All the Ways We Said Goodbye

by Beatriz Williams

  A diplomat, her father had called him. He had broken the tension, saved her pride—and she resented it bitterly. To refuse now would seem less like honor and more like temper.

  “Never say that a daughter of the house of Courcelles was remiss in seeing to the comfort of her guests.” Aurélie snatched the carafe from him with more energy than grace. Red droplets fell, marring the fine fabric of her gown. She held the carafe high. “Wine, lieutenant?”

  “The major will not like it. You ought to have served him first,” he murmured, as she leaned over his shoulder.

  “Would you lecture me on manners, as well as history?”

  He coughed as the tulle of her sleeve brushed his cheek in passing. In the light of the torches, his skin seemed absurdly fair, highlighted with a sprinkling of fine gold hair along his chin. “It is true, what I said. Your ancestresses would have done the same for their guests.”

  “Yes, I know,” retorted Aurélie as she splashed wine into his glass, one of the precious Venetian glass goblets an ancestor had hauled home from a tour of Italy, along with a mezzo-soprano and a rather lovely triptych supposedly painted by Titian. “They also bathed them. Am I meant to take a sponge to your back?”

  He glanced sharply up at her, his gaze catching hers, so that she was caught, practically nose to nose, close enough that she could see the little glimmers of light reflected in his eyes and smell soap on his skin.

  “I would demand no service of you that you do not care to give.”

  She was staring. She was staring and wine was dripping onto the tablecloth. Aurélie jerked upright, snatching the carafe away. “Fine words, lieutenant—from an uninvited guest.”

  “Mademoiselle de Courcelles. Our glasses are empty.” Major Hoffmeister waggled his glass in the air. In an aside, to the man he called Kraus, he said, “No tavern would hire a girl so slow.”

  He was, she knew, deliberately baiting them—no, baiting her father. She could see him look at her father as he said it, waiting for him to react.

  They said, in Le Catelet, the major had shot men out of hand, for doing no more than object.

  “Wine, major?” In the dining room—the proper dining room—there was a painting, a lush Renaissance affair, all burgeoning grapes and equally burgeoning breasts, of Judith seducing Holofernes, the conquering general who had enslaved her people, pouring wine into his goblet as he ogled her cleavage.

  The major didn’t ogle. He didn’t even acknowledge. He let Aurélie fill his glass as though she were a servant and then stood, clanking a spoon against his glass.

  He did not, she noticed, drink.

  “You have all been summoned here to receive instruction,” he said, without preamble. “I am Etappen Kommandant Major Hoffmeister. This region is under my control. You will report here every day at precisely seven in the morning for orders.”

  One man was unwise enough to speak up. “Every morning? It is an hour’s walk from Villeret!”

  The man at Hoffmeister’s left, the tall man with the crown of red hair, called out, “Then you had best start early!”

  Hoffmeister didn’t dignify either man with a response. Instead, he went on as though he had never been interrupted, “All weapons will be surrendered immediately. The penalty for concealing a weapon is death. That, Monsieur le Comte, includes you.”

  “Would you like the shepherd boy’s slingshot?” the count inquired politely. “The kitchen knives, perhaps.”

  “All weapons,” Hoffmeister snapped. “You will surrender your swords, and your rifles, and your slingshots. A full list will be provided to you to be posted in your villages. You will also receive lists of goods to be delivered to the castle. You will provide the required amount of cheese, wine, and wheat. Do not think you can fool us by holding anything back. All homes will be searched.”

  Aurélie didn’t miss the uneasy looks being exchanged. It was rumored that the mayor of Hargival had quite a cache of wine stored in his cellar. But it wasn’t the wine that concerned her. Absently, she rubbed the calluses on her palms, picturing the bales of wheat, the wheat she had worked so hard and so clumsily to harvest, so that her people might not starve come winter. The people of the village had given all they could spare to the French soldiers that had come through, first in August, then again in September.

  She could see the rustles and murmurings, but none of the men would speak out, not with the major’s soldiers standing along the walls and all the might of Germany behind them.

