Lana's War

by Anita Abriel

  “I may not be Jewish, but I’ve seen a lot of suffering,” Lana said slowly. “Religion isn’t important. No war should involve women and children.”

  Sylvie nodded, and her shoulders sagged. She looked at Lana as if she had made up her mind about something.

  “No matter what I do, I can’t get through to her.” Sylvie sighed. “Every day when I go to work, I’m afraid something terrible will happen. Perhaps if you tell her the danger of going outside…”

  Lana put her cup on the table and walked to the stairs.

  “Don’t worry, I’d be happy to talk to her.”

  Upstairs there were low ceilings and a narrow hallway. Lana knocked and waited for Odette to open the door.

  “Can I come in?” she asked when Odette’s thin face appeared.

  Odette nodded, and Lana followed her into the room. The shutters were closed, and there was a desk strewn with books.

  “Your mother said it was all right if I came to your room,” Lana began awkwardly.

  “No one except my mother comes into my room anymore. I don’t have any friends because I’m not allowed to go to school.” Odette noticed Lana looking at her desk. “I used to do my homework at my desk, but now there’s no point. The teachers will never see it.”

  “You can still study. When I was a child I got the measles and was in bed for a month. I read books and when I went back to school I was ahead of my class.”

  “I do like to read,” Odette acknowledged. “And I like geography. My father and I used to love making maps.”

  “Your mother told me what happened to your father.” Lana perched on the bed.

  “My father didn’t even need the flask of coffee. There was always a pot of coffee waiting for him at work.” Odette’s mouth wobbled. “He said my coffee was better than hotel coffee, but he was only trying to make me happy.”

  “It had nothing to do with you,” Lana said. “People die during wartime.”

  “He didn’t have to die,” she protested. “My mother keeps telling me I shouldn’t go outside, but it’s so dark in the house. I feel like I can’t breathe.”

  “You have to do what she asks,” Lana urged. “Can you imagine how she’d feel if something happened to you?”

  Odette tugged at her braid as if she couldn’t decide what to do.

  “Sometimes I stand outside her door at night and hear her cry,” Odette said. “I don’t want to worry her more.”

  “Then you promise you won’t walk around Nice alone?”

  Odette stood up and pushed back her slight shoulders. “I’ll try, but you can’t know what it’s like. The birds at the botanical gardens have bigger cages.”

  * * *

  Lana said goodbye to Sylvie and Odette and hurried down the street. She found Guy leaning against a lamppost, his eyes scanning the sidewalk.

  “There you are.” He took her arm and started walking. “I was afraid I was going to have to search all the cafés in Nice.”

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” she apologized. “I went shopping and lost track of time.”

  She couldn’t yet tell him about Sylvie and Odette.

  “I don’t see any packages,” he said suspiciously.

  “I bought some postcards,” she answered, pulling them out of her purse.

  Guy started to say something, but then changed his mind. He opened her car door and waited until she slid into the passenger seat.

  “Rule two again: don’t get personally involved with anyone you meet.” He sat in the driver’s seat and started the engine. “Because one day you’ll pay a visit to your new friends and the house will be boarded up and no one will know where they went. You’ll think you don’t really care—after all, you’ve only known them a few weeks. But it will keep gnawing at you like a letter from an old lover you shouldn’t read but do anyway. You’ll make a few inquiries. Somehow word will get round to a German officer you met at a party that Lana Antanova has a Jewish friend, and everything we are trying to do will be thrown into jeopardy.”

  The car climbed the steep road to Cap Ferrat, and Lana studied the passing landscape. How did Guy know where she had been? Maybe he’d followed her; maybe something about her manner made her seem guilty. Embarrassment at being found out was replaced by anger. How dare Guy tell her what to do when they had just met. He was her contact on the Riviera, but he knew nothing about her life in Paris. She was a grown woman, and she was capable of taking care of herself.

  “I’m not some innocent ingenue,” she snapped when they pulled into the villa’s driveway.

