The Ring (26 page)

Monsieur de Saint Marne. , She felt almost too tired for the etiquette that seemed required by the circumstances and the room.

Yes. He made no move in the wheelchair, but his face bid her approach. He turned welcomingly toward her, Ms eyes still serious, yet somehow warm. That's who I am. Now, who are you?

Ariana ' She hesitated for a moment. Mrs. Manfred von Tripp. , She said it quietly, looking into the gentle eyes that watched her. Manfred told me that if Berlin fell, I was to come here, I'm sorry, I hope that ' The wheels approached her swiftly as she struggled on. He stopped very near to her and held out a hand.

Welcome, Ariana. Please sit down. His face had not yet broken into a joyful welcome. He felt certain that this girl had more to tell him, and he wasn't sure at all that it would be good news.

She sat down quietly, looking into the Frenchman's face. In an odd way he was good-looking, though so totally unlike Manfred that it was almost difficult to imagine that they had been friends. As she sat looking at her husband's schoolmate, Ariana found herself lonelier than ever for the man she would never see again.

How long did it take you to get here? His eyes searched her face as he asked her. He had seen so many like her before. Sick, tired, broken, afraid.

She sighed. Nine days.

You came how?

By car, by horse, by foot, by jeep' . , By barbed wire, by prayer, by almost being raped by a disgusting man.' Her eyes stared emptily at Saint Marne. And then he asked the question he had wanted to ask her from the first.

And Manfred? He said it very softly, and she dropped her eyes.

Her voice was nothing more than a whisper in the grandiose room. He's dead. He died ' in the ' fall of Berlin. She looked up at him then squarely. But he had told me to come to you here. I don't know why I left Germany, except that now I have nothing left there anyway. I had to go.

Your family? His eyes seemed inured to the bad news he had just had about his friend.

In answer to his question, she sighed jaggedly into the silent room. I believe that my father is dead. My mother died before the war. But my brother ' he may be alive still. In Switzerland My father took him there last August to avoid the draft. My father never returned from Switzerland, and I never heard from Gerhard. I don't know if he's alive or not.

Gerhard was to stay? She nodded. And was your father meant to come back?

Yes, to get me. But ' our nurse that is, they called the Nazis. They took me and held me for ransom. They thought my father would be back, too. She looked up at him quietly, After a month, they let me go. Manfred and I ' ? She stopped before the tears came.

Jean-Pierre sighed and pulled a piece of paper toward him on the desk. I assume this is why Manfred sent you to me.

Ariana looked confused then. I think he only sent me to you because you were his friend and he thought that I'd be safe here.

Jean-Pierre de Saint Marne smiled tiredly. Manfred was indeed a very good friend. But a wise one as well. He knows what I've been up to all during the war. I kept in touch. Discreetly, of course. He waved vaguely to the wheelchair, As you can see, I am somewhat ' hampered ' but I have managed very nicely in spite of it. I have became something of a philanthropist, shall we say, bringing families back together, sometimes in other countries, and arranging for Vacations' in warmer climates.

She nodded at the euphemisms. In other words, you've been helping refugees to escape.

Mostly. And now I'm going to spend the next few years attempting to reunite families. That ought to keep me busy for a while.

Then can you help me find my brother?

I'll try. Give me whatever information you have, and I'll see what I can discover. But I'm afraid you have to think of more than that, Ariana. What about you? Where will you go now? Home to Germany?

She shook her head slowly and then looked up at him blankly. I have no one there.

You can stay here for a while. But she knew also that that would not be a permanent arrangement, and then where would she go? She hadn't thought of it at all, hadn't thought of anything.

Saint Marne nodded quietly with sympathetic understanding and made several notes. All right, in the morning I will see what I can do for you. You must tell me everything that you know to help me find Gerhard. If that's what you want me to do. She nodded slowly, scarcely able to absorb it all. His presence, the room, this offer to help her find Gerhard. And in the meantime he smiled gently "you must do something else.

