Lilac Girls (15 page)

I walked toward the door for air. “How do you do this, Fritz? It's so—”

“It's no glamour job, but if you leave, there will be a replacement here tomorrow. We handle a certain quota every month. Orders from Berlin. It can't be helped.”

“Of course it can be helped. We can refuse to do it.”

Fritz refilled the syringe. “Good luck with Koegel on that one.”

“Well, I can't do this.” How could I have ended up in such a place?

Hellinger entered the room with his leather roll of tools. I tried not to listen as he removed the woman's dental metals. He stamped the cheek with a star to mark her as completed.

“You'll be fine, Herta,” Fritz said. “Once you get used to it.”

“I'm not staying. I didn't go to medical school to do this—”

“That's what I said too,” said Hellinger, with a laugh. He tucked the cotton sack of gold into his coat pocket.

“Me too,” Fritz said. “And then, before I knew it, three months passed. After that, you're here to stay, so make up your mind soon.”

There was no question. I would be gone by sunrise.

I
n the darkness of the bedroom I felt for my clothes. I found my slip and slid into it, then felt Paul's velvet jacket and threw it on, the satin lining cool on my bare arms. Who was pounding on the apartment door?

“Stay here, Paul. I'll see who it is.”

He lay back against my pink satin pillow, his Cheshire Cat smile white in the semidarkness, fingers locked behind his head. This was funny? What if it was Mother? What would I tell her? The world's handsomest man is in my bed, half naked? But Mother had her own key. Maybe she'd left it behind?

I inched down the hall. Who would create such a racket? I passed the dark living room. In the fireplace, orange embers still glowed.

“Caroline,” came a voice through the door. “I need to see you.”

David Stockwell.

I stepped closer and put one hand to the painted door. David pounded, and it vibrated under my fingers.

“What are you doing here, David?” I said through the door.

“Open up,” he said. “It's important.” Even through five inches of oak, I could tell he'd been drinking.

“I'm not dressed—”

“I need to talk to you, Caroline. It'll only take a minute.”

“Come back tomorrow, David.”

“It's about your mother. I need to speak with you, most urgently.”

I'd been through David's “most urgent” situations before, but I couldn't take the chance.

I flipped on the hall light and opened the door to find David, in rumpled white tie, leaning against the doorjamb. He pushed by me, into the vestibule, his gait unsteady. I pulled Paul's jacket tighter about me to hide my underdressed state.

“It's about
time,
” David said. “My God, Caroline, what are you wearing?”

“How did you get past the doorman?”

David took me by the shoulders. “Please don't be mad at me, Caroline. You smell so good.”

I tried to push him away. “David, stop. What's wrong with my mother?”

He pulled me close and kissed my neck. “I miss you, C. I've made a terrible—”

“You reek, David.”

I tried to pull away but not before Paul appeared behind me, dressed in his undershorts and a shirt he'd hastily thrown on. Even in the harsh overhead light, Paul was lovely: the open shirt, my lipstick smeared down the placket.

“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.

T
HINGS 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 with 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.