Miss Havilland, A Novel

CHAPTER 1

Gare de l’Est, Paris

March 1919

The old Billy would have been the first passenger to jump off the train. Waiting at the head of the platform, I searched every face, hoping the next would be his, growing more anxious by the minute. He’d telegraphed asking me to meet this train. I’d already spent two weeks in Paris waiting for him after I’d finished my work at General Pershing’s headquarters. But many of the wounded at Billy’s field hospital hadn’t been able to leave after the armistice—they were too weak to travel—and so he had stayed on to nurse them.

Sunlight was streaming through the glass roof of the station. The steam from the engines and the heat of the sun made the platform warm, almost too warm, but after the long, damp winter I was grateful. I knew Billy would be, too, since he’d spent those months sleeping in a drafty canvas tent.

The winter and the misery of his patients had depressed his spirits; he hadn’t hidden that in his letters. But I was more concerned about what I’d seen when I’d last visited him at his hospital, especially the hollowed-out grayness of his eyes. By the time the last straggler from the train, a weary-looking woman in a ratty fur coat, passed the barrier, fear had begun to poke its bony fingers into my chest.

I was holding a handkerchief Billy’s mother had given me when I was in high school, a lovely thing she’d embroidered with lilies of the valley. Startled by a ripping sound, I looked down and saw I’d been twisting it in my hands without realizing it. Staring at the torn bit of linen, I fought back tears.

Perhaps I’d missed Billy as he left the train, though that seemed unlikely. Taller than most Frenchmen, he would have stood out in the crowd. Thousands of times over the years I’d seen his rangy frame and the lithe grace with which he carried himself, the sea-green eyes. I knew Billy’s face better than I knew my own. So I began an increasingly frantic search. I tried the tabac in case he’d gone to buy cigarettes or a newspaper, checked the café and went out into the street. Still no Billy.

Running back into the station, I made myself sit down on a bench to try to calm myself as I watched dust motes float on the air. People passed by—amputees with crutches, men with empty sleeves, women dressed in black—all bearing their sorrow with dignity. How could I justify falling apart in front of them? Wherever Billy was, he was alive—after all, he’d sent that telegram—and he had come through the war, miraculously, unhurt.

I finally spotted him leaning against a wall near the board that announced arrivals and departures, smoking a cigarette, and studying a scrawny pigeon strutting at his feet. I almost wept with relief. But then I thought: He asked me to meet him here. Why isn’t he searching for me?

Only four years earlier, after the British had taken a beating at Ypres and the Germans were closing in on Paris, Billy had climbed aboard a train at home in California, eager to join the fight, eager to be the daring and honorable man his father would have wanted him to be. As his train left the station in San Jose that morning, despite the grave danger he was heading toward, he’d waved and blown a last few kisses.

The man who dropped his cigarette and crushed it with the toe of his boot was a grim shadow of that boy. Approaching quietly, I touched his arm, hoping that once he saw me his face would light up. Just at that moment, the pigeon flapped its wings, startling both of us, and we watched as it sailed high into the metal fretwork that supported the station’s glass roof.

Reaching out to touch my cheek with his fingertips, he traced its curve the way a blind man might, as if to make sure that cheek was really mine. But when I put my arms around him, his body felt stiff, like an iron bar. I whispered in his ear, as a mother would to a frightened child, It’s okay, it’s over. I love you. You’re tired, we’re going home. In a low voice, so soft I almost couldn’t hear it, he murmured, I love you, too.

Smoothing the front of his khaki shirt, he tucked it in, checked his watch, and reached up to ruffle my hair.

There wasn’t a blessed thing to eat on that train. I’m hungry, and you better be, too. That sounded like the old Billy, so I risked teasing him.

Didn’t they feed you at that hospital? You’re skinny as a garter snake on a diet.

He shrugged.

Dinner was a series of shrugs. I asked if they’d closed down his hospital.

Nope, still open.

I asked if the surgeon he’d assisted was still there.

Um hmm.

I asked if he needed rest; I shared the news from home. What did he want to see in Paris? His short answers led nowhere: Not tired. We could see any sights I wanted to see, he would accompany me. I could choose a play for us to see.

