Wordlessly Annie took his hand, intertwining her fingers with his. It felt natural, as though their hands were meant to fit together. This gesture, which had become so familiar to him in their days together, made him ache inside. How he longed to tell her he was leaving and that he loved her. His desire was bigger than words. It dwarfed his thoughts until they were mere shadows of his feelings.
“You’ve been quiet all evenin’, Davey.” She stopped and leaned against his arm. “What’s wrong?”
He could hardly breathe. He could not answer her question about why he was quiet. She was the reason. There was the river and the moonlight and Annie. She tugged his wrist and pulled him down to sit on a bench.
“Like a silver ribbon,” David murmured, commenting on the shining river as if he was not thinking of her lying in his arms, yielding to his touch. He was certain that he loved her. He wanted her as he had never wanted any woman. But if he loved her, how could he take her tonight and leave before dawn, maybe forever? She knew all the stories of the lines soldiers pulled on their “last night before going off to war.” What could David say that would not sound like that?
Helpless in the face of reality, he remarked on the water, the shadows cast on the Thames by London Bridge, and the shining dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. When he had finally run out of travelogue and was trying to think what else to say about the moonlight without repeating himself, he chanced to look down at Annie, curled up beside him on the bench. She was grinning at him.
He caught on at once. “Rambling like an idiot, huh?”
“Blitherin’,” she agreed, but with a dazzling smile that took the bite out of her comment. “Why don’t you just say it?”
“Annie, I . . . ,” David began and then paused. “I’d like to ask you to . . . marry me. I never would have believed that I could fall so much in love so fast. You hit me like a ton of bricks.”
She smiled again. “That’s good, is it? The ton of bricks, I mean?”
“More pain than I’ve felt in a long time . . . but as I say, I want to ask you, but I can’t, not now. To ask you to wait for me, not knowing when or even . . .”
Her smile faded. She knew. “You’re leavin’ then. You’ve been posted to France?”
“Annie, do you know how much I . . .” He did not finish.
Annie’s father was in Dover. They could be alone on the little ketch tonight. The rising and falling of the tide. The rigging playing a melody against the masts. Her softness beneath him. He had imagined it all. He dared not speak it. Would she say yes?
“I love you, Annie. I won’t ask for a commitment from you that I may not be able to keep. If anything should happen . . .”
“Shhh!” she insisted hurriedly, putting her hand across his lips. “Don’t even be thinkin’ that, Davey Meyer, not for one instant!”
They sat together in silence, both reflecting on what the unspoken words had been. The RAF casualty list for the first three months of the war had recently appeared in the London Times: 380 fliers had been killed since September, and everyone agreed that the fighting had not even started to heat up.
“It’s just better for you to not get tangled up with me now,” David said.
“David Meyer,” Annie said with spirit, “don’t you be tellin’ me about what’s better for me, without even askin’ my thoughts!”
Duffy got in the middle of the argument, laying his great sorrowful head on Annie’s lap.
“This is tough on me, you know. Right now I wish I could change places with Duffy.”
“I’ve been thinkin’ the same thing.” She laughed and he laughed, dissipating some of his anguish. “I’d be a liar if I didn’t tell you I get a hunger when I think of you. I feel it now. I’ve never . . . been with a man, Davey.”
He wanted to kiss her, but she turned her face away.
“It’s a good thing we’ve walked so far from the Wairakei,” he ventured. “Or I’d . . .”
“I know. Me too.” Annie lapsed into silence.
David and Annie stared across the luminous river, watching the way it flowed past Tower Bridge, as if they could see all the way to the Channel, all the way to France.
“Do you see this river, Davey?” she asked. “Men and women have been sayin’ good-bye on this spot for maybe a thousand years. It has always been a fearful thing to be waitin’ for one you care about to come home. But sayin’ that it’s hard doesn’t mean you can stop carin’, even if you wanted to. Are your feelin’s like a spigot that you turn off when you’ve a mind to? Or are they like this river, rollin’ so strong that you cannot hold them back? I can wait. And you can leave me knowin’ that I’ll be true to you, because I’m true to myself. The river will be here when you come back.”
