Lana's War

by Anita Abriel

  She hoped he had heard from Guy.

  “I have something for you,” he said. He reached into his pocket and took out an envelope.

  Lana’s heart soared. Guy had written to her! But inside was a swath of papers, none of them in Guy’s handwriting. Lana read through them, her eyes were wide.

  “Where did you get this?” she gasped.

  “Guy ordered them a couple of weeks ago. He said to give them to you if anything happened to him,” Pierre answered. “I picked them up yesterday.”

  Lana read them again. Her own photo stared back at her and underneath her name was written in black ink: Countess Lana Pascal née Antanova. Odette’s photo was pasted to an official-looking form with the words: Odette Pascal, birthplace Geneva, Switzerland.

  Guy had had papers made showing that they were already married. She and Odette had the last name, linking them directly. Suddenly she had an idea. She and Odette would be safe in Switzerland. She turned to Pierre and gave him a quick hug.

  “Thank you for being such a good friend. I’m going to miss you more than you know.”

  “You’re leaving the Riviera?” Pierre asked in surprise.

  “It’s too risky to stay here with Odette.” Lana folded the papers. “I’d be putting you and anyone else in the Resistance in danger. It’s best if we go away.”

  “Where will you go?” Pierre inquired.

  Lana thought a minute and then smiled.

  “To Switzerland! Don’t you see? Guy had Swiss papers made for us; he must have known he was going away. He could be in Switzerland. I have to look for him.”

  Pierre’s face broke into its boyish smile. “I don’t know where Guy might be. But you’re Countess Antanova. I’m sure you’ll find him.”

  It was almost noon, and Charles still wasn’t there. She would give him a few more minutes, and then she would have to think of something else.

  A car turned into the driveway and she recognized Charles’s yellow Citroën.

  “Lana, you look lovely this morning,” he said when she opened the front door. He noticed the suitcases, and his face brightened.

  “You and Odette are coming?”

  Lana led Charles into the living room and motioned for him to sit down.

  “Your offer means so much to both of us; I don’t deserve your generosity.”

  Charles cut her off. He looked at Lana, and his voice was hard.

  “But you’re not going to take it.”

  Lana shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, Charles. I can’t.”

  “Where are you going?” Charles waved at the suitcases.

  “We’re taking the train to Switzerland.”

  “But that’s suicide!” he objected. “Odette is Jewish. If you’re not killed by a bomb on a train, you’ll be arrested at the border.”

  “We’ll be all right,” Lana said. “We have papers, and we’ll take a route through the French Alps.”

  Charles’s brow furrowed, and he leaned forward.

  “You don’t know that Guy is in Switzerland; he could be anywhere in Europe,” he tried again. “You won’t have anyone to take care of you. You’ll be alone in a strange place.”

  “That’s what we’ve been here, and we survived,” she said with a smile. “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to find him.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “We could have a good life in England.”

  Lana thought about Odette saying you don’t let go of the person you love. But she didn’t have to explain that to Charles. Guy might be in Switzerland. She had to look for him.

  “Odette will be safe there. I can attend university, and Odette will go to school,” she said instead. “When the war ends, we’ll go back to Paris so I can start my own cosmetics company.”

  Charles stood up and took her hand in his. He glanced at Lana, and she could see the admiration in his eyes.

  A small smile crossed his face. “We all have our dreams. Maybe someday, mine will come true too.”

  * * *

  Lana sat next to Odette on the train to Geneva and stared out the window. For the first six hours she had been so nervous, she couldn’t stop fidgeting. Every time the train stopped, she was sure Gestapo officers would jump on board and arrest them.

  They arrived in Annecy in the French Alps. Lana and Odette fell in love with the beautiful town from the window. The lake was bluer than the Mediterranean, and the mountains reminded Lana of her picnic with Guy in Villefranche. She wished they could spend the day in the high, clear air, but Annecy was occupied by the Germans. She couldn’t take any chances.

