Last Twilight in Paris

23. Louise

Paris, 1953

I reach the address I’d found in the phone book, a row home in the 9th arrondissement with bright chrysanthemums in the front window boxes. Outside the door, I stop, suddenly nervous. This is my last chance at finding out the connection between the necklace and Franny’s death. What if the answers are worse than I thought? Or worse yet, what if there are no answers at all?

There is only one way to find out. I ring the bell. My heartbeat quickens.

I hear footsteps growing louder. The door opens slowly, and a slight woman appears. She looks to be about my age, though her face has deeper lines, and her hair bears a streak of premature gray. This surprises me; I always imagined the cellist and his wife to be much older. But their history during the war happened at the same time as my own.

“Yes?” she says, eyeing me suspiciously. She looks puzzled and even a little alarmed. I am not surprised, considering the trauma she has lived through. Of course she would be fearful of a stranger at her door.

“Are you Helaine Weil?”

She stares at me nervously. “I am. Who are you?”

“I’m Louise Burns. I’m hoping you can help me…” I hesitate, trying to think of the best way to describe my quest. “I am looking for information…about a necklace shaped like a heart. It was broken into two halves.” I wish that I had the necklace to show her now, but the half I had is long gone. I pull out the journal and turn to the image of the necklace sketched inside the cover. “Do you recognize this?”

“My notebook!” Her eyes widen. She is taken more by the journal it is sketched in than the image itself. “I lost that during the war. How do you have it?”

I try to think of where to begin the story that I have told so many times in the past few days. But now that I am actually here with the person who lived the story, my words stick.

Helaine seems to sense my unease. “Would you like to come in?” she asks, stepping aside. She ushers me into a small sitting room. The narrow house is modest but homey, with simple furniture. She gestures to a rose-colored sofa with fabric worn slightly where it is pulled tight along the edges. “Now, why don’t you tell me everything? How did you find my notebook? And why are you asking about the necklace?”

I take a deep breath. “I was a Red Cross volunteer during the war, and I traveled from England to the continent to deliver packages to prisoners of war in the German camps. One day in a camp in Germany, I saw a man give a necklace to my friend with a locket shaped like half a heart and ask her to deliver it to his wife. That necklace recently turned up in a box in England.”

“What an unusual coincidence,” Helaine remarks. “That must have been quite a surprise.”

“It was,” I admit. “I’ve been trying to find the owner of the necklace to learn more about it. Is that you?”

“Yes, my husband, Gabriel, was trying to get a message to me to let me know that he had been arrested, by sending a necklace to me at the department store in Paris where I was imprisoned. We each wore a half-heart locket on a chain.” She reaches into the neckline of her blouse and pulls out a chain bearing the other half of the locket.

I stifle a gasp. “You still have yours.”

“Yes, I was able to hide it with me when I was imprisoned and take it with me in the end. By sending me his half, Gabriel was trying to tell me that something terrible had happened to him and that he might not be able to return.”

Before I can ask her anything further, the doorbell rings. “Another visitor?” Helaine remarks, surprised. “This is more company than we’ve had in years.”

Through the lace curtains that hang from the front window, I can see Joe on the doorstep, waiting uncertainly. He must have returned to the hotel shortly after I left and received my message. “It’s my husband. I asked him to meet me here,” I explain apologetically. “I hope you don’t mind.” She does not seem angry, but a little taken aback by this sudden and unexpected invasion of strangers.

I open the door, and Joe and I smile at one another. I am glad to see him, grateful that he is here. Joe walks over to where Helaine has risen from the sofa. “Ma’am, I’m Joe Burns, Louise’s husband. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I can see her relax slightly. Joe has a wholesome, trustworthy manner that puts people immediately at ease.

“You were telling me about the necklace during the war,” I prompt gently when we are seated. “How Gabriel used it to send you a message.”

“During the war, Gabriel and I were separated. I was imprisoned in a former department store in Paris called Lévitan and he was sent to Germany to play his cello. We had no way to reach one another or know where the other one had gone. He was able to visit me one time during the war and he swore he would come for me in the end. But shortly after, he was arrested. Gabriel was desperate to get word to me. He wanted to send me the other half of the split locket we shared and tried to get someone to deliver it to me. Only, the necklace never arrived.”

“But if the locket never reached you, how do you know all of this?” Joe asks.

