Duchess

Chapter 26

     We landed in Marseille less than an hour later with no more incidents, but Benjamin and I both found that our adrenaline had not yet subsided from the encounter with the fighter planes.
     Directed by members of the American military over the radio, we landed at a small airstrip just outside the city that had once been used by French Resistance members.
     "Now remember," Benjamin said as we gathered our few belongings before exiting the plane, "I have only spent two or three nights at home since you were arrested, so the house is probably a mess. I meant to have Defferre look after it for me, but I forgot."
I scoffed. "I'll try to keep that in mind."
     A broad-shouldered American strode confidently towards us, a small smile on his face.
     "Agent Tallmadge, Major General Tallmadge! I'm glad to see you both."
     "Major General Cannon," Benjamin said, shaking his hand with his uninjured one, "It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person. Allow me to introduce you to my wife, Louisa. Lou, this is Major General John Cannon. He has been responsible for all air operations during the invasion."
     I shook his hand and returned his warm smile. "I'm glad to know the burden is in the hands of someone worthy of it," I said, "and only regret that I was not here to assist in any way."
     "Yes," he said, leading the two of us into a small building on the side of the tarmac, "I hear that you have been battling your own 'burden' these past few months. How does it feel to be a free woman once again, Agent?"
"I am glad to be free, but I have to admit that it isn't easy."
He nodded. "I can understand that, Ma'am. And these clothes," he gestured to what was left of my German pilot's uniform, "is this what they're making POW's wear these days?"
     I laughed a little. "No, sir. It's quite a long story."
"And your hand, Major General Tallmadge, is this a bullet wound?"
Benjamin shrugged reluctantly. "It's fine—it's not too bad. I'll fix it up at home."
     Major General Cannon raised his eyebrows, greeting a few people as he led us through the small corridors of the building. He led us to what appeared to be his office, and sat down hard in his chair.
     "And I'm supposing you both would prefer to get out of these clothes and into some civilian clothes?"
     Benjamin and I both shrugged obligingly.
"Please, sir," Ben said, "You don't have to go through any trouble for us."
     Cannon laughed heartily in the anticipation of his own joke. "Well, I already did!"
     He bent down below his desk and handed us each a thick pile of clothing. "I had my assistant go out and find something for you two to wear. We are currently in control of the city, but I still wouldn't advise going out in a military uniform," he said, pausing to glance at my clothing, "especially a German one."
I smiled, examining my pile. A dark green tweed skirt and silky white blouse were on top, complete with a hat and shoes and undergarments, and below that was a neatly-folded American flight suit. A Women's Air Force Service Pilots uniform.
     "What's this for?"
     He folded his hands and looked at us earnestly. "That's another thing I wanted to speak to you both about."
     Motioning for us both to sit down, he continued, "Do you have orders from anyone right now?"
     Ben shook his head. "I haven't heard from anyone in DC in months, but since I'm the Head of the OSS, we can basically do whatever we want. We don't really answer to anyone at this point."
     Cannon laughed. "I don't know how you ended up with that job," he joked, "when we're the same rank. I feel like all I do is answer to people nowadays!"
     It felt good to laugh genuinely.
     "How long do you plan to stay in Marseille?"
Benjamin and I shrugged. "We don't have plans yet; we'll gather whatever we can from our house and meet with our contact here in the city."
"We aren't hoping to stay more than one week," I interjected, glancing at Ben with a sly grin. He knew how much I wanted to be back home.
"Well," Major General Cannon said, "I've got an offer for both of you. We need pilots to help with the running of supplies into the city. The German boats have all been blown up or sunk in the Mediterranean to make it harder for us to use the port, so we have to rely solely on the Air Force. It would just be a few flights a day; it's all up to you. I'm not allowed to let the two of you fly together, so you'd have to be with other crews but I'd be sure to assign you both good people."
     Benjamin and I exchanged glances. I was conflicted, and he knew it.
"You'd be flying to and from Normandy," Cannon added, "So you've both already taken the trip."
