Deceptions (4 page)

'We weren't,' Sabrina interrupted.

'And then it was our fault that Theo got fired and I feel bad.'

'So do I.' Sabrina looked out the window. The cuts on her fingertips hurt, and she pressed them against the cool glass. 'Everybody's mad at everybody. We really made a mess. But, still, it was exciting, wasn't it? All shivery and - oh, I don't know - important. More real than school and books and movies. Dmitri cared about things so much. So did those men. It was an adventure, Stephanie!'

'I know ... and it was exciting - now that it's over—'

'Everybody at school will see it in the paper—*

'—and be so jealous—'

'I'll bet they never had an adventure hke that—'

'Even if they did, they'd be scared, not as brave as you.'

*I was scared, and you know it. Every time they walked above us—'

'But you were brave, too, Sabrina. You always are. I wish I was.'

'Don't be silly, of course you are. You told Daddy you were me.'

'Oh, I had to do that, after I was such an awful coward in

that cellar. At least now we're both being punished, instead of just you.'

'Did you see Daddy's face? Was he confused!'

'Mother knew.'

'She knows what clothes you wear.'

'But Daddy hardly ever looks at us.'

They fell silent, thinking about their father.

'Stephanie,' Sabrina said slowly. 'What if you couldn't have adventures without bad things and good things both? Would you want to give them up?'

'Oh, I don't know. I suppose not. I just wish I had some way of knowing ahead of time—'

'But we don't.' They watched a bird light on a tree branch near the window, so close they could see each feather. Sabrina loved to sit like this, next to Stephanie, comfortable and peaceful. Sometimes she wished she was as calm as Stephanie and didn't talk back to her parents and teachers, or think danger was exciting. But she was so restless, and there were so many tantalizing things to try, that she couldn't sit still for long. And, strangely, she thought Mother secretly liked her best that way. So sometimes she talked back or tried something risky in gymnastics (with teachers yelling at her not to, which made it even more fun) just so Mother or other people would admire her and love her.

But mostly she got excited about doing different things because there was so much to discover. 'What I think,' she said to Stephanie, who was sitting quietly, waiting for her to go on, 'is that I'd rather have some bad things happen than not have any adventures at all.'

Stephanie thought about it. 'Well,' she said finally. 'It's a good thing you're here. Because if you weren't, I probably wouldn't have any adventures. Ever. And I wouldn't like that, either.'

Later that year, they read about the settlement of the war in Cyprus. Dmitri and his sisters had gone away with their aunt, and Sabrina and Stephanie devoured stories in Greek newspapers and magazines, hoping to find news of anyone named Karras. But there was nothing, and in the fall they

moved to Paris without knowing what had happened to them.

Gordon Hartwell was appointed charge d'affaires of the US Embassy in Paris in the summer of 1960, the year President Makarios took ofGce on the independent island of Cyprus and John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States. But whatever changes occurred in the world, life for Sabrina and Stephanie was the same as in Athens. Their rented house was in an enclave of Americans; they attended the American school; they shopped in the famous flea markets on the edge of Paris only with their mother, never alone.

But Laura knew that explosive pressures were building in Sabrina and when the girls were fourteen she let them go to social events for the sons and daughters of diplomats from other embassies. There were picnics and swimming parties, dances, tours of the wine country, excursions to soccer games, horse races, tennis and bicycle races and ski holidays. They made friends from a dozen countries, and their speech soon blended the accents and vocabulary of all of them. It was if they had their own country, separate from the rest of the world.

But then, once again, everything changed. At dinner one winter night their parents told them the great news that Gordon had been nominated by the President, and confirmed by the Senate, as ambassador to Algeria. But, Laura added, there was a problem. Speaking quickly so the girls could not interrupt, she reminded them that Algeria had just won its independence from France and it was still unsettled, possibly even dangerous for foreigners. It was certainly no place for teenage American girls.

'But there is a boarding school in Switzerland,* she went on, 'that we have looked into.'

