His eyes filled with tears. “Of course I love you,” he said. “It’s myself I cannot live with.” And then his lips were on hers again, more insistent this time, and her body responded. He loved her after all, and she could feel it in the way he touched her, the way he pulled her to him, the way he drank her in like a man who’d just crossed a desert. Soon, his hands were beneath her skirt, tugging at her undergarments, sliding toward places they hadn’t been since that late spring night after the bombs had fallen, before the Nazis took Paris.
She moaned, despite herself, as he lifted her dress over her head and peeled his own shirt off. His chest was just as solid as she remembered, but there was no time to think about that as his hands, and then his mouth, began to travel over her body. He led her to the bedroom, and as they fell into bed, she wasn’t thinking about the Dachers or the Germans or the way the world was falling apart around them. She was thinking about the fact that here, in this moment, her marriage wasn’t crumbling. Perhaps there was a life in front of them after all.
TEN WEEKS LATER, RUBY SAT on her terrace, watching the sky tumble into darkness, her head in her hands. It was Christmas Eve, and she was bundled up against the cold in one of Marcel’s old sweaters. She still felt the chill in her blood, in her bones. She knew she should go inside, where there was a small fire burning, but she couldn’t make herself move. The fear of what was to come paralyzed her.
Ruby was pregnant. She was sure of it. She was ravenously hungry all the time, though she could hardly keep food down, and she had twice missed her time of the month. There was no other explanation.
She was filled with both terror and joy at the prospect of a baby. Paris was dark and lonely, and as the fighting raged on across Europe, it seemed that things were growing tenser by the day. Bringing a child into a world at war seemed foolish, but perhaps bringing a child into a home like hers was even more so. After that night ten weeks ago, Marcel had returned to vanishing for days at a time. And when he was home, he hardly looked at her anymore. He hadn’t noticed the swelling in her breasts, the way she moved like she was in possession of a special secret.
“Ruby?” Charlotte’s timid voice wafted over from the next terrace, and Ruby sat up with a start. She hadn’t heard the girl emerge from her apartment. “Is something wrong?”
“Oh, I’m all right.” Ruby forced a smile. “What are you doing out here without a coat? You’ll catch your death of cold.”
“I just wanted to say Merry Christmas.”
“Oh! Thank you, Charlotte. And a Merry Christmas to you too.” She realized immediately that it was the wrong thing to say. “I’m sorry. I mean Happy Hanukkah. Has Hanukkah started yet?”
“It is just beginning.” Charlotte hesitated. “Perhaps it’s a sign, our holidays falling at the same time. Perhaps this is the year we will all come together.”
“God willing,” Ruby murmured. She knew that Charlotte had absorbed her parents’ worries in the last few months. Throughout the city, shops owned by Jewish people had been taken over by what the Germans were calling provisional managers; businessmen ousted from their own businesses. Monsieur Dacher, Ruby knew, had been forced to comply last week, and though he still went into his fur shop, he was treated as an employee rather than as the man who’d built the lucrative business from the ground up. It must have been demoralizing, humiliating.
“Are you sure there’s nothing wrong, Ruby?” Charlotte asked after a long pause. “You don’t seem yourself.”
“Nothing you need to worry about, Charlotte.”
“But maybe I can help. I want to help.”
Ruby smiled into the darkness. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to share her news. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Of course.”
Ruby got up and walked to the edge of her terrace so that she was just a few feet away from the girl. “I’m going to have a baby.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened. “A baby? Oh, Ruby! This is the best Hanukkah gift I could have asked for!”
Ruby laughed. “Well, the baby won’t arrive until the summer.”
“That’s okay! It will just be so exciting, don’t you think? Oh, this is such wonderful news! Is Monsieur Benoit very happy?”
“I haven’t told him yet. I’m not quite sure how he will feel.”
Charlotte looked confused. “Surely he will be overjoyed.”
Ruby looked away. “Surely.”
“Well, you must tell him as soon as possible. He’s going to be a father! It will be the perfect Christmas gift!”
Perhaps Charlotte was right. There was no reason to keep the news from Marcel any longer. He was bound to notice soon enough, and perhaps telling him now would bring about a Christmas miracle. Maybe the Marcel she’d fallen in love with would finally come back. Maybe his focus would shift to planning a family with her. She would make sure that he knew from the start how much she needed him, and he would feel useful again.
That night, just past midnight, Marcel crept quietly through the front door. Before he’d had a chance to hang up his coat and hat, Ruby lit a candle. “Merry Christmas,” she said, eager to get the words out before she changed her mind. “We’re going to have a baby, Marcel. Isn’t it wonderful?”
He stared at her before replying. “A baby?”
“I’ll need your help of course,” she said brightly, hoping her enthusiasm would be contagious. “There’s so much to be done before the baby arrives.”
“You’re having a baby,” he repeated flatly.
“We’re having a baby.”
For a moment, neither of them moved. Then, slowly, deliberately, Marcel strode toward the doorway, where he put his hat and his coat back on. When he turned around, Ruby was so surprised by the sadness in his eyes that she sat back in her chair, breathless.
“Oh, Ruby, what have we done?” he asked in a strangled voice.
“But—”
“This is a huge mistake.” And then he was gone, slamming the door so hard that a glass perched on the edge of their curio cabinet plunged to the floor and shattered.
For a long time, Ruby sat motionless, staring at the broken shards.
CHAPTER SEVEN
January 1941
A baby! It was nearly all that Charlotte could think about. What a lucky child to be born into a home with a loving mother and father, where the parents were allowed to work. Her own home life had been greatly disrupted by her father’s recent situation.
“Those Nazi bastards,” Papa said on a snowy night in January as Charlotte sat huddled with her parents around the kitchen furnace. Fuel was scarce, and they were burning an old dining room chair. It had been stored in the closet near the front door for occasions when they might have guests, but Charlotte supposed that wouldn’t be happening for a while.
“Reuven, your language,” Maman said, casting a glance at Charlotte.
“It’s okay,” Charlotte said. “I know many bad words.”
Her father fixed her with a glare. “Well, you should not. You are a lady.”
“And yet you curse in front of her all the time,” Maman pointed out.
Papa sighed and looked away. “It is the time we are living in. One cannot help but become emotional.”
“This is not the first time we’ve endured desperate circumstances,” Maman said.
Maman and Papa exchanged looks, and Charlotte knew they were thinking about the Great War. Maman had lost two brothers. Papa had lost his twin, Michel. All had fought for the French army.
“I know,” Papa murmured softly, squeezing Maman’s hand.
Charlotte knew she had promised Ruby that she wouldn’t reveal her secret, but in the heavy silence, something made her blurt it out. “Madame Benoit is having a baby!”
Maman and Papa both turned to stare at her. “Madame Benoit?” Maman asked.
Charlotte knew she’d made a mistake by saying something, but there was a sparkle in her mother’s eyes now that hadn’t been there before. “Yes,” she mumbled. “But it is supposed to be a secret.”
“Oh my.” Papa looked worried. “But how will a baby survive in the midst of all this?”
“They are not Jewish,” Maman reminded him.
“I suppose. But still, to bring a child into a war . . .”
“It will end soon,” Maman said.
Papa shook his head. “It will not end until all of France has become German. And when that happens, we will not be here to witness it.”
“Why?” Charlotte interjected. “Where are we going?”
Her father turned to her, an almost dazed expression on his face. “We are not going anywhere, my dear Charlotte.” He wouldn’t meet her eye. “Of course we are not going anywhere.”