He looked at me. His eyes flashed an angry retort, but he didn’t articulate it, and he extinguished it quickly—rather, another thought replaced it. This one he didn’t articulate either. He simply ran his fingers over the letters as if asking them to reveal their secrets and tell him the true story.
“I should. I have enough to please the Arnim family, and I have to turn down the Atlantic anyway. I suppose it’s a good price for you . . . a thousand dollars on a plane ticket to scuttle your problem?”
I opened my mouth, but he held up his hand. “I didn’t mean it like that, I promise. I’m mad at myself. Not at you. That came out wrong.”
“Why don’t you wait? It’s only Monday. You could have something great by Friday.” I walked around to the side of the table, only a corner away from him. “I still need answers. I still need your help.”
“What answers, Caroline? Knowing about your aunt isn’t going to fix your father. This isn’t a cure for cancer and you don’t know it won’t cause more pain.” He gripped his chin, thumb spread to one ear, fingers to the other, as if struggling with a thought, or with a decision. “I had no idea . . . You weren’t kidding about tsunamis. And what happens if we do find something? You think it will be better, but are you ready to accept if it’s worse? Much worse?”
A true smile—a little sad, but no less true for that—accompanied my shrug. He sounded like Caro’s description of her sister. “You believe we will fall, while I choose to believe we will soar.”
“I’ve already released the tsunami. Maybe with the truth, it’ll have been worth it.” I laid my hand across a pile of letters. “You talked about resilience within the human spirit. I have to believe the truth will bring that.”
I reached across the table and handed him the several letters I’d just annotated. “Here are a few choice letters from 1939 into 1940. Tell me when you get to the April 1940 letter. I have the next one set aside.”
Mat laid them down and held out his hand. “Hand it to me now. If we’re going to do this, let’s get it over with.”
I stepped back. “I want to know when you get to it. It’s a turning point, after which everything changes.”
He nodded, not in agreement, but in acquiescence. He was willing to take that first next step.
I plopped onto my stool again, my mind swirling. Two minutes before, I’d been out. Mat defeated. Article abandoned. Yet, rather than agree, accept, and offer him a ride to the airport, what had I done? I opened the door wider—and pushed him through it.
1 September 1939
Dear Beatrice,
I’m exhausted. I can’t feel my feet. I’ve been standing all day and can barely keep my head up, but I have to write to you because I have to write to someone. I have to get this out. Sobbing hasn’t helped.
Caro isn’t here—writing to her won’t help, as she won’t understand. I can’t imagine things are better in Paris, but perhaps they haven’t done what we’ve been forced to do. Can they truly see a world we do not?
The children started leaving the cities today. They are calling it Operation Pied Piper, as if a cute name makes it less devastating. Not that the name is all that cute—I’ve never liked that story.
But that’s who I was today, the Pied Piper playing my happy song, as we led thousands of children onto trains, with wide red eyes, runny noses, and looks of stoic determination no child should be asked to fabricate.
There were two sisters who passed through Chesterfield and almost brought me to tears. They looked like Caro and me, and they were so scared. I smiled and laughed and straightened their bows—with shaking hands.
Everything is a bit of a game, isn’t it? That’s what we were told to project today—make it a game and be buoyant, assuring, and compassionate. And if we play it well, we will win. Our children will be safe. But when you see it through the eyes of a child, reality crashes through the illusion. It’s not a game and we will never be the same again.
We checked the brown tags hanging from each of their necks as they disembarked the trains and ushered them into the unknown. To safety? I’m not sure. All I know is I loaded scared children into packed train cars, lorries, buses, and family cars, sending them to places they’d never heard of, to people they’ve never met.
What awaits them at the end of the line?
To make it all worse, Caro’s latest letter to Father arrived tonight—and from a diplomatic pouch through Whitehall. I wonder that she does not sense the irony in that, while she claims to be safe, she sends her letters through Father’s diplomatic connections to ensure their safety.
She refused to come home—again. She said if war happened, France and England would be united in it. Therefore, how could it matter where she was?
But it matters, Beatrice. We are family.
Randolph visited last month. The Cunard-White Star Line was making changes and he offered Caro passage from their last open port on France’s west coast. He said it was urgent as the port would close soon—it may be closed already. That precipitated most of last month’s quarreling across telephone lines and in letters. Randolph confirmed that people are having trouble fleeing many cities throughout Europe. Controls are tightening. Nazi controls. He sounded as grim as Father. But Caro never budged.
Why would she? If you read her letters, you’d think she doesn’t have a care in the world. The salon this. The salon that. Schiap’s Zodiac collection. New designs for the Modern Comedy collection. The latest opening. The glamorous parties. On and on . . .
Father and Randolph versus Caro.
Who is lying? Or is everyone seeing the same thing, but unable to face it in the same way? Or can no one see the truth at all? Is there truth here? Or only perspective?
Caro has never been blind, or stupid. It makes me question what she truly sees and what she’s about. Years ago I would have said I’d be the one to defy Father and do what I want when I want. But the world flipped upside down. For me? Years ago. For everyone else in the world? It’s still tumbling.
She sent me a dress. Amidst all this chaos, Caro sent me a dress. It lays across my sofa near the window and it is light and airy and perfect. I can’t bring myself to hang it in the closet. I can’t stop looking at it. I can’t bear to own it either.
“George loves it,” she wrote. “When he visited in August, I modeled it for him because if it looked good on me, it will look smashing on you.”
But we don’t get everything the same, do we, Beatrice? The same clothes? The same experiences? The same love?
If I could be anything, I would be this dress. It’s easy to see why Randolph loved it. It’s the palest shade of pink silk, with butterflies dancing across the entire dress. Caro said it’s one of Schiaparelli’s best designs and that it will be famous someday. It reminds me of our childhood, a sublime happiness I thought would never end—
All good things come to an end.
3 September 1939
Beatrice,
It is official. We are at war.
Paris
4 April 1940
Dearest Margo,