Bette

by Lyn Cote

  “Why do you do things for me?” she asked, resting her face into a hand. The weight of the debt she owed him threatened to crush her tonight. “I could do that.”

  “But you don’t. You don’t eat unless I tell you to. You don’t sleep unless I tell you to go to bed. I must wake you in the mornings or you would sleep the day away.”

  She stared down at the perfect yellow, pink-tinged flesh of the peach. She wanted so much to lift a slice to her mouth and taste its sweetness, taste that unique flavor that only a peach possessed. She could not. She could not bring herself to lift the succulent fruit to her lips. She nearly wept with desire for its sweetness. “Help me,” she whispered at last.

  Drake sat down across from her and picked up a slice and slipped it into her open mouth. The peach was the most delicious she’d ever tasted; its sticky-sweet juice flowed over her tongue, her lips, down her chin. She swallowed it greedily and licked her lips. She felt ashamed eating it. Her mother and father weren’t eating peaches. She felt like a traitor.

  And then with a guilty look, she asked for another.

  He wiped her chin with a starched linen kitchen towel and then fed her another slice. Then he took the glass of milk and held it to her lips. She drank half the glass in one long draught. It was delicious, creamy and cold, satisfying her hunger, her thirst—filling her.

  She thought about this man. She wanted to ask, “Why did you marry me?” But how foolish. He’d married her to save her life. Nothing more. She wouldn’t make a fool of herself. She couldn’t survive another rejection, another chance of being put out into the street like an unwanted, inferior parcel. “I should be grateful,” she said. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

  “I don’t want your gratitude,” Drake replied without any trace of passion or anger in his voice. But he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “What do you want?” She accepted another wedge from his fingers. They brushed her lips, setting off an unexpected tingle that spread out and down over her face and neck. She’d felt dead for so long, the sensation nearly took her breath away.

  “I want you to be my wife. I want Sarah to be my daughter.”

  She didn’t believe his words, couldn’t let herself believe them. She swallowed. She imagined his lips brushing the tender flesh of her neck. No. Stop reacting to him. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” He rubbed his neck as if it pained him.

  “You must know.” She imagined him folding back her collar and pressing kisses to her throat. Where were these thoughts, these sensations coming from? “Tell me. I must understand.” Ilsa felt tears well up in her eyes. She clenched her hands in her lap. Why would he want her? Want her mixed-race child? Her own father had hated to look at his grandchild. She’d understood why. It had nothing to do with Sarah. It had to do with her husband, a Gentile, rejecting her, and about their having to wear yellow stars, and about everything else that Nazis had done to them just because they were Jews.

  Drake didn’t even ask her about Sarah’s father. Didn’t ask her for anything really.

  “Men don’t always know why they want something.” Drake finally looked into her eyes as if probing her. “All I know is that I couldn’t forget you. Isn’t it enough that I came for you and brought you home? That I asked you to be my wife? I’m just trying to take care of you and Sarah and you attack me at every turn. What do you want from me?”

  “I don’t know.” A lie. She wanted what every woman wanted, but fear paralyzed her. She looked past him out the open window to the green and chartreuse weeping willows outside. Again she imagined his lips touching her. No. No. She’d closed her mind to wanting any man’s touch. She’d closed her mind to wanting love and justice, to wanting anything, to doing any more than nursing Sarah and remembering to breathe.

  “Ilsa,” he whispered, “what do you want?”

  “For a long time,” she whispered, the words rasping her throat, “I stopped feeling. You are trying to make me feel again and I don’t want to.” Deep inside and against her will, she felt herself, felt the desire to live stirring. And more dangerous the urge to reach out to another, to a man, to this man.

  “Ilsa, I’m not trying to make you do anything. I just want you safe. I just want you here.”

  No. “You want me in bed,” she challenged him. “Why haven’t you just taken me to your bed?”

  Drake didn’t show any shock at her bald question. “I haven’t taken you to my bed because you haven’t wanted me to.”

  “I’ve offered several times to come to you.” With just the tip of one finger, she touched one of the cool, wet peach slices.

