He still leaves his effects strewn about the room, but has begun to look sheepish about it as he realizes that no one’s going to tidy up after him.
So when he asked to join me in my efforts to bake a morning loaf of bread, as I’ve done to lighten Françoise’s load, I could not refuse.
I showed him how to mix the dough by hand, and how to knead the dough, over and over, folding and pressing to increase the elasticity and improve the crumb.
When we set aside our respective balls of dough to rise near the oven, he looked at his floury hands, shirt, and pants, and laughed. In comparison, I wore an apron and had very little flour go wild. I laughed with him.
He reached for my face, running a tender finger from my cheekbone to my chin.
Forgive me, dearest, for it felt somehow comforting and discomforting all at once. When he stepped closer I did not move away, when his lips lowered to mine, I did not turn away.
We’d kissed before, when we were engaged all those years ago. When I had never lived anywhere but our little village, when I still thought the world made sense. When Gilles hadn’t yet become a man who so clearly put the interests of others before his own.
Those earlier kisses were the kisses of youths, and lackluster ones at that. These?
Someone taught him to kiss in the intermediate years. And that, truly, was my first thought.
It wasn’t a kiss of possession or persuasion; rather, his lips on mine felt like a greeting, a reintroduction.
It was the kiss version of a strong handshake.
What’s interesting, I say as a woman who married and was well loved, is that kissing back becomes a reflex. Like saying “thank you” after a compliment.
So I kissed him back without thinking. Would I have kissed him back if I’d stepped back and thought it over first? I do not know.
But I did kiss him, is the point I’m trying and have oversucceeded at making. He paused, surprised, I think. The kiss changed—the difference between a handshake greeting and being clasped in the arms of a dear friend.
He ended the kiss with a final brush of the lips, before caressing my face a final time.
I finally stepped back, dazed.
We did not speak of it.
We returned to the bread after the rising and kneaded some more, without any other amorous advances. Such considerations have not stopped me from wondering. Has that kiss changed nothing—or everything? Will he expect further intimacies? I do not know and I’m ashamed to be too cowardly to simply ask.
Oh, dearest, I miss you. I miss our kisses, your uncomplicated love.
Are you angry? Resigned? I cannot know.
Dearest Gabriel,
I am very angry with you today. Forgive me.
I am angry at you for risking your safety, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for dying and leaving our family in such upheaval.
I am angry at the fact that your family found themselves on the police’s lists. I’m angry at the police for following along with the plans of madmen.
I am angry with you for leaving me behind.
Because now I must sort out a future—and yes, I do recognize that the middle of a war is very poor timing to make any plans.
But I’m married to a man who is not you, a man who kissed me yesterday, who was gentlemanly enough not to continue that conversation in our bed last night.
(This is partially because I went to bed early and feigned sleep. No need to remind me I’m a coward; I’m already painfully aware.)
I’m angry that I know what real, true love is like, and I’m afraid of settling for less, but I’m also practical enough to know that security counts for a lot in these times.
And…I’m afraid I might grow to love him. What would that mean?
If it were not for you, I would not have to find out.
“I did not expect,” Nico said, “for this to become a kissing book.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Sandrine pointed out. “She’s falling in love with the husband who’s present in her life, but feeling disloyal to the husband she lost just months before. Moving on is always hard, but Mireille had to move on more quickly than most, non?”
“And when it got easier,” I said, “is when she felt guiltier.”
Chloé leaned toward me. “Was she talking about having a conversation,” she asked in a whisper, “or about…sex?”
Sophie’s eyes widened, and she watched me like a hawk as I searched for an appropriate answer.
“Difficult to say,” I said at last. “But I think she and Gilles are still working on their communication skills, don’t you?”
Cooking is at once child’s play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love.
—CRAIG CLAIBORNE
Caterina, Letizia, Sophie, and I stayed up late in the sitting room, nursing our decaf coffees. The men had long since begged off, but the four of us enjoyed rare time together.
“You know,” Sophie said, her head resting against the settee, “I wasn’t expecting for my grandmother’s diary to be the catalyst for questions about sex from my daughter.”
“I’m not looking forward to that,” Caterina said. “I’m hoping to be an embarrassing enough parent that they’ll take their questions to Damian.”
Sophie nodded. “Not a bad plan.”
Letizia propped her feet up on the ottoman. “When I was a girl, my grandmother—my father’s mother—told me that she’d almost had an affair with a professor. He propositioned her after an academic event. She declined, and eventually he married someone else.” She shook her head. “Anyway, she asked me—me! when I was sixteen if I thought she should have gone through with the affair. But,” she added, “we should not be surprised. After all, we came from somewhere, no?”
“Unless you subscribe to Nico’s stork theory,” I said dryly.
Caterina laughed. “Poor Nico. Is he dating Clementine yet?”
“Not yet. But he threw himself into work pretty deeply after Mom died. He’ll come up for air eventually.”
