Phoebe was also looking at the empty bed across from them. “I can’t believe she’s gone.”
“We can’t think about that now, Phoebe. We are reuniting with our husbands today. It’s supposed to be a happy time. We can’t let what she did ruin this day for us.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Phoebe rose with a sigh, grabbed her cosmetic bag, and headed for the bathroom.
Simone climbed down off the bunk and picked up Douglas to take him to the porthole. There was still nothing outside the window but a vast expanse of blue. The ship was supposed to dock in New York harbor at seven in the morning, but the situation the previous night had put them behind schedule. Every extra hour on the ship would no doubt seem an eternity as Simone waited to see if the plan had been compromised and Annaliese discovered.
An hour later, as the women prepared to head downstairs for breakfast, a knock sounded at their door. The ship’s purser and a Red Cross matron were there to collect Annaliese Kurtz’s things. Simone and Phoebe showed them the clothes Annaliese had brought, the purse that had been Katrine’s with her passport and travel documents, the suitcase and travel bag in the cabinet. The items were placed in a cardboard box and the purser took them away.
The Red Cross matron lingered for a moment. “Are you both all right this morning? I know it must have been a terrible night. Do you need anything? Is there anything we can do for you?”
Phoebe opened her mouth to speak, but tears welled and she just shook her head.
“We’ll be fine,” Simone answered for them. “Thank you.”
As they made their way down to the salon for breakfast, Simone looked casually about for Marc to make sure he was on duty as usual. She saw him at a nearby table, serving eggs and chatting with the diners.
Several minutes later he was at their table, pouring coffee. Annaliese’s place was noticeably empty, and Simone hoped Marc would say something. She had forgotten to tell him that to be silent about the suicide would be odd.
“I was so very sorry to hear about the death of your roommate last night,” he said gently and convincingly. “You have my sincerest condolences, ladies.”
“Oh, thank you!” Phoebe said, with a tight smile and glistening eyes.
“Yes, thank you. It was quite a shock,” Simone replied.
Marc leaned in especially close to pour Simone’s coffee and, with his free hand, dropped a folded piece of paper on her lap under the table.
Simone had admonished both Marc and Annaliese not to contact her unless it was urgent. She crumpled the note into her fist as Marc walked away.
“I just need to use the ladies’ room,” Simone said to Phoebe. She rose to her feet. “I’ll be right back.”
In the restroom off the dining salon, Simone chose a stall and closed and latched the door. Then she uncrumpled the note in her hand. The words were written in French.
Inside the lining of your friend’s suitcase is a letter for someone named John. She said you would know who that is and that you could tell him you found it among her things. She said it was important.
Marc
Simone pressed her head against the stall door. There was no way she could honor this request. Annaliese’s belongings were gone. The suitcase would likely be tossed out and her clothes with it. Only the documents that had belonged to Katrine Sawyer would be kept to return to her grieving husband. Simone tore the note into confetti, dropped the pieces into the toilet, and flushed it.
There was nothing she could do about that letter or John Sawyer.
She went back to the dining room.
A few minutes later Marc returned to offer her orange juice. Phoebe was in conversation with several other war brides who’d heard what had happened and had come to their table to hear the details.
“Tell her that the suitcase is gone. They took it this morning,” Simone whispered as Marc poured. “And no more notes.”
He nodded once and moved away.
She finished her breakfast and did her best to tuck away any worry that Annaliese would be discovered. She focused her thoughts on finally seeing Everett, and feeling his arms around her and his kisses on her neck and hair and his voice whispering in her ear that he loved her.
They made their way back to the A deck to get their coats since all the war brides wanted to watch from the deck as the ship was tugged to Pier 90 in New York harbor and to greet the waiting media. The rails were soon crowded with women and children bundled against the bitter cold to catch their first glimpse of America. When the Statue of Liberty came into view, the women cheered.
The Queen Mary was met just outside the harbor by a white Army Transportation Corps vessel. On its decks a band played “Here Comes the Bride,” and more cheers broke out on the deck. Simone found it easier to push away concerns for Annaliese as the excitement of coming into port enveloped the ship. A female voice from the army vessel called out from a loudspeaker, “Welcome to America, girls!”
Simone stood by Phoebe and Douglas, marveling at the shining Manhattan skyline and how different it looked from London or Paris. Nothing about the urban horizon looked familiar.
“Isn’t New York beautiful?” Phoebe exclaimed, and Simone merely nodded.
From the moment she’d spoken her wedding vows, Simone had thought she was ready to leave France and its memories behind, but as she stared at the welcoming edge of America, she sensed a profound sadness just underneath the wild joy. Her new life as a wife and mother in America was about to begin, and everything about her old life would soon be shut away inside the folds of her mind. She’d be speaking English every day, not French. She would have dollars in her wallet, not francs, and there would be no corner boulangerie or long walks in the Tuileries or gazing up at the lattices of the Eiffel Tower. Everett and the baby would be her whole world, perhaps for a long while. The punishing years of the war had taught her to be cautious about giving her heart over to the people she loved. She would have to unlearn that caution.
