Those Who Are Saved

by Alexis Landau

  “You know. That faceless chorus always judging you, deeming everything you do as either praiseworthy or terribly wrong.”

  “Yeah,” Sasha added softly, “I know what you mean.”

  She curled up into the crook of his arm, and felt his warm pliant skin against her cheek, and closed her eyes, shutting out the white walls, the crashing waves, the sound of a couple stumbling down the hallway. She wanted to shut out everything and listen to the rise and fall of his breath, proof that he was still here, that she was still here, and that the night still held them. The sky lightened into a silvery gray, and sleep finally took her, dreamless and rich.

  Chapter 29

  VERA

  February 1945, Malibu, California

  Her eyes closed, fluttered open, and closed again, the unfamiliar motel bathroom blurring in the corners of her vision, until she looked up, her chin dripping water, and caught Lucie in the mirror. She was eighteen, fully grown, calmly watching Vera, as though reassuring her that it was all right. Believe me, she seemed to say, and then the image vanished and Vera reeled, gripping the sink, and whispered into the still air, “Lucie? Lucie?”

  * * *

  • • •

  In the milky dawn, she steadied herself against the door frame, her heart pounding. She watched Sasha sleep, the room filled with the sound of the ocean tides rushing in and then receding back out again. She could listen to it forever, the sound a sanctuary, as she knew that if the tides stopped, it meant the world had stopped. Glancing around the room, she noted the same paintings of the redwood forest on the walls, her silk evening dress hanging over the chair in front of the armoire, and Sasha still here. Last night, meeting him on the stairs at Villa Aurora and then impulsively leaving with him wasn’t something she would normally do. But the meaning of “normal” or “expected” didn’t amount to much anymore.

  She went back into the bathroom and waited in the blue quiet, willing Lucie to reappear, but the visitation, or whatever it was, had passed. Still, Vera remained there, wondering whether if she sat very still on the bathtub ledge, it would happen again. Closing her eyes, she tried to feel Lucie’s presence, but she only heard seagulls’ cries echoing off the ocean, and then water running from the neighboring bathroom, and the sense that the day was beginning.

  * * *

  • • •

  She got back into the bed with Sasha, self-conscious in her nakedness, tucking the sheet around her. She hadn’t been naked in front of anyone else except for Max. He knew her body, its idiosyncrasies, and this shared intimacy grew over the ugly parts of themselves, but she didn’t know how she really looked to someone else, in this unfiltered, unmarried light. His back faced her, and his olive skin, the broad outline of his shoulders, appeared so different from her husband’s back. The sight startled her, and yet she reached out and touched his shoulder, holding her breath, wondering about the war, where he was when he got shot. What he saw and experienced, and carried within him now. He twitched in his sleep. Did the image in the mirror mean that Lucie was dead, a secret signal to Vera that she had finally crossed over into another realm, spirited outside of time? Or was she still alive, closer than before, and that was why she came to Vera, to convey her proximity, and perhaps, Vera considered, her palm cupping his warm shoulder, had Sasha even triggered Lucie’s appearance?

  She sighed and turned onto her back, staring at the white ceiling, wooden beams running through it, realizing how it looked, waking up in a cheap motel room on the beach next to this American, even if he seemed so wholly good, bursting with optimism, with the idea that you could just leave a room if you didn’t want to stay in it, and you could fight a terrible war and return unscathed, sleeping soundly through the night.

  Reaching over to the nightstand, she found a pack of his cigarettes and pulled one out, sinking back into the headboard, Max’s voice in her head: This is how you deal with your grief? Sleep with an American? As if he could ever understand you? It’s embarrassing, Vera . . . She lit the cigarette, holding the smoke in her throat, trying to push his voice out of her head—was she imagining Max’s thoughts, or were these her own?