His detachment was unnerving, to put it mildly. The Billy I’d known since we were children had lived vitally, at the heart of things. He’d invented games and made me join him, taking risks I would never have considered if left to myself, leading me into mischief, teaching me to be brave. My father read A Tale of Two Cities aloud to us before we were old enough to read it ourselves. For weeks afterward, we’d acted out Dickens’ story in our backyard, assigning parts to every kid in the neighborhood. Using odds and ends of old lumber, Billy had built a makeshift guillotine. Needless to say, he always insisted on playing the part of Sydney Carton. At the end of the play, he would climb the steps, declaiming Carton’s vision of France reborn, Paris once more a beautiful city, and the French a brilliant people rising from this abyss . . . in their struggles to be truly free.

Now, no longer young, the two of us had joined in the latest fight to drag France back from the edge of destruction. Paris had been saved, and we were there, in the city, with a chance to glory in its survival. But, sadly, along with everything else, including me, the city seemed to hold no charm for him.

As he sat in silence over the dinner he’d barely touched, I had time, too much time, to study him. His skin was patchy and sallow, his forehead graven with deep lines. In the carefree days before the war, when he was repairing his dilapidated car, his hands had always been covered with cuts, the fingernails black with grease. Now those nails were trimmed and clean, the skin unnaturally white. At the hospital, he’d had to scrub them constantly, to ward off infection. His hands were so dry they looked like they’d been dusted with flour.

After the waiter cleared the table, Billy took out a cigarette and tried to light it, but his hand shook so violently he had trouble striking the match. I had to look away.

As soon as he paid the check, we left the bistro and walked across the Pont Neuf to our modest pension in the Rue des Grands-Augustins. It was still early, and the streets were filled with crowds enjoying one of the first pleasant evenings of the year. While waiting for Billy, I had walked along the stone embankment by the Seine in the dark, watching the reflection of the lights dip and gleam on the water, looking forward to the night we would walk along the river together and begin to talk about the years we’d been apart. But on that first evening he didn’t have the heart for it, and neither did I.

Later, I lay awake, unable to sleep. At dinner Billy hadn’t even seemed present. Did he feel guilty about leaving his patients behind? I hadn’t seen him since November, not long after the armistice, when I’d paid him a hurried visit after he’d sent me a worrisome postcard. His handwriting, usually plain as day, had been so jagged I could read only a few words.

When I reached the hospital and found the tent where he was hard at work, I decided to wait by the door. As he moved from bed to bed, I saw him care for his patients, changing dressings, encouraging those who looked distressed, joking with men who needed to laugh—a gifted nurse who would one day become a great doctor. But the longer I watched, the more obvious it became that something was wrong. It felt as if he were someone else, an actor playing the part of Billy, brilliantly, yet slightly off balance. Later that day, when I asked if he was all right, he dismissed my concern, saying that, like everyone else, he was just very tired. Yes, the war was over, but there were still a lot of patients.

In the months since then, I’d convinced myself that getting away from that terminus of horror and death would be his deliverance, but now I saw I had been naïve.

I had no memories of myself without Billy; we were born months apart. While he was my cousin, he might as well have been my brother. He’d been the sun, and I’d basked in his warmth. What would become of me if that light were extinguished? As soon as I’d seen his anguished face at the Gare de l’Est, I should have started to think more about what he needed, instead of being so wrapped up in my wish for him to comfort me. The prickly straw poking through the thin sheet on my mattress felt like a fitting punishment. I lay there, waiting for the church bells to chime. The hours of the night passed slowly; it seemed as if dawn would never come.

What should I have expected? For three years, more than a thousand days, he had patched up the wounded and helped the dying make their peace. How many amputated arms and legs had he carried out of the operating room? How many faces had he seen torn up by shrapnel? How many gallons of blood? How had such a gentle soul borne it all? As a boy, when he caught a mouse in the kitchen, he’d slip the little pest in his shirt pocket and ride his bike out to the orchards to find it a new home.

The next morning I knocked on Billy’s door and found him already awake, reading the newspaper, slouched in a wicker armchair so decrepit it looked like it might collapse under him. When I suggested we get breakfast, he feigned enthusiasm. I steered us to a bakery on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Knowing how much Billy loved chocolate, I ordered pains au chocolat and sat us down at a table on the sidewalk. I loved to watch Parisians sauntering along with that casual grace the rest of us envy—and can never copy. But Billy had no eyes for le chic. When I finished licking the chocolate off my fingers, I looked over and saw him chewing his pastry mechanically, as if it were dry toast. His eyes looked into the distance, beyond me, beyond the city, to a place I doubted I would be able to travel with him.

