They sat in the quiet, Beryl eventually uncrossing her arms, leaning back heavily into the chair, the gravity of what she’d learned settling into her bones.

  “Jack is a fine man,” Gordon said suddenly. “A hero to Colin and a good man. I see that. I told him today that I intend to stay with you—that I will fight for you—for our family. But now…” he looked about, shaking his head, “I realize I’ve done this whole thing out of order. I hope you want me to stay. But if what I’ve done is too great a betrayal, I understand. If you love Jack, well then perhaps we’ll work out how to help Colin understand and then…”

  She rose and approached him, reaching a hand to cover his mouth, to quiet him, to soothe the frenetic dialog that had clearly echoed in his head in the hours since he’d found the items in the drawer and visited Elsworth.

  “I think it’s best that we be honest—that we tell the truth to each other despite how brutal it feels—as hearing all this about Annalise has been for me.” She took a deep breath. “You asked if I love Jack. I do. I believe I always will, completely apart from these circumstances, because he is good. He loves our son. Even with handling his own duties in this war, he brought hope to us. Sunshine in the darkest moments.”

  Gordon nodded, bracing for what she would say next.

  “You’ve been gone so very long, Gordon, and I’ve grown so accustomed to him, the comfort he’s provided in these debilitating times. But I want to grow strong enough to let go of that comfort. I am willing—if you are—to let go of how I’ve cobbled my life together, to know you, to know us, again. To learn to love the man you have become through all that’s happened—whoever that may be. You said when you arrived home that I looked perfect to you and while it was lovely of you to say, it is so far from the truth. I have proven, haven’t I, that I am earthbound and needy. I will have to learn now not to need Jack anymore. But life is risk, isn’t it? Nothing is promised—not peace, not comfort, not protection from things that wrench your heart. But still. I am hopeful. Because here you are, having risked everything, to be with me once again.”

  He pulled her arm to bring her to him. She moved onto his lap, burrowing her head in his neck, both of them melting into one another, releasing the tension their muscles and sinews and hearts had carried since the first days they were apart. He lifted her head to kiss her, the act a symbol of their recommitment, an erasure of the things they’d felt compelled to do that no longer had any place in their lives. They stayed nested in this way for hours, making their way, finally, in the half-light, back to their room, their future less clouded, the path in view.

  EPILOGUE

  We must learn to regard people less in light of what they do or omit to do,

  and more in the light of what they suffer.

  –Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor and theologian executed at Flossenbürg concentration camp

  Paris, 1954

  After the program concluded, the Clarkes lingered in the concert hall. They hoped to speak with the first pianist, inquire if she might be related to the Stroński family of Sagan. If she were in fact a relative, Gordon had much to tell her—how their selflessness had preserved the lives of Clara and Helene, and later brought real hope and help to the POWs of Stalag-Luft III through the radio components Dr. Stroński had left. It was discomfiting to consider these dependencies—that if Clara and Helene had not continued to work at the manor house, quietly aiding Gordon and the Allied effort, then Gordon most surely would not have escaped when he did and may not have survived the war. When the Stalag was evacuated in late 1944, all of eastern Europe was snowed in and frozen, the winter harsher than any in decades. Thousands of POWs died in the long and futile march west, including, Gordon learned later, Lieutenant Colonel Herbert. His strong internal compass had steadied his men since Calais. But his body had its limits and could not tolerate, together, the frigid cold, the lack of food and water, and a case of dysentery. Witnesses on the march said the colonel developed a fever and grew disoriented, wandering into a stand of trees and drawing the fire of Nazi soldiers, happy to liquidate the prisoners for any perceived infraction, even an officer of his rank.

