Two Testaments (3 page)

A ricochet of bullets sounded in the street below the building where Anne-Marie Duchemin was staying with fellow pied-noir Marcus Cirou. She watched Moustafa hurry a young man into their building, and she quickly limped to the mirror that hung on the flaking wall. She felt a pang of despair as her reflection stared back at her. Her black hair drooped loosely upon her shoulders. She cringed at the way her protruding cheekbones accentuated her deep-set and dull eyes. Her skin looked pale and almost yellowish. She turned away.

A thick gray sweater hung impossibly over her thin frame, but she felt completely naked. David Hoffmann was about to walk back into her life, and she was not ready. Her heart belonged to Moustafa. With him, she was not afraid to be sick and disheveled. She read devotion in his eyes. But David! Her lover when they were but adolescents. She had not seen him in so long.

Suddenly she felt afraid. He was risking his life and wasting his time to help her. Why? Would he be angry to see what she had become? A pitiful, withered flower …

The door swung wide, and David stood in the opening and paused. Anne-Marie swallowed hard and met his eyes. His six-foot-one-inch frame had filled out so that he looked every bit the grown man he was. His black eyes were softer than she remembered, and the tenderness she saw in them scared her even more. His coarse black hair was swept back away from his face, but one wisp tickled his forehead. A black leather jacket hung loosely over his shoulders. As he leaned down to set a suitcase on the floor, she noticed his bandaged arm. He straightened up, not moving forward, as if waiting for her invitation.

His mouth whispered
Anne-Marie
without making a sound.

Oh, you are a beautiful man
, she thought, fighting to stand her ground, willing herself against running into his arms, forcing herself to forget that last embrace seven years ago when he had kissed her good-bye even as the tiny seed of Ophélie was forming in her womb.

David cleared his throat. “Anne-Marie.” He said it almost reverently, and then he moved toward her, slowly, taking long strides. He reached out and touched her frail hand, then brushed her face. “My dear Anne-Marie.”

She heard the sorrow, the groan of pain in his voice, the hurt for her suffering. She bit her lip and closed her eyes, but she could not keep the tears from flowing. She rested her head against his chest and let his strong arm enclose her as she sobbed like a terrified child who had been rescued at last.

Somewhere inside she watched the years of horror and death, killing and running for life, the years that had followed her happiest moments with David. If only … if only … The questions of a lifetime swam before her in liquid reality until they ran down her cheeks. Her feeble energy was spent. And though she had not uttered a word, she had the feeling that David Hoffmann understood perfectly everything she felt.

David was not prepared for the emotions that surfaced in him as he held Anne-Marie in his arms. He had been playing happily in his little university world while this woman lived in hell. He hadn’t known. He had cared, and yet … Even the smuggling operation in France, with all its dangers, could not compare with what he saw in Anne-Marie: true human suffering. The weight of guilt pulled on his shoulders and bound him more tightly than the sling in which his arm rested. A sick, painful anger welled up in his soul as he held her, this woman who was no more than a dried twig fallen from a branch.

God, forgive me
, he prayed as she sobbed into his shirt.
I had no idea.
She looked more like an aging grandmother or a malnourished child than a twenty-four-year-old woman. She didn’t want pity, David was sure, but pity overwhelmed him anyway. A fleeting thought crossed his mind. If only … if only she had left with him for America. Ophélie would have been born there. They would have made it, somehow. If only …

And then the angry
why
? Why? Why did life twist and turn and torture?

He stepped back from Anne-Marie and let his good arm fall to his side. A searing pain shot through his shoulder, and he grimaced.

“What happened?” Anne-Marie whispered. She touched his bandaged arm.

“It’s nothing.”

Silence engulfed them.

Anne-Marie wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. “I’m sorry.”

“Perhaps we could sit down for a minute?”

“Yes, of course.” Anne-Marie shot him a weak smile. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I … I’m so glad to see you, David. Thank you for coming. It’s the worst time.”

He gently took her arm and led her out of the room. “Moustafa is waiting for us in the kitchen.”

“Yes, yes. You must be tired after your trip. Let me fix you some mint tea.”

The small kitchen was dark. Moustafa Dramchini stood with his back toward them, already preparing the tea. He turned and greeted them with sullen eyes. David helped Anne-Marie to her seat as Moustafa set a tray on the table. He rested his hand on Anne-Marie’s back and eyed David suspiciously.

“When do you plan to leave?”

“It’s your call, Moustafa. As soon as you can arrange it.”

Anne-Marie looked up. “Tell me of Ophélie. How is she?”

David relaxed and smiled. “She’s fine. She’s a beautiful, happy child who misses her mother very much.” He reached into his pocket. “She sent this for you.” He held out a drawing of a rainbow with the words
I love you, Mama
written in the cursive of a six-year-old.

Anne-Marie’s eyes filled with tears. She ran her fingers lovingly over the picture and then pressed it to her breast. She closed her eyes and let the tears trickle down her cheeks. “Ophélie.”