Sophie put her hand to her forehead. “I feel like I should read ahead in the diary to make sure it’s appropriate for Chloé. But on the other hand…”
“Married people have sex,” Letizia finished for her. “Who knows what’s in the diary, but your mother had a brother, yes? Better to have her hearing from a woman working through her marriage than whatever nonsense comes up on your American television. What’s in the diary—that is real.”
Sophie nodded. “You’re right. It was just easier when she thought that babies came from ice cream.”
I chuckled. “Those were the days.”
“You just wait,” Sophie warned.
Caterina cleared her throat. “Yes, but Juliette can live her own life path, no matter what it brings—if it’s children or a passel of puppies. It all has worth.” She raised her coffee cup. “Infertile woman soapbox. Not even sorry.”
“Nor should you be,” Sophie said, patting her sister on the leg. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Juliette can live whatever life she would like,” Letizia agreed, “but we want to know more about it. This elopement, it sounds very romantic. Neil has the face of a man in love. And you are moving, yes?”
“To Atlanta, yes.”
Letizia shook her head. “You must go on a proper holiday. You’re newlyweds, you need to get away to do newlywed things.”
I flushed. Caterina hooted and patted Letizia’s hand. “Letizia, I wish we lived closer.”
“No, you must simply come to Rome more often,” Letizia insisted before taking a sip of her coffee.
Caterina turned to me. “How do you think the diary ended up in the closet, anyway?”
“As far as I can tell,” I said slowly, “everything in the closet more or less belonged to Mireille. I think everything she left behind—they weren’t things she was ready to take with her. But I don’t know that she meant for anyone else to have them.”
“So she took the k
ey,” Sophie finished.
I nodded. “She took the key. I only hope that by the end, we might know why.”
When the hour turned very late, I wished my sisters and cousin a good night.
Walking down the halls, I turned a corner and found the familiar figure of my second-oldest brother, a phone pressed to his ear. Something made me pause; a moment later, he murmured a good-bye before hanging up.
I continued on my path, and Nico turned to see me.
“Hi,” he said, his cheeks coloring in the dim light.
I glanced at the phone and the expression on his face. If my guess were correct, he’d been talking to Clementine.
“Is she well?” I asked.
He hesitated before nodding. “Yes.”
I pressed a sisterly kiss to his cheek. “Don’t wait too long,” I said, before continuing down the hallway.
The table for the morning reading ran decidedly female the next day.
“I think the men have been frightened off,” Sandrine commented dryly.
We shared a laugh before Sandrine began to read.
Dearest, dearest Gabriel,
Forgive me for yesterday’s anger. One thing I have learned as a widow is that each new change spurs a fresh wave of grief. It’s as if I stand in the ocean during high tide, holding still as each wave threatens to knock me off my feet.
Yesterday I felt angry; today I feel sad and tired. The skies are gray; I have taken Gabrielle with me to the greenhouse. She is delighted to be reunited with dirt, and we enjoy the privacy. We play clapping games and watch for the rare intrepid autumn bird.
Marise offered to take Gabrielle to put her down for a nap, but I joined her instead, curling up with her and enjoying the closeness of her small body against mine.
I am so grateful for Marise. She has her hands full, as Cécile’s pregnancy has her napping almost as often as the girls.
I awoke from my own nap to find an extra blanket over us both, and Gilles at his desk in the next room. Gabrielle toddled over to greet him, but he looked at me soberly, with an expression I had difficulty reading.
He asked if he’d upset me, the other day, in the kitchen.
And I didn’t know what to say. Because I had become upset, but for a whole host of reasons that, to be honest, had nothing to do with him.
I told him simply that there had been a great deal of change lately, and that I was very tired, and probably a few other excuses that sounded weak to my ears. So I told him that I was sorry, and that it wasn’t him, not really.
He didn’t much believe me, I don’t think.
Since then, he has been outside, in the cellar, or everywhere else but where I am.
Dearest Gabriel,
Gilles is still avoiding me. For the last week, he’s come to bed after I’ve retired, risen before I wake. Richard and Cécile speak of how busy he is, how busy he is building the secret cellar.
I don’t know what to do. I want to tell him everything is fine, that I want to return to the way things were.
But everything isn’t fine. I have stayed busy in the kitchen, canning the pears that have ripened, slicing the apples to dry.
Maman is beside herself. Word in the village is that Papa’s business prospects have failed, which is why the family buys few provisions in the village and fired most of the staff. We have told her that this may protect us, if the villagers believe we have come down in the world.
But she believes she will never be able to play bridge again.
Cécile and I have had trouble being able to be as sympathetic as Maman has desired.
Some things in our little world have not changed.
Dearest Gabriel,
Two days ago, German soldiers arrived at our door. I could not write in this diary yesterday, for my hands had not yet stopped shaking.
A carload of soldiers arrived, laughing, as if they were simply out on a jaunt in the countryside. And perhaps they were.
They arrived at the door and asked for a meal and a place to stay for the night.
