Chapter Text
France, summer 1946
“Armand, Armand, please stop, Armand!” I shouted.
His lithe figure, a blurry shape disappearing among the linden trees, was like a beacon or a magnet; a siren call.
In the humid, breathless night, I reached out for him and he slithered away from my grasp.
The sky was starless but not dark: it was dappled with white clouds, shapes that seemed to float in that not-quite-blackness. I would have lingered with him, and held him in my arms, as we traced the patterns with our fingertips; I would have but he was gone, gobbled up by the night itself.
All of a sudden, the weight of his hand was on my shoulder. I turned around to face him: it was Elio’s countenance that looked back at me, his mouth that parted to say my name.
“Oliver, wake up,” his voice said.
His long curls tumbled over his forehead and there were freckles on the bridge of his nose.
“You were there, in my childhood,” I murmured and he gave me one of his puzzled looks that always make me want to tickle him until he shrieked for mercy.
I told him about my dream and he kissed the stubble on my chin.
“That’s because of Florence,” he said, and I nodded.
We had seen her in Paris: she was back to her former splendour, holding Thursday lunches for artists and intellectuals with her customary zest.
She had hugged the kids as though she’d really missed them and they had asked about Tully and been overjoyed when the Pekingese – fatter and less boisterous – had been summoned to their presence.
Despite her evident pleasure at seeing us alive and well, her warmest welcome had been for Samuel.
“Professor Perlman,” she had enthused, as he beamed at her from behind his reading glasses and begged her to call him Sammy, “I believe I read what you wrote for Les Lettres Françaises. Of course it wasn’t signed, but I’m sure it was your prose.”
They had chatted for a while, while Julien sat at the Pleyel grand and played Bach. Elio had tried and failed not to gaze at him.
“You know he doesn’t like it,” I had admonished him.
“Adolescents,” he’d sighed, rolling his eyes.
Julien was twelve but his voice had started to break and he got embarrassed if we were too demonstrative in public.
“You must have been the same if not worse,” I’d argued and he hadn’t denied it.
Jacob had played with Tully and ignored us all: he was an affectionate boy, untouched by the English reserve to which he’d been exposed for over three years.
“You don’t regret leaving Paris?” I asked Elio, as he poured me a cup of creamy coffee.
I looked around, once again caught by a mixture of surprise and emotion at the familiarity of the room: the Watteau in its heavy frame, the silk cover on the boat-bed, the solid eaves. I still couldn’t quite believe that the occupation and bombings had not destroyed Le Domaine.
“We can go back anytime,” he replied. “Once you’ve finished writing your book.”
It was my turn to respond with an eye-roll. “There’s too much to do with the farm and the vineyard.”
He sat down next to me on the bed and bit my upper arm.
“Julien can help,” he said, “You’ve heard him,” he went on to imitate our eldest son’s lofty tones, nailing the way he said ‘daddy’ with the slightest French inflection.
“It will ruin his hands.”
“You’re not as worried about my hands,” Elio quipped, palming the outline of my morning erection.
“You can look after yourself,” I whispered, and we forgot about breakfast and kids for the next hour or so.
Our time in London had been wonderful, considering the circumstances: filled with friends, music, laughter, hard work and plans for the future. No one had paid us much attention: I was the man who’d rescued Jewish victims from certain death, and Elio was a competent architect risking his life to reclaim crumbling buildings. The boys were intelligent and polite and elicited pity and compassion.
Peace has put a stop to the liberality of wartime: questions were being asked, not by our closest friends, but by acquaintances and employers. Soon we’d have to justify our small family: why weren’t we getting married to women? Why weren’t the boys going back to their country?
Wayland’s brother had come to visit with his wife and she, a tall upper-class shrewd-eyed blonde, had insisted about throwing a party for us, “to bring you back into society,” she’d drawled, her voice like a nail scraping across a blackboard. Wayland had distracted her with gossip about Royalty, but I’d caught Elio’s jaundiced expression and made up my mind there and then.
