All the Ways We Said Goodbye

by Beatriz Williams

  “Wait a minute.” Drew slapped his hands on the table, making a couple walking by startle and move away. “I can’t believe I’ve been so oblivious.” He turned to me. “Do you see? Margot is short for Marguerite—from The Scarlet Pimpernel, of all things—and Marguerite is the French equivalent of Daisy. How could I have missed it? Even Pierre told us that everyone called Marguerite Daisy!” He slapped his forehead with the flat of his hand. “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ! Harvard is going to take away my summa cum laude!”

  I stared at him. “Harvard? I thought you said you went to Bowdoin.”

  He may have actually rolled his eyes. “I already told you—I have no connection to Bowdoin, either by name or alma mater. I wasn’t just a football player, you know.” He sat back in his chair and leveled a gaze on Precious. “So what they said is true, then. That La Fleur took the talisman for her own gain. And let my father take the blame.”

  “Hardly,” Precious said. “You see, the night of the drop, there was a problem where we were supposed to give your father the talisman. The Gestapo had somehow found out—we think it might have been Pierre, trying to save his own skin. Luckily for us, we had help from Max von Sternburg, a German officer.” She paused. “He was also Daisy’s father—something she wasn’t aware of until that very night. He took the talisman to make the transfer to the OSS man—your father, Drew—so Daisy and the children could escape. Unfortunately, the Gestapo were waiting for him. Knowing it meant certain death, he turned himself in—but only after giving me the talisman.” She paused for a moment, remembering. “I hid and watched as they shot him. Even with his hands up in surrender. He died honorably. I’m glad I was able to tell Daisy that much, at least.”

  “But my father never got the talisman. No one showed up.”

  Precious placed a calming hand on Drew’s arm. “By the time I received it, it was too late.”

  “So what happened to the jewels?” he asked.

  “I spent them all on clothes, of course.”

  We stared at her in stunned surprise.

  It was her turn to roll her eyes. “I’m just playing with you. I sold them, of course. The Resistance was in desperate need of operating funds. I was modeling for Coco Chanel at the time and had made many helpful contacts not only among the Nazis she considered friends, but also in the furriers and jewelers she used for her fashion house. One was a Jew whose last name was Reich—can you imagine? He worked right under their noses and because of his name he was above suspicion. He helped me sell the jewels on the black market to the Nazis. That Nazi money funded the Resistance for months to come, which made it doubly rewarding. Not only did we save more Jewish lives, but we had the Nazis pay for it.”

  She put her hand on Drew’s arm. “You must understand that we couldn’t expose the truth that might have cleared your father’s name. It would have compromised too many people, too many operations already in place. It’s why I didn’t confess my true identity. Up until now, we have not been allowed to let the world know, but I have been granted permission seeing as how your father is running out of time. I hope you will be able to give him peace.”

  Precious frowned at me. “You’re going to catch flies, Babs, if you don’t close your mouth.”

  I immediately shut it, unaware of how long I’d been staring at her gape jawed. Probably for the same amount of time it had taken me to realize how completely wrong I’d been about Daisy. About La Fleur. She and Kit had tried to save the world together. Had risked their lives while I busied myself in the countryside running the WI and tending my victory garden, imagining I was doing my part. No wonder Kit had loved her.

  “I . . . ,” I began, not sure what I was going to say. Instead, I opened my purse and pulled out the letter. The one I’d been so desperate to hide. But it didn’t matter anymore. Drew was leaving, and I’d learned the truth of someone I’d considered my nemesis. And for both, I found myself horribly lacking.

  I placed the letter on the table next to the talisman, baring my subterfuge. The words written at the bottom taunted me. I will always love you. Always. I didn’t cover them up. I needed them to see. I needed Drew to see so that he’d know he’d been mistaken about me, that his leaving had come at the most opportune time so that he didn’t have to find an excuse to go back to New York.

