The Room on Rue Amélie

by Kristin Harmel

  She could feel herself softening slightly. “I don’t want to argue either, Marcel. I just want you to talk to me. To trust me.”

  “Ruby, I—” He looked at her for a long time, his gaze focused and unwavering. She resisted the urge to wilt and instead stared back, telling herself that whatever he had to say, she would withstand it.

  But then he surprised her by leaning in and pressing his lips to hers, so softly and gently that at first she wondered if she was dreaming. She was so startled that she didn’t kiss back, so he pulled away. “Ruby?” he murmured.

  “I was so sure you didn’t love me anymore,” she whispered.

  His eyes filled with tears. “Of course I love you,” he said. “It’s myself I cannot live with.” And then his lips were on hers again, more insistent this time, and her body responded. He loved her after all, and she could feel it in the way he touched her, the way he pulled her to him, the way he drank her in like a man who’d just crossed a desert. Soon, his hands were beneath her skirt, tugging at her undergarments, sliding toward places they hadn’t been since that late spring night after the bombs had fallen, before the Nazis took Paris.

  She moaned, despite herself, as he lifted her dress over her head and peeled his own shirt off. His chest was just as solid as she remembered, but there was no time to think about that as his hands, and then his mouth, began to travel over her body. He led her to the bedroom, and as they fell into bed, she wasn’t thinking about the Dachers or the Germans or the way the world was falling apart around them. She was thinking about the fact that here, in this moment, her marriage wasn’t crumbling. Perhaps there was a life in front of them after all.

  TEN WEEKS LATER, RUBY SAT on her terrace, watching the sky tumble into darkness, her head in her hands. It was Christmas Eve, and she was bundled up against the cold in one of Marcel’s old sweaters. She still felt the chill in her blood, in her bones. She knew she should go inside, where there was a small fire burning, but she couldn’t make herself move. The fear of what was to come paralyzed her.

  Ruby was pregnant. She was sure of it. She was ravenously hungry all the time, though she could hardly keep food down, and she had twice missed her time of the month. There was no other explanation.

  She was filled with both terror and joy at the prospect of a baby. Paris was dark and lonely, and as the fighting raged on across Europe, it seemed that things were growing tenser by the day. Bringing a child into a world at war seemed foolish, but perhaps bringing a child into a home like hers was even more so. After that night ten weeks ago, Marcel had returned to vanishing for days at a time. And when he was home, he hardly looked at her anymore. He hadn’t noticed the swelling in her breasts, the way she moved like she was in possession of a special secret.

  “Ruby?” Charlotte’s timid voice wafted over from the next terrace, and Ruby sat up with a start. She hadn’t heard the girl emerge from her apartment. “Is something wrong?”

  “Oh, I’m all right.” Ruby forced a smile. “What are you doing out here without a coat? You’ll catch your death of cold.”

  “I just wanted to say Merry Christmas.”

  “Oh! Thank you, Charlotte. And a Merry Christmas to you too.” She realized immediately that it was the wrong thing to say. “I’m sorry. I mean Happy Hanukkah. Has Hanukkah started yet?”

  “It is just beginning.” Charlotte hesitated. “Perhaps it’s a sign, our holidays falling at the same time. Perhaps this is the year we will all come together.”

  “God willing,” Ruby murmured. She knew that Charlotte had absorbed her parents’ worries in the last few months. Throughout the city, shops owned by Jewish people had been taken over by what the Germans were calling provisional managers; businessmen ousted from their own businesses. Monsieur Dacher, Ruby knew, had been forced to comply last week, and though he still went into his fur shop, he was treated as an employee rather than as the man who’d built the lucrative business from the ground up. It must have been demoralizing, humiliating.

  “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong, Ruby?” Charlotte asked after a long pause. “You don’t seem yourself.”

  “Nothing you need to worry about, Charlotte.”

  “But maybe I can help. I want to help.”

  Ruby smiled into the darkness. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to share her news. “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Of course.”

  Ruby got up and walked to the edge of her terrace so that she was just a few feet away from the girl. “I’m going to have a baby.”

