Lilac Girls

  “You need help, Caroline?” Paul asked.

  David, drunk as he was, lifted his head at the sound of Paul’s voice.

  “Who’s this?” David said, as if confronting an apparition.

  “Paul Rodierre. You met him today in the park.”

  “Oh.” David straightened. “How would your mother feel about—”

  I took him by the arm. “You need to leave, David.”

  He groped for my hand. “Come with me, C. Even Mother misses you.”

  This was doubtful. Even after knowing me for years, Mrs. Stockwell still referred to me as “the actress.”

  “Don’t call me C, David. And you’re married. Remember? ‘The wedding of the decade’ the papers called it?”

  He looked at Paul as if he’d forgotten he was there. “God, man, put some clothes on.” David leaned into me, his blue eyes pink-rimmed. “Caroline, you can’t possibly think he’s good for you—”

  “You have no say in my life, David. You gave that up on one knee in front of everyone at the Badminton Club. Did you have to propose at Father’s club? He got your father in there.”

  Paul walked back to the bedroom. With any luck he was going back to the bed.

  “It’s a meaningful place to us. Sally and I won mixed doubles there.”

  News of Sally and David’s triumphant badminton win had been all over The Sun and trumpeted by the likes of Jinx Whitney, my Chapin nemesis. I’d never liked the Badminton Club, even when Father was alive. Any club with a shuttlecock in its crest cannot be taken seriously.

  Paul came back to us in the vestibule, this time buttoned up and wearing pants.

  “Maybe you two can finish this another time?” He slipped his overcoat on.

  “You’re leaving?” I said, trying not to sound desperate.

  “David needs to be shown out, and I have early rehearsal tomorrow.” He leaned to me and kissed one cheek. I breathed him in as he kissed the other and murmured in my ear, “Aubergine is your color.”

  Paul pulled our impromptu guest out the door and downstairs as David protested, using his full repertoire of curse words. It was certainly painful to watch Paul go. He’d left my virtue intact, but was it the last chance for me? At least it hadn’t been Mother at the door.

  —

  I MADE IT THROUGH the holiday season, spending more time than was probably healthy with Paul. We listened to a lot of jazz up in Harlem, side by side in a halo of candlelight. He’d taken on a roommate, a member of the Streets of Paris supporting cast, and Mother was back in New York, so it was near impossible to find private time. I saw his play seven times, watching the company of one hundred go through their paces. In addition to playing a lead role, Paul sang and danced in the show, demonstrating great range. What could he not do? The poster for the show boasted the cast included 50 PARISIAN BEAUTIES. With all that female companionship available, it was a mystery why Paul chose to spend his free time with me.

  —

  THINGS GREW ALMOST UNBEARABLY tense at the consulate that spring of 1940, and I practically lived at the office. As Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway on April 9, sending a new wave of panic through the consulate, the world braced for the worst.

  One chilly late April day, Paul asked me to meet him at the observation deck atop the RCA Building after work. He said he wanted to ask me something. What was it? I’d already offered to sign as Rena’s visa sponsor, so that wasn’t it. The thought teased me all day. We often met up there to look at the stars through the telescope, but I had a feeling he wanted to talk about something other than Ursa Minor. He’d hinted we should costar in something. Maybe a one-act play? Something off-Broadway? I would consider it, of course.

  I made it up to the deck early as usual, and waited.

  A trio of nurses huddled in yellow Adirondack chairs, which ran down the middle of the deck, then snapped pictures of one another in front of the sign that read A PROOF OF YOUR VISIT. BE PHOTOGRAPHED ON THE RCA OBSERVATION ROOF. Only an elbow-high iron railing separated us from the edge, so all of Manhattan lay below us, the East River to our east, and Central Park to our north, like a lumpy brown Sarouk rug someone had unfurled down the middle of Manhattan. To our south, the Empire State Building rose up, and to the west the Fiftieth Street docks jutted into the Hudson, lined with ships waiting their turn to sail. Below us, a message painted in white stood out, bright in the deepening gloam, against Macy’s dark roof: MACY’S. IT’S SMART TO BE THRIFTY.