What's that? She tried to return the smile but it was an enormous effort just to look him in the eye and not fall asleep in his intolerably comfortable chair.

What you must do now, dear Ariana, is get some rest. You look very, very tired.

I am.

They all looked like that when they got to him, exhausted, wounded, frightened. She would look better in a day or two, he thought. What a pretty little thing she was, and how unlike Manfred to marry someone so frail, so ethereal, so young. Marianna had been a good deal more solid. First Jean-Pierre was shocked to realize that Ariana was Manfred's new wife. Somehow, he hadn't expected Manfred to marry. He had been so distraught when his wife and children had died. But here was this girl. And he could easily understand Manfred's passion. She was so elfenlike, so pretty, even in her torn, filthy clothes. He would have liked to have seen her with Manfred in better times. And after he was once again alone in the drawing room, he mused to himself about his old friend. Why had he really sent her to him? To wait for him as she had told him, if he had managed to survive the fighting in Berlin? Or did he want something more? Some protection for her? Help in her search for her brother? What? Somehow he felt as though sending her had been a kind of message, and he desperately wanted to decipher what it was. Perhaps, he thought to himself as he sat looking out the window, in time it would become clear.

And in her room, with the view of the pretty cobbled courtyard, Ariana was already fast asleep. She had been put to bed by a kindly middle-aged woman in full skirts and an apron, who had turned back the covers, exposing thick blankets, a comforter, and clean sheets. It seemed a hundred years since Ariana had seen anything so lovely, and without another thought of Jean-Pierre or her brother or even Manfred, she climbed into the bed and slid into a deep sleep.

The next morning Ariana joined Jean-Pierre after breakfast. It was clear in the light of day that she was ill. She sat in his study, her face tinged a sickly green.

Were you sick before you left Berlin?

No, I wasn't.

You may just be worn out from the trip and your loss. He had seen the reaction to grief too many times before. Sweating, vomiting, dizziness. He had seen grown men faint from the sheer relief of at last reaching the safety of his home. But he was less concerned with her physical state than her emotional state right now. Later I'll have a doctor come to see you. But first, I want to find out everything I can about your brother. His description, height, size, weight. Then where was he going, what was he wearing, what were his exact plans. Who did he know? He faced her squarely and one by one she answered all his questions, explaining in detail the plan that her father intended to follow, walking from the train station at L+|rrach across the Swiss border to Basel, where they would take another train to Zurich, and then her father would come back for her. And in Zurich, what?

Nothing. He was simply to wait.

And after that what were the three of you going to do?

Go on to Lausanne, to friends of my father.

Did the friends know you were coming?

I'm not sure. Papa may not have wanted to call them from his house or the office. He may have just planned to call them when he got to Zurich.

Would he have left your brother with their number?

I'm sure he would.

And you never heard from any of them, not the friends, your brother, your father?

She shook her head slowly, No one. And then Manfred said that he was certain that my father was dead.

He could hear in her voice that she had already made peace with that. Now it was the losing of Manfred that she couldn't bear.

But my brother ' Her eyes looked up pleadingly and he shook his head.

Well see. I'll make some calls. Why don't you go back to bed. I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything at all.

You'll come and wake me?

It's a promise. But in the end he didn't bother. He found everything there was to learn within the hour, and it wasn't enough to bother waking Ariana up for. As it turned out, she slept through till nightfall, and when Lisette told him she was finally sitting up in bed and looking better, he wheeled himself into her room. Hello, Ariana, how do you feel?

Better. But she didn't look it. She looked worse. Paler, green, and it was obvious that she had to fight each moment not to be ill No news?

He paused only for an instant, but right away she knew. She looked at him more intently and he held up a hand. Ariana, don't. There is really no news at all. I will tell you what I found out, but it is less than nothing. The boy is gone.

Dead? Her voice trembled. She had always hoped that he might still be alive. Despite what Manfred thought.

