Jewels (48 page)

“Hello, Sarah,” he said quietly, taking her hands in his own. “It’s been a long time … but you look very well.” She looked much more than well. Just seeing her again made his heart beat faster.

“Thank you.” She knew he was sixty years old then, but the years hadn’t been kind to him. Yet they had been kinder to him than to William. He was still alive, and William was gone now. “Would you like to come inside? We’ve just come back from England,” she explained, sounding suddenly like a hostess with a long-expected houseguest, “from Phillip’s wedding.” She smiled, their eyes still searching each other beyond what she was saying.

“Phillip? Married?”

“He’s twenty-seven now,” she reminded him, as he opened the door for her, and he followed her in. They were both suddenly painfully aware that he had once lived here.

“And you have had other children?”

“Three,” she nodded, and then she smiled. “One very recently, Xavier will be two next week.”

“You have a baby?” He looked visibly startled and she laughed.

“You don’t look nearly as surprised as I did. William was quite a good sport about it.” She didn’t want to tell him William had died, not yet at least. And then she realized that Joachim didn’t know William had ever returned. There was so much she had to tell him.

She invited him to sit down in the main salon, and he looked at the room, so full of memories for him. But looking at her was even more remarkable, and he couldn’t stop himself from staring. It stunned him to realize that if he had come the day before, she might still have been in England.

“What brings you here now, Joachim?”

He wanted to say “you,” but he didn’t. “I have a brother in Paris. I came to see him for Christmas. We are both alone, and he asked me to come.” And then, “I have wanted to see you for a long time, Sarah.”

“You never wrote to me,” she said softly, and she hadn’t written to him. But looking back now, she wasn’t sure she would have, even if she had known where to find him. Perhaps once, but it would have seemed unfair to William.

“Things were very difficult right after the war,” he explained. “Berlin was a madhouse for a long time, and when I was able to make my way back this way, I read in the newspapers of the remarkable survival of the Duke of Whitfield. I was very happy for you then, I knew how much you had wanted him to return. I didn’t think it was appropriate for me to write to you after that, or to come to see you. I thought about it sometimes. I was in France several times over the years, but it didn’t seem right, so I never came to see you.” She nodded. She understood only too well. In some ways, it would have been very strange to see him. There was no denying what they had both felt for each other then. They had managed to keep it in check, fortunately, but one couldn’t pretend that the feelings hadn’t existed.

“William died last year,” she told him sorrowfully. “Or actually, this year, on January second.” Her eyes told him how lonely she was without him. And again, he couldn’t pretend ignorance. It was why he had finally come now. He had never wanted to interfere with her life with him, knowing how much she loved her husband, but now that he knew he was gone, he had to come, to satisfy the dream of a lifetime.

“I know. I also read that in the paper.”

She nodded, still not understanding why he had come, but nonetheless happy to see him. “Did you remarry eventually?”

He shook his head. “Never.” She had haunted him for more than twenty years, and he had never met another woman like her.

“I’m in the jewelry business now, you know.” She looked amused, and he raised an eyebrow.

“Are you?” This time he seemed genuinely surprised. “That’s something new, isn’t it?”

“Not anymore. It was after the war.” She told him about all the people who had come to them to sell their jewelry and how the business had grown after that. She told him about the Paris store, and Emanuelle running it, and about the store in London.

“That sounds quite amazing. I’ll have to go and see Emanuelle when I’m in Paris.” And then, as he said it, he thought better of it. He knew she had never really liked him. “I imagine the prices are a little rich for my blood. We lost everything,” he said matter-of-factly. “All of our land is in the East now.”

She felt sorry for him. There was something desperately sad about this man. There was something beaten and terribly lonely about him. She offered him a glass of wine, and went in to check on the children. Isabelle and Xavier were having dinner in the kitchen with the serving girl, and Julian had gone upstairs to call his girlfriend. She wanted to introduce them to Joachim, but she wanted to talk to him for a while first. She had the odd feeling that there was a reason why he had come to see her.

She went back into the living room to see him again, and when she did, he was looking over the books. And after a moment she saw that he had found the book he had given her, twenty years before, for Christmas. “You still have it.” He looked pleased, and she smiled at him. “I still have your photograph, on my desk, in Germany.” But that seemed sad to her too. It was so long ago. There should have been someone else on his desk by now, and not Sarah

“I have yours too. It’s put away.” But his photograph had had no place in her life with William, and Joachim knew that. “What do you do now?” He looked distinguished, and not poor, but he didn’t look either as though he had a great deal of money.

“I am a professor of English literature at the University of Heidelberg.” He smiled, as they both remembered long conversations about Keats and Shelley.

“I’m sure you’re very good at it.”

He set down his wineglass then and moved closer to her.

“Perhaps it’s wrong of me to have come, Sarah, but I have thought of you so often. It seems only yesterday since I left here.” But the truth was, it wasn’t yesterday, it was a lifetime. “I had to see you again … to know if you remember, too, if it means as much to you still, as it did to both of us then.” It was a lot to ask, and her life had been so full, and apparently his so empty.

“It’s been a long time, Joachim … I have always remembered you.” She had to be honest with him. “And I loved you then. I did, and perhaps if things had been different, if I hadn’t been married to William … but I was … and he came home. And I loved him very much. I can’t imagine loving another man again, ever.”

“Even one you had loved before?” His eyes were filled with hope and lost dreams, but she couldn’t give him the answer he wanted.

