He started to nod, but I saw the exhaustion and disillusionment in his face. And all at once, his resolve crumbled. “I—I know you’ve seen the front, Beatrice, but you haven’t lived it the way I have, day after day, year after year. You haven’t done what I’ve had to do. Everywhere in France I look now, I see the men I buried.” His hands were shaking again when he admitted, “I can’t stay. I don’t even know if I can stay even one more day.”
I’d seen shell-shocked men, and I’d known for quite some time he lived with torments. It was natural that Max should wish to cross the ocean to where he last felt safe and happy.
“Then you must go,” I said, even though I felt our future together unraveling.
He felt it too. “What then? Me in New York. You in France with your children and your husband . . . What should I think? I think you are a loyal Adrienne, in the end, willing to sacrifice your whole life to the prison of your marriage.”
“No,” I said softly. I knew Willie’s faults. He knew mine too. I’d been unable to domesticate him, and he’d never again domesticate me. I was free. We both understood that.
The truth was, I never wanted to do to Max what Willie had done to me. I could never be content in a private, quiet life. I would always venture forth to put my mark on this world until my last breath. And where would that leave him? “If I may be permitted the vanity, I think I may be more like her adventurer husband, always on crusade.”
Max laughed bitterly, and he had a right to be angry. It was ending between us on what should have been the happiest of days. It was ending even though we loved each other. It was ending so that my life could have yet another beginning. One I never expected, but which I knew was right for me. “I’m sorry, Maxime. I’m so sorry.”
Stricken, he hung his head. Then, at length, he said, “Well, I’m not sorry. I’ve no regrets, because until you, I lost myself in this war. I simply lost myself.”
But I’d found myself in this war, and for me it wasn’t over.
We stood and embraced, exchanging a chaste kiss that I knew would be our last—one that tasted of poignant sorrow. The next morning, I walked him to the gate and watched him go.
Wiping away tears, I walked back to the castle, where Marthe pedaled her tricycle near my feet.
“Why are you crying, Madame Chanler?” she asked, blinking those steel blue eyes.
“Oh, we’re all sad from time to time, darling, but I shall soon be better.” I took a deep breath. “And from now on . . . why don’t you call me Beatrice?”
It was, after all, at long last, a name of my own.
SIXTY-THREE
MARTHE
Paulhaguet
June 1944
“You’re a terrible nurse,” Travert grouses, dabbing his bandaged chest where I’ve spilled broth.
He’s a worse patient, but I can’t complain, because my battered face still hurts when I talk. I try giving Travert another spoonful. He holds up a hand to say he’s not hungry. It’s a good sign that his Frenchman’s pride is more severe than his wound, but my bruised lower lip wobbles to remember him writhing on the ground in front of the boys’ dormitory, a bullet in his gut. And all for my sake . . .
He’d have died if Sam’s maquisards hadn’t carried him to the nearby preventorium hospital, where doctors rushed him to a surgical room. Now we’re in hiding at Madame Pinton’s farm, dependent on Dr. Boulagnon, who comes to change Travert’s bandages, check the stitches, and give him something for the pain.
It’s a miracle the bullet hit nothing vital, but Yves still can’t walk on his own. It won’t be long before the German authorities connect the dots between us, fifteen missing Jewish girls, and three missing Gestapo officers. So Travert wants me to go without him—flee to Marseilles or a village in the mountains—but I could never abandon him after he came back for me.
No one’s ever done that before.
To keep him from arguing, I say I’m not strong enough to go on my own. With a broken rib, that’s not far from the truth. I also have crushing headaches and lingering dizziness. I move very slowly around Madame Pinton’s house in helping to care for him. I’m ashamed to be putting her at risk, but she says she isn’t worried. “You think I’m afraid to leave this lousy world? And anyway, the Nazis have bigger problems than an old woman in an isolated farmhouse.”
With grim satisfaction, she tells us about the battle raging between the Germans and our maquisards at nearby Mont Mouchet. Then, just as my purple-black bruises are yellowing, the Allies land at Normandy and fight their way from the beachheads. British, Canadians, Free French, and fresh-faced Americans, well fed, well supplied, and motored by that quintessential spirit of get-up-and-go.