The Chameleon

by Sugar Rautbord

  “Dance with me, darling,” Harrison daringly whispered into her ear in the moonlit darkness. Claire and Harrison rose to join the other couples fox-trotting on the flagstone terrace overlooking the vast acreage of pleasure grounds and forests and ultimately the Thames, which snaked its way around Lord Dashwood's private park.

  Harrison slipped his fingers into the deep V of Claire's dress, his hand on her bare back. She closed her eyes and hummed along with the melody. They were locked like that in a private trance until the smell of Italy penetrated Claire's nostrils. But this was not the smell of their Lake Como, she thought, as the pungent odors of sandalwood cologne and garlic shook her out of her English primrose garden. Her eyes blinked open to the little man with the slicked-back hair and unctuous smile.

  “May I borrow this dance, Miss Harrison?”

  “Thank you, but…”

  Pamela Churchill was looking desperately anxious to switch partners too.

  “Oh please, Claire, do. Dance with Duccio. It'll give me a chance to ask Harrison a dozen questions.”

  Reluctantly Claire changed partners. Fulco Duccio boldly introduced himself as Claire lowered her arms to dance with him. He was a whole foot shorter than Harrison. She looked longingly over her shoulder at Harrison, always the gentleman, stiffly squiring a very gay Pam.

  Beneath a brow that concealed a wind tunnel of dark thoughts, Duccio studied her.

  “I have never met a girl with purple eyes before.” His words rolled out as smoothly as if they had been soaked in olive oil.

  Claire turned to this man holding a thick hand against the bare small of her back and shivered. He watched her intently through eyes the color of a pitched sea.

  “I am in the debt of your—how do you call it in English—father-in-law.” He smiled. “He is making it possible for us to steady our feet again. We are busy making business together.”

  “Of course. My … father-in-law is one of the most brilliant minds in the States.”

  “It is why I pursue him like a suitor.” His friendly laugh was genuine.

  Fulco Duccio ignored the music, staying in the square diagram of polite dancing he appeared to have learned in a manual. When he accidentally pulled Claire the wrong way, his apologies were effusive.

  “Forgive me. I am very good at making money and very bad at social graces.” This time his laughter was boyish. “I hope I have your sympathy. One two three. One two three.” He smiled as he counted out the steps. “They didn't teach us proper English dancing where I come from.”

  “And where is that, Mr. Duccio?”

  “Calabria.”

  His hair sat immobile on his skull as if it were anointed with salad dressing. But, Claire thought as she relaxed into his clumsy lead, there was something undeniably dynamic about his brutishness, as though he were the only bull in a pasture full of cows.

  “Claire, may I escort you upstairs? We have that early morning ride with the Dashwoods.” Harrison was at her elbow. Claire happily took his arm.

  Duccio bowed like a headwaiter and assured Harrison the deal they had struck that afternoon would be mutually beneficial.

  “Good night, then.” Harrison was already leading Claire away.

  “Good night,” Duccio called out after the Harrisons.

  “What do they call him again?” Claire whispered.

  “The Pirate.”

  Claire heard a soft click as the door connecting her room to Harrison's unlatched. She felt him slip into the ironed sheets of her bed, where she was naked except for the circle of pearls. After they made love, more tenderly than ever before, he wound his fingers around the necklace.

  “And who is your wealthy suitor?”

  “Why you, of course.” She laughed.

  “These are really very beautiful, but they're not from me.”

  “Then they're on loan from Emerald.”

  Harrison cupped her face in his hands. In the dark, his eyes flickered with protectiveness. “You shouldn't have to share anything with anyone.”

  And Claire nodded, agreeing with all of her heart. If, if, and if.

  Not only was William Henry Harrison IV, statesman and American envoy, in hot demand by the new leaders of postwar Europe, but after two months in Europe the Harrisons were coveted dinner guests in all the best homes. Some offers they declined, others they dutifully accepted, but when the engraved card inviting them to dine on the Boulevard Suchet as the guests of the duke and duchess of Windsor arrived, Claire became as excited as the twenty-one-year-old girl she was.

  “Oh, please, Harrison. How could I ever tell Auntie Slim I turned down an invitation from the duchess of Windsor?”

  “As far as I can tell, she's just a silly woman who gets her hair done twice a day.”

  “But you can't imagine how important she is to the Aunties! We lived vicariously through her since I was a little girl.” Claire pulled her long legs out from under her and excitedly hopped onto his bed. “Why, she's practically the Patron Saint of Shop Girls!” Her raised hands were inches away from the crystal chandelier.

  “Well, if it will keep you from jumping on the furniture as if it were a trampoline.” He smiled indulgently. “I suppose, provided it's not in conflict with one of my more important duties, we can go.”

  She excitedly wrapped her arms around his neck, delaying him from some of his other pressing appointments.

  The two days before the Windsor dinner, the Slim part of Claire's personality dominated all the other aspects. The black crepe evening dress, a present from the adoring Emerald Cunard, was tried on with the V neck in the front, at both sides, and, finally, the back. The circle of pearls (as it turned out, an inappropriate thank-you from a grateful Fulco Duccio, who had received the American contract for carrying scrap metal in his newly acquired tankers) was twisted every which way around her neck.