She was glad Everett had made the trip from Texas to New York to collect her. Some of the brides had to get on trains after docking and travel farther west before reuniting with their husbands. And she was strangely glad that Phoebe’s husband would also be meeting them at the armory. Her roommate’s incessant chatter distracted her from thoughts about the transition as well as from worries about Marc being able to pull off the harder part of the plan without implicating them both.
The only way she would know if the plan was a success was if she heard nothing. If the police came looking for her, she’d know it hadn’t worked.
After docking, and waiting for what seemed like too long a stretch of time, the brides who were to be met by their husbands were finally told to queue up for their dismissal off the ship. Rows of newspaper reporters and photographers had gathered at the pier, eager to talk to the “Petticoat Pilgrims,” as the London media had called them when they’d left Southampton. A Red Cross matron who signed Phoebe and Simone off the passenger manifest told them that reporters were waiting to speak to them about the suicide of their roommate, but that they weren’t obligated to say anything. Brides who had gotten off before them had identified them to the waiting journalists.
“Should we?” Phoebe asked as they started across the wide gangway.
Simone wanted nothing more than to get on the bus and get to the armory and Everett, but talking to the newspaper men would give her one last chance to solidify the notion that Annaliese Kurtz was dead.
“We can just tell them very quickly what happened and then be on our way,” Simone suggested, knowing that Phoebe wasn’t opposed to the attention or having her picture in the American newspapers. As soon as they were on solid ground, an influx of reporters surrounded them. An army private stepped forward to escort them to the bus, but Simone put up a hand, letting him know they would answer a few questions. The reporters wanted to know who saw the woman jump (t
hey said they both did), why she jumped (she couldn’t face going back to Germany and her abusive husband), and what it was like being her roommate. They posed for a few pictures and then Simone nodded to the army private and he guided the two women past the rows of reporters and photographers to the waiting bus.
Half an hour later they were pulling up to the armory, where more reporters were waiting, but this time they declined interviews and she and Phoebe were ushered inside.
The large room was brimming with men both in uniform and plain clothes. Some husbands had brought with them parents and siblings eager to meet their new daughters- and sisters-in-law. Names of the brides were read individually over a loudspeaker so that couples could find each other in all the chaos. For some of the brides, Phoebe’s fear had been true—they didn’t recognize the men they’d married, who looked different after nearly a year apart, especially those who were no longer in the military and now wore civilian clothes.
“Do you see him? Do you see your Everett?” Phoebe said, as she craned her neck to look for Hal.
“No.” Simone stood on tiptoes and scanned the sea of faces.
A few minutes passed before Phoebe’s name was called and she turned to Simone in delight.
“Oh, my! That’s me! Come find us after your name is called, Simone. We must stay in touch!” Phoebe wrapped her arms around Simone with Douglas squished between them. “I wish it were all three of us reuniting with our husbands today,” she added in a whisper.
“You know that was never going to happen, Phoebe. Annaliese wasn’t a war bride. Katrine’s husband isn’t even here. I am sure he knows now what happened.”
“I know. But I can still wish it.”
They broke apart. “Go on.” Simone nodded toward the lectern. “Your husband’s waiting for you.”
Simone watched as Phoebe made her way with Douglas in tow to the front table where record keepers sat. A man with reddish brown curls and a plaid cap in his hands was emerging from the crowd of men to stand at the table. Phoebe ran to him. Simone could not hear the sound of her happy sobs, but she could see Phoebe erupting into tears of elation as Hal ran to meet her as well.
And then, over the din of happy voices and laughter and cries from tired babies, Simone heard her own name: not over the loudspeaker, but from across the room. She turned toward the sound. Everett, looking resplendent in his dress uniform, had spotted her and pushed forward through the ranks of waiting men. Simone instinctively placed a hand over the rounded swell that was her child and hiked her skirt to step over the stanchion rope. Everett was moving toward her, smiling wide, the tiniest hitch in his step from his old wound. The doubts she’d had earlier that morning fell away like autumn leaves. She ran to her husband and fell into his outstretched arms. For several seconds, there was no one else in the room—no officials wanting to check off her name, no other joyful couples embracing, no toddlers and babies laughing and shrieking, no Red Cross nurses or military police or reporters or newsreel photographers. There was only Everett and her, just like in the wine cellar, holding each other amid chaos.
“You are so beautiful,” he said in French, whispering it as though they truly were alone in the room.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she replied in English, nuzzling his chest.
He placed his hand on her abdomen. “And she is beautiful, too.”
“She?” Simone said with a laugh.
“I already know she’s a girl.”
Everett hugged her tighter. Simone closed her eyes and relished the sensation of warmth and strength. When she opened her eyes a moment later, she saw a pair of military policemen walking toward them.
A different kind of heat suddenly cloaked her as the men closed the distance.
The plan had surely failed. Annaliese had been discovered. Arrested. Marc, too.
And now they were coming for her.
