Garden of Lies (2 page)
Authors: Eileen Goudge
Tags: #Fiction, #Contemporary Women, #Family Life, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Sagas, #General
Acknowledgments
One of the best reasons for writing a book, I think, is the opportunity it gives to live other lives.
For this vicarious thrill, and their generous assistance, I would like to thank the following
professionals: Fred Queller, for giving me a day in the life of a trial attorney, and providing his
valuable time and transcripts. John Freedman, for vetting the book for legal accuracy (and staying
up late to do so). Dr. Paul Wilson, for his medical expertise and thoughtful editorial comments.
John Robinson (formerly First Lieutenant, 1st Battalion, Third Marines) both for helping me
through the dark days of computer meltdown and for sharing his Vietnam experiences (he asks a
rather unique favor—if anyone traveling to Vietnam should climb to the top of Dong Ha
Mountain, please look for his class ring, which he lost in battle there twenty years ago: Cranbrook
School, Class ’63, silver with blue stone). My dear friend Brenda Preston, whose roses have
given me such pleasure through the years, and who provided useful information about them.
Susan Ginsburg, for her guidance and for believing in me in the first place. Pamela Dorman, my
editor at Viking, for her help in “fine-tuning” the book.
And last, but far from least, my wonderful husband and agent, Al Zuckerman, who is all my
heroes rolled into one, and who provided the glue that holds it (and me) together. Without him,
this book truly would not have been possible.
Prologue
A poor widow once lived in a little cottage with a garden in front of it
in which grew two rose trees, one bearing white roses, the other red.
She had two daughters, who were just tike the two rose trees; one was
called Snow-white and the other Rose-red. ...
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
NEW YORK CITY, JULY 3, 1943
Sylvie Rosenthal stood before the tall gilt-framed mirror in the millinery department at
Bergdorf’s.
“I don’t know,” she said to the saleswoman hovering behind her. Sylvie straightened the brim
of the green straw cartwheel. “You don’t think perhaps it’s a bit too much?”
“I saw Eleanor Roosevelt wearing one just like it, in a newsreel just last week,” the plump
saleswoman offered. “Of course, she wasn’t ... ah,
expecting.
” She dropped her voice to a
funereal hush.
Sylvie felt a flash of irritation. Why was
everyone
always reminding her? Dear God, couldn’t
they let her
forget
just once?
She fingered the brim with its niching of apple-green tulle, her annoyance at the woman lost in
a wave of self-doubt.
Oh dear, if only Gerald were here. I never know what to choose. And I’ll
feel so awful if he doesn’t like it.
She took the hat off, and peered at her reflection, feeling, as she had so many times in the eight
years since her marriage, puzzled, unworthy even.
When he says I’m beautiful, God knows what
he sees.
She saw a long, thin face, ordinary except for the eyes. They were wide, a champagne-bottle
green, and her lashes and eyebrows were so pale, they were almost invisible. Her eyes seemed
somehow to look perpetually astonished.
Sylvie remembered Gerald once telling her she reminded him of a Tenniel engraving of
Alice.
She smiled to herself.
Yes, perhaps he’s right about that. I do think I’m in Wonderland
sometimes.
She glanced around her. Shopping here at Bergdorf’s was incredible, a secret paradise
seemingly untouched by the war. The stone urns erupting in sprays of tiger lilies and orchids. The
delicate French tables and bow-front vitrines filled with lovely hand-blown perfume bottles—
even if these days the perfume itself was ersatz. [4] The enormous crystal chandelier suspended
from the marble rotunda. How far she’d come from the days she’d picked over the sale table at
Ohrbachs, when paying more than five dollars for a hat would have been unthinkable.
Yes,
she
thought,
I have tumbled right down the hole into Wonderland.
Tomorrow, the Golds’ annual Fourth of July lawn party, and pregnant or not, she was looking
forward to it. The red-white-and-blue striped tents; the smoky mouth-watering barbecue smells;
then dancing to Lester Lanin on an enormous platform ringed with Japanese lanterns. Except no
Japanese lanterns this year, Evelyn had told her. Evelyn’s kid brother, shot down near Okinawa.
Japanese lanterns were the last thing in the world she wanted at her party.
Sylvie carefully took off the green hat, and surrendered it to the saleswoman.
Perhaps the navy Lilly Dache with its red ribbon would be more appropriate, Sylvie pondered.
And with its military brim, more in keeping with the times. She so wanted Evelyn to—
Sylvie froze.
