Crossings (36 page)

“You're absolutely right.” Mrs. Smith stood up, and Liane didn't like the look in her eye. Maybe she had gone too far, but she didn't give a damn. They had all had enough. Washington had been worse than Paris before or after the occupation, and she was sorry she had come home. They would have been better off living with the Germans in Paris with Armand. And if she could have, she'd have taken the next ship to him. But of course there was none, and she knew very well that Armand would never let her. They hadn't risked their lives to get back to the States just to turn around and go back again four months later. She felt half crazy with frustration.

And now the headmistress of the school was glaring at her with ill-concealed contempt and anger. “You're right. I don't know anything about the war, a ‘goddamn thing,’ as you put it. But I know children, and I know their parents. And parents talk, and children listen. And what they're saying is that your husband is with the Vichy government, that he's collaborating with the Germans. That's not a secret. It's been all over Washington for months. I heard it the first week the girls came back to school. I'm sorry to hear it. I liked your husband. But his children are paying for his political choices, and so are you. That's not my fault, it's not yours, but it's a fact. They're going to have to live with it. And if they can't, they'll have to go back to Paris and go to school with all the other little French and German children. But there's a war on, you know it, I know it, and so do the children. And your husband is on the wrong side of the war. It's as simple as that. I suspect that that's probably why you left him. There happens to be a rumor around too that you're getting divorced. At least that might help the children.”

Liane's eyes blazed as she stood up to face the other woman. “Is that what people are saying?”

Mrs. Smith didn't flinch for a moment. “Yes, it is.”

“Well, it's not true. I love my husband and I back him up one hundred percent in everything he does, including now—especially now. He needs us. And we need him. And the only reason we left Paris is because he wanted to be sure that we weren't killed.” Liane began to cry, like her daughters three days before, out of frustration and hurt and anger.

“Mrs. de Villiers, I'm sorry for what you're going through. But I can only assume from what you say that your entire family is sympathetic to the Germans. And as such, you're going to pay a price for that—”

Liane interrupted her at once, she couldn't bear it a moment longer. “I
hate
Germans!
I hate them!”
She walked to the door and pulled it open. “And I hate you, for what you allowed to happen to my children.”

“We didn't allow it to happen, Mrs. de Villiers. You did.” Her voice was frigid. “And I'm sure that you and they will be much happier with another school. Good day, Mrs. de Villiers.” Liane slammed the door to the office and walked out into the fall sunshine. When she reached home, the girls were anxious to know what had happened. Marie-Ange immediately came running down the stairs.

“Do I have to go back?”

“No! Now go to your room and leave me alone!” She walked into her bedroom and closed the door and sat down on her bed and cried. Why did it all have to be so goddamn difficult? And a little while later her daughters came in, not to pry, but to comfort their mother. She had got control of herself by then, but her eyes were still red from crying and she was angry at Armand as well as everyone else. He had placed them in an untenable position. She feared for him and she loved him, but she hated him too. Why in God's name couldn't he have come home with them? But it wasn't his home, she knew only too well. France was, and he had stayed there to defend the country he loved, but in a way she could explain to no one.

“Mommy? …” Elisabeth advanced slowly toward the bed and put her arms around her mother.

“Yes, love?”

“We love you.” The declaration brought fresh tears to her eyes as she hugged them.

“I love you too.” She looked at Marie-Ange then. “I'm sorry I shouted at you when I came home. I was just very angry.”

“At us?” Her eldest child looked worried.

“No, at Mrs. Smith. She doesn't understand about Papa.”

“Couldn't you explain it to her?” Elisabeth looked disappointed. She liked her school, even if no one invited her to their houses to play anymore. But she liked going to school, even if Marie-Ange didn't.

Liane shook her head. “No, I couldn't explain it, sweetheart. It's much too complicated to explain to anyone right now.”

“So we don't have to go back?” Marie-Ange hammered the point home.

“No, you don't. I'll have to find you both a new school.”

“In Washington?”

“I don't know.” For the last half hour she had been asking herself the same question. “I'll have to think it out.” The next weekend was Thanksgiving, But that afternoon was the last straw. She saw Elisabeth standing near the hall phone, crying. “What's the matter, love?” She suspected that she missed her friends, if she still had any.

“Nancy Adamson just called to tell me that Mrs. Smith told everyone we had been kicked out of school.”

Liane was horrified. “She said that?” Elisabeth nodded. “But it's not true. I told her …” She rapidly reviewed the conversation in her head, and realized that Mrs. Smith had told her that the children would be happier somewhere else and she had agreed. She sighed and sat down on the floor beside her youngest child. “We agreed that you shouldn't go back. No one kicked you out.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm positive.”

“Do they hate me?”

“Of course not!” But after what they had done to the girls on Friday, that was a tough one to prove to either child.

“Do they hate Papa?”

Liane considered her words. “No. They don't understand what he's doing.”

“What
is
he doing?”

“Trying to save France so that we can all go back someday to live.”

“Why?”

