In the end, though, the bread was eaten, the coffee was drunk, and on two of the plates there was a pile of orange peelings. The third orange remained untouched. Barbara looked inquiringly from it to the young man whose ears stuck out, and whose orange it was. He smiled at her timidly and then looked at Eugène, who was telephoning and ignored his appeal. Pointing to the orange, the young man whose ears stuck out said, in halting English: “The first in twelve years.” He hesitated and then, since Eugène was still talking into the telephone and Barbara was still waiting and the orange had not been snatched from him, said: “I have a wife. And ten days ago a baby is born.… Could I take this orange with me, to give to her?”
Barbara explained that there were more oranges, and that he could eat this one. He put it in his pocket, instead.
Eugène was trying to find a place for the Germans to stay. They listened to the one-sided telephone conversations with a sympathetic interest, as if it were the welfare of three other young men he was devoting himself to with such persistence.
Finally, as the morning dragged on, the Americans excused themselves and left the drawing room, taking the teacart with them.
“Terrible,” Harold said.
“Terrible,” she agreed.
“I didn’t know there were Germans like that.”
“Did you hear what he said about the orange?”
“Yes, I heard. We must remember to send some back with them.”
“But what will become of them?”
“God knows.”
“Do you think they were Nazis? ”
“No, of course not. How could they have been? Probably they never even heard of Hitler.”
At noon, Barbara wheeled the teacart out of the kitchen again, and down the hall to Mme Cestre’s drawing room, which was now murky with cigarette smoke. The men sprang to their feet and waited for her to sit down, but she shook her head and left them. She and Harold ate in the kitchen, sitting on stools. They had just finished cleaning up when Eugène appeared in the doorway.
“I am much obligated to you, Barbara,” he said. “It is a very great kindness that you do for me.”
“It was nothing,” she said. “Did you find a place for them to stay?”
He shook his head. “I have told them that they can stay here. But you will not have to do this any more. I have made other arrangements. The person who comes in by the day when we are all here will cook for them. Her name is Françoise. She is a very nice woman. If you want anything, just tell her and she will do it for you. I did not like to ask her because her son was in a concentration camp and she does not like Germans.”
“But what are they doing in Paris?” Harold asked.
“They are trying to get to Rome,” Eugène said. “They want to attend an international conference there. Arrangements had been made for them to go by way of Switzerland, but they decided to go by way of Paris, instead. They used up their money on train fare. And unfortunately in all of Paris no one knows of a fund that provides for an emergency of this kind or a place that will take them in. Herr von Rothenberg I met at an official reception in Berlin, last year. He is of a very good family. The other two I did not know before.… You have Sabine’s address? She is expecting you at eight.”
THE ADDRESS that Eugène gave them turned out to be a modern apartment building on a little square that was named after a poet whose works Harold had read in college but could no longer remember; they had joined with the works of three other romantic poets, as drops of water on a window pane join and become one larger drop. A sign by the elevator shaft said that the elevator was out of order. They rang Sabine’s bell and started climbing. Craning his neck, he saw that she was waiting for them, six floors up. She called down over the banister: “I’m sorry you have such a long climb,” and he called up: “Are you as happy to see us as we are to see you?”
She had on a little starched white apron, over her blouse and skirt. She shook hands with them, took the flowers that Barbara held out to her, and, looking into the paper cone, exclaimed: “Marguerites! They are my favorite. And a book?”
“A Passage to India,” Harold said. “We saw it in the window of a bookstore.”
“I will be most interested to read it,” she said. “This is my uncle’s apartment—did Eugène tell you? The family is away now. I am here alone. My uncle collects paintings and objets d’art. There is a Sargent in the next room.… I must put these beautiful flowers in water. You will not mind if I am a little distracted? I am not used to cooking.”
She and Barbara went off to the kitchen together, and Harold stood at the window and peered down at the little square. Then he started around the room, looking at Chinese carvings and porcelains and at the paintings on the walls. When the two girls came back with a bottle of Cinzano and glasses, he was standing in front of a small Renoir.
“It’s charming, isn’t it?” Sabine said.
“Very,” he said.
“In my aunt’s apartment there is a bookcase with art books in it— Have you found it yet?”
“In the front hall,” he said. “By the study door. But it’s locked.”
“I know where the key is kept,” she said, but before she had a chance to tell him, the doorbell rang. “Are you comfortable in the rue Malène?” she asked as she started toward the hall.
Harold and Barbara looked at each other.
“Something has happened since I saw you?” Sabine asked.
“A great deal has happened,” he said. “It’s a very long story. We’ll tell you later.”
The young man she introduced to them was in his middle twenties, small, compact, and alert-looking, with hair as black as an Indian’s and dark skin. For the first few minutes, he was self-conscious with the Americans, and kept apologizing for his faulty English. They liked him immediately, encouraged him when he groped for a word, assured him that his English was fine, and in every way possible took him under their wing, enjoying all his comments and telling him that they felt as if they already knew him. The four-sided conversation moved like a piece of music. It was as if they had all agreed beforehand to say only what came into their heads and to say it instantly, without fear or hesitation. In her pleasure at discovering that Sabine had such a handsome and agreeable young man on a string, Barbara was more talkative than usual. She was witty. She made them all laugh. Sabine was astonished to learn of the presence of three Berliners in her aunt’s apartment, and said doubtfully: “I do not think that my aunt would like it, if she knew.”
“But if you saw them!” Harold exclaimed. “So pale, so thin. And as sensitive as sea horses.” Then he began to tell the story of the burst water pipe.
They sat down to dinner at a gateleg table in the drawing-room alcove. The Americans dug out of the young Frenchman that he was in the government. From his description of his job, Harold concluded that it was to read all the newspaper articles and summarize them for his superior, who based his statements to the press on them. This explanation the Frenchman rejected indignantly; it was he who prepared the statements for the press. Looking at him, Harold thought that if he had had to draw up a set of requirements for a husband for Sabine, they would have added up to the young man across the table. Though he must be extremely intelligent to hold down a position of responsibility at his age, there was nothing pompous in his manner or his conversation. He was simply young and quick-witted and unsuspicious. They felt free to tease him, and he defended himself without attacking them or being anything but more agreeable. The evening flew by, and when they left at eleven, they tried to do it in such a way that he wouldn’t feel he had to leave too. But he left with them, and as they were passing under a street lamp in the avenue Victor Hugo, they learned that he was not the person they thought he was; he was Sabine’s brother-in-law, Jean-Claude Lahovary.