Along the Infinite Sea (28 page)

“Didn't leave a note?”

“She left a note, but it just said that something had come up, and she'd be back in a few days.”

“How long ago was that?”

Pepper swallows back her root beer. “Nine, maybe ten days ago.”

“And you weren't worried?”

“Well, no. Should I have been?”

“This is normal behavior in your book? Inviting a stranger to stay in your house and then disappearing for a week and a half?”

“Oh, I've seen odder, believe me.”

“You didn't wonder where she'd gone?”

“Not really. I was just grateful for the hot breakfasts.”

The dubious eyebrows.

“All right, I wondered a little,” Pepper concedes. “But she's a big girl, wouldn't you agree? She can go where she likes. Clara said she goes on trips like this sometimes. Anyway, it would have seemed rude just to call a cab and catch a flight home, without saying good-bye.”

“For what it's worth, I'm glad you didn't.”

“Thank you,” she says acidly.

He smiles, almost as if he means it. “No, really. I'm just surprised you stayed on so long, that's all. Don't you have family to hurry back to?”

“No more than most people.”

“Because of the holiday, I mean.”

“What holiday?”

“Pepper,” he says, looking at her seriously, “Thanksgiving is in three days.”

Pepper chokes on her root beer. “What?”

“It's Monday. Thanksgiving is Thursday. That's why I'm here, because Mama's supposed to join us at my brother's house for turkey and pumpkin pie, and no one's heard from her in two weeks.”

“Thanksgiving.” Pepper dabs the corner of her mouth with her forefinger. Jesus, what's happening to her? She can't even keep track of the calendar. “How about that.”

Florian's frowning at her, and the crease in his forehead mesmerizes her momentarily, so that when he asks her if everything's all right, she answers with all honesty: “Yes. Perfectly.”

“So then why aren't you off on a jet plane, Miss Trouble, heading home for turkey with your folks?”

“We aren't the cuddliest family, rumor has it.”

“They don't know about the baby, do they?”

“Of course they know.” She finishes the root beer and sets it down on the lamp table. “Two of them do, anyway. My sisters.”

“But not your parents.”

“You know,” she says, steepling her fingers together and leaning forward, “I think the larger problem here is Annabelle. Let's talk about her. Where the devil might she have gone to?”

He sighs and rubs the adorable furrows in his forehead. “You name it. Ever since Dad died, she's gone off on these little trips, a few days here or there, not letting anyone know where she is. Then she pops back up as if nothing happened. It's just that it's been a couple of weeks now, and Thanksgiving's coming up, and we're all kind of waiting for her to let us know she's still alive.”

“Don't you ever ask her where she's been? Since you're such a cute and loving family.”

“She just says she's doing research.”

“For what?”

“I don't know. Genealogy or something. We were just happy she found something to keep her occupied. She stopped playing her cello when Dad was diagnosed, just stopped cold turkey.”

“Really? That doesn't sound good.”

Florian rose from the chair and set down his bottle with a crash next to Pepper's. “Oh, thanks.”

“Oh, relax. I'm sure she's fine.” Pepper pauses delicately. “You know, there's another explanation, though you probably don't want to hear it.”

“What's that?”

“Maybe your mother has a gentleman friend.”

From the shocked expression on Florian's face, she can tell he's never considered this possibility. “What,
Mama
?”

“She's a very attractive woman.”

He stares at Pepper as if she's just renounced her American citizenship and run off to join a Soviet collective. “You don't understand. She would
never
.”

“Oh, yes, she would.”

“Dad and Mama . . . they were like . . . I can't explain . . . they had this connection. They never even argued. Dad was German, did you know that? They fled the Nazis together, back in 1938. They raised us all together. We had to change our names, because the Gestapo was after us. Dad and Mama, they were everything to each other.”

“I'm sure that's true. But—well, I don't mean to shock you, but a woman has her needs. If you know what I mean.”

He snaps back: “Look, Pepper. Not every woman is like
you
. If you know what I mean.”

The words are so crisp and cruel, so unlike Florian, that Pepper has to pick through them all, one by one, to assemble their meaning. She returns his stare, and when he drops his gaze to the floor, she knows she heard him right.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.”

“Yes, you did.” Pepper swings her feet to the rug and reaches for her crutches. “No hard feelings. I mean, I can't exactly argue with you, can I?”

“What does that mean?”