We looked at each other once more, thinking about just how harrowing that journey was.
"How long do we have to think about it?" I asked softly, trying not to reach for the lice I could feel biting my scalp.
"As long as you want. Come any day you'd like; don't come and I won't blame you at all. Don't feel as though you have to do it for my sake, either. Especially considering your health, Agent Tallmadge—or, forgive me, would your rather be called First Officer Tallmadge?"
I smiled graciously and waved a hand. "Agent Tallmadge is just fine. So is Louisa, you know."
"I couldn't call you that, Ma'am."
"We will talk it over," Benjamin said, standing up and cradling his bloody hand with his pile of clothes tucked beneath his arm, "and come back here tomorrow when we've made our decision. Thank you, sir. It's so good to meet you."
"And you both as well," he replied, taking my hand in his, "and I hope your adjustment to normal life is as painless as possible. And keep the uniforms; you'll need them either way for your return to the States."
We thanked him profusely and followed one of his soldiers to a closet where we could change into our new civilian clothes.
Helping Benjamin put on his white button down with only the murky light of a single bulb, I laughed breathily. "It's been a long, long, time."
"Don't even start, Louisa."
"What?" I exclaimed.
He pulled me close and kissed me with a wry smile.
"I'm pretty sure that man is waiting outside," I whispered, running my thumb along his collarbone.
"Oh, he's just a Flight Officer," Benjamin joked flippantly, kissing me on the forehead, "He can't say anything."
     I could see the lines of his smile in the dim light, and smell the remains of his shaving cream.
     "But," he added, "we should probably wait until we get home."
     "That's a good idea." We both grinned.
He took the small felt hat from my hands and placed it gently on my head, arranging my short hair into a style around it.
"There," he said with a sigh of satisfaction.
     I gave him a sly look and opened the door, finding the Flight Officer slouched against the wall awkwardly.
     "Sorry for the wait," I stammered, as Benjamin put an arm around my waist, "It was dark in there."
     The man said something incomprehensible, and when he turned to lead us down the hallway, we could barely contain our laughter. He had heard every word.
     They offered us a Jeep but we decided to walk, excited to see what had become of the city. It was less than a three mile trip, but it took much longer than it should have. Entire portions of the road were gone in many places, with simply a charred hole in its place.
     "Are you tired?" Benjamin asked with concern  as I leaned against him while we walked.
     "It's just my ribs. I'm fine."
     He groaned. "I forgot to set those for you before we got on the plane in Normandy—I'm sorry. Do you want to stop?"
     "No, definitely not. I survived for two months just fine; there's no way I'm giving up ten blocks from home."
Chuckling, Benjamin shook his head. "Come here. Follow me."
He darted down an avenue with a gleeful smile on his face, taking my hand in his and guiding me into a side road.
Catching my bearings, I realized I had walked through this small market hundreds of times. It was the same one where I had met those stranded American pilots that we smuggled out of France.
Now, it was almost empty, with a few shops and carts boasting that they were open. Tattered Nazi flags fluttered in the Mediterranean breeze, hung from the porches of many of the second-floor apartments.
I turned around to find Benjamin talking to a small flower cart owner, a slightly-wilted bouquet of lavender resting in his arms.
"For the Duchess."
     I grinned, taking them into my own arms.
     "Oh, Benjamin, they're beautiful. Thank you."
"A welcome home present."
I smirked as he guided me back onto the main avenue. "It's your welcome home too, you know. What did you even do for the three months?"
He scoffed. "You're going to think I'm exaggerating when I say it, but I just walked across France. Deffere came to the house while I was still in the hiding place with the Jews, and he helped me pack up my things and gave me a list of people I could contact all over France that could give me information on where they had taken you. I walked the Jews over the Pyrenees myself, and then I came back and biked, hitchhiked with German soldiers, and walked to each of Deferre's contacts."
I couldn't stop myself from gaping. "And were they able to help?"
"Barely. But my options were slowly being eliminated, so I felt like something was being accomplished. I knew where you weren't."
