“What are you going to call him?” she asked, as she led him inside the apartment. The dog was now busy teething at his shoelaces.

“Hannibal,” he said, half joking. He knelt down to pet the dog, and his palm was so large it nearly enveloped the animal.

“I wanted you to have something from me that you could still love when we’re apart,” Silvia told him.

He put his satchel down and approached her.

She felt the dog licking at her ankle and tried to suppress an urge to giggle.

“Stephen?” he whispered in her ear. “Is he asleep?”

“My parents took him to the Catskills for the weekend.”

He understood enough to know the boy was away. She welcomed his hand traveling underneath her skirt.

That evening, the fans blew hot air around the apartment and they lay in bed with his papers spread across the coverlet. She would pick one up and slowly try to make out what she could of the text, and he’d watch her face to gauge her reaction.

With the story nearly complete, he could see how much it pleased her. When she had looked at the last illustration, he took it from her hands and placed it on the nightstand.

When he leaned over to kiss her, he saw her eyes were wet with tears.

She didn’t need to say anything. He understood that she had seen herself as the fox, forever captured in the book, even if she didn’t understand the exact meaning of the story’s every word.

“
Mon petit renard
,” he whispered into her ear. “My little fox.”

That morning, after she had slept tightly in his arms, she pulled herself out from his embrace and went to the nightstand to take another look at his pages. Then she quietly slipped out to the kitchen table to transcribe each word he had written.

She wrote out the French in careful, clear lines so Louise could translate exactly what he had said. But when the tutor eventually translated the words into English for her, Silvia realized she had wasted her money in paying Louise for this task. For she, like the fox, had already known their meaning.

***

He brought Hannibal home to Eaton’s Neck and began housetraining him at once. But the dog had a mind of its own and continued to gnaw on every pair of shoes he could find.

“Horrible Hannibal . . . he’ll be the tiger in the book,” he grumbled to Silvia over the telephone one night. When he heard her laughter on the other end, it always soothed him.

He amused her by telling her that he now had his own prim tutor, a local girl who was adamant she could succeed in teaching him English where all the others had failed.

By mid-October, with the book now completed, he found himself once again awash by the restlessness and depression that had plagued him before he became immersed in
The Little Prince
. As he felt when he first arrived in New York, the sense of powerlessness to help the French war effort overtook him.

He began to write angry tirades to the newspapers and to demand more meetings in Washington with government officials. Silvia began to feel that she was losing him, for he no longer seemed to be soothed by anything, not even her.

Even when he was beside her, he seemed far away. “Tell me again about the desert,” she’d say, hoping to coax him back into her arms. But he could think of little except the German occupation. And he worried about his friend Leon Worth, a Jew who he feared even in hiding couldn’t be kept safe from the Nazis.

She noticed even in his slumber that he never seemed to rest. He slept fitfully, sometimes crying out names she did not know in a language that was almost impossible to decode.

She knew that, though his body was in New York, he was already halfway across an ocean, his heart anchored to France.

Instead of speaking about his past travels, he began to speak of war planes and plans for a North African invasion, or of missions and alliances that would work toward a greater goal. He continued to phone everyone he knew who had military connections, hoping to find a way to pilot a plane again and help save his homeland.

***

By November, all the fireplaces in the Bevin House could still not keep out the cold. The wind penetrated the windows and the lawn became covered in dry autumn leaves. The
New York Times Magazine
published Saint-Exupéry’s “An Open Letter to Frenchmen Everywhere,” which was also broadcast on the radio in French. He had poured his heart into the letter, pleading with his countrymen not to be silent, but to determine how they might help free their country from the German occupation.

But his letter did not receive the reaction he had hoped. Instead, he had opened himself up to criticism and ridicule, with most believing he should stick to writing literature, even if they hated the Germans’ living on French soil as much as he.

Everything seemed to darken around him. Consuelo convinced him to leave the increasingly somber Bevin House and rent a town house on Beekman Place. Again, she had found a place that was far more extravagant than they needed. But given its location on the East River, it offered a spot of tranquility that was perhaps worth the high rent.

But he and his wife continued to battle, which only increased his despair. Even though he was concerned about money, she bought him an expensive Spanish writing desk for their new apartment, thinking it would make him happy. But all he wanted was a clean surface and ample paper for his writing.

He also made mistakes regarding Silvia, promising to see her when he was already committed to something else.

He wrote her letters in which he pleaded for forgiveness, which she had translated by her embarrassed tutor.

I understand fully why you’re upset with me. I understand completely. I am furious with myself. I am distressed over the missed trains, the forgotten appointments, the phone calls I’ve failed to return, the friends I have disappointed. I adore you, Silvia and I loathe to hurt you.

