Crossings (26 page)

“I stay with Pétain.” The words fell from him like rocks. but in sharing it with her, it took a burden off his shoulders. She only shook her head and cried as she listened, and then she looked at him, brokenhearted.

“I don't believe you.”

“I have to.”

“Why?” It was a single word of accusation as she cried uncontrollably beside him.

And then he spoke to her in a whisper. “I can serve France better this way.”

“With Pétain? You're crazy!” She was shouting at him, but suddenly she saw something in his eyes and sat very still on the bed as she watched him. “What do you mean?” She lowered her voice, and he took her hands in his own.

“Ma
Liane … what a good woman you have been … so brave and strong all this winter … stronger than I sometimes …”He sighed deeply and spoke so that only she could hear him. “Pétain trusts me. He knows me from the First World War. I fought well for him, and he believes I will again.”

“Armand, what are you saying?” They were speaking in hushed whispers and she wasn't even sure why, except that suddenly she suspected that he was about to tell her what she had wondered about for months.

“I'm telling you that I will stay here in Paris and work for Pétain.”

“Working for the Germans?” But it was not an accusation now. It was a question.

“So it will appear.”

“And in truth?”

“I will be working for the others, in every way I can. There will be resistance from many quarters. The government may go to North Africa. I will stay in close touch with Reynaud, De Gaulle, the others.”

“And if you're caught, they'll kill you.” The tears barely staunched began again now. “For God's sake, what are you doing?”

“The only thing I can now. I'm too old to run to the hills with the others. And that isn't what I'm good at. I've been with the diplomatic service all my life. I know what I need to do to help them. I speak German—” He didn't finish the sentence, and suddenly she pulled him close to her and held him.

“Something will happen. … I couldn't bear it….”

“Nothing will happen. I will be very cautious. I will be safe here,” But from his words she sensed what he was going to say next and she didn't want to hear it. “But I want you and the girls to go back to the States now, as soon as we can get you out of France.”

“I won't leave you.”

“You have no choice. I shouldn't have let you stay in September. But I wanted you here with me—” His voice faltered and then he went on. He knew how hard the past nine months had been for her, and he was sorry he had kept her beside him. It had been selfish and he knew it. But now those days were over. “You will endanger my mission if you stay, Liane … and the girls … it will be too dangerous for them here now, with the Germans all over Paris. You have to go when I can arrange it.” She hoped that he would not be able to arrange it quickly. It terrified her to think of leaving him in France, acting as a double agent, against the Germans and Pétain.

But despite her fears for him, when he left her again to go back to confer with Pétain and the Germans a little while later, she was relieved as she hadn't been in months. She had suspected that something was going on and the ignorance of what it was had almost killed her. She had even come to distrust him, to suspect him. And now she felt guilty about that. But she also felt something for him that she hadn't felt for a long, long time. A kind of passionate respect and affection. He had confided in her. He trusted her, and she believed in him as she had in the very beginning. As Paris fell, their marriage rose from the ashes, and she went to make breakfast for the girls with a lighter heart than she had felt in a very long time.

That afternoon, Pétain was installed as the official head of France. As Armand had foretold, Reynaud fled to Bordeaux. Brigadier General Charles de Gaulle went to London to discuss getting troops to North Africa, and Churchill vowed to assist the French Resistance in every way he could. De Gaulle broadcast a brief speech into France on June 18, begging those still faithful to France “to carry on the fight,” and Liane listened to him avidly on a radio concealed in her dressing room, lest the house be invaded suddenly by the Germans. One could no longer be certain of one's safety, Armand had warned her since the fall of Paris. That night she recounted the speech to Armand. He told her then that he was researching a ship for her. It was imperative that he get her out of France quickly. To do it later would arouse suspicion among Pétain's men. Why would his wife want to leave? But if she left immediately after the fall of Paris, he could explain that Liane as an American disapproved of his loyalties and they had had a parting of the ways, and she wanted to go home.

Four days later Armand went to Compiègne, in the North of France, to watch Hitler, Goering, and Keitel, Chief of Hitler's Supreme Command, read the conditions of their occupation and officially become the masters of France. It was a ceremony that tore at his soul, and as the band played “Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles,” he thought he might faint, but he smiled valiantly through it all, and in his heart he prayed that one day the occupation would end. He would gladly have given his life at that moment to buy back France from the Germans. And when he returned to Liane that night, he looked worse than she had ever seen him. He was a man who had looked so youthful for so many years, but in the past months she had watched him grow old. And for the first time in many years, he turned to her that night in their bed and touched her with the gentleness and passion she remembered from long ago. They lay side by side afterward, thinking their own thoughts and dreams, as Armand tried to force from his mind what he'd seen that day. He had watched his country, his first love, being raped. Liane sat up on one elbow then and looked down at him, and she could see that there were tears trickling slowly from his eyes.