  Charlotte’s eyes widened. “A baby? Oh, Ruby! This is the best Hanukkah gift I could have asked for!”

  Ruby laughed. “Well, the baby won’t arrive until the summer.”

  “That’s okay! It will just be so exciting, don’t you think? Oh, this is such wonderful news! Is Monsieur Benoit very happy?”

  “I haven’t told him yet. I’m not quite sure how he will feel.”

  Charlotte looked confused. “Surely he will be overjoyed.”

  Ruby looked away. “Surely.”

  “Well, you must tell him as soon as possible. He’s going to be a father! It will be the perfect Christmas gift!”

  Perhaps Charlotte was right. There was no reason to keep the news from Marcel any longer. He was bound to notice soon enough, and perhaps telling him now would bring about a Christmas miracle. Maybe the Marcel she’d fallen in love with would finally come back. Maybe his focus would shift to planning a family with her. She would make sure that he knew from the start how much she needed him, and he would feel useful again.

  That night, just past midnight, Marcel crept quietly through the front door. Before he’d had a chance to hang up his coat and hat, Ruby lit a candle. “Merry Christmas,” she said, eager to get the words out before she changed her mind. “We’re going to have a baby, Marcel. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  He stared at her before replying. “A baby?”

  “I’ll need your help of course,” she said brightly, hoping her enthusiasm would be contagious. “There’s so much to be done before the baby arrives.”

  “You’re having a baby,” he repeated flatly.

  “We’re having a baby.”

  For a moment, neither of them moved. Then, slowly, deliberately, Marcel strode toward the doorway, where he put his hat and his coat back on. When he turned around, Ruby was so surprised by the sadness in his eyes that she sat back in her chair, breathless.

  “Oh, Ruby, what have we done?” he asked in a strangled voice.

  “But—”

  “This is a huge mistake.” And then he was gone, slamming the door so hard that a glass perched on the edge of their curio cabinet plunged to the floor and shattered.

  For a long time, Ruby sat motionless, staring at the broken shards.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  January 1941

  A baby! It was nearly all that Charlotte could think about. What a lucky child to be born into a home with a loving mother and father, where the parents were allowed to work. Her own home life had been greatly disrupted by her father’s recent situation.

  “Those Nazi bastards,” Papa said on a snowy night in January as Charlotte sat huddled with her parents around the kitchen furnace. Fuel was scarce, and they were burning an old dining room chair. It had been stored in the closet near the front door for occasions when they might have guests, but Charlotte supposed that wouldn’t be happening for a while.

  “Reuven, your language,” Maman said, casting a glance at Charlotte.

  “It’s okay,” Charlotte said. “I know many bad words.”

  Her father fixed her with a glare. “Well, you should not. You are a lady.”

  “And yet you curse in front of her all the time,” Maman pointed out.

  Papa sighed and looked away. “It is the time we are living in. One cannot help but become emotional.”

  “This is not the first time we’ve endured desperate circumstances,” Maman said.

  Maman and Papa exchanged looks, and Charlotte knew they were
thinking about the Great War. Maman had lost two brothers. Papa had lost his twin, Michel. All had fought for the French army.

  “I know,” Papa murmured softly, squeezing Maman’s hand.

  Charlotte knew she had promised Ruby that she wouldn’t reveal her secret, but in the heavy silence, something made her blurt it out. “Madame Benoit is having a baby!”

  Maman and Papa both turned to stare at her. “Madame Benoit?” Maman asked.

  Charlotte knew she’d made a mistake by saying something, but there was a sparkle in her mother’s eyes now that hadn’t been there before. “Yes,” she mumbled. “But it is supposed to be a secret.”

  “Oh my.” Papa looked worried. “But how will a baby survive in the midst of all this?”

  “They are not Jewish,” Maman reminded him.

  “I suppose. But still, to bring a child into a war . . .”

  “It will end soon,” Maman said.

  Papa shook his head. “It will not end until all of France has become German. And when that happens, we will not be here to witness it.”

  “Why?” Charlotte interjected. “Where are we going?”

