Perfect Freedom (69 page)

“Do you feel this is something you have to do?” she asked.

Robbie shrugged and said nothing. He didn't feel that heroic declarations would be appropriate. She saw his long fingers tighten around the bowl of coffee and she knew that she could keep him with her. It was a blessed knowledge and she exerted a loving pressure on his shoulders. Yes, she could keep him and because she could keep him she must let him go; she must make her own life just as he must make his.

And yet, dear God, it was hard. Let him go—to what? To danger, perhaps even to death? She felt his shoulders rising and falling under her hands. Oh, God, keep him safe. At least, he wouldn't be with the Germans. She had feared Carl's influence. She was grateful to Stuart. How odd that everything seemed to be falling back into place. She dropped her hands from Robbie's shoulders and resumed her seat. “I see,” she said abstractedly.

“But will you be all right?” Robbie stammered. Was this all she had to say? He was aware of his father's eyes on him and he brushed his hand nervously through his hair.

“You mustn't worry about me,” she said lightly. She buttered a piece of bread, deriving from the homely act a sense of normalcy, perhaps even a sort of courage. “In times like these, we've all got to be self-reliant.”

Robbie could hardly believe his ears. Did she care so little about his leaving? He darted a quick glance at Stuart and then lifted his head and faced him squarely. He enlisted himself unequivocally at his side; he was ready to follow this man. Carl was really gone. He hoped his mother wouldn't make difficulties. They would find Maurice. His father would like him and begin to understand. He would find ways to redeem himself in his father's eyes.

Stuart acknowledged his level gaze. He was as surprised as Robbie by Helene's self-control. What did it mean? Was it indifference, a complete withdrawal from life? Had the months in prison so crushed her spirit that she was resigned to anything that might happen to her? “So you see,” he said, “we've got to be on our way soon. We've got to cross the frontier tonight. Boldoni's given me the name of a friend in Perpignan. I imagine it'll all be quite simple.”

“What would we do without Boldoni?” Helene said with an easy laugh. “Robbie, darling, there are several of your suitcases here along with the things that were brought from the other house. Maybe you ought to look through them before you go. They're in the room on the right at the head of the stairs. You'll see.”

“All right.” Robbie finished his coffee and rose. “There's M. Forrestier,” he added, lifting his hand in a restrained greeting. Stuart turned and saw a lean figure in riding clothes crossing through the vines in front of the house.

“Did you want me, Jean?” Helene called. The man lifted his hand and shook his head and passed on out of sight around the house. Strange, Stuart thought, to feel so much a part of their lives and to be so completely outside it. She and Robbie called people he didn't know by their first names, had lived in houses he had never seen, were served by maids who didn't even know who he was.…
She's been with us for some time. Did you want me, Jean?
Words on which whole lives were erected, words standing implacably between them and the past.

“That's my landlord,” Helene offered in explanation. “A very nice man. He testified for me at the trial. The main house is back over there.”

“I'm glad you have friends nearby.” Stuart glanced around him. Robbie was gone. He pushed his cup from him and leaned his elbows on the table. “I know Robbie's leaving can't be easy for you, but I think it's the right thing for him.”

“I do too,” she said simply. He felt in her a deep quiet authority that was totally unfamiliar to him. They sat close together, their eyes averted.

“That's good,” he said. “But what about you? Have you thought about going back to the States?”

“Oh, no, I belong here. I'm used to it now. Perhaps you belong most to the country where you've been in prison.” She finished with a laugh.

“It's been a terrible time for you.” He looked up at her hesitantly. She was sitting with her arms crossed on the table. There was a faint smile on her lips. He continued, watching her, “You're looking marvelous in spite of everything. And there's something—I don't know. You seem very different. Are you all right? I mean, are you coming out of this all right?”

“One lives and learns, I think.” Her smile broadened. Stuart felt his heart beating fast again. This was his moment. He held his hand out open in front of him. If the truth he had grasped was worth anything it must be equally valid for her. It must be communicable. He closed his hand and placed it next to hers. He looked at their two hands as they lay side by side, almost touching.

“Tell me,” he managed, scarcely above a whisper. “Tell me what you've learned.”

“Why, Stuart,” she said with a trace of friendly mockery, “you've always been the one to tell me.” As she spoke, he knew that he had said all he had to say. He had communicated. The truth lay clear and simple between them. He felt as if he had been confessed.

“I think we can talk to each other now,” he said.

“Then you feel it, too?” she asked. Their eyes met and he nodded briefly. The nod seemed to release her, for she put her hand over his and began speaking rapidly. “In prison—at first, when I was alone, it was more terrible than you can imagine. But afterward, after I was sentenced—the other women, the routine. It's odd how quickly one gets used to things. Life suddenly seems so simple and so good. One thinks of the walls and the locked doors and knows that if they could be removed, the rest is easy. Can you understand? People struggle against walls that don't exist. When they're really there, holding you in, you understand how good life is and how simple the things are that you really need and—and how much of the trouble is in the mind—the struggling against things that don't exist. And now I'm free and I think of those poor creatures who are still shut up and I want to be immersed in life—I want to eat and sleep and reach out to people and sit in the sun and breathe this air and look out at these fields and I'm very happy. It reminds me a little of when we first went to St. Tropez, only then I didn't know.”

She lifted her face to the sun and closed her eyes and as she finished she pressed his hand in hers. He looked at their joined hands and then at her lovely face, paler than he was used to seeing it, and he wanted to put his arms around her, not passionately—too much had happened to them for that—but with tenderness and affection.

