The Last Time I Saw Paris (25 page)

Two buckets hung over the side of the well next to a coiled length of heavy rope. Hooking the first onto a rusted metal hook and gripping the line, Claire lowered the bucket until she heard a splash, felt the rope go limp and then heavy. She spit into her palms, gritted her teeth and pulled, hand over fist. Her arms were burning before the bucket was level with the well’s wall. Bracing the rope around a shoulder, Claire reached out and pulled the bucket toward her to rest on the wall. Tugging the handle free, she wrestled it to the ground.

Dipping her burning palms into the water, she flinched at the bite on open blisters. It was shockingly cold on her skin, smelled earthy and sweet. She splashed water on her face, rinsed out her mouth, then took a long drink and felt the chill roll down to her empty stomach. It was good, clean of taint and grit.

She filled the second bucket and was working her way toward the house, one in each hand, when the door opened. Grey scanned the farmyard before his eyes lit on Claire. He couldn’t quite conceal his surprise before he hurried to her side. Claire was gratified when he hefted the buckets and exhaled under his breath.

“I didn’t see you inside when I awoke,” he said.

“Thought I made a run back to Paris?”

His brows knitted as he tried to read her expression. “You just might.”

Claire held the door open for him. “Don’t slop when you go inside.”

They walked silently by the sleeping girls. Claire motioned for Grey to set down the pails next to the stove. She found the chicory and got a pot brewing.

He watched her, his lips curled into the faintest smile.

Claire found the cups in the cupboard. Old patterned china, each cup a different color and shape. She filled three, didn’t spare him a glance.

“How—”

Claire handed him a cup.

They heard a low groan from the bedroom. Grey stared at her a moment before he turned and disappeared behind the curtain.

She took a sip of the coffee, not bad, and carried the third cup into the bedroom. The American was sitting upright. His face was pale, but his green eyes were bright. He took the cup from Claire with both hands, drank, then smacked his lips and blinked as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. He broke into a grin and spoke, the drawl of a southern boy. “Thank you, ma’am. This is the prettiest coffee I’ve ever tasted.”

Claire smiled, blushing in spite of herself. “Well, hello, flyboy.”

He seemed surprised she was American, though he tried not to show it. He leaned back against the wall, took another sip, a deep sigh, then drank her in with his eyes.

Grey frowned at the soldier’s unabashed gaze. “Captain Walker, this is Evelyn.”

“I am very pleased to meet you, Evelyn,” he said.

She turned to Grey. “You didn’t tell me this flyboy was such a charmer.”

Walker gritted his teeth but managed a smile; exhaustion showed on his face. His shoulder slipped down the wall toward the cot.

“Take a rest, Captain.” Grey grabbed the cup before it tipped.

They watched Walker settle into the cot; his eyelids drooped, then closed, his breathing slow and regular.

Grey motioned toward the curtain. Claire walked out ahead of him; they passed the girls, now sitting quietly on the wooden floor. Marta sat legs crossed, Anna in her lap. Neither girl looked up as Marta drew a silver-plated brush through Anna’s pale hair.

In the kitchen, Claire rummaged through the tins. “So, who is he?”

“Captain Walker is a transporter. He pilots a bomber and drops people and supplies at night. He was shot down two weeks ago in Belgium and somehow managed to survive. The Americans need him back.”

“Makes sense,” Claire said. “What about the girls?”

“Someone important made arrangements for them to get out, though no contact has been made since. In the next few days, a messenger will notify us as to what we need to do. The twenty-third is a new moon, perfect for transport.”

“Escape,” Claire said. America for them and Paris for her.

 

 

G
olden summer days passed into sultry nights where the moon waned to a crescent. Life fell into a quiet ritual marked by the rising and setting of the sun. The sky was golden, sun sinking behind the dilapidated farmhouse, as Claire shaded her eyes and stepped from the shadowed forest into the farmyard.

Anna tugged on Claire’s fingers as she skipped next to her, her small face rosy and free hand clenching wildflowers. The radio crackled from the house as Captain Walker entertained Marta with a story full of curses and
slang américain
from his self-appointed station propped up on the doorstep in the shade.