“Because that's what Papa does. All his life he has represented France in a lot of different countries. He takes care of France's interests. And that's what he's doing now. He's trying to take care of France so the Germans don't ruin it forever.”

“Then why does everyone say he loves the Germans? Does he?” She was exhausted by the child's questions, but each one needed a thoughtful answer. What she said now would stay with the children for years, and she knew it. They would always remember what she said, and it would color their views about their father and themselves for a lifetime.

“No, Papa doesn't love the Germans.”

“Does he hate them?”

“I don't think Papa hates anyone. But he hates what they're doing to Europe.” Elisabeth nodded slowly. It was what she had needed to hear, and it made her father a good guy.

“Okay.” She stood up then and went slowly upstairs to find her sister. And that night, Liane thought long and hard. She had to do something, and putting them in another Washington school wasn't a solution. She already knew the answer to her own questions, but she hated to do it. She decided to sleep on it one more night, but the next morning, she still had the same answer. She dialed the operator and asked her to place the call. She had waited until noon eastern time to call, which was nine o'clock for him in California. He came to the phone at once, his voice gruff.

“Liane? Is something wrong?”

“No, Uncle George, not really.”

“You sound sick or tired or something.” He was a canny old man. In truth, she was both, but she wouldn't admit it now. She was going home with her tail between her legs and that was bad enough.

“I'm all right.” She decided to get right to the point. “Do you still want us to come out?”

“Of course!” He sounded pleased, and then, “You mean you've finally come to your senses?”

“I guess you could call it that. I want to change the girls’ school, and I thought that as long as I was doing that, we might as well make a big change and come out to California.” He sensed instantly that there were deeper reasons than that. She was far too stubborn to have given in unless she was almost beaten. And she was. More so than he knew.

They made arrangements, Liane all the while holding back tears of anger, but she was grateful that she had somewhere to go. Things could have been a lot worse. There were people all over Europe who were homeless. “Uncle George?”

“Yes, Liane?”

“Thank you for letting us come.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Liane. This is your home too. It always has been.”

“Thank you.” He had made it easy for her and he hadn't mentioned Armand. She went to tell the girls.

Marie-Ange looked at her strangely then. “We're running away, aren't we, Mom?”

It was almost more than she could bear. She felt so drained that she couldn't stand one more question. “No, Marie-Ange”—she spoke to her daughter in a voice that surprised the child—“we're not running away any more than we were when we left Paris. We're doing the right thing, at the right time, in the best way we know how. It may not be what we like, but it's the smartest choice we've got, and that's why we're going to do it.” And with that she told the girls to go out to play. She needed some time to herself. And she stood at her bedroom window, watching them. They had grown up a lot in the last four months, and so had she, more than some people grow up in an entire lifetime.

iane and the girls had a quiet Thanksgiving dinner alone in Washington before they left. It was as though they were living in a town where they were strangers. No one called, no one dropped by, no one invited them to share their turkey dinner. Like millions of others in the nation, they went to church that morning, and came home to carve their turkey, but they might as well have been on a desert island when they did it.

And the next weekend they packed up the things they had bought when they arrived, and Liane put everything on a train to the West Coast. On Monday, they boarded the train, and for just a brief moment, as they sat down in their sleeper, Liane thought of Nick and when she had last seen him at Grand Central Station. It seemed a thousand years ago now, though it had been only four months. But they had been very long months for Liane and the girls. She felt relief as the train pulled slowly out of the station. None of them were sorry to leave Washington. It had been a mistake to come back. Armand had told her to go back to San Francisco, right from the first, but she couldn't have known then what they knew now, the price they would pay for his association with Pétain and the Vichy government.

The trip across the country was both monotonous and peaceful. The girls played and read, kept each other amused, and sometimes fought, which kept Liane busy. But much of the time she slept. She felt as though she were regaining her strength after almost five agonizing months of tension, not to mention the months of tension before that. In truth, life hadn't been normal for them for over a year. It never had been since they arrived in Paris nearly eighteen months before. And now suddenly she was able to relax and think of absolutely nothing. Only when they stopped in various stations and she read the papers was she reminded of the rest of the world, and their troubles. The British were being bombed day and night, and the streets were apparently filled with rubble. Children were still being evacuated whenever possible, and Churchill had ordered the RAF to bomb Berlin, which only redoubled Hitler's efforts to destroy London.

But all of that was hard to believe as they rolled through the snow-covered fields of Nebraska, and watched the Rockies appear in Colorado. And at last on Thursday morning, they awoke, within hours of San Francisco. They pulled into the city from the south, through the ugliest part of town, and Liane was surprised that it still looked so familiar. Very little had changed since she had come back for the last time after her father's death eight years before.

“Is this it?” Marie-Ange looked shocked. The children had never been to San Francisco. There had been no reason to bring them here. Her father was gone, and Uncle George had passed through the various cities where they had lived over the years.

“Yes.” Liane smiled. “But it's much prettier than this. This isn't a very nice part of town.”