Crossings (52 page)

Most of the big hotels had been taken over by the German High Command. General von Stutnitz, the Military Commander of Gross-Paris, was at the Crillon, Von Speidel and the others at the Majestic. The
Verwaltungsstab
were conveniently located near Armand's home in the Palais-Bourbon, and Oberkriegsverwaltungsrat Kruger, in charge of the city's budget, was at the Hotel de Ville. And General von Briesen, commander of the city of Paris itself, was at the Hotel Meurice, although eventually General Schaumburg took his place, and remained at the Meurice because he found it so enchanting.

And throughout the city posters in French issued terrifying warnings regarding information passed, acts of sabotage, violence, strikes, incitement to riot, or even the hoarding of articles for daily use, which were all punishable “with the utmost severity,” by a War Tribunal. And inevitably there were frequent violations, mostly by members of the Resistance, who, the Germans immediately informed the public, were “communist students” and who were shot publicly to teach everyone a lesson. Public executions in Paris were all most commonplace by 1942, and the atmosphere in the city was subdued and depressing. Only in the hidden Resistance meetings around Occupied France was the atmosphere one of excitement and tension. But everywhere else the cities and the towns and the countrysides seemed blanketed in silent oppression. And not only were the Germans out to get them, but the elements appeared to be too. All that winter, people had been dying like flies from the cold and the shortages of food. As Armand looked around him he saw a dying nation. And the Germans had long ceased pretending that the “unoccupied South” would go untouched. They had moved in there too, and now all of France was swallowed up. “But not for long,” De Gaulle still promised on his broadcasts from the BBC in London. And the most amazing man of all was a man called Moulin, who was almost single-handedly responsible for spurring on the Resistance. Without anyone understanding how he managed, he made constant trips to London to the organization of Resistance fighters waiting there and then would manage to infiltrate back into France again, to give everyone hope and new spirit.

Armand had only dared to meet with him once or twice. For him it was much too risky, and most of the time he dealt with him indirectly, particularly after the famous Edict of July 15 of the year before, when the Germans cracked down on art treasures all over France, demanding that any item valued at more than one hundred thousand francs be reported at once by their custodians or owners. It was these records that Armand was so busy destroying and misplacing in the winter of 1941 and the early months of 1942, and he knew that single-handedly he was already responsible for salvaging millions of dollars worth of treasures for France, in spite of the Germans. But more important than that, he was attempting to save lives, and that was becoming more and more dangerous for him. And for the last few weeks he had been sick from the desolate cold that attacked Paris. But he said nothing of it in the letter that Liane received the day after she got back from Carmel. All she could glean from it was that his work was going well. Yet she heard something else in his letter. Something she had never heard before. A kind of despair that almost reached desperation. She sensed through the things he didn't say that France was not faring well at the hands of the Germans, worse than anyone knew. And she stood at the window for a long time, looking out at the Golden Gate Bridge, after she had read the letter.

“Liane? Is something wrong?” Her uncle had not yet left for work, and he had been watching her from the doorway. Her whole body seemed to sag and her head was down, and when she turned toward him, he saw that she was crying. But she shook her head and smiled through her tears.

“No. Nothing new. I had a letter from Armand.” It had been smuggled out by Moulin during his most recent trip to London, but she couldn't tell her uncle that. Even he couldn't know about Armand's ties to the Resistance. Armand had told her to tell no one. And she hadn't, except Nick. But she trusted him completely.

“Did something happen?”

“I don't know. He just sounds so sad … it's all so depressing.”

“War isn't a nice thing.” The words were trite but true.

“He almost sounds ill.” She knew her husband well. And her uncle refrained from saying he didn't wonder a traitor would be ill at the destruction of his country.

“He'll be all right. He's probably just lonely for you and the girls.” She nodded, suddenly feeling the first spear of guilt slice through her.

“I suppose he is.”

“How was your seminar in Carmel?”

