Wednesday, October 31st, 1945
1:20 p.m.
______, Le Square de la Tour Maubourg
(Rhys' family's flat)
7eme Arrondissement
Paris
Waiting.
Well, it's not as if we all hadn't had plenty of practice at waiting, in the Service.
I remember, I'd thought 'Hurry up and wait' was pretty hilarious, the first time I'd heard it. Maybe even the first five times I heard it.
But then, over time, over the repetitions, it'd gotten old, really fast. It got stale; and then it became a cliché, and then a groaner, and then finally it wound up as a heartfelt obscenity …
It was pretty much the same with that other Service favorite, SNAFU, 'Situation Normal, All Fucked Up', as situations usually were. And then, there was FUBAR, 'Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition', and —
Stop it, I ordered myself.
I looked around Rhys' flat for a second. Looking for something to distract me.
I walked over to the telephone and picked up the handset, a heavy, old-fashioned thing in gleaming Bakelite and chrome. Nothing. No dial tone.
Again.
Well, that was hardly a surprise. Since I'd started my leave, the electricity had only worked for a couple of hours a day, or so. If that. The telephones, Rhys had said, were even less reliable. If you wanted to send someone a message, he'd said, you trundled out your bicycle, and delivered it yourself. That was better than relying on the Métro, which shut down at odd hours, and whose workers went enthusiastically out on strike at seemingly random intervals.
Rhys had told me that there was actually an enormous system of pneumatic tubes running throughout Paris, connecting post offices, like we have in some office buildings back home; and that sending pieces of mail through them was quick and easy, and much less expensive than sending telegrams. They called it, 'sending un pneu', and it was popular, and fast; a letter could get across town in minutes, and a bicycle postman would take the letter the last step to one's door. It had been around since the mid 1800's. But like everything else in Paris, it wasn't working right then, it took power to run, and there wasn't enough coal to even keep the lights on, much less heat all of the buildings …
Still. I wondered what it looked like. I imagined gleaming crystal-glass tubes with Empire-style brass fittings, with letters and postcards in cylindrical containers whooshing through them, pulled out at their destinations by cartoon-character, mustachioed French workers with eyeshades and sleeve-protectors, straight out of some Looney Tunes animated cartoon, with —
Stop it. Again.
I shook my head, disgusted at myself.
My mind can — well, sort of run away with itself — sometimes.
I've always been that way. Especially when I'm worried, or anxious. Or when I'm waiting.
Never when I'm flying, thank God; or about to fly, or debriefing afterwards. Never when there is anything to do with flying. I'm kind of the opposite, then, I'm hyper-concentrated. That's made me a good pilot, and kept me out of a lot of trouble.
Still.
Rhys had helped me concentrate properly, all through school; with nudges, or comments, or more often, just a look, here and there. And I'd done just the same, helping him with his shyness, and his painful sensitivity. We made a good team, and I'd wondered what would become of me, what would become of the both of us, when I joined the Army Air Corps after Pearl Harbor.
I'd managed, was the quick answer. Somehow. Thinking of what Rhys would do or say, if he were present, helped a lot. And then, I'd made good friends, too, like my best Air Force friend and tent mate, Wade —
Stop it, I ordered myself, again. I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes.
I did NOT want to think about Wade, just then. Not under the circumstances. Not with Rhys, well — No. I did not want to think about Wade. Just then.
So I did what I'd learned to do during the war years. I called up an image of our strongbox, our family safe, back home in New York; and I imagined putting my feelings for Wade, my memories of him, inside, and closing the door, and turning the key. I imagined the solid, reassuring 'click' of the heavy bolts going home. I could hear it, and feel it, in my mind.
And then I got up to roam around the flat. As I waited.
* * *
'Flat' is almost an absurd word for Rhys' place. It is enormous; two whole floors of a large, solid stone building, in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Paris. It is filled with parquet floors, tall windows, elegant woodwork and moldings, lots of marble, and wood-burning fireplaces in most of the rooms.
It is filled with beautiful furnishings, too.
