Crossings (5 page)

The baked Alaska was almost a superfluous touch, but it was so delicate that hearing the men speak of war seemed less of an agony than it would have been earlier in the evening. But as usual the conversation became heated, with Roosevelt insisting, as he always did, that there was nothing to fear in Europe or the United States.

“But you can't mean that,” the British Ambassador insisted, torn between the heavenly delights of the baked Alaska and the more pressing issues at the table. “For God's sake, man, even in your own country, you've been preparing for war. Look at the trade routes you've begun assigning to shipping, look at the industries that have been stepped up, primarily steel.” The British knew only too well that Roosevelt was no fool, he knew what was coming, but he was determined not to admit it to his own people, or even here, amongst an assortment of close friends and international elite.

“There's no sin in being well prepared,” Franklin insisted, “it's good for the country, but it doesn't carry with it implications of coming doom.”

“Perhaps not for you …” The British Ambassador suddenly looked depressed. “You know what's happening over there as well as we do. Hitler is a madman. He knows it.” He pointed to Armand, who nodded. In this group, his views were well known. “What are they saying in Paris this week?”

All eyes turned to Armand, and he seemed to weigh his words before speaking. “What I saw in April was very deceiving. Everyone is trying to pretend that the inevitable will never come. My only hope is that it won't come too soon.” He looked gently at his wife. “I'll have to send Liane back if that happens. But more importantly than that”—his eyes left his wife and returned to the others—“a war in Europe now would be a tragedy for France, for all of us.” He gazed sadly at the British Ambassador, and as their eyes met, both men knew that they saw all too clearly what was coming as Hitler pressed forward. It was a terrifying fate. But as silence fell over the table Eleanor quietly stood up, as a signal to the ladies that it was time to leave the gentlemen to their brandy and cigars. Coffee would be served to the ladies in an adjoining room.

Liane got up slowly, as she disliked this particular moment of any dinner. She felt always as though she were missing the most important conversations of all, once the men were alone to speak their minds on the important issues of the day, without tempering their words for the ladies. During the drive home she questioned Armand as to what she had missed.

“Nothing. It was the same talk one hears everywhere now. Fears and denials, Roosevelt standing his ground, the British certain of what they think will come. Thompson agreed with us, though. He told me quietly when we left the table that he's certain Roosevelt will be in the war before the year's out, if it comes. It would be good for the economy here, war always is.” Liane looked shocked, but she knew enough about the truths of economics she had learned from her father to realize that what Armand was saying was true. “In any case, my little love, we shall be home soon enough to see for ourselves what's happening over there.” He looked distracted during the rest of the drive home, he had a great deal on his mind, and Liane let her mind drift back to the warm embrace she had received from Eleanor when they left. “You must write to me, my dear. …”

“I shall,” Liane had promised.

“Godspeed to you both.” The peculiar voice had cracked, and her eyes were damp. She was fond of Liane, and well aware that before they met again, the welfare of both countries might be jeopardized in terrifying ways.

“And to you.” The two women had hugged, and then Liane had slipped into the Citroen beside her husband for the short drive to the Embassy, which was still their home.

When they reached their front door, the chauffeur escorted them inside, and, as always, two guards waited, bid them good night, and then disappeared to their own quarters, where all appeared to be silent. The servants had all gone to bed, and it was long past the hours when the children would be up. But as they made their way toward their rooms, Liane smiled at her husband, tugged at his sleeve, and put a finger to her lips. She had heard a rapid shuffling and the click of a light.

“Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?”
he whispered. He was less attuned than Liane to what she was hearing, but she swiftly opened the door to Marie-Ange's room with a broad smile.

“Good evening, ladies.” She spoke in a normal voice, and Armand thought she was crazy, but then suddenly there was an eruption of giggles and scurrying feet. Both girls had been hiding in Marie-Ange's bed, and now they ran toward their parents with laughter and excitement.

“Did you bring us any cookies?”

“Of course not!” Armand still looked shocked. Liane knew her daughters better than anyone, and it always amused him how well she did so. He began to smile now too. “What are you doing up? And where is Mademoiselle?” Their nurse was supposed to see that they went to bed and stayed there. Mutiny against her was a difficult task, as they all knew, but now and then the girls succeeded, with enormous delight.

“She's sleeping. And it was so hot …” Elisabeth looked up at him with the wide blue eyes of her mother, and as always, something deep inside Armand melted as he looked at her and then picked her up in his powerful arms. He was a tall, well-built man, and even in his mid-fifties he had a physique and a strength that suggested youth. Only the lines in his face, and the full mane of well-combed white hair, indicated his years, but his daughters were oblivious of the fact that their father was so much older than their mother. All they cared about was that he was their papa, and they adored him, just as he adored them.

“You're very naughty to be up so late. What have you both been doing?” He knew that Marie-Ange would have started the revolution and Elisabeth was only too happy to follow. That much he knew of his daughters, and he was quite right. As he watched them Liane switched on the light, and what they saw was a sea of toys pulled out of the boxes and trunks where they had been packed. The room was filled with steamer trunks packed with the girls' dresses, coats, hats, and shoes. Liane always bought them in Paris.

“Oh, my God,” Liane groaned. They had unpacked everything but their clothes. “What in heaven's name were you doing?”

“Looking for Marianne.” Elisabeth said it in a saintly little voice and looked up at her mother with a smile bereft of front teeth.

“You knew I didn't pack her.” Marianne was Elisabeth's favorite doll. “She's on the table in your room.”

