Far From Home

Chapter 13

On the last night of their two-week holiday at the chateau, Tim borrowed Sebastien’s small, disreputable car and drove Marianna to the nearest beach at sunset. They walked along hand in hand. He thanked her for a wonderful vacation with her family. And as the sun set, he kissed her. There was something magical about it. He smiled down at her afterward, and sank to one knee on the beach, as she watched him, wondering what he was doing. He took her hand, with the last of the sun shining behind her.

“Marianna von Auspeck, will you do me the honor of marrying me and becoming my wife?” She stared at him as though he’d grown wings and could fly. She had had no idea that he would do that.

“Tim, are you serious?” she whispered.

“That’s not the correct response. It’s a yes or no question. And yes, I’m serious.”

“Yes…yes, I will…I do…” He stood up then, took her in his arms and kissed her again.

He was smiling from ear to ear. He had been nervous about it all day. He had only known her for three months, but he was absolutely certain that he was doing the right thing. He was sure that his friends would tease him about it, that he had been dodging marriage for ten years, and now he was coming home with a German war bride. He didn’t give a damn what they said, or what anyone thought. He was madly in love with her, and he knew she was the right woman for him. He had no hesitations or doubts.

“Did you ask my mother?” she asked him, as they walked back down the beach to Sebastien’s car.

“Of course. I did it right,” he said proudly.

“What did she say?”

“She said yes, of course, or I wouldn’t have asked you.”

“You wouldn’t?” Marianna was surprised.

“I want this to be just right. If your mother didn’t approve, we’d have to wait until I could convince her. As it turns out, she’s happy for us and she approves. And I was right, by the way.”

“About what?” Marianna felt dazed and excited and scared all at once. She was nervous about moving to New York, but not about him.

“She’s in love with Sebastien, they are not ‘just friends.’?”

“Did she tell you that or did you make it up?”

“Would I lie when I just solemnly proposed?”

“You might.” She smiled. “What did she say?”

“That she’s in love with him, but however it works out is fine with her.”

“Do you think she’ll marry him?” Marianna was intrigued. Her mother hadn’t said anything to her.

“I’m not sure. I think it depends on what he does. I think she would if he asked. I suggested a double ceremony, and she laughed.”

“When do you want to get married?” she asked him, as they got back to the car.

“That’s an interesting question. Your mother and I discussed it. There are some legal issues involved.” They got into the car and he explained it to her. “Now that you’ve said yes and made me the happiest man in the world, I go to my C.O. tomorrow and explain it to him. In order for me to get married in Europe as an American, we need a civil ceremony in the U.S. first. In order for us to have a civil ceremony in the U.S., we need paperwork for me to bring you to the U.S., because you’re German and until very recently, your country and mine were enemies. So, first we need paperwork. With any luck, you fly to New York and we have a civil ceremony, possibly with my sisters, then we fly back to Europe and we can have a religious ceremony here. I thought at the chateau would be nice, but that’s up to you. I have to fly back to the States on October 1, so we need to get you there in October. And if I get appointed to the Nuremberg trials, which is a possibility, I’d have to be back here on November 1, and then we can get married whenever we want, wherever you want. And if I get appointed, we’d be living in Nuremberg for a year, and you’ll be close to your mother and your cousins and you can visit them whenever you want in France and they can visit us.”

“You’re coming back for a year?”

“ We’re coming back for a year,” he corrected.

“That’s so wonderful.” She looked ecstatic. She wasn’t ready to leave Europe yet, or her mother.

“I just have to get the paperwork worked out so we can pull it off.”

“It would be nice to have your sisters at the ceremony here too.” It was suddenly all so exciting. Marianna was beaming when they got out of the car. Her mother saw her and knew what had happened. Marianna looked so happy. Arielle was thrilled. She had felt that way when Gregor proposed to her. The others didn’t notice, and when they sat down to dinner that night, Tim tapped his knife to his glass to get their attention, and everyone looked at him as he stood up.

“I would like to introduce you all tonight to someone very special.” He smiled at his bride as he said it. “The future Mrs. Timothy Hawson McGrath the Third.” He raised his glass to her and everyone looked startled and delighted and raised their glasses and congratulated them. And Louis ran to get several bottles of champagne the Germans had overlooked and he’d found in the wine cellar recently.

