by Pam Jenoff
“Fireworks,” Paul remarks. I nod, staring in wonder at the waves of color that fill the sky like confetti. I have heard of fireworks but never seen them before. “You would think after all of the bombings, everyone would have had enough of things exploding,” he says a minute later. “Let’s get out of here.” For a second I hope we will return to the bridge and gaze at the skyline once more. But he leads me through the streets back, I can tell, toward the Servicemen’s Hotel. The war is over, I think, as we walk in silence. I was thirteen years old when the war began and I spent the past six years running for my life.
“What are you thinking?” Paul asks.
“Lots of things. Mostly about what I lost during the war.”
He smiles. “Careful, you’re starting to sound like me.”
Recalling how I had chastised him for self-pity the night on the lake, I laugh. “I suppose I am. I really was preachy, wasn’t I?”
“Not at all. You were right about being grateful to be alive, earning the chance we’ve been given. And now, with the war ending, getting to go home. It really is a second chance, isn’t it?”
Home. Paul will be leaving, returning to America for good. He stops walking and turns to me suddenly, his expression troubled. “The only bad thing is leaving you.” My heart pounds against my chest. “I mean, I realize we haven’t known each other very long, but…I’m going to miss you, Marta.”
So don’t go, I want to scream. “I’ll miss you, too.”
We stand staring at each other for several seconds, neither speaking. “Well, it’s getting late,” he says at last. “We should get back and pick up your papers.” We continue walking and, a few minutes later, approach the Servicemen’s Hotel.
Through the closed hotel door, I hear shouting and singing, soldiers celebrating the end of the war. “Why don’t you wait here?” Paul suggests. “Once I get your papers from Mickey, I can escort you back to your hotel.”
My hotel, I think, panicking. In my excitement at seeing Paul, I had nearly forgotten that I was supposed to get to the Red Cross shelter. “That won’t be necessary…” I begin, but Paul is already through the hotel door.
A minute later, he reappears. “All set,” he says. There is a new number scrawled across the front of the train ticket. “Front desk called the station and reserved you a seat on the seven-fifteen train to Calais. It’s a bit early, I’m afraid, but the only way you’ll make the ferry.”
“Thank you again.” I tuck them into my bag as he leads me down the path to the curb, hailing a taxi.
“Paul, my hotel is clear across town,” I say as the taxi pulls up. “There’s no need for you to ride all the way there.”
He opens the rear door. “But the city is crazy right now with all of the celebrating. I’m glad to escort you.”
“I know. But I’d rather you don’t. Please.” It begins to rain then, thick drops splattering on the pavement.
“I don’t understand…”
“If I don’t say goodbye to you now…” I hesitate, looking down the street, then back at Paul again. I take a deep breath. “If I don’t say goodbye to you now, it is going to break my heart.” I reach up and kiss him, quick and hard. Then, before he can respond, I leap into the back of the taxi and close the door. “Drive, please,” I manage to say in French.
“Where to?”
“Away,” I reply. Paul is still standing outside the cab. Desperately, I come up with the only place in Paris I remember. “To the Louvre.” I have no idea what a taxi costs, how far away the Louvre may be. I will stop the taxi and get out, I decide, as soon as I am away from here.
“But the Louvre is closed….”
“Just drive, please!” The cab lurches forward. Don’t look back, I think. As we start to move, tears well up, overrunning my eyes. Suddenly there is a banging on the roof of the cab, as though someone has dropped a large rock on it. I jump. “Mon dieu!” the driver exclaims, slamming on the breaks. There is another banging noise. It’s not coming from the roof, I realize, but the back window. I spin around. Perched on the trunk of the taxi on all fours, is Paul.
He jumps down, then comes around to the side of the taxi. I roll down the window. The rain falls heavily now, plastering Paul’s hair to his forehead, but he does not seem to notice. “What on earth are you doing?” I demand. “Jumping onto a moving car like that, you could have been killed!”
“I needed to stop you,” he replies simply, opening the taxi door.