Her eyes lit up in spite of herself. “It was lovely.”

He asked her no further questions and they both left for work. She told Nick about the letter from Armand that afternoon when he picked her up at the Red Cross office. But he could only think of one thing, and his eyes searched hers in sudden panic. “Have you changed your mind about us?”

She looked at him for a long time and then shook her head. “No, I haven't. It's as though I have two separate lives now. My old one with Armand, and now this with you.” He nodded, relieved, and she sighed. “But I feel terrible for him.”

“Does he seem to be in any particular danger?”

“Not more than usual, I think. I didn't get any sense of that in his letter. Just a sense of terrible depression, mostly for France.” She looked up at Nick. “I think he cares about that more than he cares about himself, or about us. His country means everything to him.”

Nick spoke softly. “I admire him.” And then he took her home, and joined the family for dinner. After dinner, he played dominoes with Liane and Uncle George, and then he went back to his hotel, and she found herself wondering when they would be together again, as they had been in Carmel. Women were not allowed in his hotel, and she wouldn't have wanted to go there anyway. But the next weekend, he solved the problem for them by suggesting that they reserve a room at the Fairmont. There was one problem that they didn't have, and others did. Neither of them was short of funds. But they had enough other problems. She, worrying about Armand in France, and he worrying about Johnny.

She listened that weekend, when he called his son, and she watched him with her girls, and she knew how much he missed the boy. He had a wonderful ease with children. And after they took the girls home, they went to dinner, and then back to the room they had rented at the Fairmont. The girls had been invited to spend the night with a friend, and she had told Uncle George another story he hadn't questioned.

“Do you think he suspects about us, Nick?” She smiled up at him as they lay on the bed in their room and drank champagne and ate peanuts. This time they didn't go to the Venetian Room. They wanted to be alone. Nick looked amused at her question.

“Probably. He's no fool. And he's probably done plenty of this in his day.” She knew that herself, but she wondered.

“He hasn't said a thing.”

“He knows you too well for that.”

“Do you think he minds?”

“Do you?” Nick smiled gently and she shook her head.

“No, he wishes I'd divorce Armand and marry you, I suspect. “

“So do I—I mean I suspect the same thing.” He was quick to clarify when he saw the look in her eyes. She was desperately afraid that she was being unfair to Nick. She was a married woman, after all, and could offer him no part in her future. “Anyway, don't worry about it. As long as the vice squad doesn't show up, or the press, we'll be fine.” She laughed at the idea. They were registered in the hotel as Major and Mrs. Nicholas Burnham.

They drifted on like that for quite a while with dinners and long walks in the afternoon, and stolen weekends at the Fairmont. They managed another quick hop to Carmel after a few weeks, but in February things began to get tense for Nick. Singapore fell to the Japanese, and Japanese land forces had taken Java, Borneo, the Dutch East Indies, and several islands in the South Pacific. The Japanese were so pleased with themselves that General Nagumo had retired north to Japan. And Nick expected to be shipped out at any moment. He somehow assumed every week he would hear, but still he didn't. U.S. aircraft carriers were making hit-and-run raids on the Gilbert and Marshall islands south of Japan, battering successfully at Japanese positions, but the main strongholds could not be won from the Japanese.

One day in March he looked at her in dismay, and after his second Scotch, he astounded her by slamming a fist onto the table. He had been nervous for weeks, waiting to be shipped out.

“Goddamn it, Liane, I should be over there too. Why the hell am I sitting on my ass in San Francisco?” Her feelings weren't hurt by his outburst, she understood and spoke to him in a soothing tone, but it didn't seem to help.

“Wait, Nick. They're biding their time.”

“And I'm spending the war sitting around in hotel rooms.” His look was one of pure accusation, and this time he got to her.

“That is your choice, Nick, it is not an obligation.”

