A Bridge Across the Ocean

by Susan Meissner

  “What? What happened?” Phoebe sounded agitated, fearful. But also curious.

  “You didn’t actually see her go over the railing, did you?”

  Phoebe said nothing.

  “I promise I am not trying to get anyone in trouble, least of all you, Mrs. Rogers. You can tell me what really happened and I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Well, of course you will tell someone! Why ask if you’re not planning to tell someone!” The woman sounded close to tears.

  “I won’t tell the police or the newspapers or any other living soul,” Brette replied, knowing it was a promise she could keep. The Drifter was not a living soul.

  “Then why do you want to know?”

  “Because . . . because I am one of those people who can sense things in the spiritual world. I don’t say that to frighten you. It’s something I have always been able to do. I was on the Queen Mary yesterday. I stood where Annaliese Kurtz would have stood. Something is not right. Her soul hovers on the ship, Mrs. Rogers. She didn’t jump. I know she didn’t.”

  God, please don’t let her hang up! Brette inwardly begged. She hadn’t planned on telling Phoebe Rogers about the Sight. It had just worked its way out.

  “You can what?”

  “I can sense things. See things. It’s an ability that some women in my family have. I don’t usually do anything about it. I actually prefer never to do anything about it. But this time, it seems like maybe I’m supposed to.”

  “So what are you saying? Are you saying Annaliese is a ghost?”

  “I . . . yes, Mrs. Rogers. A ghost on that ship tried to tell me something yesterday. I think it was her.”

  “Tried to tell you what?” Phoebe said, not much more than a whisper.

  “I think her soul is still here because she doesn’t know what happened, either. It was dark that night, wasn’t it?”

  A weak sob sounded on the other side. “What will you do if I tell you what I saw?”

  “Well, what do you think I should do?”

  The woman sniffled into the phone. “Can you tell her I’m sorry I didn’t get there in time?”

  “In time for what?”

  Another sob. “In time to help her! When she ran from our room, I could see she was at her wit’s end. I was afraid for her. I would have run after her myself, but I couldn’t leave Douglas!”

  “Please tell me what happened, Mrs. Rogers.”

  Phoebe inhaled heavily. “I had just come back from the variety show. They had lovely entertainment for us on the ship. Katrine—I mean, Annaliese—had stayed behind in the stateroom to put Dougie to bed and sit with him. That’s what she liked to do. Annaliese didn’t want to be out at night. She was a quiet little thing and kept to herself for the whole five days on the ship. Everyone assumed she was German, and in the end I guess she was, although I kept telling everyone she was Belgian. But still. People would do a double take when they heard her speak. The war had been so hard on everyone, you know.”

  “Yes. So Annaliese was in your room when you got back? With Simone Robinson.”

  “No, Simone came in a few minutes later. She . . . she was very angry. She’d just overheard a conversation outside the telegraph room. They’d received a wire about a German woman named Annaliese Kurtz pretending to be a war bride named Katrine Sawyer. The wire included instructions about allowing the harbor police to arrest Annaliese when we docked the next day. Well, Simone . . . Simone had suffered so much at the hands of the Germans. And when she found out Annaliese’s secret, she came to the cabin to confront her, telling her she’d known all along she was a dirty German and that she was glad she was going to be sent back. It was terrible, the things Simone said.

  “Annaliese ran off in tears and I wanted to go after her, but both of them had awakened Douglas with their shouting. I told Simone she needed to go after her, and eventually she did. But I knew Simone would only make things worse, so I stood in the hallway until I saw someone I knew and I asked her to come watch Douglas for a moment while I went to find them. I asked several people who were still out and about if they’d seen either of my roommates, and one said she thought she’d seen Simone hurrying toward the back of the ship. When I got there and stepped out onto the deck, I heard a yell and a splash, and I saw Simone leaning far over the railing. I called her name and she turned with a frightful look on her face. ‘For God’s sake, get help, Phoebe,’ she yelled to me. ‘The damned fool has jumped.’”

  Phoebe paused for a moment. Brette was fairly certain the woman had kept secret for seventy years what she had just shared.

  “The ship’s crew tried to find her,” Phoebe went on. “They looked for well over two hours. But we all knew a drop like that into icy water was just too much for the human body. They only ever found her little cardigan. When the commodore questioned us, Simone was as shaken as I was. She told him we both saw her jump, and I went along with it because everyone wanted to talk to us and Annaliese had been my friend, not Simone’s. Simone didn’t even like her. So I just got caught up with being someone that all the reporters wanted to talk to the next day. I never told anyone that I didn’t actually see her jump.”

  Phoebe was now crying softly.

  “I am so very sorry, Mrs. Rogers. I know this must be very hard to talk about, even all these years later.”

  “It is, it is!” Phoebe replied, sniffling. “What that girl did was wrong, but I think she suffered as much as or more than the rest of us. She was married to a Nazi who beat her and kept her locked up in their apartment. Did you know that?”

  “Yes. I’d read that.” Brette took a breath. “Mrs. Rogers, I need to ask you a difficult question. Do you think Simone Robinson might have pushed Annaliese? Does that seem possible to you?”