It isn’t just his body that needs to be fed, I thought. His spirit is hungry. Taking his hand, I pulled him to his feet, and we walked the few blocks to the Sainte-Chapelle. In the weeks I’d waited for him, it had become my refuge, in a way no church at home ever was. This majestic building had survived for seven centuries; even the German planes that rained bombs down on Paris had missed it.

The first time I’d seen light stream through its windows, through the thousands of bits of glass—blue and red, green and gold—I’d felt as if I were inside a kaleidoscope, its patterns shimmering and changing as I walked from one end to the other. The colors bloomed, inducing a kind of rapture, and I remember thinking I hope this is what heaven is like. But when I turned to look at Billy, he appeared so forlorn I reached for his hand, and I was relieved when he held mine tight. To me, he felt so light I was afraid he might float away if I didn’t anchor him to the ground.

By late afternoon, we had reached the top of the stairs that led to Sacré-Coeur and stood looking out over the city. I felt triumph in the fact that the Germans had failed to destroy it. But more and more, I felt Billy was marking time, anxious to get away from me and from Paris.

I had to ask what was wrong, but I hesitated, afraid of what I might hear. Dinner that night was awkward, conversation sparse. Afterward we agreed to walk along the river, despite a chill in the air. Finally, I forced myself to say, Billy, you seem so unhappy. Whatever I do seems to make it worse.

"No, dear, not at all. I appreciate everything you’ve done, and you have done everything: found us a comfortable place to stay, fed me delicious meals and shown me beautiful things. I’m just worn out. Don’t worry so much."

Do you ever have bad dreams? I asked.

Nope.

Really? Never? For me, visiting your hospital was more frightening than any nightmare. None of that creeps into your dreams?

No, honey. When I could grab some shut-eye, I’d fall into a dead sleep. Didn’t move a muscle till somebody shook me awake for the next shift.

I knew he was lying. The studied casualness with which he’d told his little story had given him away.

I considered backing off, which was clearly what he wanted. But mightn’t he feel I was abandoning him? Or was I the one concerned about being abandoned? The next night I said, Billy, I need to talk about the war. I think it would help to leave some of it behind, here. If we don’t—

No, he said sharply, cutting me off.

Please.

Talking makes it worse, he said. It’s better to forget. If you need to talk about it, talk to somebody else.

Although I was frightened by his vehemence, I pressed. The more we sweep our demons under the rug, the more insidious they’ll become.

This is my problem. I’ll handle it, he said. I’m not even sure I want to go home.

You can’t be serious. Your mother and sister are living for the day you return.

I can’t stand the thought of going back to a bunch of phony parades and speeches about how we’re all a lot of heroes. There was no victory. There’s nothing to celebrate. Everyone’s chattering about how wonderful it is that the war’s over, even you. For the dead, it is not just the war that’s over.

How dare you? Chattering! You really think you’re the only one who cares about the dead? That I don’t?

We stood on the cobblestones of the medieval street, not touching, consumed by hurt. Two lovers passed by, heads together, sharing a private joke, and I felt even more alone.

Finally, his voice close to breaking, Billy said, I’m so sorry. I’m a miserable goddamned son of a bitch. You’ve done everything but stand on your head to please me. Start home by yourself. Let me make my own way when I’m ready. I’m not going to hurt Mother or little Alice.

Putting my arm around his shoulder and drawing him toward me, I said, You’re not a son of a bitch. No way I’m leaving you here by yourself. Why don’t we just go home? Maybe we’ll see Paris again someday.

CHAPTER 2

April 1919

There were few troopships and thousands of Americans eager to leave France. We were stuck in Paris for weeks until we were assigned berths on the USS Huntington , an armored cruiser that had been assigned the happier job of taking soldiers home. Because I was a woman, I got a cabin of my own. Billy had only a hammock deep in the hold, in a room filled with dozens of men. The ship had few comforts, and it was packed tight, but nobody minded all that much. We were going home.