  Her father turned to her, an almost dazed expression on his face. “We are not going anywhere, my dear Charlotte.” He wouldn’t meet her eye. “Of course we are not going anywhere.”

  CHARLOTTE WORRIED CONSTANTLY THAT RUBY would know her confidence had been betrayed, so when she saw her standing on the terrace on a frigid morning in late January, she rushed outside to confess.

  “I told Maman and Papa about the baby,” she said, her words tumbling out. “I’m so sorry. I know it was meant to be a secret.”

  Ruby turned to her with a weary smile. Her cheeks were sunken, her face drawn, and she was too tightly bundled in sweaters and overcoats for Charlotte to see whether her belly had grown. “Oh, Charlotte, it’s fine. I would have told them myself whenever I next saw them.” Ruby took a sip from a steaming mug. “How are your parents? I haven’t seen them in more than a month.”

  Charlotte looked down. “They are fine, thank you.” The truth was that they were anything but. Papa was barely sleeping. At night, he pored over his account books and slammed his fists on the table. And Maman had slipped deeper into a depression that Charlotte didn’t understand. Maybe when Ruby’s baby came, it would bring Maman back to life. Ruby’s own mother was all the way back in America, so surely Ruby would need Maman’s help.

  Ruby studied Charlotte for a long time, giving Charlotte the distinct feeling that she could see right through her. After a while, she smiled sadly. “And how are you, Charlotte? Is school going well?”

  “I suppose. Although my only friend, Micheline, left for the south with her family three weeks ago. Papa says that even if I feel lonely now, I must hold my head high and pretend I don’t hear the things the others are saying about Jews.” Before Ruby could begin to feel sorry for her, though, Charlotte changed the subject, blurting out the question that had been weighing on her mind. “And Monsieur Benoit? He is very happy about the baby too?”

  Something flickered across Ruby’s face. “Oh, yes. I think he will make a wonderful father.”

  Charlotte nodded, but before she could say anything else, she heard her mother calling for her from inside. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I must go to school now.”

  “Of course. I’ll see you later, then. And, Charlotte? Whenever you feel lonely, remember you have me for a friend.”

  Charlotte couldn’t shake the conversation with Ruby all morning. She sat through her teachers’ lectures with her mind whirling as she replayed the look on Ruby’s face again and again. Her words about Monsieur Benoit making a wonderful father had sounded like a lie, but how could they be?

  Then again, Monsieur Benoit was a bit of a mystery. Charlotte sometimes felt guilty, because Ruby had made a point of calling Charlotte her friend, but Charlotte hadn’t been completely honest with her. Wouldn’t a friend tell another friend that her husband was keeping secrets? She knew only that late at night when she couldn’t sleep, she sometimes heard Ruby’s husband whispering to people in the hall outside her door. Once in a while, there were movements too, shuffling, scraping, clicking sounds that didn’t make sense.

  Now that Ruby was going to have a baby, Charlotte knew that she must find out what Monsieur Benoit was up to. It was the least she could do. Ruby had called her a friend, after all. So that night, after her parents were asleep, Charlotte crept out of bed and into the parlor. She felt fiercely protective of her neighbor all of a sudden, and as she sat in the darkness, waiting, she realized it was because of the look in Ruby’s eyes when she’d talked of Monsieur Benoit that morning. Charlotte didn’t understand what it was, exactly, but she knew something was wrong.

  The hours ticked by, and Charlotte fought off the urge to fall asleep. By two-thirty in the morning, she began to think that she was being a fool. She had just gotten up to return to bed when there was a noise in the hall. She gasped and tiptoed to the door to look through the small peephole.

  It was Monsieur Benoit! He was dressed in a dark overcoat that glistened with snowflakes. He had just come in from the cold, long past the curfew, and now he was standing in the hallway—crouching, really—and breathing hard. Charlotte stood as still as she could, but she had to stop herself from inhaling sharply a few seconds later when the front door to the building opened a crack. There was a noise on the stairs, and then there was a shadowy figure standing just outside Charlotte’s door.

