Page 19

I think Colette has a beau,” Annabel confided to her friend Hélène Rosman the day after Bastille Day. They were sitting in the parlor of Hélène’s apartment near the Jardin May-Picqueray, just a few blocks from Annabel’s home, drinking ersatz coffee and discussing the future.

“At a time like this?” Hélène asked, taking a small sip.

She was a few years older than Annabel, a slender, statuesque woman with a chic, dark bob and impeccable style, whose wrists and fingers twinkled with the jewels given to her over the years by her husband, Salomon, a diamond merchant who was now forbidden to work due to the mounting Jewish restrictions.

Annabel and Hélène had met less than a year earlier, at a meeting for Le Paon’s underground network, but Annabel felt as if she’d known the other woman for much longer than that. They were kindred spirits, the only two mothers in their small group.

“Perhaps I should be worried,” Annabel said. “But there’s a glow to her, Hélène. She’s in love, I think.”

Hélène smiled, her expression wistful. “Ah, to be young again.”

Annabel sighed. “It’s beautiful to watch, but young love makes one reckless, doesn’t it? I can’t help but worry.”

“You’ve told me what a smart girl she is, Annabel,” Hélène said, patting her friend’s hand. “She won’t do anything rash.” She leaned in a bit closer, her eyes twinkling. “Who’s the lucky boy, then?”

“A boy named Tristan, it seems. I’ve found scraps of letters she has started to him. She sits at the desk in her bedroom for hours each night, crossing out her words, and starting over. I’ve never seen her like this. I’m certain she thinks I don’t notice, that she’s being discreet.”

Hélène laughed softly. “She’s not old enough yet to realize that mothers see everything.

” Annabel had met Hélène’s twins, Daniel and Ruth, during a visit to the Rosmans’ apartment last month, and she had found them both polite and kind.

She worried about them constantly, just as she worried about Hélène and her husband.

“Are you certain you won’t let Le Paon help move you to the Free Zone?

” Annabel asked now, changing the subject abruptly.

It was why she had come, to try once more to convince Hélène to leave Paris.

Just the day before, they’d been called to an emergency meeting of the underground group.

Le Paon had received a tract in Yiddish from the Jewish Communists, warning that files on thirty thousand Jews had been handed over to the Germans.

The report spoke of a possible mass deportation, but Le Paon was skeptical.

They’ve already done their worst , he’d said with a frown. They’re more bark than bite.

How many people could the Germans realistically take, anyhow?

Previous warnings of raids had been wildly exaggerated.

What reason was there to expect that this roundup would be any different?

Still, Annabel felt a sense of foreboding she couldn’t explain, and she wished that Hélène would take the danger more seriously.

“He has promised to get you false papers, and then—”

“No, Annabel,” Hélène said, interrupting. “Salomon and I have discussed it, and we are in agreement. We were not raised to run from our problems.”

“My friend,” Annabel said, reaching for Hélène’s hands and waiting until the other woman looked her in the eye. “There’s no shame in doing what you can to protect your family. I wish you’d consider it.”

Hélène shook her head and looked away. “Our minds are made up. Besides, Salomon says the war will be over within the year. We must hold on just a little longer.”

“I’m afraid he may well be wrong,” Annabel said. “Le Paon says—”

“Le Paon means well,” Hélène said, interrupting once more, as if she couldn’t bear to absorb the logic Annabel was compelled to deliver. “But he is very caught up in the glory of leading an underground group, isn’t he? Haven’t you seen the way his eyes twinkle with each new tragedy?”

Annabel had to admit this was true, but she didn’t interpret Le Paon’s zeal quite the same way; he wasn’t delighted by the mounting catastrophes but rather energized by them, inspired to do more to help.

“I think,” Annabel said carefully, “that he simply believes we have a long way to go before dawn.”

“Perhaps,” Hélène said, and for a moment, the two women sipped in easy silence, Annabel trying hard not to wrinkle her nose at the acrid aftertaste of acorn and chicory with each sip. What she wouldn’t give for a real cup of coffee.

“Annabel?” Hélène asked sometime later. “Do you worry about what would happen to Colette and Liliane should you be caught stealing?”

Annabel felt a surge of fear at the question. “Every moment of every day.”

“But then, why do you continue to do it?” Hélène asked gently, no judgment in her tone.

“Because,” Annabel said, her eyes downcast, “the underground needs money, and I can get it for them. How do I turn my back on that?”

“Don’t you see? That is how Salomon and I feel,” Hélène said. “As long as we stay here in Paris, we can help. But every decision you and I make shapes the course of our children’s lives in ways we can’t yet see, doesn’t it?”

