The Diamond Waterfall (90 page)

What will become of me? She was haunted by some lines of poetry.
La vie est brève, un peu d'espoir, un peu de rêve, et puis—bonsoir
… the shortness of life. Death which in 1914 had been all around her, which since last year had threatened her daily, had become now a near certainty. Germany, a camp, starvation, disease. Death might seem the least of the horrors.

They were not handcuffed—for that she was thankful. Together with their guards they formed a milling crowd in the courtyard of the Gare de l'Est. Their train was at six-thirty; it was only six-ten as they arrived. She spoke to a woman who had sat beside her on the coach, staring straight ahead, rigid. The woman continued to stare, not answering. It is that, Teddy thought, to be quite hopeless.

A Red Cross van was drawing up in the courtyard. There was hope, perhaps, that they would receive a handout, something to tide them over a journey bound to be long and slow. Already it was seven or eight hours since the thin gruel she had eaten, or rather drunk, this morning.

The van circled, and stopped not far from her. On the far side a woman got out, and walked around to the rear, and opened the van door. The driver, also a woman, had her head turned toward the passenger seat, writing something. As Teddy moved nearer, the woman looked up, turned her head, caught Teddy's eye.

She was Pauline.

For a second they stared at each other. Then:
“Put on your white coat,”
Pauline said.
“It's in the rear of the van.”

Teddy glanced about her—at the guards, at the other prisoners—then, shuffling past the van, head bent, she sidestepped. Rolling her right shoulder a little, moving sharply toward the open van rear, and up into it, she saw the coat at once, hanging on the left.

“Who,
whatever?”
said the woman in the van. She was small with a pug's nose.

“Mme. Perronault”—thank God she knew the name—“she sent me.” And in a moment there
was
Pauline.

The pug-faced woman said, “You should tell me, Mme. Perronault, if there's extra help coming. Three just clutters the van. Do we have to fit her in the front seat? And she's taken your coat.”

Bread, ersatz coffee. It crossed her mind, fleetingly, that she was weak and hungry. She worked with frantic, feverish strength, wearing the white coat as if it were hers. Possibly a life-saving uniform.

She couldn't have said afterward if it was an hour, two hours, three—or a mere ten minutes. She didn't look at the other prisoners to see if they had been shepherded away. When would they be counted? Would there be a list as they boarded the train?

Steam, rising from the urn, pricked her face. She opened it up now, to see how much was left. Tap on, off, on—fill cup after cup. “No, one bread only,
please.
” And Pauline saying, “If only it were Christ and the five thousand.”

How could a white coat cover that distinctive smell, her grubbiness; she could smell herself. Working close to the pug-faced woman, she tried to forget that she smelled. Plainly the woman could not. I smell, therefore I live.
I live.

On the drive back, although the woman, not understanding, had protested (“I never meant to complain.”), she was in the closed-up rear, for safety. Safety—for how long? She could not be delivered to her old apartment. She could not go there. She saw herself suddenly, dumped on the pavement, no papers, no belongings or signs of stability. What if we are stopped for papers now? If they open up the van? The Red Cross, they do not have immunity from rules.

The van stopped once. Since nothing happened, she supposed it was pug-face getting out. After what seemed an age, it stopped again. She thought she heard army tanks. Then another fifteen minutes perhaps, and they stopped a third time. Pauline opened up the back. “Quickly,” she said. “And keep on the coat.” Then she said, “We were held up. All those tanks in the Boulevard Suchet. Off to Normandy.”

They entered an apartment block. She didn't know the street. Pauline said casually, “The Geste came back, to search your apartment. My sister … the children are barely over it. Xavier got a real fright, thinking the Geste were after
him.”

She said only the briefest of words as they went up the stone staircase, the concierge watching.

“I'm leaving you with friends. You'll be safe here. I'll be back tomorrow morning, or evening.”

The door opened. An elderly maid stood there. Pauline said, “Tell your mistress, there's a lady here wants sewing work.”