  “Yes, out of obligation. I want you to come to me because you want me, want Drake Lovelady, your husband.”

  She pulled her hand back from the tempting fruit and folded her arms around herself, chilled in the summer heat. “Why do you want me? Do you think I have something other women don’t? It isn’t true. I am just like every other woman.”

  “You are the only woman I’ve ever married,” he said with painstaking patience in each syllable. “That makes you different than every other woman.”

  What was he saying? What did that mean? “You only married me to keep me from going back to Deutschland.” She leveled her eyes at him like a gun. “You only married me out of pity.”

  “Ilsa, I didn’t marry you out of pity,” Drake snapped. “Don’t you realize that I was attracted to you, just attracted as a man to a woman? I would have pursued you—if your life in Germany hadn’t been so mixed up. How could I?”

  “What do you mean, pursued me?” She looked down at the peach. Every slice he’d fed her had felt like a kiss, his fingertips brushing her lips, feeding something deep inside her, something that had withered.

  “I met you in Berlin—where you had to wear a degrading yellow star. Where you’d been rejected by your husband who’d promised to love and honor you for life. How could I just walk up to you and ask you for a date?” He muttered an oath. “I couldn’t even take you into a restaurant for lunch. In that place with Gestapo agents watching us, how could I let you know what I was thinking, feeling?”

  “You would have asked me on a date?” she asked, not believing he’d said this. “A date?” She mocked him with the word.

  He stood up, shoving his chair back, knocking it over.

  She cowered in front of him, nearly upsetting the glass of milk.

  “Look at you.” His voice sounded low in his throat. “You pull back as though I’m going to strike you. I’m no Gestapo agent, no SS trooper, no Nazi. I’m Drake Lovelady. The man who loves you though he doesn’t know why. The man who married you and wants you and Sarah.”

  She stared at him, understanding at last rippling through her. “You just want me?”

  “Yes, is that so hard to believe?”

  She closed her eyes, hiding them under cupped hands. “The way things have been in Berlin since ’33. Some days I just wanted to walk to the River Spree and drop into its water and stop thinking, feeling, existing.”

  “I was afraid of that. I was afraid that you would drop over the side of the freighter and drown yourself and Sarah.”

  “You thought that?” He knew her that well? She looked at him, looked at his fair hair and blue eyes, the Aryan ideal she’d learned to despise. But Drake couldn’t help his race—any more than she could.

  “Yes, I was afraid you’d do yourself harm.”

  The final resistance to him began disintegrating. “I would have.” She leaned forward, the words pouring from her. “If you hadn’t come, I’d made up my mind I’d do that if we were turned back to Europe.”

  “I know.” His voice welled up from deep inside, so dark, so taut.

  She stared at him, scrutinizing his expression. He knew her that well? “Why did you care?”

  “I told you I don’t know. But it’s you or no one.”

  She gazed at him, reading the truth in his eyes. What could she say to protect him from her own fear, her overwhelming bittern
ess? She still didn’t feel capable of loving, but she was hurting him—that was clear. He didn’t deserve such thanklessness.

  Then it came to her. She only had to let him love her. Maybe she would never be able to love him back, but she could behave like a wife. “Then, my husband, let it be me.” And she opened her arms.

  CHAPTER SIX

  December 1939

  Alone in the cozy kitchen at Ivy Manor, Bette stared out the window at the snowflakes falling lazily. Outside, they gathered, creating a narrow white line at the edge of the lane to Ivy Manor’s back door. The rich scents of Christmas baking hung in the air—cloves, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon. She rubbed her eyes. Hours and hours of filing and typing left her with tired eyes most weekends.

  But her fatigue wasn’t from that. Suspicion whispered through her mind. Wrestling with doubt and unanswered questions kept her awake nights. This silent admission opened her to an attack of ideas—a pack of wolves, all howling, snarling and trying to tear away her peace of mind. Why did she notice things? Why didn’t she just mind her own business?

  But it is my business.

  No. She only had four days at home for the holiday and she wouldn’t let worry spoil them. Curt was at his parents’ home, too. Soon, he’d come to take her to cut down a Christmas tree. Bette wondered again if she were imagining things about her office at the War Department, if she should ask Curt what he thought.

