A Hidden Affair: A Novel

by Pam Jenoff

  “What, settle down, have a normal life?” I can hear the disbelief in my own voice.

  “Normal?” he laughs. “I wouldn’t go that far. But it seems like we’ve both been searching for something, trying to get out from under. I haven’t believed in fate in a very long time, but maybe that’s why we found each other.”

  I am caught off guard by his directness. We’ve known each other for days. But at the same time, I understand what he is saying: that after everything we’ve been through, there’s no need to waste time playing games.

  A life with Ari. I try the idea on for size. A fresh start, one that would allow for all of the scars and baggage we’ve accumulated along the way. With someone who understands, because he, in his own way, has been there, too.

  The idea of really trying to make a go of it with him, with anyone, is as terrifying as anything I’ve ever contemplated. But at the same time, being with him feels right and I cannot imagine walking away.

  “So what do you think?” he asks.

  Before I can answer, my cell phone rings. I glance down, preparing to turn it off. But then I notice the number. “I should take this,” I say, opening it.

  “Jordie,” the voice on the other end of the line says, squeezing my heart. And as I listen to her words, I know it is the one call for which I was not prepared: Sarah reaching out for me, calling me home to her once more.

  chapter TWENTY-TWO

  I GAZE OUT ACROSS the rolling green hilltops to the snow-covered peaks that dance along the horizon. The morning sun is just beginning to break through a thick veil of low gray clouds, bathing the valley below in pale yellow light.

  Ahead, a small group of people shrouded in dark coats against the dampness have gathered beneath a cluster of pine trees. As we make our way across the flowered field toward them, Aaron takes my forearm, supporting me so that my heels don’t dig into the muddy earth.

  We reach the gathering and I inhale the sweet smell of dewy grass, searching the crowd for Sarah’s familiar face. But of course she is not there. My eyes fill with tears. I see her by my side at Cambridge, licking an ice cream cone as we strolled along the path by the river, laughing and talking. Then the image fades and is replaced by one of her in London last month, watching the world through the window as she sat alone in her flat, a prisoner of her own body. I’m sorry I left you, I think. Sorry I waited so long to come in the first place.

  I look up at Ari, who is staring out across the hills, processing, I am sure, all that has happened these past few days. “Signora Conti has been arrested,” he told me grimly the previous evening, returning to our hotel bedroom from the balcony where he had taken a call. “She confessed everything. She was really Madeline Mercier, the niece of the mayor who betrayed the Jews. As the end of the war neared, she knew that there was no one to carry on the winemaking dynasty, as all of the Cerfberres had died in the camps. So she took the papers that Ella Cerfberre had left behind and assumed her identity, moved to Italy where no one would know her or look too closely.”

  “And the part about her meeting her husband in the camp?”

  “Also a lie. I don’t know where they met or when she told him the truth. But he loved her enough to protect her all of these years, right to the end.”

  And with that final piece of information, the puzzle of the Cerfberre Bordeaux, of who had wanted it and why, was complete.

  Not that the Contis’ secret was the only thing for us to process; there was my reunion with Jared, too. Ari asked me about it yesterday, as we wound our way through the mountains to Geneva. “Was it what you expected?” he asked abruptly, not taking his eyes off the road. “Seeing Jared again, I mean.”

  I considered the question. “I don’t know,” I admitted finally. “I think I got the answers I was searching for, at least most of them. Things are just so different now.”

  “It’s like you’ve spent the past decade grieving for something that really isn’t there to mourn anymore,” he observed.

  I nodded, but in truth I knew it was more than that. Even for all the years I thought Jared was dead, the mourning was never really just about him, but for a time and a place, carefree and youthful, that was ripped away in an instant. Leaving Cambridge was the end of childhood, and forever after life would be broken into two segments: Before and After. Jared’s death might have marked the turning point, but it was the loss of innocence I mourned. I had spent the past ten years crafting an elegy to Camelot.

  Perhaps I was being dramatic, I thought. Everyone has pieces of the past that they cannot let go. But the hold Cambridge has on those who have passed through seemed stronger somehow, almost mystical. There were people I knew who had never been back, not wanting to see the place a shell of its former self, bereft of all the memories. Still others could not seem to tear themselves away, went back for every race and event, retelling the stories of the past as if it would keep them alive. One classmate spent nine years completing his doctorate, then tried to leave, only to be drawn back to marry a local woman and live in the town forever. No, Cambridge was different, and the ties that bound us there stronger and more enduring in a way I could never make Ari understand.