  Harrison had allowed her to keep them “for now,” but as they had been appraised as priceless and Harrison didn't want to be beholden to the little Pirate, he had warned Claire that they should be considered a collateral loan.

  Claire, like liberated Paris, was filled with a wild, unfamiliar happiness. As she dawdled down the Avenue Foch in search of the appropriate house gift for the Windsors, she walked in her own dazzling private light, and other women on the street turned to smile at the lovely girl obviously in the throes of Paris's charms. Looking into a window, she found the perfect present, royal blue suede collars and leads for the Windsors’ pet dogs, whom, she had heard, the duke and duchess talked to like “substitute children.”

  Using her Field's skills, she directed a surprised shop girl how to wrap the gifts specially, even tying the flat ribbon into an entwined W and E, the romantic way Wallis and Edward, the duke and duchess, engraved all their personal possessions. She left the shop with a light step, her exquisitely wrapped package in her arms, just in time to see a flock of little girls in white tulle veils climb up the cracked steps of the Sacre Coeur for their first communion. She followed them into the church, feeling she had much to be thankful for.

  The minute Claire walked through the doors of the Windsors’ temporary home on the Boulevard Suchet with Harrison, she knew they had entered a charmed circle. Her eyes grew wide as she took in the duchess's details: the water in the flower vases was as clear as the ice in their drinks, the tablecloths embroidered to match the priceless Lowestoft china, and George IV's (the duke's relative) silver candlesticks arranged so that the duke could gaze unobstructed across the table at the duchess.

  It was clear that Wallis took her hostessing duties more seriously than her husband had taken his coronation vows.

  The duchess's order of the day was evidently to cheer up and charm the pampered guests of her table, and while the invitees (a dress designer, a prima ballerina, various counts and countesses, as well as the British and American ambassadors) didn't carry the power of some of the other Europeans Claire and Harrison had dined with, they were treated as if the world's continued spinning on its axis d
epended on them. There were individual Sévres butter pots with porcelain-handled knives at every place setting, and a waiter at the ready behind each chair. But the one detail Claire memorized to take away as her own was the duchess's habit of writing down with a small gold pen on a little jeweled pad the observed preferences of her guests and little things she might do next time to please them.

  Claire was quite taken back when she read the duchess's calligraphic menu cards standing at each individual place setting. How had the duchess managed to find food when all of Europe was on rations?

  WE

  DînerMousse de homard froid

  Concombres à la crème

  Perdreau rôti sur canapé

  Bread sauce

  Riz sauvage aux petits pois

  Céléris branches au beurre

  Salade mâches et betteraves

  Bombe glacée aux fraises

  Petits gâteaux

  Créme chocolat

  As the other guests read the cards, eyes wide and mouths watering with the thought of delicacies they hadn't tasted in years, the duchess laughed. In reality, there wasn't a lobster to be found in France, not even for Paris's most famous hostess, and fresh peas were as scarce as truffles.

  But what the duchess couldn't deliver in food she made up for with her contagious wit, and her guests soon let themselves be carried along by the duchess's delicious food fantasy. While hot dogs from the U.S. were served instead of the inscribed cold lobster, salad russe made from tinned vegetables and canned ham from the American officers’ club— garnished with black-market eggs—stood in for the roast partridge, the evening was four-star.

  The duchess apologized only once. “Why, I never serve soup at dinner anyway. After all those cocktails, it's just another drink.” And suddenly the food seemed as rich as the conversation. When, during the Spam course, she spied France's ranking British officer raising an eyebrow at the porcelain monkeys that crowded her amusingly decorated table, each chimp sporting a gold coronet on his head, the duchess laughed merrily. “Somebody has to wear a crown in this house.”

  Just as the waiters began serving melted Hershey bars instead of créme chocolat and raisins instead of the imaginary bombe glacée aux fraises, a far more serious bomb was dropped. Their maître d'hôtel handed the duchess a yellow envelope on a silver tray. Her pointed face blanched beneath her white powder as she directed the missive to “His Royal Highness.”

  With great solemnity, the deposed king stood and clanged his spoon against his wineglass.

  “As the former king of England, I feel I should inform you that the Americans have dropped an atomic weapon in Japan on a place called Hiroshima. There are at least one hundred seventy-five thousand confirmed dead. Gentlemen, I assume many of you need to return to your embassies.” And from the tone of his voice, Claire could tell that the man who had given up his throne for the woman he loved only wished he had someplace important to go.

  As the stunned guests rose to leave, Claire and Harrison gripped each other's hand. They both knew that the war, and their own private party, was over.

  Chapter Eleven

  Domestic Damage

  Him that I love

  I wish to be free—

  even from me.

  —Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Hands across the sea?” Harrison made a feeble attempt to cheer Claire up as the Queen Mary sailed into New York Harbor. Far enough away so that they could only just make out the art deco tip of the Chrysler Building and the green needle-top of the Empire State Building, Harrison and Claire entwined their gloved fingers.

