The Secret Life of Violet Grant

by Beatriz Williams

  “Is there anyone behind us?” asks Lionel quietly.

  Violet cranes her head. A pair of headlamps. “Yes.”

  The engine growls ravenously. The door frame vibrates under Violet’s hand. She focuses her eyes on the small winged figure perched at the edge of the bonnet, whose mercury body stretches forward in a perpetual leap of faith.

  Another turn, and another, small narrow streets without lamps. Lionel drives at a ruinous speed, without speaking, without blinking, his eyes fixed and determined on the pavement ahead. Violet’s feet are numb from pressing into the floorboards. Berlin passes by in a charcoal blur, the last she will see of it for many years.

  The streets lengthen, the buildings thin. Violet catches a glimpse of the horizon, purple-gray in the moment before sunrise. As suddenly as they’ve begun, they’re in the suburbs, and then a field opens up to the right, swallowed shortly by a forest. Lionel slows the car and pulls to the side of the road, beneath the black branches. For a minute, he sits still, breathing deeply, and then he asks Violet if she will find his cigarette case from his jacket pocket.

  The jacket lies on the floorboard, inside out. Violet picks it up and finds the case. She runs her fingers over the engraved Roman monogram: LRP. The P must be his middle name. What does it stand for? She has no idea. Silently she hands it to him, and he selects a cigarette and lights it in methodical movements. The sky is beginning to lighten, illuminating the clean white of the cigarette paper, the slender stream of smoke.

  “Grant’s dead,” Lionel says abruptly. “Your husband’s dead.”

  The air stops in Violet’s lungs. Perhaps her heart stops, too: she’s not sure.

  “Good,” she says, but her voice quivers.

  “The police have found out, obviously. We’re heading south, to Switzerland.”

  “Why south?”

  “We can’t go north. It’s flat and populated and obvious. And if Germany mobilizes, it will shortly be swarming with soldiers, and all the ports will close, and every train and road and bloody loaf of bread will be requisitioned.” He sucks hard on his cigarette, staring ahead.

  Violet gathers herself. Begins to breathe again. “How did it happen?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” He puts his two hands on the steering wheel and drums it with his thumbs. “Does it matter?”

  She thinks for a moment. “No.”

  “Then don’t ask any more questions, hmm?” He stubs out the smoke and turns the ignition.

  Grant’s dead. Lionel’s flat voice. Your husband’s dead. Her mind hovers numbly around the words, poking at them, trying to determine if they’re real. Walter. Dr. Walter Grant, her husband, eminent physical chemist. His brilliant eyes shut, his famous and flexible brain locked in rigor mortis. This sick feeling in the pit of her belly: grief, or relief, or disbelief?

  It could not be. Walter could not be dead. Surely she had misheard him.

  The car bumps back onto the road and gathers speed. The sky is lightening more. Lionel switches off the headlamps. In the glow of sunrise, the dashboard gleams like warm honey.

  Violet asks: “Where did you get the automobile?”

  “I borrowed it,” says Lionel.

  • • •

  THEY DRIVE for two hours before Lionel stops at a village for petrol. While he fills up the hungry Daimler, Violet finds a bakery and buys a dozen sweet rolls. There are apples in a basket on the counter, four pfennigs each. She buys six.

  Lionel keeps to local roads, narrow and unpaved, consulting a map every so often. Violet eats two apples and a roll, but already it’s too hot for food. She asks if they have any water.

  “In the back,” says Lionel. “I filled two jugs back in Seehausen.”

  Violet finds the jugs and opens one, and they pass it back and forth between them. “You can sleep if you like,” says Lionel.

  “You’re the one who should be sleeping. I don’t think you’ve slept more than four hours in the past three days.”

  “I’ll sleep tonight.”

  Violet doesn’t mean to sleep, she’s never been a tremendous sleeper, naps are almost unknown to her. But somewhere in the low rumble of the automobile engine and the thick heat of the air and the nearby comfort of Lionel’s body, her thoughts drift and settle. She wakes with a start when the car slows to a stop.