“Why? What’s wrong? Did you forget to give me some of the papers?”
He does not answer, but falls to the ground. “Oh!” I reach down. “Are you hurt?”
Paul does not answer but looks up, still kneeling. He hasn’t fallen, but has dropped down on one knee deliberately, as though tying his shoelace. He reaches up and takes my hand. “Marry me, Marta.”
CHAPTER 9
I stare down at him, stunned. “Marta, when I had to leave you in Salzburg, I felt so helpless. I mean, I knew I liked you a lot, but we had practically just met. I thought I would never see you again and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.” His words come out in a tumble, almost too quick for me to follow. “And now, well…” He falters. “I know it’s crazy. We haven’t spent more than a day together. You barely know me. But there’s some reason we seem to keep finding each other. I’m crazy about you. I feel like we’ve known each other forever. And I’m not going to let you go this time. Not when I can do something about it. Marry me, Marta,” he repeats.
Is this really happening? I close my eyes, then open them again. Paul is still on one knee, gazing up at me expectantly. My mind races. Why is he doing this? For a second I wonder if he is still grieving over the loss of his fiancée, trying to fill a void. But looking down at his face, the intensity burning bright in his eyes, I know that his feelings for me are real. This is crazy. Paul is right, though. There is something special between us, something that makes it seem as though we have known each other forever. Suddenly I remember my first night at the palace, staring out at the mountains and wondering what life had in store for me. Now, at least in part, I know the answer. “Yes,” I whisper. My eyes start to burn.
“Yes!” Paul shouts. He leaps to his feet, then reaches into the cab and picks me up. We hold each other close, neither speaking. An earthy smell rises from the wet pavement.
“Pardon,” a voice says a few seconds later. Paul and I break apart. Behind us stands the taxi driver, arms crossed. “Louvre, Mademoiselle?”
“The Louvre?” Paul looks from me to the driver, then back again, brow furrowed. Suddenly I want to melt into the pavement and disappear. “Were you that desperate to get away from me?”
I can lie to him no longer. “You kept insisting on taking me back to my hotel and I was too embarrassed to admit I didn’t have one.”
Paul’s expression changes to one of understanding. He walks to the driver and hands him some bills. Then he turns to me. “Let’s get inside out of the rain.” Then he takes his jacket off and holds it over our heads as he leads me into the hotel. The lobby is crowded with soldiers overflowing the celebration at the bar, drinking and singing. As Paul leads me across the lobby through the crowd, a soldier carrying a camera and a dark green bottle blocks our path. I recognize him from Salzburg as the soldier who told Paul that they would be staying for the night. “War’s over!” the soldier exclaims, hugging Paul so hard he is forced to let go of my hand.
“I know. It’s fantastic. And more good news—I just got engaged. Drew, meet my girl, Marta.”
My girl. I feel my insides grow warm. Drew turns to me, eyes wide, trying unsuccessfully to place me. “Congratulations!” He pumps Paul’s hand up and down. “Lemme take your picture.” Paul draws me close to his side as Drew raises the camera. There is a popping noise, followed by a blinding flash. “This calls for champagne,” he adds, handing Paul the bottle.
Paul takes a swig, then turns to me. “Do you want some?”
“Sure.” I take the bottle from
him, lifting it to my mouth with two hands. Bubbles tickle my nose as I swallow the lukewarm liquid. I pass the bottle back to Paul, who turns to hand it to Drew. But he has already disappeared into the crowd.
“Come on. Let’s get out of this mess.” Paul takes my hand again and leads me down a corridor to a stairwell. He drops to one of the stairs, still holding the champagne bottle.
“So what do we do now?” I ask, sitting down beside him.
“Good question. Now that the war is over, they’ll be sending us back to the States. But it’s still going to be at least a few weeks. I could send you ahead to my family in America and meet you there. Or you can wait here in Paris. Then I can try to get discharged over here and we can travel back together.”
I hesitate. It would be heavenly to spend a few weeks exploring Paris without being worried about the future. I could visit the museums, do all of the things I had only read about in books. But looking down at my bag, I know that I do not have the option. “I still have to go to London,” I say. “I have to see Rose’s aunt.”