But unlike his letter to the
New York Times
, his letters to Silvia always garnered him sympathy. Whenever he did arrive at her apartment, no matter how long it had been since his last visit, she could never stay mad at him. It had become the pattern of their relationship. She opened her arms and brought him back to life.

***

The Little Prince
had already been submitted to his publisher, and she tried to encourage him to start another project. But whenever he sat down to write, what poured out was another “open letter” to the public in which he revealed his inner anguish and the need to fight Germany no matter the cost. A translated version appeared in the
New York Times
. Silvia knew that this was both his personal call to arms as well as a good-bye letter to America. And to her. He began to speak incessantly of the latest models of planes and cockpits, which he worried he was now too large to fit in. He was preparing to fly away.

As always, Silvia was correct. At Beekman Place, he informed Consuelo she’d be better off without him. He told her that he could no longer remain in the comfort and safety of America while those he loved back home suffered. As much as she screamed and protested, a strange calm overtook him. He was determined to get himself to North Africa where the Allies had since landed, and he would not stop until he was put on a mission.

Finally, in February, he learned there was an opportunity for him to fly again. By March he would leave New York. He had spent the past two months retreating from those he loved, but now he sought them out one last time in order to say good-bye. He called Silvia to tell her he was leaving soon, and the silence between them on the phone was not one of frostiness, but of supreme sadness and understanding. She knew that he was never going to come back to her.

He arrived at her apartment in the middle of the night, without any advance notice. When she answered the door in her robe, she saw him standing there in an ill-fitting outfit he had purchased from a shop in New York, which was the closest thing he could find that resembled a French air force uniform. The sleeves, which were far too long, hovered over his wrists, and the jacket was so tight the lapels floated forward like two wings.

She stood motionless. She struggled to memorize his image.

“Are you hungry?” she whispered, in a last effort to entice him to spend even a few more minutes with her.

He shook his head no.

In his hands, she saw he was holding his camera and a crumpled brown paper bag that was on the verge of breaking.

“I wish I had something splendid for you to remember me by. But this is all I have.”

He then placed the camera and the bag on her entrance table.

He would not touch her. Her skin, her smell, and the texture of her hair would make any good-bye impossible, so he masked himself in a soldier’s stoicism and refused them both a teary farewell.

She closed her eyes and let him turn and walk away. Only after she was sure that he had left the building did she open the bag.

When she did, she discovered he had left her his personal manuscript of
The Little Prince
.

***

Saint-Exupéry’s American publisher published the novella in English in May 1943, while he flew reconnaissance missions for the Allies. The pilot continued to write Silvia long and heartfelt letters, which she had translated. He provided her with evocative descriptions he knew she in particular would love. Of the quiet of the desert and of all the exotic animals he saw there. Of the night sky and the stars.

She replied that she worried about him, and that she hoped he was taking care of himself under the harsh conditions of war. She also informed him that she had met a man with whom she had almost achieved the same kind of connection she had shared with him. For not only was her new suitor passionate about ideas and art, he also adored Stephen and met all the qualifications her parents believed would make a suitable husband. She hoped her pilot would be happy for her, as Gottfried had already spoken of marriage and she planned to accept.

In what would prove to be his last letter to her, Saint-Exupéry responded that he was very happy she had found someone with whom she could share her life. He also indicated that he, too, had found a measure of peace, as in between his reconnaissance flights, he was playing his piano for his Free French compatriots throughout North Africa.

Two months later, Silvia awoke one morning to find the newspaper blaring the headline that Saint-Exupery’s plane had vanished off the coast of Marseille. For weeks thereafter, she and the rest of world held its breath, hoping he would be discovered alive somewhere. Everyone was desperate for the kind of real-life rescue that he could have written. But neither Saint-Exupéry’s plane nor his remains were ever found. From that moment on, Silvia felt a piece of her heart was forever suspended in the dark sky.

The Little Prince
would not be published in France until 1946, two years after the pilot’s death and a year after his deepest wish had been realized. His beloved France was finally free.

For nearly twenty-five years, Silvia kept among her most cherished possessions the copy of the manuscript that he bequeathed to her, often taking it out during the early morning when she had the apartment all to herself. His final gift to her, a constant reminder that love reaches immeasurable distances. It exists even as far away as the stars.

The author wishes to thank Stephen Gordon, Margy Hargraves, Laurie Kefaladis and Mark Reinhardt for their assistance with the research of this short story.

Alyson Richman’s latest novel
The Garden of Letters
contains several references to
The Little Prince
.