  “This came for Kit,” I explained. “When he was recuperating after being released from the prison camp. I kept it from him. I never even told him a letter had arrived. Instead, I tucked it up in the attic and married him, telling myself it was for his own good.” I swallowed the dam of tears trying to block my airway. “They could have been together all this time, but I was so selfish. When I thought she was evil, it was so much easier to justify.” I looked down in my lap, unable to meet their eyes.

  “Babs.” Drew placed a hand gently on my arm. “Stop beating yourself up. You did it out of love, not out of selfishness. Your heart is so big, and so giving, all you wanted was for Kit to be happy. Your big, generous heart. It’s what I love most about you.”

  A valet approached discreetly and stood near Drew. “Your luggage is ready, sir. And I took the liberty of calling for a taxi.”

  Drew stood, looking uncertain. “Remember at our picnic in Picardy, how we both said we needed to shake up our lives? I think this is it. I think you and I are meant to shake them up together. Come with me, Babs. Come with me to New York.”

  I blinked at him, my head and heart warring with each other, battling it out in my throat so that I couldn’t speak.

  Drew held up his hand. “Think about it. Let me settle my account, and I’ll be right back.”

  I watched his departure until Precious pulled on my arm. “My mama used to say that to watch someone walk away means you’ll never see them again. And I have a good hunch that you both will find a way to be together.”

  I turned around, but not because I believed her. “You probably think I’m a weak and spiteful woman. And I’m afraid that you might be right. Despite what he said, I know I don’t deserve him.”

  “Don’t ever think that. Ever.” Her accent was amplified in that one word, the r disappearing completely. “Life is complicated, without any sort of road map. We are bound to have disappointments and setbacks, and with each one we make the choice to reinvent ourselves as a stronger version of who we are. You had a wonderful life with Kit. Your three wonderful children are a testament to that. And I know Daisy forgave you, so you don’t need to carry that burden any longer. Learning how to forgive ourselves is so much harder.” The last word seemed to catch in her throat, convincing me that she was on familiar terms with the struggle for self-forgiveness. She leaned closer so I could smell her perfume, recognizing it as Vol de Nuit. It was the same perfume Diana wore—made for brave and adventurous women. Of which I was neither. “Barbara, you are a formidable woman. Never forget that.”

  I looked into her beautiful face, wondering again about the stories that lay behind her bright blue eyes. Something dark lurked there, I recognized it now. I remembered seeing it in Kit’s eyes after he’d returned from the war. I blinked away stupid tears I had no right to shed. “How did you get so wise?”

  Precious smiled. “We all make decisions, Babs. The hardest part is learning to live with them.”

  “So how does a formidable woman decide what to do next?” I asked, feeling utterly lost.

  “Well, I’ve decided to return to London. The hardest part will be deciding which version of me will be returning.”

  I didn’t have a chance to ask her what she meant as Drew had come back and stood by my chair. He reached for my hand and pulled me up, looking at me with earnest eyes. “Come with me to New York, Babs. We’ve put our ghosts to rest, haven’t we? Doesn’t that mean we’re supposed to get on with our lives now? To find our own happiness? Because, to be honest, I don’t know how I’m supposed to live the rest of my life without you.”

  I will always love you. Always. Those words haunted me, accusing me. I was the worst sort of person, and Dr
ew deserved so much better. “I can’t, Drew. I have responsibilities. I can’t just . . . leave. I agree my life needed to be shaken up, but I don’t believe moving to New York with you is what I’d intended. It’s been lovely, it has, but I think this is where we must part.” Each word was like a blow to my heart, a searing, sharp pain, and I wasn’t sure where the strength came from to say them without falling apart.

  He continued to study me, as if looking for some weakness, some wavering on my part. But I couldn’t allow that. “This won’t be goodbye so I’m not going to say it.” He kissed me, the kind of kiss that in the movies is accompanied by sweeping music and the couple riding off into the sunset. But this wasn’t a movie.

  I stepped back, my lips swollen and sore. “Goodbye, Drew.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Aurélie

  The Hôtel Ritz

  Paris, France

  August 1915

  “Bonjour, Maman,” said Aurélie.

  Her mother was on her feet, her face gray. “Aurélie?”

