As for the ship itself, what was left intact still had the aura of elegant Victorian drawing rooms, and it was an odd contrast to the notices on the walls, instructing passengers what to do in case of attack by a German U-boat.
By the second day out John had seemed to calm down, enough so that Hillary felt she could introduce him to Philip Markham. She explained that he was an old friend from New York, and she had run into him on the ship, but as Hillary and Philip talked, Johnny watched them with open suspicion. And the next morning, when he saw them together on one of the promenade decks, he told his nurse, “I hate that man.” She scolded him soundly, but he didn't care, and that night he said much the same to his mother. She slapped him soundly across the face, and he looked at her without a tear. “I don't care what you do to me. When I grow up, I'm going to live with my daddy.”
“And don't you think I am too?” Her hands were still shaking but she tried to control her voice. The child was much too smart for his own good, and she was glad that he couldn't tell Nick. She wondered if he had seen them kissing. She had been in her own bed every night, though not by choice. There were three other men in Philip's cabin. “What do you mean you're going to live with your daddy? So am I.”
“No, you're not. I'll bet you're going to live with him.” He refused to even say his name, or acknowledge Philip when they met.
“That's a stupid thing to say.” But it was precisely what she and Philip had been discussing lately. She wasn't at all sold on Nick's idea that they had to stay married forever, and if she could get him to agree to a divorce when he got back, or if she could get grounds to sue him, she would, and marry Philip. “I don't want to hear you say that again.” And she didn't. He scarcely spoke to his mother again on the trip. He stayed with his nurse, and spent most of the time playing with his puppy in the cabin. It was a long, tiresome journey for them all, following a zigzag course, and with the nightly blackouts. It took them longer than usual to reach New York, and when at last they did, Hillary hoped she never saw a ship again, and she had never been so grateful to be in New York in her life, although she stayed there for only a few days before taking Johnny up to Boston to stay with her mother.
“Why do I have to stay here? Aren't we going home?” Johnny didn't understand why he had to stay with his grandmother.
“I am. And I'm going to get the apartment ready in New York.” It had been closed for four months, and she claimed that she had a lot of work to do to get it ready. But two weeks later his grandmother registered him in a school in Boston. She said that it was just for a little while, so he wouldn't miss too much school while his mother was getting the apartment ready. But he overheard his grandmother talking after that. It had been her idea to put him in school. She had no idea when Hillary was going to come back for him, and she seemed to be stalling. Johnny knew why, though he kept silent. She was probably with that man … Mr. Markham. … He was going to write to his father about it and tell him, but something told him that that wouldn't be such a good idea. His dad might get too worried. It would be better to tell him when he saw him. And in the last letter he'd gotten from his dad, Nick told him that he would come home as soon as he could, probably right after Christmas. It seemed like a long time to Johnny, but Christmas was only two months away, his father reminded him in the letter.
It was a lonely life for Johnny with his grandmother. She was elderly and nervous. Johnny was just glad that she had let him bring his puppy with him.
It was a week after Nick had written the last letter to Johnny that he ran into Armand and Liane at a small dinner party given by the American consul. It was the first time Armand and Liane had been out in months, and everyone seemed to have aged considerably over the summer. Liane was wearing a very pretty long black satin dress, but she looked very tired. The strain was telling on them all, although on the surface Paris was very calm. But everyone was still grieving over the surrender of Warsaw a month before. The Poles had fought valiantly until the end, but the Soviets had attacked them from the east on the seventeenth of September, and on the twenty-eighth it was all over, despite all their efforts, including Nick's steel. Their sister city of the east had fallen.
“How have you been?” Nick found himself sitting next to Liane at dinner, with Armand at the other end of the table. And Nick thought Armand looked ten years older than he had on the ship in June. He had been working fifteen and eighteen hours a day and it showed. Armand looked like an old man now, and he had just turned fifty-seven.
“We're all right.” Liane spoke very softly. “Armand has been burning the candle at both ends and in the middle.” She saw the ravages too, but there was no help for that. He would push himself until he dropped, for the love of his country. It left her alone with the girls almost all the time, but she accepted that too. She had no choice now. And she was doing volunteer work for the Red Cross. There wasn't much she could do yet, but it was something. They were helping to ship vast numbers of German and Eastern European Jews out through France, and at least she knew she was helping to save some lives. They were going to South America and the United States, and Canada and Australia. “How's my friend John?” She smiled at Nick now.
“He's all right. I'm not entirely sure where he is though.” Nick had expected him to be in New York, but the letter he had gotten from Johnny had said that he was with his grandmother in Boston, probably for a visit, to reassure her that he was all right.
But Liane looked confused. “Isn't he here with you?”
Nick shook his head. “They sailed on the Aquitania in September, on her last trip over. Actually, what I meant was that I thought he was in New York, but he appears to be in Boston with my mother-in-law.”
“You sent him alone?” Liane looked shocked. It was the ship that Armand had tried to get her to sail on.
“No, his mother went too. I didn't want them over here anymore. I feel better knowing that they're in the States.” Liane nodded. It made sense even though it hadn't been what she had wanted. She suspected however that Hillary Burnham had been only too happy to go. She had heard the rumors about Philip Markham. The international community in Paris was small and inbred and very loquacious. But Liane looked at Nick now, wondering how he was faring. He looked tired too, although not as much as Armand. She remembered their last conversation on the ship and wondered how his life had been since then. It seemed a thousand years ago since they had all come over, and it had only been four months since then.
“And how are you doing?”
“All right, I suppose.” He lowered his voice to speak his mind. She always brought that out in him. She was that kind of woman. “I have to live with my mistakes and my misjudgments.” She knew immediately what he meant, that he was referring to his German contracts.