“Very well.” He stood up and picked up his hat. Even in these times he always wore a striped suit and a vest and a homburg, as he had during his years in the diplomatic service. He followed the soldiers outside to the car that had been sent for him. He always went in style, not that he cared. It still turned his stomach to realize what people, whispering “traitor,” thought as he drove by.
But today Armand was not ushered in to the usual office. He was led into the office of the military command, and wondered what ugly new project they had for him now. No matter. He smiled to himself. He wouldn't have time to complete it. In three days he was leaving.
“De Villiers?” The German accent in French grated on his nerves as always, but he was concentrating on walking into the office without limping. He was in no way prepared for what came next. Three officers of the SS stood waiting for him. He had been discovered. A collection of evidence was laid out before him, including half-burned scraps of paper he had burned only the day before, and as he looked into the commanding officer's eyes, he knew. He had been betrayed by André Marchand.
“I don't understand … these are not—”
“Silence!” the officer roared. “Silence! I will speak and you will listen! You are a French pig, like all of the others, and when we finish with you today, you will squeal just like all the filthy pigs!” But they wanted no information from him at all, they wanted nothing. They wanted only to tell him what they knew, to prove to him the superior mind of the Germans. And when the commanding officer had finished his recital, which was pathetically incomplete, much to Armand's relief—they still knew almost nothing, he thanked God—he was led from the room by the SS. It was only then that he felt a tingle in his spine, that the leg dragged, that he thought of Liane, and Moulin, and he felt a creeping desperation. Before that the adrenaline hadn't been flowing too fast in his veins, but now it flowed faster and his mind whirled, and he reminded himself again and again that it had been worth it. That it was worth giving his life for his country … pour la France … he said it over to himself again and again and again as they tied him to a post in the courtyard outside the office of the High Command. As they shot him he shouted a single word, “Liane!” and the word echoed as he slumped, having died for his country.
n June 28, 1942, eight German agents were caught by the FBI on Long Island. They had been delivered there by German U-boats, which served to remind everyone how closely the German's hugged the eastern seaboard. Already, since the beginning of 1942, the Germans had sunk 681 ships in the Atlantic, and had lost almost no ships of their own.
“And that is why we've interned the Japanese.” Liane's uncle admonished her over breakfast in San Francisco. Only days before she had told him that she thought it was cruel and unnecessary. Their own gardener and his family were interned in one of the camps, and the treatment they were getting was worse than cruel. They had limited food, almost no medical supplies, and lived in quarters that wouldn't decently house animals. “I don't give a damn. If we didn't, the Japanese would be sending agents over here like the Germans, and they'd be getting lost in the crowd just like those eight tried to.”
“I don't agree with you, Uncle George.”
“Can you say that with Nick over there fighting the Japs?”
“I can. The people in the camps are Americans.”
“Nobody knows if they're loyal and we can't afford to take the chance.” It was something they had disagreed on before. He wisely decided to change the subject. “Are you working at the hospital today?” She was a full nurse's aide now and had stepped up her schedule from three times a week to five.
“Yes.”
“You work too hard.” His eyes softened and she smiled. She had been working every moment that she could since she had sent Nick the letter. As had happened after their days on the Deauville, she was haunted by thoughts of him again now. But now coupled with her own sense of loss was a sense of terror that her abandoning him would cause him to be careless. She only hoped that his love for his son would remind him to be careful. And she knew she had had no choice. Her first and only duty was still to her husband. She had closed her eyes to it for a time, but that time was over.
“What are you doing today, Uncle George?” She pushed Nick gently from her head as she did a thousand times a day. She had to live with the guilt now, and the fear that perhaps some vague intuition of what she had done had harmed Armand. She had to make up for it now and she was writing to him again every day, although she knew that the letters reached him in clumps, when the censors got around to going over them.