David studied her eyes, her nose, her lips, memorizing her features in the moonlight. He took her face in his hands and, pulling her close, kissed her. She slipped her arms beneath his coat and buried her face in the rough fabric of his uniform jacket. David stroked the feathery texture of her hair. He buried his face in the nape of her neck and inhaled her sweet fragrance. He felt his pulse race as she pressed against him. He wanted to commit every sense of her to a forever part of his mind.
“I love you,” he whispered to her. “Will you wait for me? Will you marry me when I get back?”
She nodded in reply.
She said she dared not let him walk her back to the mooring. And so they said good-bye beside the river, like ten thousand others had done for a thousand years.
Like clockwork, three francs a week arrived for Jerome and Marie from Papa. Madame Hilaire was always on board the Garlic to accept the letter from the postman. She would open it, cackle like a chicken that had just laid an egg, and hold up the three francs in glee.
“A good man, your papa!” she would shout so every head along the Quai d’Conti would pivot to stare. “We will eat well tonight!”
Each payday the old hag would indeed cook a wholesome meal: fresh baguettes, mounds of fried potatoes, a piece of cod. She would raise her wineglass and drink a toast after she screamed this sentiment: “To the health of your dear Uncle Jambonneau, wherever it has gotten off to.”
Then she would drink another toast. “To your brave papa, who serves the glorious armees of France! May they raise his pay and increase his ration of grog!”
There were numerous other toasts. Some were drunk to the rat, who Madame Hilaire said was the cousin of the president of the French Republic. As the contents of the jug decreased, she would begin to weep copiously and raise her glass to various old circus performers Jerome did not know. At last Madame Hilaire would drink the last drops of her gallon and lay her head on the table to sleep in peace among the dishes.
But when the morning after came, Jerome and Marie would awaken to the quiet lapping of the Seine against the boat, and Madame Hilaire would be gone. The pattern was always the same. Jerome did not mind that the woman disappeared for six days and reappeared to collect the money and cook one meal a week. On the day that Papa had enlisted, Jerome had decided that he would rather live with a booming cannon than the shrieking voice of their guardian, Madame Hilaire. Good riddance. If she had not departed, Jerome might have done so himself.
This left Jerome to fend for Marie six days of the week, however. Some days the task was more difficult than others. This morning would not be difficult.
Jerome rose before dawn, stuffed little Papillon into his shirt, and made his way to Rue de Buci. There was a break in the rain and the cold weather, which meant that the merchants would be setting up their stalls on the street. In the predawn light without streetlamps, the place was easy pickings for a skilled thief like Jerome. He raised his hands in joy and blessed the blackout.
The air of Buci Market smelled like fresh-baked bread and flowers. The flowers had been shipped from greenhouses in the warm south of France as if there were no war on at all.
Jerome passed the stall of the citrus seller. He nabbed an orange and slipped it into a canvas bag. What co
uld be more simple? Would the merchant notice one missing orange? It could easily have fallen off the table and into the gutter, where Jerome might have found it!
The loudmouthed wife of the baker was barking orders at her unfortunate little husband. He should move faster! The sun would soon be up, and the housewives would come! He should cover the barrel of baguettes in case it rained!
When the baker argued that the sky was clear and that there was not a cloud, she roared and pointed upward. “How can you know what the day will bring? It has rained all week! Cover the baguettes!”
The baker bent beneath the table to fish among the boxes for something to cover the long loaves of bread that were packed upright like pencils in a pencil cup. At the same instant the broad backside of the baker’s wife turned toward Jerome. Here was his opportunity! He reached out and grasped a loaf, pulling it out and breaking it in two. He dunked the two halves into his bag and hurried on.
Breakfast was taken care of. Now, what to do about dinner?
