Days of Winter (55 page)

“I was working there.”

“Doing what?”

“I worked in a bank.”

“What bank?”

“The Bank of Paris.”

“On what street?”

“The Rue de la Paix.”

“Why did you suddenly decide to leave?”

“My mother is very sick.”

Kessler glanced down at the documents, then looked up again. “Is the name Dupré familiar?”

Etienne paused, as though to search his memory. “Yes, I would say so …”

“You’ve heard the name before?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“It’s not an uncommon French name.”

“Do you know anyone by that name personally?”

“No, I don’t believe so.”

Kessler’s face tightened in exasperation. “I suggest you stop these lies. There’s no point in it, you know.” He held up a thick file, complete with case histories, and spread it out in front of Etienne, whose body seemed to slump. What was the use of going on with the charade? It was there, all there. Courtesy of Jean-Paul …He wanted to scream out, and was about to when he felt Jeanette’s hand on his, though she was looking straight ahead, straight into Kessler’s eyes.

“Well,” Kessler insisted, “is the name familiar to you?”

“Yes.”

“How familiar?”

“I am Etienne Dupré.”

“And your wife?”

“Jeanette.”

“Jeanette what?”

“Jeanette Dupré.”

“Her maiden name, damn you.”

“Her maiden name, damn
you
,”
Jeanette said, no longer willing to let Etienne bear all the brunt, wanting desperately, finally, to declare herself, “is
Hack.
”

“And what is the origin of that name, Madame?”

“A fine and honorable man, which is something you wouldn’t understand—”

Kessler nodded. “And what was the
race
of this fine and honorable—”

“For God’s sake, stop it,” Etienne broke in. “
Stop it.
You know—”

“I’m waiting,” Kessler said, looking at Jeanette.

“I am a Jew,” Jeanette said, never taking her eyes from him.

Kessler smiled, nodded. “And no doubt proud of it—”

“Never more than at this moment,” she said.

Kessler got up, put the documents into his briefcase, then motioned to the guards. They were taken out of the room, then down three wooden steps. Etienne held Jeanette’s hand tightly. When they left the building the guards pulled them apart, and transferred Henri from his father’s to his mother’s arms. Jeanette, breaking down finally at being separated, screamed as she and Henri were being led to one waiting car and Etienne to another. Suddenly Etienne tore loose from the guards holding his arms and began to flail at them with his cane. … “You can’t, goddamn you, you can’t separate us, you can’t—”

But he didn’t get the last words out as the butt of a rifle swung by one of the guards grazed his head, momentarily dazing him. Shaking his head, he had put up his hands to ward off the next blow that was being aimed at him when a confusion of yelling and shooting broke out all around them, and from behind the hedges surrounding the station house appeared nearly a dozen ragtag men with guns, men who minutes before might have been mistaken for ordinary local citizens, but who were actually partisans, alerted by the network that had begun with Magda’s word to Pierre, passed on to Anjou, and from him eventually to these skilled men who knew their job and proceeded to do it with fine and deadly skill. Within moments Kessler, riddled by a spray of bullets, was on the ground, his briefcase landing beside him, and six guards, taken completely by surprise, quickly fell around him. Immediately one of the partisans instructed Etienne and Jeanette to get into their car and crash the barrier gate, which was all that was left between them and Switzerland, and then he and his small group dispersed, leaving seven still bodies behind them.

Jeanette, with Henri in her arms, ran to the car, and Etienne, still slightly dazed from the head blow, hobbled after them. Once they were all in the car, Jeanette put Henri between them, got behind the wheel, started the engine, and drove off. A few yards ahead was Switzerland. She pressed her foot down hard on the accelerator. As the car crashed through the gates, one guard, fatally wounded but still able to watch their progress, managed to lift his body just enough to prop his rifle up and fire after them.

The bullet went through the back window, splintering it, and from the corner of her eye Jeanette saw Etienne slump forward, heard a curious, hissing sound, and his almost gentle intake of breath. She didn’t dare stop driving until she was across the border and then somehow she slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a screeching halt as the Swiss border guards came running up.

By the time she got out of the car Jeanette was hysterical, telling the guards that her husband had been shot, that she was afraid he was dead, please for God’s sake somebody help … and they tried to calm her as one of them quickly took Etienne’s pulse and assured her he was alive, and the other called for an ambulance that arrived within minutes. Etienne, unconscious, was lifted onto the stretcher and placed inside, an intravenous needle was inserted, and blood given while he also received an injection to help stop the bleeding. Finally, a dazed, weeping Jeanette and a thoroughly bewildered and terrified Henri were helped into the front of the ambulance, and it sped away.

Etienne was taken to the operating room immediately. Jeanette stood outside, praying. There was nothing else left. Henri clung to her hand, and she tried to reassure him that papa would be fine, the doctors would make him well, just as they had mama when she’d been sick … when she’d been so sick she would have died if Etienne hadn’t given her his kidney, his life. God … he mustn’t die … he, more than all the rest of them, had earned the right to live, not just because of what he had done for her, but for what he was … the kind of man he was. …

When a doctor finally came out of the operating room, his mask pulled down from his face but still tied around his neck, she quickly went up to him and asked …

“It’s too soon to know, I’m afraid, madame,” and the doctor quickly walked away. Soon after a nurse came and took her and Henri for a snack in a place downstairs. Henri ate, but Jeanette sat like a statue, unable to eat or speak.

Two hours later Etienne was being wheeled down the hall to his room. From the glimpse she was able to manage, it seemed to Jeanette that he was barely alive, his face a ghastly gray, contrasting with the sterile hospital white of the sheet tucked all around him. Jeanette followed down the hall until they reached his room. She was asked to remain outside. She refused a seat, choosing to stand, leaning against the wall.

