Let me send my motor for you, wrote Maxime. And when the tires of his Rolls-Royce came to a crunching stop beside me, he was himself in the driver’s seat.
“Have you been demoted to chauffeur duty?” I asked.
“I consider it a promotion to drive your staff car, Madame General,” he teased. “As I told my commanding officer, no one in the French army can allow you to come to harm; you’re too valuable to the nation.”
“He bought that?” I asked, trying to disguise both my relief at being rescued and the mix of emotions Max’s presence always stirred up.
“Your country coming into the war has created amongst my countrymen the greatest love for Americans.”
I didn’t imagine his emphasis on the word love. I still love you, his eyes said. After he’d loaded my luggage, I climbed into the front seat and straightened my skirts over my knees. “It’s very thoughtful of you to have put your automobile at my disposal.”
I clutched my hat, because Willie always liked to test the engine by pushing it as hard as it would go. But Max eased carefully onto the pockmarked road as if carrying precious cargo.
I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry to have troubled you. I’m sure you have more important things to do.”
“As it happens, there’s nothing more important. I’ve been given a few days’ leave to see you back to Paris.”
Did he mean to say there was nothing more important to him than me? I tried not to wonder if he’d forgiven me for going back to Willie. If he meant what he’d written at Christmas. And I hoped going back to Paris together wouldn’t be more temptation than I could withstand. I still found this man alarmingly sympathetic—a danger to my impregnable heart.
What would we speak about on the journey? I couldn’t tell him I was here at the behest of the embassy. I also couldn’t allow conversation to drift to our past, so I chattered on about my work.
“And how is our little cherub?” he asked. “Marthe.”
My breath caught as I wondered whether it meant something that he called the baby he once put into my arms ours. “She’s thriving in the mountain air, safe in Lafayette’s ancestral home. She owes her happiness to you.”
Being alone with him again reminded me of how we had been before Willie’s amputation. Before the drinking. Before the morphine. Before the ugly scenes. I wasn’t sure I could abandon my husband now that he was crippled, but I knew, without a doubt, that we’d never be happy again. That our marriage was over in every sense of the word but one. Perhaps that’s why I’d thrown myself into work. It was a way to keep from thinking about the lonely marital road ahead of me . . .
On the road actually ahead of me, the earth suddenly roared, spitting up black smoke and soil and stones that hailed down upon us. The car shook with the blast, and my hat fell over my face, blinding me as Max slammed the brakes. I was thrown into the dashboard and crumpled onto the floor, where I crouched wordless with shock.
Another shell exploded in front of us and shattered the windshield. I shrieked at the spray of glass while, with wrenching speed, Max backed up, turned the car, and careened away. I clutched the seat for balance as the automobile jumped and bumped down a smoke-filled road I hoped would lead us to safety. Instead, our front wheels hit a crater where some previous shell had landed, and our car fell half in it, coming to a dead and painful stop.
There was near-silence a long time after that.
No more shelling. No birds chirping. Only a high-pitched screech in both my ears. A man was standing over me, face bloodied, reaching down for me. Was he shouting my name? I didn’t know. I couldn’t even remember where I was. Had we been in a car crash?
If the boys were hurt, I’ll never forgive Willie. Never.
But it wasn’t Willie calling to me. It was Max’s voice that finally penetrated the fog of my mind, reminding me that this was war. Clutching my hat, I tried to push myself up. Max grabbed my wrist, dragging me out of the wrecked car. Only then did I come to my senses.
We ran through the field, grasses whipping at our ankles as we fled the range of the guns. We didn’t stop until we reached an old orchard tree, where Max took hold of my arms. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know,” I said, gasping a painful breath. “I don’t think so.”
Blood dripped from his forehead, mingling with his sweat. Somehow I had the presence of mind to take a kerchief from my pocket, dabbing at what was, thankfully, only a cut over his brow where his forehead must have smashed into the wheel.