She shook her head sadly. “Even you, Joachim. I couldn’t then, and I can’t now … I am married to William forever.”

“But he is gone now,” he said gently, wondering if he had merely come too early.

“Not in my heart, just as he wasn’t then. I was grateful then, and I am now. … I can’t be any different, Joachim.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking like a broken man.

“So am I,” she said softly.

The children came in to them then. Isabelle looked adorable as she curtsied to him, and Xavier raced around the room, happily destroying whatever he could, and eventually Julian came down, too, to ask if he could go out with friends, and she introduced him to Joachim.

“You have a beautiful family,” he said when they left again. “The little one looks a little like Phillip.” Phillip had been just that age during the Occupation, and she could see his fondness for her son in his eyes. … and for Lizzie…. She knew he was thinking of her then, too, and she nodded. “I think of her sometimes, too … in some ways, she was like our baby.”

“I know.” And William had thought so too. He had told her that he’d been jealous of Joachim, because he had known Elizabeth, and he hadn’t. “She was so sweet… Julian is a little bit like that. And Xavier once in a while.… Isabelle is her own person.”

“She looks it.” He smiled. “And so are you, Sarah. I still love you. I always shall. You are exactly as I thought you might be now … except perhaps more beautiful … and still as good. Perhaps I wish you were not quite so much so.”

She laughed softly in answer. “I’m sorry.”

“William was a very lucky man. I hope he knew it.”

“I think we both did. It was too short a time …I only wish he’d had longer.”

“How was he after the war? The newspapers said his survival was miraculous.”

“It was. He was very badly damaged, and he was tortured.”

“They did terrible things,” he said, without hesitation. “For a time, I was ashamed to say I was a German.”

“All you did was help your men while you were here. The rest was done by other people. You have nothing to be ashamed of.” She had loved him, and respected him, in spite of their divergent positions.

“We should have all stopped it long before. The world will never forgive us that we didn’t, and they’re not wrong. The crimes were inhuman.” She couldn’t disagree with him, but at least they both knew that his conscience was clear. He was a good man, and he had been an honorable soldier.

Eventually, he stood up and looked around the room again, as though wanting to remember every inch, every detail, when he left her. “I should go back to Paris now. My brother will be waiting.”

“Come back again,” she said as she walked him outside, but they both knew he wouldn’t. She walked him slowly to his car, and when they reached it, he stopped and looked at her again. The hunger in his heart was etched in his eyes as he longed to touch her.

“I’m glad I came to see you again … I have wanted to for so long.” He smiled, and gently touched her cheek as he had once before, and she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, touched his face, and then slowly took a step backwards. It was like taking a last step from the past back to the present.

“Take care of yourself, Joachim….”

He hesitated for a long moment, and then nodded. He got back into his car, with a small salute, and she didn’t see the tears in his eyes as he drove away. All she could see was his car … and the man he had once been. All she could think of were her memories of William. Joachim had left her life years before. He was gone. And there was no place for him anymore. There hadn’t been in years. And when she couldn’t see the car anymore, she turned and went back inside to her children.

Chapter 25

HEN
Julian graduated from the Sorbonne with a degree in philosophy and
lettres
in 1972, Sarah was extremely proud of him. They all went to the ceremony, except Phillip, who was busy in London buying a famous collection of jewels, which included an important tiara. Emanuelle went to the graduation, looking very dignified in a dark-blue Givenchy suit, and a wonderful set of sapphires from Whitfield’s. She had become an important woman by then. Her affair with the Minister of Finance had long since been an open secret. They had been together for several years, and he treated her with respect and affection. His wife had been very ill for years, his children were grown, and they weren’t doing anyone any harm. They were discreet, he was very kind, and she truly loved him. He had bought her a beautiful apartment on the Avenue Foch several years before and she entertained with him, and people begged to be invited to their parties. All the most interesting people in Paris seemed to go there, and her position as the manager of Whitfield’s was an object of fascination and great interest. She dressed impeccably, and her taste was glorious, as were the jewels she had carefully acquired herself over the years, as well as those he gave her.

Sarah was grateful that she was still working for her, particularly now that Julian was coming into the business. He had great taste and a wonderful sense of design, and a fine eye for extraordinary jewels, but there were many things he didn’t know about running the business. Emanuelle was no longer working on the floor selling, and hadn’t been in a long time; she had an office upstairs, she was the directrice générale, and her office was directly across from Sarah’s. They left their doors open sometimes, and shouted across the hall, like two girls in a dormitory doing homework. They had remained close friends, and only their friendship, her children, and her ever-increasing workload had helped Sarah survive William’s death. It had been more than six years, and for Sarah, they had been brutally lonely.

Life wasn’t the same without him, in countless major ways, and all the small ones. All the laughter they had shared, all the thoughtful little gestures, the smiles, the flowers, the deep understanding, the shared or even diametrically opposed points of view, his endless good judgment, and limitless wisdom, they were all gone now, and the ache she felt was almost physical, it was so painful.

The children had kept her busy over the years, Isabelle was sixteen, and Xavier seven. He was into everything, and Sarah often wondered if he was going to survive his childhood. Sarah found him on the roof of the château, or in caves he created near the stables, testing electric wires, and building things that looked as though they might easily kill him. But somehow he managed to get through it, and his energy and ingenuity intrigued her. He had a passion for rocks, too, and he always thought he had just found gold or silver or diamonds. The moment anything glimmered in the soil, he would pounce on it and proclaim he had found a bijou for Whitfield’s