That night in our bed, as we'd clasped each other tightly, I’d said, “Let’s go back to France. No one cares over there. They owe you after what they’ve put you through and I can pretend again of being from Alsace.”
“The kids like it here and what about your friends? Won’t you miss them?”
“They are your friends too and don’t tell me you won’t miss old Percy and Denis. Besides, it’s not like they can’t come and stay with us whenever they feel like it.”
He’d nuzzled my throat and hummed.
“There is no other way,” I’d insisted. “I don’t want to pretend to be dating women, not after years of being your husband.”
Elio had moaned and brushed his pelvis against my hip: that word never failed to startle a reaction out of us both.
“But what will you do?” he had asked, later, much later.
I’d wiped a smear of semen from the corner of my mouth and smirked. “Remember my book on Heraclitus?”
Samuel had telephoned us four weeks before the end of the war.
I’d answered it after the third ring, a bit annoyed because it had been late at night and Elio had only just returned, covered in dust and marching to the bathroom; I’d stalked after him, ready for a scene which I’d been rehearsing all evening. “Why didn’t you warn me, I was worried sick,” I’d started, but the phone had stopped me mid-rant, to Elio’s evident satisfaction.
“Hullo,” I’d barked into the receiver, and the switchboard operator had said something I hadn’t been able to catch; there had been the noise of static and then a man’s never-forgotten voice had said my name.
“Professor, is that you?” I had asked, stupidly.
His laughter had mended a crack in my heart whose existence I’d tried to conceal.
“I’m in Paris,” he'd said, breezily, as though he’d been on a cruise and finally decided it had been time to come home. “You are well, I hope? All of you.”
“Let me get Elio,” I’d replied, and shouted until Elio had emerged from the bathroom, a frown wrinkling his forehead.
“Your father,” I’d said, my eyes already wet responding to his joy, wishing for nothing more than being witness to his happiness, every day of my life.
A week after V-Day, Luke Morris had invited me to lunch at the club, but when I’d got there, sweaty and apologetic for my tardiness, I’d realised there was something more to it than mere desire for my company.
On the table was a folder marked “eyes only”.
“If this is about Elio,” I’d hissed, but he’d shaken his head.
“The kids,” he’d replied, asking the waiter for two whiskies, neat, no ice.
Inside there was evidence that the Duguays had been killed as soon as they’d arrived to the camp they’d been assigned to. They had been stamped with numbers, which I still remember today and probably will never forget till my dying day.
“We can’t tell them,” Elio had said. “Not until they are older.”
“If they ask, we shouldn’t lie to them.”
But they had not asked; they no longer did. They had started to call me Dad or Daddy and Elio was Papa, and we didn’t wish to upset their fragile equilibrium; and ours.
Percy Standing had begged Elio to stay.
“I’ll make sure you get a honorary citizenship, after what you’ve done for us,” he’d said, “Risked your life, nearly lost it a couple of times. And as for the other thing,” he’d added, alluding to our ménage, “If you are subtle about it, people will look the other way.”
The thing was, we didn’t want to be subtle about it, if subtle meant being touched by hands that weren’t those we longed for, whose touch we’d recognize while blindfolded, that we had recognized while blindfolded.
During a visit to Wayland’s Sussex country house, Boots had fallen in lust with a ginger puss and had refused to return to London.
“You can stay here too,” Wayland had said, “For as long as you like.”
Elio and I had exchanged panicked looks, but had waited for Julien and Jacob to reply.
“But Chisholm was gonna talk to us about Ancient Egypt,” Jacob had protested.
“We could ask her to move here with us too,” Wayland had replied, “She knows this house already. And I have a piano,” he’d added, in order to woo Julien.
“Papa will get in trouble if we aren’t there,” the latter had argued, conclusively.
Elio had pretended to be offended but I’d not missed the loving looks he’d thrown at our eldest son, stealthy as he’d tried to be.