The men watched her in silence. Finally she spoke, her voice catching. “I’ve clung to the hope for all these months. I’ve forced myself to believe, to be strong. But to know for sure that she is safe. To dream of holding her in my arms again soon. Now I can cry, and I don’t know if it’s joy or fear or sorrow. Now I can believe that we’re going to be okay.”

David put his hand inside his leather coat and felt for a gold chain, which he handed to Anne-Marie. “Ophélie sent this as well. She wanted me to have it, to keep me safe. She said it has kept her safe, and now it will bring you back safely to her also.”

Anne-Marie held the chain with the small Huguenot cross on it as if it were a priceless jewel. “My father’s cross. I’d forgotten how beautiful it was. Thank you.” She traced its outline with her finger and then slipped it around her neck. “Ophélie never realized the real significance of it?”

David smiled. “I don’t know if I would say that. She has learned an awful lot about the cross and what it stands for in the time she has been at the orphanage. But she never understood why it was so important for us.” He closed his eyes, picturing his daughter. “She’s a secretive child. Do you know she kept your letter hidden and learned to read so she could know what you were telling her?”

Anne-Marie shook her head. “How did you find it?”

“I didn’t. It was Mother Griolet, the nun in charge of the orphanage. I had no idea.”

He explained how he had found Ophélie, a terrified and wounded child, in Paris and of his decision to bring her to the orphanage. “I had no idea what to do with a small child. But I knew Gabby would.”

“Gabby?”

David’s face reddened against his will. “Gabriella Madison. She’s a young woman on the exchange program who helps out with the orphanage.”

“The woman with the red hair,” Moustafa volunteered.

“That’s the one,” David answered. He didn’t want to talk about Gabriella now. There would be time later to tell Anne-Marie and time to understand what he was reading in the angry eyes of Moustafa.

Darkness blanketed the streets of Algiers as Moustafa slipped outside. “I’ll be back shortly.” His soft brown eyes, filled with distrust, met David’s.

“Good.” David nodded. “Then we’ll discuss the plans for leaving.”

“Yes, then.”

David watched him go into the street. He was eager to get Anne-Marie to the port and out of the war-ridden city. They would cross the Mediterranean, and then life would resume. Anne-Marie would be with Ophélie. Her health would improve. And he would be back with Gabriella.…

The sound of a chair being dragged across the floor startled him, and he turned from the window. Anne-Marie stood by the kitchen table, a thick robe now pulled around her thin frame.

“I didn’t mean to surprise you. Would you like some more tea?”

He pulled out a chair, and they both sat down. “No, I’m fine.”

The silence was heavy. A hundred questions raced through his mind. Where to begin?

Anne-Marie played with the ties on her robe, twisting them in her hands. Her head was bent, and for a brief moment he remembered her as a radiant, rebellious adolescent. His heart ached.

“Are you feeling strong enough to leave?” he asked, breaking the quiet.

She did not look up but still wrapped the ties around her hands. “I’m sorry I never answered your letters,” she said. “How could I answer? How could I write you and keep silent about what was happening to me?”

David reached over and took her hand. “What did your parents say when they found out you were pregnant?”

Anne-Marie looked up. “They did all the right things. They got angry. Papa ranted for a while. Then they apologized. They listened. We talked. We cried a lot. They asked me to let you know, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t put that on you.” Her eyes wore the saddest of expressions. “I knew you would come back—just to hurt your father. You’d come back for all the wrong reasons.”

David stiffened and set his jaw. She was right. Perhaps he would have come back to Algeria out of rebellion and not love. Intellectually he had loved her. Physically he had loved her. But emotionally? He could not say.

“I cared deeply about you, Anne-Marie.”

“I know that.”

He winced inwardly at the stabbing guilt he felt.

“Mama was a saint about it. I broke their hearts, and they forgave me. And oh, how they loved Ophélie. Captain Duchemin, the staunch, strong military man! I wish you could have seen him cooing at his granddaughter.” She smiled at the memory. “He rocked her to bed every night and sang her the most beautiful songs. We were a happy, odd family for a while. Until Ali Boudani ripped everything apart.” She stared at him, and her face grew hard and determined. “You know the rest.”

“Perhaps not everything,” he whispered. “Tell me about Moustafa.”

Anne-Marie looked angry. Then she smiled. “Dear Moustafa. My childhood friend, the one who helped me escape to France, then betrayed me to Ali.” Her voice was barely audible. “The one who loves me.”

“And do you love him?”

She closed her eyes and withdrew her hand from his. He was sorry that he had asked her so soon.

Softly she answered, “I love him, David. I love him, and every time he leaves this filthy apartment, I’m terrified I’ll lose him. I am so afraid that he will be found in some back alley with his throat slit, like the other harkis. Like his father. These Arabs have remained loyal to France and fought alongside the French soldiers. But they aren’t French, and they’re seen as traitors by their own people. What hope is there for the harki families?”

She stood and held on to the back of the chair. “I love him, and I wish I didn’t. What future is there for us? An ostracized Arab and a pied-noir. And he’ll stay for his people. He won’t come to France, I know. I’m so afraid that in a few days he will walk out of my life forever. And it hurts so much. It hurts like … it hurts the way …”