—
I MADE IT THROUGH the holiday season, spending more time than was probably healthy with Paul. We listened to a lot of jazz up in Harlem, side by side in a halo of candlelight. He’d taken on a roommate, a member of the Streets of Paris supporting cast, and Mother was back in New York, so it was near impossible to find private time. I saw his play seven times, watching the company of one hundred go through their paces. In addition to playing a lead role, Paul sang and danced in the show, demonstrating great range. What could he not do? The poster for the show boasted the cast included 50 PARISIAN BEAUTIES. With all that female companionship available, it was a mystery why Paul chose to spend his free time with me.
—
THINGS GREW ALMOST UNBEARABLY tense at the consulate that spring of 1940, and I practically lived at the office. As Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway on April 9, sending a new wave of panic through the consulate, the world braced for the worst.
One chilly late April day, Paul asked me to meet him at the observation deck atop the RCA Building after work. He said he wanted to ask me something. What was it? I’d already offered to sign as Rena’s visa sponsor, so that wasn’t it. The thought teased me all day. We often met up there to look at the stars through the telescope, but I had a feeling he wanted to talk about something other than Ursa Minor. He’d hinted we should costar in something. Maybe a one-act play? Something off-Broadway? I would consider it, of course.
I made it up to the deck early as usual, and waited.
A trio of nurses huddled in yellow Adirondack chairs, which ran down the middle of the deck, then snapped pictures of one another in front of the sign that read A PROOF OF YOUR VISIT. BE PHOTOGRAPHED ON THE RCA OBSERVATION ROOF. Only an elbow-high iron railing separated us from the edge, so all of Manhattan lay below us, the East River to our east, and Central Park to our north, like a lumpy brown Sarouk rug someone had unfurled down the middle of Manhattan. To our south, the Empire State Building rose up, and to the west the Fiftieth Street docks jutted into the Hudson, lined with ships waiting their turn to sail. Below us, a message painted in white stood out, bright in the deepening gloam, against Macy’s dark roof: MACY’S. IT’S SMART TO BE THRIFTY.
Paul arrived, a bouquet of muguet in hand.
“These are early but I hope you don’t mind.”
Of course he referred to the French tradition of giving loved ones lily-of-the-valley on May 1. I closed my hand around the emerald stems and inhaled the sweetness.
“Hopefully next May first we’ll be together in Paris,” he said.
I slid the bouquet under the décolletage of my dress, the stems cold against my chest. “Well, New York is lovely on May Day—”
I stopped. How had I not noticed? He was more formally dressed than usual, a red silk handkerchief in the pocket of his navy-blue jacket. He was leaving?
“You’re looking chic,” I said. “You’ve broken out the white flannels. Some people dress that way to travel.”
It was too late to beg him to stay. Why had I not spoken up sooner?
Paul pointed to the harbor. “I’m taking the Gripsholm. Seven-thirty call.”
Tears pricked at my eyes. “A Swedish ship?”
“Hitching a ride with the International Red Cross, thanks to Roger. G?teborg and then on to France. Would have told you sooner, but just found out myself.”
“You can’t go now, what with all the U-boats and X-craft out there? Surely it isn’t safe. You’ll be sitting ducks on the water. And what about Rena’s visa?”
“Roger says it may be another month before I find out.”
“Maybe if Roger calls Washington…”
“There will be no last-minute miracle, C. Things are just getting worse.”
“But I need you to stay. Does that not count for something?”
“I’m trying to do the right thing here, Caroline. It isn’t easy.”
“Maybe wait and see how things progress?”
“Roger says he’ll keep trying. It’ll be easier to work on it from there, but I have to go. Half of Rena’s family has already left Paris.”
I leaned my cheek against his coat. “You still love her—”
“That’s not what this is about, Caroline. I’d stay here with you if I could, but how can I sit in my suite at the Waldorf while all hell’s breaking loose at home? You wouldn’t do it.”
Was he really going? Surely it was all a joke. He would laugh, and we’d go to the Automat for pie.
As the sun retreated, the temperature fell, and Paul wrapped his arms around me, his heat was all I needed to stay warm. Even from seventy stories up, we could pick out the individual ships docked at Fiftieth Street. The Normandie still in place. The Ile de France. Only the Gripsholm was ready to sail, flying her Swedish flag. The wind drew the gauzy smoke from her stacks up the river.
I looked east. The mid-Atlantic would be the most dangerous part of their journey, where there was the largest gap in air coverage. Even that early in the war, German U-boats had already sunk several Allied ships in the Atlantic in order to keep supplies from reaching England. I pictured the German submarines waiting there, suspended midwater, like barracuda.
Paul held my hands in his. “But what I wanted to ask you is, will you come to Paris once this blows over?”
I pulled away. “Oh, I don’t know, Paul.”
My mind flashed to us at Les Deux Magots on Saint-Germain des Prés, at a café table under the green awning watching Paris go by. A café viennois for him, a café crème for me. As the sun retreated, some Hennessy. Maybe champagne and a raspberry tart as we plotted his theatrical career. Our one-act.
“What would Rena say?”
He smiled. “Rena would applaud it. Might join us there with one of her beaux.”
The wind whipped my cheeks and sent my hair into a tornado around us. He kissed me. “Promise me you’ll come? My biggest regret is leaving you with your moral high ground intact.” He smiled and slid his hands around my waist. “This must be rectified.”
“Yes, of course. But only if you write me letters. Long, newsy ones telling every minute of your day.”
“I am the worst writer, but I will do my best.” He kissed me, his lips warm on mine. I lost all sense of time and space, suspended there at the top of the world until Paul released me, leaving me dizzy, unmoored.
“Walk me out?”
“I’ll stay here,” I said.
Just go. Don’t make this any harder.
He walked to the deck door, turned, and left with a wave.
I don’t know how long I stayed, leaning on the railing watching the sun set. I imagined Paul in a taxi arriving at the great ship. Would he be annoyed that people asked for his autograph? Only if they didn’t. Did Swedish people even know Paul? There would be no one-act for us. Not anytime soon.
“We’re closing up,” the roof guard called from the door.
He joined me at the railing. “Where’d ya fella go, miss?”
“Home to France,” I said.
“France, eh? Hope he makes it okay.”
We both looked toward the Atlantic.
“Me too,” I said.
—
THE MORNING OF MAY 10 was like any other. I could hear our reception area was full by ten, and I readied for the onslaught by neatening up my desk drawers—anything not to think about Paul.
“More postcards from your pen pals,” Pia said. She lobbed a stack of mail onto my desk. “And stop filching my cigarettes.”
It was a lovely May day, but even the tender breeze that rustled the elms outside my window couldn’t cheer me that Monday morning. The prettiest days were the hardest without Paul to share them. I fanned through the mail, hoping for a letter from him. Of course the chances of a letter from Paul being included in that pile were slim, for mail delivery by transatlantic passage took at least one week each way, but I stalked the mail like a scent hound on a fox, nevertheless.
“You read my mail?” I said.