“I'm having lunch with Lou Lawson at my club.” His face clouded over then and his voice was husky when he spoke again. “His boy, Lyman, was killed at Midway.” Liane looked up. Lyman Lawson had been the attorney her uncle had tried to fix her up with when she'd first arrived in San Francisco.
“I'm sorry to hear that.”
“So was I. Lou's taking it very hard. Lyman was his only child.”
It reminded her again that Nick was there. But she couldn't allow herself to think of it or she would go mad. Nick was in the Pacific, fighting the Japanese, Armand in France, dealing with the Germans. Her heart was torn from one side of the world to the other. “I have to go to work.” It was the only place she got away from it and even there, especially there, the war was ever present. Every day they brought wounded boys back on the troop ships, with their own horrible tales to tell of war in the Pacific. But at least she could help them, she could soothe brows, put compresses on, feed them, hold them, touch them.
“Don't work yourself too hard, Liane.”
As she left the house he bemoaned the fact that she wasn't like the other girls, or damn few of them. Most of them spent their time arranging dinner parties for the officers. But no, Liane had to empty bedpans and scrub floors and watch men vomit when they came out of surgery. But as always, he had to admire her for it.
It was two weeks later when she came back to find Armand's letter. He complained of the leg again, and she was worried. And he said something about going to London with Moulin, and now she knew that there was trouble. And for an instant her heart soared … if he got out … but her hopes died with his next words. “It breaks my heart to be leaving soon with Moulin, but the only thing that cheers me is the knowledge that I will come back shortly, only to fight harder.” It was all he thought about now, and she was almost angry as she read through the letter. He was fifty-nine years old. Why couldn't he let them fight the war and come home to her? Why? … à la mort et à tout jamais, she read … France was his whole life. There had been a time when there had been more than that, much more. And as she sat staring at his letter, she realized that nothing had ever been the same for them again since the moment they'd stepped off the Normandie. There had been those agonizing months before the war when he worked himself to the bone, and the tension of the months between September and the fall of Paris when she hadn't known what he was doing. And then she and the girls had left France, leaving Armand to fight his single-handed battle against the Germans, while pretending to collaborate with them. It was almost more than she could bear as she read the letter again and put it down. She was dead tired. She had spent the whole day nursing a boy who had lost his arms in the battle of the Coral Sea. He had been on the Lexington with Nick, but he was only a private and hadn't known him.
When she came down to dinner that night, George thought she looked especially tired. She had looked bleak and exhausted for weeks, and he suspected that there was something she wasn't telling him.
“Have you heard from Nick?” In the past she had told him when she got a letter. But she hadn't for a while. She shook her head now.
“I had a letter from Armand this morning. He sounds tired, and his leg is still troubling him.” She wanted to tell him the truth then, about Armand, but she'd wait until he was in England.
“What about Nick?” He pressed her again and she flared up at him.
“Armand is my husband, not Nic
k.”
But the old man was tired that night too. He was quick to answer. “You didn't remember that all this spring, did you?” He could have bitten out his tongue, particularly when he saw the stricken look on her face.
She answered him in a barely audible voice. “I should have.”
“Liane, I'm sorry … I didn't mean—”
She looked at him bleakly. “You're quite right. I was very wrong. It was unfair to Armand and to Nick.” And then she sighed. “I wrote to Nick a few weeks ago. We won't be writing to each other anymore.”
“But why? The poor man …” He was aghast at her news.
“I have no right to, Uncle George, that's why. I'm a married woman.”
“But he knew that.”
She nodded. “I'm the only one who seems to have forgotten it. I've repaired the damage now, as best I could.”
“But what about him?” He was incensed. “What do you think that'll do to him, while he's out there fighting a war?”
Tears stung her eyes. “I can't help that. I have an obligation to my husband.”
He wanted to slam his fist into the table, but he didn't dare. The look on her face was one of total desolation. “Liane …” But he didn't know what to say. There was nothing he could say to her. And he knew that she was as stubborn as he was.