Claire felt a gaze on her. She looked up to see Grey leaning against the open doorway of the barn, his shirt untucked and half-unbuttoned in the late afternoon heat. He’d left before sunup, his day spent scouting the roads for any sign of soldiers or the expected messenger. He watched her, a cigarette in his mouth. His slate eyes were a palpable force on her skin. A warm shiver ran down her spine.

“Look at what I have,” Anna shouted, waving her chaotic bouquet toward Grey.

He smiled at Anna. “Well done.”

“Ask Grey for water for your flowers. I’m going see how our stew is coming.” Claire flushed as she turned toward the house, relieved at the break from his gaze.

She slipped past Marta sitting on the stair next to Walker. The girl hung on the pilot’s words, chin resting in her palms, black lash-rimmed eyes open wide, offering the rarest smile.

Claire passed the china cups and empty food tins bursting with riotous purple, white and yellow blooms decorating every surface on her way to the kitchen. A rabbit simmered in a pot with potatoes and flour on the stove. Claire reached for a scarred metal spoon and leaned in for a taste. Not dinner at the Ritz but not bad either. A recipe she’d learned from Mama back when she had to stand on her tiptoes to see inside the pot.

“Smells delicious in here.” Grey stepped up behind her; his muscled chest brushed against her back as he peered over her shoulder at the stove.

Claire felt the warmth from his body, smelled the mix of tobacco and sun. The blood rushed from her head. She gripped the spoon and concentrated on stirring. “Thanks to you.”

He grinned, head tilted forward to examine her face. “I didn’t think Yankee princesses knew how to cook rabbit.”

Claire flushed at his stare and kept her eyes on the stew.

He gripped her hand, stilling the spoon. “Really, Claire, tell me, how—”

“Evelyn,” Anna cried from the doorway. “May I fold the napkins tonight?”

Claire stepped away from Grey, grateful for the reprieve. She handed Anna the squares she’d sewn from an old grain sack. “You remember how I showed you?”

The little girl nodded, her face serious.

Claire turned to Grey and handed him chipped china bowls from the cupboard. “I assume a proper British gentleman knows how to set the table?”

He raised an eyebrow, but his expression was admiring. “I’ll manage.”

 

 

A
week passed, the new moon rose, a shadowed presence in the dark night. After dinner they sat in the living room gathered around the radio’s crackling tunes. At 9:15 they tuned the radio to the BBC and fell into silence. The opening measure of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony sounded the rhythm of Morse code signal for
V
, as in victory. Then the
messages personnels
, read in perfect French. Simple sentences about Jacques’s vacation in Lyon, Murielle’s new baby, a few lines of poetry. In truth, they were prearranged messages designed for certain ears, alerting agents of missions starting or aborting. Grey listened with eyes closed.

“Anything?” Walker asked as the broadcast ended.

Grey shook his head. At the anxious look on Marta’s face, he tried a smile. “It hasn’t been too long. They’ll have more chances.”

As Marta returned to brushing Anna’s hair, Claire offered Grey an appreciative smile.
Thank you,
she mouthed. He nodded, but his grin faded as he looked out the window into the darkness.

After settling the girls on top of their blanket-bed, Claire joined Grey on the crest of a rolling hill above the farm. A lone oak tree stretched its branches above them. The night was balmy. Tall grass swayed, whispering in a warm breeze that didn’t cool.

Faint lights from Lyons-la-forêt glimmered in the distance, but his eyes searched the black sky. “The plane should’ve landed tonight. Our messenger should have been here by now.”

“What happened?”

Grey scowled. “I don’t know. Our messenger is local. He’s supposed to lead us to the drop point in an open field somewhere out there. We light signal fires. The plane lands; we pull off our supplies and equipment, and load it inside the compartment in the truck. Walker, Marta and Anna take their place on the plane.”

“Could it still come?”

“It might. But these things are bloody difficult to plan, and after tonight they’ll have a moon to deal with. They’ll either have to wait for cloudy night skies for cover or”—he looked at Claire—“the next new moon.”

