Читать книгу A Rendezvous To Remember - Geri Krotow - Страница 9

Esmée’s Journal

November 23, 1942

Winter is upon us. But my heart is far colder than any wind from the North Sea.

Yesterday I saw the ultimate betrayal. More painful than any of his slaps or punches or kicks.

I watched that bastard, my husband, give food—first-quality harvest and three pigs—to our enemy. He smiled and laughed, and even smoked a cigarette with them. He doesn’t think I saw them. He thinks I was busy in the cellar, boiling our linens. I fumed inside as he sold his soul for our country’s blood.

Thank you, God, that I never told him about my involvement in the Resistance.

Now I’ll have to be more careful than ever when I go out, which can only be when he’s either passed out from beer or when he goes into Brussels, which is rarer. I used to think he went into Brussels just to sell his goods, but now I wonder if he’s been making friends with the Germans all along. Maybe he’s charming one of their vile wives?

No matter to me. I am determined to get my family, my real family, through the war. I pray his seed never takes root inside me. God forgive me, I don’t want a child with this devil.

Melinda closed Grammy’s book and leaned her head against the back of the worn leather reading chair. She needed a break. It was as if the venom in Grammy’s words could burn Melinda’s skin more than sixty years after they were written.

She shoved her feet into her scuffed slippers and went to the kitchen to make a large pot of tea. She looked at the antique clock on the wall; she’d wound it last night.

She and Nicholas had bought this clock together, during a visit to Niagara-on-the-Lake. The intricate carving on the simple wooden box was yet another reminder of her own love gone bad.

Here it was, eight-thirty on a Saturday evening.

Dinner wasn’t even an option. Her stomach was as tense as her nerves. Tea was the only thing that ever helped her through these times, and there’d been many cups in the last few years.

The backyard light flicked on, evident through the toile curtains that hung halfway down the picture window, which ran the length of the kitchen.

Despite her nervousness, Melinda walked over to the door. Probably just some wayward raccoon or neighborhood cat, but it never hurt to check. She’d been living in the heart of D.C. for too long to ignore any hint of danger.

The baseball bat she kept at her bedside was upstairs. Her fingers itched for it. As she stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, the teapot started to whistle.

The figure of a large man loomed in the window of the kitchen door. Melinda screamed.

And then her brain registered what her eyes saw.

“Nicholas!” His name was a strange mix of strangled cry and whispered prayer. Before her feet could respond to her brain’s order to move, Nicholas had unlocked the door and it swung open.

He looked as tall and imposing as ever, albeit a bit slimmer than she remembered. He was bundled against the cold in a charcoal overcoat.

He’d always been the most attractive man she’d known, and still was. Her gaze went to his face, and met his blue eyes that, right now, blazed fire at her.

He hadn’t expected her any more than she had him.

“What are you—”

“Why are you screaming at me?”

They both spoke at once. Their eye contact remained steady while the words hung in the frosty air between them.

“It’s freezing in here.” She broke the contact and nodded at the door he’d left wide-open behind him.

“Don’t want that, do we?” He slammed the door shut with his foot, never moving his eyes from her face.

But the motion of his foot distracted her, and she glanced down.

And saw the cane.

She tried to look away before he saw her discovery but wasn’t quick enough.

His eyes narrowed, his mouth curled. He’d never accepted pity from anyone.

“You’re hurt?” Her words came out in a squeak.

“Nothing major.” He tapped the cane on the tile. “This helps me negotiate uneven ground—or with an intruder in my home.”

“You don’t have to be so snippy. It’s still legally half my home—for the next two weeks.”

She walked to the teakettle and took it from the hot stove. She hoped her actions conveyed a tranquility she didn’t feel. First Grammy’s venomous words and now Nicholas’s censorious presence.

“‘Snippy.’ Yeah, that’s how I’m feeling. Snippy.”

He strode across the room to the coat closet, the cane tapping in rhythm with his steps. The rustle of hangers and winter coats was followed by a muffled curse, just loud enough to reach her ears.

She stopped plunging her teabag into the cup.

It wasn’t like Nicholas to swear. At least it hadn’t been, not while they were married. Or rather, together.

Melinda bit her lip. How could she know what he was like now? They hadn’t communicated in more than six months. Not one e-mail, not one phone call.

There’d been times when Melinda itched to take advantage of her staff position in Senator Hodge’s office and use a Pentagon resource to trace Nicholas’s location.

But she hadn’t.

If Nicholas wanted her, he could find her.

He’d been in Afghanistan, last she’d heard. He could’ve died and she wouldn’t have known. Not until the casualty assistance officer knocked on her door. If Nicholas had even bothered to change her emergency-contact information after she’d left Buffalo.

“What are you doing here?”

“Aaagh!” Melinda dropped the bag she’d steeped too long in the hot water and whirled to face Nicholas.

Don’t look at his eyes. Don’t remember why you loved him.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? In case you haven’t checked, I’ve had no information from you in the past six months—except the divorce papers I was served with four months ago!”