  And then there was me—I had run as far and fast as I could, but in my mind, I’d never really left. Until now. Having found Jared, perhaps I can finally put the memories in their proper place, like a box on the shelf, to be taken out and dusted off when the time is right, on special occasions like the reunions that I might actually attend, or perhaps someday to share with my children.

  My children. I stop, surprised by the thought I’d never allowed myself to have. Ari had said it was not too late. I turn to him, remembering his proposal on the boat of making a life together somewhere, starting over. He has not mentioned it again since we were interrupted by Sarah’s urgent call. But the question lies unanswered between us: Could we build a life together?

  I imagine it, free of our pasts, no more ghosts or doing the bidding of others and their agendas. No longer pieces on someone else’s chess set, we would play our own game. I have no idea where we would go, how we would spend our lives. There was a time when that uncertainty might have terrified me. Now it fills me with excitement—and undeniable hope.

  I run my hand through my hair, which I’d taken time to dye brunette again, then take a deep breath. “Your offer . . . ” I say, faltering. He looks down at me. “Is it still good?”

  He licks his lips and I brace myself for the disclaimer, that it was a statement made in a moment of impulse, or that we barely know each other or aren’t the kind of people who can settle down. Then he nods slightly. “It is. I didn’t want to mention it again for fear of pressuring you.” He gestures with his head to the assembled crowd. “Especially with all of this . . . ”

  I reach up, silencing him with a kiss. “Is that a yes?” I ask, when we break apart a moment later.

  “Yes.” He smiles. “What shall we do?”

  “I may have to go back into government work,” I say. His eyebrows rise. “Being a civilian is just too dangerous.”

  His face breaks into a smile as he comprehends my joke. “Seriously, what are we going to do?”

  There are so many questions embedded in that one: Where will we go? What will we do for a living? And more important, what will we be like as a couple, away from all of the adrenaline? I wonder if we will flourish with the intimacy, or become bogged down by the familiarity that comes from a shared everyday life. Will I feel liberated by unconditional acceptance or caged by the commitment?

  I silence the voices that scream inside me, and shrug. “Let’s live somewhere by the water. And somewhere we can see snow each year, too.”

  “The geography might be tricky. But it sounds good to me.” He smiles, looking as relaxed and happy as he has since I have known him. Maybe we really can move forward.

  As if to prove me wrong, Jared appears unbidden in my mind. I wonder if he, Nicole, and Noah have left the cottage, how far away they have gotten. Perhaps the mantl
e of the past I have carried around with me all of these years is not that easily shed, but slowly, a bit more each day.

  From over the hill comes the haunting sound of a bagpipe, tearing me from my thoughts. My eyes begin to burn once more as a black limousine appears in the distance, moving slowly toward us. Then, a few feet from the gathering, the vehicle stops and the door opens. Ryan Giles steps somberly out of the far side of the car, looking more dignified than I remembered in his dress uniform. He seems to have aged years in the weeks since I have seen him, new wrinkles lining his face. I imagine what he must have been through, falling in love with Sarah, caring for her.

  He walks to the near side of the car and there is a momentary pause, and the onlookers seem to hold a collective breath as the door opens.

  Appearing there, as if in a dream, is Sarah.

  My heart lifts as I take in the simple white-lace sheath that seems to swallow her tiny frame, the wreath of tiny matching flowers that rings her head like a halo. Her face is radiant and her eyes do not leave Ryan’s as he brings a wheelchair to her side, helps her into it. He pushes her with great effort over the sodden earth to this most beautiful-but-difficult-to-reach site that she herself had insisted upon for the ceremony, the same place he had brought her just days ago to propose.

  The news had come hurriedly by phone on the yacht with an apology for the informal invitation, as well as the last-minute nature of the event. “A week from tomorrow. We want to have the wedding before I start my course of treatment,” Sarah explained, but I knew it was more than that. She was not sure how much time she had left, but she wanted to spend every minute of it married to the man she loved.