Françoise prepared four extra servings for dinner. She is a savvy one, that Françoise. The food was generous and tasty by wartime standards, but by no means ostentatious. She made a wintertime variation on ratatouille, with generous helpings of noodles.
Maman showed the “guests” to their rooms, and we retired for the night.
I slept not at all, with chairs wedged beneath the door to our suite and the door to the bedroom. Gabrielle slept in our bed, her sweet little feet kicking and prodding me at intervals. Cécile slipped me a note after dinner, saying “She will not leave our sight,” and I knew she meant Alice.
Gilles and I have spoken little in the past two weeks, and we spoke little that night, but when he wrapped his arm around me I felt grateful for it. He is a good man, though we seem to have difficulty finding our way.
We made very pretty good-byes to the soldiers the next day, saying nothing when they relieved us of household goods and various decorative objects.
Several chickens are also missing, and we shall miss their eggs. Gilles assured me that he has been reading about how to brood chicks in the winter months—and that the soldiers had taken a few of the lazier layers.
We shall carry on. I know there are many with far fewer resources. I worry for Gabrielle and Alice, though, and for Cécile’s child. We do not know how long this war will last, and the countryside has already suffered greatly. We would not do so well if it weren’t for Gilles and Richard.
Dearest Gabriel,
Christmas is around the corner. Maman suggested going to Marseilles to shop for presents, but Cécile and I suggested staying home and making gifts for each other. We suggested purchasing simple supplies in the village, which would help support our neighbors. Maman seemed pleased at the idea of once again being a benefactress, and settled on that.
I haven’t knitted in ages—not since I was pregnant with the girls—but Tante Joséphine decided it was time that I start again. In truth, I found the repeated motion comforting. There was a knitted blanket in one of the bedrooms made of good wool. Tante Joséphine showed me how to pull it apart, loop it into skeins, and soak them until the fibers relaxed. We let the skeins dry near the furnaces, then wound them into yarn balls, ready to be used.
Anouk found the process fascinating. She loves the smell of wet wool and nesting on the dry wool.
Tante Joséphine’s old housekeeper, she said, would make the cleverest shawls from old blankets and remembered what the woman had told her about the process. We haven’t told Maman, of course, but woolen mills are just another industry that has come to a halt during the war. We are happy to make do.
Gabrielle shall have a smart knit jacket and matching hat. Gilles is much out of doors; I shall make him a hat and try my hand at gloves. Tante Joséphine feels certain that between the two of us and Françoise that we should be able to figure it out.
Dearest Gabriel,
Thinking about Christmas has me thinking about how I and my family have always celebrated the birth of Christ, and how your family—your mother’s family, in particular—have another set of much older, more esoteric celebrations.
I wouldn’t even know where to begin with them. I know they were something your mother observed but your father did not.
Tante Joséphine and I unraveled another blanket; I will be knitting another sweater—this time in forest green—for Alice.
I have decided to place a pocket on the left side of each sweater, and embroider your initials on the inside. No one would know it was there, but I will, and now you as well. They’ll carry a bit of you close to their hearts.
Dearest Gabriel,
The papers are full of the news that Marseilles Jews have been arrested and deported. I worry for your brother and his family; I did not receive word that they went elsewhere, though I hope they perhaps might have been able to reach another destination in time.
On the heels of those arrests, I have heard that the one Jewish family in the vill
age, the Bernheims, has disappeared. I hope that they found a place of safety, but I fear they have been arrested and deported as well, though they were French citizens.
My father, Nico, and Alex returned for the evening reading, along with Auguste and Riccardo.
“We heard there’s a war on,” Alex said before sipping his coffee.
“You just wait,” I warned. “Romance might be around the corner.”
Dearest Gabriel,
I cannot stop thinking about the Marseilles arrests. Those arrests remind me of the Paris arrests, and my amazement that we were able to make it out of the city. How is it that we were so lucky and so many were not? I do not understand.
Do you remember when we walked the streets of Paris, stopping to taste chocolates and pastries? Those bright days feel so far away. I hold those memories close, though they came before the girls, before we discovered how very deeply we loved each other.
Do you remember when we took the girls to the riverbank? Alice wanted so badly to eat the grass, and squawked when we removed each blade from her chubby fingers. The poor dear, so thwarted. Those were lovely days, but already I felt your troubles, your burden for the children left behind.
But your burden didn’t mean you loved us any less. I must cling to that. And I don’t believe you ever thought your actions would place us in danger, would send officers to our door.
Dearest Gabriel,
I am not the only one troubled by the arrests. Yesterday Gilles took me into the passageway, to one of the more spacious landings. He’d stacked pallet mattresses, blankets, and pillows in a corner, and placed a small table with an oil lamp nearby.
“When they come again, you and Cécile and the girls will hide here. I will place extra pantry goods if you don’t want to go to the cellar. But you must hide here until Richard or I come get you. And if we do not return, Richard and I have built and hidden bicycles at the end of the tunnels. Bundle the girls to you and ride to the next village. Armand in the green cottage will be able to help you.”
Together at the Table Page 27