  Paul arrived, a bouquet of muguet in hand.

  “These are early but I hope you don’t mind.”

  Of course he referred to the French tradition of giving loved ones lily-of-the-valley on May 1. I closed my hand around the emerald stems and inhaled the sweetness.

  “Hopefully next May first we’ll be together in Paris,” he said.

  I slid the bouquet under the décolletage of my dress, the stems cold against my chest. “Well, New York is lovely on May Day—”

  I stopped. How had I not noticed? He was more formally dressed than usual, a red silk handkerchief in the pocket of his navy-blue jacket. He was leaving?

  “You’re looking chic,” I said. “You’ve broken out the white flannels. Some people dress that way to travel.”

  It was too late to beg him to stay. Why had I not spoken up sooner?

  Paul pointed to the harbor. “I’m taking the Gripsholm. Seven-thirty call.”

  Tears pricked at my eyes. “A Swedish ship?”

  “Hitching a ride with the International Red Cross, thanks to Roger. Göteborg and then on to France. Would have told you sooner, but just found out myself.”

  “You can’t go now, what with all the U-boats and X-craft out there? Surely it isn’t safe. You’ll be sitting ducks on the water. And what about Rena’s visa?”

  “Roger says it may be another month before I find out.”

  “Maybe if Roger calls Washington…”

  “There will be no last-minute miracle, C. Things are just getting worse.”

  “But I need you to stay. Does that not count for something?”

  “I’m trying to do the right thing here, Caroline. It isn’t easy.”

  “Maybe wait and see how things progress?”

  “Roger says he’ll keep trying. It’ll be easier to work on it from there, but I have to go. Half of Rena’s family has already left Paris.”

  I leaned my cheek against his coat. “You still love her—”

  “That’s not what this is about, Caroline. I’d stay here with you if I could, but how can I sit in my suite at the Waldorf while all hell’s breaking loose at home? You wouldn’t do it.”

  Was he really going? Surely it was all a joke. He would laugh, and we’d go to the Automat for pie.

  As the sun retreated, the temperature fell, and Paul wrapped his arms around me, his heat was all I needed to stay warm. Even from seventy stories up, we could pick out the individual ships docked at Fiftieth Street. The Normandie still in place. The Ile de France. Only the Gripsholm was ready to sail, flying her Swedish flag. The wind drew the gauzy smoke from her stacks up the river.

  I looked east. The mid-Atlantic would be the most dangerous part of their journey, where there was the largest gap in air coverage. Even that early in the war, German U-boats had already sunk several Allied ships in the Atlantic in order to keep supplies from reaching England. I pictured the German submarines waiting there, suspended midwater, like barracuda.

  Paul held my hands in his. “But what I wanted to ask you is, will you come to Paris once this blows over?”

  I pulled away. “Oh, I don’t know, Paul.”

  My mind flashed to us at Les Deux Magots on Saint-Germain des Prés, at a café table under the green awning watching Paris go by. A café viennois for him, a café crème for me. As the sun retreated, some Hennessy. Maybe champagne and a raspberry tart as we plotted his theatrical career. Our one-act.

  “What would Rena say?”

  He smiled. “Rena would applaud it. Might join us there wi
th one of her beaux.”

  The wind whipped my cheeks and sent my hair into a tornado around us. He kissed me. “Promise me you’ll come? My biggest regret is leaving you with your moral high ground intact.” He smiled and slid his hands around my waist. “This must be rectified.”

  “Yes, of course. But only if you write me letters. Long, newsy ones telling every minute of your day.”

  “I am the worst writer, but I will do my best.” He kissed me, his lips warm on mine. I lost all sense of time and space, suspended there at the top of the world until Paul released me, leaving me dizzy, unmoored.

  “Walk me out?”

  “I’ll stay here,” I said.

  Just go. Don’t make this any harder.

  He walked to the deck door, turned, and left with a wave.

  I don’t know how long I stayed, leaning on the railing watching the sun set. I imagined Paul in a taxi arriving at the great ship. Would he be annoyed that people asked for his autograph? Only if they didn’t. Did Swedish people even know Paul? There would be no one-act for us. Not anytime soon.

