Page 32 of The Widows of Champagne

Chapter Thirty-Two

Hélène

H élène looked around her bedroom, shame and despair her familiar companions this morning. It was not yet dawn. She should try to sleep, but she couldn’t seem to find the strength to move away from her dressing table. She lacked a reason. So here she sat, wearing last night’s dress, feeling the weight of her sin as if it was a living, breathing thing. She hated what she’d become, what he’d turned her into, knowing she’d make the same decision again, if only to keep him away from her daughters.

Paulette. Gabrielle. Each deserved a better mother than the one she’d given them.

A steady ache lingered in her heart as she surveyed her reflection cast in the pale glow of the moon. The woman staring back—her eyes were empty. Nothing there anymore. Nothing but gloom and bitterness, so much bitterness. She could hardly remember the woman she’d been when étienne was still alive. When hope and faith and love for the Lord had shared equal space in her heart.

She blinked at the stranger in the mirror, a woman stripped of her last scraps of dignity. Everything that had once defined her was gone. No pride left, no self-respect. No purpose in life other than to serve a greedy man’s whims. She felt lost, deserted by even her own self.

Where was her purpose now? Where was her reason to navigate through another day? She would find it, as she did every morning. She heaved herself to her feet and ran a hand through her hair. She was tired, so tired of the continual rustling in her soul, a certainty that she’d gone too far and would never find her way back. Death by a thousand little cuts.

Create in me a clean heart, O God.

Why would the Lord help her now?

She thought of ways to end the horror that had become her life. Poison, a pillow over mouth and nose, a bullet. The idea of ending a life—her own— his —was an offense so large it threatened to take her to her knees. Could she pull it off? Could she—

The familiar creaking of the door had her going perfectly still. It was the sound of her doom. The herald of another piece of her soul being ripped away. Footsteps, nearly soundless, the door shutting. Her heart skidded into an erratic rhythm. This waking nightmare would not destroy her. She would not let it.

She would face it with poise.

With a million sparks of her shame splintering the remnants of her self-respect, she made the slow turn to face von Schmidt. And nearly collapsed in relief when she saw the woman standing with her back against the door. Not him. Not... him .

“Gabrielle.” She breathed her daughter’s name, no louder than a whisper, as much a prayer of thanks as a question. “What brings you to my room at this hour?”

Nothing good, surely.

“Am I disturbing you?”

The hesitation was new, unexpected. “ Non , I couldn’t sleep.”

Gabrielle moved deeper into the room, but her image remained dark and blurry. A shadow within a shadow. Like mother. Like daughter. The young woman was dressed to move around in the night. Whatever risks she’d taken this evening, she’d survived them. Though the hunch of her shoulders indicated an unhappy ending. No matter the outcome, Hélène couldn’t—wouldn’t—judge her daughter for her choices. She was not that much of a hypocrite.

As she came closer, Hélène saw the changes in the young woman. She used to be well-shaped, leanly muscled and much stronger than her petite frame would suggest. But the war had eaten away the pounds and had robbed her daughter of what had once been her robust, enviable figure. She stopped her approach several feet away, close enough for Hélène to read the anguish on her face. The daughter had come to speak reason into the mother. “Gabrielle—”

“We need to talk about Paulette.”

The words pulled her up short. “What about her?”

“She has been sneaking out at night to meet a boy.” Darkness fell over Gabrielle’s face. Hélène’s spirits followed.

She glanced up to the ceiling, not sure why, perhaps to gather her thoughts. “You are sure this isn’t a mistake?”

“I’m afraid there is no question. She was seen. Not by me.” Or by Helmut, praise God. He would have said something about Paulette skulking around past curfew. Hélène would have known his displeasure in a hard slap to her cheek.

When Gabrielle didn’t give up her source, she didn’t press. That was their way. Fewer questions, fewer lies to tell. What mattered right now was that Paulette was sneaking out of the chateau at night.

Hélène searched for her composure, her eyes still on the ceiling. She could feel the pieces of her scattered thoughts slowly converging, rearranging themselves into a single, terrifying question. “Who is the boy?”

“I don’t know.”