Claire ran her fingers over her calluses. She waited for the old surge of trapped despair, but found, to her surprise, her thoughts were on Marta and Anna. A sigh of disappointment for them. “But they will come, won’t they?”

She felt more than saw Grey’s shrug in the darkness.

“I know Walker is important to them,” he said.

“And the girls?”

“Well, they don’t weigh much, do they?”

She saw his teeth flash white, heard a low chuckle. In her mind, she inventoried their supplies. The food wouldn’t last. “They will weigh a lot less in a month. What other options are there?”

“If the girls or Walker had the right papers, special
Ausweis
, they could take the train south, pass the soldiers at the demarcation line, then cross the border into Spain in the comfort of a car. But those papers are impossible to get, and the bribes would be enormous. More likely, more common, they could be smuggled past the demarcation line in hidden compartments, under loads of rotting vegetables or rancid meat. Then, they would make their way south, sleep in barns, ride in wagons or walk, until finally they bribed a farmer to cross his land to bypass the French border guards. Then they must hike over the Pyrenees into Spain.” He shook his head, his mouth tight. “Not an easy journey for girls or the wounded. And even then, if the border guards in Spain catch them without the correct papers, they will arrest them and notify the Gestapo.”

Claire examined the edges of Grey’s face, dimly visible under the stars. From his tone, what was unsaid, Claire knew he’d suffered much of that to reach London. Something she named admiration stirred in her stomach, doused with a single thought. “You must love her very much.” She choked on the word,
mistress
, and said instead, “Your child.”

His eyes were black and probing in the darkness. “Abigail isn’t mine.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s war, dammit. Things happen and we can’t control the outcome. We can’t control people, even when we know what they are doing is wrong. Hell, we can’t even control ourselves. She lacks a father. But it’s not Abigail’s fault,” Grey said, as if it were an argument he’d had too often before.

Laurent’s words echoed in Claire’s mind,
A woman and a child. Grey is a steadfast sort of creature. A responsible man.
“And so you’re responsible for her, aren’t you?”

“Always,” Grey said.

A wave of sadness, like the tide, rose up and submerged her. “I don’t think anyone is getting rescued tonight.” She turned and walked to the house alone.

She rolled up in a blanket on the kitchen floor, her gaze on the window. The stars were streaks of light in the wavy glass. She heard the door creak open and the curtain rustle as Grey came inside. Always, she thought. How would it feel to be promised
always
by a man like that?

The next morning, Grey disappeared into the forest to gather bird eggs with Anna riding on his shoulders. Walker made slow circles in the farmyard, gaining strength through willpower and sunlight. Marta watched from the step, her face shadowed.

Marta’s face mirrored old feelings Claire knew, a caustic mix of longing and despair. For Claire, childhood had been a longing for a better life, of seeing the world, despair at never getting off the farm. Marta had seen the world, too much of it, perhaps. Claire wondered if the young American soldier was the target of Marta’s longing for the strength he offered, or for the promise of a new life in a free country. Misery etched her young face.

“Marta, come pick flowers with me,” Claire said.

They walked side by side along a path that edged the forest, at the base of the rolling hills.

“I miss Paris,” Claire said, a way to begin. “Did you live there?”

Marta leaned over a grouping of primrose. “We left Poland when I was nine, so six years in Paris.”

“A long time. You could be called a real Parisian, then.”

“I suppose. I am Polish too. I remember it before things got bad. We were very happy there.”

Claire nodded. She knew Paris was full of refugees that fled countries suckling fascism for years before Hitler’s armies marched. Jews had taken the brunt of it, many landed in Paris.

Marta tugged at a few of the blooms, just opening, and handed them to Claire.

Claire slid the ends into the thin layer of water at the base of her bucket. “Were you happy in Paris?”

“My mother was. Very happy. My father was not.” Her cheeks colored. A delicate subject. They walked for a while in silence before Marta continued. “My mother is an important modernist artist. She paints,
painted
, portraits of the wealthy in Paris. She loved it. The parties, salons. It was very glamorous, you see, and my mother is very talented, very beautiful. But my father is different. He’s like me.”