They had selected it from a dozen recommended schools. Juliette Institut International de Jeunes Filles was a high school of impeccable reputation. Under the amiable dictatorship of Professor L. E. Bossard, wealthy young women became cultured, superbly trained in sports and educated to the entrance standards of any French, American or English university. Its rules were strict, its students closely super-

vised. Professor Bossard would make sure that no scandal would attach to Juliette - or the parents of its girls.

Gordon would take up his new post in the spring, Laura told Sabrina and Stephanie. She would stay with them in Paris until the school year ended. Then Gordon would join them and they would drive to Switzerland to see the girls safely ensconced under Professor Bossard's wing.

Sabrina looked somberly at her parents. This was what her mother had worked for all these years: Gordon as an ambassador. And now that she had succeeded, she was sending them away. 'It's not Algeria/ she said. 'It's because Daddy's an ambassador and you're sort of one, too, and you don't want to worry about us maybe doing something embarrassing to such very important people.'

Laura slapped her face. It was the only time she had ever hit her, and she was ashamed inunediately afterward. 'Forgive me,' she said to Sabrina. 'But for you to talk to me that way—'

'She didn't mean it,' Stephanie said quickly. 'It's just that we don't want to go away.'

'I meant it,' Sabrina said. 'And I do want to go away. I don't want to be with people who don't want me.'

Laura's eyes flashed, but she said smoothly and emotionally, 'Of course we want you; we'll miss you both terribly. But we can't turn down this appointment because of you. Algiers is a city still in turmoil, the schools are not—'

'It's all right,' Sabrina said. 'I understand.' Her stomach was churning and she hated her mother, and her father, too - looking out the window as if he weren't involved at all. 'It sounds like a wonderful school. We'll have a wonderful time, won't v/e, Stephanie? I guess we ought to practise our French some more; it is a French school, isn't it? We ought to start now, I guess. Stephanie, do you want to come upstairs with me and begin to practise our French?'

There was a long silence. The Hartwell family sat unmoving around the dinner table in the beautiful home that Laura had made for them in Paris. They were suspended on a breath of air, waiting to be carried in different directions.

Then Sabrina stood, followed by Stephanie, and the two of them went upstairs, to be together.

Chapter 3

At exactly 10:00 pm, the mahogany doors of the grand ballroom in the Hotel Geneva swung open on a Venetian palace of papiermSch6 and paint. Marbled columns supported a vaulted ceiling, and arched windows looked out on painted canals with gondolas and poling boatmen. The varnished ballroom floor was surrounded by a hundred round tables, each set with an orchid centerpiece and china and silver for four. As the doors opened the room became a kaleidoscope of four hundred young men and women in tuxedos and ball gowns crowding in for their graduation ball.

They came from ten select men's and women's schools on the shore of Lake Geneva, and they knew each other from years of chaperoned social events, trips to the great cities of Europe and sports competitions. Only that morning, they had competed in the annual Lake Geneva Sports Festival, their last chance before graduation to win trophies for their schools, their names etched impressively in brass or silver for victories in archery, sailing, fencing, swimming, horsemanship and soccer. From early morning until mid-afternoon, they struggled, hair slicked back, skin streaked with sweat and dust, muscles taut with the lust for victory. Now, polished and sophisticated, they mingled in the other kind of sports festival sponsored by their schools: finding a suitable partner for marriage.

Stephanie, in a froth of lemon yellow chiffon, her hair falling in heavy waves down her back, sat with Dena and Annie in the gilt armchairs at their table and watched for Sabrina to come in. She had to talk to her; so much had happened, so many new feelings danced inside her, and there was no one else she could share them with, not even her two closest friends.

It wasn't that she needed Sabrina as much as she used to; they had made separate hves, with separate friends. In the beginning, when they arrived and drove up the hill from the shore of Lake Geneva, they had huddled together, watching the road climb through vineyards of honey-green leaves edged with red and then, at the crest of the hill, pass through an iron gate into a park and on to the square stone castle that was Institut Juliette. Stephanie was assigned a room on the fourth floor with Dena Cardozo, Sabrina on the third with Gabrielle de Martel, where they lived and studied, along with one hundred and twenty other young women, for three years. It was the longest time they had ever lived in one place.