Turn the page for an excerpt from

THE GARDEN OF LETTERS

Available now from Berkley

Portofino, Italy

October 1943

Her rucksack contains her life reduced to small pieces. Though their physical weight is inconsequential, everything she carries feels heavy to her. She tries to pull her skirt underneath her, but the wind coming off the bay is relentless, and the cotton billows around her like a parachute.

She closes her eyes and tries to picture herself being lifted from the deck of the boat, floating above in the cool air and looking down as the vessel moves across the water. Genoa, Rapallo, and the western coast of Italy look like a knife’s edge against the water. From the boat, she can see the pale facades of the villas nestled into the cliffs and the century-old hotels that face the sea.

She has been traveling for days, but it feels like months. With a gray scarf covering her dark hair and her navy blue dress modest and unassuming, she could be any young Italian girl in her early twenties.

Her stomach is empty. She tries to forget her hunger by scanning her fellow passengers. The boat carries close to thirty people. Seven of them are German soldiers, along with a handful of grandmothers dressed in their widow black. The others are nameless men and women who all appear unremarkable to her.

Just as she hopes she appears to them.

Early on in the war, she learned how to lose herself: to appear plain, and not worth stopping in the street. She can’t remember the last time she wore a brightly colored dress or her favorite silk blouse, the one with the white flowers. Beauty, she has come to realize, is another weapon, better packed away and revealed only when absolutely needed.

She instinctively cups her hands on her stomach as the boat approaches the dock. She is surprised to find so many Germans there, as she had believed she was finally on her way to safety. She has spent weeks trying to avoid them, yet now here they are standing at the dock, waiting to check everyone’s papers.

She feels her entire stomach turn. She takes off her rucksack and instinctively clutches it to her chest.

She stands up, her legs feeling like they may give out from underneath her. She takes her palms to her cheeks and gently presses the skin, so that the pallor of fear is replaced with color.

Afraid the soldiers might search too deeply inside her rucksack, she withdraws her forged papers and holds them to her side. She walks slowly behind one of the widows whose crucifix is so large, she hopes it might cast off a bit of protection onto her as well—or at least temporarily distract the soldiers.

She walks carefully across the deck until she finally reaches the dock. High on the hill, the white houses look like teeth. She sees bougainvillea roping over terraces and hibiscus flowers opening up like parasols to the sun. She inhales the scent of jasmine, but she is weakening from fear with every step.

“Ausweis!”
The Germans are barking their orders and grabbing papers out of nervous hands.

Elodie is next in line. Her hand clasps her false papers. A few weeks before, she had destroyed the identity card that bore her real information. Elodie Bertolotti is now Anna Zorzetto.

Anna. Anna. She tries to concentrate on her new name. Her heart is pounding.

“Next! You!” One of the Germans grabs the papers in her hand, his fingers seizing them with such force that their fingers momentarily overlap. She shudders at his touch.

“Name!” the German snaps at her. His voice is so sharp, she finds herself momentarily freezing and incapable of uttering even the slightest sound.

“Name!”

Her mouth is now open, but she is like a muted instrument. She begins to stammer when, out of nowhere, a voice shoots through the air.

“Cousin! Cousin!” a large, barrel-chested man shouts to her from the crowd that had congregated at the dock.

“Cousin! Thank goodness you’ve come. I’ve been waiting for you for days!” The man pushes to the front of the crowd and embraces her.

“She’s with me,” he tells the German soldier.

“Well . . . take her then,” the soldier mutters as he reaches for the papers of the next person in line.

This man, whom Elodie has never seen before, squeezes her arm tightly and begins steering her through the crowd. He pushes people away so she can walk freely in his path.

He turns his head toward her and waves his hand in the direction of the hill. “This way,” he whispers. “I live above the port, deep into the cliff.”

She stands for a moment, frozen in her tracks. She can still hear the noises from the harbor: the Germans barking orders, the shouts as people try to locate each other, and the cries from tired children.

“I am not your cousin,” she finally says to him. “You must be mistaken.” She tries to speak slowly and clearly. She notices his speech is more proper than the dialect she heard on the dock. He speaks in an educated tongue. But still, Elodie wants her words to be received without confusion.

Her scarf has loosened, allowing her face to emerge from a sea of drab cloth. Like water receding to reveal a well-polished stone. Immediately, he is struck by the green of her eyes and the intensity of her gaze. He looks at her without speaking, then finally forms his words. “I know you’re not.”

“Then why? Why did you save me?”

She hears his breath, a whisper of air escaping from his chest.

“Every few months I come here and save one person.”

She looks at him, puzzled. “But why did you pick me?”

He studies her face, reaffirming what he already knows.

“Why? It’s simple. I choose the person who looks the most afraid.”