“Don't, my love …” She pulled him close to her. “It will all end one day soon.” But she wished that he were in Bordeaux with the others, and not dancing on the tightrope he had committed himself to here in Paris.

He took a deep breath then and looked at her. “I have something to tell you, Liane.” She wondered what more he could tell her now, and for an instant there was a flash of fear in her eyes. “I have found a ship for you and the girls. A freighter. She's still outside Toulon. I'm not sure they know about her yet, and she's not important enough for them to care. I received word through the underground. She has stayed off the coast, a good distance out. A fishing boat crossed her path a week ago and told her of the fall of France. And now she waits. She was going to head back to North Africa to serve the government, but there are still others like you here, and this may be the last chance to get out. I'm going to take you to Toulon myself. A fishing boat will take you out. It's dangerous, but it will be far more dangerous for you here.”

“It will be much more dangerous for you, Armand.” She sat up quietly in their bed and looked sadly down at the only man she had ever loved. “Why don't you go to North Africa to serve the government?”

He shook his head. “I can't. They have their work to do there. I have mine here.” He smiled sadly. “You have yours as well. You must leave here, taking my secret with you, and our girls. And you must keep them safe until this madness ends. And then you can come to me again.” He sighed and his mouth formed a bittersweet smile. “I may even retire then.” But who knew when that would be?

“You should retire now.”

“I'm not that old.”

“You've given enough.”

“I will give them my best now.” She knew he would and could only pray that it would not cost him his life.

“Is there nothing less dangerous you can do for France?”

“Liane …” He pulled her into his arms. She knew her husband very well. It was much, much too late to change his mind. She was only glad that he had told her the truth before they left France. It would have killed her to believe him allied sincerely with Pétain. At least now she knew the truth. She would not be able to tell anyone, lest her indiscretion cost him his life, but at least she knew, and one day they would tell the girls, who were too young to understand anyway for now.

It took her a long time to gather up the courage to ask him what she least wanted to know. “How soon do we leave?”

For a moment he didn't answer her, and then he pulled her tighter still. “Tomorrow night.” She gasped at his words, and in spite of her best efforts to be brave, her shoulders shook and she began to cry.

“Shhh …
mon ange … ça ne vaut pas la peine
… we will be together again soon.” But God only knows when. They lay awake side by side for a long time that night, and Liane wished, as the sun came up, that the night would never end.

hey made their trip to Toulon by back roads in a borrowed car with their headlights off, and Armand's new official papers with them in the car. Liane wore a black dress and a black scarf. She had dressed the girls in slacks and shirts and sensible shoes. They each carried one small bag with their things. The rest they would have to leave in France. They spoke very little on the trip. The girls slept, and Liane glanced at Armand frequently, as though to drink in her last hours of him. She could scarcely believe that in a few hours she and the girls would be gone.

“This will be worse than my last year in school,” she joked in a soft voice as the girls slept. And they both remembered the year they were engaged, when he was in Vienna and she at Mills College in Oakland. But this could go on for much longer than a year, as they both knew. No one knew for how long. Hitler had a firm grip on Europe's throat, and it would take time to loosen his grasp. But she knew that Armand would do all he could to make the end come soon. And there were scores of others just as devoted as he was. Even the children's nurse had astonished her. Liane had told her regretfully that she was taking the girls back to the States, and that they could not take her along. And she had been amazed to find Mademoiselle pleased. She told Liane bluntly that she would not work for one of the followers of Pétain, and then, in a passionate outburst, she admitted that she was going to leave them anyway, she was going to join the Resistance centered in the heart of France. It was a brave admission for her to make, but she trusted Liane, and the two women hugged and wept, and the girls cried when she left them earlier that day. It had been a long, painful day of good-byes, but the worst of all came on a creaking dock in Toulon as Armand handed the girls to the powerful men on the fishing boat. They clung to each other and cried, and then Liane held on to him for a last time, her eyes begging him, her voice beyond control.

“Armand, come with us…. Darling, please …” But he only shook his head, his body ramrod straight, and his arms as powerful as they had always been.

“I have a job to do here.” He looked once more at the girls and then at her. “Remember what I told you. I will get letters to you, censored or not, in whatever way I can. And even when you hear not a single word, know that I am well … be confident, my love … be brave …” His voice began to crack and tears filled his eyes as well, but he looked down at her and smiled. “I love you with all my heart and soul, Liane.” She choked on her own sobs and kissed him on the mouth and then gently he pushed her into the men's hands. “Godspeed, my love …
Au revoir, mesfilles….”
And without waiting a moment more the boat pulled out and left him there, waving in the night in his pin-striped suit, his mane of white hair blowing in the summer breeze.
“Au revoir
…”He whispered it again as the little fishing boat was swallowed up by the dark of night.
“Au revoir
…” And he prayed it was not adieu.