Jeanne wanted to know when they were going to do it and where, and Marianna and Tim said they didn’t know yet. They had to take care of the paperwork and the formalities, which were complicated because he was an American in Europe, and she would be a German in the U.S., but they hoped to be married by the end of the year.

Sebastien was smiling as he watched them, and he saw how happy Arielle was for her. And Marianna added that they might be spending a year in Europe, starting in November, but it wasn’t sure yet. But if so, they would be in Europe for another year before they moved to New York.

“You can study for the bar in France,” Sebastien suggested, “and open an office with me in Paris. You’ll have to polish up your French. Arielle can help you.”

“That sounds like a very interesting idea,” Tim answered him. “If my partners throw me out, I might have to.” But they would be very proud of him if he got appointed to the Nuremberg trials. He didn’t want to jinx it by telling anyone yet. For now, the big announcement was the engagement. Everyone was happy for them. And he still had another month in Berlin. He was going to be very busy, wrapping things up and working on the various war crimes cases to get them ready for trial.

The men were leaving the next day. Tim had to fly back to Berlin, and Sebastien and Josephine were leaving in the morning to drive back to Paris, so she could start working with her tutor the day after. Sylvie was starting school that week too, at her old school in the village. She had been spending time with her old friends and was thrilled to be home. And she and Josephine had become fast friends. Josephine was mature for her age.

Marianna would spend a few more days at the chateau with her mother, and then fly to Berlin to see Tim and spend time with him, and Arielle was going to Paris to be with Sebastien and Josephine, and look for an apartment for herself. She didn’t want to crowd Sebastien and Josephine, and she wanted room for Marianna too.

Sebastien snuck into Arielle’s bed at the chateau that night, to continue the passion they’d been indulging all week since the first time in the woods.

“That was sweet tonight,” he said to her after they made love. “They look so happy.”

“I know they haven’t known each other for a long time, but wartime makes everything bigger and faster and stronger, and I feel right about it,” Arielle said confidently.

“So do I,” he said. “I really like him. I think he’ll be good to her.”

“I think so too,” she said, and he kissed her again and then looked at her in the moonlight.

“What about us? Do you think we should get married one day?”

“I think we should do exactly what we want to do,” she said, smiling.

“Do you feel unfaithful to Gregor, getting married again?”

“No,” she said. He’d been gone for thirteen months, and they’d had a wonderful marriage. They’d had the time that destiny intended them to have, and now she knew she had to go on. And she felt safe doing so with Sebastien. It would be a very different life than she’d had with Gregor. But it was the life she wanted now, in a changed world.

“It’s funny, I feel peaceful about Naomi now. I didn’t for all these years, because I didn’t know what had happened to her, or if she was alive. Once I knew she wasn’t, I felt free to move on. I never did until then.”

“How do you think Josephine would feel about it?” Arielle asked. That was more important to her than Naomi.

“She loves you,” Sebastien said simply.

“She might think I was trying to take her mother’s place. I would never do that. But I can be her friend.”

“She loves the idea of Marianna being her sister. She said so. Maybe we should think about it, and then if we get married, you could live with us and it would be respectable.”

“We are respectable,” she said to him. “We’ve loved before, and we’ve lived and we’ve suffered, and had losses, and now we love each other. We’ve earned it, every bit of happiness we’re lucky enough to share. No one can take that away from us.” They were powerful words and he looked at her and kissed her.

“Let’s get married soon. I think I’m ready. We don’t have to wait.”

“At the right time,” she said to him peacefully and kissed him, and the way she did it made him feel as though she was pulling his soul up from his feet to his throat. His whole body was begging for her. And a minute later, she proved to him that she was more than just his best friend. The vacation in Normandy had been magical for them.

—

The next afternoon when Tim got back to Berlin, his commanding officer asked to see him, and Tim wondered if something was wrong, if he was in trouble for his two-week vacation.

“Congratulations, Captain,” his C.O. said with a broad smile. Tim had been appointed to the prosecution team at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. “We’ll need you back here around the twenty-eighth of October. You can do a lot of the prep work this month, before you go back to the States. You’ve already gotten a lot of it done,” he said with approval.

