The Bungalow (31 page)

The lights of Paris sparkled, and my heart lightened when I thought of Westry. He was out there, somewhere.

“Will you go with me to the hospital tomorrow? I’m terribly nervous about seeing him, after . . . all this time.”

For a moment, the haze in Mary’s eyes vanished. “Of course I will,” she said. “You know, Stella’s here too.”

“She is?”

“Yes,” she continued. “She’s been here since last month.”

“And Will?”

“He’s here too. They’re getting married in a month or so.”

“That’s wonderful,” I said, grinning. “I’d love to see her.”

“She and Will took a train down south for a few days,” she said. “She’ll be disappointed to have missed you.”

“What time should we leave for the hospital in the morning?”

Mary glanced out the window again. “Visiting hours begin at nine. We can catch a cab over first thing. Now, your room is down the hall—second door on the left. You must be exhausted. Go get some rest.” She tried her best to smile, but the corners of her mouth seemed stiff and heavy, paralyzed with grief.

“Thank you, Mary,” I said, gathering my bags.

I took a final look into the living room before turning down the mahogany-paneled hall toward the bedroom. Mary sat on the sofa, motionless, hands folded in her lap, looking out at the Seine and the shimmer of a liberated Paris.

Something had happened here, inside these walls. Yes, something unspeakable. I could feel it.

The First U.S. General Hospital loomed in the distance, and I squeezed Mary’s hand tightly as we stood gazing up at its enormous facade. The sun shone in the sky, but all around the building were shadows.

I gulped. “Why does it look so . . .”

“Evil?”

“Yes,” I said, squinting up at the highest story.

“Because it was a place of evil,” she said, “before the Allies arrived.”

Mary explained that the twelve-story gray building, formerly the Beaujon Hospital, the largest in Paris, had once been a Nazi stronghold. After the takeover, Major General Paul Hawley, a surgeon, transformed the building, clearing out rooms of medical equipment the Germans had used for gruesome medical experiments, mostly on Jews and Poles. Now it had a red cross painted on the highest story, a cross that rather looked like a bomber airplane, I thought.

Mary pointed to a window a few stories up in the distance. “See right up there? The open window on the seventh floor?”

I nodded.

“That’s where I found a Polish woman and her infant,” she said quietly, “starved to death. Nazi doctors used them for a research experiment. They watched through a window, documenting the whole thing. I read the paperwork. It took her nine days to die. Her baby, eleven.”

I shivered.

“But the horror has ended,” Mary said solemnly. “General Pawley turned this place around. There’s been nearly a thousand admits in the last two weeks, and we expect many more.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off of the seventh floor.

“Anne?”

“Yes,” I muttered weakly.

“Are you ready for this?”

“I hope so,” I said.

Together we walked up the stairs and into the building. Darkness lingered palpably in the stiff and heavy air. A structure could not endure such evil without absorbing some of it. Walls could be scrubbed, floors waxed, but the scent of evil remained.

Mary pressed the elevator’s ninth-floor button and we began our ascent. As the lights on the panel shifted, my mind reeled. First floor, second.
Will he be conscious enough to recognize me?
Third floor.
Does he still love me?
Fourth floor.
What might be next for us?

“Oh, Mary,” I said, clutching her arm. “I’m so frightened.”

She neither comforted me nor acknowledged my fear. “It’s the right thing to do, coming here,” she said. “No matter what, you’ll have closure.”

I sighed. “Have you been in touch with Kitty?”

Mary looked uncomfortable for a moment, and I knew by her expression that she’d gotten wind of our history, our troubles on the island.

“About that,” she said nervously. “There’s something I need to tell you. Since I called you, there’s been—”

The elevator stopped suddenly on the fifth floor, and a doctor and two nurses entered the car, silencing our conversation.

We stepped off on the ninth floor, and I gasped at the sight. Perhaps three hundred, maybe more, wounded men lay on cots with dark green wool blankets pulled over their limp bodies.

“This is a tough floor,” Mary said. “A lot of serious cases here.”

My heart pounded loudly inside my chest. “Where is he?” I said, looking around frantically. “Mary, take me to him.”

A nurse about my age approached us and nodded at Mary without a smile. “I thought you were off today.”

“I am,” Mary said. “I’m here on my friend’s behalf. She’d like to visit Mr. Green.”

The nurse looked at me and then back at Mary. “
Westry
Green?”

The sound of his name on another woman’s breath sent a shiver through my body.

“Yes,” Mary said, “
Westry
Green.”

The nurse turned to me. Her eyes narrowed. “And you are?”

“Anne,” I muttered. “Anne Calloway.”

“Well,” she said, giving Mary a knowing look, then glancing back toward the room of men behind her, “I’m not sure that . . .” She sighed. “I’ll check.”

When she was out of earshot, I turned to Mary. “I don’t understand. Why did she act so strange?”

Mary looked around the room, out the window—anywhere but at my face.

“Mary,” I pleaded. “What happened?”

“Let’s sit down,” she said, leading me by the arm to a bench a few feet behind us. A clock ticked overhead, taunting me with each movement of its hand.

“When I called you,” she said, “I didn’t have all the information. I didn’t know that Westry—”

We both looked up when we heard footsteps approaching, clicking on the wood floors. My eyes widened when I saw a familiar face approaching. “Kitty!” I cried, leaping to my feet. Despite the past, I found myself unable to resist the urge to run into the arms of my old friend, to embrace her with the love and forgiveness we both owed one another.