When we’d arrived at the Gare du Nord, Samuel had been waiting for us but he’d not been alone. Next to him was a dark-haired woman with kind brown eyes and an easy smile.
“Amandine,” she had introduced herself, shaking hands as though she hadn’t wished to presume we’d want to be hugged. “I bring gifts,” she’d announced, offering two slabs of American chocolate to the kids, and even Julien had forgotten that he was quite grown up and had flown up to her arms.
We’d had a heavenly lunch of steak frites and she’d told us her story, while Samuel observed her with adoring eyes: her husband had fought with the Resistance and died while she was hiding in the countryside, near to where Perlman was staying with Beckett. She spoke German and English and had worked as a translator.
“Your father needed looking after,” she’d said to Elio, “I hope you don’t mind me saying that.”
“Not at all,” he’d answered. “That’s what I was always telling him.”
“May I remind you that I’m sitting right here?” Samuel had quipped, evidently pleased with his lot in life.
Later, she’d taken me aside. “You and Elio are together,” she’d said, softly. “Sammy didn’t say a word but I have eyes and I’m not stupid. I don’t care what people do as long as it makes them happy and doesn’t hurt anybody. Besides, it’s none of my business. For what it’s worth, I think you make a beautiful couple.”
“We are a family,” I’d argued, admiring her creamy complexion and marvelling at how similar it was to Elio’s. “You’ll fit right in.”
“That’s very kind of you,” she’d smiled and squeezed my hand, like the mother I’d never had.
Lavaurette was like a convalescent patient awakening after a long illness. Some of the younger men had returned from the war, some were now in the FFI, ready to disown any allegiance they might have pledged to the enemy. Traitors and collaborators had been shot and hanged in the piazza by the cathedral and there lingered the scent of blood and dust, like in a Hemingway novel.
It was widely known that Elio had killed Benech and more than one person had bought us drinks to celebrate our return and to wash away the stain of having watched and done nothing.
The building where Elio’s office had been was boarded up.
“I wish Percy was here,” Elio chuckled. “He’d give them a piece of his mind.”
“Maybe the foundations are cracked,” I suggested.
“They didn’t want the Fritz to get inside,” said a woman’s voice.
“Juliette Bobotte as I live and breathe,” exclaimed Elio, kissing the woman’s cheeks.
She looked me in the eye and her lips curved in a crooked smile.
“You are in pristine shape,” she observed, not without irony.
“Hands off,” Elio chided.
“I was only stating the obvious,” she bit back. “Are you just visiting?”
“Not sure,” I replied. “We’d love to stay, if we can.”
She eyed the notices stuck to the boards.
“I wouldn’t mind getting back to office work,” she said, “If I have to babysit one more crying baby, I may well go insane. And there won’t be shortage of commissions for good architects, especially Jewish ones. You’ll have your pick.”
Elio’s eyes had twinkled.
“I’d love to finish that convent,” he said, and we all laughed.
Julien had asked to see his old house.
“We’ll go there first and see what’s left,” I suggested.
Samuel and Amandine had stayed out of it, tactful as ever.
Elio wasn’t convinced, but there was little we could do. The boys could always sneak out and go there if we tried to keep them away. I didn’t believe they’d do that, and Jacob wasn’t particularly interested anyway, but I thought that they shouldn’t be prevented from reconnecting with their past.
When we got there, we had the nasty surprise to find it razed to the ground.
“A bomb,” Juliette told us, “The entire neighbourhood went up in flames.”
When we told the kids, it was Jacob who spoke first. “But what about them, what if they came back and they had nowhere to go?” he said, in a tearful tone.
Elio and I exchanged glances: it was time to tell them.
I went up to our bedroom one night and Elio wasn’t there. I thought nothing of it until I found the note pinned to my pillow.
“Come and find me,” it said.
I smiled and ran to what had been our secret room.
He was spread out on the mattress, naked and smoking a cigarette.
“Want to hitch a ride?” he said, giving his hard prick a slow stroke.
“And they say romance is dead,” I laughed, my heart bursting with love.