“Yes, sir. I’ll have to square things with the partners of my law firm. I can do that from here, before I go back. And I have a request.” He explained the situation with Marianna, and that he needed papers for her so they could have a civil marriage in the States before he came back for Nuremberg. “Without that, I can’t get married in Europe.”

“I understand,” his C.O. said without further need for explanation. “I’ll do my best to get you what you need before you go.”

“Thank you, sir.” They shook hands over his appointment. And then the C.O smiled.

“Congratulations on your engagement. She’s the right woman?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sure of it.”

Tim left the commanding officer’s office a few minutes later and called Marianna to confirm that he had gotten the appointment, and had requested the paperwork for them to marry. It was going to be a whirlwind year for them. He called Sebastien to tell him too, and Arielle, who said she was proud of him. He had a very busy year ahead.

—

Marianna flew back to Berlin to be with Tim later that week. She was thinking about how things fit together. If Jürgen’s parents hadn’t evicted her, she would never have taken the job in the beer garden she hated, and the Russian soldier wouldn’t have followed her, and Tim wouldn’t have rescued her. It was odd how the worst things sometimes led to the best things, and now she was going to marry Tim, and she knew it was right. She had never felt that way about Jürgen. They were children then. Jürgen had been fun, and she had loved him, but her love for Tim was different, deeper. She was absolutely sure of what she was doing. She had grown up. But it was as though she had had to have Jürgen, to realize what she had with Tim and how strong and special it was.

—

She spent the next four weeks with Tim in Berlin, in the apartment her mother had rented in June. They talked about their plans at night, and when he left for New York, she took the train to Paris to meet her mother. Arielle had rented a cozy apartment in the 7th arrondissement, where Marianna could stay with her when she visited, and Arielle could be alone when she wanted to be. She spent time with Sebastien and Josephine in the evenings, but she didn’t feel right spending the night with him with Josephine there. Josephine needed time alone with her father as part of her recovery. It made Sebastien even hungrier for Arielle, and their time together even more passionate and precious. And when he stayed with her, they didn’t have to worry about a teenager in the next room. Arielle wanted to do things right. It turned out to be the right decision, and transformed their time alone together into sensual adventures of discovery and delight. He couldn’t wait to visit her in her apartment on the Left Bank. It kept the romance and desire in their lovemaking.

Sebastien’s law office was doing well and gathering momentum. He was working on his own project of returning apartments to the people who had lost them when they were deported. He had had two major successes so far and he was working on Arielle and Marianna’s restitution case in Germany, which he guessed would take a long time to resolve. Arielle helped him in the office when he needed it. The relationship they had created suited them both perfectly. And marriage was always an option but not a necessity. They were letting their relationship thrive and grow, without rushing it.

—

Tim and Marianna’s papers showed up just in time. Ten days before he had to leave for the Nuremberg trials, she flew to New York and they were married by a judge with his sisters as witnesses. They were startled by how young Marianna was, but the war had matured her beyond her years, and his sisters promised to come to their wedding at the chateau. They were getting married on Christmas Eve, by a priest from the village.

When they flew back to Berlin on October 27, they were legally man and wife. She had a narrow gold wedding ring, and a very handsome diamond engagement ring that had been his mother’s, which she had left him in her will and he’d been saving for years.

—

The beginning of the Nuremberg trials was exciting, and shown by the press everywhere. Sebastien came from Paris with Arielle to observe the proceedings, and they were impressed by the attorneys and witnesses. The testimony was devastating, and the defendants were monsters. It was painful being there, but an important part of history. Tim was totally immersed in the cases he was assigned to.

Arielle had gotten French citizenship by then and had regularized her papers. She was French now and as she listened to the trials, she was relieved to no longer be German. She knew she couldn’t be anymore.

Sebastien, Arielle, Marianna, and Tim would talk about the trials at night, when Tim didn’t have too much work to prepare for the next day. It was the most challenging thing he’d ever done, and the most important. He was proud to be there seeking justice for the victims of unimaginable cruelty.

