Paris, 7 A.M.

by Liza Wieland

  Elizabeth steps back, almost into the street. Her heels hang off the curb, over the gutter. She believes vom Rath would be more likely to see her. His eyes move restlessly, as always, beyond Sigrid. He turns his back to the window, then peers over his own shoulder, out into the passing crowds.

  From this farther distance details are somehow more arresting. Sigrid’s fingernails are painted a dark red, like blood fresh from a large wound. This, Elizabeth now realizes, is exactly what makes her hands appear gigantic, disturbing against the white dress. She sees, too, that Sigrid is wearing gaudy diamond earrings that drip like chandeliers, and a necklace of similar design. The jewelry is not meant to complement Sigrid’s clothing—her black suit is the twin of vom Rath’s. She’s quite sure Sigrid did not leave the apartment in Saint-Denis this morning with these jewels—and clearly they are paste—in her ears and at her throat.

  What I’ve never understood, Elizabeth whispers to no one, to herself, what I’ve always wanted to know, is why women pay so much attention to the bride’s dress.

  She’s had this thought a hundred times in her life. All those girls at Vassar: the dress, my mother’s dress, my grandmother’s dress. But Miss Rose Peebles said you can wear any old thing to get married, and it’s cheaper, too, in the long run. Although sometimes the dress might be free. Elizabeth’s own mother wore a suit borrowed from her aunt. She’s been told it was dark blue, but in all the photographs it looks black, as if her mother was anticipating the events to follow, the need for this other costume: her husband’s untimely death and burial. So maybe a white dress would have been better, less of an omen or a curse.

  There is, of course, no way to be sure, no way to make any of it turn out differently.

  Now vom Rath turns toward Sigrid. She lets go of the dress, he takes her in his arms, and they begin a slow waltz, back and forth behind the three headless mannequins. No one enters or leaves the bridal shop. No one else appears in the window, amused (or otherwise) by these antics. They seem to be enjoying complete privacy, and Elizabeth wonders if this is what she envies, this privacy, rather than vom Rath’s hand on Sigrid’s back. Boulevard Saint-Michel seems by contrast to grow more crowded, as if to regulate some imbalance, the vacuum of this scene. Some people here in the street stop to watch. They laugh, but their laughter sounds cruel.

  Vom Rath gazes out at them over Sigrid’s shoulder and smiles. He has an audience. He nods as if acknowledging applause. If he sees Elizabeth in the crowd, he pretends not to recognize her. She realizes she does not want Sigrid to know she was watching. Sigrid’s privacy is somehow frightening, full of terrifying possibility.

  The next day, Elizabeth walks from île Saint-Louis to the boulangerie, the best one, on rue Saint-Paul. She wants to buy bread for the party she will give for Sigrid, Ann, and Marie. A baguette, a boule, and on impulse, a half-dozen croissants for the morning. She’s had a wild idea: what if the dinner turns into a breakfast? What if everyone brings an excellent bottle of wine and demands it be opened? What if there is so much food that the eating never stops until everyone drops off to sleep or into a stupor of epic proportions, and it’s too late to call for a taxi or take the Métro to Saint-Denis? Where will they all sleep? Elizabeth will give up her bed to Ann and Marie. Margaret and Louise will keep their own rooms, of course. Elizabeth and Sigrid will negotiate for the couch or make themselves a cozy nest on the rug in front of the fire.

  So when she sees Sigrid twined in an embrace with a man, she cannot remember where she is and what she is supposed to be doing. She notices quite outside her own consciousness that she is meant to be buying bread. Automatic pilot they call it, one of those trains whose wheels are locked onto the track beneath it. Full speed ahead. She enters the bakery, waits her turn in line. She speaks pleasantly to the woman behind the counter, orders what she needs, pays with correct change and an extra centime for the baker. She waits while the box is tied up with pale blue twine. She leaves the shop. In the street, she thinks about throwing the box away, but she doesn’t. She holds it carefully as if the contents were glass, retraces her steps, lets herself into the apartment. She sets the box on the counter in the kitchen and crosses the hallway to check on Margaret, who is quite motionless, taken by the profound sleep of the massively sedated.

