Last Twilight in Paris

13. Louise

13

Louise

Paris, 1953

“You’re here,” Ian says, his voice a mix of surprise and happiness.

“Yes.” I shift awkwardly. “You invited me.”

“I did. I just never thought…” His voice trails off, but his eyes do not leave mine.

“That I would dare to come?” I finish for him.

“Yes,” he admits.

“I’m here to find out more about the cellist,” I say, making sure there is no confusion about why I am here.

“I’m so glad you did.” His voice is warm, and a sea of emotion rises in me. Being here with him feels strange, like characters in the wrong story. “I was going to reach out to you. I did some checking and I found out some information about the cellist in the POW camp,” he says.

“Really? And?”

He shakes his head. “Not here.” I’m frustrated, eager to know what he has learned. But Ian will not tell me until he is ready. “Shall we have dinner and talk?” he proposes. He gestures toward the hotel. “I’ve heard the restaurant is quite good.”

I hesitate. I had come to Paris to find answers and I need Ian’s help. But the prospect of sitting across from him, looking into his eyes, is almost too much. “Certainly,” I manage finally. “Let me freshen up first.” I walk into the bathroom just off the lobby.

After I use the toilet and wash my hands, I peer into the mirror, wishing I was not so worn from the trip. My face is pale and dark circles ring my eyes. I reach into my purse for my powder and lipstick. As I do, the necklace falls out and clatters to the ground. I pick it up and turn it over in my hand, discovering for the first time a faint crack along the edge of the charm. My curiosity rises. It is a locket. How had I not noticed before? The opening is so fine that even Millie had not spotted it. I try to pry it open, but it is stuck with age.

I reach into my purse for a thin metal nail file. I wedge the file into the crack and the locket opens with a pop. The necklace is actually a locket with a tiny place for storing things inside.

Something tiny falls out and flutters to the ground. I pick it up and examine it, trying to figure out what it is. It is smaller than my thumbnail and translucent. It appears to be a piece of film, so I hold it up to the light, trying to see what tiny image it holds. It is impossible.

Another woman walks into the bathroom. I scramble to put the locket and film back in my purse. Then I walk out into the lobby. Ian is waiting for me by the hotel bistro.

We find our way to a small table in the corner. A tiny candle flickers in the center of the table, its shadows dancing on the pressed white tablecloth. “You haven’t given up on chasing this thing,” Ian observes wryly once we’ve sat down.

“No,” I admit. “At first, when I learned that the necklace was English, I thought that maybe you were right and there was nothing more to it. But then when Midge told me that Lévitan, the name on the box, was a Paris department store, I suspected there might be a connection. So I came.” I hear how far-fetched my own explanation sounds.

“You went to the department store already?”

I nod. “It’s a design firm now, but you can still see the original architecture of the shop. I didn’t learn much at first. It turns out that the store didn’t even sell jewelry, and I thought I’d hit a dead end.”

“So you see, there really is nothing to all of this. I hope this wasn’t a waste of a trip for you.”

“It wasn’t. You see, as I was about to give up, I met a woman whose family owns a pharmacy across the street. She has lived there since before the war.” I put my hand to my temple, overwhelmed and exhausted by what I had learned and the whole day. Ian is watching me intently as I speak. “So, what did you find out about the cellist?”

Before he can reply, a waiter comes around and Ian orders for us in flawless French, chardonnay for me and a scotch neat for him, plus a tray of meats and cheeses. I consider asking for tea instead. But after everything that has happened today, I could do with something stiffer. “You remember what I drink,” I say, a touch flattered.

“Some things don’t change,” he says evenly, giving me a long look.

“But some do. When did you learn to speak French so well?” His French had been terrible when we were in Europe during the war.

“I’ve needed it for my job. I’ve had a few assignments abroad.” I realize how little I know about him or what he has done in the years since the war. Neither of us speak. It seems so odd to be seated here with him. Ours had not been the world of bars and cafés. Rather, our backdrop was the war, rolling boats and jostling trucks. After all of the feelings we had between us and the terrible circumstances under which we parted, the ordinary does not feel right.

