The sky was a pale azure blue, pulsatingly powerful, it was hard to tell where the horizon and bluish waves ended. The blazing heat of June almost shimmered off the dry, pale limestone of Marseille's street pavement, and the old-fashioned warehouse buildings from the time of Napoleon III cast a little shade.
Elizabeth Grayson narrowed her eyes, large passenger ship was in port, and a blood red flag fluttered in the wind, Betty turned her back as a golden stiff stylized pattern appeared from the upper right corner, thanks to a whimsical gust of wind.
Katherine's voice beside her quietly remarked, "See them anywhere?" Betty shook her head. Busy people streamed past them, suddenly, Betty rose to her toes and shouted, "There!"
Slowly, cautiously, wary of crowds and cars, almost spooked, walked two figures, and as they got closer, Katherine noticed the other was a young man, almost in his teens, with intense blue eyes, and light brown, fluffy hair, but a sullen expression on his face, and behind him, almost as if from shadow, walked a slim woman with graying hair cut in a messy 1920s style, her clothes were worn out, a there were a few rings gleaming on her narrow, ink-and-nicotine-stained fingers.
The woman, suspiciously glanced at Katherine, and the look in her green eyes was very powerful, intent, but at the same time vague, as if she was not at all in this same everyday reality with the others. The young man nodded to Betty and said in a plaintive voice, "Maman, I leave you here, remember not to fall under the traffic while I go to check that our luggage and trunks are checked in."
The gray-haired woman's eyes suddenly sharpened, and she said softly, but at the same time whimsically, tenderly, "Buy yourself some treats at the same time, even cherries or chocolate, as you like it so much."
And soon the young man's light shirt was lost in the crowd. Betty said quietly, "My dear, dear friend, may I introduce, this is Katherine Brooke, I thought you should meet each other, at least once."
Katherine nodded in her cool way, wondering bitterly why on earth Betty had dragged her to this meeting.
The graying woman glanced at Katherine once, and then she said, with a dreamy sort of focus, ""To you, world gone mad, I have only one answer, I refuse."
A small smile appeared in Betty's eyes and she remarked, "A new production, very apt. Reading the news the past few weeks, I feel you're right. I have to ask one more time, are you absolutely sure about this? There's still time.."
The gray-haired woman, shook her head, with a light, irritable gesture, familiar, for sometimes Katherine herself did the same, as she said, " Here I can no longer be, and I know not If I can there, I must try, for they have been there, since 1937, when they, the rest of my family, returned to those great streets whose old names no longer exist, and all is gone."
Katherine raised her brow mockingly.
Gray-haired woman carefully rolled up cigarette, which she slipped, with ease born out of long custom, into a cracked holder, then, almost suddenly, she uttered, with a weary mockery, "I blushed for the last time, in December, 1918, since then my face has been as colorless as it is now. Betty, did you know that, she's gone, too. I got the word in a letter. Afterwards, I wrote one whole summer while, Atlantic stars were shining, I was lost in my memories. I decided that I would revive those eyes, their color was dark chestnut, a kind of golden amber, not baltic, but oriental, almost reddish, amber that melts. In fact, your eyes, Mademoiselle Brooke, resemble those other eyes very much. Parce que, rappelez-vous, si nous sommes aimés, un baiser, une salutation ou un au revoir en dit bien plus. Un baiser amoureux, c'est comme l'eau de mer, la soif, l'eau de mer et le sang sont bons aux âmes naufragées, sur les îles de l'amour ! I have here that piece of prose, I have copied it for you, as a memory, as you too met her once, dearest Titania!"
Worried, Katherine noticed that Betty had stilled, as the gray-haired woman dug a neat pile of papers, out of her worn-out bag. The strips written in old-fashioned hook-like cursive were full to the brim. Quickly Katherine frowned, because in the flyleaf read the name of the author, it seemed to be Marina. Feeling utterly startled, Katherine looked inquisitively at the weathered gray-haired woman again. She seemed nervous, and stoically calm at the same time, which was a perfect oxymoron.
Katherine noticed that Betty again, caressed almost compulsively, her dainty pink tourmaline ring on her left hand, as she said, "Yes. It was very memorable, the steam of cabbage and tomato soup in the room, the scent of ink, impish light and sweetness of another one who was so delighted."
The green eyes flashed. Marina Ivanovna, smiled, bitterly, as she said, " One tear shed for the one who is gone. I will drop your ring on it, so you can, thread it on your finger. Others gather men who hand out golden rings, and moonstones, but I have a tear, full of turquoise despair that dries up at dawn."
The noise of the crowd had increased, and a youth in a light shirt suddenly appeared beside them, as he rudely said, "Everything is ready. Now it's time to hurry!"
Marina Ivanovna, nodded, one fast jerk, as she said in a low voice, "No, we can't even say goodbye anymore! We'll soon be put on the ship's keel, like rats, like criminals!"
The youth looked extremely bored as he said sharply in French, " N'oublie pas, Maman, que le lion et l'hippopotame nous attendent. Je ne voulais pas partir, mais je ne supporte plus mon internat ici, les frais de scolarité sont trop élevés, et c'est prévu depuis des mois, quand le visa est arrivé, un voyage, pour nous deux, et qu'est-ce que c'est ici, rien, que du mépris, du moins c'est ce que tu dis !"
Betty, suddenly smiled of her slowly shimmering smile, as she remarked, in her impish way, " We once met in May's pale green charm, at that time I imagined that I would never see you again, so I believe that anything is possible!"
Marina Ivanovna, grasped Betty's hands, as she said, "I'm worried that my trunks will be confiscated, by them. Everywhere, rats run here even in the daylight, and nobody, nobody can be trusted. Yet somehow it seems right that I should return, that my verses may once again flow to the black earth."
The ship's whistle blew shrillly, once, and a second, and a third time, and the crowd rushed toward ship's wharf, as the gray-haired woman slowly disappeared from sight.
August came and then September 1939.
Once again a great shadow was cast over Europe, and that shadow would last for six years and one day, and after that nothing would be as before.