  For a moment, Elizabeth listens to Margaret’s breathing. She finds herself counting.

  Then she closes the door, crosses the living room into the kitchen. She reaches into the low cupboard for the yellow gratin dish from Dehillerin. She steps up onto one of the kitchen chairs, raises the dish high over her head, and throws it to the slate floor. The dish cracks neatly, perfectly, into four pieces.

  No more gratin, she says to the kitchen.

  The rest of the crockery must be nervous.

  She climbs down from the chair, takes a glass from the sideboard and the bottle of Armorik from the top of the icebox, pours three fingers. She leaves the broken dish splayed on the floor. In the living room, she sips the whiskey and stares out the window at the great squatting hulk of Notre-Dame. When the glass is empty, she lets herself quietly into Margaret’s room, eases herself onto the bed, and tucks her face into Margaret’s shoulder until the tears running into her nose and mouth make breathing a little difficult.

  The mismatched towers of Saint-Sulpice. Six architects, one hundred years, a place that could never crumble to dust, no matter what awful secrets are confessed inside. The light heavy as mist, as fog. Elizabeth waits for Sigrid, as instructed, in the last row on the north side of the nave. She is late, as usual. She’s not very German that way, Louise has said. Elizabeth doesn’t mind. She’s walked down from the apartment on île Saint-Louis after a bad night’s sleep, a long day worrying about Margaret, about Sigrid outside the bakery, about what it is that Sigrid wants to tell her in the back of this fortress of a church. She is alone here except for seven schoolgirls in uniform who seem to have escaped one sort of captivity and not yet surrendered to the next. Elizabeth glances at her watch—a quarter after four. They have likely just been sitting quietly behind their desks, a teacher’s voice counting or reciting or admonishing, and now they are here, now rising as if to sing hymns a cappella, climbing onto the chairs six rows ahead, balancing, not laughing, not even a giggle. Then after some invisible signal, they step across the row as if it were a bridge over a small flood, a somewhat dangerous but still mostly rather delightful undertaking. Each girl seems to be lifting the next out of a sort of drowning in the center aisle, and then they move quickly down the row, holding hands, dancing lightly on the balls of their feet. Their white shirts glow in the gloom, red neckties flash in a beam of late sunlight from the window above. In the middle of the row, the leader loses her balance momentarily but is saved when the girl beside her lets go of her hand and grasps her shoulder. The line of girls stops, teeters, each girl saving the next in a chain reaction so perfectly graceful it might have been choreographed and rehearsed.

  At the end of the row, each girl steps off the last chair, and they leave soundlessly. What was that? Elizabeth wonders. A dare? A game? A lark? She turns to watch their departure and sees Sigrid in the doorway, patting each child on the head, once, a solid but gentle tap, as if counting them, keeping track. When they have disappeared, Sigrid turns and touches her lips, blows them a kiss. She enters the church, acknowledges Elizabeth with a wave, but walks away toward the racks of offertory votives. She drops a coin in the box, and the metal yawp flies up into the air and away. She lights the candle, peering into the red glass, staring at the flame. Then she joins Elizabeth, but leaves two chairs empty in between.

  They look straight ahead at the altar, as though something will happen up there now that Sigrid has arrived. Elizabeth waits. She tries to prepare herself for the disappointment the two empty seats suggest she is about to endure. Oh well, a little bird chirps in her chest, oh well, oh well, oh well.

  Leezabet, Sigrid begins, Marie and Ann say the only way I can stay in France is to make a marriage. Mariage de ra
ison.

  Elizabeth nods. The little bird stops its insane chirp.

  Let’s walk, Sigrid says.

  * * *

  Hours later, after supper, they stand on the sidewalk outside the café.

  It’s not that bad, Sigrid says.

  Elizabeth tries to smile, fails. No, she says, it’s worse.

  No.

  What does he think about it?

  Think?

  Elizabeth wonders if she knows the words in German.

  Sigrid seems to understand. He believes, she says.

  I feel sorry for him then.

  Sigrid shakes her head, meaning Don’t.

  Certain scenarios present themselves in Elizabeth’s imagination.

  What will he expect? she asks.