She stared at him, as surprised by her outburst as he obviously was.

After a long moment, he glanced away. The anger that fueled her accusation ebbed but left her knees shaky. Melinda sank into the 1940s-style red-and-white striped chair nearest to her and looked down at the tiled floor.

Anywhere but at his eyes.

She heard the scrape of a chair, then a vibration as the table shook with Nicholas’s weight against it.

“You never responded to the papers, except to sign them.” His voice was flat. Melinda’s tension flared into resentment at his apparent nonchalance.

“What was I supposed to do, Nicholas? The last thing I knew, we were separating to see if living apart was what we actually wanted. I didn’t realize you’d already made up your mind.”

She hated sounding so pathetic but there it was. The truth as she saw it.

“The last thing I knew, you packed up and left for D.C.—a week before I had to ship out.” His quiet tone tugged at her and she risked another look at him.

She gazed openly at his strong features and noted that his skin appeared paler, more drawn. The lines that crinkled when he laughed made him look tired, even sad. But his eyes bore the intensity she’d always seen in him and for a second Melinda didn’t know how she’d lived without her husband these past months.

“What else could I do? I was reacting to the news that you were leaving again the best way I knew how.” Her words ended on a whisper, and she looked down at her hands.

Her bare hands. She wore her wedding ring on a thick gold chain around her neck. It had been Grammy’s chain from before World War II. Had he noticed?

His sigh reverberated around her. “Doesn’t matter now, Melinda. We’ve made our choices.” His fingers drummed on the table and she saw that he, too, had removed his wedding band. She didn’t think it was for safety purposes since he wasn’t in uniform.

“How long will you be here?” His question caught her off guard. She had Senator Hodge’s blessing to take at least two weeks.

“I don’t know.” Maybe Nicholas needed some time alone here, she thought, before they put the house on the market. Their home.

“Do you need me to be out of here?” she asked.

“This is your home, too, Melinda. All I want to know is whether I’m sleeping on the couch for tonight or if I should go ahead and unpack in the guest room.”

“Grandpa Jack gave me this journal of Grammy’s to read, and his diary. I’d planned to stay with him—do whatever he might need me to do before winter sets in. But he insisted I stay here.”

She shrugged, trying to appear casual. “I think it would’ve upset him too much if I fought him on this.”

Nicholas’s expression remained impassive. “Fine. Take your time,” he said. “I’m home for good, so after about a week or so I’ll be back at work full-time.”

His stamina was close to his pre-injury level. But he hadn’t had to test it in a real environment for so long.

His leg ached from the flight and the drive home. But he was secure in the knowledge that no one—not Melinda or anyone else—could tell just how much his active-duty stint in Afghanistan had cost him.

Esmée’s Journal

December 19, 1942

My hands shake as I write. This has to be the coldest winter on record. Or do I feel the damp penetrating every inch of my body because fear has left me hollow?

I managed to bring Maman and Papa enough turnips and potatoes to get them through the next week or so. I hid them in the folds of my old wool coat, which grows thinner each day.

I caught Henri snooping about our room and pawing through my few possessions. Having to act as if that didn’t bother me wasn’t difficult, as this journal, this account of my hell, is the only thing of value to me in the house.

I keep it hidden behind the old tapestry that hangs in our sitting area. The entire wall appears to be plain old brick. Several of them are loose, but I’ve dug out a hole behind one brick. I then placed another brick in the hole to the right, so that anyone who pulls out the front brick and reaches in will find an empty space.

I live in fear that he’ll learn about my work with the Resistance. Yet death would be preferable to the humiliation he brings with his ugliness and dark heart. There are times I want to take my rolling pin and crush his skull with it. But where would I go? To prison? Then my family would starve.

I will hang on as long as I can. As long as there’s food for Maman, Papa and Elodie.

The stove fights me each day. Henri has a stash of wood he monitors closely. If I use too much he smacks me. If I allow the fire to burn out, he uses his belt.

I live for the times he travels to Brussels, or wherever he goes. The house isn’t peaceful unless he’s out of it.

I told Philippe in our group that I live on a farm, and if I know that Henri will be gone long enough, our Allies could use one of our fields as a safe place for RAF insertions.

December 21, 1942

The phone rang the other day and I answered, hoping for news from Maman and Papa. Henri was out in the field, earlier than usual. I picked up the receiver and before I could say “Hallo,” I heard a string of German before the caller hung up.

For some reason—pure luck?—we’re one of the few homes that still has our phone line connected.

So now they call Henri at home. What kind of creature is he that he supports the enemy so blatantly during our worst years in Belgium? While my male classmates and cousins fight God-knows-where for our release and freedom from these bastards.

I long for the day the Germans will go home. If it’s up to me, they’ll go home in shame, having lost to our Allies.

And Henri will go with them. If I live that long, I’ll divorce him as soon as the War is over. I don’t care if it ruins my life. He already has. Divorce will ruin my reputation but will save my soul. What’s left of it.