Where before Sabrina and Stephanie had been together all the time, at Juliette they began to go in different directions. They took art classes together and they both had joined the fencing team, but in their junior year Sabrina turned to sailing and captained her crew to first place in four Alliance races. Stephanie stayed with fencing and, on a team with Dena and Annie MacGregor, brought Juhette four trophies before the end of her senior year.

They studied and took up sports with different groups, but they always felt each other nearby, like a ribbon woven through their days. Whenever they could they snatched an afternoon or a holiday to go off together, apart from everyone else. To make sense of things,' Sabrina would say and settle back with a happy sigh to talk and listen.

*Hey,' Dena said as a waiter filled their glasses with champagne. 'You're dreaming again. Come back; I'm making a toast.' She raised her glass. To college, and the hell with it.'

'Don't be silly, Dena.' Stephanie said, turning her attention from watching for Sabrina. 'You don't want to stay in high school.'

'I want us to go on being roommates.'

'Then come to Paris with Sabrina and me.'

'You come to Bryn Mawr with me.'

'I want to go to Paris, Dena - to the Sorbonne.'

'Your parents enrolled you at Bryn Mawr.'

'And we enrolled ourselves at the Sorbonne. One of these days they'll understand that we mean what we say.'

Dena's eyebrows went up. Tough talk.'

Stephanie shook her head. Sabrina's determination had done it; alone, she would have given in to her parents, even though the money was theirs, left in a trust by their grandfather. Laura and Gordon wanted them at Biyn Mawr because Laura had gone there and because it was time, they said, the girls lived in America. But Sabrina and Stephanie wanted Paris; for years they had dreamed of Paris.

'Have you seen Sabrina?' Stephanie asked, becoming impatient. Soon the dancing would begin and then they would have no chance to talk.

'Not since the fencing match,' Annie said. 'But there is your Charles.' She paused. 'He has a nice face." She paused again so Stephanie could confide in them. When she was silent, Annie asked outright, 'Where did you go this afternoon, after the match?'

'For a walk,' Stephanie said vaguely, catching glimpses through the crowd of Charles, sitting with his senior class. She felt a pang of longing as his thin, serious face smiled at a friend, the way he had smiled at her that afternoon when he put his arm around her and led her out of the gymnasium, away from her disastrous fencing match.

They had gone to lunch in Lausanne. In a tiny caf6 with red tablecloths and white curtains where they were all alone and, at last, away fi-om spectators, she wept over a lost championship.

'Too timid,' she said through her sobs. 'Putting everything I had into one attack to win a point and then when I needed one more - just one - to win the trophy, I couldn't follow through. I don't know why. Sabrina would have—'

But Charles told her how wonderful she was, and how he admired her grace and skill. 'Everyone knows that technique is more important than strength,' he said. 'You don't have to be aggressive. Remember how they cheered you.' He talked on and on until her sobs quieted and she began to feel less hopeless. She leaned against him, happy and trusting, thinking she was falling in love, and then his voice changed as he began to stumble over his words. Stephanie knew he

was trying to ask her to come with him to the small hotel next door, but it was his first time and he could not manage it and Stephanie, as inexperienced as he, had no idea how to help him. In all late-night talk with her friends about sex, hours were spent on how to sayyts or no, but not one minute on how to lead the way.

Looking at him through the crowd in the ballroom, Stephanie remembered his arm around her while they talked for hours and thought about the hotel next door until they had to separate to get ready for the graduation ball that night. I love Charles, she thought, and smiled to herself.

'Ah,' said Annie expectantly, seeing the smile. 'A very good walk.' But still Stephanie was silent. The only one she could talk to about Charles was Sabrina. But Sabrina was nowhere to be seen.

With a flourish of trumpets, the directors of the ten AUiance schools were introduced to loyal applause. As the orchestra played the traditional medley of school anthems and then the first waltz, the lights slowly dimmed to a blue evening haze with hundreds of candles flickering hke tiny stars. The ballroom swirled with color and young men crowded about Stephanie, claiming dance after dance. She glided about the room, dreaming, waiting for Charles.