“I know … I know … I'm sorry … I'm just sitting here going goddamm nuts. I enlisted three months ago, for chrissake, and Johnny is in New York with Hillary, tugging at me by saying he misses me. I made him a big speech about going to war, and now all I do is sit here, having one long party.” The anxiety in his voice touched her and she tried to calm him down. She had her own guilts about Armand, and there were times when she questioned herself too. But she couldn't leave Nick now, and she didn't want to. They were going to stay together until he left, and then they both knew that it would be over.

She snapped at him now and then, particularly once after she'd gotten a letter from Armand. He mentioned that he was having attacks of rheumatism in his legs from the cold, and the same day, Nick had complained to her that they had danced so much the night before that his back hurt, and she had suddenly turned on him in a rage.

“Then don't dance so much, for God's sake!”

He was surprised at the look on her face. He had never seen her like that before. “I didn't see
you
walk off the floor until two o'clock in the morning.” But as he said the words she burst into tears, and as he cradled her in his arms he discovered the problem as she sobbed and told him about Armand's letter.

“I think he's sick, Nick … he's almost fifty-nine years old … and it's freezing cold over there. …” She sobbed in Nick's arms and he held her.

“It's all right, love … it's all right….” He always understood. There was nothing she couldn't tell him.

“And sometimes I feel so guilty.”

“So do I. But we knew that right from the beginning. It doesn't change anything for him.” Liane wrote to him just as often, and she was helpless to help him.

“What if the Germans kill him?”

Nick sighed and thought about it, not sure what he could say to reassure her. There was very definitely a risk that the Germans would kill him. “That's a chance he took when he stayed there. I think he thinks it's worth it.” He had a strong sense of Armand's passion for his country. Judging from things Liane had said, he sensed that it had almost become an obsession. “Liane, you just have to trust that he'll survive. There's nothing else you can do.”

“I know.” And then she thought of the night before, when they'd gone dancing. “But it's as though our life here is like one long party.” She was echoing his words and they looked at each other long and hard.

“Do you want it to stop?” He held his breath.

“No.”

“Neither do I.” But in April he picked her up at the Red Cross one afternoon and he was strangely silent.

“Is something wrong, Nick?”

He looked at her sadly. He felt none of the excitement he had expected to feel. He felt loss and desolation. “The party's over.”

There was a strange tingling in her spine. “What do you mean?”

“I'm leaving San Francisco tomorrow.” She caught her breath and looked at him, and suddenly she was crying in his arms. They had both known it would come, but now they weren't ready.

“Oh, Nick …” And then fear struck her again. “Where are you going?”

“San Diego. For two days. And then we ship out. I'm not sure where. I'll be on an aircraft carrier, the
Lady Lex.”
He tried to smile. “Actually, she's the
Lexington
. We're going somewhere in the Pacific.” She had just returned for some repairs, Liane had read in the papers. And now as they drove home to her uncle's house, neither of them spoke. They were grim-faced and silent and Uncle George knew at once when he saw them.

“Shipping out, son?”

“Yes, sir. I'll be leaving here tomorrow for San Diego.” George nodded and watched Liane, and it was a quiet dinner that night. Even the girls seldom broke the silence, and when he said good-bye to them that night, they cried, almost as much as they had when they had left their father. He was more real to them now than Armand. They hadn't seen him in two years, and Nick had been in their midst almost constantly for the past four months. His loss would be felt by all, especially Liane, who kissed him tenderly in the doorway. She had promised to take the train to San Diego the next day, and they would have a little time together before he shipped out. He had to be on the ship the day before she sailed. That gave them one day and one night in San Diego together.

“I'll call you at the hotel in San Diego tomorrow night, if I can. Otherwise I'll get to you the next morning.” She nodded again, with tears in her eyes.

“I miss you already.”

He smiled. “So do I.” Neither of them had been prepared for the pain they felt now. “I love you.”

She waved as he drove away, and went back into the house, and when she got to her room, she lay on the bed and sobbed. She wasn't ready to give him up … not again … not now … not ever….