A Bridge Across the Ocean

by Susan Meissner

  Immense relief flooded Brette for the first time in she couldn’t remember how long. She didn’t mind going alone, but it was gratifying that Keith would so willingly drop everything, especially after being gone from his office for a week, to accompany her.

  “You don’t have to come,” she said.

  “And you don’t have to go. Let me come with you.” He took her hand from across the seat. “Stop making this such a solo thing, Brette.”

  To suddenly have Keith at her side as she was dealing with what she had always managed on her own was both wonderful and odd. She didn’t quite know how to share so openly this shielded niche of her life. She also wasn’t sure she wanted Keith along for what might be a fruitless endeavor.

  “I don’t mind trying to find this woman on my own, especially since I’m only assuming she’s still alive,” she said. “But I’d like you to come back with me to the ship when and if I finally figure this out. I told that Drifter I would be back. I think she is the kind to remember that I said I would return. I think I’d really like it if you came then.”

  • • •

  KEITH DROPPED BRETTE OFF AT THE AIRPORT BEFORE THE SUN rose for her six thirty A.M. flight to Albuquerque. She used the hour and forty minutes in the air to rehearse what she would say if Simone Robinson was indeed at the address listed in the white pages. The worst-case scenario was that Brette would discover the woman had died, even though her obituary hadn’t popped up in any search engine. Or perhaps, worse still, she’d be alive but would refuse to speak to Brette. If that was the case, Brette would return to the Queen Mary and share with the Drifter what Phoebe Rogers had told her—that the fall into the water surely had to have been an accident—and then hope that the Drifter would find enough peace in that to leave the physical realm, with all its imperfections, behind. Brette had allowed herself two days in Albuquerque to find the answers she sought, but she’d also made a mental note of evening flights back to San Diego in case she found out quickly that Simone Robinson would be of no help.

  As soon as she was behind the wheel of a rental car and had cranked on the air conditioning to counter the eighty-nine-degree heat, she punched in the address she’d found on the white pages website into the car’s GPS. The address was in an area known as Paradise Hills, located eighteen miles from the airport and not far from the Rio Grande.

  Brette met with moderately busy pre–lunch hour traffic. Twenty-five minutes later she was pulling into the parking lot of a semi-independent living facility boasting rows of freestanding casitas—stucco, one-level, single-dwelling bungalows—as well as a multistoried high-rise consisting of apartments. The GPS directed Brette to one of the casitas, and she was glad there would be no lobby attendant to prevent access to the doorbell at number 14.

  As Brette parked her car in front of what was hopefully Simone Robinson’s house, a trim, elderly woman holding a watering can opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. She began to sprinkle the succulents and cacti arranged in terra-cotta pots to the left and right of the front door.

  The woman’s short white hair was cropped close, and her capris and cotton blouse hung loose on her slight frame. Her hand holding the watering can shook a little from the weight of the water. A marmalade-striped cat that had followed her outside was rubbing against her ankles. White espadrilles covered her slender feet. She didn’t notice Brette approach and startled a bit when Brette cleared her throat and said, “Pardon me?” from a few feet away.

  “Oh!” the woman said.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to frighten you,” Brette said quickly.

  “Quite all right,” the woman said, and Brette detected the faintest melodic lilt to her voice. “Can I help you?”

  The woman looked to be in her late eighties perhaps; her weathered face, though still pretty, was textured with lines and wrinkles, the result, no doubt, of decades in the Southwest’s ample sun.

  “I am looking for Simone Robinson.” Brette took another step forward. “Might you be her?”

  The woman blinked, but her facial expression did not change. “I might.”

  Brette took a breath to steady herself and call to mind the words she had practiced on the plane. “My name is Brette Caslake. I’m sort of a friend of Phoebe Rogers.”

  The woman cocked her head. “Sort of?”

  “We’ve only just met. And only by phone. I was hoping I might talk to you for just a few minutes about your time as a war bride on the Queen Mary.”

  “I don’t give media interviews, Miss . . . I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten what your name is. If you had called first, I could have told you that.”

  “I am not with any media. And I would have called first but your number is unlisted. I asked Phoebe for it, actually. But she didn’t have it either.”

  Simone stared at Brette for a moment. “Like I said, I don’t give interviews, Miss . . .”

  “It’s Mrs. Caslake. But please just call me Brette. And I don’t want to interview you. I just have a couple of questions.”

  One, really.

  “That sounds like an interview to me. And I don’t give them. Good-bye.” Simone turned to head back inside her little house.

  “Wait, Mrs. Robinson. I’ve come a long way to talk to you. Please? I am not here for myself. I am here for someone else.”

  Simone turned around with her hand on the doorknob. “Who could you possibly be here for?”

  “It’s . . . a bit complicated. Might I come inside and explain? Please?”

  “Young lady, I do not know you. And I am not going to invite you inside my house so you can rob me blind.”

  Simone opened her door and Brette rushed forward to lay a hand gently on her arm.

  “It’s about Annaliese Kurtz!” Brette said.