Helaine does not answer him directly but looks over her shoulder. “Darling,” she calls. A man with a trim gray beard and moustache steps into the room and moves to her side protectively. “This is Gabriel.” I look at him in surprise. The very man I had seen speaking with Franny at the camp fence all those years ago stands before me now, slightly older, but unmistakably the same. I had assumed all along that he had died during the war, but he is here in front of us, alive and real. His expression is guarded.

Then Helaine rises and introduces us and explains why we had come, and Gabriel relaxes. “A pleasure to meet you.” I can tell from the way they stand close and look deeply at one another that they are very much in love.

“How long have you been together?” Joe asks.

“Gabriel and I were married a few years before the war,” Helaine replies.

“You never took his name?” I ask.

“Not legally. At first, I just never got around to it. And well afterward, I wanted to keep something to remember my family by. Something for myself.” She pats his hand lovingly and Gabriel smiles. She turns to Joe and me. “In fact, Gabriel changed his last name to Weil.”

“I wanted to honor my wife’s family, which had been destroyed during the war,” Gabriel adds. That explains why I could not find him in the phone book under Lemarque, I think.

Helaine continues, “So as I was telling you, after Gabriel went off to play his music, I was imprisoned in the Lévitan department store.”

“I was able to visit Helaine once in the department store,” Gabriel adds, picking up for her. “But after I left Lévitan and returned to Germany, I was arrested and put in a POW camp. You see, we musicians were not just playing for the Germans. We were using our position and our ability to get inside the camps to gather information for the resistance. But while I was gone seeing Helaine, someone betrayed us. I was immediately arrested upon my return. I wanted to send word to Laina to let her know what had happened, why I might not be able to come for her in the end like I had promised. She needed to know so that she would save herself. I sent the locket.”

“But it never arrived,” I say slowly. I realize that for all of the time we have been talking, I have not yet explained the reason.

Gabriel’s eyes grow troubled, as if reliving the memory. “I had no way to tell Laina where I had gone, why I wasn’t able to return for her as I promised. But that wasn’t all. After I was arrested, I learned about a traitor who was getting inside the camps and disclosing information from the Allies. I needed to relay that message as well. I knew, though, that Helaine, no matter how strong and capable, was a prisoner as well. She wouldn’t be able to get that information into the right hands. So my mission was twofold—deliver the necklace to Helaine and make certain that what was inside it got to the right hands in the French or British government.”

“The information inside,” I say, “was it on a piece of film?”

Gabriel’s eyes widen. “Yes. You have it?”

“We had it developed,” Joe offers. He pulls an envelope from his jacket and passes it to me. I take out the photograph and study the image, trying to make sense of it. It is Gabriel, standing by the camp fence. Some other prisoners and a few German officers mill around in the background.

But there seems nothing else noteworthy in the photo. “I don’t understand.” I assumed that the photograph was what Gabriel had needed Franny to deliver. But why was it so important? There seems nothing remarkable about it.

“Look,” Gabriel says, leaning over my shoulder. He points to men in the background of the photo, a German military officer and a civilian. The civilian is handing an envelope to the officer. “Do you recognize this man?”

I look more closely at the image and gasp. “Ian.”

“He was using the cover of the Red Cross to provide classified documents to the Germans,” Gabriel confirms. “And also to feed false information from the Germans back to the Brits.”

My mind whirls. “I had no idea,” I say. Ian was at the volunteer center when I met him. He led the mission to deliver the care packages. To me, Ian was the Red Cross. Anything else is unthinkable.

I listen to what Gabriel is saying, stunned. Franny had only told me about delivering the necklace—not about the information it carried.

Gabriel continues, “When my sister came to perform and I saw her secretly helping so many, I saw my chance to send the locket to Helaine and deliver the information.”

“Excuse me?” I interject. My heart skips a beat. “Did you just say that the person who took the necklace was your sister?”

“Yes, I’m sorry, I thought you knew. She is called Franny.” I recall Franny talking about a brother. But I had no idea that she had found him or that he was in the camp we visited. “We were very close as children, despite the age difference. We also have a younger sister, Bette. Our home life was not ideal, but I did the best I could to take care of both of them. Really, Franny and I took care of each other. We both loved the arts, me the cello and her the stage. But then I went abroad, and we lost touch. Time and life got in the way. Apparently when she was touring, though, she caught wind of a cellist in one of the camps and she found her way to me.”

The answer appears before me then. That was why she had seemed so purposeful and desperate when we reached the second camp—and why she was willing to risk everything to help him. Franny had found her brother, but in the end, she had been powerless to save him, or herself.