Find out. She could hear the command in her mind. She dipped her head down, feeling something oddly calming move through her. “It was probably Lucien Trevon.”

It had to be him. Paulette had been so worried over the boy’s arrest. He’d been released the next day because von Schmidt had put in a good word. Please, God. Let it be the Trevon boy. “I saw Paulette with Lucien at the party.”

She searched her memory, thinking...yes. Yes, that was true. She had seen the two together, once, briefly. Hélène had hired the boy to work in the kitchen. Paulette had sought her friend out early in the night, when Hélène was giving out instructions to the temporary staff. Her daughter had hugged Lucien tight, and told him how happy she was to see him safe.

Had that been the beginning of a deeper romance between the two?

Gabrielle’s eyes bore into hers. “You are confident Paulette is meeting this boy from school?”

She could not make that claim. “I will speak with Paulette this morning.”

“Thank you, Maman.”

“Is there something else bothering you?”

Gabrielle opened her mouth, looked ready to confide something, then clamped it shut again. “We’ll speak about it later. Right now, Paulette is your only concern.”

Hélène watched her oldest daughter leave the room with one thought in mind. She had her reason to face another day. By the time she bathed and changed into fresh clothing, the sun had appeared over the horizon. Paulette would still be abed. This conversation could not wait.

To her surprise, she didn’t have to wake her daughter. She was already dressed for the day, sitting by the window, a sketchpad in her lap, her hand making quick, furious strokes across the page.

“Paulette.” Hélène shut the door behind her with a soft snick. “You’re up early.”

She kept sketching, a smile playing at the edges of her mouth. “I wanted to catch the morning light.”

“What are you drawing?”

When Paulette didn’t respond, Hélène moved closer and searched the page for herself. A rush of blood flooded her head. The face of a man, not a boy. The artist in her recognized the quality of the work. It was a masterful rendering, drawn with a heart full of admiration for its subject. The girl was in love.

Hélène wanted to weep.

“Who is this in the picture?” She would keep her voice free of emotion. She could manage that at least. “Is this someone you met at the party? A new friend, perhaps?”

Paulette’s hand paused and she looked at Hélène for a brief moment, secrets moving swiftly behind her eyes. This was her daughter’s most calculating expression. She had learned to recognize it years ago. “I suppose you could say he’s a friend.”

Hélène fixed on the image and felt the jolt of recognition all over again. He’d sat at their dinner table, twice, wearing his SS uniform. A young man on the rise, as von Schmidt had said. Friedrich Weber. Entitled. Rude. Twenty-six years old, and already a lieutenant, in line to become a hauptsturmführer before his next birthday. The anger and fury she expected to feel wasn’t there. Only fear. “What would you call him, Paulette, if not a friend?”

The question made her daughter’s mouth twitch, the perfect line of her lips sliding into a small, mysterious smile that she quickly pressed away. “My future. My love. My very heart.”

Hélène had thought it bad that Paulette was engaged in a love affair with a local boy. This was so much worse. “You must stop seeing him at once.”

“Why would I do that?” Paulette looked genuinely confused. “I love him, Maman. And he loves me.”

“It’s not a matter of love.” Hélène produced the obvious reason why, praying it would be enough. “He is too old for you.”

“Papa was six years older than you. What’s two more years?”

“My relationship with your father was different.” Special. Her deliverance. étienne had been a good person, the best of men. “This man,” Hélène said, and reached for the sketchpad, flapping it in the air. “He is our enemy.”

Paulette grabbed for the book, hugged it to her heart. “It’s not Friedrich’s fault he was born in Germany. He is French in his soul.”

Was that the sort of lies he spewed to her daughter?

“He is not French. He is a German soldier. And not just any German soldier. SS.”

“Why should I care about that?”

The words were tossed out with careless abandon, but they hit Hélène like a blow. “Chérie,” she said. “Darling girl, don’t you understand the inappropriateness of this romance? The danger?”

“You have a nerve.” Paulette’s face went rigid, as impenetrable as a slab of hard oak. “When you also involve yourself with a Nazi.”