“I could arrange to send her belongings on through the army,” Paul offers.
I shake my head. “I need to go myself and tell her in person what happened. I owe Rose that much.”
“I understand. But I wish you would reconsider. Traveling across the Channel alone. It’s so dangerous.”
Dangerous. Fighting with the resistance, being imprisoned by the Nazis, those things were dangerous. Being alone in Paris without anywhere to go had been scary, too, in a different way. But now that Paul and I are together I feel safe. Really safe. “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” he says reluctantly. “You go on to London tomorrow, while the visa is good. I’ll get discharged and meet you there in two weeks and we’ll go to America together and get married.” He pauses, thinking. “Let’s say Kings Cross Station, August 30 at seven in the evening. Agreed?”
I nod. “Paul, there’s one other thing….”
He looks down at me. “What is it?”
“Well, if we’re to be married…that is, you know that I’m Jewish?”
“I assumed it when we found you in the camp prison.”
There were non-Jews in the camps, too, I want to say. But that is beside the point at the moment. “Does that bother you?”
He shakes his head. “Not at all. I mean, it might give the folks of Ruddy Springs, North Carolina, a start….” He pauses, seeing my expression is serious. “Is it a problem for you?”
I hesitate. Before the war, marrying a non-Jew would have been unthinkable. “No. But I wanted to mention it because if we were ever to have children, I would want them to be raised Jewish.” I owe my parents that much.
He smiles down at me. “We can move to a bigger city, if need be. Somewhere with a synagogue and some other Jewish people. We’ll work it out, I promise. It’s getting late. Why don’t you stay here? Technically we aren’t allowed to have guests.” He gestures toward the lobby. “But my guess is no one is really going to look too closely in this chaos. You’re welcome to stay in my room.” He raises his hand. “I don’t mean that improperly. I can stay with one of my buddies so you have the room to yourself.”
“Staying here would be great,” I reply. “Thank you.”
We stand and make our way up one flight of stairs, then another. Paul leads me down the hallway. “Room 303. This should be it.” He unlocks the door and lets me in, then turns on the light. The room is small, barely wide enough for the single bed and washstand. The scent of mothballs hangs heavy in the damp air. “It’s not much, I’m afraid.”
I turn back toward him. “It’s fine. Thanks again.”
“I’m going to bunk with Mickey. He’s three doors down on the opposite side of the hall if you need anything. I think we passed a washroom just down the hall to the right. I’ll set the alarm and knock so you wake up in plenty of time for your train.” He pauses, looking down at me. Several seconds pass. Then he leans down and kisses me. Heat rises inside me as his lips press against mine, soft and full. A second later, he straightens. “Good night, Marta.” He walks toward the door.
“Wait,” I call as he turns the doorknob.
He turns back. “What is it? Do you need something?”
I hesitate. “No. It’s just that, you don’t have to leave.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Stay,” I blurt out. “There’s no need for you to sleep away, I mean, somewhere else. We already spent the night together once, in Salzburg, remember?”
He smiles. “I do. I just wanted to give you your privacy. Are you sure?”
I nod. In the morning, I will have to leave and then we’ll be separated again for weeks. The last thing I want to do is spend these few hours apart. “I’ll be right back.” I walk past him, out of the room and down the hallway to the washroom. Music and voices drift upward from the bar below. I splash some water on my face, then stare into the mirror above the basin. Paul and I are going to be married. The idea still seems like a dream.
When I return to the room, Paul is kneeling on the tiny floor space, making up a bed of blankets. “I took a few of the blankets from the bed, but you should still be warm enough,” he says. “Just let me finish this and I’ll step out so you can get changed.”
Inwardly I smile. Paul is still trying to protect me. He does not understand. I could let him continue making the separate bed, I consider. It would be the proper thing to do. But lying apart in the darkness would be torture. I want him beside me. Desire wells up inside me as I kneel down beside him. “That won’t be necessary.” I take the pillow he is holding and put it back up on the bed, then put my hand in his. “I mean, after all, we are engaged.”
