by Cat Gardiner
“In part, and also because of Lizzy, and then my father died the summer of 1950 and I couldn’t stay. I had to get out of New York and everything that reminded me of that incredible seven months of my life. There was nothing worth staying in New York for, and I thought I could make a different life for myself.”
“You bought Primrose Cottage for her didn’t you? Staying would have reminded you of her every day. I saw the shrine; I put the pieces together, and I went in search of her out on Long Island.”
“Why would you do that? Truly, it couldn’t have been only to learn what happened to some old man you didn’t even know.”
“Because …” She rubbed her slender arms as if chilled. “Because I needed to know that true love, apart from what my grandparents had, existed out there. I want what you had with Lizzy and to find you both would prove to me that it was real—more than just snapshots and emotions on paper. Was it real?”
He let out a deep sigh of resignation. Clearly his niece wasn’t going to let this conversation about Lizzy go. She was forcing him to admit the truths he didn’t want to verbalize. “In fifty years, I have never found anything that came close to it or her. I can’t say I even looked or tried very hard. She still owns every heartbeat, and your grandfather is right—my moving to Holland in 1950 then Israel in ’52, then Sitka in ’77 still couldn’t take her out of my blood. Everywhere I went and every morning I woke, she haunted me. Still to this day, I can see her eyes dancing, but she’s another man’s wife.”
“I knew it. Your love gives me hope, makes me believe that romance can happen with the person that’s meant just for me. Fairytales can come true.”
“What about this fella you’re with? Are you going steady? Do you have feelings for him?”
She shrugged. “I’m sorting that out. He’s not my boyfriend if that’s what you mean, but I think I want him to be. I care for him more than I’ve allowed myself to care for anyone before.”
“Let me give you some advice. If you care about him, fight for him. If there’s even the slightest chance you could lose him, hold tight because love—love like mine and Lizzy’s—only comes once in a lifetime, and regret is the worst thing to follow you through life.”
“So you didn’t fight for her when you found out that she married John Robertsen?”
He smiled wryly. “Boy, you think you know it all don’t you?”
Grinning like a Cheshire cat she said, “I do, and I also know that she’s no longer married to Mr. Robertsen. She’s a widow and according to her grandson still pining for you with tears.”
Now this was a surprise he could be happy about.
The Antelope’s door swung open, slamming behind Jack who held a beer and was walking toward them tentatively. He smiled sheepishly.
Will stood, offering an outstretched hand. “Hi, we didn’t meet. I’m Will Martel but you know that already.”
“Great to finally meet you. I’m Jack Robertsen.”
“He’s Lizzy’s grandson, Uncle Will.”
What a fuckin’ day.
Jack pulled over a chair from another table and took a seat, attempting not to stare at the shocked look upon his grandmother’s sweetheart’s face. “I hope I’m not intruding.”
“No not at all. I was just giving my niece some lovelorn advice.” He smiled teasingly at her embarrassed expression.
Juliana cleared her throat. “That beer went right through me. You men will have to excuse me.” She gave Jack a covert eye roll and a head nod in her uncle’s direction and departed toward the restaurant.
An uncomfortable silence hung heavily between the two men in the blissful setting where water, sky, and mountain united. Jack shifted his weight then leaned forward clasping his hands before him on the table. “I realize that we’ve taken you by surprise, maybe even shock. I’m really sorry about that, but Julie was tenacious, and well … I like her … a lot and want to make her happy.”
“That’s good to hear. I often wondered what she was like. She’s a sweet girl and has her grandmother Lillian’s spirit.”
“My great-aunt.”
“Right. Your great-aunt. Lizzy’s sister. That makes my great-niece your cousin, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, but not by blood. My father was adopted by the Robertsens in ’45. He was a Jewish war orphan who managed to avoid a death camp by hiding in the forest. My grandparents traveled to London to bring him to America. He was just three years old when Lillian Renner … I mean, Martel … found him in the Alsace, contacted her sister, then the rest was history.”