  “What shall we say? How shall I behave?” There were tears in the violet eyes beneath the brim of her fedora, her elegant waves blowing softly in the open-air breezes.

  “Like a Harrison.” His response was distant and faraway, but his fingers tightened around hers.

  She didn't want to behave like a Harrison. She wanted to hurl herself into his arms like the girl on the cover of Modern Romance. “I won't be able to sleep without you.” She couldn't imagine a night without hearing his breathing or inhaling his smells.

  “You're too young to have circles under your eyes,” Harrison said as he tilted Claire's head toward him.

  “And you. Will you be able to sleep without my head on your chest?”

  “I'm nearly forty-eight years old.” He frowned. The age distance between them seemed to widen as Wall Street came into focus. “People expect me to look tired. They don't expect me to be giddily in love with my daughter-in-law. After all, I'm a man of ‘high ideals.’”

  How far removed it all suddenly seemed from just a few hours earlier, when they had desperately fought with all their sexual powers to keep the morning fog from rolling in. Last night as they made love on the gently pitching seas, Harrison would have cut any kind of deal with Poseidon to give them a week, another day, or one more hour adrift on the Atlantic, and now here he was, almost cavalierly throwing out a wreath to bury their love at sea.

  Damn all the Harrisons and their high ideals, Claire fumed, damning herself in the process. If carnal sins had been committed, she had been a willing sinner. She watched in hopeless silence as efficient deckhands scurried to dock the huge ship.

  “Who-hooo! Harrrrison! Clairrre!” Ophelia trilled like a mockingbird. “We're over heeere!” The little trio, waving three sets of arms, was immediately visible among the throng of mostly female humanity waiting on the dock. Nineteen forty-five was a year of homecoming. All over the world governments had released some sixty million men, and to Claire it seemed as if all their mothers and sweethearts were waiting excitedly on Pier 54 in New York Harbor. Claire's hand retreated from Harrison's and rose in the air to wave back. Suddenly she was confronted with her past pledges: a young husband and their little girl. For there was Harry, tall, tanned, and rangy, standing in the front row on the pier with a decked-out Sara on his shoulder. And she was as happy to see him as if he were Aunties Slim and Wren wrapped up in one. Like a sister, she ran her appraising eyes up and down the returned lieutenant commander proud physique. No bullet wounds, no limp, healthy, home, safe.

  She turned to Harrison, stiff, tight-mouthed, hands jammed into his pockets, and caught the look of fatherly love in his eyes. What were they going to do? The question was moot. Ophelia, already pulling strings and making decisions, had arranged for the famous diplomat and her son's wife to be escorted down the gangplank in VIP style before the masses of uniformed men hit the boardwalk.

  Claire kissed her daughter happily before she hugged her husband hello. She pulled back awkwardly from Harry, this charming stranger, her pen pal, as Ophelia issued orders, commandeered their luggage, and ushered them into their awaiting town car. From the two leather jump seats, Sara and Harry chattered nonstop while Claire, relegated to the backseat bump, sat tightly squeezed between Ophelia and Harrison. Her confused heart beat erratically as Harry swiveled around and squeezed her ungloved hand at the same moment her knee was jostled against Harrison's leg.

  Only the pedigreed manners and ingrained social behavior handed down through two centuries of Harrisons could have allowed the present company to converse politely in a moving car where a little girl was just learning to know the father she had never met and seeing her mother after a three-month absence; where a former devil-may-care flier was now ready to settle down with his bride and child and a stable job trading securities at the family firm; where the patriarch was wildly in love with his son's wife; where the matriarch had everyone's future neatly mapped out at home on her morning desk; and where an achingly torn young woman's thoughts ping-ponged between wanting with all her soul to be a good mother and wondering if the family would be better off if the car just crashed and they all developed amnesia.

  “How was the weather in the South Pacific? You've got terrific color.”

  “Fine, Father. A lot like Nassau, only the humidity and heat were much more intense, since it's closer to the equator.”

  Claire was stupefied. With
all the entanglements swirling around them, and an absence of years, father and son chose to discuss the weather. Lifting herself up, Claire rose to the moment.

  “England was beautiful. You could see crocuses blooming in the cracks the bombs made. The world is going to return to normal.” And for a moment she thought it just might.

  “Oh, Claire, it's such a shame. Sara's had two visits from the tooth fairy since you've been abroad, and you've missed them both.”

  “Look, Daddy! The tooth fairy left me two silver dollars!” Sara waved a little Cartier coin purse in the air.

  Claire sat forward, throwing a sideways glance at Ophelia. “My goodness, that's a generous trade. Where I've just come from, little girls are so hungry they could live off one silver dollar for a whole month.”

  “Oh, Claire, don't scare Sara with your little ragamuffin stories. This is a happy time, and tonight at dinner everyone can tell their what-I'm-thankful-for story. Save it for then.” Ophelia could still deliver an insult without moving her lips. “Oh, Harry, did I tell you the Mortimers are coming?”

  Harry, home for just three days now, was relieved that everything was just as it used to be. Every soldier wanted to come home to the exact same picture he'd carried around in his pocket since the day he left. The war was really over, and now they could all pick up where they had left off.