  “Hello,” said Aurélie, since it was very hard to know what to say when one had been gone for nearly a year, when one had absconded with a priceless jewel and run away to a war zone without so much as a word.

  She nodded vaguely in the direction of the other people in her mother’s salon, shadow figures with neat beards and well-tailored suits. They might have been puppets or paper cutouts, so unreal did they seem, so strangely clean and tidy, well-groomed and well-fed. She had been traveling for five weeks, and everything felt a little blurry. Except the smells. She could smell her own rank sweat, her mother’s perfume, the overripe flowers in a vase.

  Aurélie swallowed hard against a wave of nausea. “I’ve come back.”

  “Aurélie. It’s you. It’s really you. I had thought . . . when I heard—” Her mother clutched the back of a chair, as though she, too, were feeling not entirely steady.

  Everyone was staring. Aurélie was very conscious of her own disarray. The Red Cross had offered them baths at the Swiss border, but that had been a week ago, and the stench had long since sunk into her clothes. Aurélie began sidling in the direction of her old bedroom. “If I might . . .”

  “Of course.” Her mother came sharply to herself, moving rapidly to Aurélie’s side. Taking Aurélie by the arm, her mother called over her shoulder, “Marie! Tell everyone to go. I’m not at home. How did you get here? What happened to you? When did you leave Courcelles?”

  “In June.” That seemed the easiest question to answer. June felt a very long time ago. The world had been reduced to a series of stops and searches, choking down bites of tasteless food, trying not to be ill. “I took a train. The Germans—they allowed some people to be evacuated.”

  “June?” Her mother stopped and stared at her. “Did they take you via Timbuktu?”

  “No, to Belgium. And then to Switzerland.” Aurélie drew a hand across her eyes, which felt gritty. All of her felt gritty. “It was not—it was not a pleasant journey.”

  They had been rounded up at the train station in Le Catelet and given numbers, strapped to their chests, then marched by armed gendarmes onto the train. No one had been permitted to say farewell, no well-wishers were allowed to approach. They were shuffled away like prisoners, like criminals. A baby had cried, and the baby’s mother had quickly muffled the cry with her shawl, terrified the Germans would lose patience and hurt the child. They were all stiff and silent with fear.

  The train took three days to cross into Belgium, where soldiers stripped and searched the evacuees, and anxious rumors spread that they were to be taken, not into France at all, but to work camps in Germany. Aurélie braided the talisman into her hair and slept in her clothes. Fear became numbness. They were detained one week, then two, before being sent on again. The swaying of the train, the cramped conditions and smells in the third-class compartment made Aurélie queasy; trying not to be ill took all her concentration and will.

  It took over a week to reach the Swiss border, where they were met by Red Cross workers with mugs of milk, real milk, and hot coffee and tea, and bread rolls, proper bread rolls. It made Aurélie want to cry to see the wonder on the children’s faces, at the food and the kindness. What had they come to that a bit of bread and a smile were a wonder?

  The Red Cross workers had bundled them onto yet another train, but this was different now; there were no guards, no warders, no searches. Hours later, they were in Évian, on French soil, where hotels were put at their disposal free of charge, and people came to help them with their papers. It had seemed safer to remain Jeanne Deschamps, to make her way to the Ritz quietly, the talisman hidden close to her breast.

  And all the while, Aurélie replayed those final moments, that moment when Max had scrambled back in through the window.

  He was safe, he had to be. And her father, too. He had said he would save her father. He would. He had.

  “But you’re here now,” said her mother. There were two thin lines between her brows as she examined Aurélie’s face. “You’re home.”

  Home. The Ritz didn’t feel like home. The Ritz had never felt like home. But what other home did she have?

  A fairy-tale castle on an island, in the middle of a man-made lake, surrounded by wildflowers, where Max would teach their children to swim. Aurélie felt dizzy, lost between worlds. I’ll come for you at the Ritz, Max had said. At the Ritz. And surely he would. Not now perhaps, but in a month, in a year, when the war was over. If it would ever be over.

