The guard with Nanée opened the gate, and she slipped out, with Edouard Moss’s papers if not with the man himself.
Sunday, November 3, 1940
VILLA AIR-BEL
Nanée stood with her little suitcase in hand in her bedroom, finally, Dagobert licking her shoes, her ankles.
“It’s okay, Daggs,” she said. “I’m fine.”
But she couldn’t muster even the energy to pet him.
She’d slipped as quietly as she could into Villa Air-Bel, not wanting to answer anyone’s questions about the camp or the long train ride back, showing the conductor only her American passport and her ticket and holding her breath, smiling innocently as he considered—Did she have no travel permit? And why was she only getting on at Les Milles with a ticket from Arles?—before he punched her ticket without question and moved on to the next passenger.
She closed her bedroom door and lit a fire in the fireplace, then stood watching it, soothed by Dagobert’s busy tongue.
“It’s okay,” she said again, as much to herself as to him.
When the logs were caught, she set her case on the dresser and popped it open. She looked at herself in the mirror there, the dark circles under her eyes. She adjusted her scarf to better cover the deepening purple mark.
The panties and brassiere and blouse with the still-damp sleeve sat crumpled in the case, on top of the Robert Piguet suit.
She looked in the mirror again. It was his shame, not hers. Robe Heir.
She took the blouse out and set it on the fire, watched it slowly catch. Dagobert sat beside her, watching too. She added the panties, the brassiere. She took the silk stockings still attached to the garter out of the case next, tossed them too into the fire. Good silk stockings. Impossible to get these days. They seemed to shrink from the flames, giving off an odor of foul charred meat.
She stared at the suit. Somehow, the suit was the worst of it.
She’d just taken the jacket in hand when someone tapped lightly at the door.
“I’ll be down in a bit,” she said.
The door creaked open. T cautiously peered in. “Nanée, don’t forget Miriam is leaving tomorrow.”
Nanée tried to say of course she hadn’t forgotten, but of course she had. This was Miriam’s last night before she left for Yugoslavia, to try to get her fiancé back to the States.
“Nanée?” T said, registering the blouse in the fire, the stockings.
“I’ll be down to help get ready for the party in a minute.”
T took the suit jacket gently from Nanée’s hands. “Wait, Nanée. Just wait.”
“I’ll never wear it again.”
Even she could hear the anger in her voice.
T held the jacket out and examined it, the diamond brooch still on the lapel. She looked to Nanée—that frank, assessing gaze.
“Edouard wasn’t there,” Nanée said.
“Oh, Nan.” T moved toward her, but Nanée stepped back. She couldn’t bear to have anyone touch her.
T collected the skirt from the case and folded the two pieces carefully. She stood there holding them, watching the blouse and the stockings burn. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
Obsession. Anxiety. Fetish. But Nanée would never tell anyone. She couldn’t have even T imagining this.
“What’s to tell?” she said, embracing her rage. “I failed.”
T set the suit aside and took Nanée’s hand the way she did with Peterkin. Nanée wanted to object, but she didn’t want to explain. She let T lead her to the little chair and sit her down.
“You’re exhausted,” T said. “Of course you are. It was a long trip, and you never have been any good at not getting exactly what you want. But you tried.”
She picked up the suit.
“I won’t ever wear it again,” Nanée repeated.
“But someone else can. It’s a convincing suit. At a time when so many people need to appear convincing. The suit of a woman of substance. At a time when we need so many more of you.”
When Nanée didn’t object, T looked at her oddly, differently. “Nanée?” She looked to the things in the fire again, then back to Nanée. “Oh, Nan.”
Nanée looked out the window, to the long stretch of green and the train and trolley tracks, the sea.
“Are you sure you don’t want to tell me about it?” T asked gently.
In the distance, a trolley crept across the tracks.
“I’m going to draw a warm bath for you down in the kitchen, okay?” T said. “A warm bath and a glass of something strong.”