“So, you were a rich art dealer.”
He nodded. “Were being the operative word.”
“What happened to your paintings? Did you still have them at the start of the war?”
“That’s another story for another day,” he said with a sigh. “I should get back; Hanna doesn’t like being left alone this long.”
Weeks passed. Robert at last found his place in the brigade. At times, he would even hop on a bicycle and ride across the countryside with important messages to deliver. One night, he filled in for a partisan who was missing and drove a pickup carrying two cases of grenades. Another night, he joined a small crew setting up runway lights for a makeshift landing strip. Two planes arrived that night, one carrying a Brit and the other an American. Shaking hands with a fellow American made Robert homesick, especially since they only had time for a few quick pleasantries. The American was promptly received by handlers Robert had never met, and then disappeared into the night. He remained in the dark about his compatriot’s mission.
But aside from those brief moments of action, Robert spent most of his time pacing around the hunting lodge. Every night, he would sit on that same tree stump next to Sam. The art dealer would bum a cigarette and ask about the day’s mission. The fact that Robert had come so far from home to be embroiled in a conflict that was completely foreign to him seemed to make Sam feel indebted to the young American.
A real friendship was forming between the two. The art dealer was a great listener, one Robert could trust completely. Sam listened to him in a way that his own father never did.
“So, my boy, have you got somebody waiting for you back home in Baltimore?” Sam asked one day, and it didn’t take long for Robert to understand what Sam was getting at. “Come on, the ladies must be all over you!”
“I’m no Don Juan, Sam. I never was much of a ladies’ man, and the truth is, I haven’t been with that many women in my life.”
“Well, what about the current one? Have you got a photograph?”
Robert reached for his wallet, and his fake ID fell to the ground in the process. Sam picked it up and had a look.
“Robert Marchand? You’re posing as a Frenchman? With your accent? I sure hope you never actually have to use that name. And if you do, pretend you’re a mute, or deaf, or something.”
“I didn’t think my accent was that bad.”
“However bad you think it is, my friend, it’s worse. So, all right then, where’s this girl?”
Robert took back his ID and slid the photo to Sam.
“Well, well, she’s a knockout! What’s her name?”
“No idea. I found this photograph on the gangway of the ship I took across the pond, so I just slipped it into my wallet. I have no idea why. Maybe it helps somehow, pretending there is somebody waiting for me back home. I’m a walking cliché.”
Sam squinted his eyes at the smiling face on the photo.
“I say . . . Lucy Tolliver. Twenty-two years old, volunteer army nurse, Dad was an electrician, Mom was a housewife, she’s an only child . . .”
“Great. So apparently we’re both walking clichés.”
“Careful not to get attached to this face. It’s not a meaningless thing. There’s no lie without a bit of truth to it, especially when you lie to yourself. When I was a schoolboy, my parents were very strict. So, I invented a best friend, sort of as a way to get back at them. Of course, my friend’s parents were far laxer than mine. He wasn’t forced to keep his mouth shut at the dinner table. His bedtime? Much later than mine. And he only had to do homework when he felt like it. I even made him Catholic in an attempt to annoy my mother, as, of course, his parents didn’t make him keep the Sabbath. Long and the short of it is, Max was allowed to do everything I wasn’t, and as a result, boy oh boy did he thrive on such freedom! I was a child, I couldn’t see any other reason for my own shortcomings and failures than my authoritarian parents.
“Mother wasn’t fooled by the whole thing for very long, but she let me dig myself deeper and deeper into my fantasy. And for an entire school year, my imaginary friend had a whole life of his own. Mother would ask for regular updates on how he was doing. If I dreamt up a sore throat for Max? She would slip a honey candy into my backpack. She would sometimes give me twice as much food for my snack, just so I could share with Max. Then one day, for reasons that still escape me after all these years, I was complaining about something or other, going on and on about how great Max’s parents were, and my mother decided to call my bluff: she invited Max over to our place for lunch! After all this time and how much she’d heard about him, it was only natural she’d want to meet her son’s very best friend in the world, this marvelous boy, this Max . . .”
“What did you do?”
Sam winced. “There was an accident! Poor Max ended up getting tragically crushed beneath a trolleybus.”