she could read it. She kissed him, touched his face, and yawned. Well, he thought, when you’ve been fucking all night it’s not really the best time for a love letter.
Five days, they had.
After that there would be too much moonlight for crossing the line back into occupied France. They walked by the gray river, swollen in the spring flood. Late in the afternoon they had a fire in the little fireplace in Citrine’s room and drank wine and made love. At night she had to go to the theatre. Casson came along, sat in the wings on a folding chair. He liked backstage life, the dusty flats, paint smells, stagehands intent on their business-plays weren’t about life, plays were about curtains going up and down-actresses in their underwear, the director making everybody nervous. Casson enjoyed being the outsider.
It was a romantic comedy, a small sweet French thing. The cousin from the country, the case of mistaken identity, the secret message sent to the wrong person, well, actually the right person but not until the third act. Citrine played the ingenue’s best friend. The ingenue wasn’t bad, a local girl with carefully done-up hair and a rich father and good diction. But, next to Citrine, very plain. That didn’t matter so much- it only made the boyfriend come off a little more of an idiot than the playwright really intended.
The audience was happy enough. Despite rationing they’d eaten fairly well, a version of traditional Lyonnais cooking, rich and heavy, not unlike the audience. They settled comfortably into the seats of the little theatre and dozed like contented angels through the boring parts.
Five days.
Dark, cool, spring days, sometimes it rained-it was always just about to. The skies stayed heavy; big, slow clouds moving south. Casson and Citrine sat on a bench by the river. “I could come to Paris,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “But the life I live now is going bad.”
She didn’t understand.
“My phone’s no good. I’m followed, sometimes.”
“If the Germans are after you, you better go.”
He shrugged. “I know,” he said. “But I had to come here.”
They stared at the river, a long row of barges moving south, the beat of the tugboat’s engine reaching them over the water. Going to places far away.
She recited in terrible English: “The owl and the pussycat, it went to the sea, in the beautiful pea-green boat.”
He laughed, rested the tips of two fingers against her lips.
The tugboat sounded its horn, it echoed off the hillsides above the river, a fisherman in a rowboat struggled against the current to get out of the way.
Citrine looked at her watch and sighed. “We better go back,” she said.
They walked along the quay, people looked at them-at her. Almond eyes, wide, wide mouth, olive-brown hair with gold tints, worn loose, falling over her shoulders. Long brown leather coat with a belt tied at the waist, cream-colored scarf, brown beret. Casson had his hands shoved deep in the pockets of a black overcoat, no tie, no hat, hair ruffled by the wind. He seemed, as always, a little beat-up by life-knowing eyes, half-smile that said it didn’t matter what you knew.
They walked like lovers, shoulders touching, talking only now and then. Sometimes she put her hand in the pocket of his coat. They wore their collars up, looked theatrical, sure of themselves. Some people didn’t care for that, glanced at them a certain way as they passed by.
They turned into a narrow street that wound up the hill toward the hotel. Casson put his arm around her waist, she leaned against him as they walked. They stopped to look in the window of a boulangerie. Between the panniers of baguettes were a few red jam tarts in flaky crust. He went in and bought two of them, in squares of stiff bakery paper, and they ate them as they climbed the hill.
“How did you find the
“Like anything else,” he said. “Like looking for a travel agent or a doctor, you ask friends.”
“Did it take a long time?”
She had crumbs in her hair, he brushed them out. “Yes,” he said. “I was surprised. But then, it turned out my sister-in-law knew somebody. Who knew somebody.”
“Perhaps it’s dangerous now, to ask friends.”
“Yes, it could be,” he said. “But you do what you have to.”
Their last night together he couldn’t sleep.
He lay in the darkness and listened to her breathing. The hotel was quiet, sometimes a cough, now and then footsteps in the hall as somebody walked past their door. Sometimes he could hear a small bird in the park below the window. He smoked a cigarette, went from one part of his life to another, none of it worked, all of it scared him. Careful not to wake her, he got out of bed, went to the window, and stared out into the night. The city was silent and empty, lost in the stars.
He wanted to get dressed and go out, go for a long walk until he got tired. But it wasn’t wise to do that any more, the police would demand to see your papers, would ask too many questions. When he got tired of standing, he sat in a big chair. It was three in the morning before he slid back under the covers. Citrine woke up, made a little noise of surprise, then flowed across the bed and pressed tight against him. At last, he thought, the night visitor.
“I don’t want you to go away,” she said by his ear.
He smoothed her hair. “I have to,” he said.
“Because, if you do, I will never see you again.”
“No. It isn’t true.”
“Yes it is. I knew this would happen. Years ago. Like a fortune-teller knows things-in dreams.”
After a time he said, “Citrine, please.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. She took his hand and put it between her legs. “Until we go to sleep,” she said.
29 April, 1941.
She insisted on going to the train with him. A small station to the north of Lyons, they took a cab there. He had to ride local trains all day, to Chassieu and Loyettes and Pont-de-Cheruy, old Roman villages along the Rhone. Then, at dusk, he would join the secret route that ran to a village near the river Allier, where one of the de Malincourts would meet him.
The small engine and four coaches waited on the track. “You have your sandwiches?” she said.
“Yes.”
She looked at her watch. “It’s going to be late.”
“I think it’s usual,” he said.
Passengers waited for the doors to open. Country people-seamed faces, weatherbeaten, closed. The men wore old mufflers stuffed down the fronts of buttoned suit jackets, baggy pants, scuffed boots. The women wore shawls over their heads, carried baskets covered with cloths. Casson stood out-he didn’t belong here, and he wasn’t the only one. He could pick out three others, two men and a woman. They didn’t live in Chassieu either. Taking the little trains was a good idea- until four or five of you tried it at the same time. Well, too bad, he thought, there’s nothing to be done about it now.
“What if you came down here,” she said quietly.
“To live, you mean.”
“Yes.”
He paused a moment. “It isn’t easy,” he said. Clearly he had worked on the idea.
“Maybe you don’t want to,” she said.
“No. I’m going to try.”
She took his arm, there was not much they could say, now. The engine vented steam, a door opened in one of the coaches and a conductor tossed his cigarette away and stationed himself at the bottom of the steps. The people on the platform began to board the train.
“Remember what we talked about last night,” he said, leaning close so she could hear him. “If you have to move, a postcard to Langlade’s office.”
She nodded.
“You’re not to call me, Citrine.”