  Sigrid slides her right arm under Elizabeth’s left and grasps her elbow. He will get what he wants, she says. Now, come with me. We have a thing to do.

  Rue des Canettes and then the alley. The pavement shines, dark and wet.

  Streets are women, Elizabeth says.

  Perhaps Sigrid will understand. What a silly idea anyway. Sigrid nods and keeps walking, taking Elizabeth somewhere, fierce intent in her stride, in her grip on Elizabeth’s arm.

  Elizabeth realizes they are walking in the direction of the German embassy. We can go to my work, Sigrid says.

  Despite the clutch of Sigrid’s hand, Elizabeth notes the tenderness in her voice. The falling darkness makes all shapes equal: trash bins and bicycles, a metal chair someone has left outside, a case of empty wine bottles, a man wearing an apron, smoking a cigarette, staring past them.

  A small voice in Elizabeth’s head says, Expect nothing. Wait without waiting.

  Two military police guard the embassy gate. Sigrid shows them her identification cards, speaking in polite, sprightly German, as if she is happy to see them. The police let Sigrid through the gate but close it before Elizabeth can enter.

  Bitte, Sigrid says. A brief exchange follows, and the police laugh, open the gate, motion to Elizabeth to follow.

  You are my sister, Sigrid whispers.

  Another guard steps in front of them, unlocks the front door. He stands at attention in the entry. He will wait.

  Sigrid leads Elizabeth upstairs to the private quarters, still in readiness for the führer who will never arrive. Fruit piled in bowls, white wicks on the candles, fresh flowers in the vases, the large dining room set with linens, plates, silver cutlery, glassware. Sigrid walks through the apartment, turning on lights, turning them off again. Elizabeth listens to the click and sizzle of the lamps, waiting for Sigrid to make a discovery. The führer in his pajamas, a glass of whiskey in his hand. But no. No one.

  Back in the sitting room, Sigrid pauses in front of a gigantic arrangement of lilies and roses, peonies, baby’s breath and statice.

  Too much, she says. Too much for him.

  She begins to pull smaller stems from the vase, laying them on the low table. She moves next to the arrangement across the room and performs the same subtractions, the smallest flowers with the longest stems. Elizabeth follows her to the dining room, the bedroom, observes the same cull, Sigrid carrying fistfuls of flowers to the table in front of the sofa. She instructs Elizabeth to sit down, to watch. She quickly and carefully begins to braid the flowers together. She bends the stems nearly to the breaking point but seems to know the limit of each. Her hands move constantly between the pile of stems and the construction in her lap, machinelike.

  In a few minutes, Sigrid has fashioned a wreath, seven or eight inches in diameter, which she sets gently on the table.

  My mother taught me to do this, she says.

  She begins another braid. When this one finished, she slips both wreaths over her arm, takes Elizabeth’s hand, and leads her into the bedroom. She closes the door. She positions Elizabeth in front of the full-length mirror and places one of the wreaths on her head. She wears the other. They stand for a minute, gazing at themselves. Elizabeth cannot think what to say except that to say anything would ruin it all. Then Sigrid removes her wreath and Elizabeth’s and settles them carefully into the top dresser drawer.

  Tomorrow I will bring a larger bag, she says. To take them back to Saint-Denis. Tonight they would be crushed.

  The next day is Saturday. Sigrid telephones at noon and suggests they meet by the river.

  Elizabeth walks from the apartment. It’s not far, but her breathing grows ragged. By the time Sigrid finds her, she is wheezing.

  What do you need? Sigrid asks. What can I do?

  I’ll be all right in a minute, Elizabeth says. I just have to sit.

  They find a bench below the quai Saint-Michel.

  What is happening?

  Asthma, Elizabeth tells her. It came on years ago, when I was a little girl.

  How old?

  Five or six. Lately cities seem to bring on the attacks. I seem to need water or a coast.

  Now the countess will take you to Normandy again. You are her little pet.

  It’s not like that.

  They watch the light on the Seine. Eerie, uncanny, the boundary between reality and what’s reflected in the water. Mirrored, silvery surfaces, the shadow of a bridge like a deeper, secret bridge, or the loneliness of a bridge when no one crosses it for hours. The wake boats leave behind. So many actual things—wake, shadow, smoke—that can’t be held or put to use. Reflection. Reflection, which is specific and also insubstantial.