  It was only when they changed trains and crossed the border into Switzerland that she finally relaxed. Fields blanketed in snow flashed by the train’s windows, and Mont Blanc loomed in the distance. Hills were dotted with wooden chalets with slanted roofs.

  “What will we do when we get to Geneva?” Odette asked, pressing her face against the glass.

  “You asked me three times; it’s the same answer.” Lana laughed, looking up from her writing paper. She had written a letter to her mother that she would mail when they arrived.

  “I want to hear it again,” Odette said. “I don’t know anything about Geneva.”

  “It’s on a lake. There are mountains close by, so we can go skiing.” Lana folded her paper. “We’ll get an apartment in the old section of the city. I’ll attend university, and you’ll go to school.”

  Lana was going to sell her engagement ring when they arrived. And her mother would send money once Lana was settled. They would have enough to get by.

  “Will I have my own room?” Odette asked, excitement lighting up her features.

  “You will definitely have your own room,” Lana agreed, although she didn’t know for certain. “You can decorate it any way you like.”

  “I’ll cover the walls with maps. And I’ll get a phonograph so I can play my mother’s favorite records,” Odette mused.

  Odette went back to her book, and Lana was lulled by the motion of the train. She remembered the train to Nice where she met Charles. She thought of seeing Pierre for the first time at the train station and slicing tomatoes in Guy’s kitchen.

  Maybe Guy was far away or even dead. Or perhaps the thought of marrying Lana and taking care of Odette was too much for him. But there was nothing she could do to change things. She had Odette and they were safely out of France.

  “I remembered something else I’d like in my room.” Odette interrupted her thoughts.

  “What is it?” Lana asked.

  “Could we get an extra bed for sleepovers?” Her eyes shone expectantly. “For when I meet new friends at school.”

  The sun streamed through the train window and illuminated Odette’s face. There was a new confidence about her, and Lana imagined the lovely young woman she would become.

  Lana reached forward and touched Odette’s cheek.

  “We can definitely get an extra bed.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Paris, December 24, 1954

  Lana stood at the counter of her cosmetics boutique on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in the fashionable eighth arrondissement.

  The week before Christmas was her favorite time of year at the store. Saleswomen in elegant black dresses slipped perfumes into bags decorated with a gold-lettered LANA, just like she had always imagined. The air smelled of her signature scent, and glass cases were filled with powders and tubes of lipsticks.

  In the nearly ten years since the war, so much had happened. After the war, Lana and Odette had gone to Paris. Lana worked at the cosmetics counter at Le Bon Marché and mixed perfumes in her mother’s kitchen at night. For a whole year, she and Odette had moved to New York while she apprenticed at Elizabeth Arden. Then they returned, and Lana opened her own boutique in Le Marais. Her boutique did better than she had imagined. Two years ago a space had opened up on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré between Lanvin and Chanel. Every morning when she opened the store, she marveled that Lana’s was
wedged between two fashion icons. A store of her own, with its mirrored walls and pale blue carpet, as fashionable as the rest on the street.

  For the first few years after the war, she looked for Guy. She hoped he would appear with an explanation or maybe just a smile. Sometimes she recognized his overcoat on the bus or a man with dark hair entering a shop. But it was always a stranger, and eventually, she gave up.

  She dated men, but after a few months they’d complain that Lana spent too much time with Odette or at the boutique. She always felt a certain relief when they parted ways. Then loneliness would wash over and she would accept a dinner date or tickets to the ballet. She often wondered whether she would ever feel what she had with Frederic or later with Guy again.

  After they left Geneva, Odette began attending a lycée in Paris. Her teenage years were filled with worries about grades and boys. Lana cherished that time together. Now Odette was a bright twenty-three-year-old, in her second year of medical school. Lana’s mother and Jacques still lived on Avenue Montaigne.

  Taking stock on Christmas Eve, Lana felt she had much to be thankful for.

  “Yvette, why don’t you go home?” Lana suggested, looking up from the box she was wrapping. “I’ll stay and lock up.”