  When Gordon recalled the war years, images flitted before his eyes like a movie, where the plot is predetermined and characters lack agency, propelled forward instead by the work of an unseen hand. It’s how he felt when the war ended, after living so many years directed by others who held power over him, and it produced a persistent depression that he shared with war survivors across the world. Becoming himself again—truly himself—was a years-long process. He reasserted his autonomy first in small things, like sorting out the flat once Colin moved home and asking Beryl to suspend her work at the hospital—just for a while—so they could recover the rhythm of a shared life. In this way, he felt steadied to face larger decisions, which included signing on with a new architecture firm rather than returning to the familiarity of his previous one. Six months after his military discharge, he returned to work, shoulder achy but functional, applying new vigor to projects to help rebuild his unbowed city. His depression grew less gnawing, and he found himself once again able to swim in the deep well of creativity, getting tossed in its currents, absorbed completely in the process in ways that nourished and healed him. He and Beryl steadily rebuilt their marriage, having learned over the years to extend extravagant grace to one another as their hearts and psyches healed from losses both real and perceived. The nightmares still visited him, persistent, devastating, the most frequent one in which he traveled alone over a peaceful, snow-covered tableau, always hungry and striving, encountering villagers eager to help, before turning suddenly to find the young girl from Legnica standing before him, head resting unnaturally on her shoulder, mouth shaped in a surprised “O,” blood from her body staining the snow.

  Jack redeployed to the States in time to celebrate V-E Day with the throngs in New York City in May 1945, writing later that strangers had plied him with one free beer after another, leaving him to sleep it off in the bar of his hotel, never having found his way to the actual room. It made for a memorable night. His departure from Kimbolton had been sudden, just six weeks after Gordon’s return. By the end of May, Elsworth was a ghost town, Hugo and Colin despondent that the Americans—just as quickly as they’d arrived—were gone, Kimbolton left with a skeleton crew to oversee its deactivation, tall weeds sprouting unabated that summer on forlorn runways that would never again hum with the same brave purpose. Jack promised to write frequently and was as good as his word, sending letters to the boys that included photographs of the places he’d stopped as he’d piloted his plane home. After a few days of R&R in the Azores, he’d turned the Gator westward over the now-placid Atlantic Ocean, refueling at St. Johns, Newfoundland before alighting on American soil at Andrews Field outside Washington D. C. Months later, Jack left the military and moved to California to work for Boeing, a Christmas card the following year indicating he’d met someone special. Beryl told Gordon she deserved credit for ensuring Jack’s standards were high and they laughed genuinely and fully, secure in one another again, Gordon not feeling the piercing jealousy he once had and Beryl, finally free of the wistful longing that once unsettled her.

  They saw Jack one last time in 1950, at the vicar’s funeral at Holy Trinity. The old man had died in his sleep, a gentle death, many in Elsworth said, for a shepherd who had been so very gentle with his sheep. Colin sent a telegram with the news to Jack, who leaned on his aviation industry connections to get an immediate seat on a flight to London. He brought his wife, along with photos of their baby girl, who had stayed back with her grandparents. At the reception after the service, Jack sought out Mrs. Dowd to say he could not have missed the opportunity to honor the vicar, whose counsel had proved invaluable to him as a younger man. “He promised God hadn’t forgotten me—as bleak as things were—that I would know joy again. I didn’t believe him at the time, but he was exactly right.” When Jack introduced his tall, blonde wife to Beryl and Gordon, her serene face betrayed no special concern, no flicker of recognition. But when she met Colin, she swooned: “Colin!” she cried. “And Hugo! Jack talks of you still! I don’t believe there’s a single thing I don’t already know about you.”

  There might be, Beryl mused silently. Just a thing or two.

  At the close of the reception, Jack leaned in for a hug to say goodbye, his familiar scent, the solidity of his body, flooding Beryl with memories.

  “All’s well here?” he asked, eyebrows raised. “Didn’t ruin anything, did I?”

  Beryl smiled and shook her head. “Ruin? No. Save? Most assuredly.”

