Greeting, friends! Thank you for reading. If you're following the playlist at theswanandthedove. blogspot. com, the tracks for this chapter are I'm Making Believe (It's You,) Oh, What A Beautiful Morning and the bells of Notre Dame.
If you're interested in seeing real footage of the liberation of Paris, check out youtube watch?v=Lq6JLssWTiM and watch?v=CT0veINR5g0. Warning: war footage, contains violence.
It felt impossible to sleep.
Delphine's conversation with Scott Smith kept replaying in her head, and leading to shock, concern and unending questions.
They both knew the men who'd come with them were listening and would report everything they said to Danielle and Pascal. Perhaps when they switched to English to save Scott his fumbling in French it might have thrown the eavesdroppers off, but at that point, neither of them cared much either way. They just needed to communicate, to commiserate, and to prove to each other that their meeting was real, that the unlikely twists of fate that had brought them together were not some elaborate dream for both of them.
Mostly, they talked about Cosima.
That this young man who worked with the Dove, whom she had heard briefly about and in the background during her conversations with her confidant over the aether, was here in front of her threw her emotions and thoughts that had only recently and tentatively been stabilized into the sort of chaos that her brain had to resort to both an overlay of numbed incredulity that made her feel out-of-body, like an observer of herself in a dream, and a simultaneous, weighted, slow-motion observation of the very real details of the moment, to process. She found herself gripping his hand over the table. It was solid, male, with long fingers lacking callouses and succumbing to a slight tremble now and then. His eyes were wide behind his glasses, conveying his own disbelief, amazement and background panic. His lips, thin, drawn downward in worried lines, told her, briefly, of how the Americans had come to be there: Cosima's sudden, passionate determination to find and rescue Delphine, one unlike he'd ever seen before from his friend, no matter how idealistic and driven she could be; their frantic, death-defying journey by plane, parachute, foot and truck; their falling in with Pascal's group, frustration at getting no information about Delphine's whereabouts and condition, and decision to use their time to help the resistance — or, at least, the fraction of it they'd been able to mingle with — by employing their scientific skills. He had to repeat things several times when Delphine couldn't absorb them, and when she told him of the events in her life since before the invasion, his mouth dropped open, his own brain clearly struggling to take in the span of her fortune, triumphs and pain.
All that was whirling in her mind, dizzying like a carnival ride, while the most heart-stopping part, the part that turned the amusement ride into a nauseating drop into fear, was the one that tied her spirit into sleepless knots.
Cosima was missing.
That they had been so close to one another, so close to meeting, only for Cosima to embark on what seemed to be a desperate, brave, and foolhardy mission of her own design — at la tour d'Effiel, with its unmitigated visibility and swarms of Nazi soldiers, mon dieu! — and then disappear, possibly captured, wounded or killed… Delphine could barely comprehend it. To all at once have the joy of knowing her… friend? Reassuring, understanding anchor in the abyss? … was both near and had fought so hard to find her, and to have the bottom drop out with the news that this person who had somehow taken such an important place in her thoughts, inextricable from feeling human connection and hope, was simply… gone, was almost more than she could take.
But she had to. She had to try to move forward, to keep some faith. Because, despite all odds and reason, Cosima had committed to finding and helping her. And now Delphine had to do the same for her.
Danielle had been furious, livid, when she learned the story. How this American agent working through the British had kept Delphine going when things became almost too much to bear, how she trekked across the channel and France while Delphine stoked the memory of their conversations to give herself solace and faith in humanity, and how Pascal's cadre of Col. Rol's followers had kept the Americans to themselves, withholding information, using them not just as help for the cause, but as chips in a game of power internal to the resistance. It was not just an offense to the idea of a unified Parisian community fighting to oust the Nazis, but to the basic civility of respecting human feelings. These things had to be done sometimes, but Danielle didn't feel this was the case here. And, to top it all off, they had done this to Delphine, her close friend, who had suffered more than most of them could even dream about in their fantasies of revolutionary heroism.