Will’s eyes nearly widened. He had no idea. Lizzy did that?
Jack took a swig of his beer then placed it down before him with deliberate ease. “Can I be frank—sort of man to man?”
“Please do. You traveled a long way, and I suppose this must be just as difficult for you as it is for me. I’m sure it can’t be easy to meet the man who preceded your grandfather.”
“I admit, at first it wasn’t easy, but I’m reconciled with the fact that he’s passed on and she’s here vibrant with, G-d willing, a lot of years ahead of her. I loved my grandfather, but I can’t deny—in hindsight—that what my grandparents felt for one another didn’t even come close to what you and Lizzy apparently felt.”
Several fast blinks to Will’s eyes alerted Jack to his astounded disbelief about his grandparents’ relationship. “It’s true. They didn’t have that passion. Fact is, Mr. Martel—I envy you. You weren’t afraid to fall in love with a girl whose father was a member of the Nazi party as the world was on fire around you, especially as a Jew. You were going off to war and its uncertainty, yet you pursued a girl and found something that most of us only dream about. You took a chance and opened your heart in spite of the many obstacles.”
Will chuckled in fond remembrance. “It took some convincing on my brother’s part but when I finally jumped, I fell hard, but your grandmother was...” He cleared his throat. “An exceptional girl. A zephyr.”
“She still is, although that part of her is deeply hidden. Even still, you did jump. That’s something I was never able to do, not even during the best of times. I was never a romantic and never imagined that kind of love existed, so I never looked—then I met Juliana and I learned of your past. After that, I held my weeping grandmother in my arms when I told her you were alive somewhere.”
He ignored the weeping comment, torn between being sympathetic, elated, or pleased for her pain. “So you credit me for opening your heart to my niece?”
“I do. In a way, you brought us together when she coincidentally showed up at my office for assistance, wanting to find Meercrest.” Jack leaned back in his chair. “I gotta tell ya’, I’m not a past person and hated to look back at that place, facing the unspeakable things that happened there during the thirties and forties. Things, as a family, we swore never to speak about after Meercrest was bulldozed. Nevertheless, in my looking back, I learned about a love that never died in spite of those horrifying acts. In looking to the past, I see how those heinous actions and your deep love for one another changed the future. After reading some of my grandmother’s letters to you, I’m certain that she is who she is today because of you.”
“It did die. Our love died when she married your grandfather soon after I left for England. She didn’t even have the decency to send a ‘Dear John’ letter. Lizzy destroyed what we could have had. But that was long ago, Jack. Five decades and any number of things could have made her the woman she is today, not some love-struck, idealistic fella she met as a young woman.”
“Again, I know for a fact that’s not true. It may be fifty years in the past, but she never stopped loving you. I know this not because she told me but because of how she lived her life, the specific things she did with her life. Your idealism shaped her future. Mr. Martel, your influence in my grandmother’s life acted like a pebble tossed into a pond, creating ripples and waves throughout two generations. Trust me when I tell you that you shaped and changed lives together even though you
were separated.”
“You’re very kind, Jack, but I’m sure the girl I once loved chose to live a different life than the one I thought or hoped she would.”
“Don’t be so sure. Further, it’s obvious that you never stopped loving her, and it’s possible that you’ve been holding onto an unforgiving torment all these years. Am I correct?”
Will didn’t reply. In part because he didn’t like being lectured by Lizzy’s grandson, but also because he didn’t want to give voice to the truth.
“As you gave Julie advice, allow me to give you some. Stop looking at the pain of the past and what happened to separate you and look at the happiness that awaits you in the future with the one person who would make you feel whole again. Someone very wise has recently told me to only think on the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”
Will lied, “I feel whole, Jack, and I don’t often look to the past. What’s the point?”
“You’re in denial. I used to think that way, too.”
Juliana approached the table with a wide grin and a skip in her steps. “Well, how are you two getting along?”