She left the table and went to work, she seemed to work longer and longer hours every day. And it was a week after she had received the letter from Armand that she came home to find a letter from London, with unfamiliar handwriting. She couldn't imagine who it was and she opened it as she walked slowly up the stairs. Her whole body ached. She had spent the entire day comforting the boy who'd lost his arms. He had a raging fever and there was still a possibility that they might lose him.
And then suddenly she stopped and her eyes froze on the words. “Chère Madame…” It began like a perfectly normal letter, but after that, the letter went mad.
I regret to tell you that your husband died shortly after noon yesterday, in the service of his country. He died nobly, a hero's death, having saved hundreds of lives, and many of the treasures of France. His name will be engraved on our hearts and the heart of France, and may your children be proud of their father. We grieve for you in your loss. Your loss is ours. But the greatest loss of all is to his country.
The letter was signed by Moulin and Liane sank slowly onto the top step as she read it again and again but the words did not change. “Chère Madame … I regret to tell you … I regret to tell you …” But he lied. The greatest loss of all was not to his country. She crumpled the letter into a ball and threw it across the hall and she began to pound the floor as she cried. He was dead … he was dead … and he was a fool to have stayed there … to fight the Germans … to … She didn't even hear her uncle calling her name. She heard nothing as she lay on the floor and screamed. He was dead. And Nick would die too. They would all die. And for what? For whom? She looked at her uncle with unseeing eyes as she screamed, “I hate them! … I hate them! … I HATE THEM!!!”
he told the girls that night and they cried when they heard the news, and they talked for a long time when she put them to bed. She had regained her composure, though she was deathly pale. She was so relieved to be able to tell them the truth now. The girls were startled to hear that their father was a double agent, appearing to work for Pétain, and actually working for the Resistance.
“He must have been very brave.” Elisabeth looked at her mother sadly.
“He was.”
“Why didn't you tell us before?” Marie-Ange was quick to ask.
“Because it would have been dangerous for him.”
“Didn't anyone know?”
“Only the people he worked for in the Resistance.”
Marie-Ange nodded wisely. “Will we ever go back to France now?”
“One day.” But it was a question she herself hadn't yet answered. They had no home anymore, no place to return to after the war, no one to wait for. And she had no husband.
“I didn't like it very much,” Elisabeth confessed.
“It was a hard time. Especially for Papa.”
The girls nodded and she put them to bed at last. It had been a long night for them all. But she knew that she wouldn't sleep and she didn't want to go to bed. It was strange to realize that he had been dead for three weeks and she hadn't known. She had read his last letter after he had died, and she hadn't even known it. And all he had spoken of was his love for France … and for them … but for France above all. Perhaps to him it was worth it. But she felt an odd mixture of anger and despair as she walked into the library and sat down. Uncle George was still up, and worried about her.
“Would you like a drink?”
“No, thank you.” She leaned back and closed her eyes.
“I'm sorry, Liane.” His voice was gentle. He felt so helpless as he watched her. As helpless as she had felt that day as she tended to the boy who'd lost his arms. “Is there anything I can do?”
She opened her eyes slowly. She felt paralyzed and numb. “Not really. It's all over now. We just have to learn to live with it.” He nodded, and in spite of himself he thought of Nick, and wondered if she would write to him now.
“How did it happen?” He hadn't dared to ask her before, but she seemed calmer now.
She looked him straight in the eye. “The Germans shot him.”
“But why?” He didn't dare add “Wasn't he one of them?”
“Because, Uncle George, Armand was a double agent, working for the Resistance.”
He opened his eyes wide and stared at her. “He what?”
“He appeared to work for Pétain as a liaison with the Germans, but he'd been feeding information to the Resistance all along. He was the highest-ranking official double agent they had in France. That's why they shot him.” There was no pride in her voice, only sorrow.
“Oh, Liane …” The things that he had said about Armand came to mind instantly. “But why didn't you tell me?”