She began to tremble and Everett loosened his arms to look at her.
The police were just a few yards away.
“You there,” one of them said in a gruff voice.
In that instant Simone realized she had no regrets. None at all. She’d let them take her, question her, charge her with whatever offense they wanted. She didn’t care that she’d been caught helping a fugitive fake her death, nor even that it had been her idea, not Marc’s, not Annaliese’s. It had been her plan and she was proud of it. It had been an act of resistance but also an act of mercy, and if she’d learned anything the last six years it was that war wasn’t just about ideas and land and control. It was first and foremost about people. Annaliese Kurtz was neither offender nor defender, she was just a girl from a little town near Belgium who had a best friend named Katrine and who had liked to dance.
Helping her had been the right thing to do.
Simone eased herself out of Everett’s embrace, ready to answer for her actions.
When the policemen were only a few feet away, one of them pointed a finger at her. “You need to follow the protocol just like everyone else. You can’t just hop the ropes like that. There are records to be maintained. Forms to sign.”
Relief, nearly stinging in its clarity, rushed over her.
“It’s my fault,” Everett said quickly. “We’ll take care of it right now.” He put his arm around her waist to usher her toward the lectern. “Don’t want you to get into trouble on your first day in America!” he murmured with a laugh.
Simone smiled but had no words at the ready. Annaliese was safe, she had to be. Only one detail remained—a telegram to Paris—and she could take care of that at a nearby telegraph office.
Everett took care of the necessary paperwork, then retrieved her suitcase.
“Shall we?” he said a few minutes later as he offered her his arm. “I want to hear all about your voyage. Our train doesn’t leave until five and I’m starving.”
A sense of fullness fell over her at the joy of her new life finding its footing. She took Everett’s arm. They had taken a few steps toward the exit when Simone suddenly remembered Phoebe’s request that she find her. She paused for a moment.
“You forget something?” Everett asked.
Simone scanned the room, saw Phoebe in a clutch of Hal’s extended family, all laughing and smiling and talking at once.
Perhaps it was best for them both to just move on from here, she thought. The dark days of deprivation were over, and the long wait to be reunited had also ended. More importantly, the man with the golden tooth was a fading memory and Annaliese Kurtz was on her way to freedom, God willing.
She had magnificently crossed the bridge into her second life with Everett.
“Is that woman a friend of yours?” Everett had followed her gaze.
“She was one of my roommates.”
“Oh. Want to say good-bye?”
Simone moved closer to him. “I already did.”
They headed for the open doors.
RMS QUEEN MARY
CAPE HORN, SOUTH AMERICA
NOVEMBER 1967
The water is warm and wide and strange to me. Everything about this voyage is unsettling and different.
Passengers are sitting on a red, two-story bus stored in the forward hold, honking the horn and laughing. “We’re at the bottom of the world in a double-decker!” one of them yells, and the rest of the people on the bus cheer.
I don’t know where we are. The others want to know what is happening, and I’ve no answer for them other than we are at the bottom of the world.
Above on the sun deck, the captain says to one of the passengers that California’s weather will be good for the ship. It will be easy to keep her beautiful there.
“No regrets about the sale, then?” asks the passenger.
“No,” the captain says, and then he adds how sad it was to pilot the Mauritania to her demolition site. “I couldn’t turn around for one last look
at her,” he says.
I don’t know what this means.
I don’t know where we are.
The others with me are restless.
I tell them not to worry, all is well.
The revelers get off the bus to head upstairs to change into party clothes. Later, they will dance under stars whose glittering places I do not recognize.
Thirty-six
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
PRESENT DAY
Brette stared at the elderly woman seated across from her. Words of protest formed in her head but seemed to flutter away when she opened her mouth to speak. It was impossible that Annaliese Kurtz was alive. Impossible.
“I think it’s time for you to go,” Simone Robinson said with little inflection.
“What you’re saying can’t be true,” Brette finally said. “I know what I heard on that ship. I know what I saw.”
Simone regarded Brette coldly for a moment and then a look of pity replaced the one of annoyance. “I assure you, Mrs. Caslake, Annaliese Kurtz left that ship very much alive.”
“But . . . her body went into the water,” Brette whispered.
“Her body did not go into the water, not that it’s any of your business. She walked off that ship in a maid’s uniform. Now, I’ve already told you more than you deserve to know. I’d like you to leave.”
“No. There is a ghost on that ship that showed me your cabin, Mrs. Robinson,” Brette said, anger and fear coating her words. Her voice sounded like a child’s in her ears. “It showed me the place at the back of the ship where it happened!’
“Any archived passenger manifest can alert you or anyone else to our stateroom number, and every newspaper that covered the story mentioned where Annaliese supposedly jumped. It’s time for you to go.”
Nausea roiled in Brette’s stomach. It just couldn’t be. A ghost had communicated with her. Pressed on her. Led her down stairs and hallways. Revealed things to her. What had happened on the ship had been real.
A Bridge Across the Ocean Page 27