  Words echo in her head, impossible words: Grant’s dead. Your husband is dead.

  They are surrounded by green shade, a small halfhearted orchard of some kind. Ahead, an old barn sheds paint into the grass. Lionel is already jumping out of the car.

  “Where are we?”

  “A kilometer or two from Hildesheim. We’re going to leave the car here and walk into town for the train.”

  “The train!”

  “It’s the Frankfurt line, headed into Zurich.” Lionel yanks at the doors of the barn. The old wood gives way in a rush of thick air. “They won’t be looking there.”

  They. Who are they? The police, probably. She and Lionel are running from the German police. That is real, that is reality.

  Violet opens the door and forces her stiffened muscles onto the carpet of sparse grass and rotting leaves. A few cracks of sunlight mottle the air before her. She watches Lionel as he forces the barn doors into submission and pauses, catching his breath a little, blinking.

  “You’re shattered,” she says. “You should sleep a few hours.”

  “Not yet.”

  “When does the train leave?”

  He takes out his watch. “Two hours.”

  “The walk into town will take a quarter hour. Lie down, Lionel.”

  He rubs his forehead. “If I sleep now, I might not stop.”

  “I’ll wake you. I’ll keep watch.”

  Lionel watches her doubtfully, exhaustion warring with his unstoppable momentum. His face is so drawn and quartered, his strong shoulders so gaunt. Violet straightens and fills herself with compassion. “Come.” She puts her arms around him. “Come and rest. Let me do this for you.”

  “I’ll just put the motor away first.”

  He drives the car into the barn. He’s too long for the rear seat; Violet finds a pile of old straw and spreads the blanket on top. The air is warm and musty, smelling of ancient summer sunshine, trapped and released. Lionel arranges himself on the blanket, arms crossed on his massive chest, eyes closed to the rafters above. Asleep in an instant.

  Violet settles her gold watch on his chest, against his knitted hands, so she can keep an eye on the time and on Lionel. He sleeps at a profound depth. His limbs are absolutely limp, his breathing so slow she keeps checking his pulse, as if he were a patient in a hospital, or a newborn baby. She watches the dust drift around his face, counts the motes as they strike his skin. She wonders, if she touches his forehead with her fingers, whether she can find his thoughts. Can make some sense of it all: his actions, her illogical faith in him.

  Lionel’s eyes blink open exactly two minutes before Violet intends to wake him. He lifts his head suddenly, as if he’s shocked by her; the watch rolls off his chest and into the blanket. “What time is it?”

  “Three-thirty.”

  His head falls back. “Damn.”

  “We can stay here. We can catch the train tomorrow.”

  “No. It’s got to be this one.” He heaves himself upward, stretches, and turns to fold the blanket.

  On the road to Hildesheim, Violet’s sensible black shoes turn white with dust. She holds her pocketbook and the small bag with the rolls and apples inside; Lionel carries her valise in one hand and his jacket in the other. The brim of his hat rides low on his brow, and he stares long down the road, as if trying to pick out some detail in the distance.

  Grant’s dead. The truth. Your husband’s dead.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Violet says. “It does matter. I need to know.”
>
  Lionel sighs. “Yes, I expect so.”

  “How did he die? Was it when you hit him in Wittenberg?”

  “No.” Lionel switches the valise to his other hand and flings the jacket to his shoulder. “He followed us to Berlin. Went to your flat.”

  “And he was killed there?”

  “Yes. A gunshot to the chest.”

  “I see.” But Violet doesn’t see. Walter’s chest torn open, his heart bleeding out into the calm parquet of their apartment in Kronenstrasse. She should feel something; she shouldn’t be this clear. Numb and clear, both at once. “Did he suffer?”

  “I imagine he died very quickly. There was a great deal of blood.”

  “You were there.”

  He stops and sets the valise in the dust. “Just ask me, Violet. For God’s sake. Ask me if I did it.”