“The man, I found out who he was,” Ian says when the waiter has set down our drinks and left again. “He was a well-known cellist, Gabriel Lemarque. He was half-English.” Which might explain the Mizpah, I think. Or perhaps why it had wound up back in England. “And as I said, it turns out he lived in Paris. He was an up-and-coming star of the French classical musical scene before the war.” I try to figure out how this information might connect to Franny and the necklace. Ian continues, “But, Lou, there’s more. It turns out that he was a collaborator.”

“No…”

“The records are clear. He was performing for the Germans and their propaganda effort.”

A terrible thought comes into my head: If Franny was helping him, was she also a traitor? The war had been filled with stories of double agents, people betraying their countries on both sides. Still, it was hard to imagine Franny, who had been so fiercely intent on helping the prisoners, collaborating with the other side. “How is it possible that Gabriel was working for the Germans?” I press. “At some point, he was arrested and put in the POW camp, which is where Franny met him. He wouldn’t have been there if he was working for the Germans.”

“I suppose not.” Ian pauses a beat, thinking, brushes at his forehead.

“Franny said that he asked her to get the necklace to his wife in Paris,” I say. “I wonder, why did he want her to do that?”

He shrugs. “Maybe to tell her that he was alive or to make sure she was all right.”

Or maybe , I think, to develop a piece of microfilm. I am more curious than ever to know what is on it. Yet I still do not mention it to Ian.

Ian continues, “Franny never said why. I’m not sure she knew herself.”

“Any idea what became of the cellist?”

“I’m afraid there’s no record of him after the camps. He very well might have died during the war.” Consigned like so many, I thought, to an unmarked grave. “I checked the postwar emi gration records, even looked through the phone directory for Paris on the off chance that he survived and stayed here. But there was nothing.”

The waiter returns with a tray of cured meats and cheeses. “Please,” Ian says, gesturing to the food. I take a piece of baguette, my mouth watering. I, too, am famished. Other than a crepe I’d hastily grabbed when first arriving in Paris, I haven’t eaten. But it is more than that: my head is light from the wine, and I need something in my near-empty stomach to balance it out or it’s going to go to my head—which is the last thing I need when I’m here alone with Ian after all of these years.

As we eat, my thoughts turn back to Franny and the cellist. “Franny asked you to carry the necklace for the cellist. But you refused. Why?”

“It was more complicated than that, Lou.” His voice is plaintive, asking me now, as he did then, to understand the difficult position he was in. “You have to remember that the Red Cross was in those camps by the grace of the German government.”

“You mean the Nazis.”

“I do. And if we made waves, they would no longer allow us to deliver the aid packages. You understand, don’t you?”

I pause for a second, considering. “Yes.” How could I judge Ian for not helping Franny deliver the necklace when I had refused to do so as well?

There does not seem to be more to say, so he pays the check and we start from the bistro.

“So what now?” he asks. I start to reply that tomorrow we will go see the man Madame Dupree told me about. But I realize he is not asking about our plans tomorrow. Rather, he wants to know about the two of us, right now.

“I suppose you’ll want to turn in,” he adds. “You must be knackered from the trip across. Unless you fancy a cup of tea…” he suggests.

“You could come up to my room and we could talk awhile longer.” I know that it is the wrong answer the moment I speak. I am playing with fire. “Just for a bit,” I add, as if this will make it somehow better. “A quick cup of tea and then you need to go.”

“I’d love that.” He smiles, and I regret extending the invitation even more. I want to change my mind. But it is too late. He has started across the lobby to the lift. And when the door opens, he holds it for me and then follows me in.

The lift begins to rise. Then it stops suddenly, jostling us awkwardly together. “Darn lifts.” He lingers a second before pulling away. “Nothing from before the war works as it should.” At his closeness, my breath catches. In addition to trying to find out about the necklace, I’d come here to put whatever was between us to rest. Instead, our connection looms larger than ever.

