Along the Infinite Sea

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “Or perhaps we have already run off together, you and I. Perhaps you have left your husband and son—”

  “I would never leave Florian.”

  “Then perhaps you have torn the boy away from his father and brought him with you to live with me, a stranger. Is that all part of this faith of yours?”

  “You’re being cruel.”

  “The thing is cruel, Annabelle. The whole damned thing.” He reached into his jacket for his cigarettes and placed one in his mouth. “Have you heard of the fucking Nuremberg laws?”

  “Yes, I—I have. It’s horrible. Something to do with property and registration and—”

  “I will explain. First of all, this legislation means that I am not a citizen of Germany any longer, because I am a Jew.” He paused to light the cigarette. “It means also that—I speak hypothetically, of course—should you happen to divorce your honorable husband for my sake, I cannot marry you, because a Jew cannot marry a gentile, it is against the law. And I cannot say Aha!, I will simply marry you here in Paris and then take you home to Germany, because the marriage is null and void the instant we cross the border.”

  “Since we are speaking hypothetically,” I said, “I will then observe that marriage isn’t necessary to me. I’m long past caring about a piece of paper.”

  “Ah! Well, that is what is so elegant about these laws, Annabelle, because it turns out it doesn’t matter if we are man and wife, we are still breaking the law, since in Germany a Jew cannot fuck a gentile. Did you know that? He cannot fuck a gentile, he cannot make a mongrel Mischling baby with her. They will send him to the camps if he dares to try. Do you know about these camps, Annabelle?”

  I thought of Florian and his sweet dark hair curling on his temple, his red mouth and soft tongue, and I wrapped my hands around my knees so they wouldn’t shake. Stefan’s face was bright with passion, a few yards away. I said softly, “Then I suppose—again, hypothetically—we would simply live elsewhere.”

  “Brilliant! Yes. The perfect solution to our hypothetical dilemma. Except that my daughter remains in Germany, to say nothing of my parents and siblings, which is a little problem for me, you understand. The people I love, our business. Our damned money, of which there is so much. Shoes, you know.” He laughed bitterly. “The irony, eh? My family sells the Nazis the very boots with which they seek to kick us.”

  “Can’t you convince them to emigrate?”

  He laughed again and reached for the ashtray in the corner of the desk. “Oh, yes. I can see the conversation now: Mother, Father, listen to me. I have in mind to marry again, a dazzling woman, you’ll adore her, except for a few small matters. She is a gentile, and the divorced wife of a fucking Nazi general, so unless you are prepared to leave Germany, which you have told me again and again you will never do, why, you will never see us again.”

  I whispered, “Surely not.”

  “And there is my daughter. My daughter, Annabelle. How do I say to my Else, Good-bye, my dear little love, I have fallen in love, and unless your mother and stepfather kindly agree to emigrate for our sake, I cannot see you again? I cannot do it, Annabelle. I will damn myself forever if I do. No. I am already damned. I am damned to hell for loving you, who are married to another man. And if I say, well then, to hell with right and wrong, I will break God’s law and take this woman I love to my bed, married or not, then I am breaking also the law of the Nazis.” He brought his fist down on the desk and pointed to the bed with his other hand, the one holding the cigarette. He was almost shouting now. “This is the perversity of the universe. Do you understand now, Annabelle? Do you understand this perversity? It is so perverse that my own family is in perfect harmony with the damned Nazis on this point. So at last I have fallen in love, in the manner of the great romantics, but if I want to marry this woman, if I want to take this woman I love back to my own country and fuck her, I am breaking the law, Annabelle. I am breaking the fucking law in my own home!”

  “But they can’t do that! I’m a French citizen, I’m an American, too, and they can’t tell me I can love one man and not another.”

  Stefan tossed the cigarette in the ashtray and leaned down on his elbows to bury his hands in his hair. “Don’t you see, Annabelle? That is exactly the point. That is exactly what they are trying to do.”

  “Then let’s not let them win,” I said passionately. “Right now, let’s beat them, let’s love each other.”

  “I thought we were speaking hypothetically.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Stefan.”

  He sighed, rose from the chair, and picked up my pocketbook from the floor. One by one, he added the contents: lipstick, compact, ticket stubs, coins. “They already have won, my love. It is already done. I am not going to ask you to divorce your husband. We are not going to fuck like a pair of fugitives, not in this room now, not in Paris or Berlin or any damned place.” He snapped the pocketbook shut and reached for my hat and gloves. “I am going to drive you back to your apartment now.”

  I stood numbly. The breeze from the window moved my dress against my legs. I held out my hands for my hat and gloves and pocketbook, and Stefan gave them to me, white-faced. Our fingers nearly touched, but not quite.

  “My God, you are beautiful, though,” he said softly. “The shape of your eyes. That skin. I thought my memory must have been mistaken.”

  When I first realized I was going to have a baby, before Johann had proposed, while I was sick with pregnancy and with the thought of what I had done with Stefan, I had spent many hours staring up at the ceiling above my bed, reconfiguring the scenes of our meeting in such a way that I could have resisted him. I could have prevented this entire disaster. I decided he wasn’t really all that handsome, and his charisma was just a mirage, an image of an oasis in a desert, easily ignored. That sense of connection with him, those hours of discovery, had been proven a lie: I hadn’t really known him at all.

