Travert strokes my hair until I’m spent, all dried out. Then he gets me a handkerchief and watches me blow my nose. I reach for my pocketbook, take out a mirror, and try to fix my makeup, but it’s no use. I’m a red-eyed, red-nosed ruin.
I glance back at him, realizing that I’ve soaked his undershirt with my tears and he’s watching my every move. I find it unbelievable that he could possibly still want me, but he’s got a pillow in his lap, and it’s easy to guess what he’s struggling to hide. I start to feel a little sorry for him. What a pathetic pair we are . . .
I dry my eyes and say, “Let’s have sex, then. Let’s just get it over with.”
“You’re upset. You don’t really want to.”
“Don’t ask me why, but right now, I really do.”
His brows lift. “Then should we talk about—”
I kiss him, hard, before I can change my mind. I try to get the upper hand, but he’s already fisting my pin-curled hair as he draws me down. He returns my wet kisses like he’s dying of thirst. Then we’re rolling in the bedsheets, wrestling to be on top. I don’t like to let anyone get the better of me, but he’s stronger, and when he pins me to keep me from scratching, he whispers, “You can’t make me that person.”
“What person?”
“The one who hurts you,” he says.
I stare into his earthy brown eyes, chastened. Quiet. Confused that he seems to know what I’m doing even before I do. “Okay?” he asks.
“Okay,” I whisper.
We kiss gently this time and I like the weight of him pressing down. He’s solid, and heavy, and here. And when he reaches for a rubber I go soft in spite of myself, because I know there are laws against contraceptives under the current regime, and that abortion is punishable by death. My mood has been too bleak to even think about that before now, but Travert thought about it. And it says something good about him that he doesn’t want to bring a child into the world at a time like this. That he doesn’t just want to knock me up and leave a kid behind if he dies. Because I know what it’s like to be a kid left behind . . .
When he puts himself inside me, the pain isn’t terrible. Then the sensation of heat and the friction of skin-to-skin in urgent need becomes a mindless pleasure. There’s only this breath, and the next, this moment and the one after, my first cry of pleasure against his mouth and his throatier groan.
When it’s finished, he sits at the edge of the bed and smokes a cigarette. I wrap myself in the sheet, strangely satisfied, and offer my confession to his back. “You should know I’ve never . . .”
He turns, and the cigarette nearly falls from his lips. “Never?”
“Don’t look so surprised!”
He still looks shocked, and also amused. “Okay.”
I whack his arm. “Now I’m sorry I told you.”
He shrugs apologetically. “I’d have done it differently if I knew.”
I pause, surprisingly curious. “There are different ways?”
“I would’ve . . .” His neck flushes. “I could’ve—”
“Shut up.”
He frowns. “Merde. We’re back to this again?”
“I mean, shut up and listen to the radio!” I bolt to my knees, straining to hear now that music has given way to an announcement that strikes like a thunderclap from the sky:
“The Americans have landed in North Africa.”
FORTY-THREE
BEATRICE
Paris
Spring 1917
America was finally in the war.
While I’d been in the mountains at Chavaniac with architects and electricians, trying to restore Lafayette’s chateau, President Wilson went before Congress and finally said, The world must be made safe for democracy.
What eventful days were these!
By the time I returned to Paris, Willie—nearly falling in the entryway when his crutch caught on the stair—brought the newspapers to Emily’s house, and after I read President Wilson’s words, they echoed in my mind.
We desire no conquest, no dominion, no compensation. It is fearful to lead this great peaceful people into the most disastrous of all wars. But we shall dedicate everything we are and everything we have, knowing America is privileged to spend her blood for the principles that gave her birth.
I fished through my purse for a handkerchief to dab my misty eyes. That old flubdub mollycoddle somehow found precisely the right words, and I complained, “Damn Woodrow Wilson. I made it this far through the war without blubbering like a sentimental fool . . .”