When we reach the door to my room, Ian follows me inside. My dress from the previous day lies across the back of a chair and my toiletries are at the sink. Intimate things, reminding me that he does not belong here. I should ask him to go, but I do not.

I scan the room. “No kettle, I’m afraid.”

Ian walks to the small liquor cabinet in the corner of the room. “No wine either.” He pours two drinks, then crosses the room and hands one to me. “To the old days,” he proposes. I raise my glass in acknowledgment but do not repeat the toast. I take a sip of the brandy, wincing as it burns my throat sharply. He reaches into his pocket, and I expect him to pull out a cigarette. “I quit,” he says, reading my mind, but he twirls his fingers as though he wishes one was there, the old vices gone but not forgotten.

“Can I see the necklace?” he asks. I take it out and hand it to him. He holds it in his palm, turning it over, considering. “Why do you think Franny was so determined to help the man deliver the necklace?” He drops into one of the chairs and sets the necklace down carefully on the table beside him.

“Because she was Franny.” She always cared so much about the conditions the prisoners were forced to live in. About all of it.

“So, you never did tell me what you learned at the department store,” Ian says.

“At first, nothing. The current occupants of the building were not eager to talk. But there was a pharmacy across the street from the store, and I met a pharmacist whose parents were there during the war. The pharmacist’s mother made the managing director of the firm take me around and show me everything. It’s unbelievable, really. Jewish people were forced to live above the store and sort through the plunder of their own people and sell it. And then the pharmacist’s mother gave me the name of one of the Jews who was imprisoned there. I had hoped to visit, but he lives outside Paris, and I didn’t think I could get there in time today.”

“We’ll go first thing tomorrow, then.” We. I’m not sure if I am ready to be a “we” with Ian, even just for this project. But I’m grateful for his help.

“There’s a car coming for me at nine, if you’d like to join me,” I relent.

“I will.” He pauses. “I almost forgot,” he says. He reaches into his pocket and pulls something out. He tosses it at me and I scamper to catch it. “At your pleasure, Lou.”

“An orange!” I exclaim.

“Yes, I saw a woman selling oranges on the street, so I brought you one. I remembered that you missed those most.”

“Almost the most,” I reply, a catch in my voice. I can’t believe he remembered. I peel back the skin of the orange and bite into it. The taste is youth and freedom, something just for me that I am not obliged to share or give to anyone else.

The juice trickles down my chin. Ian pulls out his kerchief and steps forward to blot it. The gesture feels somehow too intimate and I step back awkwardly.

“You never really said when we met in London what you’ve been doing since the war,” I say, changing the subject.

Ian shifts, uncomfortable as ever talking about himself. “I stayed at the Red Cross for a while and then moved over to government. I had to do something to keep busy. Never married, no kids,” he adds, though I have not asked. Ian never seemed to be the marrying type, too much of a lone wolf, and independent. “It’s just not the same, though. During the war, there was so much purpose, a clear sense of wrong and right. It’s all muddled now with the Cold War and the Soviets. And it’s hard to fit back in to everyday life.”

I nod. This is exactly how I have felt in the years since the war. “And you?” he asks.

“I’m married with two children in Henley. An exciting life, I know.” My voice contains a note of bitterness. I love my husband and the twins. And I feel disloyal and spoiled complaining when others have so much less. Marriage and children had once been my dream, the very thing I wanted. “They’re lovely. My husband, Joe, is a veteran, and my children are five. Really, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s just…”

“Different, I know.”

“Yes.” I am grateful to be here in this space where time stands still and someone else understands the way war changed us and the ache that never eased.

There is a radio in the corner of the room and Ian turns it on. An old, familiar tune, “The Way You Look Tonight,” begins to play. The same song Franny sang in one of her shows. Tears fill my eyes. Ian holds out his arms, and I hesitate. I shouldn’t want to dance with him, but I do. Eager to escape my painful memories, I step closer, and he puts his arms around me. Suddenly, I am a young woman again, a time when I was sure I knew what I was doing, and that it was all going to work out. How had I been so wrong?