“You found a keeper, Juliana. I might have to like a Robertsen male after all. You’d do well to take my advice,” Will said.
“Did you tell him, Jack?”
“Not yet.”
“What good are you? Sheesh. I leave you to do one thing.”
He joked, “Nag, nag, nag.”
All three laughed and Juliana took her seat. “What he was supposed to tell you was that we’re going to Paris from July 13th to the 20th and you should come, too. We’re staying at the Turenne.”
“In the Marais district?” Will asked, knitting his brow.
“Yes, near the Pletzl,” she stated fully aware of why he asked.
“Why would I want to go to Paris?”
Jack toyed with his empty beer bottle. “Because, I think you need to be there. It’s important; there’s something you need to be a part of.”
“Nah. Paris, especially during that week, isn’t for me. Been there, done that in 1980. I’m happy here fishing. The salmon are spawning you know.”
Will watched as Jack removed a snapshot from the pocket of his denim jacket then slid it across the table to him.
It was Lizzy, and the remembrance of that sunny day in Florida gave him so much pleasure that he smiled wistfully when he picked it up. There they stood in front of his B-26. Ducky and Pistol with his girl’s image painted on the side of the Pistol Packin’ Lizzy. He gazed at it thoughtfully for a couple of minutes then held it out to return to Jack.
“Keep it,” Jack said.
“But it’s yours.”
“No, Mr. Martel it’s yours. It always has been and so has she.”
Juliana removed his pilot wings from the outside of her black corduroy jacket. “This is yours, too. After all, you are Lizzy’s flyboy.”
He picked it up from the table, running his thumb over the engraved details, looking at it remembering the day it was pinned to his chest.
“Oh, and this is yours, too.” She said, placing the engagement ring box in front of him. “I’m sure its intended recipient would like to receive it, even after all these years.”
~~*~~
Thirty-Four
Body and Soul
August 8, 1949
Two nightmarish years of imprisonment as a guest of the Luftwaffe in Stalag Luft I did not inflict the crushing pain Will felt physically at this moment. His head was still reeling from the myriad of revelations that bombarded him in a single afternoon, one that was intended to be a joyful celebration for his brother. With the day long over, he sat alone in the library of Primrose Cottage, nursing a scotch, swirling the liquor at the bottom of the glass, eyes fixed upon the rotation hoping it would hypnotize him, take him away into another mindset than the one he was in. Barefoot and still in his dress shirt, now wrinkled and pulled from his trousers, he slouched in the armchair. He looked over at the matching chair beside it, ever empty, awaiting its always intended occupant. Not a single lamp in Primrose Cottage was lit, and thick rain clouds hovering outside darkened the house all the more. The antique grandfather clock in the corner of the room chimed twelve thirty in the morning. Its singular clang echoed in his ears.
A violent thunderclap startled him from inertia; he shifted in his chair, then mechanically lit a cigarette with the metal flick, whoosh, and click of his Army-issue Zippo. In the darkened room, he could still easily recognize the small details he had arranged at the end of ’42 in optimistic, impulsive anticipation of Lizzy’s residence as Mrs. William Martel upon his return from the war. The empty bookshelf he had planned to fill with her favorites, the globe to choose the places they would travel to together, and the Victor Victrola for the 78 rpm records of the music she loved—once awaiting her arrival, now gathering dust.
The torrential downpour of rain beat against the windowpane, leaving long streaks of tears upon the glass, succinctly reflecting his emotions, taunting him into deeper depressive reflection.
“Damn!” he finally expelled.
He’d had no intention of attending Gordon’s christening today because it was something he felt his brother was foolishly acquiescing to for Lillian’s headstrong sake. In fact, he had flatly refused Louie’s invitation, which was followed by a bitter argument. In truth, though, Louie was never overly religious, and it was Jewish custom to raise a child in his mother’s faith. Will didn’t have it in his heart to argue his case or disrespect his older brother or new nephew by not going to the ceremony at Trinity Lutheran Church. Even though his father helped sway him into attending, he knew it would be difficult to witness, but had no idea just how much and for an entirely different reason. He attended—probably the last spontaneous act he would ever do—and regretted that decision with every fiber of his being.