The atmosphere on board was one of feverish gaiety, the passengers intent on one last, long party before they had to sober up and go back to work. The trip was a far cry from my journey two years earlier when I had sailed from the United States to France to help with the war effort. Back then, we’d all held our breath, waiting for a German U-boat to sneak up and send us to the bottom of the ocean.

I still had an evening gown with me, a periwinkle-blue lace, once lovely, now frayed and stained. Before dinner I did my best to sponge it off, and tried to wash my hair in the icy water dribbling from the tap in my little sink. A ragtag band had been put together by some passengers, and when they began to play after dinner, I asked Billy to dance. We’d learned to dance together, when were young, practicing in his living room, taking turns cranking the Victrola. But he turned me down and went up on deck, leaving me behind in my bedraggled dress.

After he left, a handsome lieutenant asked if he could interest me in a foxtrot. Moving me around the floor expertly, he asked if I was a nurse, but before I could answer, I spotted Billy framed by the doorway, scanning the crowd. Once he caught sight of me, he barged over, grabbed the lieutenant’s shoulder and lit into him.

Who are you? What do you think you’re doing?

I tried to intervene. Billy, please. Lieutenant Tucker just asked me for a dance. What’s wrong with you?

Wrong with me? I should ask you that question! Why are you dancing with a stranger?

Was I supposed to sit at our table all night with my hands folded in my lap? Dancing’s not a crime.

Leaping in to ease the tension, the lieutenant said he’d meant no harm. Billy glared at him. I realized Billy’s voice had risen over the music, and everyone was staring. I thought he might throw a punch. Apologizing hurriedly and grabbing Billy’s arm, I hissed into his ear, Okay, we’re settling this somewhere else, and dragged him up to the deck.

The Billy I knew would never have done anything so rude. Nor would he have missed a chance to waltz me around the floor. Instead of shouting at him, which was what I wanted to do, I forced myself to keep my temper and ask why he’d reacted so violently.

I didn’t like the idea of that guy pawing you.

His choice of words was infuriating. Pawing me? We were dancing. That’s all.

You don’t know what he was thinking. Or where he was hoping that dance might lead.

You’re acting like a jealous lover. What is going on?

He stomped off. Even though it was cold and I had no wrap, I decided to stay on deck. In my tiny cabin I’d feel trapped.

My heart was beating as fast as a hummingbird’s. I felt as if I had a fever, despite the wind blowing off the sea. When Billy attacked the lieutenant, it had felt to me as if he thought he had the right to build a fence around us, as if I belonged to him in some way I didn’t understand.

Suddenly, I was glad I had not yet told him about Arthur.

CHAPTER 3

I‘d met Arthur Bayard in the summer of 1917 when I went to Washington to work for the State Department, shortly after the United States entered the war. One night, walking back to the house where I boarded in Georgetown, I turned up 21st Street toward the P Street Bridge. If I had chosen, say, 22nd Street, I might never have spoken to Arthur, and I would have lived a different life entirely.

As I turned onto P, I saw his familiar figure—we were both cryptographers—emerging from a shop, carrying a brown paper parcel tied with string, which had to be laundry. In the office, when I should have been working, I’d spent a good deal of time studying the symmetry of his face, his sapphire-blue eyes and long dark lashes, the ivory skin and thick black hair. He was slight and not that tall, about five foot nine, a couple of inches shorter than me.

Through the office grapevine, I’d heard that Dr. Bayard, a linguist, was very likely the youngest professor at Harvard. He’d been appointed to an endowed chair two years earlier when he was only thirty. I found him hard to read. At times, he seemed keenly observant; at others, so inwardly focused it was hard to tell if he was seeing anything at all. Almost everything about him seemed neat and contained. No matter how hot the day, he never took off his jacket. Yet there was nothing pompous or stuffy about him. If something struck him funny, he would break out into a musical laugh, a little loud for polite company, and I found that endearing. Nonetheless, he’d remained sufficiently intimidating that I’d never said anything more to him than Good morning.

But in these circumstances, meeting him in the street, it would have been odd not to speak. Good evening, Dr. Bayard, I said. Are you picking up your laundry? Immediately, I thought how silly that question sounded. Of course, he was picking up his laundry.