Low in her abdomen, she felt a sudden heaviness, as if inside her the baby had plunged
downward. No, was actually
pushing
down. A hot pressure. And, oh God,
it wasn’t letting up.
The ache in her lower back that had been bothering her all morning now became a fistful of
needles jamming into the base of her spine.
It’s not happening,
she thought.
It can’t be. I won’t let it.
But she knew it was.
Deep inside her she felt a snap, like a piece of elastic giving way. Warm liquid, what felt like a
river of it, gushed between her thighs.
Sylvie staggered as if someone had struck her. She felt her heart bump up into her throat. Then
she stared down, horrified at the spreading, darkening stain on the beige carpet. Her water had
broken. Dear God! She felt as ashamed as when she’d wet herself as a child in school.
Icy dread sluiced through her.
This was it, no more pretending to be delighted, overjoyed even, reassuring herself the baby
was Gerald’s,
had
to be Gerald’s. Now the truth. Fear closed about her heart like a cold fist.
It
might not be Gerald’s.
And, oh God in heaven, if it wasn’t ... if it looked [5] like Nikos? Eyes
black, with his coffee skin and springy black hair ...
No, she had to shut that out, slam the door on it.
Sylvie, struggling to calm herself, peered into the mirror. This time she saw not Alice, but a
puffy, blurred face floating above a grossly misshapen body. She felt strangely detached, as if she
were gazing at some exotic specimen of marine life in an aquarium. Or a drowned woman, her
face a watery gray-green, filaments of red-blond hair drifting about her pale neck like seaweed.
“Madame ... are you all right?” An anxious voice reached through the green depths to her.
Sylvie turned to find the henna-haired salesclerk gaping at her, eyes boggling behind cat’s-eye
glasses, the clown spots of orange rouge on her sagging cheeks now a dark blood red.
Yes, that’s where she was. Bergdorf’s, Hats. The green or the blue? She lifted the blue hat from
its stand on the glass countertop, fingering its veil. Cunning, the way little beads of jet had been
sewn into the netting to make it sparkle. ...
“Madame?”
Plump fingers gripped her arm.
Sylvie, forcing herself, managed to resist the current that kept pulling at her.
She opened her mouth to say she was fine, please don’t make a fuss.
Then in the pit of her stomach she felt a thump that spiraled up into a wave of dizziness. No,
she was
not
all right. No, definitely not.
Her knees began to buckle. She clutched the edge of the counter, steadying herself, and was
confronted by a row of dummy heads, each sporting a different hat. Their smooth eyeless faces
sent a chill through her. They seemed to be accusing her, a jury rendering a verdict: guilty.
If only Gerald were here!
He would know what to do. He could summon a maitre d’ just by
raising his eyebrow. A flick of his finger and like magic a taxi would materialize from snarling
traffic. A single
look
from Gerald at the bank could bring clerks, cashiers, loan officers scurrying.
But no, wrong, Gerald must not know. Thank God he’d still be in Boston until tomorrow ...
bank business ... about war bonds or something.
[6] Sylvie covered her mouth, one hand clapped over the other as hysterical laughter bubbled to
her lips. The one person she needed, depended on ... now, when she needed him most, she dared
not turn to him.
How could she have done this to him?
How?
Gerald was so good. Always. Her headaches—when she had one, even the slightest little noise
set off an avalanche inside her skull and, God bless him, Gerald made sure that he and the help
moved about the house silent as shadows.
Sylvie thought of the days when not just her head, but her feet, her whole body had constantly
ached, when a cab ride seemed the most heavenly luxury. Standing all day passing money
through the grille of her teller’s cage, stampeded in the subway, and then home, climbing the
cabbage-smelling stairs, six never-ending flights, every blessed night.
Exhausted, wondering how much longer she could manage to stand on her feet, Sylvie felt as if
she’d just now climbed those stairs. She shivered. Why was it so cold? The hottest day of the
year, the radio had said, and yet the store felt like an icebox.
“Should I call a doctor?” The salesclerk’s shrill voice broke in on her.
“No, I ...”
The ache in the small of her back was spreading, like a tight band wrapping about her middle,
as if she were wearing a girdle that was too small. Pain slammed through her in icy waves.
God, God, get me to the hospital. Any minute, they’ll have to carry me out of here on my back,
in my stained dress. Everybody staring. God, no, I’d rather die.
She shook free and pushed past the perfume counters, their mixture of fragrances cloying,
making her stomach heave. Somehow she made it outside, through the heavy glass exit door,
wrenching her way to the curb through air so thick it was like syrup.
“Lenox Hill Hospital,” she gasped, sagging into the back of a cab.