  “We’re closing up,” the roof guard called from the door.

  He joined me at the railing. “Where’d ya fella go, miss?”

  “Home to France,” I said.

  “France, eh? Hope he makes it okay.”

  We both looked toward the Atlantic.

  “Me too,” I said.

  —

  THE MORNING OF MAY 10 was like any other. I could hear our reception area was full by ten, and I readied for the onslaught by neatening up my desk drawers—anything not to think about Paul.

  “More postcards from your pen pals,” Pia said. She lobbed a stack of mail onto my desk. “And stop filching my cigarettes.”

  It was a lovely May day, but even the tender breeze that rustled the elms outside my window couldn’t cheer me that Monday morning. The prettiest days were the hardest without Paul to share them. I fanned through the mail, hoping for a letter from him. Of course the chances of a letter from Paul being included in that pile were slim, for mail delivery by transatlantic passage took at least one week each way, but I stalked the mail like a scent hound on a fox, nevertheless.

  “You read my mail?” I said.

  “That’s a postcard, Caroline. Half the world has read it, if they care about some French orphanage.”

  I flipped through the postcards. Château de Chaumont. Château Masgelier. Villa La Chesnaie. All once-stately French mansions converted to orphan asylums. They returned confirmation cards upon receipt of the aid packages I sent. I hoped a sweet soap, a pair of clean socks, a candy, and a piece or two of Mother’s lovely hand-sewn clothes, all wrapped in neat brown paper, would raise a child’s spirits.

  I stood and pinned the cards to my bulletin board. It was already crammed with pictures of French children. One of a dark-haired angel holding a sign that read, MERCI BEAUCOUP, CAROLINE! Another of children posed in plein air art class, one child at an easel, the rest on campstools, assembled by age, pretending to read their books under a linden tree.

  I assumed that photo was snapped by the lovely sounding Mme Bertillion, director of Saint-Philippe in Meudon, an orphanage southwest of Paris. I’d become friendly with Mme Bertillion by mail and waited eagerly for her letters, filled with charming anecdotes about the children and how much they appreciated my packages. There was a new letter from her in this batch of mail, and I pinned up the enclosed crayon drawing of Saint-Philippe, the imposing stone façade colored goldenrod yellow, smoke swirling out of the chimney like the icing on a Hostess Cupcake.

  What would it be like to adopt one of these children? A boy? Girl? Our place up in Connecticut, which we called The Hay, was absolute heaven for children. Mother maintained my playhouse, still there in the meadow, complete with woodstove. Adopting a child would give me someone to pass it all down to. Great-grandmother Woolsey’s loving cup. Our lovely duck-footed table. Mother’s silver. But I put it out of my mind, for I would never raise a child alone. I knew too well the difficulties of growing up without a father, that aching hole Mother had tried too hard to fill. Feigning sick every father-daughter day at school. Being reduced to tears at the sight of fathers and daughters holding hands on the street. The gnaw of regret that I hadn’t said goodbye.

  At the bottom of the pile, I found a letter, written on onionskin airmail stationery in a lovely hand. The postmark read ROUEN. Paul.

  As well as I knew Paul, how had I never seen his handwriting before? It suited him.

  Dear Caroline,

  I decided to write right away, since, as you say, waiting is not your strong suit. So much is happening here. Rouen has been remarkably sane about this Phoney War, but many have already left, including our neighbors who wheeled their grandmother away with them down our street in a baby carriage last night. The rest of us now are just hoping for the best. I am in talks to commit to a new play in Paris. All’s Well That Ends Well, can you believe it? Shakespeare. I like to think it is your good influence on me.

  Rena may have to close her shop. There is little fabric and notions to be had, but she will be fine. Her father has taken to smoking sunflower leaves, for there is no tobacco to be found.

  I hope this counts as a newsy letter, for I have to go now to make the embassy bag. Do put a good word in with Roger for our visa situation. I think of you often, there at work. Make sure you don’t let Roger bully you. Remember, he needs you.