She puts the crutches under her arms. “I like sex. Actually, I love sex. I think sex is fucking terrific, excuse the pun, when it's done right. If that makes me different from the girls you know, well, I am most profoundly sorry for them all. You, too, I guess. Excuse me.”

She hops past his stiffened figure—she's getting a little more agile with the crutches, by now—and into the hallway, thinking she'll head to her room, maybe even pack her few things and call a taxi for God knows where, but the sharp ring of the doorbell stops her halfway.

Mama!
shouts Florian, from the living room.

She turns, just in time to see Florian shoot around the corner and reach for the doorknob.

But it's not Annabelle Dommerich on the other side. It's a very, very pretty girl with golden curls and blue eyes and a polka-dot dress (yes, actual real live polka dots, white on yellow), who flings her arms around
Florian's neck and kisses his cheek like she could eat it right up. “You're back!” she says, when she's done, and then she notices the astonished pregnant woman in the hallway behind him.

It speaks volumes for her confidence that not a single trace of jealousy crosses that very, very pretty face. She blushes a little—she's a nice girl, after all, and she's just been caught throwing herself on a man's chest—and ducks around Florian's stunned shoulder to hold out her hand, the exact way a good debutante should.

“Hi! I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there!”

“Obviously.”

“I'm Susan Willoughby. A friend of the family. Are you staying with Mrs. Dommerich?”

Pepper props one crutch against the wall and shakes Susan's outstretched hand. “Why, yes, Miss Willoughby,” she says. “Yes, I am.”

PARIS
•
1937

1.

Stefan held out his hand to me. “Good evening, Frau von Kleist. This is a tremendous surprise.”

“Yes, a great shock.” I put my hand in his palm.

He brought the gloved fingertips courteously to his lips. “You're looking exceptionally well. I think marriage suits you.”

“Now, now,” Charles said. “Nick and I have agreed that we're not holding the Nazi against her any longer.”

“He's not a Nazi.” I took my hand back, but the faint pressure of those lips remained on the beds of my fingernails.

Stefan straightened, and the light from one of the chandeliers caught his face. He looked the same, only horribly different, because there were a few lines now at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and a scar ran neatly along his left temple and underneath the cover of his hair.

“My God,” I whispered.

Stefan looked a little quizzical, and then touched the scar with his
finger. “Ah, of course. A souvenir, as the French say. One should never try to escape from prison without an accurate map of the premises.”

Charles said, “Are you all right, Annabelle?”

“Just a bit dizzy. It's terribly hot, don't you think?”

Stefan set his drink on a nearby table and wrapped his hand around my elbow. “I will take Frau von Kleist for some air.”

“No! I'm fine.”

“Actually, you're awfully pale,” Charles said, frowning. “Go with Stefan. I'll fetch a glass of water.”

“There is no need,” Stefan said. “I will find water.”

2.

I followed him numbly. There didn't seem to be a choice; I didn't seem able to choose another path except to follow Stefan's smooth black back down the length of the bar, where he stopped and made an inquiry from one of the bartenders, which ended in a glass being pressed into his hand.

I had thought in the beginning that he was drunk, but his steps were steady as he led me out of the bar to the busy corridor, and down the corridor to a small plain door, which he opened to usher me inside. It was a private sitting room of some kind, empty except for the usual elegant furniture. Stefan urged me into a chair and went to open the window. I stared at the glass of water in my hand.

“There, now,” he said, turning toward me, leaning against the window. “Is that better?”

“Yes.”

“I didn't mean to surprise you like that.”

I sipped the water. “Did you know I would be here?”

“I thought it was possible.”

I thought, This is Stefan standing before me. Stefan, real and whole, the same bone and muscle, the same brain and voice and hair I
had loved, the arms that had held me, the mouth I had kissed and the ribs I had counted, one by one. It was not possible that he was here, Stefan,
Stefan
, a few yards away, Stefan, who had fathered a child with me. Florian's father. Now a stranger.

I looked into the glass. “How long have you been in Paris? I thought you were in Germany. Nick said you couldn't leave the country, it was part of the terms of your release.”

“Hmm. It appears I am a fugitive, then.”

I snapped up. “Are you?”

“Yes.” He shrugged. “Really, it makes little difference, one way or the other. They cannot actually arrest me without consulting the French authorities first, and the French authorities are not particularly inclined to cooperate with requests from the German ones.”