  Yvette had been the boutique manager for six months. Lana had wooed her away from Lancôme. Yvette was warm and efficient. She remembered the names of their best customers and had a croissant waiting for Lana when she arrived each morning. Lana didn’t know what she’d do without her.

  “If you’re sure you don’t mind.” Yvette accepted. She gathered her purse. “François said he has a surprise, and I’ve been dropping hints about that fabulous coat in the Chanel window.”

  Lana spent the next hour polishing the cases and going over the receipts. A light snow started to fall, and she walked outside to search for a taxi. She noticed a man in a black overcoat leaning into a taxi window and froze.

  Under the lamplight, she made out the man’s dark hair and angular cheekbones. It had been years since she’d believed she would recognize Guy again. Before she could stop herself, she approached the taxi.

  “Is there a problem?” she asked.

  “I haven’t had a chance to change my money, and this guy won’t accept traveler’s checks,” the man said, still staring down the taxi driver.

  “I can lend you money.” Lana took four hundred francs from her purse.

  The man turned around and his mouth dropped open.

  “Lana! What a surprise.”

  Lana’s eyes widened and she gasped. This time she hadn’t been mistaken. Guy was standing in front of her.

  She gulped and wanted to look into those emerald-green eyes forever. After all these years, she couldn’t believe it was really him.

  “What are you doing in Paris?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

  Guy gave the notes to the taxi driver and closed the door. He opened his umbrella and held it over her.

  “On second thought, there’s nowhere I want to go. Let’s stay here and go to a café instead.”

  “You act as if we saw each other yesterday! I haven’t heard from you in ten years,” she said, the blood coursing through her veins. “It’s Christmas Eve! What if I had to go home to my husband?”

  Guy glanced at her naked ring finger and grinned.

  “Do you have a husband?” he asked.

  “No.” She shook her head. “I was going home to my apartment.”

  “Good, then we’ll get a couple of brandies and some crêpes. Something must be open around here, people need to eat on Christmas Eve.”

  Guy led her to a restaurant, and they sat at a table by the window. Snow covered the sidewalk. She recalled the winters during the occupation when it was impossible to get warm. Now a fire crackled in the fireplace and candles flickered on the tablecloth.

  “I forgot how cold Paris is in December,” Guy said when the waiter brought two brandies. He sat back in his chair and gazed at her. “You look beautiful. I like your hair better now that it’s long again.”

  She had cut her hair years ago when Christian Dior came out with his New Look. But the bob didn’t suit her, and now it was the length it had been in Nice.

  “How do you know I cut my hair?” Lana wondered, and her breath caught.

  This wasn’t Guy’s first trip to Paris after the war.

  “I squeezed in a few days in Paris in 1947,” he admitted. “God, Paris was intoxicating in the springtime. Cherry blossoms lined the Champs-Élysées and the outdoor cafés were overflowing. I didn’t want to leave.”

  Guy had seen her years ago, and she never knew.

  “Why didn’t you call?” she asked frantically.

  “I looked up your mother’s address. I tried calling, but there was no answer.” He rubbed the rim of his glass. “I took a stroll along Avenue Montaigne and saw you arm in arm with a man. He was quite good-looking. Blue eyes and short blond hair.”

  “Alain,” she said out loud. Alain was a banker she met at a party. “It didn’t last long; he expected me to wait home every night with his cognac and a pair of slippers.”

  “I couldn’t blame him.” Guy chuckled. “I would have wanted the same thing. If I was ever in one place long enough to own a pair of slippers.”

  “Why didn’t you call after that? Moreover, why didn’t you ever call? You just disappeared.” She felt a prickle of tears as the pain from ten years ago came rushing back. “You left me and Odette. I had no idea where you’d gone.”

  “I couldn’t tell you then; I shouldn’t really tell you now.”

  Lana looked at Guy carefully and waited for him to continue. His hair was flecked with gray, and his shoulders were slightly hunched, but everything she had missed—the strong jaw, his voice that was smooth as butter, and his slightly cocky manner—was the same.

