So he would disappear. Imagine himself on a little vacation in Europe.
It was easy enough to locate the nearest train station, but he soon found that all of France seemed to be making their way to the city. Tickets were oversold, but patriotic conductors and ticket takers turned a blind eye and packed people into the train cars until there was only room to stand in the aisles. He learned, too, that many of the railroads had been destroyed by Allied bombs, so this line was one of the scarce ones that were still intact. Behind the passenger cars were several full of produce from Normandy and Brittany.
Paris was starving.
Yet the mood was celebratory.
Tom gave up his seat for an old woman who boarded after him.
He didn’t need it. He’d been lying down for too many weeks as it was. And the surge of victory pumped through his veins.
The train grew more crowded as they passed Bayeux, Caen, and Rouen, the French people chattering too quickly for him to understand. But no doubt, they were sharing stories of occupation and excitement for what a liberated France might look like.
What would it be like to have Margaret at his side? Entering the City of Lights. The City of Love. Her blond hair pulled into a ponytail with a blue bow tied around it.
Her smile broadcasting her joy.
He put those thoughts aside. It was a dream that could never come true.
At last, it was announced that Paris was the next stop. The people in the seats stretched over other passengers to look out the windows and ooh and aah as countryside turned into city. He hadn’t been in a large city for years, if you didn’t count their brief stop in Brooklyn to board that ship to Liverpool. He’d looked west as they sailed away, passing the Statue of Liberty and all of the tall rectangular buildings that sprouted from the ground like weeds.
He didn’t see the appeal. Give him bare feet in wild grass, peach juice dripping from his chin, stars above that revealed the majesty of the skies. Those were the wonders he preferred.
Still, there was a mythological allure to Paris that he was eager to see for himself.
Tom slung his backpack across his shoulders and stepped onto the platform. Everywhere he looked, throngs of people held up flags, and it was a bevy of red, white, and blue. It never occurred to him that the French, British, and American flags all boasted the same trio of colors. He knew that fact individually, but until he saw them together, adorning anything that could be festooned with banners and ribbons, he didn’t realize that even their aesthetic was allied.
He expected the crowd to thin as they left the train station, but in the streets, the whole of the country seemed to be promenading in jubilation. He wished again that Margaret were here with him, as his loneliness was more pronounced than ever. He’d known no life other than one without siblings, but John and William’s companionship had given him a desire to have someone to share the tales of the day with.
Even better if it was a girl like Margaret. All around him, couples were kissing in the shadows of buildings that had escaped Hitler’s wrath. Celebrating with bursts of affection that squeezed his heart for want of it.
He even saw a group of women display their bare chests, draped only in cloth around their waists, an homage, he believed, to Delacroix’s painting of La Liberté.
No one seemed to notice as the masses swirled around them, engrossed in their own versions of celebration.
A man tossed oranges from his balcony into the crowd, shouting, “Victoire! Victoire!”
Victory! Victory!
And then—there it was. Looming over everyone, appearing as if out of nowhere, the famed Eiffel Tower. He’d read that it had been a controversial structure, and a temporary one. Yet here it stood, outlasting the critics and overseeing two horrendous wars.
It was a monument of endurance, just the encouragement that Tom needed to believe he could go on.
Chapter Eighteen
August 1944
The door to the House of Fragonard on the Rue di Rivoli was outlined in bronze that was polished to the point of sparkling. It stood in contrast to much of the Paris that Tom had seen as he had walked around all night. He’d decided to save money by sleeping outside on a park bench in the Luxembourg Gardens, and he’d woken to the cooing of pigeons. It had been charming until he sat up and discovered that they’d soiled his jacket. He wiped it off in the fountain and set off on his mission.
“Bonjour, soldat. Etes-vous venu pour acheter du parfum?”
A young woman opened the door. Her hair was coiffed to perfection and she wore pearl earrings that dangled just past her earlobes. She was so thin that he wondered how she even stood up straight. Was it in fashion here? Or was it starvation brought on by war?
“I…I…” he stammered. “It’s for my mother. My mére.”
“Ah, you sound American,” said the shopgirl.
“Yes,” he answered, relieved. He didn’t know how he would have conducted the transaction otherwise.
“You are in luck. Is this how you say this?”
He nodded. “Yes. Luck. It is very lucky that you speak English.”
“No, no, monsieur. This is not what I mean. I mean, you have the luck that you should come to the Maison du Fragonard. You see, these Nazis they close many of the shops. But here on the Rue di Rivoli, they keep us open. For their wives. And their paramours?”
At this, her eyes twinkled.
“Are you here only for your mére? Or”—she lowered her voice—“do you have a paramour?”
He smiled. What an elegant name for what he wished Margaret to be. Was it a word that she knew? He’d have to make a note of it and send it in the next letter.
If there was a next letter.
“My great-grandmother was from France,” Tom explained. “And my mother always spoke of the perfume that she wore. I believe it was made of violets.”
“Ah, oui!” she confirmed. “More luck for monsieur! It is one of our most popular fragrances. The German wives loved it, and so we have some in stock, even as we are low on the others.”
She walked behind the counter and beckoned to him. “Come, come.”
He followed her, and she held her arm out.
“Do like this,” she said.
He did the same and before he could stop her, she’d pushed his sleeve up and spritzed his skin generously with a bottle of perfume. He smelled the violet mist as it wafted upward and tickled his nose.
But yes, this was the one. Floral with a hint of sweetness, just as his mother had described.
Would Margaret like it as well?
But he really couldn’t buy the same perfume for his mother and his girl, could he?
Then again, that was hoping for something that could never come to pass.
“Only this one, monsieur?” She pouted. The woman set out delicate paper on the counter and began to wrap the box with the care one might have expected from a ship engineer. When she’d finished the sides with knifelike corners and wrapped it in twine, she slipped a sprig of lavender onto the top.
Tom had no idea how it would all survive the war packaged as it was, but he had to give it a try.
“Oui,” he answered. She pulled out a receipt pad and wrote up the cost. It was more than he’d expected, but when would he ever get the chance to give his mother such an extraordinary gift? You couldn’t buy Fragonard anywhere near the Chickahominy River.