  With much love and until next time,

  Paul

  p.s. I dreamed last night I watched you on stage, here in Paris, in a very steamy version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and you played an angel. Could this say something about your acting career? About my missing you? My dreams always come true.

  Paul had made it home to Rouen, past the U-boats. At least he was safe.

  For a gregarious man, he wrote a succinct letter, but it was better than none at all. A new play? Perhaps things would blow over in France. Maybe the French producers knew more about the situation than we did half a world away. And the dream! He really did miss me.

  I found an April 23 copy of Le Petit Parisien, one of the many French newspapers Roger had delivered by bag, somewhat outdated but precious nevertheless. The lead headline read: THE REICH IN SCANDINAVIA! BRITISH TROOPS FIGHT ON LAND AND SEA. CONSIDERABLE SUCCESS IN THE WAR IN NORWAY DESPITE LARGE DIFFICULTIES. My mood lightened at reading that good news. Maybe the United States would continue to avoid the war, but the Brits were holding fast, despite horrific Luftwaffe bombing. Maybe France would escape Hitler after all.

  I scanned the theater page. Any ads for Paul’s new venture? I found no Shakespeare but did see a small ad for Rena’s shop, a simple black square, bordered with a row of pearls: Les Jolies Choses. Lingerie et sous-vêtements pour la femme de discernement. Lingerie and undergarments for the discerning woman?

  Roger came to my doorway, tie askew, a Rorschach-test coffee stain on his shirt.

  “Bad news, C. Hitler has just attacked France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium all at once. It is just hitting the news now. I’m afraid things are going to get bumpy.”

  I hurled myself after him and watched him pace about his office.

  “My God, Roger. Have you called Paris?”

  The oscillating fan in the window cooled one side of the room and then the next. The red ribbon someone had tied to it flapped like a little Nazi flag.

  “The phones are out,” Roger said. “All we can do is wait.”

  I’d never seen Roger afraid before.

  “What about the Maginot Line?”

  “Seems Hitler went around it, over it, under it. He came right across Belgium.”

  “What will Roosevelt do?”

  “Nothing, probably. Has no choice but to recognize whatever government represents France.”

  Pia came to Roger’s door, encryption headphones around her neck. “I tried to call my father in Paris, and I can’t get through. I have to go home.”

  “You can’t go any
where right now, Pia,” Roger said.

  “I can’t stay here.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Pia,” I said. “You can’t just leave.”

  Pia stood, arms limp at her sides, heaving great sobs. I wrapped my arms around her. “It will all be fine, dear,” I said. To my immense surprise, she returned my embrace.

  —

  ON JUNE 14, 1940, the Germans took Paris, and eight days later France surrendered.

  Pia and I stood in Roger’s office and listened to radio reports of Nazis marching past the Arc de Triomphe. France was split into two zones, the northern zone occupied by German Wehrmacht soldiers, known as the zone occupée, and the so-called free zone in the south. Marshal Philippe Pétain headed up the new French Republic, called the Vichy regime, in the southern free zone, which most considered a Nazi puppet state.

  “What will happen to our office here?” Pia asked.

  “I don’t know,” Roger said. “We’ll sit tight for now. Do the best we can for our people here. Can’t get any calls through.”

  “Can the Brits help?”

  “Already have,” Roger said. “They just shared reports of German dive-bomber activity in the English Channel.” We were lucky that Roger was close to what Pia called his “British spy friends,” our neighbors in the International and British Buildings of Rockefeller Center, who were especially generous with their classified information.

  Roger’s personal line rang, and Pia picked it up. “Roger Fortier’s office. Oh yes. Yes, she is. Hold the line.”

  Pia held the phone out to me. “It’s Paul.”

  “How did he get through?” Roger asked.

  I grabbed the phone. “Paul?” I could barely breathe.

  “I have only a minute,” Paul said.

  Paul.

  His voice was so clear, as if from the next room. I pressed one finger to my free ear. Was it really him?

  “Caroline. It’s so good to hear your voice.”

  “My God, Paul. We just heard. How did you get a call through?”