  Violet opens her mouth, and she only realizes she’s crying when the tears run past her lips and onto her tongue. She tries to speak, but instead a shuddering sob of a gasp wracks her chest, and she puts out her hands to stop Lionel from reaching for her. “I can’t. I can’t ask you.”

  “Violet . . .”

  “Don’t tell me. Don’t tell me any more.”

  He takes her in his arms anyway and holds her, there by the side of the dusty road, while she weeps for the husband she detested, for the lover she hardly knows.

  “Just say,” she says, hiccupping and sobbing, “just say you had no choice. He left you no choice. Just say you did it for me.”

  Lionel strokes her hair. “Violet, I did it all for you.”

  • • •

  IN HILDESHEIM, they stand upon the empty platform. Lionel reaches inside his pocket as if to check his watch, but he pulls out a small gold ring instead.

  “What’s this?”

  “Our name is Brown. Edward and Sylvia Brown. We’re American, from New York.” He takes her left hand and slides the ring on her fourth finger.

  “Are you mad?”

  “New papers. I had them made up just in case there was trouble leaving the country.” He holds her hand for a moment, examining the ring as if to inspect its credibility.

  “Because of Serbia?”

  He meets her eyes. “Because of Serbia, and everything else. For one thing, if there’s a war, I don’t want to spend it in some damned German internment camp. Now, if they ask any questions, let me do the answering, all right? Swallow your marvelous pride and self-sufficiency this once.”

  “But you’re not American.”

  “Honey, I can be as American as apple pie, if I have to.” His accent is flawless. He reaches back into his waistcoat pocket, and this time he holds his watch. He flicks open the case and frowns. “German trains are never late.”

  “It’s only four minutes.”

  A steam whistle pipes from the distant northeast. Lionel replaces his watch in his pocket, picks up Violet’s valise, and turns expectantly up the platform. The rails shriek softly. The gold band weighs down Violet’s hand with an unnatural mass; the thunderous approaching train makes the metal sing in sympathy.

  Lionel draws her arm into his elbow. “Come along, Mrs. Brown.”

  The train shudders to a stop and releases an exhausted sigh of steam. Lionel leads Violet up the platform to a first class wagon-lit and hands her aboard. A steward greets them, clad in white. “Mr. and Mrs. Brown?”

  “Yes.” Lionel hands him Violet’s valise. “I’m afraid our luggage was stolen. My wife and I will require two sets of pajamas.”

  “Of course, sir. Right away. I’m very sorry.” The steward leads them to their compartment and tells them about the facilities and the dining car and the expectation for arrival in Zurich. Violet stares dully out the window. The train lurches forward, the steward leaves.

  “You’ll want to clean up before dinner, of course,” Lionel says gently.

  “Yes, of course.” Violet opens her valise and finds a new dress and linens. Lionel helps her wordlessly with the fastenings. She opens the door to the washstand and cleans her teeth, takes the pins from her hair, brushes and repins. She turns to find Lionel, stripped to the waist, lifting his shaving kit from her valise.

  “All finished?”

  “Yes, go ahead.”

  He shaves as if there’s nothing at all wrong, nothing at all unusual, only a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Brown of New York, preparing for dinner on the Hamburg to Zurich express. “By God,” Lionel says, blotting his cheeks with a white Turkish towel, “there’s nothing like a hot shave to make a man feel himself again.”

  “Yes.”

  Evidently Violet doesn’t sound quite so sanguine. Lionel drops beside her on the seat. “I’m sorry about all this,” he says quietly. “I know it’s a shock. I’m reeling myself.”

  “You seem to be coping well.”

  He curls his hands around the edge of the seat and stares with her at the plush blue carpet. How she loves the smell of his newly shaved skin; she is like one of Pavlov’s dogs, wanting to throw herself into his neck at the barest whiff of him, even now, even with her brain and her heart like double anchors weighing her to earth. His bare shoulder touches her dress; his trousers stretch under the pressure of his muscular legs. He asks, “Are you all right? Can you manage dinner?”

  She nods.

  “It will be all right, Violet. I promise, I swear it.”

  “I know. I know it will.”