  Sasha stirred. He turned toward her, his eyes opening, searching for hers. She discarded the cigarette in the ashtray next to the bed and sank down to his level, and for a moment, she allowed herself to be captured by his sweetness and light, by his sincere happiness at waking up next to her, as though this were the first morning of their lives.

  He asked if she was all right, pulling her close to him, and she hedged, mentioning the vividness of a recent dream, afraid to tell him about Lucie in the mirror. It was too soon. He said he also had strange dreams, dreams that felt like they would never end, before admitting that he’d watched her sleep. She blushed, self-conscious again, and then she got up to dress, allowing him to see her in this unadulterated light, realizing how different it felt to walk across the room and slip into her dress while he watched her from the bed, closely and carefully, unlike Max. They’d grown so used to each other, they didn’t really see each other anymore, their bodies muted, daily exchanges as colorless as water, unless it was a fight, both of them electrified by the anger, and only then did she feel close to Max again. No, she thought, the black silk cool against her skin, that wasn’t a way to live, ricocheting between nothing and rage.

  * * *

  • • •

  Over breakfast, Sasha asked how she got to America, and if it was difficult to get out of France. Haltingly, she recounted the story of how they had to flee, forced to leave their daughter, Lucie, behind.

  “I believed the free zone would stay free, and we’d get her back. That the war would end soon.” She scrutinized the silverware, pushing the prongs of the fork into her index finger. “I was wrong. About everything. We had to leave quickly. Our governess, Agnes, took Lucie to her hometown, and hid her there. For two years she wrote me letters. Coded, of course, but I knew Lucie was well looked after. Children become letters—a woman told me this at Gurs. I suppose that woman felt sorry for me, but the phrase still haunts.” She stopped to observe the waitress balancing a tray laden with plates.

  “I’m sorry.” His eyes softened, not looking away as she’d thought he might.

  Through the window, Vera stared out at a few swimmers subsumed by waves, little dots in green foam, and continued. “Last June, the war almost seemed over, with the Allies flooding into France, liberating town after town. I had so much hope.” She stared at him. “You know?”

  “Yeah,” Sasha said, leaning toward her across the table. “After D-Day, it felt like the end was close. But it wasn’t. Still isn’t.”

  She lit a cigarette, clenching the lighter with too much effort. “It felt so close for us too, as if I could almost see Lucie before me. But”—she exhaled a mouthful of smoke—“Agnes lived in Oradour-sur-Glane, where she was hiding Lucie.” After a moment, she saw from his expression that he registered the town, remembering what had occurred there.

  “In my mind, she’s still four, wearing that black pinafore and reciting those patriotic French songs.” Her eyes widened, glistening with tears.

  He leaned forward and placed his hand over hers. “Oh, God, Vera. I’m so sorry.” And then he said all anyone wants is to survive, to live; that’s what she had tried to do for Lucie, hiding her in that town, but how it happens is up to fate and circumstance. He told her that during the war, he wasn’t some hero who deserved the Purple Heart; he only wanted to survive, to get through it. “If I’d stopped even for a second to look around that beach, or stumbled and didn’t keep running, I wouldn’t have made it . . .” He trailed off, passing a hand through his hair, and she wondered if he was trying to reassure her, to convey that she had acted to the best of her abilities, given the immediate decisions those days demanded, and that the slightest hesitation would have killed her, and killed Lucie.

  Tossing a crumpled bill onto the table, Sasha whispered, “Let’s
get out of here.”

  * * *

  • • •

  He guided her down the rickety wooden steps leading to the beach, the wide-open sky a relief from the oppressive clamor of the restaurant. They walked along the lapping shoreline, his hand finding hers, their strides coalescing into a shared rhythm; she felt his calluses, and then the softness in the middle of his palm. They came to the black wet rocks that encroached on the sand, where they couldn’t walk any farther without crawling over them. She hooked both arms around his waist and tilted back, as if he were a sturdy tree, the sun delicious on her skin.