  “Come, I’ll have Marie draw a bath for you immediately.” Her mother was shepherding her to her dressing table, easing her down into a chair, unpinning the soiled hat from her soiled hair. “My dear, your hair.”

  “The dye will wear out.” Suzanne had told her that a lifetime ago, as she had steeped walnut hulls in a basin in the kitchen at Courcelles.

  “It already is,” said her mother, unpinning the dirty coils of hair on top of Aurélie’s head, fanning them out. “You’re piebald, my darling.”

  It was so very strange, sitting in this familiar chair, in front of her old mirror. But the face in the mirror was nearly unrecognizable. It wasn’t just the hair dye, or the grime. The old Aurélie had been different. So sure of herself. So impatient. So young. “I had to travel incognito. I’m a widow. Jeanne Deschamps.”

  In the mirror, she saw her mother press her eyes tightly shut, letting out a breath. “That explains it.”

  “Explains what?”

  “The clothes,” her mother said, a little too quickly. “Relax, relax, don’t try to get up. You look dead on your feet, my poor girl. Marie! Make up Miss Aurélie’s bed. Would you like me to ring for anything? Chocolate? Coffee?”

  Luxuries. They hadn’t had coffee at Courcelles since the fall; chocolate had been an unknown quantity. It made Aurélie think of Max, delivering chocolate on Christmas Eve to the children of the village.

  Aurélie turned in the chair to face her mother, away from her own unfamiliar face. “I scarcely know what those are anymore. We had strict rationing at Courcelles. The Germans took anything edible for themselves.”

  Her mother’s hands rested briefly on her shoulders. “That must be why you’re all skin and bone. My poor girl. I’ll have Marie make up a tisane for you. Something strengthening. Let’s get you out of those hideous clothes and into one of your own nightdresses. Marie!”

  Aurélie’s hands clamped down on her bulky skirt. “There are messages for you. In the seams of my petticoat. From my father. They shot the pigeons. I’d forgot . . .”

  “There’s no rush.” Her mother stopped her as she started to wiggle frantically out of her petticoat, trying to get to the messages. “I’ll read them in a bit. After I get you settled. You need your rest.”

  It had been different when she was traveling, suspended between worlds, but now that she was here, it all seemed real again, the flames, the clamor. There were no more pigeons. But somehow . . . she had to know what had happened. She had to let them know sh
e was safe.

  Her mother had Aurélie’s dirty petticoat draped over her arm. “I’ll just tell Marie to run your bath.”

  “Wait.” Aurélie put a hand on her mother’s arm. She’d forgotten how fine-boned she was, how small, how Aurélie felt like a giantess beside her. “Is there any way to get a message to Courcelles? To my father?”

  Her mother said nothing, but Aurélie could see her knuckles go white against the coarse cloth. “Shortly. Later.”

  “What is it?” Fear gripped Aurélie. This wasn’t like her mother. Not at all. “Do you have news from Courcelles?”

  Her mother looked at her, and, beneath her carefully applied makeup, her face was that of a much older woman. “Courcelles is gone. It burned.” Tentatively, she reached out a finger and touched Aurélie’s cheek, as if testing that she was real. “I was told you had burned with it.”

  “M—someone got me out.”

  Go, Max had said, and she had gone, running to the chapel to grab her carpetbag, barely stopping, even with the roar of the fire behind her, running, running. He would get her father out, Max had said, and she had believed him, because he said it with such assurance, because he loved her.

  Aurélie didn’t remember sitting again, but she was. Her knees must have folded. She looked anxiously up at her mother. “My father?”

  “I’m sorry.” Her mother put her arms around Aurélie, drew Aurélie’s head to her breast. Aurélie couldn’t remember the last time they had embraced like this, the last time she had let her mother hold her. “I would have let you rest at least before telling you.”

  “He’s gone?” It seemed impossible. Her father, the warrior. The autocrat.

  “In the fire.” She felt her mother lean against her for a moment, felt the force of her mother’s own sorrow, before her mother straightened, automatically setting her hair and dress to rights. “You understand, we have no real news from the occupied territory. It’s all rumor—but I have friends.”