Halina lifted the needle from the record.
“I have a supply order,” Marschall said. “I was going to leave it on your desk, but I see you are busy.” Her eyes flashed to Halina. “Plus, you left the apothecary closet open.”
“I’ll take care of it. I am busy, if you don’t mind.”
Nurse Marschall handed me the form and withdrew, but not without sending Halina a penetrating look.
Once Marschall left and shut the door as quietly as she’d opened it, Halina and I looked at each other. Something intangible had been let out of a box, something dangerous, and there was no going back.
“She needs to learn to knock,” I said.
Halina stared at me, her face drained of color. “She seems unhappy, Madame Doctor.”
“The barking dog never bites,” I said with a shrug. “She’s useless.”
If only I’d known the price of underestimating Nurse Marschall.
1941
I gripped the edge of my file cabinet drawer. “What is it, Roger?”
“I just heard, Caroline. They found Paul’s and Rena’s names on an arrest roster.”
Paul arrested?
“Thank you for not telling me in front of Pia.” I kept the tears at bay, but my manila files swam in a blur. “Any word on Rena’s father? He lived with them in Rouen.”
“Not yet. I check the sheets every hour. You know, of course, we’ll do whatever it takes to track them.”
“At least we know they’re alive, right? On what charges were they arrested?”
“Wish I knew. Our London intelligence is spotty. No destinations listed, either. There’s more, C. Three million German troops have begun marching into Russia.”
“What about the nonaggression pact?” Hitler was a lying madman, but every new reversal came as a fresh slap.
“Hitler ignored it, C. The Bear is not happy.”
Roger loved referring to the Soviets as “the Bear.” It did seem an apt name.
“Hitler’s taking whatever he wants. This doesn’t bode well for us.”
He didn’t have to say it. Before long, Hitler would own half the world. Would England be the next to go?
“I’m sorry about all this, C.”
Roger seemed genuinely sad. Perhaps he regretted not acting on Rena’s behalf.
I barely functioned that day, numb with what-ifs.
What if Paul had stayed here, safe in New York? What if I’d pushed Roger more to wrangle Rena a visa?
To complicate the day, I received a call informing me that Betty Stockwell Merchant had delivered a seven-pound baby boy she named Walter, after her father. Though work was busy, I snuck away at lunch to visit her at the hospital. I was desperate to see the baby, though I’d been stuffing down jealousy since I’d heard the news, along with a few jelly doughnuts. I hoped a change of venue would clear my head. It would be nice to share my concerns about Paul with Betty.
I bought Betty’s favorite parrot tulips on the way to the hospital, not that she needed more flowers. Her suite at St. Luke’s looked like Whirlaway’s stables at the Kentucky Derby, flowers in great sprays, a horseshoe of roses, and carnations on an easel with a sash across it reading CONGRATULATIONS! In a vase, two dozen roses dyed baby blue hung their heads in shame.
“Thank you for the tulips, Caroline,” Betty said. She lay propped up with down pillows in her custom hospital bed, lovely in a pink satin bed jacket and matching turban. “You always know what I like.”
A nurse came in with the baby, her crepe soles silent on the tile. Seeing him pushed my troubles to the background.
“Go ahead and hold him,” Betty said with a wave in our direction. The baby settled in, warm against me, swaddled tight. His fists were balled under his chin, his face prizefighter swollen. Little Walter would have to be pugnacious to survive parents who got along best when in separate time zones.
“I know it sounds ungrateful, Caroline, but I’m not ready for a baby,” Betty said. She held a hankie to one tear duct.
“How can you say that, dear?”
“I told Phil I didn’t want a child this soon, but he didn’t listen. And after all I’ve done for him. I wore golf shoes for that man.”
“You’ll be a wonderful mother.”
“The service is excellent here, Caroline,” Betty said, brightening. “Better than the Plaza; I’m telling you. They were bringing the baby in at all hours, and I had to tell them to keep him in the nursery. They specialize in infants.”
“What a beautiful baby,” I said.
I stroked his fist, petal soft.
Walter stretched in my arms, and his eyelids fluttered in a baby dream. I felt the familiar ache and the tears welling up. Not now.
“Now we just need to get you a husband and a baby, Caroline. In that order.”
“I’m done with all that,” I said.
“Have you started borrowing your mother’s underwear yet? No, right? Then you’re not done.”
The nurse came and took Walter, as if Betty had pressed the call button under her dining table for the maid. I held on to him until the last second before handing him to the nurse. My arms felt cold and empty as I watched them go.
“Roger told me today that Paul and Rena were arrested,” I said.
“Oh no, Caroline. I’m so sorry, dear. Do you know where they were taken?”
I stepped to the window, arms folded across my chest.
“No one knows. To a Paris jail or some transit camp probably. I don’t know what to do.”
Outside the window, down in the park, a boy tried to fly a kite, but its bottom bumped along, refusing to lift. The tail is too heavy, I thought. Just take off the tail.
“How terribly painful for you, darling,” Betty said.
“I can’t work.”
“I’m having a luau party when I go home. Help me plan it. Or you could be my bridge partner for the Vanderbilts’ party. I’m playing with Pru, but she’ll gladly step aside.”
“I can’t think about parties, Betty. I need to find out where they’ve taken Paul.”
“Let it go, C. It’s all terribly sad, but you’ll never have a normal life with Paul Rodierre.”
“Who’s to say what’s normal?”
“Why do you always take the hard way? You and David could have—”
“David left me.”
“He would have married you if you’d been around more. A ten-city theater tour doesn’t strengthen a relationship. Men like to be the center of your world. Now that you’re more settled, you need to hurry up and get married and have children. A woman’s eggs disintegrate, you know.”
Just the mention of eggs floating inside me, fragile and microscopic, made me wince.
“That’s ridiculous, Betty.”
“Tell that to your ovaries. There are eligible men all over New York, and you’re chasing one in a French jail.”
“I have to get back to work. Would it kill you to be sympathetic? We’re talking about people’s lives.”
“I’m sorry you don’t want to hear it, but he’s not quite our class, dear.”
“Our class? My father made his own way in life.”
“After his parents sent him to St. Paul’s.”
“With all due respect to your brother, being pampered by one’s parents fails to build character.”
“That coming from a woman who was dressed by maids until she was sixteen. Oh, let’s be practical about all this, Caroline. It’s not too late, you know…”
“To what? Save my reputation? Marry someone I can’t stand just to have a luau partner? You may have the baby and the husband, but I want to be happy, Betty.”
Betty picked at the satin hem of her blanket. “Fine, but don’t cry to me when this ends badly.”
I turned and left, wondering how I could have such a friend who didn’t give a fig for my true happiness. I didn’t need Betty. I had Mother. That would have to do for now.
There was no earthly way I would give up on Paul.
—
LATER THAT WEEK, Roger told me the consulate could no longer help me fund the comfort packages I sent to France. The postcards and letters kept coming from the French orphanages, requesting help in the nicest possible way. How could I turn them down? I didn’t dare ask Mother for money from her household account. Since Father had died, she’d been on a short leash. For a while, I hoped for a miracle, but then realized where I needed to go.