  “If you take their wheat, these men will starve.” Aurélie was still holding the carafe and felt like a baroque rendering of Plenty, or something equally absurd. But someone had to speak out, and it seemed it must be she. “The people of this village cannot live without bread.”

  “Let them eat cake, then. That is what your people say, isn’t it?”

  “Marie Antoinette,” retorted Aurélie, “was an Austrian.”

  The local men liked that. The major didn’t. “You aristocrats,” he said slowly, “you are not known for tender sympathy for your people. Would you give your bread so they might not starve, Mademoiselle de Courcelles?”

  “If it comes to that. Yes.”

  For a moment, she thought the major meant to strike her. But he caught himself in time. “I forgot. You Catholics revel in martyrdom. All of your saints shot full of arrows—or burned at the stake.”

  In the back of the room, Monsieur le Curé looked nervous. He had always been more interested in his collection of curios than in martyrdom.

  The major grasped the crucifix Suzanne had hung about Aurélie’s neck, pulling it forward so that Aurélie was forced to come with it, or allow the chain to snap. “What bauble is this? Is this the notorious talisman of Courcelles?”

  He gave the chain a tug and the thin links snapped, leaving him holding the crucifix in his hand.

  “Well?” Hoffmeister demanded. “Is this it?”

  Aurélie took a rapid step back, resisting the urge to rub her neck, where a thin, red welt had begun to form.

  “The talisman,” said the count, “is with the lady countess. In Paris.”

  Or, at least, it was meant to be. Aurélie was very glad she had never told her father otherwise.

  “That is what you would say, isn’t it?” said the major, and thrust Suzanne’s silver-gilt cross deep in his pocket. To Aurélie, he said, “Well, what are you doing standing there? Dreier’s glass is empty.”

  Expressionless, Aurélie took up the carafe. As she passed the major, on the way to the man on his left, the shorter, rounder one, the major, without turning around, without looking at her, deliberately jerked his elbow back, joggling her arm so that the carafe overturned, the dregs of the wine spilling like blood down the front of her dress, turning the pink silk crimson, and drowning the light of the gems.

  “Clumsy, clumsy,” said the red-haired one, Kraus.

  There was an uneasy silence in the room, the men shuffling from foot to foot, looking at one another, all feeling they ought to do something, but no one brave enough to speak out. Aurélie’s father’s hands tightened on the arms of his chair, but he stayed where he was, exercising the control learned long ago on the field of honor.

  “Well?” The major made a brusque gesture. “What are you all doing still standing here? You are dismissed. You report here tomorrow for further orders. Go!”

  The men shuffled uneasily toward the door, glancing back over their shoulders, speaking in low voices among themselves. The major plunked back down in his seat.

  Stone-faced, Aurélie lifted the empty carafe. “I shall see this refilled.”

  Lieutenant von Sternburg jumped to his feet. “Allow me to carry that for you.”

  “I can carry my own burdens,” said Aurélie. “Thank you all the same.”

  He followed her out into the passage regardless. It was a dark and narrow corridor, joining the old keep with the newer portions of the castle. It smelled of damp and rodent droppings.

  Aurélie stopped, and Von Sternb
urg stopped, too. “It’s all of a piece, isn’t it?” she said bitterly. Now that she was out of the hall, away from the major, away from the villagers, she felt her mask of calm crumbling. “I cannot refuse your aid any more than I can refuse your demands. Will you requisition my good will as you requisition wheat? I warn you, I haven’t any left to give.”

  Her voice was beginning to crack. She forced herself to stop, painfully aware that she was still clutching the carafe. She was beginning to hate that carafe. She would have flung it, just to see it crack, but for the fact that she couldn’t give them that satisfaction. And, besides, Major Hoffmeister had probably already added it to his requisition list. That was what the Germans did when they came through, wasn’t it? They took and took and took.

  “Mademoiselle de Courcelles.” Von Sternburg took a cautious step forward. “The last thing I wish is to add to your burdens.”

