Clash by Night (26 page)

Laura shook her head, struggling for an explanation. “I’ve never seen you in uniform,” she whispered. “You look so handsome, and God, so much like home.”

She broke down completely and he caught her in his arms. They stood in silent embrace as the mass of humanity eddied around them, Harris’ expression one of fierce protectiveness, Laura’s cheek pressed against his coat.

At length she stirred and he held her off, gazing down into her face.

“You look beautiful,” he said, smiling.

Laura wiped at her eyes. “I’m afraid I’m a little wet,” she said, smiling back tremulously.

He reached inside his coat and extracted a snowy handkerchief from his blouse pocket, handing it to her. She dabbed at her face as he loosened the knot on her scarf.

“Let’s see that pretty red hair,” he said, letting the linen square fall to her shoulders and lifting her hair out of her collar. It cascaded over his hands in a fiery waterfall.

“Prettiest hair I ever saw,” he murmured, and Laura bit her lip, swallowing.

“I’m sorry,” she said helplessly. “Every time I see you all I seem to do is cry.”

“I don’t mind,” he said gently. Then he glanced around him suddenly. “Where are my manners, come and sit down. You must be tired from the trip.” He led her to the seat he’d occupied and dropped into the chair next to her, taking her bag and draping her coat over his arm.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said, shaking his head.

Laura drew an unsteady breath. “I’m here.”

“I wasn’t sure Fournier would get through with the message.”

“So you were just going to stay here the whole time in the hope that I might show up sooner or later?” she asked wonderingly.

He nodded, holding her gaze.

“I would have thought you’d use this leave to go home and visit your family,” she said softly.

“I’ll see them later,” he answered. “This was my only time to see you.”

A woman with two toddlers, one of whom was bawling loudly, sat across from them. The mother, speaking a Slavic language Laura didn’t understand, tried desperately to shush the tot. He simply screamed louder, turning red in the face and gasping for breath.

“Excuse me,” Harris said to Laura. He got up and took something from his pocket, displaying it to the mother. She nodded and smiled. He unwrapped the candy bar and broke it in half, handing it to the crying child, who stared at it for a moment and then seized it greedily. Harris gave the other piece to the boy’s sister, who looked at her mother and then took her share as well. The mother beamed gratefully at Harris, who bowed graciously and returned to Laura.

“Chocolate,” he announced with satisfaction. “It works every time.”

“Where did you get it?” Laura asked, amused.

He winked. “Secret Yankee stash.”
 

The little boy wolfed down the chocolate and began to cry again.

Laura laughed.

Harris grinned. Then he scanned the crowd, which seemed to be getting larger and louder. “Would you like to go upstairs?” he asked quietly. “I have a room, it would be more private.”

Laura hesitated for a moment and then nodded. He rose and extended his hand, which she took as she rose. He led her to a wooden lift at the mouth of the vestibule beyond the registration desk. They joined a middle aged Englishwoman inside; the lady nodded stiffly to both of them. Harris closed the double screen across the front of the cage and they ascended to the second floor, where their companion bolted from the lift as soon as it lurched to a stop.

“She’s in a hurry,” Laura commented.

“I think the uniform made her nervous,” Harris replied.

“Why?”

He glanced at her. “Yanks have a bad rep. They expect all of us to hand out chewing gum like bribes and ravish their women behind the potted palms in Covent Garden.”

“Well?” Laura said, raising one eyebrow, and he laughed.

He took her to a room overlooking the street. Laura went to the window as he locked the door behind them. She pulled back the chintz curtain, observing the traffic below, pedestrians and vehicles negotiating the obstacle course created by the detritus of the recent bombing. Then she turned back to the room. Gray and red tiles climbed halfway up the plaster walls, where the color scheme was picked up by a floral wallpaper reaching to the ceiling, discolored and water streaked in spots. A porcelain sink ribboned with mineral stains stood in a corner.

Harris dropped Laura’s things on the bed. “The john’s down the hall if you want to freshen up,” he said.

Laura shook her head.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked. “There is room service of a sort; the menu’s out of date since so many things are unavailable these days.”

“Not now, thank you.” She should have been starving but was far too jittery to eat. She waited while Harris took off his coat and tie, pulling the faded tapestry armchairs together in front of the window. The rain streamed down the pane and drummed steadily on the roof.

“So,” Harris said, as they both sat. He leaned forward and took both of Laura’s hands in his. “What happened in Fains after I left?”
 

Laura met his blue gaze squarely. “Dan, Alain is dead.”

There was a silence for a few seconds, then Harris cursed furiously under his breath, too softly for her to make out the words.
 

“They got him?” he asked, dropping her hands and sitting back.
 

“Yes.” Laura folded the hands he had just released in her lap.

“Anyone else?”

“No, just Alain. He wouldn’t give up any of the others.”

Harris turned his head to look out at the gray day, his expression as bleak as the weather. “Tell me,” he said flatly.

Laura recounted the story while he smoked one cigarette after another, interrupting infrequently with terse, pertinent questions. When she finished Harris said quietly, “That crazy kid. I wanted him to come with me to England. I wanted them all to come.”

Laura stood abruptly and turned away from him. “Alain would never have left France,” she said. “He wanted to be a hero, like Thierry. A hero in his own country.”

“And he was,” Harris responded warmly, getting up to put his hand on her shoulder. “We could never have gotten the factory without him.” He stepped back and lit another cigarette, pausing for a thoughtful interlude before he said, “How is your father-in-law?”

“Ruined,” Laura replied. “A shell.”

Harris moved around to face her. “Really?” he said without inflection. His gaze was detached, uninvolved.