  Phoebe exhaled heavily into the phone. “I don’t know, I don’t know! Simone lost so much in the war. I don’t even know all the terrible things the Nazis did to her. I know the Gestapo shot her father and brother right in front of her. I think they might have done other things, too.”

  “Did you stay in touch with Simone? Do you know if she’s still living in New Mexico?”

  “She wasn’t keen on staying in touch.” Phoebe sniffed. “I was, but Simone . . . I think she just wanted to forget all about the life she led before she emigrated to America. She’s never come to any of the reunions on the Queen Mary. I haven’t seen or heard from her in years.”

  Phoebe was quiet for a second. “I was there on the ship twenty years ago for a reunion,” she said. “Do you think Annaliese saw me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is . . . is she a frightful thing with a terrible wail?”

  “Not at all. She is as kind and humble a ghost as I’ve ever met.”

  “Oh! I’ve never heard of ghosts being like that. But oh, my. That sounds like her, Mrs. Caslake!”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

  “Do you think she knows I wish I had saved her?”

  “I am sure she does.”

  Phoebe took a deep breath. “Are you going to try to find Simone?”

  “I think I must.”

  “Mrs. Caslake?”

  “Yes?”

  “If Simone did push her, it was an accident. It had to be. Tell her I said that. I know she didn’t mean it. It was an accident. Tell her that.”

  “You have my word, Mrs. Rogers.”

  When she hung up after they said good-bye, she saw that she had a text message from Trevor.

  Emily didn’t buy it.

  Sorry to hear that, Brette texted back. Does that mean you want me to talk to her?

  She won’t talk to you. I already asked.

  Give her time, Trevor.

  I don’t want it to be like this.

  I know.

  No, you don’t. But someday you will. When your kid hurts, you hurt.

 
Brette’s fingers hovered motionless over the screen.

  Let me know if she changes her mind, she finally wrote.

  She finished her salad and then headed back inside to ask for Monday and Tuesday off to visit an old friend in New Mexico.

  RMS QUEEN MARY

  THE NORTH ATLANTIC

  FEBRUARY 1946

  The children’s whimpers draw me as much as their laughter did earlier in the day. I long for the ocean beneath us to be at peace, to be still, but it is in one of its rollicking moods. The littlest ones do not mind, but the older children cling to ashen-faced mothers who wonder if the entire crossing will be like this.

  They put the youngest to bed in little cots made of net attached to their bunks and now they hope that the rocking sea will hasten sleep. And for most, it does. I hover over them, watching as they drift into slumber, first the children, then their mothers.

  These passengers are not like the men in uniforms. There are no more U-boats looking for us, no more zigzag crossings. No one stands by the gun.

  Dream of our new home in America! one of the mothers says to a child who refuses to shut his eyes. Dream of all the things we will do there. She kisses him and sings a song about lavender blue. Her voice is so beautiful.

  I wish the mothers and their children would stay forever.

  Twenty-eight

  RMS QUEEN MARY

  1946

  The first night on the ship found many of the war brides unable to enjoy the evening meal of crème Argenteuil, halibut en souchet, and steamed cauliflower with mousseline, and not just because the menu was so highbrow. The undulating swells off the southern coast of Ireland made for a tipsy ride that sent many of the women to their cabins to writhe and moan on the bunks.

  The pitch and sway of the ship didn’t bother Simone overly much, nor did it seem to affect the quiet Belgian named Katrine, but chatty Phoebe kept tossing down her fork to ask their steward, Marc, if it was time to head down to the lifeboats.

  Simone had made a fast friend in the young man who’d been assigned to wait their table. Marc was newly seventeen, and while he’d been born in Britain, he was the son of French-born parents. The opportunity to speak French while he served Simone was obviously a thrill for him, and all three women noticed the schoolboy crush he had on her from the moment she spoke his parents’ language back to him. He was particularly interested in the Résistance and whether Simone knew anyone who’d been a part of it. When she replied that she did, he made her promise that she’d meet with him for a few minutes after he got off-duty to tell him more.

  “He has been told we’re war brides, hasn’t he?” Phoebe said when Marc left their table to wait on another. “You’re married. And pregnant!”

  Simone watched the young man leave, shaking her head when he looked back also. “He’s just a child who had to grow up during someone else’s war. The Résistance probably sounds like something exciting and dangerous.”

  “Was it?” Phoebe asked.

  Simone speared a tiny cauliflower bouquet on the tines of her fork. “It was very dangerous, yes.”

  “But not exciting?”

  She swirled the fork in a shimmer of mousseline sauce on her plate. “Not the way he probably thinks.”

  “Were you in the Résistance, Simone?” Phoebe asked, wide-eyed. Katrine was also looking at her with the same fretful curiosity.

  Simone had lately been wondering that herself. Perhaps she had been an unofficial member when she cared for Everett in the secret wine cellar. But before that, she had been just the daughter of a Résistance member, a shattered daughter who had fired a gun. She didn’t know what that made her.

  “No,” she answered, and then brought the fork to her mouth.