  Hugo and Colin retained their deep and abiding friendship, attending university together before getting hired at the French aviation company Avions Marcel Dassault, Colin in airplane design and Hugo more specifically involved in avionics. The Hughes still lived in Elsworth which was no longer the sleepy village it had been in 1939. They visited their son as often as they could, Wills saying frequent trips would keep his French sans défaut. After the war, Wills had expanded his butcher shop, adding a restaurant that featured country French fare. It proved an outrageous success, bringing diners from all over England, eager for haute cuisine along with inside stories of the Maquis that Wills could sometimes be persuaded to share. For several summers, the waitstaff included Margaret and Patsy, whose bond with the Hughes did not wane but grew ever more secure and permanent over time. Ivy would forever be their second mother, a bond their own mother respected because of the confident, cheerful people the twins had become, even with the losses that had surrounded them in the hardest years of the war. For months after they moved back home to Manchester, their parents brought them and their younger brother to Elsworth on Sundays to attend services at Holy Trinity, the entire group squishing into the pew directly behind Mrs. Dowd, Ivy pretending to fuss over the girls’ belts or a loose strand of hair as she did when they were little, just to draw a smile. Afterwards, they shared a meal at the Hughes’ and communed with Marigold, who raced to the front door and planted herself expectantly at their feet the moment they arrived. The poor thing spent much of the rest of the week mewling disconsolately, wandering throughout the house in hopes of discovering where the girls might be hiding.

  The Hughes had not joined the Clarkes for this particular trip to Paris. It was only Gordon, Beryl, Colin, and his wife, Lisette, watching as the students made their way from the stage, moving into little family clusters for hugs and congratulations, moments bittersweet because of the family members not present whom the war had stolen. Colin allowed that he wished he’d studied music when he was younger, acknowledging the lack of opportunity. “We were just trying to make it through, step at a time, weren’t we, Mum?”

  “Indeed. We did the best we could under the circumstances.” Beryl smiled. “Your musical development was the last thing on my mind in those days. But I’d say thanks to Ivy, and those Yanks, and perhaps a little influence of my own, you turned out alright.” She turned to her husband and saw his eyes fixed on a group gathered in front of the stage. He looked stunned, the color drained from his face.

  Annalise stood in the aisle talking to the Stroński girl. The years had been kind to her, the face still smooth, youthful, her long hair secured by a scarf at her neck. Her body moved in the same lithe and sensual way it always had, despite the ill-fitting jacket and skirt she wore, made of coarse fabric, not the silks and satins she once favored. As she spoke with the young pianist, she fussed with a strand of hair that had escaped the younger woman’s chignon. A young man stood next to them along with a much younger girl, her light brown hair in braids.

  “Go,” said Beryl. “Speak to them. We’ll stay here and join you when you wish us to. But see what news they have of Dr. Stroński and his wife.”

  He approached, unsure of what he would say, his mind working to piece together the relationships of these four people. Annalise saw him and attempted a quick exit back up the stairs to the stage. Surprising, he thought. She was many things when he knew her, but never a coward.

  “Annalise, if you would, please,” called Gordon.

  “Maman!” called the youngest girl, running to Annalise and pulling her by the hand back toward Gordon. “Cet homme vous appelle!” This man is calling to you.

  Annalise stood before him, resigned.

  “Gordon. Bonjour. How surprising to see you. Children, this is Mr. Clarke. We were acquainted during the war.”

  “Hello, sir,” said the pianist, extending an elegant hand. “I am Ilsa”

  “Ilsa, it was beautiful, truly. You are quite gifted. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Clarke. You’re very kind. This is my brother, Luka. And my sister, Mila.”

  He shook Luka’s hand, then looked into Mila’s blue eyes, a different hue from her siblings, a color and shape much like his own.

  “And how old might you be, Mila?” Gordon asked.

  “Almost ten. I was born on May 8, 1945. Mummy says all of Europe celebrated the day I was born because the war was over and the Jews were finally free.” She looked up to her mother for affirmation, but Annalise was still, quiet.

  “Indeed, we did, Mila,” said Gordon. “It was an unforgettable day after some very, very difficult years. How wonderful that you got to begin your life after all that was behind us.”

  “But we did lose our father,” she said solemnly, guilelessly. “He died at Auschwitz.”

  Before Gordon could speak, Annalise cut in.