  Jamie McCaslin’s face bobbed up at the side window, startling her. Home for the holidays from Columbia University, Jamie was her stepfather’s much younger adopted brother. He lived with her step-grandfather, Mr. Thomas McCaslin, at the nearby McCaslin house. Always the clown, Jamie grinned and waved. She grimaced and motioned him inside. Within seconds, he burst through the back door, bringing with him the cold wind and his unique energy. “Hey, kid!” he greeted her. Before she could duck away, he shoved his large, cold hands against the back of her neck.

  “Jamie!” she shrieked, jumping up and away from him.

  His dark hair tousled from the wind, he chuckled and walked backward with his hands up as if she were threatening him. “Hey, I couldn’t resist.”

  She shook her head at him, trying not to smile. In the years since they’d both left home, she hadn’t seen much of Jamie. Being male, he never wrote her, of course, but her mother kept her current on all his activities as an engineering major and cross-country athlete at Columbia.

  “Have you seen Gretel?” she said, flouncing back down.

  “Yes, I’ve invited her to a few anti-Nazi rallies on campus.” Jamie swung a kitchen chair around and then sat down facing its back. His wrists rested on its top. His eyes were grim. “At the last one, she even got up and told her story. And Drake and Ilsa have had us over for dinner a few times at their brownstone. Hey, why don’t you take them up on the offer of a weekend in the big city?”

  So far as their letters showed, the Loveladys appeared to be doing well. Ilsa was expecting now. But Bette’s reason for staying in D.C. was simple. “I only get to see Curt on weekends.”

  A ratatat knock on the back door and Curt stepped inside. He was rubbing his hands together. “It’s perfect weather for cutting a Christmas tree. You coming, too, Jamie?” Curt came to her and kissed her hello.

  She beamed at him. He always kissed her hello and she loved it.

  “Sure.” Jamie pulled a stocking cap out of his plaid jacket pocket. “Let’s get the hatchet.” Jamie grinned.

  Curt frowned at her. “You’re wearing slacks?”

  Bette looked down at her ivory sweater and tan gabardine slacks. “Yes, we’re just going into the woods to cut down a tree.” Don’t be stuffy, Curt.

  “And hey, it’s cold out there,” Jamie added.

  “You’re right.” Curt grinned sheepishly. “It’s just that I don’t like to see women dressing like men. It just isn’t flattering.”

  Bette had hoped she looked a little like Katherine Hepburn.

  “But you look fine, Bette, just like you always do,” Curt reassured her. “Come on.” He tucked her hand into his elbow and squired her out into the chilly day.

  “So how’re the wedding plans coming?” Jamie teased as he followed them.

  “By this time next year,” Bette said, donning a scarf over her long pageboy hairstyle, “we’ll be Mr. and Mrs. Curtis Sinclair.”

  “You will if this guy here isn’t drafted by next year.” Jamie gestured toward Curt.

  “Drafted?” The word had begun to make her stomach clench every time she heard it. Bette didn’t want to admit out loud that this had worried her, too.

  “The draft’s just being considered,” Curt said stiffly. “We don’t know if Congress will even bring it to a vote.”

  “Yeah.” Jamie’s mouth twisted into a parody of a smile. “I think it’s a sure thing. Now that Britain and France have declared war on Germany for invading Poland, it’s just a matter of time.”

  Fear piercing her like a fine needle, Bette made a face. “I work at the War Department, remember?” she scolded. “I hear quite enough of this at work every day. I don’t need to hear it during Christmas.” And she’d been instructed when she was hired that she was never to discuss anything she heard or saw at work to anyone outside the War Department. Would discussing her suspicions with Curt violate that trust?

  “Well, not discussing the draft won’t make it go away,” Jamie said, looking grim.

  “If it comes, it comes,” Curt said, closing the door behind them. “I’m hoping we can still avoid this European war. A draft might interrupt our wedding plans.”