“I couldn't tell anyone. I wasn't even supposed to know, and for a long time I didn't. He told me just before we left France.” She stood up and walked to the window and stared out at the bridge for a long time. “But someone must have known.” She turned back to look at her uncle. “The Germans shot him three days before he was to leave for England.” She had pieced that much together from his letter and Moulin's. And her uncle came to her now and took her in his arms.
“I'm so very, very sorry.”
“Why?” She looked at him strangely. “Because now you know he was on our side? Would you care as much if you still thought he worked for the Germans?” Her eyes were sad and empty.
“I don't know …” And then he wondered about something. “Did Nick know?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “What are you going to do now, Liane?” He meant about Nick and she understood him.
“Nothing.”
“But surely—” She shook her head.
“That wouldn't be fair to him. He's a human being, not a yo-yo. A few weeks ago I told him it was over, but now that Armand is dead we can dance on his grave? He was my husband, Uncle George. My husband. And I loved him.” And then she turned away and her shoulders began to shake, and he came to her, sensing her grief in his very soul. She collapsed in his arms then, sobbing almost as she had on the stairs when she'd first read Moulin's letter. “Oh, Uncle George … I killed him … he knew … he must have … about Nick. …”
“Liane, stop that!” He held her shoulders firmly with his hands and shook her gently. “You didn't kill him. That's absurd. The man did a very brave thing for his country, but it didn't just happen. He made a choice a long time ago. He knew the risks. He weighed all the dangers and in his own mind it must have been worth it. That had nothing to do with you. A man makes those kinds of decisions for himself, regardless of other people, even the woman he loves. And I think a hell of a lot more of him now than I did before. But the point is that whether you and Nick fell in l
ove or not, the man did what he felt he had to do. You couldn't have stopped him, you couldn't have changed his mind, and you didn't kill him.” The wisdom of his words slowly got through to her and she eventually stopped crying.
“Do you think that's true?”
“I know it.”
“But what if he suspected? If he heard some change in the tone of my letters—”
“He probably wouldn't have noticed if you'd stopped writing entirely. A man who makes a decision like that, Liane, does it with his entire mind and soul and body. It's rotten luck that he got found out, it's worse than that, it's a tragedy for you and the girls and his country. But you had nothing to do with any of that, and neither did Nick. Don't do that to yourself, Liane. You have to accept it.” She told him then about Armand's last letter and the things that he had said, and she admitted that there were even times when she had wondered if he cared about her, or only his country. George nodded and listened to her late into the night until her head began to nod, and at last she fell asleep on the couch, and he brought a blanket from his room and covered her where she sat. She was totally drained and exhausted.
And when she awoke the next morning, she was surprised at where she was, and touched when she saw the blanket. She remembered talking to him until she drifted off, and she had had visions of Nick and Armand, walking arm in arm and stopping to talk to a man she didn't know. She shuddered to think about it now. She sensed that the man was Moulin. And she didn't want to think about Armand. Even if she never saw him again, she wanted Nick to live. He had a life to live and a son to come home to. And then she walked to the window and looked out at the bay.
“And what about us?” she whispered to the memory of Armand. “What about the girls?” She had no answers to her questions as she went upstairs to wake them.
n July, when Liane received the letter from Moulin, Nick was in the Fiji Islands with Task Force 61, doing a rehearsal for an assault on Guadalcanal. The Japanese had built an airstrip there, and Rear Admiral Fletcher had three carrier groups organizing to take it. And the Enterprise, the Wasp, and the Saratoga were preparing for battle. When the Lexington had sunk in the battle of the Coral Sea, Nick had been transferred temporarily onto the Yorktown, but within weeks he was moved to the Enterprise, to help coordinate marine and naval troops. He was one of the few marines of his rank aboard who was not a pilot. After the Coral Sea, he had been made a Lieutenant Colonel.
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