A pleasant-faced woman came in. “So you want sewing work? I place a lot of people. It depends where you would like to be.” Then as the maid left the room: “I will show you where to go. Please don't move until one of us comes for you. We will feed you as best we can.” She locked the door—spoke urgently.

“You are among friends, you can speak freely. We're more used to men, you see—airmen especially—but we have a password for women too. Hence the ‘sewing work.'”

Teddy told her only the bare essentials, giving away nothing that could connect her to code name Lucienne. “I need to get out,” she said simply.

“We'll do what we can. You'll have to lie low until we've got something arranged, some papers together. I think you will go down the line to Switzerland.”
She knew she must have nothing to do with Jean Luc or Vincent, or any of her group. She could not risk even trying to contact them—however much she might wish to radio London. What “safe house” might not have become a death trap in the months of her absence? That she should not harm them was her prayer.

Over the next few weeks she was moved slowly, uncomfortably, across France. She who had once been a courier was now escorted herself. She had lost her nerve. Armed with the password, she could have gone from one “cutout” to another, but she could no longer give a cover story. She shook even at the thought of answering simple questions. She traveled usually as someone's middle-aged aunt—hard of hearing, and rather slow. “She's
stupid, “
her escort would say, “come on, Auntie, pull your hat over your face and go to sleep.”

Switzerland drew nearer. Although she trembled still, had not yet recovered her nerve, physically she was much better. She had lost the look, feel, and smell of prison. She even
believed
that she would arrive safely over the frontier.

But there was still, over and over, the
mauvais quart d'heure,
as it was known—when, left by one contact, she must wait for another. The cutout. Each unknown to the one before. And she must hold in her head the password. The code. A simple question, a simple answer. The password.

The sun shone in the park. She had been left on a bench to wait. To appear natural, normal, and to pass the time, she read: a well-thumbed copy of Guilloux's
Le Pain de Rêves.
She could not take in one word of it.

I am to hear
“Do you know somewhere near I can get my shoes heeled?”
I shall answer
“M. Andre is the only person still offering this service.”

Today, when her contact came, she would be driven to the village of Bossey, near Annemasse. From there, if all went well, she would be able later this evening to cross the frontier into Switzerland.

Un mauvais quart d'heure.
Yet another long, worrying quarter of an hour. And how slowly it passed. A small black terrier came running by, tripping up, rolling over. She went back to her book.

A voice said, “Excuse me, madame—do you know somewhere near I can get my shoes heeled?”

It was the hand she saw first. There was a finger, the fourth, missing on the right hand.

“M. Andre is the only person still offering this service.”

She looked up. He was looking down at her. Afterward, she was never sure who had been the more surprised.

“Our appointment,” he said, eyebrows raised. Amused. “I rather thought we had an
appointment.
You are almost five years late, Teddee.”

The Diamond Waterfall lay on its bed of ivory velvet. Willow stared at it. In the subdued setting of the bank vault, its beauty seemed unreal, out of time.

Two bank officials stood by. Jay said, “You were going to try it on.”

She put out a fearful finger to touch it, then he lifted it out for her, placed it around her neck—over her cotton shirt and slacks and zipper top. How incongruous it looked! She turned her head, looking around at him. She felt that as she moved the waterfall of diamonds moved with her—and it was heavy, so heavy. There was no looking glass. She was glad of that.

Because she felt that she ought to, she kept it on a few moments. But she would rather not have—its place was back in its box.

“Do you like it, Willow?”

“Jay, it's not a liking or not liking sort of thing. You just … it's beautiful.”

“It's yours.”

“Yes,” she said sadly. “It's mine—now.”

They walked out of the bank and into the streets of York. The sun shone. For April, it was unusually warm. Near the station, above the Roman Wall, daffodils moved in a slight breeze.

“They say 1945's going to be a wonderful summer. The old style weather prophets, that is. After a winter like last one, we need it.”