"You know, I was certain I was going to die. But then I met you," Delphine had told the journalist, "and there was something in your voice, in your understanding and courage even in the darkness of that cattle car, that reassured me, that reminded me of her, somehow. If it weren't for her, and then you, I don't think I would be alive now."
Danielle had sworn that she would spread the word to all she knew who could be trusted to look for this woman, Cosima, "The Dove," to find out if she was still alive, in Paris, if there was some way she could be helped.
And then, gunshots in the night.
The resistance and the occupying Nazis had briefly seemed to have an uneasy truce. General von Choltitz, via a Swedish diplomat sympathetic to the French, had talks with the Gaullists, the faction of the resistance that supported General de Gaulle and to which Danielle was allied. For a brief, shining moment, it seemed that the Germans might be willing to consider a peaceful retreat, a surrender to the Allied military forces, if not any of the subsets of resistance fighters in particular — all of whom could benefit politically by claiming they were the ones the Nazis had given into, and thus should make up France's new government replacing the Vichy regime. Perhaps, with certain conditions met, the occupiers would even spare the citizens of the city further death and destruction. But the group of communists that Colonel Rol influenced would not accept the terms. They said that only "true Parisians," not outside forces, should be the victors who went down in history as the ones who freed Paris, and it was clear that they thought themselves the truest of all the Parisians in the resistance.
They made it even clearer by defying the tentative peace and continuing to sabotage and attack the Germans. It was a fight they couldn't win without much more bloodshed, if ever, without military aid. But the war, like any war, was never really fought for the sake of spared lives and safety — only power.
So fights erupted, here and there, some spontaneous, some deliberately provoked, in the streets of Paris. Danielle and her allies were in a position both threatened by the Nazis and the opposing groups in the resistance. It was hard to tell who to trust, and the shooting at German targets had spurred the occupiers to lash back and dig in. Soldiers were killed, as were civilians. Despite the military might of the Americans being so close, they had not advanced to come to the rescue, and it seemed as though the Parisians might suffer this tense and deadly situation for an unknowable amount of time.
So Delphine tossed and turned. She thought of the proximity of the promise of freedom, and the relentless infighting and greed that kept the French in fear, at risk, even as the Germans finally seemed to be losing hold of their territories. But those thoughts became background noise, illustrative of only one thing: how close she had come to seeing Cosima in the flesh, as a real person, and how, like the truce, that possibility had been deferred, perhaps even destroyed, when bullets had once again broken the peace.
She heard shots out on the street again, and cowered, rolled into a ball in her bed, clutching her stomach and trying not to despair, when a knock came at her door.
"Delphine?"
It was Scott. He had been rooming in the attic since leaving the bar with Danielle and her cohort, a move that was not taken lightly by Pascal, but couldn't be stopped without further escalation between the rival groups at that time. His voice was soft, hesitant.
"Yes, Scott, come in," she answered, propping herself up on the pillows. He slipped into the room and took a seat in the chair by her bed.
They both sat silently for a moment, as a shout was heard in the distance, followed by the pop of another gun firing.
Scott sighed.
"I figured you couldn't sleep, either. You've been looking tired for days, too. Did Danielle give you any hint of where she was going?"
"No, she was in a rush. I'm worried." She bit her lip and looked down, mumbling, "I'm always worried."
Scott nodded.
"I know, I always wish I could just… do something to help, you know?"
"Yes, one hundred percent," she answered. They were both stir-crazy, shut inside for several days, while Danielle had them protected and went out to tend to resistance doings. There had even been an argument when Delphine had insisted she had to at least get out to tend the sick and the wounded, and Danielle had denied her, asking her to wait just a little while more until an agreement could be reached with Rol's people. Delphine nearly stormed out anyway, but Dr. Lafrange had gently taken her arm.
"There will be more injured brought in here, to us," he had said, "I will need you, more than ever, as my nurse."