  Aurélie couldn’t help it; she began to laugh, and if her laugh was a little wild, Von Sternburg was tactful enough not to comment on it. “Oh, a regular angel of mercy, that’s what you are. Did you and your commanding officer plan this together? He threatens and you soothe and together you get what you want?”

  Lieutenant von Sternburg stared at her, looking as though she had struck him. “Is that really what you think of me?”

  Paris. Daisies and cakes and the gentle patter of rain.

  Aurélie turned her shoulder. “You serve him.”

  “I serve my country. Please, whatever you think of me, know that. I serve my country, not Major Hoffmeister. He is—he is a bully.” She could feel his presence, close behind her. His soap smelled faintly of violets. He was, she realized, staring at the nape of her neck, where Hoffmeister’s summary disposal of Suzanne’s chain had left a thin, red welt along her skin. “This—this is inexcusable.”

  His fingers barely grazed the bruise, but Aurélie jerked away, covering the spot with her hand. “Should you be saying that of your commanding officer?”

  “No.” He looked down at her. Aurélie looked away, away from the appeal in his eyes, but it was impossible to ignore him entirely, not when his very presence vibrated like a bell, driving away everything else. “I shouldn’t. But I wouldn’t want you to think that I approve of his methods.”

  Aurélie’s lips pressed tightly together. “Maybe not his methods, but you’re not going to quibble with the ends, are you?”

  “Do you mean do I want my country to win this ridiculous war? Of course. I would be a traitor to think otherwise. But do I want it to go on a second longer than it need? And destroy so much of beauty and goodness and . . . never mind.” Von Sternburg gave his head a shake, looking distinctly bemused. “Do you know, you’re still holding that carafe?”

  “Yes. I think it might be permanently attached to my palms,” said Aurélie tartly. It was all very well for him to go on about truth and beauty, as if nothing had changed, as if he were still the man she had known in Paris. He wasn’t the one who smelled like a vineyard. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m meant to be filling it with wine so I can go back to my oh-so-honorable duties to my guests.”

  She turned on her heel, but Von Sternburg forestalled her. “Mademoiselle de Courcelles.”

  His fingers barely brushed her arm, but the touch made her stop short, trembling. With rage. Only with rage.

  “What?” she demanded. “What?”

  He rescued the carafe from her before she could drop it. “Please. Don’t look at me like that. I only wanted to tell you—Hoffmeister may be a bully, but he’s not a fool. Don’t underestimate him. Don’t taunt him.”

  “You needn’t worry on my account. I’ll be the perfect picture of silent womanhood.”

  “Because that will madden him the most?” She wished he wouldn’t look at her like that, like he knew her. Like he cared. “I shouldn’t want to see you made a martyr. We shouldn’t be here long. A week. A month at most. All I want is to keep you safe.”

  Here was a snare straight from the Devil. She could almost feel herself weakening in the face of his earnestness, that kindness that was so much a part of who he was, a man who surrendered his umbrella that others might stay dry.

  A conqueror. Conquerors weren’t kind.

  “And what of my people? Will you keep them safe, too, or does the offer extend only to me?”

  “I want only to protect you,” he said softly.

  “What price that protection?” Gathering the shreds of her dignity about her, Aurélie said grandly, “No thank you, Lieutenant von Sternburg. I can take care of myself—and my people, too.”

  She was about to depart, when Von Sternburg said, “That being said, haven’t you forgot something?”

  “What?” Aurélie wrapped her arms around her chest. Her dress was clinging damply to her in what she feared were rather revealing places. “That you are the conqueror? That we are here only on your sufferance? That your grandfather was kind to my father once?”

  “Er, no.” Von Sternburg held up a rather grimy piece of cut crystal. “Haven’t you forgot your carafe?”

  Chapter Nine

  Daisy

  The Hôtel Ritz

  Paris, France

  May 1942

  The decanter in Grandmère’s suite at the Ritz was made of heavy cut crystal, centuries old. The Ritz staff cleaned it daily so that dust should not accumulate in its ridges. As a child, Daisy had assumed her grandmother had smuggled it out of the collections of the Château de Courcelles, but it turned out Grandmère had bought the decanter in Paris shortly after she first moved there, along with the rest of the suite’s contents. She’d wanted to start fresh, she said, and, anyway, the comte raised such a fuss over every little object, as if everything inside that damned château was a holy relic of one kind or another.