  “But I’m tired of secrets, and I’ve discovered in this line of work there’s always someone trying to kill you.” He met Lana’s eyes. “I left for the same reason I haven’t been able to return. Because of Alois Brunner.”

  Lana shuddered. She’d spent years trying to forget Alois Brunner. At first, in Geneva, she scanned the news for his whereabouts. Perhaps wherever Brunner was, Guy would be there too. She still believed that Guy’s disappearance was linked to Brunner’s departure from the Riviera. But then the war ended, and Guy didn’t appear, and she tried to put it all out of her mind.

  “Brunner’s alive?” she gasped.

  “You didn’t know?”

  “I stopped listening to the news after the war ended and the camps were liberated.” She recalled newsreels showing men and women lying on bunks, their bodies barely more than skeletons. There were newspaper photos of corpses piled into holes dug in the ground.

  “Brunner evaded capture,” Guy said. “We think he’s in Egypt on his way to Syria.”

  “But the Nuremberg trials,” Lana began. “Almost all the Gestapo were executed.”

  “They got him mixed up with another Gestapo officer named Anton Brunner. Anton was hanged for his crimes. Our Brunner didn’t have the SS blood tattoo on his arm and escaped. I’ve been trailing him for a decade.”

  The waiter brought their crêpes, and Guy told her everything. In 1944, Brunner was called away from Nice to Czechoslovakia, where he sent another thirteen thousand Jews to Bergen-Belsen and Stutthof. After the war, he received false documents and escaped to West Germany. Every time Guy got close, Brunner changed his identity and slipped away.

  “Henri called the day of Brunner’s party. He didn’t give me a choice. He didn’t even let me go back to the villa to pack a bag,” Guy finished, eating a bite of his crêpe. “He learned that Brunner was being sent to Prague the next day and insisted I leave that night. He wanted me to get to Czechoslovakia before Brunner.”

  “Henri said he hadn’t heard from you,” Lana reflected.

  “Henri lied. Brunner had gotten close to you, and it was too dangerous. He was trying to keep you safe.”

>   Lana remembered dancing with Brunner at the New Year’s party, and her stomach turned over.

  “Why didn’t you tell me after the war?” she asked.

  “I was on Brunner’s tail and didn’t want to get you involved,” Guy said. “I followed him to Berlin, but he went underground. I almost gave up after the Nuremberg trials, but I got a call from an old friend in the Resistance.” He sipped his brandy. “Apparently the CIA hired Brunner to be a driver in Germany.”

  “The CIA hired Brunner!” Lana recoiled.

  “They wanted him to keep an eye on the Soviets. He was part of a secret organization.” Guy grunted. “I’ve been chasing him ever since.”

  Guy started to say something and changed his mind.

  “Let’s not talk about Brunner anymore tonight,” he offered. “I want to hear about you.”

  Lana told him about the year she and Odette spent in Geneva, and then moving back to Paris and starting her cosmetics company.

  “Odette is in medical school in London and staying with Charles.”

  “Don’t tell me Charles is in the picture.” Guy frowned. “I knew he’d make a move the minute I was gone.”

  Lana smiled to herself. There was no reason to tell Guy about Charles’s proposition all those years ago.

  “Charles is married with three boys,” Lana said instead. “It’s a perfect arrangement. Odette loves being part of a big family, and Charles’s wife and Odette get along well.”

  Guy seemed satisfied, and Lana continued.

  “Giselle married an art dealer, and they own galleries in Paris and Antibes. Pierre has a fleet of taxis in Nice,” she said fondly. “The female tourists think Pierre resembles a French film star. He hasn’t married, but he has lots of girlfriends.”

  “And your mother and Jacques?” Guy inquired.

  “They spend half the year in Paris and the other half on the Riviera. They bought a villa in Villefranche-sur-Mer.”

  “Villefranche!” Guy exclaimed.

  “I took them to the Riviera a few years ago, and my mother fell in love with the light,” she said, remembering her picnic with Guy high above the Mediterranean.