Till We Meet Again (50 page)

This joy was what all pilots meant when they left the hangar for their planes, saying only, “I’m goin’ flyin’,” those
always casual words from which excitement was never missing. Freddy was astonished by the necessity of the contentment she had been granted. She had missed, more than she had let herself realize, the plain and simple physical contact with her plane: the solid sound of the engine, that was not a roar or a growl or a thrumming or a throbbing, but a sound to which nothing else can be compared, the sound of an airplane engine. She had missed her good-smelling leather seat and the feeling of the shoulder harness across her body and her throttle and her stick and her rudders. She had missed her
machine
.

She hadn’t fully recognized until today the full duality of flying. She could fill pages with lyrical descriptions of the sky, more pages with infinitely detailed discoveries of how the earth appeared from above, but without her own personal contact with her machine, it wouldn’t be more than what any passenger could see.
If she weren’t at the controls, she wouldn’t be free
. It was as simple as that. It was the only pure freedom she had ever known, and she must never be away from it for long.

For a time she flew mindlessly, automatically tending the controls, letting her reflexes take over, as she sank deep into the nameless, primitive emotion that bound her to her ship.

Eventually, Freddy realized that she was hungry, and she looked at her chart to find the nearest airport for lunch. She’d be at Santa Cruz in less than half an hour. The white Rider could make two hundred and fifty miles an hour whenever she chose, and the airport café at Santa Cruz was good. She wished she’d thought to bring a sandwich, as she turned the ship to head directly for the little coastal city. Even that tiny piece of navigation on a day like today was almost too much, but it was better than starving.

How happy she was, Freddy thought, as she prepared to lose altitude. It wasn’t only because she had gone flyin’, she realized. It was Mac. When had it not been Mac? But last night, after dinner, he had jumped in the car to bring home some ice cream because she had a sudden fancy for it, and when he’d returned, with more than they could possibly eat, she’d said, oh, very lightly, very jokingly, not hinting at all, that he’d make a wonderful father. He hadn’t even frowned. He hadn’t gone all hot and bothered or protested that he was too old or that it wouldn’t be right, or brought up any of his other ridiculous scruples. He just said, “I don’t need another
baby when I’ve got you,” but something had jumped in his eyes and shed known that shed touched a nerve. He was probably dying to have children but wouldn’t let himself know it. She’d finally been convinced, right at that moment, that she’d manage to get him to marry her someday, if she had to get pregnant to do it. Someday soon.

On the last day of September 1938, Paul de Lancel read the evening papers with painful attention. All month long he had concentrated on nothing else but the crisis in Europe, a crisis most Californians regarded as just another one of the many ups and downs of faraway countries, whose endlessly quarrelsome business they were determined to ignore as much as possible.

Three times in this month of September there had been war scares. In early September, Hitler had finally demanded the absolute annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to Germany, abandoning the former position that he only wanted to protect the rights of the German minority who lived in that region, so rich in mines, industry and fortifications.

Three times the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, had flown to Germany to appease the threatening dictator. The Czechs wanted to fight for their country, but they were the only ones in Europe who had the stomach for battle, except Stalin, who was ignored. Czechoslovakia’s allies, Britain and France, had no fight left in them a bare twenty years after millions of their men had died for nothing in the Great War. On the thirtieth of September, Hitler and Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement with the concordance of Daladier, the Premier of France. This time there would be no war. Common sense had prevailed.

“Thank God for that,” Paul said to Eve.

“You really believe that there’s nothing more to worry about?”

“Of course I don’t. There’s always more to worry about … but at least this piece of paper shows basic goodwill. Just listen, darling,” he said, reading out loud from the paper. “ ‘We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.’ I have to say, even as a cynical diplomat, that it sounds like a step in the right direction.”

“What about the Czechs?”

“France and Britain are pledged to protect their integrity. The Czechs have always been a problem, but not one to start another war over. Well, now we can make our own plans again. What do you say, darling, shall we try to get passage to France at the end of October, or book it for early spring?”