  Sigrid holds the tips of her fingers against Elizabeth’s temple. In here, she says, you have already gone. The countess has already stolen you. In here—she reaches lower, taps Elizabeth’s breastbone—you are trying to catch your breath. She withdraws her hand.

  Louise wants to buy a house in Florida, Elizabeth says. Key West. Water on all sides. Practically nothing but coast.

  It’s very far away.

  Ships go there.

  I have never been on a ship at sea. A sailboat, yes, but always in sight of land.

  How did you get to Paris?

  On the train. It was terrible, though, all the stopping. Showing your papers all the time. Ann was very good, very charming. Guards fell in love with her.

  Not just guards.

  Sigrid throws back her head, laughs for a long time. True, she says finally. But I think a ship would have been easier.

  Yes, Elizabeth says.

  No stopping. No borders to cross. From Le Havre, you would pass the Azores, but the captain might be the sort who, once the land is behind him, hardens his heart and will not stop. Because his heart is an iceberg anyway, undissolving. He hates the land that tries to melt it with all its human heat and warmth. Away wife! Keep away! For the entire journey, he stands watch, facing west, the wheel in his grip as hard and steady as his heart. You could pack your passport and identity papers away and never look at them for days.

  When I get to Florida, she says, I want you to come there. Right away. You and Ann and Marie. Louise will want that, too.

  It’s not going to be safe for us here?

  No. Not even here. Clara believes that nothing will stop it. She believes the Germans will be in Paris.

  When? Soon?

  She can’t say when. But she’s sure.

  Tears gather in the corners of Sigrid’s eyes. She leans her head back, Elizabeth imagines to keep them from spilling over.

  I’m sorry I frightened you, Elizabeth says.

  It’s all right, Sigrid tells her, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. I would rather know. I’m ashamed to cry. Don’t tell anyone.

  Of course not, Elizabeth says. She reaches into her pocket and finds a handkerchief, hands it to Sigrid. Let’s be happy before I go.

  Yes, Sigrid says. I want to give you something for bon voyage. Come with me.

  They cross the little bridge and the Pont Notre-Dame to the quai de Gesvres. Outside a café, Sigrid tells Elizabeth to wait. She goes into the café and returns with a bottle wrapped in brown paper.

  I will take you som
ewhere beautiful, Sigrid says.

  They walk, rounding three corners, so that Elizabeth has the sense that they have made a perfect square, but she allows herself to be led. Sigrid stops at a small gray door on rue Brisemiche. The sign reads Hôtel Colombe.

  In the small reception room, Sigrid asks Elizabeth to sit in one of the blue armchairs. The wallpaper looks as though it might have come from a painting by Vuillard, the one called Misia at the Piano. Sigrid speaks to the clerk in German. No money appears to change hands. Elizabeth marvels somewhere outside herself. Her mind stays completely blank except for curiosity about the wrapped bottle, curiosity so mild it’s a ghost of itself or curiosity belonging to someone else. The clerk gestures, pointing above her head. Sigrid turns toward Elizabeth. She’s holding a silver key attached to a wooden bird. Of course it is a dove, colombe. They climb two flights of stairs in silence. Sigrid unlocks the door of number 4.

  It’s a lovely small room: a bed, a dresser, a sink, a pot of violets on the low bedside table. The bottle turns out to be champagne.

  I know you like scotch, Sigrid says, and she gives a small shrug.

  I like this, too, Elizabeth says. I think maybe I like it better.

  Glasses for juice, Sigrid says, pointing to the tumblers on the edge of the sink. The champagne cork releases like a gunshot.

  I hope she doesn’t think there’s a murder being committed up here, Elizabeth says.

  Sigrid raises her glass. Bon voyage, my Leezabet.

  When they’ve finished, Sigrid takes their empty glasses and sets them on the dresser. She bends to remove Elizabeth’s shoes and then her stockings, reaching slowly up under her skirt. How can you stand to wear these? she asks, rolling the stockings down and slipping them off. She places the rolls neatly inside Elizabeth’s shoes.