  Daisy pulled out the stopper and splashed a few ounces into a snifter. Behind her, Grandmère scribbled furiously.

  “That’s all? You’ve got the names right? You haven’t forgotten someone?”

  “Of course I haven’t forgotten,” said Daisy.

  “And Pierre. He thought this meeting was a great success?”

  “Yes. He said something afterward about moving up in the world. A grand new apartment.”

  Grandmère made a noise. “A grand new apartment. And we all know where those come from. Another Jewish family stripped of everything on one pretext or another and sent east to the camps.”

  “Well, I would never live in someone else’s apartment like that. It’s grotesque.”

  “You think not? What else are you to do, if Pierre moves up in the world by his own low cunning?”

  Daisy stared at her face in the mirror above the liquor cabinet. Her skin looked pallid, her eyes unnaturally bright. She watched herself draw a long sip of cognac—almost too long to be called a sip at all, really—and noticed Grandmère’s reflection in the distance, on the sofa, watching Daisy watch herself drink cognac.

  “My dear,” said Grandmère. “Is there something you haven’t told me?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because you haven’t poured yourself a glass of spirits since that day you discovered you were expecting Olivier.”

  Daisy set down the snifter and turned to face Grandmère. “Last night. There was another guest at the last minute.”

  Grandmère made a noise of exasperation and picked up her notepad and her fountain pen from the sofa table. “Why didn’t you mention him, then?”

  “Because I don’t think he had anything to do with what they were discussing. He invited himself. It was a surprise to Pierre, I think.”

  “A good surprise?”

  “Yes. He’s an important man, a lieutenant colonel. But he wasn’t one of them, I thought. He wasn’t part of their circle. He didn’t stay when the rest of them retired to the study.”

  “He left early?”

  “Yes. Just had dinner and coffee and left.”

  “That’s strange.” Grandmère frowned and tapped the end of the fountain pen against her
chin. “His name?”

  Daisy turned back to the decanter, poured a little more cognac, and returned to the sofa to sit across from her grandmother’s sharp eyes. Today Grandmère wore a magnificent blue silk kaftan and enormous earrings that dangled like chandeliers over her narrow shoulders, giving you an impression of extravagant frivolity that ended at the three giant, somber furrows across her forehead. “Von Sternburg,” Daisy said. “Lieutenant Colonel Max von Sternburg.”

  “Max von Sternburg.” Tap, tap went the fountain pen against Grandmère’s chin. “Yes. Arrived here recently from some field command in the east, didn’t he?”

  “You’ve heard of him?”

  “Of course I’ve heard of him. He’s next in line for commandant of Paris. Don’t you read the newspapers?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “I’m told Berlin thinks highly of him. His loyalty to Germany is unimpeachable.” Grandmère said this with such conspicuous irony, Daisy lifted her eyebrows and sat back against the sofa. The scent of pipe smoke wafted past her nose.

  “Has your poet friend been to visit?” she said. “Monsieur Lebeouf?”

  “Legrand. What makes you say that?”

  “I can smell his pipe.”

  Grandmère pointed the fountain pen at Daisy’s nose. “You notice everything, don’t you? Even as a child.”

  “Well?”

  “Yes, he was here. What can I say? I enjoy poetry. About this Von Sternburg, however. You’re certain he wasn’t invited?”

  “Quite certain. Pierre was—Pierre was nervous about it. Happy, but nervous. Von Sternburg wasn’t expected.”

  “Then why did he come, I wonder?”

  Daisy looked down at her left hand, which rested on a sofa cushion, while her right hand held the snifter of cognac. She stroked the fabric once or twice and noticed how pale her hand looked, how bony and frail, the gold ring hanging between the knuckles. She said softly, “I met him earlier in the day, in the hotel lobby.”

  “This hotel lobby? The Ritz?”