As the music plays, my troubles seem to melt away with the years. Being here with Ian is a welcome respite from the problems that linger at home. Time seems to melt away and it is just the two of us once more. It is almost possible to forget everything—including the fact that I am married.

We shouldn’t be here, I realize suddenly. “I’m too warm,” I say, stepping away.

“Me, too. But it’s a beautiful night. Shall we walk?” he asks, misinterpreting my words as an invitation to do something else. “Come on, then.” Before I can protest, he leads me from the room and downstairs.

We step out onto the pavement and start down the boulevard. Paris at night is a glittering jewel once more, the wartime blackout cast off. Gargoyles from the corners of buildings look down like sentinels, casting long shadows. We walk in the direction of the Champs-élysées, neither of us quite knowing where we are going, both feeling our way. A while later, we reach the banks of the Seine and step out onto the Pont Neuf. The Eiffel Tower stands in the distance, unreachable.

I look from the beautiful skyline to the man beside me, who isn’t my husband. This is not why I have come to Paris, not really.

I force myself to focus on Franny and the necklace. “We never did find out what happened to her,” I say, a note of recrimination in my voice. “You said there would be an autopsy. But it never happened, at least not as far as I know. They took her body and she just disappeared.”

“You have to understand, it was the war. The military investigative unit had jurisdiction, and once they removed her body, it was out of my hands.”

“I told you something more happened to her. You didn’t believe me, Ian. You didn’t believe in me.”

“I was scared,” he confesses. “Scared of losing the whole operation and of something happening to you.”

“And then afterward, you just forgot about it and moved on.”

“Not at all. I wanted to reach out after it had happened, to apologize and explain. But I couldn’t. Too much time had passed.” As angry as I was for what had happened, I understand what he means. It was all different once we came back, like a dream too odd to articulate into words.

“I made mistakes,” he admits. “I was twenty-four years old, for Christ’s sake. And I was leading an operation in wartime Europe. I was in over my head.”

“Which mistakes?” I need more than an apology from Ian. I need him to acknowledge what happened—and to tell me everything.

“That’s the thing, Louise. The Red Cross knew and they did nothing. Not just about the POWs, but about the Jews.” He is talking about the larger failure of the Red Cross to report the Nazis’ atrocities it witnessed. It had all come to light after the war, the terrible truth about the camps where millions of Jewish people were imprisoned and killed. “They made a few inquiries, issued some protests. But when the Germans said no, they accepted it. And we were no better. We saw what was happening in the POW camps. We did nothing, said nothing. I did nothing. You tried to warn me when that man was beaten, and I refused to listen. And I justified that to myself because we were helping others. But the guilt has eaten me alive. They could have done more. I could have done more.” His expression is heavy with remorse and I can see how torn up he is inside. The Red Cross mission had been everything to Ian and its failure was his greatest regret.

“You can’t change the past, but you can help me now. Help me, Ian.” My last words come out a plea.

“Louise, this business with Franny, you should leave this alone. There’s no point to it.”

“That’s rubbish. How can you say that? Why did you invite me to Paris if you were only going to talk me out of it?” I am suddenly angry. He claimed to have information and instead he is trying to stop me. Again.

“Why can’t you let this go?”

“Because I failed her, too!” I burst out. “Franny had asked for my help, and when I said no, she was forced to do it alone. And she died because of it. I turned away from my friend at the moment she needed me most. Something happened. There’s a connection between what she was trying to do and how she died. Of that I am certain.” The weight of guilt atop my grief nearly buckles me. “If I had helped Franny, she would still be here.”

“No, Lou, don’t say that. We still don’t know her death had anything to do with that man. And even if it did, helping her wouldn’t have changed anything.”