  Closing her eyes, Vera pictured Sasha fighting in France, breathing the same air as Lucie and walking beneath the same sky, and she wondered if he would somehow lead her to Lucie.

  Chapter 30

  SASHA

  February 1945, Malibu, California

  The cold ocean washed over their feet, and his head lightened in the sun, and he was aware again that they were new to each other, despite how at home he felt with her. But the morning was fragile, the air made of glass, her movements so quick and bird-like that it startled him when she took out a cigarette, her hand cupping the blue flame until it lit, and asked about his film.

  Sasha shrugged. “We have three more days of shooting. I hope by the end of it, there will be something there. Something good.”

  She slid her hand under his shirt. “It will be good.”

  They turned back toward the restaurant, which from here looked like a tiny box on stilts. She picked up a violet seashell, a miniature fan in her palm, and asked him what it was like, to write screenplays.

  While Sasha talked about starting as late as possible into the story, his thoughts were on Vera. He didn’t know how she would ever fully recover. All she had was the official record of the massacre, her daughter’s name missing from the list of the dead, a name that would forever remain unaccounted for. Sasha saw it on Vera’s face, that whisper of hope trailing her, driving her to search further and further, until what? She found a record of death? Something tangible that would prove Lucie’s fate?

  His hand spread over the small of her back as they walked. “You don’t want to spend a lot of time on backstory. That just weighs everything down, makes the script cave in on itself.”

  That whisper of hope suggesting Lucie might not have died and could be alive somewhere else, somehow, this type of hope was the worst kind.

  Then again, he’d seen amazing things: families hiding in a hole in the forest; tunnels dug deep beneath the border through which the lucky few passed into Switzerland; children stowed away in cellars who managed, somehow, to quietly stay alive.

  But the thought seemed far-fetched, a fantasy of the living about the dead.

  * * *

  • • •

  Sasha drove her back to Villa Aurora, and the image of Vera getting out of the car, still wearing her black evening dress, a disbelieving smile playing across her lips and the small wave she gave him when he drove away replayed in his mind.

  They had shared the night together, but at the same time, he didn’t know if she would see him again. Plagued by uncertainty and guilt over her daughter, Vera couldn’t be with him, or maybe with anyone, he realized, until she knew the truth. He felt a sharp stab at the thought of not seeing her again; it took him by surprise, the sense that she was already slipping away from him and there was nothing he could do about it.

  He recalled the moment when he woke up next to her, and she was already awake, her dark liquid eyes abstracted, captivated by a parallel life that washed over the present, muting it, as if she’d been somewhere else, far away, maybe reuniting with her daughter in dreams. And then it jarred him when she asked about his dreams, as if she knew he’d dreamed of his father. The dream started the same way as the memory: He was riding on his father’s shoulders through the Rumbula forest, the sharp smell of pine trees gathering around them, branches crunching under his boots as he sang about the little man alone in the forest, his voice melodious and sweet, the two of them laughing, Sasha’s hands cupping his stubbled cheeks. He didn’t want to let go, but his father started rushing, rushing him back to his mother—he had to leave now. At the house, his mother pulled him from his father’s shoulders. Sasha cried, as if he’d been pulled from the world.

  * * *

  • • •

  At the moment, his outfit, the 16th Infantry, was pushing through Faymonville into Belgium to breach the Siegfried Line. He had a map tacked up over his desk to track them, putting a red pin in every city they took: Kreuzau, Vettweiss, Gladbach, Metternich. Sasha knew that even if the Germans retreated and surrendered without much of a fight, his unit still fought the harsh cold—frostbite, trench foot, and damp fatigues—as they trudged across icy landscape, wrapped in snow capes, white blankets, anything to blend into the snowy background. Keeping track of the guys eased some of the guilt that he wasn’t with them, seeing it through to the bitter end, while at the same time, he felt lucky to be home, working, with all his limbs, and his mind, intact.

