Danielle Steel - Crossings

Liane smiled for the first time that afternoon. “If you didn't know what a Nazi was, why were you so upset?”

“I think it means a robber, or a bad person, doesn't it?”

“Kind of. The Nazis are very bad Germans. They're on the other side of the war from France and England, and they've killed a great many people.” And she did not add, “and children.”

“But Papa isn't German.” To the pain in her eyes, she now added the obvious fact that she was completely baffled. “And Mr. Schulenberg at the meat market is German. Is he a Nazi?”

“No, that's different.” Liane sighed. “He's Jewish.”

“No, he isn't. He's German.”

“He's both. Never mind. The Nazis don't like Jewish people either.”

“Do they kill them?” Elisabeth looked shocked as her mother nodded. “Why?”

“That's very hard to explain. The Nazis are very bad people, Elisabeth. The Germans who came to Paris were Nazis. That's why Daddy wanted us to leave, so we'd be safe here.” She had explained that to them before, but it had never really sunk in until this moment, until it touched them, having had red paint in their hair and swastikas on their backs. Now the war was theirs too. But now Elisabeth had an added worry.

“Will they kill Papa?” Liane had never seen her eyes so wide, and she wanted to tell them it could never happen, but should she? She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.

“Your papa won't let that happen.” She only prayed that it was true, that he would outwit them for as long as he had to. But at tea, Marie-Ange knew more than Elisabeth, and tears slid slowly down her face again as she sat on her bed, still in a state of shock. She hadn't touched her dinner.

“I'm never going back to school … Never! I hate them.”

Liane didn't know what to answer. They couldn't give up school for the duration of the war, but she couldn't let this happen again either.

“I'll talk to the headmistress on Monday.”

“I don't care. I won't go back.” They had bruised something deep within her soul, and Liane hated them too, for what they had done to her children.

“Do I have to go back, Mommy?” Elisabeth looked openly scared and they both tore at Liane's heart, each in her own way, each cut to the quick by something they didn't understand. How could she tell them that their father was not a Nazi, not what he seemed to be, a henchman of Pétain, but a double agent? One day, when it was all over, when it was too late, then she would be able to tell them. But what would it matter then? They needed to know now, and she couldn't tell them. “Do I have to, Mommy?” Elisabeth's eyes pleaded with her.

“I don't know. We'll see.” She kept them close to her all weekend. The three of them were quiet and subdued, they took a long walk in the park, and Liane took the girls to the zoo, but neither of them was her usual self. It was as though the children had been beaten, which was exactly what she told the headmistress on Monday. The girls had stayed home, but Liane appeared at the school before nine o'clock, and when the headmistress, Mrs. Smith, reached her office, Liane was waiting. She described the condition the girls had come home in and what it had done to them, and she turned to her with an expression of grief. “How could you let something like that happen?”

“But I had no idea, of course …” She was instantly defensive.

“It happened here at the school. Marie-Ange said that seven little girls in her class did it, and they even did it to her younger sister. They took scissors and paint and they dragged them into a room. It's like hoodlums in the ghetto, for God's sake, only it's worse. The children are punishing each other for things that they don't understand, that have nothing to do with them, because of gossip that their parents circulate.”

“Surely you can't expect us to control that?” The headmistress looked prim.

And Liane raised her voice. “I expect you to protect my daughters.”

“Outwardly it may appear that your children were the victims of other children, Mrs. de Villiers, but the fact of the matter is that they are suffering because of your husband.”

“What in hell do you know about my husband? He's in occupied France, risking his life every day, and you tell me that my children are suffering because of him? We lived through a year of Europe after the war was declared, we were there when Paris fell, we spent two days on a goddamn fishing boat sitting on a load of stinking fish in order to meet a freighter and come home, and then we spent two weeks dodging U-boats on the Atlantic, and we watched almost four thousand men die when a Canadian ship was torpedoed. So don't tell me about my husband or about the war, Mrs. Smith, because you don't know a goddamn thing about either one, sitting here in Georgetown.”

“You're absolutely right.” Mrs. Smith stood up, and Liane didn't like the look in her eye. Maybe she had gone too far, but she didn't give a damn. They had all had enough. Washington had been worse than Paris before or after the occupation, and she was sorry she had come home. They would have been better off living with the Germans in Paris with Armand. And if she could have, she'd have taken the next ship to him. But of course there was none, and she knew very well that Armand would never let her. They hadn't risked their lives to get back to the States just to turn around and go back again four months later. She felt half crazy with frustration.

And now the headmistress of the school was glaring at her with ill-concealed contempt and anger. “You're right. I don't know anything about the war, a ‘goddamn thing,’ as you put it. But I know children, and I know their parents. And parents talk, and children listen. And what they're saying is that your husband is with the Vichy government, that he's collaborating with the Germans. That's not a secret. It's been all over Washington for months. I heard it the first week the girls came back to school. I'm sorry to hear it. I liked your husband. But his children are paying for his political choices, and so are you. That's not my fault, it's not yours, but it's a fact. They're going to have to live with it. And if they can't, they'll have to go back to Paris and go to school with all the other little French and German children. But there's a war on, you know it, I know it, and so do the children. And your husband is on the wrong side of the war. It's as simple as that. I suspect that that's probably why you left him. There happens to be a rumor around too that you're getting divorced. At least that might help the children.”

Liane's eyes blazed as she stood up to face the other woman. “Is that what people are saying?”

Mrs. Smith didn't flinch for a moment. “Yes, it is.”

“Well, it's not true. I love my husband and I back him up one hundred percent in everything he does, including now—especially now. He needs us. And we need him. And the only reason we left Paris is because he wanted to be sure that we weren't killed.” Liane began to cry, like her daughters three days before, out of frustration and hurt and anger.

“Mrs. de Villiers, I'm sorry for what you're going through. But I can only assume from what you say that your entire family is sympathetic to the Germans. And as such, you're going to pay a price for that—”

Liane interrupted her at once, she couldn't bear it a moment longer. “I hate Germans! I hate them!” She walked to the door and pulled it open. “And I hate you, for what you allowed to happen to my children.”

“We didn't allow it to happen, Mrs. de Villiers. You did.” Her voice was frigid. “And I'm sure that you and they will be much happier with another school. Good day, Mrs. de Villiers.” Liane slammed the door to the office and walked out into the fall sunshine. When she reached home, the girls were anxious to know what had happened. Marie-Ange immediately came running down the stairs.