Mat. Again.
I hadn’t thought of him in years, yet memories of him surrounded me. The two of us leaning across library cubicles in college debating history, perspective, and weekend plans. The two of us organizing our schedules so we could take at least two classes together each quarter. His constant chirping about how we created our reality by what we chose to keep, what we chose to remember, and what we called truth.
“So he gave up.” I sighed.
“‘There are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement.’”
“That sounds like Dad.” I raised a brow.
“His quotes were sometimes spot on. Credit that one to Pride and Prejudice’s Charlotte Lucas.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes. She scanned the piles of papers. My mind felt numb.
“Speaking of your dad,” she ventured. “I didn’t want to ask earlier, but what did he say when you told him you were coming here?”
“I didn’t tell him.”
“Oh, honey. Didn’t you say he threatened to sue the reporter?”
I twisted to face Mom straight on. “He was just upset.”
“Exactly . . . This is upsetting for him.” Mom studied me with equal directness. “You’re doing this to help him?” Her eyes softened. “He may not see it that way.”
“Does he ever?”
She laughed. It was small, sad, even a touch self-deprecating. There were layers within it I could barely trace before it ended. “Be careful, sweetheart. What you’re learning here . . .” She waved her hands over the letters and the bin of diaries I hadn’t touched yet. “None of this ended in 1941. That’s where it began, and these bands stretched over the years and bound us all, especially your dad.”
She pushed off her stool and walked toward the stairs.
I called after her, “You aren’t going to tell him, are you?”
She turned back. “It’s not my story to tell. I’m bringing you coffee before I head to bed. You’ll need it.”
She disappeared from view and I returned to the letters, far more intrigued now by a love story than my family’s history, but wondering, perhaps, if they were one and the same.
Eleven
At midnight, I called Mat.
“Hello?” He sounded distracted. I grimaced as I did the math in my head. Seven o’clock on a Sunday night.
“It’s Caroline. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the time. You’re probably eating dinner.”
“This is fine.” I heard background chatter. “Hang on. Let me grab my computer.” Voices called out. “I’ve got a few friends over for burgers. Are you ready to comment?”
“No,” I exclaimed. I felt like once he turned on his computer everything would be set. There’d be no turning back. No room for what I wanted to propose. “I didn’t call for that. In fact, I called to say you’ve got it wrong.”
“How’s that?” Mat’s voice fell in fatigue-tinged sarcasm.
“I have all Caroline Waite’s letters to her sister and all my grandmother’s diary entries covering the same time. Caroline was British—loyal British—and she had a lover, but not a German. He was an Englishman named George. And she mentioned your Paul Arnim—openly, as a good man in love with his wife.” I pulled that letter toward me. The one that inspired the call.
“Listen to this, from a letter dated March 3, 1940:
“‘There’s a German industrialist in Paris—Paul Arnim. I’ve mentioned him before. He’s about forty, and his wife the same, with two small children you want to eat up. Schiap is horrified when the kids come to the salon, but they are angels. Last night at the party, Mrs. Arnim was anxious, almost skittish. I didn’t understand why until I was delivering a gown to her in one of the dressing rooms. I gather they leave for America soon and she was frightened. While all soldiers were, of course, recalled to Germany last year, Mr. Arnim, like many private citizens, stayed for his work. Something has now changed. Her voice pitched high as I raised my hand to knock on the door and I heard Mr. Arnim say, “We will be fine, my love. Trust me. I will always be with you.”’
“That’s not a man involved in an illicit affair, Mat.”
When he didn’t reply, I rushed on. “She goes on to write about how he’d been in the salon several times before and how they’d become friends—how anything Caro set aside for his wife, he purchased. Caro wouldn’t do that or write that way if she was going to betray the woman. Not only that, it doesn’t fit anything I’ve read about her.”
I drew a breath. My spiel had felt like the mock trials in law school, but with less breathing. Now I awaited the verdict. The silence drew out between us.
“Mat? Are you there?”
“I’m here. And . . . I didn’t have any of that. Nothing in my files says Paul Arnim left France before his conscription and subsequent transfer east. You’ve simply got a husband placating a wife.”
“Or a trail to follow.”
“It’s irrelevant, Caroline. He’s not mentioned in the article.”
“He’s the basis of your unvalidated assumptions about my aunt,” I ground out.
“Unvalidated—” he shot back then stopped. “Are we done here? I’ve got guests.”
Something in his tone flashed a memory of another night, another fight, another hurt long ago. Our senior year. The last time we spoke. I took a deep breath to stay in the present.
“Look, this is going wrong . . . I didn’t call to fight. I called because it’s different. The story feels different from anything I expected, and I think if you were to read all this, you’d change your mind.”
“Perhaps I would.” He sighed. “But the affair is irrelevant. Yes, it adds color to her defection, and love affairs add marketability, but I’m talking about history and how we remember it, change as we examine it, and grow from it.”
“But we haven’t grown from it.” The words slipped out.
Mat had no quick retort. Instead silence again filled the line. He had stepped away from wherever he was before and I could no longer hear the din of chatter in the background.
“I’m sorry, Caroline. When I reached out to your dad and to you, I had no idea this was news for you. I . . . I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll help me?”
“Fine.” He sighed. “How?”
“I figure if you’re wrong about the affair, you could be wrong about a lot else. Just read the letters.”
“Fine,” he repeated. “I’ll meet you tomorrow.”
“Sorry . . . no . . . I forgot that part. I’m in London.” I wrinkled my nose. “But I’m flying back Tuesday and I’ll bring them with me. You’ve got to see some of this. I’ve read about World War Two politics and rations, some Nazi named Dubbell who made passes at Caro when she first arrived in Paris, and incredible nights in restaurants and clubs. And you were wrong about her being a secretary. When she got back to England, she worked in fabrics. She wrote Margaret that ISRB sent her to Arisaig and Morar in Scotland for a couple months to develop new zippers and canvas. And she didn’t agree with Schiaparelli’s politics at all. In fact—”