“Practically married,” he replies slowly, turning on his knees to face me. Our bodies press against each other, our faces close. He stands and helps me to my feet. His lips meet mine, probing. Still kissing me, he guides me to the bed, cushioning me with his arms as his weight pushes me gently downward. A second later, he breaks away. “Are you sure?”
I unfasten the top button of his uniform. “Positive.” I pull the jacket from his broad shoulders. Needing no further encouragement, he clamps his mouth on mine once more, drawing my breath from me, making me light-headed. Paul’s hands run down my sides, cupping my hips, bringing his mouth to my neck. I reach for his white cotton undershirt, pulling it over his head, seeing for the first time the metal chain with three small square plates that hangs from his neck. I run my hands across his torso, his back, while he struggles to unzip his pants. As he caresses me through my skirt, fingers featherlight, a soft moan escapes my lips.
Paul rolls gently on top of me, supporting his weight on his forearms. Suddenly an image flashes through my mind: Jacob above me as we hid in the crawl space of the cabin, his scent close, lips forbidden. I freeze, caught by the memory.
Paul, sensing my hesitation, pulls back slightly. “I love you, Marta,” he whispers, cradling my face in his hands.
I look into his wide, unblinking eyes. This is real. This is mine. “You, too,” I whisper, drawing Paul hurriedly to me once more, finding his mouth. He reaches urgently for the hem of my skirt. There is a moment of fleeting pain. So this is it, I think suddenly. I remember watching Jacob furtively, wondering what it would be like with him. I could not have imagined. Above me, Paul tenses and cries out. Desire returns, deeper and more intense within me than before as I move with him. I gasp, then moan softly, not noticing as the vision of Jacob slides from beneath me and fades away.
Paul lies on top of me, not moving, legs intertwined with mine. His heavy breathing matches my own. “Wow!” he says finally, lifting his head to kiss my eyelids, my cheeks. Then he shifts his weight off me gently, rolling over onto his back.
I rest my cheek on his bare chest, feeling my body ache dully below. “‘Wow’ is good?”
He laughs, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “Wow is great.” He turns onto his side to face me, his expression serious. His eyelashes, I noti
ce, though long and dark, are blond at the tips. “‘Wow’ is I never knew it could be like this.” I do not respond. My first time. So different, so much more than what I expected. Paul continues, “I mean, to feel this way about someone so soon. I’m glad we’re engaged. I only wish I had a ring to give you.”
I shake my head. “It’s not important.”
“I’ll get you a nice one when we get to America,” he promises. Then he reaches around his neck and pulls off the chain. “My dog tags.” He presses them into my hand. “You can wear these for now.”
I study one of the engraved plates that hang from the chain. It bears his name and a series of numbers I do not recognize. “But I can’t. I mean, this is your identification. You need this.”
“Nah, these are important in combat, to identify me if something happens. But the war is over. I’ve got two weeks of paperwork until I’m done. Nothing is going to happen. Anyway, I’ll go to the quartermaster tomorrow after you’ve gone, get another set made. Okay?” He places the chain around my neck.
I wrap my hand around the cool metal tags. A piece of Paul to keep close until we are together again. “Yes.”
“You should try to get some rest,” he says gently, pulling the blanket up around us. “You have a long trip ahead of you tomorrow.” I nod, suddenly tired. I roll onto my side, facing away from him, and he presses against my back, cupping his legs beneath mine. His cheek is rough against my shoulder. I listen to the rain as it beats against the window, feeling safe and warm. We are going to be together like this every night. Married. My eyelids grow heavy and I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
I open my eyes with a start, trying to remember where I am. In the dim light of morning, I can make out the small hotel room, my bag lying in the corner. Paris, I remember. Paul. Suddenly, the events of the previous evening—the reunion with Paul, his proposal, our lovemaking—come rushing back. I roll over to find him propped up on one elbow, looking down at me. “Good morning,” he says.