  But I had been a fool, hadn’t I? Standing here before Stefan’s bed, two years later, a wholly different Annabelle, a wife and mother, accepting my hat from his hands without quite touching his fingers, I returned Stefan’s gaze with equal wonder. I realized that no one could be so breathtaking, no one could be so familiar and so perfectly connected to me. His bones were like my bones. The shape of my eyes was like the shape of his.

  How can we bear this? I asked.

  (He took the hat from my hands and placed it gently on my head.)

  Because we have to. Because you will know my heart is somewhere in the world, beating for you.

  (I secured my hat and wiggled my fingers into my gloves. I asked if I would see him again.)

  No, he said. It was for the best if we didn’t.

  6.

  Eight days later, we lay side by side on Stefan’s bed on the fourth floor of the Paris Ritz. The wooden fan rotated slowly above us. The heat had intensified, an almost unbearable compression of July air, ninety-nine parts automobile exhaust and one part oxygen.

  “We should drive away somewhere,” I said.

  “Where? The heat is general across Europe, I believe.”

  “Anywhere. We could go to Versailles, or to Antibes. Your friend’s house in Monte Carlo.”

  “I’m afraid he is living there himself, at present.”

  “What about your yacht?”

  Stefan blew out a long cloud of smoke. “She is anchored in Capri. I am thinking of selling her.”

  I sat up, shocked. “You can’t sell her!”

  “Why not? There is not much point anymore. How can I sail in her again, when your darling shade haunts every last corner? Lie down, now. You are blocking the air from the fan.”

  I sank back into my hollow in the bedspread. I was damp with perspiration, and so was Stefan: all sheen and languor, not because we had made love three times in the past hour—we had not—but because today
was the twenty-fourth of July, and all Paris was gripped with heat, and we lay together on a bed, fully clothed, down to our shoes.

  That was our rule, you see. We could not possibly be having an affair if our shoes remained snug on our feet, if our clothes remained intact, if we did not touch each other’s skin except by accident or necessity, such as the handing over of the gloves and the hat, or the pouring of a drink, or the lighting of a cigarette, which I sometimes liked to do for him, simply because I envied the cigarette.

  “It is still a matter of sin, however,” Stefan had said, the second day we had met like this. “We are indulging in the most elemental intimacy, and there is also the necessity for self-abuse, without which I could not possibly lie here next to you every day with any pretense of tranquility.”

  I’d told him that this wasn’t strictly necessary, that there were plenty of women downstairs who would be happy to perform on him whatever form of abuse he required, and he hadn’t answered except to snort and reach for his drink on the bedside table. I had spent the following twenty-three hours wondering what particular meaning was contained in that snort, until Stefan opened the door to my knock the next day and took my hat and gloves, and it wasn’t that I had forgotten the question: I simply ceased to care about the answer.

  I came back the next day, and the next. I developed an affectionate relationship with the plasterwork of the ceiling above the bed. I imagined how we must look from above, and how the gilded borders formed a kind of picture frame around the two of us, Annabelle and Stefan, lying on our backs in the center of the bed, elegantly dressed, not quite touching. I knew each repeat, each fold and flaw, each nick in the paint and the gilding as I knew my own skin. I followed the familiar creamy progress of a scroll and said, “What are we doing here?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Stefan. “This is an unprecedented exercise for me.”

  “I don’t think it’s a sin. How can it be a sin? It’s so pure, existing like this with you.”

  “My dear, it is worse than a sin. We could commit the physical act of adultery, and we would not, in the middle of it, be so perfectly attached as we are like this.”

  “Then why don’t we make love? Since it’s the lesser of two evils.”

  “Because the one would not negate the other. Because if we made love, it would not make this existing together any more innocent.”

  The shadows of the fan blades chased themselves fruitlessly around the ceiling. They had lengthened by at least two centimeters since I had arrived. The minutes bled out, one by one, and soon there would be nothing left. I would rise from the bed and take my gloves and my hat, and I would walk out into the shimmering sidewalk as if I had not left all my blood inside.

  “Then let’s at least hold hands,” I said.

  “We should not under any circumstances hold hands, Annabelle.”

  My fingers touched his, and our damp hands curled together on the bedspread.

  7.

  My father adored Florian, and the affection was mutual. I would watch them play together on the floor next to the sofa, spreading toys and books all over the august inlaid floors of the apartment, and feel a strange combination of bemusement and betrayal.

  “You weren’t like this with me or Charles,” I said, the day after I had held Stefan’s hand on the fourth-floor bedspread of the Paris Ritz.

  “Wasn’t I?”

  “No. You were off amusing yourself most of the time.”

  “I am amusing myself now,” he said, demonstrating a proper rhythm on the samba drums, and I looked at Alice, who reclined on the sofa with a magazine. She smiled beatifically and shrugged her bare shoulders.

  We went into lunch a half hour later, and no amount of squealing and messiness could interrupt Papa’s enchantment with his grandson. “Thank God he does not have his father’s coloring,” Papa said, “as if someone had poured a measure of bleach over his head.”