  So after a quick stop at the Israeli embassy in Athens to ensure safe transit of the wine, Ari and I made our way north, stopping for a few unforgettable nights at a private chalet by Lake Cuomo before reaching Geneva. Our conversations were meandering and unhurried and even as we got to know each other better, there was a sense that we’d been together forever.

  The crowd parts to make way for the couple. As she is wheeled past me, Sarah lifts her face and smiles as broadly as I have ever seen, mouthing something to me. And though I cannot quite make out her words, I know that they are an expression of gratitude that we have both made it to this point in our lives and that we are together for this special day.

  I recall the Jewish prayer Shehecianu, the blessing that is said on all joyous occasions to thank God, and suddenly the words, which I have not uttered in years, flow silently from my lips: Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Haolam Shehehcheyahnu Vekiyimanu Vehegianu Lazman Hazeh. Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has kept us alive, and sustained us, and enabled us to see this moment. Amen.

  I think of all that was sacrificed to get here, the people who suffered or died, the loss of friendships, career. Was it worth all of the pain? I’m not sure there was any other way; the truth had to be found, the questions answered. I could not have stayed at State knowing what I did. And if I had remained a prisoner of my past instead of setting out on this quest, I would not have met Ari. But there had been an irreparable price of lives and innocence lost that had been paid to get to where we are now and I would try, at least, to remember that with gratitude.

  The bride and groom reach the front of the crowd, where the minister waits. Sarah reaches up and smiles at Ryan. He holds out his arm to her and there is a faint gasp from the guests as he helps her to her feet. Sarah, with great effort, stands tall and straight, and I can see the faint tremor of determination as she grasps Ryan for support in this simple act of defiance against the disease that has taken so much. Today she is not sick or defeated, but is taking her first step forward in her new life.

  I reach down and grasp Ari’s hand in my own, taking my own stand for the future as the music ends and the last note fades into the hills.

  Acknowledgments

  I’M GOING TO modify the perhaps-overused phrase, “It takes a village to raise a child,” and say instead, “It takes a village to write a book when you have a child.” My son was born three weeks early in the midst of finishing A Hidden Affair and everything I thought about being a busy writer with two jobs proved to be laughable as I tried to navigate the waters of novelist-under-deadline-and-sleepless-new-mom. I wrote much of this book lying down with The Muse (then-infant Benjamin) sleeping on top of me, the laptop perched on a pillow behind his tiny feet. But finishing this book would have been impossible without the village: my beloved husband, Phillip; parents, Marsha and Gene; brother, Jay; and in-laws, Ann and Wayne, who gave me countless hours for both the work I needed to do and the rest that kept me functional.

  The experience reminded me of the fact that every book takes this level of support to bring it to life and I’ve been so fortunate to work with the most wonderful people in the business. To that end, I would like to thank my talented editor, Emily Bestler; her assistant, Laura Stern; publicist, Jess Purcell; and the entire team at Atria for their remarkable work. I would also like to recognize Rebecca Saunders and Tamsin Kitson and their team at Sphere for their outstanding efforts promoting my books in the UK. And, of course, my boundless gratitude to my friend and agent, Scott Hoffman, at Folio Literary Management, whose unmatched instincts and tireless representation have made my career.

  Warm thanks also to my closest friends (you know who you are) and also to my present colleagues at Rutgers School of Law–Camden, as well as my former colleagues at Exelon and Morgan Lewis for their enthusiastic support.

  A Hidden Affair covers a wide range of locations and topics and I have taken some fictitious liberties with both for the sake of story. However, the depiction of the sea journey taken by Jordan and Aaron was greatly enriched by the factual expertise of Peter Vassilopoulos. My appreciation to Peter for his generous counsel on yachts, and to his nephew, John Papianou, for putting us in touch. Also, while my depiction of the history of the wine was entirely fictitious, I greatly enjoyed learning about the true history of wine during the war from Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure by Donald and Petie Kladstrup. As always, the mistakes are all mine.

  Finally, I’d like to say that once again, I didn’t set out to write a sequel. I set my pen down (metaphorically speaking) at the end of Almost Home, content to let Jordan ride off into the sunset. But she came calling again, asking questions that piqued my interest and demanding to have her story told. If Almost Home was about coming to terms with the past, then A Hidden Affair is the other half of the story, the future and the destiny we shape for ourselves out of the unexpected and poignant moments of our lives. I’m delighted to continue the journey with you and I hope you enjoy it.