“She is?” But both girls began to giggle. They had just been having fun. And their father looked at them as though he would scold them, but he didn't have the heart to, they were too full of life and too much like their mother for him to ever really get very angry at them. And he had no reason to. Mademoiselle ruled them with an iron hand, and Liane was a marvelous mother. It allowed him to enjoy them without having to play the ogre. But nonetheless he admonished them now for a moment in French. He told them that they had to help their mother with the packing, not take everything apart. They had to get everything ready, he reminded them, because they were leaving for New York in two days.

“But we don't want to go to New York.” Marie-Ange looked up seriously at her father, ever the spokesman for the team. “We want to stay here.” Liane sat down on Marie-Ange's bed with a sigh, and Elisabeth climbed into her lap as Marie-Ange continued to negotiate with her father in French. “We like it here.”

“But don't you want to come on the ship? They have a puppet theater, and a cinema, and a kennel for dogs.” He had told her before, but now she wavered as he spoke of them again. “And we'll all be happy in Paris too.”

“No, we won't.” She shook her head, looking into her father's eyes. “Mademoiselle says there will be a war. We don't want to go to Paris if there's going to be a war.”

“What's that?” Elisabeth whispered to her mother as she sat on her lap.

“It's when people fight. But nobody is going to be fighting in Paris. It will be just like it is here.” Armand and Liane's eyes met over the heads of their girls, and Liane could see that Armand was going to have a serious talk with Mademoiselle in the morning. He didn't want the girls frightened with talk of war.

And then suddenly Elisabeth spoke up and broke the spell. “When Marie-Ange and I fight, is that a war?”

The others laughed, but Marie-Ange corrected her before her parents could. “No, stupid. A war is when people fight with guns.” She turned to Armand. “Right, Papa?”

“Yes, but there hasn't been a war since long before you were both born, and we don't need to worry about that now. What you girls have to do is go to bed, and tomorrow help repack all these things you've taken out.
Au lit, mesdemoiselles!”
He attempted to sound stern, and although he almost convinced his daughters, he didn't even begin to convince his wife. He was putty in their hands. But he was also worried now that they would be frightened about a war in France.

Liane took Elisabeth back to her own room, and Armand tucked their eldest into her bed, and Liane and Armand met back in their own room five minutes later. Liane was still smiling at the mischief of the girls, but Armand was sitting on their bed, taking off his patent leather pumps, with a worried frown.

“What is that old fool doing frightening the girls with talk of a war?”

“She hears the same things we do.” Liane sighed and began to unbutton the beautifully made black satin jacket from Patou. “But I'll speak to her in the morning about the girls.”

“See that you do.” The words were harsh, but the tone of his voice was not as he watched his wife undress in her dressing room. There was always something more to say between them, some further reason why he couldn't tear himself away from her, even now, after an endless day and a long night. He watched the silky cream of her flesh appear as she took off the white organdy blouse, and he hastened quickly to his own dressing room to cast his dinner attire aside, and he returned only moments later in white silk pajamas and a navy-blue silk robe, his feet bare. She smiled at him from their bed, the lace of her pink silk nightgown peeking over the sheets as he turned off the light.

He slid into bed beside her and ran a hand gently up her arm until it reached the smooth satin of her neck, and then drifted down again to touch her breast. Liane smiled in the darkness and sought Armand's mouth with her lips. And there they met and held, in the darkness, their children forgotten, the nurse, the President, the war … and all they remembered as they peeled off each other's nightclothes was their hunger for each other, which only grew sharper over the years, instead of dimmer. As Armand's powerful hand touched her naked thigh, Liane moaned softly, parting her legs to welcome him to her, as she always did, and she smelled the muted spice of his cologne as he kissed her again and their flesh joined, and for the first time in a long time she found herself wanting another baby as he entered her gently at first and then with increasing passion, and as they kissed again with greater fervor, this time it was Armand who moaned softly in the night.

he doorman at 875 Park Avenue stood stolidly at his post. The jacket of his uniform was of heavy wool, and the wing collar he wore cut into his neck. The cap with the gold braid sat on his head like a lead weight. It was eighty-seven degrees in New York in the second week of June, but he still had to stand at his post, cap on, jacket in place, bow tie straight, white gloves on, smiling pleasantly at the tenants as they came in and out. Mike, the doorman, had been on duty since seven o'clock that morning, and it was already six o'clock at night. The heat of the day had barely abated, and he had another hour to stand there before he could go home at last, in baggy pants, a short-sleeved shirt, comfortable old shoes, no tie, no hat. A blessed relief it would be, he thought to himself in his Irish brogue. And a beer he could be usin' too. As he stood there he envied the two men who manned the elevators. Lucky devils, at least they were inside.

“Good evening, Mike.” He looked up from his heat-dimmed reverie to touch his fingers to his cap with mechanical precision, but this time to the greeting he added a friendly smile. There were those in the building he wouldn't bother to smile at, but this man was one he liked, Nicholas Burnham—Nick he had heard the man's friends call him. He always had a friendly word for Mike, a moment to stop and talk to him in the morning as he waited for his car to be brought around. They talked of politics and baseball, the latest strikes, the price of food, and the heat that had been shimmering off the streets of the city for the past two weeks. Somehow he always managed to give Mike the impression that he cared about him, that he gave a damn that the poor old man had to stand outside all day, hailing cabs and greeting ladies with French poodles, because he had seven children to support. It was as though Nick understood the irony of it all, and he cared. It was that that Mike liked about him. Nick Burnham had always struck him as a decent sort of man. “How did you survive the day?”