“When she found me, I had already been arrested for helping the resistance. Franny wanted to try to get me out. But it was impossible, and I didn’t want her to risk herself. Instead, I asked her to get the necklace to Helaine and to deliver the information about the traitor. Our resistance network had crumbled at that point. Asking Franny to carry the message was my only choice.”

“Only, the necklace never arrived,” Helaine interjects.

“And I never heard from my sister again.” Gabriel’s eyes darken.

Because Franny died , I think. Gabriel does not know about his sister. I take a deep breath. “I’m so sorry to tell you this, but Franny died.”

“No!” Gabriel cries, and his wife moves closer to comfort him. “When?”

“Shortly after you saw her in the camp and gave her the necklace. They said she was hit by a car outside the gate.” I pause. I do not want to cause Gabriel more pain. I need to tell him the truth, though, if I am to get answers. “But I never believed that was what really happened. That’s why I came here,” I explain. “I always thought that the necklace had something to do with Franny’s death. And when it turned up again in the box, I knew I had to finally find out the truth.” The pieces of the puzzle come together in my mind as I speak. “She must have been killed to stop the information in the necklace from coming to light.”

Tears form in Gabriel’s eyes now as he thinks about the loss of his younger sister. “I never meant to put her in harm’s way.” He shares my guilt in Franny’s death, I realize as he leans his head sadly against his wife’s. “I was transferred out of the camp so quickly that I never knew she died. When I learned that she did not deliver the necklace, I feared that something had happened to her. Still, I never imagined this. All she knew was that there was important information to be delivered. I told her to relay the message with the film that the man seen with the German officer was a traitor. I didn’t tell her the specifics about the traitor’s identity because I thought it would be safer that way.”

“So she inadvertently took the information to Ian for help delivering it, not knowing it was he himself who would be implicated by the information getting out,” Joe adds. “And he killed her to protect himself.”

“Or had someone do it for him.” I still cannot believe it. Ian thought that getting rid of Franny would keep his secret safe. “Only, then I started asking questions and he sent me home. Why didn’t he have me killed?”

“Maybe two deaths would raise too much suspicion,” Helaine suggests.

Or perhaps he could not bear to kill me because of his feelings, I think. I want to believe that despite everything else that was a lie, Ian’s feelings for me were real. “After I went back to England, Ian’s secret lay buried. He almost got away with it—until I found the necklace. When I came and asked questions, he must have started getting nervous.” I pause, putting the pieces together before speaking. “He invited me to Paris in order to control the situation and feed me information so I would think the necklace had no connection.” The answers come to me as I speak. “He didn’t count on me meeting the pharmacist and his mother, or the survivor from Lévitan who could link the necklace to Gabriel and the store.”

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Helaine says. “Franny was not able to carry the message. So how was it delivered such that it turned up in Lévitan?”

“The other musician,” I remember. “After Franny died, I went looking for you, Gabriel, to find out more about the necklace you had given her. Another musician told me that you had been transferred. He asked me what had become of the necklace and seemed very intent on finding it.”

“Marcel,” Gabriel says, smiling at the memory. “He was a gifted violinist and also very committed to the resistance. And he had connections in the camp. He must have been able to find the necklace among Franny’s personal effects and send it on to Helaine.”

“But before the necklace could reach me, Lévitan was liquidated, and we were all taken from the camp. We never knew what became of the other half of the locket, until today.”

“It must have arrived at the department store after you left,” I say. Somehow it had wound up in the crate that made its way to the secondhand shop, swept up like so much of the past, like rubbish, its secrets buried forever.

“Now you have the photo,” Joe says. “You can share it and bring the truth to light.”

“Would anyone believe it?” Helaine asks. “Do they even care anymore?”

“Ian is a traitor and a war criminal who still has access to the highest levels of British intelligence,” Joe replies. “I assure you that the government will care very much.”

“Except that he’s gone,” I lament. “He could be anywhere by now. And he’s got the other half of the necklace. I’m sorry I lost it.”

“It’s all right,” Helaine replies. “I’ve learned not to hold on to things. What’s important is the truth, and thanks to you, that’s been revealed.”

I notice then pictures of a girl on the mantelpiece. “You have a daughter?”

“Yes.” She beams with pride. “I found out I was pregnant shortly after Paris was liberated. I was told I couldn’t have children, so we were surprised and overjoyed.”

“How did you find one another again after the war?” Joe asks.

“After Gabriel visited me at the department store, I learned that he had been arrested. Later, after I had left the store, I read about a fire at the POW camp at Wann where I’d been told Gabriel was taken.” Helaine’s face clouds at the memory. “I assumed Gabriel had been killed.”