The war news was good now. Troops had crossed the Rhine, they were advancing daily. Victory Day, in Europe at least, couldn't be far away.

Jay, who had been wounded quite severely last September at Epinal, was convalescent now, although still not at all strong. He was allowed to go out and about a little, and Willow, who had a week's leave due to her, had arranged for them both to board at a farmhouse in Wensleydale. Before setting out for it, they had arranged this visit to York—for Willow to see the Diamond Waterfall.

She had not really wanted to, but she had a nagging sense of compulsion that she could not explain. She told herself that she
ought
to see it—and with Jay there, it would be all right.

With Jay, everything was all right, always. Except—lately she was not so sure. There was this new awkwardness with him. And she was awkward too.

He said now, “Wisp, I'm going to take you out. How about a cup of British tea?”

“At the
station?”

“Goof. No, I'll take you to Terry's. Hot margarined toast. Wartime afternoon tea—but one of the best.”

“Your ankle, your side—they're not bothering you? You can walk that far?”

“Fine, fine. I'm just fine, Willow.”

Their conversation, once so easy, now seemed to her suddenly stiff, considered. I'm upset by the Waterfall, she thought.

The tea shop wasn't full, it was still quite early. Sitting at a table against the wall, he asked her:

“O.K.?”

It was her turn. “Fine,” she said, “I'm fine.”

They were both silent. Then: “Well,” he said, “you've worn it at last. The famous Waterfall. You'd truly never seen it?”

“I
might
have, but not to remember. I—tried not to think about it. You see, I heard Reggie say once … It was always If we'd had the Waterfall,
you
lost the Waterfall!' I don't want to remember. He was drunk, and he's dead. Mike never spoke of it. I can only recall him mentioning it once, when he was talking about Jilly. And then of course the war came. Diamond necklaces and war don't go together somehow, although my grandfather nearly gave it to the war effort in 1917. The great gesture that was to elevate him to —I don't know what—hereditary peerage? Bought from Lloyd George, R.I.P.”

“You're not about to do the same? Give it away, I mean.”

“Jay, I might, I just might. I must do
something
with it.”

Tears filled her eyes suddenly. “All that had to happen, for me to own it! Mike, Jilly, their baby. I don't want it. All those refugee children. Flotsam of war. Imagine what one could do with the money.”

When they'd given their order for tea, she said, “I wouldn't ever ever ever want to wear it. I don't think that after the war it's going to be that sort of world.”

“You show a touching faith, Willow. It'll be much the same old world, I guess, just rearranged a little, reshuffled.”

“Problem is, in that reshuffled world, who'd wear such a thing? It doesn't seem to belong, Jay. If I sell it?”

“If you sell it, maybe an eastern potentate'll buy it for his queen, or a movie star for his paramour of the moment. I agree it's not appropriate for afternoon tea.”

“My great-grandmother wore it then. Or so they say. I suppose, really, it's very Empress Eugénie. She was a great one for diamonds. Teddy told me this story once …”

“I want to hear it, O.K., but
are
you going to pour the tea?”

“What happened was that Eugénie saw some actress on stage wearing this magnificent diamond parure from her waist to her ankles. Paste, naturally. But you know how theatrical stuff glitters. Apparently nothing would satisfy Eugénie but she must have one just the same. So she commissioned it, using diamonds left over from her imperial crown. She was in a great hurry about it, wanting to wear it for some particular function. She badgered the poor workers, who had to stay up all night. Finally, it was ready five minutes before the ball.”

“Don't tell me. It all fell apart.”

“Worse. When it was put on her, because the diamonds weren't paste, their weight raised the back of her crinoline so high she showed several inches of
leg.”

“And we weren't amused?”

“We weren't. And she never wore it again, ever.”

She realized she was still holding the teapot over the strainer. Half of Jay's cup poured. None of her own.

“I'm a pretty patient guy,” he said.

“Jay, I'm sorry. Teddy told it jolly well. She heard it from Henri.”

“Sure. Henri. And how are they?”