Maybe. I don't know. This is what I learned. I called the man whose name you gave me. He and his wife were killed in an automobile accident exactly two days before your father and the boy left Berlin. The couple had no children, the house was sold, and neither the new owners of the house nor the man's associates in the bank ever heard from your brother. I talked to an officer of the bank who knew your father of course, but he never heard from him. It's possible that he left the boy and came for you, and that your father got killed somewhere on the way bade. In which case, eventually the boy would have called the name your father gave him and discovered that they were both dead, husband and wife. Then I assume he would have either contacted the bank where the man worked or figured he was on his own, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work somewhere, simply to survive. But there is no trace of him, Ariana, not in Zurich, not with the central police, not with the bankers in Lausanne. There is not even a trace of Max Thomas. She had given him that name, too. He looked at her unhappily. He had tried desperately all day. But there was nothing. No trace at all. I tried all the usual routes as well as some of my better contacts. No one ever came across the boy. That may be a good sign or a very bad one.

What do you think, Jean-Pierre?

That he and your father died together, between L+|rrach and Basel. He knew by her silence that she was paralyzed with grief. He kept talking to keep contact with her. To pull her through. Ariana, we must go on.

But to where? ' To what? ' And why? She sobbed angrily at him. I don't want to go on. Not now. There's no one left. No but me.

That's enough. That's all I have now.

You, too? She stared at him and blew her nose as he nodded quietly.

My wife was Jewish, When the Germans occupied Paris, they took her and his voice caught strangely and he turned the wheelchair away from Ariana "our little girl. Ariana closed her eyes tightly for a moment. She suddenly felt desperately ill. She couldn't bear it anymore. The endless losses, the immeasurable pain. This man, and Manfred, and Max, she herself, all of them losing people they loved, children and wives and brothers and fathers. She felt the room spinning, herself spinning; she lay down in a feeble attempt to anchor herself. He wheeled her side quietly and gently stroked her hair. I know, ma petite, I know. He didn't even tell her about the one lead he had had. It would only have made the bitter truth harder to bear. There had been a clerk in a hotel in Zurich who thought he remembered a boy like the one Jean-Pierre described. He had struck up a conversation with the boy and remembered he had said was waiting for his relatives. He had been at the hotel alone for two weeks, waiting. But then the clerk remembered that he had met up with the relatives and left. It couldn't have been Gerhard. He had no relatives left, Ariana's father would have told her if this had been part of his plan. It was clear he was a very thorough man. The clerk remembered the boy going off with a couple and their daughter. So it wasn't Gerhard after all. And that had been all. There were no other leads, no other hopeful signs. The boy was gone, and like thousands of others in Europe, Ariana had no one left.

After a long time Jean-Pierre spoke to her again. I have an idea for you. If you're brave enough. It's up to you. But if I were young enough, I'd do it. To get away from all of these countries that have been destroyed, twisted, broken, bombed. I'd go away and start all over again, and that's what I think you should do.

She lifted her head and wiped her eyes. But where? It sounded terrifying. She didn't want to go anywhere. She wanted to stay anchored, hiding in the past forever.

To the States. He said it very quietly. There is a refugee ship leaving tomorrow. It's been arranged by an organization out of New York. Their people will meet the ship when it docks and help you to relocate. What about my father's house in Grunewald? Don't you think I could get that back?

Do you really want it? Could you live there? If you could ever get it back, which I doubt. The truth of his words struck her with force. And then suddenly as he spoke to her, he understood what had been Manfred's message. This was why Ariana had been sent to her husband's boyhood friend. He had known that Jean-Pierre would come up with a solution. And now he knew that this was the right one.

The only question he had was if she was well enough to travel. But he knew from long experience with the people he had helped in the last six years, it would be months before she was herself again. She had simply lost too much, and the nine days of mad running across Germany, after the shock of seeing Manfred dead, had been the final straw. That was all that ailed her really, fatigue, exhaustion, hunger, too much walking, too much sorrow, too much loss. There was also a problem in that there might not be another ship for a long time. Will you do it? Jean-Pierre's eyes never left hers. It could be a whole new life.