Her daughter had a point. So, too, did Hélène. “I don’t know what you’ve heard—”

“What I’ve heard?” She let out an ugly, disgusted laugh. “It’s not what I’ve heard. It’s what I know. I know all about you and von Schmidt. Everyone knows.”

This accusation was not wholly unexpected. Still, Hélène wanted to defend herself. “There is a difference between a German in a soldier’s uniform and one that voluntarily joins the SS.” She paused, listening to her daughter’s stony silence. Waiting for her to say something, anything. But the young woman’s face remained as unforgiving as stone.

“Paulette. The SS is at the very core of Hitler’s evil. They do terrible things for their Fatherland. They hunt down people they perceive as enemies of the state and make them disappear. A woman does not have romances with these men. She stays away from them. Do you understand me?”

“I understand you’re trying to scare me.”

“Good. You should be scared.” Now that she had her daughter’s attention, Hélène pressed on. “The Nazis have sent tens of thousands of people to labor camps. They are constantly finding more to put on the trains. These prisoners come to terrible ends. They are often tortured, executed, starved or simply worked to death.”

No longer stone-faced, Paulette stared at Hélène with large, round eyes. The eyes of a frightened child. “None of that is true. I asked Friedrich. He says these are rumors meant to make Germany look bad in the eyes of the world.”

“What I tell you are not rumors. They are truth. And do you know who orchestrates these horrors? The SS. Men like your lieutenant. They target anyone they deem unfit, members of the Resistance, Gypsies, Communists, but mostly—” she held Paulette’s eyes “—Jews.”

“We are none of those things.”

Oh, but they were. Hélène needed to tell her daughter. She had a moment of indecision, but it passed quickly. The time had come to share her secret. “Have you never wondered why my father left for America? Have you never considered the origin of his name? Abraham, son of Isaac and Naomi. My father is Jewish. His father and mother were Jewish. That makes me—”

“Don’t say it.” Paulette’s hands covered her ears. “I won’t listen to any more of your lies.”

Hélène knelt in front of her daughter.

“I am a Jew, Paulette.” She spoke calmly, surprised by the sense of peace that moved through her. Saying the words, proclaiming the truth— her truth —wasn’t a burden any longer. It was a release.

“You are French, Maman. You were born in Paris. You are a LeBlanc.”

“I am also a Jew.” The secret she’d spent so many years feeding no longer held her in its grip. She was free. She’d denied her identity for too long. No more. If she was arrested now, she would go to her death knowing who she was. Where she came from.

“It isn’t true,” Paulette wailed. “It can’t be true. You attend church. You worship the Christian God. Your hair is blond.”

Hélène almost couldn’t look at her daughter. Her hysteria was heartbreaking. But she must finish this. She fixed her eyes on the young, frightened face. “The Nazis are getting serious about hunting down Jews in France. You have to know what that means.”

“No, I won’t think about it.”

“Yes, you will.”

Paulette shed big, fat tears. Hélène hugged her daughter long and fierce and when she stepped back, she saw that the tears continued falling in fast streams down her cheeks. “Maman? What is to become of us?”

“We are safe for now. Very few people know my secret. None in Reims outside this home. We must keep it that way.”

She thought of the list of names von Schmidt had demanded she provide. Surely, others had created similar lists, under equal duress. Her own name could show up on any one of them, if someone thought to look hard enough into her background.

“You cannot tell a soul about this, Paulette. No one can know.” Taking her daughter’s hands, she said, “You understand now why you must end your affair with this SS soldier, yes?”

“I... Yes.”

But would she break all ties with him? Would she forget about the man she sketched with so much love and admiration? Paulette was rarely malleable. And this was her first taste of love. Perhaps, she would prove smarter than Hélène gave her credit for. Perhaps she was no longer a spoiled child.

She looked into her daughter’s eyes for some kind of confirmation, a sign that Paulette would do the right thing. She saw only anguish. How she wished for the time, not so long ago, when Paulette was caught up in the thrill of being admired by boys her own age. When that attention was harmless and innocent.

The young woman had a difficult choice to make. If she chose wrongly...

If she thought only of herself...

The girl’s own words came back to plague Hélène. What is to become of us?