  * * *

  • • •

  Are you even listening to me?” Hedy snapped the next day on set.

  “You’re worried about the scene,” Sasha said, trying to focus, but these last days of shooting had dragged, leaving everyone restless. And Charlie had just submitted The In-Between Man to the major studios. The response wasn’t great.

  The light was fading, and Ernest, the cameraman, signaled that they needed another take, fast, before the sun went. With only a few days left of shooting, Lambert sat in a director’s chair, his heavy tweed thighs jutting out, arms crossed over his chest, nervous they might go over budget.

  Sasha scratched his neck. “Two more takes. Hedy, let’s try it out with the kiss on top of the hand. And then we’ll wrap.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Sasha walked to his car, the sky purpling, mulling over tomorrow’s call sheet, depressed by the studios’ response to The In-Between Man. Charlie had called him last night with the news that they found it un-American and unpatriotic—no one wanted to touch it. Sasha argued that it dared to show humanity in its true light, not how it’s supposed to be, and it frustrated him when Charlie served up the same pat response about writing more sympathetic characters. He didn’t understand why characters couldn’t be sympathetic because they were deeply flawed and the audience witnessed them grappling with their flaws instead of skipping around as if they were the greatest people on earth. Thinking about this, he half listened to Lambert trying to convince him to come to Chasen’s for ribs and chili. “I hear they have a barber and a sauna in the back,” Ernest added, and then the second AD mentioned that Gary Cooper played Ping-Pong there on Friday nights.

  But Sasha knew how these evenings went. After Chasen’s, they’d move on to the Troc, or La Rue for another drink and then a nightcap. His first AD, Jack, was going to a fight at the Hollywood Legion Stadium, which was vaguely tempting, but he owed his mother a telephone call.

  On the way home, he stopped at the grocery for a pint of vanilla ice cream and root beer for Christopher. The boy usually waited up for him, hawk-like, on the cracked apartment steps, but when Sasha pulled onto the street, he wasn’t there, the windows dark.

  * * *

  • • •

  He propped up his feet on his desk and ate Christopher’s ice cream straight from the carton. After the operator put him through, the telephone rang and rang.

  Maybe their dinner guests were still there, or it was bingo night at the country club.

  When he was about to hang up, Dubrow’s muffled voice flooded the line. “Sasha?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, I’m glad you called.”

  He abandoned the spoon in the ice cream. “Everything all right?”

  “Your mother. She’s been complaining. I told her to see a doctor, but she refuses.”

  �
�She hates doctors. Thinks they make people sick.”

  Dubrow sighed. “Don’t I know it.” And then he broke into a litany of her symptoms. A swollen stomach, pelvic pain. Her skirts and slacks didn’t fit anymore, tight around the middle. Yesterday the housekeeper said she’d found some bloodstains in Leah’s laundry.

  “Could you put her on, please?” Sasha asked.

  The line crackled with static, and then Dubrow’s voice intoned her name. It took a while. Sasha started pacing the small length of the room, holding the phone up against his ear, watching the cord’s curlicues elongate into a reluctant line.

  “Sasha?” She sounded out of breath.

  “Ma?”

  “You called later than usual.”

  “Okay,” he said, trying to detect something different in her voice.

  “Don’t call so late next time.”

  “How are you, Ma?”

  “Me?”

  “Who else do you think I’m talking about?”

  She laughed a little. “There’s nothing new over here. Just a mountain of snow in the driveway, the streetlights are out, and Doris threatened to quit again.”

  “Hmmm,” Sasha said, noticing Gloria’s kitchen light flickering on, followed by belligerent yelling.

  “How’s the picture going? Something about an outlaw? I don’t know why you don’t make something more romantic. A love story. Everyone loves a love story.”

  He sank into his swivel chair. “There is a love story in it . . . remember?” The ice cream carton left a creamy halo on the desk. “Ma, what’s going on? You’re talking too fast, like you don’t want me to know something.”