There is a story behind that.
The flat belongs to Rhys' family, of course; his grandparents on his mother's side. They were, and are still, very wealthy by almost anyone's definition.
Rhys' grandfather is also nobody's fool. In the summer of 1939, he'd had all of the furnishings removed and put into bonded storage; and then he'd had the sense to lease the place out to the Portuguese Embassy, for use as guest quarters for distinguished visitors. Because of this, the flat had never been requisitioned or used by the Germans. The lease payments had even continued flowing, throughout the war years. Rhys' grandfather had donated them to refugee aid organizations.
Absurdly enough, ridiculously enough, Rhys' family's furniture had survived the war, unscathed. Well, large sums of money have a way of making ridiculous things, real.
So, sometime after the liberation of Paris — I did not know exactly when — Rhys came home to his flat; and he'd retrieved his family's furniture, via use of hired horse-drawn moving vans, and then he'd spent weeks and weeks restoring everything to exactly how it was, in 1938. He'd done a good job of it, too.
I knew, because I'd been here, once, in 1938.
It was the best experience of my life, up to that point. In many ways, it still was.
Roaming through the flat, brought it back to me, very vividly.
I started with Rhys' rooms; naturally. Well, they had been Rhys' rooms his whole life, whenever he'd been in Paris; which was often enough. He and his father had lived in Switzerland for seven years, starting when Rhys had been just seven years old, himself. But they'd spent most summers and holidays in Paris, and so, they had always been Rhys' rooms.
Now they was our rooms; at least for the moment. Our shaving gear, and our different tooth powders, in the bathroom we shared. My uniforms on the left side of the big, beautiful wardrobe; his civilian clothes on the right. Our other clothing, neatly folded away in our separate drawers of the dresser, against the opposite wall. Just as we'd kept things, in our rooms in Harvard.
His side of the bed. My side of the bed.
I'd almost forgotten what that had been like, over the last three-and-a-half years. I'd thought, many times, we'd never experience it again. Looking at our bed made be blink, fast, and —
No. Do not go there. He'll be back. It's probably nothing. It's almost certainly nothing, a misunderstanding, and we'll laugh about it. You'll see; I told myself.
I turned to leave, when I had a sudden thought.
Feeling just a little guilty, I opened the wardrobe; and I started looking through Rhys' side, filled with far more suits and jackets and trousers than I'd brought with me, naturally …
I found it, inside a protective suit-bag.
Rhys' Army uniform, or one of them, anyway; olive-drab coat, with no unit insignia, whatsoever — except for a small oval lapel pin, with a gold spearhead on black. I'd only seen it once before, and there were times when I'd thought I'd imagined it; but there it was.
I also saw the single silver bars of a first lieutenant on his epaulettes, which was what I'd been looking for to begin with; and I started to put the uniform back in the bag, a little thoughtfully. But then I noticed a small manilla envelope pinned rather carelessly to one sleeve …
And I smiled to myself.
I unpinned the envelope, and opened it, and upended it; and out came the double silver bars of an Army captain, along with some cloth service stripes.
It wasn't as if rank mattered a rat's ass, to me, or to pretty much anyone I knew in the Air Force. We called each other by our first names, generally, although somewhere along the way I'd picked up 'Van'' as a nickname. Most of the younger, teenage enlisted men in my crew called me 'Mister Van', which very occasionally was followed by a 'Sir'; which always made me want to smile. God, I missed those kids; God, how I missed my whole crew …
But. Anyway.
No; I was just glad that Rhys' ordeals had been recognized, to a certain degree. By someone, somewhere.
And I was glad that David Rockefeller didn't outrank him. That was important, for when Rhys got back to Paris.
As he would, as I knew he would.
* * *
I wandered through the flat, reliving our '38 visit in my mind.
There was the bedroom my brother Elliott had stayed in, where he and Rhys and I had conspired more than once, late into the night. The conspiracy revolved around his fiancée Grace, whose rooms were down the hall; and the question was how the two of them could politely get away, for a time, from the warm and wonderful Mrs. Faye, who was along as their chaperone.