“I’m Dr. Engelmann.”

The voice startled her. She had allowed her eyes to close, in spite of herself. Now she looked at him uneasily. “My husband … how is he?”

“He’s sustained considerable chest damage, the repairs were extensive …”

“Will he … live?”

“There’s no way to make a good prediction now … in forty-eight hours …”

For two days Etienne lay in a coma. …Jeanette could do nothing but sit by and wait.

Meanwhile, the nurses had fallen in love with Henri. They allowed him to play in the children’s ward, where some of the young patients, recovering from ski injuries, were done up fearsomely in elaborate assortments of splints and casts, which fascinated Henri. He particularly liked one little girl. She had, in fact, become his best friend, the first one he’d ever had. “When my papa gets better,” he told her, “we’re going on a holiday, and I’m going to make a snow man that looks just like him. Would you like to come and visit us?”

“If my mother says I can.”

“We could have fun. I have three cousins.”

“I have six.”

He was even more impressed with her now.

At dawn on the third morning Jeanette awakened after an almost sleepless night and lay looking out her window toward the snowcapped mountains. Today they would know, and she told herself that if anything happened to Etienne, if he did not recover … well, she would live for Henri, but it would be winter for all the seasons of the rest of her life without Etienne. …And then there was a gentle knock on the door, and she was too frightened to move, even to speak out. She was trying to prepare herself for the worst. …

Now the door was opening, and the doctor’s voice was saying, “Madame, you are very lazy this morning. Your husband is waiting for you—”

She was out of bed, running without her robe or any other thought to Etienne’s room, which was next door. His eyes were open, a weak smile was on his face. He slowly held out his hand to her, and in a voice barely above a whisper, said, “Good morning, darling. It seems we’ve managed to survive, after all.”

In answer, she bent down and kissed him, over and over, smiling and laughing and letting her tears of gratitude fall freely onto that precious face.

Survive, indeed. Could the daughter of Magda Charascu have done otherwise?

Turn the page to read an excerpt from Cynthia Freeman’s
The Last Princess

N
OT SINCE GLORIA MORGAN’S
engagement to Reginald Vanderbilt had New York society seen such a frenzy of excitement as was aroused by the announcement of the impending nuptials of Lily Goodhue and Roger Humphreys. Although few events elicited more than a yawn from New York society, as soon as the embossed, cream-colored invitations were received, the ladies of the Four Hundred promptly beat a path to their favorite couturiers. It was to be the marriage of the decade, a match—if one were inclined to embrace God—made in heaven; the coming together of two distinguished families who came as close to being aristocracy as was possible in America.

On the evening of the engagement party, the limousines lined the sweeping, tree-lined driveway to the Goodhues’ Long Island mansion. Lily stood alongside Roger and her parents in the vast marble-floored hall, greeting their guests. Even among that galaxy of bejeweled society, her beauty was dazzling. It went beyond the fact that her hair was the burnished red of an autumn sunset, or that her eyes were the color of the huge emerald she wore on her ring finger, or that the features of her heart-shaped face were sheer perfection. She had an air, an inner radiance that few who saw her that evening would ever forget. It even outshone the expensive pink Chanel dress her mother had ordered from Paris.

As they stood posing for pictures which would appear in the next day’s
New York Times
and
Herald Tribune,
there could have been no doubt as to her parents’ joy. Diminutive, southern-born Violet looked as youthful and lovely as the day when she had burst onto the New York social scene as the bride of the tall, handsome rubber magnate Charles Goodhue.

The guests moved into the house, which was decorated with extravagant urns of azaleas, roses, and lilacs arranged to exquisite perfection. Beyond the open French doors of the ballroom the terrace and grounds were softly lighted, and the fountains at the far end of the pavilion played under dim yellow lights. Blood-red rhododendrons lined the path down to Long Island Sound.

Just then the band struck up “Lily of the Valley” and Lily circled the room in Roger’s arms. There seemed no question that she was in love. It was evidenced by the smile on her face and the lyrical note in her voice as she greeted her friends. Roger, too, appeared delighted. Despite his unmistakably Brahmin reserve, he seemed unable to take his eyes off Lily. Yet as the evening wore on, Lily knew she had to get away for a few minutes, to escape the hundreds of eyes, so many of which were jealously hoping to find some flaw in this perfect evening. As Roger turned to ask a cousin to dance, Lily slipped quietly from the room, ran across the terrace, down the broad stone stairs, and along the path toward the conservatory. The glass doors closed behind her, leaving her in a silent world of exotic blooms.

Idly she let her gaze wander to the glass ceiling. The dazzling sight of a million stars in the midnight-blue vastness suddenly made her wonder how she had come to this moment. If she was shocked to find herself the focus of this evening’s party, she supposed, she would—literally—have to go back to the cradle to trace the roots of her sense of un-worth….

L
ILY HAD ALWAYS FELT
herself to be an outsider in her own home. She had never really belonged and it seemed that she had been paying for the sin of her birth from the moment she had first seen the light of day. Was any of it her fault? That was something she had been trying to decide for almost twenty-one years.

Violet and Charles Goodhue had been childless for ten years of their marriage and had almost abandoned hope that they would have a child, an heir to the Goodhue fortune. It had been a dynasty hard won, a dynasty which had been established three generations before by ignorant Dutch immigrants, and by dint of fraud and corruption and ruthlessness it had flourished.

With the first generation’s ill-gotten wealth, the second generation of Goodhues had bought respectability. At the same time, they saw that wealth quadrupled. Charles’s grandfather, riding the crest of the new age of industry, had transformed a modest fortune into a staggering one in the rubber trade in the Amazon. The slaves who worked those South American fields were too far removed from the States to taint the Goodhues’ ever luminous reputation.