“There is both exquisite joy and boundless heartache in being a mother,” Annabel agreed. “I would do nearly anything to protect my girls, but I cannot abandon my country in its moment of need.”

Hélène nodded, tears in her eyes. “If something were to happen to you, though, what would become of them?”

“Roger has no involvement in my activities,” Annabel said, trying not to sound bitter.

After all, Roger’s aversion to helping the underground didn’t make him a bad man; it simply made him a cautious one.

“He would look out for the girls until I came home, should I be arrested. I also sew pieces of jewelry into the linings of their clothing to protect them.”

Hélène raised an eyebrow. “The linings of their clothing?”

Annabel allowed herself a small smile of pride.

“I’m stealing more than you can imagine, my friend, new pieces nearly every day.

I can’t move them right away, for risk of being caught, so I hide them in the hems of their skirts and nightgowns.

They are perfect spots for safekeeping, and if the girls ever find themselves in a jam, they’ll always have something with which to buy their way out. ”

“And the girls know of these hidden treasures?”

Annabel nodded. “Even Liliane understands our family’s heritage, and she knows never to tell anyone about the jewels unless her life is in danger.”

Hélène looked down at her own hands, adorned with three beautiful rings: a wedding band and a diamond solitaire on her left ring finger, and a ring studded with emeralds and diamonds on her right.

After a pause, she slid the emerald ring off and held it out to Annabel.

“Then in that case, would you keep this ring safe for me, Annabel?”

Annabel looked at the ring and then at her friend. “You’ll keep it safe yourself, Hélène.”

Hélène’s eyes filled with tears as she placed the ring on the table between them and waited for Annabel to take it.

“But what if I can’t? What if you’re right, and the worst is coming?

What if staying is a terrible mistake? What if something happens to me or to Salomon?

I want the children to have something to remember me by.

This was a tenth-anniversary present from Salomon; he designed it himself.

Please, Annabel, take it. You’ll return it at the end of the war one day, over a real cup of coffee, surrounded by people who don’t want to erase my very existence. ”

“My friend—”

“Sew it into one of your daughters’ dresses.

And if they need to use it one day to keep themselves safe, I would be proud to know that I’d played a role in protecting them.

Jewels are just jewels, Annabel. They mean nothing and everything, all at once.

But I have to believe that reason will prevail, and that this will all be over soon. ”

“God willing,” Annabel replied, but then she pushed the ring back across the table and waited until Hélène looked up and met her eye.

“I won’t take this from you, my friend. Taking it would be an admission that we think something will happen to you.

And I don’t believe that. I can’t. You’ll be fine, and so will Salomon and your children. ”

Hélène looked at the ring for a long time before picking it up and sliding it back onto her right ring finger with a small nod.

Then she gently touched the bracelets on her right wrist, intertwined lilies that together formed a butterfly, crafted from hundreds of tiny diamonds and delicate strands of gold filigree.

Annabel had never seen Hélène without them.

“You’re right,” Hélène said, her voice hollow. “I can’t part with any of these pieces. They are all a part of me.”

“I know,” Annabel said. Jewels carried the hopes and dreams of those who had crafted them, given them, worn them, and the twin bracelets were, to Hélène Rosman, a piece of who she was.

Annabel understood, too, the urge to carry on as normally as possible, because refusing to be cowed was an act of resistance in and of itself.

The front door of the Rosmans’ apartment opened then, and Daniel and Ruth tumbled in, laughing, their heads bent together. They straightened when they spotted Annabel at their table, and they both greeted her with a formal, “ Bonjour , Madame Marceau.”

“Bonjour, Daniel. Bonjour, Ruth. How lovely it is to see you both again.” And though the words were true, Annabel also found it painful to see them, for they both sported the yellow stars that marked them as Juifs , and the pieces of fabric were a stark reminder of the danger the two children were in all the time.

Annabel forced a smile and stood to exchange bises with the children.

“I really should be heading home,” she said.

Hélène stood, too, and embraced her. “Thank you for these moments of commiseration, Annabel,” she said. “They give me hope.”

“They do the same for me,” Annabel said. She smiled once more at the children and then turned back to Hélène. “I’ll call on you next week.”

“ Au revoir ,” Hélène said, returning the smile as she opened the door for Annabel. “I’ll see you soon.”

“God willing, my friend,” Annabel said, but she couldn’t shake the heavy feeling that settled over her as Hélène closed the door behind her, leaving Annabel alone in the hall.