  Alice suppressed a giggle.

  “I happen to like Johann’s coloring,” I said.

  “Oh, of course. It suits him perfectly, doesn’t it? Like a great Teutonic iceberg.”

  “Papa!” said Florian, and he threw his bread on the floor.

  I bent over to retrieve the bread. “He can understand more than you think, you know.”

  “Yes, of course. He is the cleverest boy, aren’t you, chouchou?” Papa made a face, and Florian squealed.

  I gazed at the two of them over the rim of my wineglass. “I suppose you might as well get used to this, since you’re starting over again with one of your own.”

  “Oh! We’re getting married, by the way,” said Alice. “Next month, at the Hôtel du Cap. I should very much like you to be matron of honor, if your family can spare you.”

  I stopped the wine on my lips. “Married?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Papa. “I am not such an old blackguard as that.”

  I set down the glass and wiped my fingers on my napkin. I thought, Poor Mummy. “Oh, I can imagine your asking. But I can’t imagine a clever girl like Alice accepting you.”

  “I hadn’t much choice, I suppose. But I believe I know how to manage him.”

  “You manage me extremely well,” Papa said, and they exchanged a look of such happiness that I lost my breath.

  Why, they’re in love, I thought, and the panic rose up from my chest to choke me. Alice wasn’t supposed to be happy like this; she was supposed to be restless and eternally dissatisfied, and I was supposed to be the wise matron who had chosen her partner well, who dispensed wise advice about the care and management of husbands, and the joys to be discovered in a wholesome family life.

  Florian jettisoned another piece of bread. His caramel eyes grew round and wet. “Want Papa,” he said, between heaving sobs, and he stretched out his arms to me.

  I lifted him from his chair and held him against my chest, and his little heartbeat pattered against mine, his little fist curled around mine. “Presumably you’ll do a far better job of managing him than Mama did,” I said.

  “But that was my fault, mignonne,” said Papa.

  “Oh, you’re admitting it, are you? That’s a step in the right direction.”

  “I am older and wiser, that’s all,” said Papa. “Is it not possible for an old dog to learn his new tricks? I have determined that sexual congress is perhaps not so essential to happiness, after all.”

  “But bloody important, nonetheless,” said Alice.

  “Better late than never, I suppose,” I said.

  Alice lit a cigarette. “But can you come? To the wedding, I mean. Will you be irrevocably in Germany, or does he let you out on good behavior, from time to time?”

  “I’m sure he won’t mind if I slip down for a few days.”

  I began to ask Alice about the arrangements, dress and flowers and guests, and Papa excused himself. I stroked Florian’s damp hair. The storm had passed, and his breath tickled the hollow of my throat, steady and gentle. Alice watched the door, and when it had closed behind my father’s neat gray-suited back, she turned to me and asked me what was all this about my having an affair.

  My hand went still on Florian’s hair. “I’m not having an affair.”

  “Then it’s all perfectly innocent, your meeting a man every day at the Ritz?”

  I whispered, “Where did you hear that?”

  “The usual birdie. You haven’t even bothered to disguise yourself, I’m told. Such an amateur.” She reached for Florian and settled him on her lap to play with her necklace. “It’s Stefan, isn’t it?”

  I hesitated. Was there any point in lying to her? “Yes, it’s Stefan, but it’s not what you think.”

  “My dear, you don’t think I disapprove, do you? Enjoy yourself, by all means. When the cat’s away and all that. I’m hardly the girl to judge.” She held Florian’s fingertips and let him rise to his feet o
n her lap. He laughed and grabbed her cheeks, and her arms went around him as if she were born for it, born to cuddle a baby on her lap. “Just watch yourself, lovest. I suspect this particular cat doesn’t like his little mouse to play.”

  8.

  Can I ask you something?

  Whatever you like, Annabelle.

  What did you say to me, that time we made love on the beach?

  (Stefan smoked his cigarette and sipped back the rest of his brandy.)

  Don’t say you don’t remember.

  Yes, I remember. I remember it well. I was praying to God that we would make a baby together in that moment, so that you would have no choice but to become mine, and vice versa.

  (Around and around went the blades of the fan.)

  I suppose it was a selfish thing to pray for, after all. You were not even twenty. But I could not help myself. I wanted some sign that I was not deluded, that God in his mercy had actually meant me for you.

  (Around and around, making long swishing sounds like the ocean.)

  Is something the matter, Annabelle?

  No, Stefan. Nothing’s wrong. But I think it’s probably time for me to go home now.

  9.

  When I returned home, Florian hadn’t yet woken up from his nap. He slept on his stomach, wearing only a shirt and napkin, damp and a little flushed by the heat. I stood by his crib and touched his dark hair. His fist made a twitch, a flexing of his small perfect fingers, and I remembered how I had watched Stefan sleep one afternoon in Monte Carlo, naked on the bed, in the exact center of a beam of white sunlight. The utter peace of him. I remembered thinking how beautiful he was, and how lucky I was that I would spend my entire life watching him like this, as he slept off the bliss of lovemaking inside a patch of sun.