Seven years had passed since he’d gazed upon Lizzy Renner and when she entered the back of the church with her young, beautiful family, he could hardly breathe at the lovely, loving image she presented. No one had told him she would be there, and he immediately surmised no one had had the courage to tell him she had married, of all men, John—the very man for whom he’d always questioned her affection. Two children clung to her sides and an infant, he learned, was home with a nurse. His heart clenched, squeezing the blood from it at the sight of picture-perfect domesticity. She was breathtaking, and he was spellbound watching her and that tender motherly smile emerge upon her lips as she removed the hat from her daughter. An angelic looking child with curls just like her mother’s, and in spite of her five or six years, she seemed too mature, too serious for one so young, so small.
He knew he would never forget the shocked expression upon Lizzy’s face when she rose from tending the little girl and saw him at the front of the church, holding the infant, Gordon, beside his aging father. It was as though she thought him a ghost. Even John’s expression was somewhat contorted at the realization that he was there, in the flesh, and not some vanquished apparition come to rattle their chains. He wondered about that. Had it been wishful thinking on their part, wishful enough so that their deceit and malice toward him could be hidden forever? He had trusted Lizzy in every way and given his heart to her unequivocally, yet she had cast him aside for the heir of Robertsen Aviation without even a Dear John letter.
The hatred that flared when she and her husband walked toward the front of the church didn’t last, and now he hated himself for that. Hating her wasn’t something he had ever accomplished, in spite of her breaking his heart into a million pieces. His love had been too deep—still was—but his wounds were real and still bleeding.
Will sighed heavily, remembering how gorgeous Lizzy looked this afternoon. She had cut her hair and appeared very fashionable in a black and white dress, but he wondered if it was his jealousy that observed how wrong she looked beside John. For over an hour, he studied them, looking for signs that their marriage and relationship was even a modicum of what they had together; it wasn’
t there. John appeared to care deeply for the babies and her, yet something was missing between them as a couple. Perhaps Lizzy had been reserved, even embarrassed, because of his unexpected presence. He couldn’t be sure.
Over the pastor’s blessing of Gordon, Will’s eyes had locked with hers and something passed between them—unspoken words, but after all these years apart he couldn’t decipher the look she gave him. Her magnificent, green eyes filled with tears, and she bit her lip, a habit she still retained. He wanted nothing more than to go to her and take her into his arms. For a small second, in the space of that halting of time, she was his again. It was only Ducky and Pistol in that church.
Suddenly John’s hand came to rest upon Elizabeth Robertsen’s shoulder, snapping them from their unspoken mourning. The pain in his chest suffocated him: he couldn’t touch her; she was another man’s wife for all eternity; she was the mother of his three children.
Seeing her and remaining in her presence for the sixty-minute ceremony was the most difficult thing he had ever done, even more difficult than safely landing the PPL with a burning engine in Nazi-controlled Belgium. He couldn’t bring himself to stay for the luncheon afterward, and he hoped his brother, sister-in-law, and father understood why. Retreat was warranted, even if it appeared that he was fleeing to lick his wounds. Taking his brother to task for lying, concealing, and making light of Lizzy’s appearance as Mrs. Robertsen would come soon enough.
A knock upon the front door sounded rapidly, bringing Will out of his deep thoughts. He listened through the teeming rain and heard it again. Rising, he walked to the hallway and flicked on the chandelier above the entryway.
He opened the door to the most tantalizing image of Lizzy he had ever seen—wet and standing alone at the threshold, her hair dripping from the deluge outside. His chest hammered in shock, but he controlled his expression, attempting to appear vacant and emotionless.
“May I come in?”