He gazed longingly at the hooks in the butcher shop. Salamis by the dozen hung on the right of the open window. The hooks on the left held skinned rabbits and thin chickens. There was seldom any beef since the armees of France got all the best meat these days. Jerome’s eyes narrowed with intensity as he considered some way to snag a salami. A salami would be the prize of all prizes. He would not have to cook it, and it would last for days. But they hung too far out of his reach. A pity.
A large American woman, the keeper of an orphanage, tugged her little wagon to the window of the butcher. She was out early. Jerome often saw her in Buci Market, pulling her wagonload of groceries from stall to stall and arguing over prices like a common Parisian. Perhaps if she would distract the butcher long enough . . .
“Bonjour, Monsieur Turenne,” she called in a loud voice that hardly displayed any of the flat American accent.
The large butcher greeted her cheerfully. She was a regular customer and a good one, Jerome knew. “Ah, Madame Rose!” the butcher cried. “How lovely you look today, Madame!”
“It is too dark for you to know how I look, Monsieur Turenne.” She laughed. “That is why I come early. I like your compliments.”
“You are the light of Buci Market.”
“If you look upon the soul, then I hope that is true, Monsieur.”
“Ah, Madame.” The butcher, whom everyone knew was a lonely widower, lowered his voice. “To think that such a plum as you remains unpicked.”
“Plum?” She laughed again. “Coconut is more like it. Hard and tough.”
“But sweet inside.”
He was definitely distracted, although Jerome thought he would have to be as blind as Uncle Jambonneau to mean what he was saying. Madame Rose could have passed for a fair-sized side of beef in the dark. But maybe such a figure was what butchers were attracted to.
“Enough, Monsieur!”
Jerome inched forward toward the salami.
“How can I help you this morning, Madame Rose?”
Jerome was at her elbow, moving his hand up toward the hook.
“I need chickens for my children today.”
“Chickens, Madame! Fowl is very expensive these days. Rabbit would be better for the cost.”
“No, chickens. We have thirteen children down with bronchitis. Sister Betsy is not well either. Chicken broth, that is the thing. Four chickens, if you please. That should do very well for thirty-two little ones and two old ladies.”
“Old! Madame! You are in your prime!”
Jerome wondered who the butcher could be talking to. Madame Rose was gray-haired beneath her scarf.
“Always you flatter me, and after we argue about the price of the chicken, you hate me. But I always come back.”
Jerome touched the rounded end of the lowest salami. His fingers just grasped it at the bottom, but he could not get a firm enough grip to pull! He jumped, grabbed, and jerked the salami off the hook.
The butcher shouted. Madame Rose whirled around much faster than Jerome would have imagined such a large woman could move. She grasped his hair, jerking him back mid-stride and holding him firmly.
Thinking to terrify her, Jerome reached into his shirt and held up Papillon. The rat blinked at her with pink eyes and twitched his whiskers curiously.
Madame Rose was unimpressed. “You have a rat. Put him away or Monsieur the butcher is likely to carve him up and grind him in his sausage.”
Jerome obeyed her warning instantly. She still did not let go of his hair.
The great lumbering hulk of the butcher hurried out the door of his shop. “Well, well, well! So, so, so! Madame Rose!” he cried. “You have caught the little beggar Jardin!” He yanked the salami free from Jerome’s hand and held it aloft triumphantly. “I owe you a debt of gratitude.”
“Gratitude is nice, but I would rather have ten centimes off the price of each chicken.”
The butcher grimaced. “Thievery, Madame. But . . . done. Now I shall call the gendarmes to haul this rat away.”
The big woman leaned down and studied Jerome with one eye. She poked at his ribs. She pinched his cheeks. “He hardly weighs more than that salami, Monsieur. If he was a fish, I would throw him back in the Seine. Not enough to fry.”
“He is a thief.”
“I have seen him here in Buci. Perhaps he meant to ask you if he might borrow the salami for a time?”