So she acquiesced. But her patience with being protected was wearing tissue-paper thin. When she had first escaped the prison train, injured, she had been grateful for the modicum of safety and rest these kind people had offered her, but, as from the start, when she had decided to take action and spy on the Germans with little help, she was not the type of woman who could ever feel complete sitting by while innocents suffered. In different circumstances, this might have made her a great doctor. As things were, however, sometimes she felt Danielle kept her isolated simply because her friend had too much to think about and do without worrying what kind of trouble Delphine might get into. It was a denial stemming from both strategy and a kind instinct of guarding the ones you care for, but no matter the motivation, it made Delphine even more restless, trapped with nothing to do but think about Cosima, and the war, and feel helpless.
She took Scott's hand again. He was a gentle soul, unswervingly loyal, but his heart was not as fierce as hers, as Cosima's, she thought, in having to take action. Without his agent friend or someone in authority to spur him on, he might falter. In this case, the only authority worth listening to was Danielle, and though he also wished to help somehow, being an outsider with little knowledge of the lay of the land surely made him feel even less free to act. She remembered how Cosima would prompt her to think about something good when she felt as though she would surely break soon.
"Tell me about your home town," she said.
His eyebrows raised a bit, but he gathered his thoughts.
"Well, it's not much of a town. We're out in Iowa, and that's farm country, where we grow corn. We've got one main street, in fact. It's usually pretty quiet there and everybody knows everybody. I've always been thought a little weird, I guess, maybe too smart. But then I started doing really well at the county fair… I was in 4-H club, you know? Where we study and try to be innovative with agriculture? I was in the Scouts, too, until the other stuff took up most of my time. Anyway, I did some hybridization of corn and raised some really happy, productive cows, so before long I got some respect, especially when I got a scholarship to college."
He looked at Delphine, and she smiled slightly to show she was listening. This was the most she'd ever heard him say at once, and she wanted to encourage him to share, to remember times when war was what had happened to an older generation, a distant nightmare from early childhood, not fully comprehended, and thus easily forgotten.
"Did you like it there, or did you want to get out? What was it like?"
He pointed his gaze downward, thinking.
"Well, I got teased a bit, and I was really excited when I went off to college, but… yeah, when I was a kid, it was a beautiful place to grow up. A bit boring to some, maybe, but I miss the land, the broad sky, sometimes, you know? Working in a lab and then the agency… these were dreams for me, and I wouldn't have done anything else. But, you know, at twilight, when the cows are lowing, settling down to their nightly meal, and all you can see is fields, rows of corn, mostly, and pastures… and the colours from the setting sun stretch for miles, all around you, the stars twinkling in. There's a dog barking in the distance, Mr. Graham's sheltie, who keeps the sheep in line, and their farmhouse in the little valley's got a few lamps on in the windows. You can smell dinner cooking, beef and gravy, cornbread, and just see the top of the church tower off in town, the cross catching the light and reflecting it back in gold. If it's warm enough, the crickets start chirping, but other than that it's quiet, cozy, just the shuffling of the cattle and the stalks bending in the breeze…"
He trailed off, a thoughtful expression on his face.
Quiet.
He squeezed her hand, sitting up straighter.
"Delphine, did you hear that?"
She looked at him, puzzled.
"I was listening to you, Scott, and imagining. But… now that you mention it, it's been quiet for a little while, now." She squeezed his hand back. "There's no gunfire."
"Yeah, but…" he seemed to be straining his ears, face turned toward the window.
Far off, there was a distant bong.
Delphine's eyebrows pulled together in puzzled frown. Bong. There it was again.
And then it came closer, louder, in a higher tone. A peal, extended, a pause, and then more notes, building in rhythm.
Someone was ringing the church bells.
They sat there, transfixed, as the sounds continued, and then grew, multiplied. Other bells were joining in, near and distant, single tones and phrases of melodies. There was a shout out on the street. They both suddenly rushed to the window, braving pulling open the curtains to look out.
There were people running, wandering, jumping in the darkness.
Scott and Delphine looked at each other. The bells were vibrating in their ears. Then, suddenly, they felt the window sill vibrating slightly, too.
That's when they heard the outside door slap open, and the sound of feet running up the stairway, right for them. They both recoiled, shocked, as the bedroom door flew open. It was Danielle.
"The Germans are surrendering! The French army is here! Come outside!"