  Pink chrysanthemums grew on either side of the garage, and water trickled through a fountain.

  “In case you forgot, I’ve come from Paris. Rationing is so strict, I can’t remember what it’s like not to be hungry. I’ve watched my fingers turn blue from cold. And I’ve experienced more death than…”

  Guy put his hand over her mouth. His palm was smooth, and she looked up in surprise.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have barked at you,” he soothed her. “You may not understand but someday you’ll thank me. I’m only trying to protect you.”

  Lana instinctively touched her mouth. She fixed her hair in the rearview mirror and stepped out of the car.

  “If you don’t mind, I’m going up to my room.” She turned to Guy, and her eyes flashed. “Maybe I’ll read a book. Or would you like to choose what I read? I wouldn’t want a German officer barging into the villa and arresting me because he doesn’t like Anna Karenina by Tolstoy.”

  Lana ran up the steps before Guy could answer. She was still upset when she sat down at her dressing table. How could she not help Odette when the whole reason she was on the Riviera was to save the children? Frederic risked his life teaching piano to Jewish children at the convent. And it wasn’t just that. Since they met, he always put others before himself. It was one of the things she admired about him. She remembered the first time she stumbled on his actions. For one miserable afternoon, she believed their marriage was in jeopardy.

  February 1942

  Lana felt despondent. It wasn’t just the icy rain that seldom let up or the slush on the streets. Many things dragged Lana’s spirits: the nine-o’clock curfew that stopped Lana and Frederic from taking walks; the fear that Frederic would be forced into the Vichy government’s compulsory work service; the lack of coffee on supermarket shelves; the German propaganda on the radio.

  Lana still tried to make their home life happy. On Saturday nights, she set the table with a white tablecloth and candles and prepared a romantic dinner. Frederic didn’t seem to care that the cream-of-potato soup was really pureed cabbage and the wine she poured into their best wineglasses was made of chicory. The cabbage might not taste as good as potatoes, and the chicory was a poor excuse for red wine, but sitting across from each other in the flickering candlelight made them both feel better.

  One afternoon, Lana hurried along the Rue de Rivoli. Her neighbor Madame Berte had told her of a delicatessen that kept a supply of chocolate for favored customers. She pictured Frederic’s delight when she served melted chocolate over hot porridge.

  A black car adorned with a swastika was parked on the street. She averted her eyes and suddenly saw a familiar figure. It was Frederic! His coat collar was pulled up to hide his face as he climbed the steps of an elegant apartment building.

  Frederic had told her he was going to rehearse for a student concert. What was he doing in a luxury apartment on the Rue de Rivoli?

  She stepped into a covered doorway and waited an hour for Frederic to reappear. Finally the front door opened and Frederic walked outside accompanied by a beautiful blonde wearing expensive-looking boots and a fur coat. They kissed on both cheeks, and then Frederic hurried along the pavement.

  Lana stood perfectly still until he disappeared around the corner. Who was that woman, and what was Frederic doing in that apartment? She abandoned her plans for the delicatessen and ran all the way home. The afternoon passed, and Frederic still hadn’t returned.
She tried to prepare dinner, but she was too preoccupied.

  It was already dark when she heard Frederic’s key in the lock. She jumped up from where she had been reading on the sofa and entered the kitchen.

  “Lana, I’m sorry I’m late.” He put his arms around her waist and kissed her. “The rehearsals dragged on forever.”

  “You were at rehearsal all this time?” Lana moved away slightly. She grabbed an apron so Frederic couldn’t see the expression on her face.

  “Where else would I be?” he asked, unwinding his scarf.

  Lana tied the apron around her dress and turned to Frederic.

  “In an apartment building on the Rue de Rivoli with a beautiful woman in a fur coat.”

  “You saw me with Elaine?” he gasped.

  Lana picked up a knife and started to chop the cabbage.