  Hearing this shocked Bette into silence. She forced herself to keep her mouth closed because of Jamie’s presence. Another postponement? Curt was wishing the war in Europe wouldn’t affect them? There was absolutely no way it couldn’t affect them. And he was thinking the draft might postpone their wedding again? The cold made her shiver and adrenaline made her pulse race.

  Talk ended as they tramped through the wooded parcel on the Carlyle estate. Bette strode arm in arm with Curt while Jamie jogged ahead, vowing to find the perfect tree before the “love birds” had a chance.

  Feeling snowflakes melt on her face, Bette closed her eyes. She drew in the cold clear country air and wished that the war in Europe was not marching straight at them. That July night she’d gone with Mr. Lovelady to rescue Ilsa and little Sarah had made it forever impossible for her to ignore the signs of the times, to ignore what Nazi Germany stood for. And just this fall J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI—the head of countering Nazi espionage by order of the president—had warned every American to be alert for espionage, sabotage, and subversion. His very words.

  “What’s wrong, Bette?” Curt asked, slipping one hand underneath her collar and massaging her neck through her sweater.

  “Nothing,” she lied, feeling her nape tingle at his touch. “Just tired.” How could Curt even consider postponing their wedding scheduled for the coming August?

  He tucked her closer to him the way he always did when he wanted to show concern. “Well, you’ll soon be able to quit your job and be busy making a home for us. Just one more semester, darling. Let’s not let war talk spoil our holiday together.”

  She nodded bravely, pushing away Jamie’s unwelcome mention of the draft and Curt’s troubling reaction.

  “That’s all I’ve ever wanted, Curt.” She searched his eyes earnestly, wanting her words to say so much more that they did. “To be your wife, to make a home for us.” So soon, she hoped she wouldn’t be living in a crowded city. She’d be settling into a little bungalow somewhere, clipping recipes from the newspaper, making curtains, planning for their children. It would be wonderful, what she’d always dreamed of.

  I’ll deal with my suspicions when I get back to Washington. I can’t let anything spoil this Christmas. She wanted to stop there, but her mind went on: Because this might be the last Christmas before war.

  Washington, D.C., January 1940

  Bette felt her heart j
erking and jumping behind her breast bone. She’d asked for a longer lunch today so she could run errands. The truth was she had only one errand. She was going to visit J. Edgar Hoover’s mother. And in front of her was the small frame home where the head of the FBI lived, the same home he’d been born in. Bette was trembling from head to toe as she faced the shiny black door. She took the brass knocker in hand and tapped twice. Would Mrs. Hoover be home? Did Bette want her to be home? Bette thought she might be sick.

  The door opened and a white-haired, plump lady in a deep purple dress looked out.

  “Mrs. Hoover?” Bette warbled.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Bette Leigh McCaslin.” She ignored the pounding at her temples. “We have a mutual friend, Mrs. Drake Lovelady senior.”

  “Why, yes, did Matilda send you?”

  “No, but I need to talk to you, please.” Bette inhaled deeply. “May I come in? I don’t have much time. I’m on my lunch hour from the War Department.”

  “Come in, dear.” Mrs. Hoover stepped back and led her into a small Victorian parlor crowded with photographs and knickknacks. She motioned Bette to sit down across from her. The house smelled of lavender and lemon polish. “Now what can I do for you, Miss McCaslin?”

  “I’m worried about something at the War Department.” The pent-up words gushed from Bette’s lips. “I’m in charge of keeping up the personnel files and something strange has been happening. I thought I would explain it to you and you could see if your son thinks it’s anything that I . . . that he should be concerned about.”

  “I see.” Mrs. Hoover’s pale eyes studied Bette thoroughly through rimless glasses. “Why did you come to me here and not just go directly to the FBI offices?”

  Bette took a deep breath. “Because I didn’t want anyone from my office to suspect that I’ve noticed anything out of the ordinary. And I knew that you’d played bridge with Mrs. Lovelady senior and I thought I could use that as an explanation for coming here.”

  Mrs. Hoover nodded. She didn’t look like she thought Bette was crazy. “Why don’t you tell me and I’ll relay it to Edgar when he gets home this evening?”