  Phoebe looked like she wanted to ask something else, but at that moment the ship leaned into an unseen valley and a chorus of “Oh!” erupted around the room.

  “That just doesn’t seem normal!” Phoebe exclaimed, white-faced, as Douglas laughed on her lap.

  Then the ship eased back into a steadier stride and the topic of Simone’s role in the war fell away.

  When the meal was over, Phoebe stood to take Douglas up to bed, and Katrine rose to follow her.

  Marc swept by the table with a tray of dishes in his hand and told Simone he got off in twenty minutes and would she meet him on the promenade deck for a cigarette? He wasn’t allowed in any of the lounges or game rooms.

  “Make sure he sees your wedding ring!” Phoebe murmured as she and Katrine walked away.

  Simone sat at the table, lingering over her coffee until she was the last in the dining room. A few minutes later she was on the promenade deck. Even with the windows shut to keep out the elements, the deck was chilly and damp. She wouldn’t be staying for more than a few minutes and one cigarette.

  When Marc finally arrived, she was sufficiently chilled and told him he could have five minutes to ask his questions and then she was leaving.

  She looked at his empty hands. “Where are your cigarettes?” she said in French.

  His eyes grew wide. “I thought you would have some!”

  “When you ask a girl to join you for conversation and a cigarette, you’re supposed to bring the cigarettes.”

  “Oh! I’ll go find some!” He started to turn to go back inside, but she put out her arm to stop him.

  “It’s too cold out here for me to wait for you to do that. Just remember that the next time you ask a lady to have a cigarette with you, it’s your job to offer her one. What do you want to know?”

  “Who did you know in the Résistance? Were you in Paris? Did you see them fight?”

  Even in the dim light Simone could see the excitement in his eyes. “I knew several people in the Résistance. And yes, I was in Paris for most of the war.”

  “Who did you know?” he asked again. “Did you have to keep secrets for them?”

  “My father and brother were in the Résistance. And they did not tell me what they did because they did not want me to be tortured at some point for that information.”

  The young man’s mouth fell open a bit. “Did they . . . Were they . . .” Marc did not finish.

  “They were shot to death in front of me.”

  “They got caught? Or someone snitched on them?”

  “I never knew how it happened. One afternoon the Gestapo figured out that my father and brother only pretended not to understand what the Germans were saying when they came into our shoe-repair shop. Somehow they suddenly knew that Papa and Étienne passed on to other Résistance members what they overheard while they shined the Nazis’ boots. My father and brother were executed on the street outside our store.”

  Marc’s eyes went wide. “You saw it happen?”

  “I did.”

  “And then . . . And what happened to you? Did they hurt you?”

  Simone thought of the officer with the gold tooth. She closed her eyes for a moment to let the rocking ship scoot that memory back to the black corner where it belonged. “I had to run after that,” she said a moment later. “It took me ten days with false identity papers to get to Résistance members in southern France. I spent four months in a hidden wine cellar and didn’t see the sun for weeks.”

  The young man’s countenance had changed from one of eagerness to empathy. “The Germans killed my brother, too,” he said softly, his eyes glassy in the spill of moonlight on the deck. “He was trying to get to Dunkirk. They shot him in the back five times as he was retreating. It about destroyed my mother. It’s been nearly six years and she still cries out his name in her sleep.”

  Simone understood then that the young man’s interest was not the intrigue of espionage that wowed him so much as the opportunity for revenge that the Résistance had offered the French people.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  The young man tipped his head toward th
e inside of the ship. “How can you room with that woman who speaks German? I hear her voice and I just want to tell her to shut up.”

  “She is Belgian, Marc.”

  “She sounds like one of them.”

  “But she’s not. Belgium suffered just like France did. Just like England did. She is also half-British, if you must know. Her mother was born and raised in London. She is more British than you are.”

  “Still,” he insisted. “How can you listen to her?”

  Simone rubbed her shoulders. She was freezing. “She barely says anything. You heard her at dinner. The only time she talked was when you asked her a question.”

  “I have to ask her questions! I have to ask her if I may take her soup bowl and would she like the fish or the beef and could I refill her coffee cup. I have to!”

  “It’s just for five days. Surely you and I both can handle hearing her say a word here and there for five little days. I’m going in.”

  “May I walk you to your cabin, Simone?”

  “I am Mrs. Robinson to you, and no, you may not. Good night.”

  “Can we meet again tomorrow night? I’ll bring the cigarettes.”

  She pushed open the door to go back inside. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Marc followed her inside.

  “Why isn’t it a good idea?” he asked, trailing after her.

  “Why is it a good one?”

  “I like talking to you. I never get to speak French with anyone.”

  She kept walking. “I’ll think about it.”

  “I’ll see you at breakfast!” he called after her as she turned to head up the grand staircase.

  Simone made her way to the room. Phoebe and Katrine were already in their pajamas. Phoebe was pacing the floor with Douglas in her arms, trying to get him to fall asleep. Katrine was standing at one of the portholes, her arms crossed loosely across her chest as she gazed at the deep violet sky beyond the glass.

  “Well?” Phoebe whispered to Simone.

  “Well, what?”

  “He didn’t try to kiss you, did he?”