I am suddenly overwhelmed by all that has happened. I lean into his chest then, letting all of my grief and guilt pour forth. He puts his arms around me and I look up awkwardly, then take a step back. “I’m sorry,” I apologize. But when I look at his face, he is staring at me intensely.

“I sometimes thought,” he begins, his voice tentative and pained, “that the two of us, under other circumstances…” The meaning beneath his words is undeniable and I wonder what might have been if the war had not come between us.

“Me, too,” I admit. “But you told me you couldn’t get involved.”

“I couldn’t afford to get distracted from the mission. That didn’t mean I didn’t want to. And then the night after Franny died…”

“It was just a night.” I try to sound dismissive. But we both know it was more than that. “Two grief-stricken people finding comfort.”

“Not for me.”

“We were in the field, and we were lonely.”

He shakes his head. “It would have been the same anywhere and you know it. My feelings for you were real. They still are.” Ian leans in to kiss me and I freeze, too stunned to move.

His lips are on mine. It’s wrong, I know that instantly. At the same time, a long-forgotten passion wells up within me, threatening to sweep me off my feet. I am kissing him back, unable to stop.

Then my senses return to me and I push him away. “Ian, no.”

“I loved you, Lou. I think I still do. I didn’t realize it until I saw you again in London. But it’s all still there. And I think you feel it as well.”

I am stunned. Of course, there is a tiny part of me that is flattered, and an even tinier part that wishes I was a carefree young woman, able to entertain such notions. But I am not. I love Joe.

I should tell Ian that I am a married woman, say something to mute the intensity of our words. He moves closer. Together now, I know that it was not just loneliness or isolation that had drawn us together. The attraction between us is real—and would have been anywhere.

“I have to go,” I say, backing away. It is not just Ian. A part of me wants this, too—which is why I absolutely cannot be here.

“Lou, wait…” Ian says.

But it is too late. I am already turning and running away, the clacking of my heels against the glistening pavement echoing through the Paris night.

Germany, 1944

The next evening before the start of the show, a worried ripple spread backstage: Franny, the star of the show, was missing.

“Find her,” someone hissed. The men had assembled, and their impatience grew as they waited for Franny to take the stage. I ran back to our railcar, half-afraid that she wouldn’t be there. There had been something bothering her since we had gotten to the second camp, a growing darkness. I had tried to ask her about it more than once. At first, she brushed it off lightly, told me I was being silly. But as I pressed, she became annoyed, then angry.

I found her behind the railcar, staring off into the distance. “Franny, what’s the matter?”

“Help me,” she said, her voice imploring.

“Are you ill? What do you need?” I would help her, of course, but first I needed to know how.

She opened her mouth, as if to explain. Then she blinked and the cloudiness in her eyes cleared. “Nothing. Forget it. Is it showtime already? I must have lost track of the hour.” She tried to appear composed, but her eyes were glazed and a faint coat of sweat covered her skin, smearing her makeup.

“Franny, we can postpone or cancel if you are unwell. You don’t have to do this.”

“Of course I do,” she replied, managing a smile. “After all, the show must go on.” There was a trace of irony in her voice. Without speaking further, she turned and started for the stage as though nothing had been wrong and we were all so silly for worrying about her.

She was a professional, and so she shook off whatever was bothering her and began to perform. I watched her from the wings. But her haunted look when it had been just the two of us seared deep into my mind. Even before her current melancholy, there were little things about Franny that signaled her anxiety. The way that she tugged at her hair or would repeat a certain note over and over again obsessively, certain that it was not right. To the public, she was light and beauty, perfection. But in private, the demons that held her were too great to outrun. That was why she kept people at a distance, so they could not see the cracks beneath. I had gotten close enough to know the truth, though.

At the end of the show, Franny raised her hand in a kind of wave. And then she stepped back and disappeared into the darkness.

Later that night, she did not come to the railcar and I went looking for her once more. I felt a tug of uneasiness. I was afraid of being out at night, of getting caught where I was not supposed to be. But I was deeply concerned about Franny.