“How much leave can you take?”

“I’ve had some time already this year. If we wait till spring we can take several months, but if we go next month it might be a little late in the year for Champagne at its best.”

“I wish wed been able to get away when Guillaume died,” Eve said thoughtfully.

“So do I. But Father’s letters make his feelings very plain. He won’t hear a single word about my giving up the foreign service to help him with managing the business. He seems to feel that I’d be more trouble than I’d be worth,” Paul said ruefully. “It’s true I don’t know much about making great champagne, or selling it, but it’s never too late to learn. He says that his foremen can replace Guillaume without any problem. Their fathers worked for him too, and their grandfathers for his father, back as far as anyone can remember, just like the Martins, those three cellarmen he trusts so completely. Father’s much too hale to give up running things his way, in any case, too hale and too set in his ways.”

“How would you like to adjust to the agricultural life at fifty-three?” Eve asked dubiously. “In a place where the end of October might be uncomfortably cold and spring is five long months away, at best?”

“Are you hinting that California has ruined me?”

“It happens to the best of us. Even to the French. Something chemical changes in your blood when you live here long enough—it’s like the tropics. One day—one day much too soon—the House of Lancel and Valmont will belong to you whether you like it or not. Or whether I like it either, for that matter. I rather dread the thought, to be honest. So why anticipate? I think we should wait till next spring. We could spend a month in Paris with Delphine and another month in Champagne.”

“Done. May in Paris with Delphine, June in Champagne with my parents, learning exactly how a bee makes love to a grape blossom,” Paul said briskly.

He had managed, Eve thought, once again to get through a conversation that had included everything but China and Japan, without any reference to the fact that they had another
daughter, who lived, as she suspected he must guess, within a few miles of them. If he didn’t want to know anything about it, she wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. It was enough that she had Paul back, that he had recovered from whatever cruel emotion had dominated him in those early months after Freddy left, recovered to love his wife again, as much, as dearly as he had before. The subject of Freddy was like an unspoken, unwritten Munich agreement—they had long ago decided not to go to war against each other over it.

Delphine started another picture early in September, starring opposite Jean-Pierre Aumont. She began the film hoping that something would happen on the set that would change the nature of her obsession, for obsession was what she had realized it must be, rather than love.

However, by the end of September she understood that she was in more trouble than she knew. She could still act. She could count on her true natural talent, and the technique she had absorbed in the last two years of almost nonstop work, to get her beautifully through one scene after another. No matter how complicated the scene, when another actor threw her the ball, she always caught it. She listened brilliantly, which was half the battle. The camera continued to discover far more emotion in her face than she felt. Her new director was delighted with her, and she found his direction satisfactory, if uninspired. Abel was working on setting up a film with Gabin, and the future smiled.

It was the present that stank. She went to bed too late and had trouble going to sleep because of thoughts of Sadowski. She woke up too early, with an abrupt exit from unconsciousness, thinking about Sadowski. During the day, whenever she wasn’t saying her lines, she thought about Sadowski. It wouldn’t do.

There was only one way to exorcise the man, and that was to confront him. Her obsession wouldn’t stand up against reality, but first, to get rid of it, she had to expose it to the open air, let in curative daylight. It would be embarrassing, humiliating and ludicrous, and it went against all her principles, but if she simply told him how she felt, he would be so insensitive, so unreceptive, that she would finally be shocked out of her unnatural state. Best of all, he might actually feel sorry for her. Of course, he’d be low enough to let her know it.
Pity!
That should do it.

She telephoned him and told him she needed to ask his advice about her new film. Director trouble.

“Look, babe, I’m busy as hell, but sure, if you’ve got a problem I’ll try to make time for you. Meet me at Lipp’s at eight-thirty—no, I’d better eat on the set, we’re reshooting something complicated. Come to my place at ten. If I’m not home then, it’ll be because I killed an actor. You know where I live? Right, see you later.”