  Lionel moves his hand to cover hers. “Though I’m afraid there is one more thing.”

  • • •

  THE WHITE-CLOTHED TABLE in the dining car is not empty.

  “Well, hello,” says the Comtesse de Saint-Honoré, lifting her beautiful head from an earnest inspection of the menu. “If it isn’t Ed and Sylvie. Fancy seeing the two of you here.”

  • • •

  VIOLET MAINTAINS her composure throughout the soup and fish, the meat and dessert and cheese, throughout the trivial table conversation, throughout Jane’s powder-scented kiss good night and Henry’s firm handshake. Once the compartment door closes behind them, she flings her gloves against the window and turns to face her companion.

  “What is going on, Lionel? What the hell is going on?”

  He stands motionless, his back covering the small window in the compartment door. “You should call me Edward, for now.”

  “How dare you be calm. How dare you tell me to call you Edward.”

  He hesitates.

  “And don’t call me Sylvia!”

  Lionel draws down the blind on the window and locks the compartment door. He takes her hand. She tries to pull it away, but he holds firm. “What do you want to know?”

  “I don’t know where to begin. Jane. Why is Jane on this train? Is she your lover, too?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not. She asked me to help her secure a seat out of Berlin. That’s what I was doing yesterday, while you were at the institute. Arranging everything for us.”

  “Oh, yes? And what made her decide to leave?”

  “There’s a war about to begin, if you hadn’t noticed.”

  Violet pulls her hand away and drops into the seat, which has already been made up for the night by the steward. The sheets and blanket are pulled so snugly, she makes hardly a wrinkle. A suit of crisp blue pajamas lies folded next to her legs. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to believe.”

  “Believe me.”

  “I am not stupid, Lionel. I know there’s more. You and Jane.”

  “We are not lovers, Violet. There’s only you.”

  “So you say.”

  He crosses to the washstand. “I thought we’d resolved all this last night. My God. How could you possibly think I’m holding a single piece of myself back, after last night? I gave you all I had.”

  She says nothing. The water runs softly at th
e washstand: Lionel brushing his teeth, splashing his face. While she sits on the bed, he moves about her, changing into the pajamas, slipping a matching blue dressing gown over his shoulders and belting it at the waist. “I’m going to visit the lavatory,” he says. “You’ll be all right?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  He leaves, and Violet changes into her pajamas, brushes her teeth, lets out her hair. By the time he returns, she’s turned off the light and settled into the top bunk, with the blanket up to her nose.

  “Christ. Violet, don’t do this.”

  She knows she should answer, she’s being childish and stupid, but she can’t think of a word to say. She feels as if she’s lived a lifetime in this single day. She can’t bear another moment. She needs to think; she needs not to think at all.

  “Violet, I’m sorry. I realize I’m making a hash of this. I never meant . . . I can’t explain it all, there’s too much. You’ve had too much laid on you already. Can I ask you to trust me?” He brushes the hair at her temples. “Poor Violet. You’ve been through hell, haven’t you? I’m sorry. I know I’ve no right to your trust, but I’m asking anyway. I’ll tell you everything, I swear it. I’ll make you understand. I’ll show you, I’ll lay myself bare. Once we’re safe, once we’re clear. Just let me get you safe, Violet. Can you give that to me?”

  She listens quietly, while his fingers stroke her hair, his voice works in her ears. A tear escapes from one closed eyelid, and she knows that he sees it, because he catches it with his thumb.

  “All right, then. Good night, darling.” His voice is softer than she expects. He kisses her forehead twice, once on each side, and ducks into the bunk below.

  Behind the curtains, the indigo fields rocket by. Violet’s bed sways in time with the syncopated beat of the metal wheels, the endless modern clackety-clack clackety-clack clickety-clackety-clack that hurtles them through the German night and into a Swiss morning.

  • • •

  VIOLET IS NOT quite asleep when the knock rattles the compartment door.

  “Papers!”

  Lionel leaps out of bed. “Let me handle this, Violet. Don’t say a word.”