“In fact, I was transferred out of Wann before that,” Gabriel adds. “In the end, being transferred saved my life. I was sent to a POW camp in the north of France. When the camp was liberated, I made my way to Paris to find Laina. But by then, the department store had been liquidated and I was told that all of its former occupants had been sent east to the death camps.

“I wanted to go find her, but the war was still being fought in Germany and Poland,” he continues. “Our apartment in Paris was gone and I had nothing, so I went to a displaced persons camp to stay and try to figure out what to do next. I played the cello as a way to bring comfort to the other camp residents. Each day, I played the piece I had written for Helaine as a way to feel close to her.” He smiles at his wife. “And then one day when I was playing it, she appeared, as if in a dream.”

Gabriel puts his arm around her, and they look so in love that I can almost see them as they had been when they were young, back when it all began. “It hasn’t been perfect,” Helaine admits. “Even after all we went through, we were just two people trying to build a life together with all of our flaws and differences.”

“But because of the struggle, we also knew what was really important,” Gabriel chimes in, squeezing her hand. The connection when they look at one another is powerful. “We’re very lucky.” Lucky. The word reverberates in my head. If people like Helaine and Gabriel, who have been through so much, can say that, then surely Joe and I can remember what’s important. I move closer to him.

Helaine’s face grows somber. “But even though I survived and went on to have a wonderful life, I never quite moved on.” I understand. There are still things that stop me in my tracks, hurl me back. The sound of a police siren, crowds gathering. They make me want to run and hide in a basement. None of us are whole.

“So how do you do it? Not just make it through each day, but really live?”

Helaine smiles. “I remember all that I still have. What happened to you during the war?” Helaine asks, and I realize it is the first time anyone has posed that question to me. Until now, no one has recognized the battle I fought or the scars I bear from that time.

“After Franny was killed, I tried to find out what happened to her. But the Red Cross didn’t want me asking questions, and when I refused to stop, I was sent home and forced out of the organization altogether.”

I stop talking, but the scene continues to play out in my mind. I was given thirty minutes to pack my belongings. A military escort waited outside my railcar the entire time, though I could not imagine what they thought I might do or take. I gathered my few things. I wanted to take Franny’s, too, but I didn’t dare. Instead, I looked over once more sadly at the space we had shared, wishing so many things. I’m sorry , I mouthed silently. Sorry that she was gone and that I had not been brave enough to help her. Things might have turned out so much differently. Then, with no other choice, I left.

I was escorted over the border to Switzerland and then put on an airplane home, my first and only flight. I should have been relieved. I had wanted to go home. But by choice, when the job was finished. Not like this.

I was required to go to the War Office for debriefing. Red Cross neutrality or no, I was a private citizen now and they wanted to know what I had seen in Germany, any intelligence that might have been of use. I complied; even after all that happened, I wanted to do my part if I thought it would help. But I did not mention the necklace or the cellist, because what good would that have done anybody? I was let go without pay or commendation, and they gave me a strict warning not to talk about what I had seen and done.

And so I hadn’t. Until now. Now I see that it is okay to tell my story and that my suffering is as real as anyone else’s.

“I had no idea you were forced to leave,” Joe says, putting his hand on mine. “That must have been terrible.”

“I know. I should have told you sooner.” I regret keeping so much from Joe and realize it was driving a wedge between us. Sharing our pasts, our suffering and our truths, is the only way that we can grow together.

“Thank you for bringing me this,” Helaine says, holding up the journal. “I always wondered what had become of it. I even considered going back to the store to look for it, but I assumed it had been taken or destroyed, and the notion of going back there was just too painful. I’m so glad to have it again.”

“You’re a gifted writer,” I say.

“Thank you.” She smiles. “Just the musings of a young girl. Stories mostly.”

“Perhaps,” I reply. “But you have so much more to say. You should write about your life and your loved ones and whether they survived and found one another again. People’s stories matter, and how they end, matters.”

She touches the necklace. “I swore I would never forget, that I would tell the stories of my family and friends—and what I lived through in Lévitan.”

“Why don’t more people know about that?”

“A prison in a department store? Who would believe it? Lévitan and the two satellite camps housed a few hundred Jews for a little over a year. We were, at most, a footnote in the history of the war. At first, I felt guilty talking about it when others had suffered so much worse. And later, well, France wanted to claim credit for liberation, not remind people that French policemen had loaded Jewish children onto trucks and then shopped among their plunder.”