I found her standing by the field again, looking out, as if searching for something or someone. “Come to bed. You must be exhausted.” Franny did not answer me but remained motionless, as if she had not heard. I prayed that she might snap out of it as she had before she went on to perform. But she stood rooted this time, too firmly caught in the grasp of whatever darkness or worry held her mind. I started to give up and walk away.

“Wait,” she called. I turned back, hoping she would explain everything.

“What is it?” I asked, growing frustrated. Franny had everything, or so it seemed. I could not imagine what she might need from me. “I can’t help if you don’t talk to me.”

“I need you to take this.” Franny’s voice was pinched and pleading. I saw then that she held in her hand the necklace the man had given her. “Take it with you and deliver it.”

“What about you?” I asked instead. “Can’t you just take it yourself?”

“It will be too late. Anyway, I’m not going home.” There was an unmistakable note of darkness in her voice.

A chill went down my spine. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Just that my tour has been extended, like I told you.” She cocked her head and looked me in the eyes. “What did you think I meant?”

“Nothing,” I said, but I could not shake the uneasiness.

“After my tour, it will be too late. You must take it to Paris.”

“Paris? But I’m not going there,” I replied, feeling confused.

“You’ll be leaving through France. You’ll find a way.” It was one thing for her to ask me to deliver the necklace on her behalf, but this was something more. She wanted me to risk everything.

“Franny, why all of this fuss for a necklace?” A strange look crossed her face. I wanted to plead with her to tell me more, but I knew that she would not.

“So you’ll help?”

“Franny, smuggling contraband is against the law. I could be arrested.” What she was asking was more than I could manage. It was too much. A braver soul would have done it. But I was not a rule-breaker. I wanted to do my job and get out alive.

“I got the names for you. I helped you when you needed it.” Her voice deepened with anger. “I always thought you would do the same for me.”

I wanted to argue that this was different, more dangerous. But Franny did not see it that way. To her, a favor was a favor, to be owed and paid.

“But why this person? You can’t save everyone. You can’t even save him. Sending the message won’t free him.”

Franny stood, her lips pressed tightly together, refusing to say more. That Franny, intensely independent Franny, was asking me for help should have told me something. I should have sensed the depths of her desperation, her need. But in that moment, scared and isolated behind enemy lines, I was too afraid. This was so much riskier. If caught, we could be arrested or worse, and no one, not Ian nor the British government, would be able to help us.

“Why should I do it?” I pressed.

“Because I’m asking you. You have to trust me.”

But I could not. “I’m sorry,” I said, suddenly terrified. I walked swiftly back to the railcar, leaving Franny standing alone.

As soon as I walked away, I was racked with guilt. I had been wrong to doubt her, I realized as I got ready for bed. I would apologize when she returned. I lay down to wait.

Except she didn’t come. The hours passed and the bed beside mine lay empty. I wondered where she had gone. Was she staying out because of our earlier quarrel? No good would come of my playing mother hen and trying to bring her back, and it might only anger her more. I went to bed, sleeping restlessly. I dreamed that I had gone after her. Only instead of being spring, it was a blizzard, and when I started after her, she disappeared into the storm.

I woke sometime later and listened for her in the darkness. Perhaps she had come in. But the railcar was still, and when I reached over, the bedsheets were smooth and untouched. My heart sank. She had never come back. Something was wrong. I rose and dressed hurriedly.

I raced from the railcar. “Franny…” I called quietly. My toe caught on a rock and I stumbled, falling and banging my shin. Heedless of the pain, I stood and continued forward in the darkness. “Franny!” I cried, louder now, not caring who I disturbed.

About fifty meters from the railcar, a few people had gathered by the roadside, too many of them to be awake at such an hour. A man whom I recognized our driver waved me over. “Louise, come quickly!” Nearing them, the pit in my stomach grew.

Lying there on the ground was Franny’s lifeless body.