“No, neither of us knew then,” he said. She lowered her head and opened her eyes and looked at him for a long moment. He looked like a very good man, she thought.

“Oh, my dear,” she said softly, “there's nothing to regret. The trouble started so far back, back at the beginning—our meeting just after René lost his mind and—and everything. But we had some wonderful years.”

“Wonderful,” he said with difficulty. “Better, I suppose, than we deserved.”

“And nothing is lost. Carl had to happen. I used to be ashamed—I didn't want you to find out that he treated me rather shabbily. But, you see, I don't mind anymore. In fact, it was your right to know. He's rather a scoundrel, Carl, but he'll end by regretting it. People finally punish themselves. Most of us don't find that out until it's too late. Our ruined lives. Do you remember? You don't feel that now, do you?”

“No, I don't feel that. I think I'm just ready for life. I feel the same thing in you.”

“It does take a long time, doesn't it?” She pressed his hand, then disengaged her own. She selected a bunch of grapes and handed it to him and took one herself. They ate for a moment in silence.

He felt peace in her presence but he knew that when the time came there would be no wrench of parting. He would be taking something of her with him. Strange … yesterday this meeting hadn't figured in his plans, yesterday she had still been for him the woman who had screamed at him in prison, the woman he had imagined broken by months of confinement, abandoned and done for. Yesterday he had been alone, free, free of hope, free of faith, free of feeling.…

“I wonder how long it'll be before we see each again,” he said at last.

“I wonder … Do write. And come if you can.”

“Thanks. I'd like to.” He looked at his watch. “We've really got to go. What's Robbie up to?”

She reached her hand out to his with a new urgency. “Help him,” she said. They looked into each other's eyes and he nodded reassuringly.

“I want to. I'm going to do my best to find Maurice for him. Amazingly enough, I see that now as helping him.”

Her eyes softened with fond, slightly playful complicity before she glanced over her shoulder and called up to the house: “Robbie.”

“I'm coming,” he answered, and they heard him thumping down the stairs. He came out onto the terrace and dropped a small suitcase. “There wasn't much worth bothering about,” he announced.

Helene laughed and went to him. “Don't look so tragic, darling,” she said, lifting her hand to his cheek and giving it a pat. “I wish I were going with you. You're going to look rather stunning in a uniform. Send me your picture some time.”

Stuart had risen, too, and stood awkwardly beside them. “Well, off we go.”

She turned to him and hesitated for an instant and then she put her arms around his neck. He gathered her close, feeling her body strangely frail in his arms, frail and yet known and comforting. “Take care of yourself,” he muttered. “Fatten yourself up.”

They broke apart and Helene gave his stomach a flustered pat. “You do the opposite.” Her voice hit two broken notes of laughter. She stretched out her arm to Robbie and lifted her hand quickly and pressed her eyes with her fingers.

“Oh, dear, don't let me forget anything. Oh, yes,” she dropped her hand and there was a strained smile on her lips. “There's that sweater I knitted for you in prison. I'd like you to have it with you. Just a minute.” She turned and hurried back into the house.

“I'm going to the car,” Stuart said without looking at Robbie. He crossed the terrace and stumbled down the steps and around the house. He hunched himself into the car and rested his hands on the wheel. Thank God, it had happened. It made up for so much. He turned the car around and backed it up to the corner of the house in sight of the door. He saw Helene return, he saw them talking, he saw them put their arms around each other and embrace for a long moment. Then Robbie bent down and picked up the suitcase and started toward the car.

Helene stood in the door, supporting herself against the frame with one hand, and watched his retreating back.

“Have they gone?” a man's voice asked softly behind her. Her expression altered, but she did not turn.

“Oh, Jean, why are you hiding? Why didn't you come and speak to them?”

“Is the boy leaving?”

“Yes, he's leaving,” Helene said, watching Robbie throw his suitcase into the back seat of the car.

“Who was the man?”

“My husband,” Helene said without thinking.

“I didn't know you had a husband.”

“I didn't, either,” she said.

The door of the car slammed. Stuart and Robbie turned and waved. A strong brown hand slipped forward and took hers where it lay on the doorjamb. She clutched at it with all her strength as she lifted her other hand to wave in response. She no longer saw the car or its occupants. The tears she had been holding back welled up in her eyes and spilled over. She heard the roar of the motor and the clash of gears and she gripped the strong hand hard as she waved a blind farewell.

Turn to the page to start reading from the follow-up to
Perfect Freedom

“What do people
do
down here?” Lance demanded, his manner successfully concealing the hopelessness that swept over him as he phrased the question.

He stood with his hands resting lightly on his hips, wobbling his knees in and out so that, except for the fact that he didn't move his feet, he looked rather as if he were doing a tap dance. The hotel clerk to whom he had addressed his question sat motionless behind the cement reception desk of the enormous dusty lobby with his arms folded across his chest. He spoke good English, for which Lance would have been grateful if he'd had any desire for communication.

“You mean the tourists?” the clerk asked through scarcely moving lips.

“Yes, I guess so. Is there anything I should see or anything?” He wasn't interested in sights; he hoped only that he wouldn't become one. The one and only, the amazing Lance Vanderholden. He continued to jiggle his knees without being aware of what he was doing. The slight exertion made sweat break out on his body in the thick, airless heat of the hotel lobby. His legs ached. He had had quite a walk the day before.