“He won’t eat or come out of his room. He’s disoriented; sometimes he thinks it’s twenty years ago and he asks Brigitte if the children have come in from school, things like that. He confuses her with her mother.”

“I see.” His expression indicated a complete lack of compassion.

“He’s in hell, Dan.”

“Some people would say that’s where he belongs.”

“People like you?” she asked pointedly.

He didn’t answer for a moment, then said, “If you can forgive him that’s all that matters. It isn’t for me to judge.” He glanced at his watch. “Tea time. You look like you could use a cup. They serve it at four in the lounge.”

“Fine,” Laura agreed, aware that he was avoiding the issue of her accommodations for the night. The air between them fairly vibrated with the same tension they’d felt in Fains-les-Sources. But now that Harris was in a position to do something about it he seemed strangely reluctant to make the first move. He’d hardly touched her since their embrace in the lobby.
 

They went downstairs, where they were seated at a tiny table in a tearoom off the main hall. Each table had a lace cloth and a little lamp with a green banker’s shade. A waitress in a frilled apron and a pleated cap put a pot of tea and two cups in front of them as she walked past.
 

“God bless the British,” Harris observed, with the infectious grin that made him look almost, but not quite, collegiate again. “They never allow anything to interfere with their consumption of tea. I myself would give my arm for a cup of coffee.”

“Hello, Yank.” The waitress had returned. “I see you managed to survive Jerry’s bombs last night. As we all did, thank God. No casualties in this house. What will you have?”

“What have you got?” Harris replied, winking at Laura.

“Ah, learned the form already, have you? Let’s see. Little sandwiches, cheese in them but no meat. Treacle cookies, made with marge not butter. And apple tarts without sugar. The accent is on the tart, if you take my meaning,” she concluded, smacking her lips.

Harris smiled at Laura. “Sounds appetizing,” he drawled. “We’ll have the lot. Oh, and a whiskey for me.”

“Whiskey coming up, sir. We’re still getting plenty of that in from the Irish neutrals.” She rolled her eyes and hurried off to fill their order.

“I saw the debris from the bombing in the street,” Laura said to Harris. “Is that happening much?”

“Just about every night,” he replied grimly. “I didn’t know it was about to start or I never would have asked you to come here. ‘The blitz’, they’re calling it. Short for ‘blitzkrieg.’”

“Lightning war?” Laura said, translating literally.

He nodded. “It’s a campaign to wear the populace down. There are no military targets here in the city, which is getting the worst of it.”

“And yet the residents carry on as they always did.”

Harris smiled thinly. “If Hitler thinks his night raids are going to cause these people to throw in the towel he’s barking up the wrong
tannenbaum
. I’ve been here since Wednesday with nothing much to do but sit around and listen to them. They’re about as ready to give up as Alain was.”

Admiration was clear in his tone. “Pretty impressive, huh?” Laura said softly.

“You bet.” He sat forward and put his hands flat on the table, seeming to dwarf it. “You know, in the corps we studied Napoleon’s campaigns and a derisive remark he made about the British always stuck in my mind. He called them ‘a nation of shopkeepers,’ meaning they were no good at war.” Harris shrugged slightly. “ I guess I resented that because my dad kept a shop, and I thought Bonaparte would have been lucky to have a few more men like my father with him at Waterloo. He might have done better.”

Laura smiled.

“But these people,” he gestured around him, hunching toward her intently, “are the kind of shopkeepers that will turn this country into a nation of winners. You mark my words. Hitler’s making a great mistake underestimating them. They’re tough and resilient and not about to be intimidated.” He took her hand. “Just like some Frenchmen I know.”

“I agree.”

He twined his fingers with hers, pausing, then seemed to choose his words carefully. “Laura, my leave ends on the seventeenth.”

“I know.”

“I got this time because I’m slated for another mission as soon as it’s over.”

“I thought it might be something like that,” Laura replied quietly.
 

“I’m going to be doing more undercover work, one man operations, like the raid in Fains. It’ll be high risk stuff.”
 

“I understand.”

The waitress arrived and deposited their order. Harris took a healthy swallow of his drink with his free hand and then waited for the waitress to leave before continuing.

“What I’m trying to say is that this week will be all there is. I have no future to offer. I’ll be incommunicado. I won’t be able to write my folks or anyone else. I don’t even know where I’m going.”

Laura didn’t comment, waiting. His fingers were cold and she realized with a sense of awe that he was nervous. Taking on the Nazis with the infant Résistance hadn’t fazed him but telling her this did.

“I wanted you to know all of that before…well…” He paused, releasing her hand and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I seem to be having some trouble phrasing this delicately so I’ll be direct.” He looked into her eyes and she recognized, almost with a start, the man who had kissed her so passionately the night before the factory raid.

“I want you, Laura,” he said. “I want you more than I have ever wanted anything or anybody, but I can’t lie to you. After this week I’m going to disappear. That’s the way it has to be. If you stay with me now we’ll have the time together during this leave and that’s it.” He turned his hand palm up on the table. “If you want to walk away right now I’ll understand.”
 

Laura was quiet for several moments and then said, “I really don’t want all this food, do you?”

Harris released the breath he’d been holding. “No, ma’am.” He rose, leaving some British money on the table, and pulled out Laura’s chair.

This time they were alone in the lift. As they walked out of it Harris put his arm around Laura and they went down the hall together, each thinking of the step they were about to take.

Harris locked the door of his room behind them and shrugged out of his jacket. Laura stood with her back to him, waiting, her heart beating in her throat. Then she felt his hands on her shoulders. Slowly they slipped down over her breasts to her waist, then to her hips, drawing her backward. She sighed brokenly and leaned into him, closing her eyes.