  “Ilsa, why don’t you gather your things? I’ll meet you all at the front entrance. I’ll just be a few more minutes.”

  When the children had moved out of their hearing, Gordon turned in white-hot anger towards their mother. His fury nearly overwhelmed him, given that now, there was no guard pacing the Persian carpets nearby to subdue him, no threat from the Gestapo to bring him into line.

  “Is she mine? Mila? Did you ever think to let me know I had a daughter?”

  Annalise crossed her arms, lifted her chin, eyes glittering, all of it so familiar that a chill ran through him. But when she finally spoke, her words were not combative. “It crossed my mind, yes, but how was I to find you?” she asked wearily. “It was all I could do to survive. It took me months to make my way through the network. By the time I got to Switzerland, they had practically thrown the older children into the street, as their school fees had not been paid for the term. I sold my jewelry to satisfy the debt when they threatened me with jail. We found shelter in a camp for displaced persons. Mila was born there—in a tent, with the help of a midwife. I had no money, no means to search for you. I was not even sure you’d survived the escape.”

  “And Reinhard?”

  “Executed,” she said with an involuntary shrug. “The Gestapo took issue with his handling of your escape—my alleged kidnapping. They believed him complicit in the conspiracy given his history of criticism of the Reich, charging that he facilitated his wife’s escape because he’d lost faith in the Führer. He met his end in front of a firing squad in Berlin, just as Patton crossed the Rhine.”

  “Not at Auschwitz, as you’ve led your children to believe?”

  “What does it matter, Gordon? Either way, he lost his life at the hands of Nazi madmen. He did not deserve what happened to him, but I was in no position to stop it.”

  “But you’ve led these children to believe they are Jewish, Annalise? Surely the older two know that isn’t true.”

  She raised a hand to plead that he speak more quietly. “What Ilsa and Luka know,” she said, barely above a whisper, “is the invective that would be aimed at them were it discovered what their father actually did in the war—something they, as young children, had no control over. They remember he didn’t send them to Nazi schools, but allowed them to be educated in Switzerland. They remember he was not SS but Heer and didn’t earn a field command because he was outspoken about decisions he disagreed with. So, there was enough to construct a plausible narrative that he had been sympathetic to Jews and it had cost his him his life. All of Europe is inventing stories, embellishing and obscuring the past. No one alive today admits to ever supporting Hitler. Nine years after the war and not a single Nazi left in Germany, so they would have us believe. I’m not alone in wanting to forget what happened. The forgers in the Stalag were quite talented, Gordon. The Ausweis you provided that gave me the name Stroński turned out to be most useful. I could begin anew as a Polish Jew, someone due a measure of compassion and support. Ilsa’s charges here are paid for by American philanthropists eager for European Jewry to replenish its ranks of musicians and artists.”

  “How can you live a lie like this, Annalise? Borrowing a religion your people tried to destroy to save your skin.”

  “Borrowing?” She considered the word. “It may have begun that way, but I would not describe it in those terms now, Gordon. When I had nothing, when we slept in a freezing cold lean-to with precious little food to eat except what the Allies brought us and later, the Jewish groups that organized to help us, I came to see their goodness—that there was something genuine in their beliefs, in their way of life, the things they valued. They helped us get out of the camp and find an apartment here in Paris, and later a job for me teaching piano and scholarships so the children could continue their education. Why this kindness, I thought, with no expectation I could ever repay? What kind of people do this?” She paused, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “The most horrible moment of my life—worse than learning you did not love me, worse than waking to find you’d abandoned me in Kraków—was when I accepted that I had participated in the murder of millions of people just like these who were sacrificing now to help my family. Hitler was a stupid little man. A feckless, fanatical idiot whose policies, I believed, would run their course. No, more accurately, I gave no thought to his policies, where they might lead. I went along with them because there were great benefits to Reinhard, to me—the lovely home in Sagan, for one thing, the luxuries and privacy I enjoyed there. I closed my eyes to the catastrophe of Hitler until I, too, was caught in the ruin.”