But I stopped quickly when my eyes met Kitty’s, the eyes of a stranger. “Hello,” she said stiffly.

Mary rose and stood by my side. “Kitty,” she said, “Anne has traveled a great distance to see Westry. I’m hoping we can take her to him.”

Kitty frowned. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

I shook my head, blinking hard as my eyes began to sting. “Why, Kitty?” I cried. “Is he hurt badly? Is he unconscious?”

Kitty looked down at my engagement ring, and I wished I’d thought to take it off. The nurse who greeted us moments ago reappeared and stood in solidarity next to Kitty.
What are they hiding from me?

“Kitty,” I pleaded, “what is it?”

“I’m sorry, Anne,” she said coldly. “I’m afraid the fact of the matter is that Westry doesn’t want to see you.”

The room began to spin, and I clutched Mary’s arm for support.
My God. I traveled all the way from Seattle, and now I stand mere feet away from him and he doesn’t want to see me?

“I don’t understand,” I stammered, feeling waves of nausea churn in my stomach. “I only want to—”

Kitty clasped her hands together and turned back to the floor. “Again, I’m very sorry, Anne,” she said as she walked away. “I wish you all the best.”

I watched her proceed into the room, turning right, where she disappeared behind a curtain.

“Let’s go, Anne,” Mary whispered, reaching for my hand. “I’m so sorry, dear. It was wrong of me to bring you here. I should have explained—”

“Explained what?” I cried. “That I would be barred from seeing the only man I’ve ever loved by . . . my best friend?” I listened to my own words echoing in the air, surprised by their raw honesty. Gerard may have had my hand, but Westry would always have my heart. I broke free from Mary’s grasp. “No,” I said firmly.

I pushed past Mary and into the room of injured men. The sounds that had been muffled near the elevator now amplified to reveal moaning, babbling, crying, laughing. The range of human emotion on the floor was maddening.

I walked faster through the aisles of beds, scanning face after face. Some looked up at me longingly; others just stared ahead.
Where is he? Surely if I find him, if I look into his eyes, he’ll have a change of heart? Surely he still loves me? I won’t let Kitty stand between us. I won’t let her speak for Westry.
My heart fluttered as I weaved through the rows of men, praying that just around the corner I’d see the familiar hazel eyes that had captured my heart on the island.

Minutes later, however, I had combed through every aisle without finding a trace of Westry. I looked around the floor frantically, then remembered Kitty slipping behind a curtained area in the distance.
Could he be inside?
Clutching my locket, I walked across the room, stopping in front of the gray-and-white-striped curtain.
Could this swath of fabric be all that separates Westry from me?

My hands trembled as I lifted the edge of the curtain, just far enough to peer inside. Four hospital beds, all occupied by soldiers, lay inside. I gasped when I made out the face of the man in the bed farthest away.

My legs weakened when I saw his face—thinner now, with a shadow of stubble around his chin, but just as handsome, just as perfect as I’d memorized in my heart. I pulled the curtain back farther, but stopped quickly when I saw Kitty approaching his bed. She pulled up a chair, and I watched as she ran a wet towel over his face, lightly, lovingly, before caressing his forehead. He gazed up at her with a smile that made my cheeks burn.

I felt a tug at my waist, and then heard Mary’s voice. “Anne,” she said, “don’t do this to yourself. Let him go.”

I shook my head. “But, Westry, my Westry!” I cried, releasing my grasp on the curtain and burying my head against Mary’s shoulder. “How could she? How could she, Mary?”

Mary lifted my chin, and dabbed my cheeks with a rose-colored handkerchief. “I’m so sorry, honey,” she said. “Let’s go.”

I followed her to the elevator, then stopped, reaching into my purse for a scrap of paper and pen.

Mary looked confused when I sat down on the bench. “What are you doing?”

Moments later, I stood and handed her a folded slip of paper. “Tomorrow,” I said, “after I’m gone, will you give this to Westry?”

Mary took the paper in her hands and looked at it skeptically.

“Kitty will intercept any letter I try to send here,” I continued. “My only hope is you.”

Mary eyed the paper cautiously. “Are you sure you want to say anything more to him?”

I nodded. “I need him to read this.”

“Then I’ll make sure he gets it,” she said, but I could hear a strain in her voice that worried me. “I work the morning shift tomorrow. I can try to give it to him then.”

“Promise?” I said, searching her face for the assurance I needed.

“Yes,” she said softly. Exhaustion permeated her voice. “I’ll do my best.”

Seattle did little to take my mind off of Westry. More than a month had passed since that dark day in Paris, and even with the familiar distractions of life at home and a wedding just weeks away, I couldn’t get him out of my mind, or my heart. I jumped every time the phone rang, and sat by the window each morning, eagerly awaiting the mail. Surely after he read the note Mary had delivered, he’d write, or call?
Why hasn’t he written?

Then, on a quiet Tuesday morning when Maxine and I were getting ready to go into town, the doorbell rang. I dropped my purse, and a tube of lipstick fell to the floor, rolling underneath the sofa.

“I’ll get that,” I called to Maxine. I opened the front door to find a postman standing outside.

“Good morning, ma’am,” he said. “Miss Calloway?”