Jerome’s hair hurt. He peered up at the large woman defiantly. “Borrow?” The boy snorted. “I meant to eat it all. Monsieur the butcher has enough to go around. He is fat as a pig! And . . . he has two large dogs at home to whom he feeds scraps. My sister and I would eat such scraps very happily. Are we not better than dogs?”
The butcher began making incoherent angry noises after the reference to the pig. He held the salami like a sword, as if to stab Jerome with it.
Madame Rose swung herself between butcher and boy in a series of moves that kept the butcher jabbing the salami around her.
Jerome yelped as he swung from side to side by his hair. Would not a thump on the head with a salami be less painful than Madame Rose’s fingers in his hair?
“Monsieur Turenne, you must stop this at once!” she cried. “I . . . I wish to purchase that salami as well!”
“You may do so, Madame!” he huffed. “After I beat this boy with it!”
“No!” she shouted, putting her free hand up and shoving Monsieur the butcher back. “I protest. Children do not beg unless they are hungry.”
Jerome shot back defiantly. “I do not beg from the capitalist pig, Madame!”
“He steals!” the butcher bellowed.
“Not if I buy the salami for him.”
The butcher stepped back and lowered his weapon. “If you do not allow me to call the gendarmes, Madame, then I shall have to charge you full price for your chickens and for the salami!”
Jerome peered out from behind the skirt of the American woman. The butcher had her there.
“As you wish, Monsieur Turenne, but it is not gallant of you.”
He shrugged and went back inside to wrap the chickens.
Madame Rose released her grip, letting Jerome free. She bent low and put her nose to his. Her face was very fierce, and her mouth was straight and wide like a bullfrog’s. “Do not move,” she warned, then turned her attention to paying the bill.
Jerome did not stir. He stood at her back and petted Papillon through the gap in his shirt caused by missing buttons. The sun was coming up. The bunches of flowers in the barrels of the florist’s stall were bright and pretty. It would be too light to steal now, but at least he was not going to prison.
Now Madame Rose turned on him. “What is your name?” She took him by the arm and hauled him after her with the same determination as she hauled the wagon.
“Jerome Jardin.”
“Now what am I supposed to do? I have paid full price for the chickens, and I have a salami I do not want.”
“I am sorry, Madame.” Jerome felt bad. The l
arge American was a kind woman, after all. Everyone said so, except for Papa who said that Madame Rose and her sister, Betsy, were only kind because they got something for it in return. Jerome could not think what Madame had gotten out of this act of kindness. The deal seemed quite a bad one to him.
“You do not have to steal, you know.” She pulled the wagon out of the way of a gaggle of housewives and bent until her eyes were level with Jerome’s. “You could have asked if you were hungry.”
“I am not a beggar.”
“I do not know what I will do with this salami.” She extended it to him.
The salami was wrapped in white wax paper, but he could smell it through the wrapping. His stomach growled. He looked away. “I am sorry,” he said again.
“Would you like it, Jerome?”
“You are a religious person,” he said in a lofty way as Papa had taught him. “Dangerous.”
She laughed. Then she laughed louder, as though what he said was the funniest thing she had heard in a long time. “Well, I suppose that is a matter of opinion.”
“You are a spider of the church. Papa says never take charity from church. Charity is the web that catches the . . .”
This time her mouth twitched like she might laugh, but she did not. “So, you are a man of honor, I see,” she said seriously. But her eyes were laughing. “I would not entice you with a gift.” She placed the salami back on top of a heap of cabbages in the wagon. “But I suppose that if I turned my back and looked away, there might come someone who took the salami right off my cart.” As she spoke, she turned slowly away from him and stared off at the vegetable stalls across the street. “If someone stole my salami, I would never know it.”
Jerome gaped up at her. She was a giant silhouette against the sun. She was not looking. There was the salami. He picked it up. Then he picked up a cabbage and shoved it into his bag.
“Leave the chickens, Jerome,” she warned. “If you and your sister are hungry, you may come eat with us. Our church does not look like a church, boy. It is inside our hearts. Get going.”