  “I was walking to the delicatessen and saw you enter the building. I know it’s hard coming home every night to the same dinner. And we don’t make love often enough because it’s too cold to be naked.” She gulped. “But every day you make me happy, and I thought you felt the same.…”

  Frederic faced her at the counter. His expression was perplexed.

  “You have it all wrong. You make me happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

  Lana put down the knife.

  “Then why were you with that woman?”

  “I wasn’t there to see her, I was there for her daughter.”

  “Her daughter?” Lana repeated. The woman was in her late thirties. How old was her daughter?

  “Vivienne is fourteen and was the most gifted piano student at the academy,” Frederic began. “But she’s Jewish and not allowed to attend classes. It was my idea to give Vivienne private lessons.”

  Lana acknowledged this made sense. She marveled at how thoughtful Frederic was. He never considered the harm that could come to him; he only wanted to help others. But Lana had been so worried; he should have told her about Vivienne.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Lana asked.

  “I know I’m putting myself in danger. If I told you, you would be in danger too. But I couldn’t let Vivienne’s talents go to waste,” he explained. “You have to hear her play Brahms: it’s as if the stars dropped from the sky and landed on the keys.”

  Frederic was only trying to protect her. He was always thinking of her. It was one of the things she loved about him.

  Lana glanced up and saw the anguish in Frederic’s eyes. She wiped her hands on her apron and walked over to kiss him.

  “Maybe one day I will hear Vivienne play,” she whispered. “After the war, she’ll play a sold-out performance at the opera house and it will be because of you that she’s there.”

  “You’re not angry?” he asked.

  “I’m only angry at myself,” she said with a little smile, and picked up a rutabaga. “I should have trusted you and kept walking. Then I would have gone to the delicatessen and we’d be eating porridge with melted chocolate instead of stewed cabbage and rutabaga.”

  He kissed her harder. “I don’t care what we eat, as long as I’m sitting across from you at the table.”

  * * *

  Lana gazed in the mirror on her dressing table in Guy’s villa.

  “Frederic, all I want is your courage,” she said to her reflection in the glass. “You believed in what you were doing and didn’t care about yourself. I must carry on the work you started.”

  She hated being told what to do by a stranger in Cap Ferrat. Would Frederic have listened to Guy? But she could acknowledge that Guy had a point. German officers could have seen her and Guy together and then followed her to Sylvie’s. If German officers interrogated Guy on her whereabouts, how would he answer? She was putting Guy in danger. And she wouldn’t be any help to the Resistance if she got herself killed.

  She heard footsteps. Guy stood in the hallway, holding a small box.

  “If you’ve come to see what book I’m reading, I haven’t chosen it yet,” she remarked, defiantly, turning back inside.

  “I didn’t come for that. I got you something in Nice and forgot to give it to you.” He entered the bedroom.

  “You bought me something?”

  “Well, think of it as a welcome present.” He handed her the velvet box. “And to make up for stranding you at the train station.”

  Lana opened it and revealed a silver charm bracelet.

  It was pretty, and for a moment Lana was touched. Then she closed the box. It was too intimate a gift for an almost stranger.

  “It’s beautiful, but I can’t accept it.” Lana handed it back.

  There was no reason for Guy to be giving her jewelry. She’d never been gifted jewelry by anyone other than Frederic and her mother. Only moments ago Guy had been furious with her.

  “We hardly know each other.”

  “I did a favor for someone, and he gave it to me as a thank-you,” Guy said evasively. “You can wear it tonight. Make sure you’re ready by eight p.m. Wear something striking: we want to make a good first impression.”

  “Tonight? Where are we going?” Lana asked.

  “We’re going where everyone should go when they arrive on the French Riviera. To the Casino de Monte-Carlo in Monaco.”

  “You said the casinos don’t like the Germans,” Lana reminded him. German soldiers made the other patrons uncomfortable.