“It’s important,” I insist. “You should write about it.”

“I did want to be a writer when I was young,” Helaine admits.

“You should,” her husband says. “You are terrific at it.”

“I only write children’s stories,” she says with a note of self-deprecation.

“Write those,” Gabriel urges. “Or write your own story. Write what is in your heart.”

“Why not?” I urge. “Think of everything you’ve seen.”

“Maybe.” She tries to sound offhand, but I can tell she is seriously considering it. A tiny spark of possibility.

I turn to Gabriel. “Did you ever find your youngest sister or learn what became of her?”

Gabriel shakes his head remorsefully. “Bette. I tried to look for her but had no luck. But maybe I can try again. Perhaps you could help me.”

“Me?” I repeat, confused.

“You did such a good job solving the mystery of the necklace and finding us. Why not take on another case?”

I start to tell him that I am a housewife, not a detective. But I realize then that I am more than just a housewife. I made a real difference during the war, and I could have done even more if I hadn’t been silenced and sent away.

“There’s an idea, Lou,” Joe chimes in. “You could help people not just find items but one another, or at least learn the truth about what had become of their loved ones during the war.”

Of course, Bette is not just anyone. She is Franny’s sister. Perhaps by finding her and reuniting her with her brother, I think, I can help Franny after all.

“I believe,” Helaine says, “that you have your first case. Perhaps you could help me find my father, too. We lost touch during the war. I sent him a postcard from the displaced persons camp, but never heard back.”

“I’ll think about it,” I promise. “And I’ll be in touch.” Even as I say this, I know that I will help.

Joe and I say goodbye to Helaine and Gabriel and step outside.

“Ready?” Joe asks.

I nod. I’m ready not just to go home, but to do things better. I think suddenly of my mum, alone in her London flat. “I should have done more for my mum,” I lament.

“But she’s still alive,” Joe points out. “And you still have time to make things right. How many people would give anything to be able to say that? Say, here’s an idea: Why don’t you bring her out to the country to stay?” I start to protest. I cannot imagine my mum living with us. Surely she would refuse to leave the city, and our relationship might be too far gone. An image pops into my mind then of my mum once doing a jigsaw puzzle with me. She had loved it. Perhaps she might share that with her grandchildren. Getting to know Ewen and Phed might be just the change she needs to fix things. And it would be a help that might let me pursue the career I want. All I can do is try.

Joe turns to me. “Thank you,” he says lovingly.

“For what?”

“For letting me in. For letting me help. I was so unhappy when you left for Paris. And I hated coming over. But I’m glad that I did. It has helped me, in a way, to start to heal as well.”

“I’m glad. But it isn’t enough.” I pause. I need to set things right now if we are to start again—even if the words are hard to say. “Joe, I know how much you still hurt from the war. I hear your cries at night and I see your nightmares.”

“I’m fine,” he insists stubbornly. He is always too proud to admit weakness.

“You aren’t.”

He pauses for a beat. “Never mind that now,” he says brusquely. “We can talk about everything when we get home.”

“We don’t talk!” I burst out, and Joe looks surprised. He has never seen this side of me before. “That’s the thing about it, we never talk about what happened during the war.”

“We’re here together and we’ve put all of this business with the necklace behind us. Why waste more time talking about the past?” he asks, a flicker of apprehension in his eyes. Even now, it is hard for him to open up old wounds and talk about the past.

“Because it’s part of us, part of our story of who we are and how we got here. Not talking about it doesn’t make it go away. It just pulls us further apart. You need to get help, real help, so you can be a proper husband and father. And for your own good. Because that’s the thing, we can’t fix us until you fix you. So, what do you say?”

“All right, I’ll try. I’ll try for you and our family.” Joe, I see then, is doing the best he can. And with that understanding, the anger I have been holding on to begins to subside. Things aren’t fixed, but somehow the promise that he will try is enough for now.

“I’ll be here with you every step of the way.” I lace my fingers with his and the distance between us begins to close. We are not the same as we once were, but I have renewed hope for us.

“Are you ready to go home?” Joe asks.

“Yes.” I realize now that the truth does not lie in some mystery or far-off quest in another country. The answer has been right here in front of me all along. That is something , I can hear Franny’s voice say. That is enough. It will have to be.

“Let’s go,” Joe says. “I know two little people who will be most eager to see you.”

“Wait,” I say. The children are well cared for and they can wait a little longer. “First let’s take some time here in Paris for us.”

Joe holds out his arm and I take it. We set out, together.