  Simone paused in midstep over her threshold and looked back. The cat scooted inside. “What about her?”

  “I know she didn’t commit suicide.”

  Brette had not known what kind of reaction to expect when she made this rehearsed pronouncement. The old woman seemed to have turned to stone for a second, neither blinking nor saying a word.

  “And how would you know that?” Simone finally said a moment later, in a tone that did not reveal what she was thinking.

  “I’d like to tell you how I know. I really would.”

  The old woman’s eyes widened a fraction and she seemed to contemplate a dozen different thoughts in the span of just a few seconds.

  “Please, may I come in?” Brette said. “I promise I mean you no harm.”

  Simone studied Brette for a moment and then pushed the door open, motioning with the watering can for her to go inside.

  The casita’s front door opened to a small living room tiled in terrazzo and decorated in a Southwest theme. Lithographs of hot-air balloons and the Grand Canyon hung on the walls. Rainbow-hued Navajo blankets covered the backs of a sofa and two chocolate-brown armchairs. The ambience of the room was warm and inviting and decidedly American. Down the hallway, where Brette assumed the bedroom was, she could hear gentle snores.

  “My husband is resting and he’s not well, so I’d appreciate it if you said quietly what it is you have to say,” Simone said as she sat down in one of armchairs. “Please. Have a seat.” Simone motioned to the sofa as the cat jumped up onto her lap.

  Brette took a seat on the couch. “You have a lovely place here, Mrs. Robinson.”

  “You’re already inside. You don’t need to ply me with small talk, Mrs. . . .”

  “Caslake,” Brette said again. “But please call me Brette. And I really do like how you’ve decorated your home.”

  “Why are you here, Mrs. Caslake?”

  The get-to-know-you conversation Brette had hoped to have clearly was not going to take place. Brette knew the next words out of her mouth could get her ushered right out of the house. “I’ve come about Annaliese Kurtz .
. .” Her voice dwindled away.

  “So you’ve already said.”

  Brette inhaled deeply to steady her voice. “The thing is, Mrs. Robinson, I know she didn’t jump overboard because she . . . she told me.”

  Simone registered neither dread nor astonishment. “Is that so?”

  “Doesn’t . . . doesn’t that surprise you?”

  “Should it?”

  “Well, Mrs. Robinson, you said you saw her jump all those years ago. You told the harbor police and a reporter from the New York Times that you saw her jump.”

  Simone Robinson merely blinked and said nothing.

  “And I asked Phoebe Rogers about this. She told me she didn’t actually see Annaliese go over. She pretended she did when you told the authorities and the press that you both saw her jump. But Phoebe was too far away. She didn’t see it happen.”

  “Continue,” Simone said evenly.

  “Phoebe said you didn’t get along with Annaliese Kurtz, that you’d found out she was an impostor and was going to be arrested and you confronted her. Mrs. Rogers said you and Annaliese had words. Annaliese ran off and Phoebe told you to go after her.”

  “And?” Simone said, as though Brette’s comments hinted of no moral consequence.

  “Mrs. Robinson, Annaliese Kurtz was pushed. Either on purpose or by accident. You were there. You know which one it was.”

  Simone’s eyes finally widened in surprise. And something else. Annoyance?

  “Pushed? You told me she spoke to you,” Simone said, with a half laugh.

  “She . . . This will be hard to explain, but please just hear me out. I was born with an extrasensory ability. It’s a gifting that shows up now and then in the women in my family. I can see into the dimension that lies between our world and where we go when we die. There’s a place in between the two that some people linger in after they’ve died. I can see these earthbound souls. I can hear them. And they can see and hear me.”

  A slight smile curved Simone’s lips. Brette had seen that look before. It was the amused grin of unbelief. “You see ghosts, Mrs. Caslake? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Yes,” Brette said with as much confidence as she could muster. “I was aboard the Queen Mary last week on another matter. I was approached by one of these souls. I believe it was the ghost of Annaliese Kurtz.”

  Simone Robinson narrowed her eyes. “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really. She doesn’t know how she ended up in the water. She doesn’t know if she was pushed or if someone tried to pull her back from the railing and the opposite occurred. But not knowing the truth has kept her stuck on the ship all these years. She needs to know. You’re the only one who knows what really happened, Mrs. Robinson.”

  Simone sat back in her chair and stared at Brette for a moment. “What is it you want?” she finally said, her voice iced with disdain. “Money? Is that it?”

  “I don’t want anything but the truth,” Brette said. “I’m not going to blackmail you or notify the police or anything. I just—”

  “Notify the police!?” Simone echoed abruptly.

  “I said, I’m not going to! I just need to know the truth so that I can tell her! So that she can be at rest.”

  Simone glared at Brette. “If anyone should be calling the police, it should be me.”

  “What . . . what do you mean?”

  Simone leaned forward in her chair. She raised her hand and pointed an accusing finger. “I mean, you are a fraud.”