Know where he lived? She had known for six months, she had walked by it dozens of times, hoping to run into him; she could get there by bus, by Métro, or on foot. She could crawl there if she had to, all the way across Paris. However, Delphine ordered a taxi, since she didn’t want her driver speculating on why she would be going somewhere at ten at night and leaving a half hour later, like an unsuccessful second-story man.

There was no point in bothering to dress in any particular manner. Whatever she put on would make no difference to him. On the other hand, for an exorcism, only a black dress seemed appropriate. Something priestlike. Austere, severe. Her new Chanel, with just one string of pearls. The very, very good ones she had bought last year on Bruno’s advice. Her second-best pearls would do just as well, but she’d be more … you’re doing it again, you inutterable fool! Delphine scolded herself, her teeth chattering in spite of the warmth of the room, you’re dressing to charm a man who can’t be charmed. But the Chanel
would
do something for her own morale, she rationalized, as she slipped on the black, low-cut cocktail dress that had been the hit of the fall collection. Army officers wore their best uniforms in which to be court-martialed. Even Mata Hari had bothered to look nice at her execution, she thought, as she applied her makeup with trembling but adroit hands, and arranged her hair, until she looked even younger than twenty and twice as beautiful as ever, because her eyes were so frightened and her heart-shaped face was so sad.

She wrapped herself in Chanel’s black, between-season coat and decided not to wear a hat, since it was late enough to go without one. As she sat in the taxi, crossing the Seine to the Left Bank, she wished above all that she had a script. An exorcism, a proper one, always had its script, a time-hallowed one, but she had nothing to guide her except her conviction
that she had to end her obsession or something bad would happen to her.

Armand Sadowski lived almost directly above Chez Lipp, in an old and rather dilapidated apartment building that seemed to lean forward into the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Delphine looked wistfully at the crowds on the terrace of the Café Flore, across the street; happy people, drinking, calling the waiters, chatting, seeming to be full of good news as they enjoyed the last warm night of fall. She turned away from the pleasant, wonderfully ordinary sight, and forced herself to buzz open the heavy outside door, asking the concierge what floor he lived on, and climb the steep, uncarpeted stairs to the top of the building.

Armand Sadowski, looking strangely excited, threw open the door to his apartment, the second she rang the bell. He was in his shirtsleeves, without a tie, and he needed a shave. She hadn’t remembered just how tall he was, she thought, confused by the too-abrupt transition from the staircase to his apartment.

“What do you think of this?” he asked quickly, without a greeting, holding out the evening paper.

“I haven’t had time to read it yet.”

“It looks like peace. The Germans don’t want to fight any more than we do. Hitler’s finally signed an agreement.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to attack the Maginot Line.”

“So even you know about the Maginot Line? Amazing.” He grinned and waved her farther into the room.

“Everybody in the world knows about the Maginot Line. That’s all the French ever talk about. Ah, why did I come?”

“For advice. You said you were in trouble with your new director.”

“That isn’t exactly the case.”

“I suspected as much. More likely he’s in trouble with you. Drink?”

“Gin, just pour it in a glass.”

“Americans,” he said, shaking his head. “Only Americans drink gin straight.”

“So do the English,” she responded wearily. She had no gumption left.

“Hey, babe, sit down. I forgot my manners.” He gave her a glass and pointed to a big leather chair. She didn’t even look around the big, disordered room but just sank into the chair and took a sip.

“So why’d you come? What’s the problem?”

“I love you.”

It was easier to say than she’d expected, because she spoke in French and that had always provided a mask, as any language but English would. The words, in English, would have been unbearable. She drained her glass and blindly fastened her eyes on its empty depths.

Sadowski took off his glasses thoughtfully, and regarded her silently for a minute or two. “Looks like you do at that,” he said finally, his tone a confirmation of everything she had forced herself so slowly to understand.