Tim loved being married to Marianna. She was his comfort, his joy, his solace, his inspiration, his fun, and the rock he held on to in a storm. He lived to protect her from the ills of the world, of which there seemed to be many. They had played the recording of Josephine’s testimony in the early days of the trial, and it left people speechless with grief for the victims. It was frightening that there were such cruel men in the world. They were the personification of evil, and the witnesses were an endless parade of their victims to prove it without a doubt. Some of their victims had recovered, many never would, and far more were no longer alive to say what had been done to them. Six million souls accompanied them all in the courtroom through the trial. Their voices were heard in every testimony and the power of the attorneys’ words, never to be forgotten. Tim was one of the strongest voices among them, with conviction and compassion.

He talked to Marianna about it late one night. “I used to think it was funny that your father had tried to kill Hitler, like a satire of some kind, and how badly it was bungled. But listening to the testimony, I realize how strong his and his friends’ faith in their beliefs had to be, knowing that they had to stop him, and thinking that they could, no matter what it took or how great the risk. They were willing to give their lives in order to stop Hitler, and still they couldn’t beat him at the time. The end point is that Hitler is dead now. He is finally powerless. The evil master is gone, and the world has survived. And what your father tried to do will live on. He didn’t fail. Evil didn’t triumph in the end. These trials are a lesson to everyone who would spread evil and try to kill good. Evil is never more powerful than good.” Tim believed that to his very core and so did Marianna, and Arielle and the others. They were living proof that good had prevailed.

—

During the Christmas hiatus from the Nuremberg trials, Tim and Marianna flew to Paris, and stayed at Arielle’s warm, inviting Left Bank apartment, which felt like it embraced them. Sebastien and Josephine were staying there with her. They were together all the time now, and were slowly becoming a family. And Jeanne, Louis, and Sylvie were waiting for them at the chateau, and getting everything ready.

They all drove to the Chateau de Villier on Christmas Eve morning. Sebastien and Josephine rode with Arielle. She had Marianna’s dress with her in the car she had rented, and she had her wedding gift next to her. The dress was a perfectly simple ivory satin gown with a high collar and long sleeves and a train. Marianna would wear no veil, since she’d been married before. Tim’s sisters, Audrey and Elizabeth, were already at the chateau, and had come to spend Christmas with them. Audrey’s husband and two sons had come too.

Local caterers had prepared the meal for after the wedding, and the priest from the village performed the ceremony with traditional vows. It was exactly what they had wanted it to be. Simple, honest, and real. It symbolized the forces of good in contrast to the forces of evil that Tim and his team were fighting every day.

They had all come through a war, they had survived terror, loss and fear, they had rescued children and saved lives, and risked their own. And somehow in the end, Love had prevailed. Sebastien held Arielle’s hand through the ceremony, Josephine remembered her mother, and Arielle felt Gregor near her, and they were proud of their daughter. Arielle was sure that Viktor was somewhere near them too, ready to tease his sister as he used to.

—

Arielle waited until after the ceremony and the photographs of the family to give Marianna her wedding gift. They went upstairs to Arielle’s room. The gift was in the box it came in when Gregor gave it to her, his last gift to her. Marianna opened it cautiously, wondering what it was, and gasped when she saw them. They were the black enamel jeweled cuffs that Arielle loved, designed by Gabrielle Chanel. She had sold all the rest of the jewelry she had brought to Paris, and was still living on the money from it. And one day, according to Tim and Sebastien, there would be enough restitution for her to live on, while she helped Sebastien’s deportees reclaim their homes.

Marianna tried on the cuffs and looked at her mother.

“But you love them, Mama. Papa gave them to you, and they’re the only jewelry you have left.”

“No, they’re not. You’re my jewel, and the gift is from both of us. Your father would want you to have them, and so do I. And whatever happens, wherever you are, remember how much we love you, and you’re never far from home, or from us.”

Marianna put them carefully back in the box and hugged her mother. Arielle put an arm around her daughter, and they went back to the others to celebrate their joyful occasion. It was a perfect Christmas, a perfect end to the story, for them all. One by one, they had found each other, by large and small miracles, just as it was meant to be, and they had come home at last. They had discovered that home was not a place, it was always in their hearts.