“Oh my God,” was all she could say as he pulled her close to him. She felt as though she were dreaming.
“They tell me that you’re going home. I will go home soon too. Come, let us sit. We have a lot to talk about.”
They found a log under a tree and sat on it. He held her hand and kissed her. He wanted to know everything. When she was leaving, where she was going, what she would do now.
“You don’t know me. But I know you. I knew you that night, and everything I needed to know.” It had been ten months since she’d seen him, and it suddenly felt like only days. She had been so sure she would never see him again, that it was only a dream. “The Germans took my home and have been living there for the entire Occupation. I’m going home to reclaim it,” he explained to her. “I’m sure the German pigs who lived there didn’t treat it with respect. I go now to make it livable again. But I wanted to see you first. And then I want you to come and see it, to tell me if you think you could be happy there. It’s in the country, near Provence. My family built it three hundred years ago. And you live where?”
“In North Carolina. Raleigh. My father is a doctor. And my mother runs a school. I’m a nurse,” she said, not knowing where to start, and he laughed.
“I know. I remember. You are very good at what you do. And you wish to continue? Would you live in France with me? Married, of course.” He scarcely knew her, but he had no doubt in his mind. He had known it the night they met, when she got him on his feet to escape the Germans and saved him. “I’ve been asked to work with the new government, with General de Gaulle. Some of my skills and experience of the past six years could be useful to them in the Department of the Interior, as a minister of the government, which means some time in Paris, and some time at home in Provence. I would like to meet your family.” She was frowning, wondering how realistic he was about the problems he would face with a woman like her. It all felt like a dream, and maybe he was dreaming too. He sounded certain about her, even though he barely knew her. He was going purely on instinct and his powerful attraction to her. He had been living by his wits for nearly six years, and trusted what he felt for her.
“Gonzague,” she said quietly, and loved the sound of his name. It was wonderfully old-fashioned and lyrical, as he was in a way, like a prince in a fairy tale, but this was real life. “I’m Black,” she said, and he looked at her as though for the first time.
“I didn’t know,” he said simply, with those piercing eyes, and then she laughed. “Perhaps you don’t remember. I was shot in the leg. I am not blind. So? You think I am afraid of that?”
“So what happens here? Where I live it would be a very hard thing. Impossible, or almost. They would punish us for being together. Terrible things would happen, our children would suffer, and so would we.” Just describing it to him made her feel sick. And it was what she was going back to now.
“That’s very wrong. It would not be that way in France. You are a very beautiful woman, but I’m not interested in your color. I care about your mind, and your heart. You are a woman of purpose. You are not afraid. You were not afraid when you came to help me. I saw your eyes, your face, your heart. Nothing frightened you then. Are you afraid now?” He waited for her answer. It all rested on that and what she would say.
“No, I’m not,” she said in a clear voice. “Are you?”
“Not at all. I am afraid of other things, of a world that allows a travesty to exist like the one we just lived, where brother betrays brother and nothing is safe or true or right. We allowed that to happen. We gave our country away. We allowed evil to exist and to prosper. France had poison in her veins for these years. I am not interested in the color of skin. What happened here must never happen again. That is important to me. And so is life with a good woman at my side. An extraordinary woman, which you are. Your color means nothing.” He was as beautiful and exciting and mysterious and strong as he had been when she met him. She had fallen in love with him on the spot, and believed she could never have him, and would never see him again. But she was wrong. He was a man of his word and he was here now. It wasn’t a fairy tale. It was real. And so was he, and he loved her just as she was.
“Do you have family? Parents? Brothers?” She wanted to know all about him too now.
“I had three brothers and a father. All dead in the Resistance. My mother died when I was a child. I have no one now. I have you, if you wish it to be so. You are going home soon, I believe.” He had made discreet inquiries to find her. “I must deal with my house, and get the men started working on it. Then I would like to visit you and your family in…Carolina?”