  “The bird flies at night,” the person said softly, and Charlotte was startled to realize that the voice belonged to a woman. Had Monsieur Benoit taken a mistress? While Ruby was pregnant? Icy anger coursed through Charlotte’s veins.

  “Only through the storm,” Monsieur Benoit murmured back. It made no sense at all, but at least it wasn’t the amorous reply of a man to his paramour.

  “Here,” the woman said, producing a small parcel from beneath her cloak and thrusting it at him. “Be careful.” And then she was gone again, down the stairs and out into the snowy night.

  Charlotte remained as still as a statue in the silence that followed. For a long time, Monsieur Benoit just stood there, clutching the parcel and staring at the front door. It was almost as if he was expecting someone else. Then, finally, he seemed to snap out of his trance. All at once, he was a flurry of motion, unwinding the strings of the package and pulling out its contents, which, in the darkness, Charlotte could barely see. But it seemed to be a collection of men’s clothing, a tin of something, and a few fat sausages. What on earth?

  Just when Charlotte thought the night couldn’t get any stranger, Monsieur Benoit stepped to the blank wall opposite his apartment, looked around, and pressed on one of the panels on the lower right side. This time, Charlotte couldn’t contain her gasp as a small door slid open and Marcel slipped inside. There was a hidden compartment in the hall large enough for a man? A moment later, he reemerged, his arms empty, and touched the wall again. The door slid closed and Monsieur Benoit looked furtively around once more before entering his own apartment, which Charlotte could see clearly because her doorway sat in the corner of the building, overlooking the whole hall.

  Charlotte wanted to venture out to test the hidden door for herself, but if Monsieur Benoit heard her, she would certainly be in trouble. So she resolved to wait until the next time she saw him leave at night. She would learn then what secrets he was hiding, and she’d tell Ruby when the time was right. That’s what a true friend would do.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  January 1941

  By the start of the new year, death was everywhere. Oliver had been shot down over the outskirts of London just after the first of January, and John Stephens had plunged into the English Channel after taking down three enemy Messerschmitt Bf 109s. Still, Thomas kept fighting. He was feeling more and more at home in the cockpit; the Spit had become almost like an extension of himself. He didn’t even have to think about how to get it to do his bidding anymore; it bobbed and wov
e with the slightest tick of the column. And even though the logical part of his brain reminded him that he could die at any moment, he felt invincible soaring through the heavens, at one with the bright blue sky.

  The condolence letter home to Oliver’s mother would be difficult, and as Thomas sat down to write it late one night at the base in South Wales where they had been stationed since late summer, he couldn’t help but think of his own mother. He owed her a visit, but he hadn’t been granted leave in quite a while. It was an all-men-on-deck situation. Nearly every night since early September, the Luftwaffe had bombed London. The city was burning, people were dying, and it was up to the RAF to put a stop to it. Some nights, it felt impossible. Other times, Thomas looked down at London below and marveled at the way the churches and monuments still stood tall, thumbing their noses at the Germans.

  Thomas’s mother still lived there, not far from St. Paul’s Cathedral, and despite the fact that the bombings were continuous, she was insistent upon staying put. This is my home, Thomas, she’d written in her last letter. If I let the Germans force me to leave, they’ve won, haven’t they?

  He had replied right away, reminding her that the Germans would also win if they managed to take her life. Won’t you consider departing for a time, Mother? he’d asked. Harry’s aunt Cecilia in Loughton would love to have you stay for as long as you’d like. I’m certain I can take a few days’ leave to help you get settled. But he hadn’t received a reply, and now, as he began to write the letter honoring Oliver’s life, he tried not to think about what it would be like for his own mother to receive such a note one day. After all, they had only each other; his father had died when Thomas was a boy, and there was no other family to speak of.

  Dear Mrs. Smith, he began. As you may know, Oliver and I were friends since the first day we met at Desford. He had a special way about him, a talent for making the fellows double over with laughter. Now, though we still try to maintain some sort of levity, if only to save ourselves from succumbing to fear and sadness, it’s simply not the same. Oliver died a hero. As you must know by now, he shot down two German planes near London on the very night he died. Your son saved dozens, if not hundreds, of lives. It’s little consolation, but—