I couldn't meet his gaze. My eyes stopped somewhere around his neck, which was deeply tanned next to the glowing starched white of his collar. I wanted to say how sorry I was. I wanted to say how much I had suffered, knowing he had suffered, and that it was my fault, because he had been arrested coming back into Germany for my sake. I wanted to say how I had tried to avoid ever seeing him again, and how I had been sick with wanting to see him again. I wanted to say what a mistake I had made, running off like that: how I had thought marrying Johann was the right thing, the noble thing, and now maybe it wasn't, that you couldn't just make yourself love someone when your heart had lodged somewhere else, you couldn't pretend something was love when it was not.

I wanted to tell him we had a son.

Or did he know that already?

I curled my fingers around the hard glass, in the shape of a prayer.

“Annabelle,” he said gently, “don't be frightened.”

“I'm not frightened.”

“You look like death. Very beautiful, but deathly. Come, now. It isn't that bad, surely? I am not so fearsome as that.”

“I'm not afraid of
you
,” I said.

“Then why will you not look at me?”

This was the trouble with Stefan: I couldn't lie to him. How could I lie to Stefan? How could I say things to him that weren't true? It was like lying to yourself. There was no point.

“Because I'm ashamed. I made you suffer.”

“But you have suffered, too, haven't you?”

“Yes.”

“And you have suffered because I didn't tell you the truth, I didn't tell you about Wilhelmine, because I was bloody terrified that you would run away from me and never come back. So I have been the author of my own suffering. It is no more than I deserve, for being a faithless husband and a false lover. And if you don't look at me this moment, Annabelle, I will not forgive myself.”

I looked at him.

His face was calm and golden in the lamplight. He was so beautifully proportioned, leaning there against the window, his hands braced on the wooden sill. I had forgotten that about him, the perfect arrangement of his limbs.

“Tell me about her,” I said. “Tell me everything.”

He sighed. “We are no longer married. She is married to her lover, a man named Matthias, who was her lover at university and—what is the word—jilt? There was a stupid argument of some kind, and he jilted her. That is why she agreed to marry me, because she was angry at him. And I married her because our families were close, and it was the wish of my parents.”

“Did you love her?”

“Yes, as one loves a dear friend. A very careless love. I had other interests, political interests, and I was often gone, and I thought nothing of seeking other company when I was gone.”

“Company like me.”

“Not like you.”

I set down the glass of water and rose from the chair. “And your daughter?”

“Else. She lives with her mother. She is three years old and beautiful and astonishing. She breaks my heart when I think of her, because I believe I have failed her most of all.” He paused. “She is very fond of Matthias. I saw her a month ago, before I left Frankfurt, and I was almost a stranger to her. Wilma is pregnant again, she will have the baby in September, and Else is over the moon to have a baby sister. She will not consider that it might be a boy.”

“I'm sorry.”

“It's no more than I deserve. I was away. I was trying to rescue the fucking world from itself. I fell in love with another woman. I allowed my wife to fall in love with another man.” He patted the sides of his chest, as if hunting for his cigarettes in a pocket, and then he found my eyes and stopped. His hands fell back to the windowsill behind him. “I will do everything I can for my daughter,” he said. “I will open my veins for her if she needs it, but I have lost her for myself.”

“Oh, Stefan—”

“But you. Tell me about your son.”

There was no particular emphasis on the words. His expression didn't change, except to brighten a little, the way it does when you turn the conversation from something melancholy to something new.

I said, “His name is Florian. I don't think I could have lived without him.”

“Yes.” He hesitated. “I would like to meet him one day, unless you think it is improper.”

“Why do you want to meet him?”

“Because he is yours, of course.”

I stood there looking at him, because I couldn't think of anything to say. Not one word to say to him, to Stefan.

“Annabelle?” he said.

“I can't believe this. I can't believe we're talking like this.”

Stefan turned away and braced his knuckles on the windowsill. The street outside was dark, except for the passing flashes of the
headlights, the dull sodium glow of a nearby lamp gilding the top of his hair. “This is what I meant, Annabelle.”

“The perverse universe.”

“Yes.”

“You seem to have accepted it without any trouble. I thought you would be drunk and angry, if I saw you again. I thought you would hate the sight of me.”

“I
am
drunk and angry, Annabelle. I am so angry I cannot breathe, sometimes. I am so consumed I cannot sleep. But I am not angry at
you
. I do not hate the sight of you.” He paused and said something I couldn't hear.