Elliott and Grace had been incandescently in love. And that had colored the whole trip, for all of us, I believe.
Then there was Rhys' father's rooms, which were discreetly far away from Mrs. Faye's, but not so far away that visits between them were impossible. Although not officially a couple, given that Mrs. Faye was not free to divorce her estranged and unfaithful husband, she and Rhys' father were and remained very special friends. Even with their careful formality towards one another, I could tell how happy they made each other.
And then, there was the Master Suite where Rhys' grandparents, who had crossed with us, stayed. Now, as then, I would not intrude on it.
In the end, I wandered back to the salon; the room which was etched most vividly in my good memories, well, except for our bedroom, of course. In '38, the salon had been filled with laughter, and excited talk of our discoveries and adventures around the city — much of it coming from me, I confess — and love.
It looked exactly the same. But it had felt a little empty, with just Rhys and me in the flat, before. And it felt echoing and lonely, now.
And perhaps, to me, there was something a little sad about it.
Our trip had been over seven years ago, now. Rhys' grandparents were reportedly still very healthy, for people of their age … but. They had not been young, then, and seven years is a long time.
And civilian transatlantic travel was still impossible, and would be for the foreseeable future. The ocean liners were all still being used as troop ships, getting GIs home to the States; the ports of France were still smashed, and there was talk of years before all the acoustic and magnetic mines in the approaches to them could be swept. And I knew perfectly well, there were no airlines with scheduled service across the Atlantic, or ships even capable of flying the routes. At least, yet.
As I looked around at all the work Rhys had put in, restoring everything — I wondered if he'd been thinking the same things. Wondering if his grandparents would ever make it back here.
I hoped not. Oh, I hoped not. But I knew Rhys. And I knew he had.
I shook my head, again.
And then, I wandered over to the centerpiece of the room; or at least, it was the centerpiece to me. I thought it was to Rhys' grandparents, too.
There was a small table, between two comfortable armchairs, facing the fireplace.
On the table was a diptych; two large photographs, in frames joined by a hinge.
On the left side, Rhys' mother. I had never met her, she had died when Rhys was four. But I had seen her photos, and painted portraits, often enough at Rhys' homes. She was beautiful, and poised; and her face was unusually intelligent, and full of suppressed humor. She had been an only child, and deeply loved by her parents.
On the right, was Rhys. Taken when he was just fourteen. Just before his move home to the States.
I looked more closely at it; as usual.
The photo had been taken in this very room, actually; the windows, the furniture, was instantly recognizable. But it was not a snapshot. Rhys' father had engaged a studio photographer, one of the finest, I guessed, in Paris; and Rhys had been perfectly posed, and lighted, for the portrait. His father had left the diptych, Rhys and his mother, as a surprise gift for Rhys' grandparents to find, when next they came to Paris.
Rhys' father is nobody's fool, either. I could only guess at their emotional reaction, when they first set eyes on it.
I knew what my reaction to it, had been.
The portrait had been taken in late August, of 1934. Rhys had just suffered the trauma of his experience in Berlin; and he was facing the uncertainty of moving home to the United States, a place he barely remembered. The expression on his beautiful face was — apprehensive, perhaps. Uncertain. A little haunted, maybe, and vulnerable.
The photo had been taken less than two weeks before I'd met him, at our school. Which meant, less than two weeks before I'd fallen in love with him. The boy in the photo, with that same expression, was the boy with whom I'd fallen in love. I felt it, all over again, so acutely.
And now, the twenty-five-year-old Rhys I loved more than I could possibly describe, was back in Berlin, a place that he loathed, and which had scarred him. And out of touch with me, against all the terms of our deal.
Fuck.
I walked to the telephone one last time, and picked up the receiver. Nothing.
I couldn't stand it anymore. I swept up my cap and my overcoat — I'd left it lying over the back of the couch, when I'd gotten back from the Embassy — and I left, in a hurry, fumbling with the keys, and cursing at the balky ways of European door locks.
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