  “They may not be completely welcome, but they still go. There aren’t many other places to find evening entertainment.” He shrugged. “And they’ll notice a pretty new face winning at blackjack. With the buzz that a young Russian countess has arrived in Nice, we’ll receive dinner invitations.”

  “I’ve never played blackjack. How do you know I’ll win?”

  “You have to give me a little credit.” Guy’s green eyes twinkled. “I wouldn’t be a good Resistance worker if I couldn’t fix a game of blackjack.”

  Chapter Five

  Nice, November 1943

  Guy went out, announcing that he’d be back to pick her up for the casino. Lana spent the afternoon writing to her mother. It was a challenge to think of what to say without revealing anything that could put them both in danger. She told her about Charles, the Brit she met on the train, and the taxi drive with Pierre, and Giselle and her basket of tomatoes.

  Guy hadn’t returned from his errands, and Lana felt restless. She walked downstairs and removed the dust covers from the sofas and wiped down the coffee table. She pulled back the drapes and admired the swimming pool and manicured hedges. Henri had said that Guy was a Swiss industrialist with a splendid villa in Cap Ferrat. She wondered why Guy moved to the Riviera from Switzerland. She couldn’t ask him. He made it clear that whatever they didn’t already know about each other should remain private.

  She had only three hours before they left for the Casino de Monte-Carlo and she was filled with a terrible panic. What if Alois Brunner was there? How could she engage in pleasant conversation when she had seen him terrorize little Esther Cohen and turn his gun on Frederic?

  Her stomach rumbled, and she entered the kitchen. The fridge was empty except for a bottle of milk and a carton of eggs. Even if Guy knew how to cook, there weren’t enough ingredients to prepare a dish. Tomorrow she’d go to the market. But right now she longed for some company and a warm meal. The bottle of olive oil stood on the counter and reminded her of Giselle. Giselle had mentioned she was often alone. She’d clip some of Guy’s carnations and go visit her new friend.

  * * *

  Giselle’s villa was at the end of a long gravel path. The stone walls were covered with ivy, and a little yellow car was parked in front of the garage.

  Lana knocked.

  “Lana.” Giselle opened the door. She wore slacks and a navy blouse. Her hair was knotted in a bun, and she held a cocktail glass. “What a nice surprise. I was fixing a martini. Would you like one?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Lana followed her into an entry with parquet floors and tall windows. “I brought flowers from the garden
to thank you for yesterday.”

  Giselle admired the carnations, a mixture of white and pink.

  “They’re lovely, let me find a vase.” Giselle led her into the living room. There were more parquet floors and gold frames on the walls. Sofas were arranged around an oriental rug, and French doors opened onto the garden.

  “What a pretty room; it’s so bright and sunny,” Lana commented.

  Giselle handed her a glass and motioned for her to sit down. “I came to the Riviera for the quality of the light. I like to think I’m an artist. So far, I’m the only buyer of my work.” She laughed and waved at the paintings on the wall.

  “Those are wonderful.” Lana studied a still life of violets. “Are you shown in a gallery?”

  “Not yet, but I love to paint.” Giselle smiled. “I’m glad you came over. I want to apologize if I was too forward yesterday, I have a habit of being nosy.”

  “You were a great help; I would have been stranded outside without you.”

  “I’m glad, but I admit I had an ulterior motive.” Giselle peered at Lana. “I was curious about you. Guy has been my neighbor for a year, and he’s never brought a woman to his villa.”

  “Never?” Lana said in surprise. Henri had made Guy out to be some kind of wealthy Swiss playboy.

  “I assumed it was because of some tragic love affair in his past, but perhaps he was just waiting for the right woman,” Giselle mused. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not interested in him for myself. Except as an artist’s model if I ever tried to paint a portrait. He would make a handsome subject with those tanned cheeks and piercing green eyes.”

  Lana thought about how Guy’s eyes seemed to change colors with his mood. When she was late to meet him in Nice they’d been a dark green, and when he gave her the charm bracelet they became a buttery hazel.