“What did you say?”

He turned his head to the side. “I said, there is not one moment I have not wished you well. But maybe that is not quite the truth. There was the moment Greenwald told me the news. There are the moments I think of you with your husband.”

“Don't, please.”

“Don't think of you? Or don't speak of it?”

“Both.”

“Does he treat you well?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, he is very kind. He loves me very much.”

“He would be an even greater blackguard than I am if he did not.”

I looked down at my dress, the embroidered mauve silk that slunk down my limbs and ended a fraction of an inch above the oriental rug. Alice and I had gone to one of the ateliers together, and she had made me order this one, which she said suited my figure and my coloring perfectly. I had telephoned Johann in remorse that afternoon and told him the price, expecting him to tell me to cancel the order. But he had said, gruff and astonished and full of static, “But of course you must buy this gown. You must be dressed suitably.” I had told him that it was a very decadent dress, and he said that the Baroness von Kleist was expected to wear gowns according to her station, there was nothing
decadent about that. This was in March, a few weeks before his visit in April. The dress was delivered a month later.

I touched the tiny leaf of a trailing vine, embroidered delicately in pale green and silver, and said, “He's in Berlin just now. He's been there since Christmas.”

“Yes, I had heard.”

“Is that why you're here in Paris?”

The air in the room was warm and thick, so much that though my arms were bare, I felt the prickles of perspiration in the small of my back. Stefan leaned in to the enormous panes of the window. The gathered draperies touched his black shoulder.

“Annabelle,” he said softly, gazing through the glass, “I did not come here to take you away from your family. I think I have done enough ruin to marriages already.”

“But you wanted to see me.”

“Yes. I needed to see you again. I needed to see that you were safe, that you were well.”

“I
am
safe and well. It isn't the same, of course. Not the same as with you.”

“Annabelle, I know that.”

“How do you know?”

He turned, so that his shoulder held up the windowpane, and his hand played with the swoop of the silk curtains. The light from the streetlamp outlined his profile. “Because my Annabelle is not capable of loving another man in the same way she loved me. Certainly not within the space of a few months.”

I sank back into the chair and buried my face in my hands.

“Shh. Don't, love.”

“
Why
did you come? It was so much easier when you were a beast. When I hated you. I nearly forgot you, did you know that? I nearly pushed you out of my memory. And now I can't, I can't force you out, you're always there. Why couldn't you be a beast?”

“I am a beast.”

“You should have told me in the beginning.”

“I know that!”

“We were so close! All those hours and days together, those beautiful days. I slept next to you. I was inside your skin, remember? How could you hold me like that and not tell me you had a child, a
daughter
!”

“Because I was scared to death, Annabelle. I thought, She will run away; she won't understand. She will think I am like her father. And maybe I was, maybe you were right, maybe I
am
just a fucking beast and never deserved you.”

“If you'd only told me she left you!”

“I didn't dare. I was so besotted, do you not understand that? Do you not comprehend that I was out of my mind for you? I loved you so much, I couldn't think or breathe or hear. I was stupid, stupid with love. I thought, If I can just keep her from knowing until the divorce is arranged. I thought, If we can just—” He turned away from the window and yanked a cigarette case from his inside pocket. “I'm sorry, I know you hate these.”

“I don't hate them.”

“The last day, at the hotel . . .” He lit himself up and paced along the opposite wall.

“Because you wouldn't stop. The rooms were full of smoke.”

“I'm sorry.” He stopped in front of an enormous portrait of a young lady, dressed in white, and gazed up at her. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you.”

“You didn't trust me.”

“No, I suppose I didn't. I couldn't imagine that you would still want me.”

I looked down at my hands, which were damp with my tears. But I wasn't crying now. My eyes were dry. “Don't be stupid. There was nothing I wouldn't have forgiven you for, if you'd asked me. When did I ever deny you anything you asked for?”

He made a noise like an animal and kicked the thick wooden baseboard beneath the painting. The thump was catastrophic, like someone had fallen through a table.

I heard Nick Greenwald's voice:
It's a damned thing.
I wondered if Stefan's shoe had actually splintered the wood.

Stefan said, “The perverse universe, you see. Didn't I tell you? And now we are here in this room, and my hand that holds this cigarette is shaking, because I want to touch you so much, and I cannot.”