He read all the letters three times and then burnt them. She had written out the words of a song they both liked.
I’ll walk alone because to tell you the truth, I’ll be lonely, I don’t mind being lonely when my heart tells me you are lonely too.
He felt guilty as he read the words. There was no doubt that he missed Kathy but she was no longer part of his life. Even America was no longer part of his life. He lived under the laws of an occupying power in a country that was not his. For the first few weeks it had seemed a strange, disjointed existence. Almost no more than an extension of his life under training at Beaulieu. But now, months later, the two rooms in the building next to the church were home. His relationship with Pascal and Parish were what mattered. Even the war itself was strangely remote. The war was in Russia and the Far East, not in Europe. His life was with people who merely hoped that things would change. Only a handful were ready to take action and risks to make those changes happen. The Resistance was looked on by many French people as no more than a provocation to the Germans that could cost innocent lives and even more draconian regulations.
Bill Malloy was still very uneasy about the fact that so many of the people who offered their services and who gave shelter and advice to him and Pascal were quite openly communists. But despite his unease he had a sneaking admiration for these men and their courage, and what he found even more surprising was that when they talked politics they sounded remarkably like his father.
CHAPTER 18
Two days after the Christmas holidays Aarons had taken his wife on a sight-seeing trip to Manhattan. They did the usual visitor’s things. Up to the top of the Empire State Building, Central Park, the concourse at Grand Central Station, the Chrysler Building and the Rockefeller Center. He had taken her for lunch at Stouffer’s and to several of the big stores in the afternoon, then to the movies to see For Whom the Bell Tolls. They had a steak dinner at Joe Madden’s on West 56th and then to Times Square to see the lights until the Motogram spelt out its nightly message—“The New York Times wishes you good night.”
After Prospect Park they were the only passengers in their carriage on the subway back to Brighton Beach. He sat with his arm around her, her head on his shoulder, each thinking their own thoughts. Andrei aware that the time he spent with Chantal was far too little because of his work and Chantal was surprised that her husband knew New York so well. As they walked from Brighton Beach station back to the shop she said, “Do you like America, Andrei?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You seem so at home in New York. You know where everything is. You seem to belong there, not down here.”
“That’s because I spend so much time there. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I like it.”
“Do you?”
For a few moments he was silent, then he said, “I’ve grown to admire the people. They’re optimists. Full of enthusiasm, like children. But it’s a cruel system for the losers. It abuses people. Their philosophy is that you can have anything you want. Money, power—anything. So long as you’re ready to pay for it. They’ve made money into a god. I find them just a little bit frightening.”
She laughed. “They didn’t look very frightening today. Not to me anyway. They seemed quite jolly.”
“You make my point. They were jolly. They were enjoying themselves. But there is a war on, and they’re making money out of the war, the ones who don’t have to go. And in Russia this very day I suppose ten thousand people were killed. Those people in New York didn’t care. They didn’t even think about them.”
She laughed as she tucked her arm in his as they crossed the Avenue. “You’re just a typical tragic Russian, always dwelling on the cruel fates and making them worse. I’d better take you down Coney tomorrow to the fair.”
“It’ll be closed for winter.”
She laughed aloud. “There’s my boy. Always looking on the bright side.”
As 1943 moved on there was good news for Aarons. Von Paulus had surrendered his army south-west of Stalingrad and Winston Churchill had presented the Sword of Stalingrad to Stalin at the Allies’ conference in Teheran. And as if to match all this his network was providing a wide variety of information useful to Moscow.
The gossip of generals and admirals at the Waldorf came within hours from his waiter and visiting politicians were equally indiscreet. Almost daily details of shipments of war supplies and men heading for Africa and Britain came in from his faithful longshoreman.
But oddly enough it was Myron Harper, his journalist contact, who provided most of his hard facts about the military.
Aarons had first met Harper in Los Angeles. Already writing political and military pieces for several newspapers. Already a card-carrying member of the Party and a committed supporter. But Aarons had told him to resign his membership, using the Nazi-Stalin pact as his reason. He had never flaunted or even admitted