  The air in the room seemed to thin to nothing for several seconds. Brette had been called a freak and a weirdo in times past, but never a fraud. “I assure you I am not a fake,” she said, surprised by the tears that had so quickly sprung to her eyes. “I see and hear ghosts. And I know what I heard on that ship. Annaliese Kurtz did not jump. She was pushed! She showed me your cabin. A-152. She showed me the little cabinet in that room. Something had been in that cabinet that belonged to her. And she showed me the place at the bow where she fell in. I know what I saw and heard.”

  Simone relaxed back in her chair, studying Brette intently and saying nothing.

  “I’m not a fraud,” Brette said a second later.

  “Then you are terribly misguided,” Simone finally said. “Annaliese Kurtz is very much alive.”

  Thirty-four

  RMS QUEEN MARY

  1946

  Simone found the woman who for the last week had been calling herself Katrine standing at the stern’s railing, looking out over the water and the pale horizon of the ending day. There were a few other people on the deck: a handful of war brides, a couple of civilians, a man in a military uniform. The dinner bell would be sounding soon and the deck would clear, but not for many minutes yet.

  Her resolve was complete now. She approached her roommate, whose real name was Annaliese Kurtz, with a steady stride. The story that Annaliese had shared with Simone and Phoebe about the best friend she’d loved and hidden was true, only she had been the one hiding from the man she’d been forced to marry, and who had abused her. This woman at the railing had known in an instant what Simone had dreamed of the evening of her nightmare because she had experienced it another way, multiple times over. She was German, yes, but she was not Simone’s enemy. The enemy was someone else entirely and it always had been. Everett had told her it is complicated fighting for freedom and justice, but necessary if they were to hold on to what made them human and not beasts.

  The woman looked up when Simone reached her, and her eyes were filled with sadness and hope, longing and regret. Annaliese was no doubt contemplating all that she would have to accomplish when they docked. An escape of some kind was surely on her mind. Simone wondered for a moment how Annaliese Kurtz planned to go ashore and get away when the ship made harbor. What was she planning to do for money, for a job, for a place to live? Had she really thought she could simply disappear into America with such a pronounced German accent and rudimentary English skills?

  “I need to talk to you,” Simone said softly in French.

  “Oui?” Annaliese said, curious but also concerned.

  “It is very important that you do nothing but stand there and pretend I am just telling you what is on the menu for dinner.”

  “What?” Annaliese’s eyes grew round and the color drained from her face.

  “Do not raise your voice, do not back away from me. Do nothing except stand there and listen to me. Do you understand?”

  The woman’s eyes immediately shone with fear.

  “There has just been a wire message from Southampton. I was on the sun deck just now and I overheard the radio operators talking about it. They’ve only had it in their hands for a few minutes.”

  “From Southampton?” Annaliese echoed, her voice trembling.

  “It’s a wire for the commodore with instructions for when we arrive in New York tomorrow.”

  Annaliese shook her head. “I don’t understand what this has to do with me.”

  Simone put her hand firmly on Annaliese’s arm. “They know. They know who you are. They are going to arrest you when we dock.”

  “Oh, God!” Annaliese swayed and Simone reached out to steady her.

  “You promised you would stand there and just listen to me!” Simone said between her teeth as she glanced behind them to see if anyone was taking note of them. No one was. “Don’t you dare faint or get sick or scream.”

  “I can’t . . . I can’t . . .” Annaliese whispered, her breath coming out in short gasps.

  “Shut up and listen to me.”

  A sob threatened to erupt and Annaliese slapped a gloved hand to her mouth to keep from making a sound.

  “Just look out over the water, just like you had been before,” Simone murmured.

  Annaliese removed her hand so that she could grip the railing. She nodded, blinking back dozens of tears.

 
“I know you’re Annaliese Kurtz. I know you’re the one married to a Nazi official and I know he hurt you. I know you were the one your best friend, Katrine, was trying to help, not the other way around. I know you’re German.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—” Annaliese said, biting back a sob.

  “Be quiet. I want to help you.”

  The woman shook her head. “I can’t go back to him. I can’t!”

  “Then don’t.”

  Annaliese cast a glance toward Simone. “But you said they are going to arrest me!”

  “And they will if you’re in the stateroom when we dock.”

  “So what should I—”

  “Don’t be in our stateroom.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What are you willing to do to avoid being sent back?” Simone asked.

  Annaliese blinked and swallowed hard. “I won’t go back to Germany. I won’t. I’ll die before I go back to him.”

  Simone nodded. “You need to do exactly what I say. Exactly.”

  Annaliese stared at her. Simone could see the question forming even before Annaliese spoke the words.

  “Why are you helping me?” Annaliese said.

  Simone had thought about this for several long minutes after overhearing the conversation in the telegraph room. She knew she’d had three options. She could’ve said nothing and simply let the officials come for Annaliese in the morning. She could have told every bride she’d met on the ship who her roommate really was and let the rumor mill have its way among the seventeen hundred war brides aboard. Annaliese’s last few hours on the ship would have been hell. Or she could do what she was doing now: helping a young woman much like herself escape a life of misery.