He asked why I was out so late, and I said that, after a day hunched over my desk, I needed to walk off the stiffness. He was distressed by the idea of my walking alone in the dark. I said there were still plenty of people out and about. Just because people were walking down the street hardly guaranteed they were good people, he countered, which made me laugh—and him frown.

When I told him I walked all over Washington by myself without giving it a thought, he said, Miss Havilland, did you grow up in a big city? I think not. I started to take offense; he was treating me like a child. Then I thought: Who am I kidding? I don’t know what I’m doing half the time. I admitted I came from a sleepy farm town in California that fancied itself a city.

I’m from Boston, he said. I honestly believe you’re taking a risk, without realizing it. Would you mind if I saw you to your door? If anything happened to you, I would have that on my conscience. I was touched by his grave politeness.

The next night I looked up from sorting the papers on my desk to find Arthur standing over me.

Do you plan to walk home alone this evening?

Yes. It’s perfectly safe.

I beg to differ.

With that, we fell into a pattern of walking home together every night.

As our workload kept increasing, we often had to stay late. When we left the office so late the streets had emptied, I was grateful for Arthur’s protection. Left to myself, I would have been one of very few women walking the streets who wasn’t a streetwalker.

In the beginning, we talked about the obvious: cryptography. One evening Arthur asked if we could please talk about something—anything—else. He needed a respite from the pressure. I understood. Sometimes when I was trying to decrypt, my mind would shut down, like an engine that had been running too fast for too long. Until I came to Washington, I’d always loved my work: I was a natural mathematician, and I’d thought cryptography would come easily. Wrong.

When we began to talk about the rest of our lives, Arthur asked me question after question. I told him a great deal about myself, including the beginning of my investigations in the field of number theory, work I had had to put aside for the war effort. At first, Arthur’s interest delighted me, but as he continued to deflect my questions about his life, his reticence made me uneasy, and a little sad. I wanted more than a polite friendship.

When I asked what it was like to teach at Harvard, he said, I expect it’s much like teaching at any college.

When I asked about his parents and his brother—he had mentioned an older brother, Nathaniel—he said, Like all families, we have our problems.

One Sunday when we were walking in Rock Creek Park, out of the blue Arthur said, I don’t quite understand who Billy is. You talk about him almost as if he were a brother, but I know you’re an only child.

In truth, I couldn’t explain, even to myself, why I was so hesitant to let Arthur know how much I loved Billy. But I could certainly tell him who he was. Billy is my cousin, but you’re right—he is the closest thing I have to a brother. My mother and his mother are sisters, and you can see the back of their house from our kitchen window. When we were little, after breakfast, we’d meet in the yard and play until one mother or the other called us in for lunch.

I don’t know where he is or what he does, Arthur said. Is he still at college?

I wish. He left California for France right after the war started. He’s assisting a surgeon in a hospital near the front. I haven’t had even a postcard from him in nine weeks. He might be busy. Maybe the ship carrying a letter from him to me was sunk by the Germans. Maybe he’s dead. Since there’s nothing I can do about it, I try to push it to the back of my mind. But often I fail.

When I saw a strange look on Arthur’s face, I pressed. For the first time, he told me what was bothering him.

I fervently hope Billy is all right. In light of your worries, what I was thinking is going to sound self-indulgent. I envy Billy just as I envy my brother, Nathaniel. When Nat finishes officer training in Georgia, he’ll go overseas and command his own platoon. My work here feels like a cheat. The real fighting’s going on in France. I have a hard time living with myself: Nat risking his life while I sit at home, safe, playing around with German puzzles.

No, I said. You have a great gift for decrypting, something few people have. Even if you never pick up a gun, solving those puzzles may save thousands of lives—there’s nothing trivial about that. We all want the war to end. I don’t want one more person to be killed, not even a German.

As solemn as the moment was, when Arthur wrapped his arms around me and I felt the warmth of his chest against mine, I was elated.

We began spending more time together. Sundays, our only day off, were saved for each other. Arthur took me to the theatre, to the symphony; he introduced me to chamber music. Until then my knowledge of music had been limited to dance tunes and the hymns we sang in church. But Arthur never made me feel foolish. He enjoyed sharing his world with me, freeing me to ask questions and venture opinions without worrying whether I sounded ignorant.

I was falling in love, hard. But