"Did you get my letter?"
He nodded solemnly. "It was so blacked out I could barely make out what any of it meant. All I knew was that you were despairing."
I almost laughed at the thought of how desperate my emotions had been, and the terrible feelings I had experienced in those first few weeks before I simply became numb.
Benjamin painstakingly dug into the pocket of his leather jacket he was holding, and produced the well-worn letter. Black marker had been scribbled across many of the sentences, and there was scarcely a sentence that hadn't been censored in some way.
"Oh, bloody Nora," I breathed as I ran my hand over it, "I had forgotten what I wrote. I'm sorry you had to read all this."
"I wish I could say it comforted me to know you were alive," he sighed, "but I cried for days over this. But I'm still glad you sent it—otherwise I wouldn't have accepted the invitation from the RAF to join them on their invasion of Paris. I was eager to look for you in Northern France, but previously the regulations and checkpoints had been too strict for me to get through on my own. The bombers snuck me in."
Just as I was about to answer, we turned the street corner to find destruction like nothing we had seen in the rest of the city. On both sides of the street, the road was nonexistent, and the buildings were completely flattened, piles of rubble and charred wood on the ground.
"What happened?"
"This isn't from a bombing," Benjamin said gravely, running a hand along a blackened wooden beam.
"Explosifs," someone said behind us, "the Germans blew up the whole neighborhood."
It was a man around Benjamin's age, covered in dust and an expression of grief on his tired face. He was standing where a building used to be, holding a destroyed box in his hands. This used to be his house.
"Why?"
He shrugged. "The same reason they imprisoned everyone here. A 'nest of terrorists,' they said. They're all dead—all of them."
     "No they're not," I countered, "I was arrested just a few streets down from here. The Allies liberated our camp last week."
     He scoffed and continued collecting things from the rubble. "That's nice, lady, but my family is dead. And they're better off for it, not having to live like this."
     Benjamin and I kept walking, understanding that the feelings of this man would not be calmed by our own story of 'success'. His family probably was dead.
     Knowing what we would probably find, we came upon our street with an reluctance.
     Our house, along with every other one, was completely destroyed, and the hand-painted sign that said "Alexandre Gilbert, Médecin" was lying splintered in the middle of the crumbling road.
     Standing before what had been our temporary home, I leaned against Benjamin and cried into his chest.
     All this time, I had simply longed to be clean, to sleep in a warm bed, and rest with my husband. Just to be home—whatever that meant.
     Now it seemed even more impossible than ever.
     "What do we do now?"
Ben sighed. "We should find Defferre."
"Okay."
With heavy hearts and even heavier clothing bags, we trudged through the demolished, winding streets of Old Port Marseille.
Benjamin led the way to his house; I had never even been on this side of town before.
It took another few hours, and I wasn't sure how much longer I would be able to walk. I wasn't used to doing anything during the day but lying chained to a wall.
We finally arrived, and Benjamin and I tentatively rang the doorbell.
Looking up and down his property, I couldn't help but comment, "For a socialist, he's got a pretty big house."
Ben laughed and put an arm around me as we waited. "You forget that he's a millionaire socialist. France is a strange place."
Just then, a woman answered the door, suspicion evident on her face. "Who are you?"
"Is this the home of Monsieur Gaston Defferre?" Benjamin asked, completely ignoring her question.
She asked again, "Who are you?"
"We are friends of his. Please, we need help."
I heard a shutter open and close from the second floor, and the woman looked up a flight of stairs to her right, saying, "Hold on one moment," before closing the door.
A few seconds later, Defferre flung open the door and embraced me, stepping out onto the porch in a silk bathrobe and striped pajamas.
"Louisa," he choked as he continued to hug me, "I'm so glad you're alive."
     I was surprised by his expression, but it comforted me. We had fought just about every other time we had met, but he was still our ally, and he had given so much for us.
     He moved on to hug Benjamin, saying, "I knew you'd find her. What happened to your hand? Never mind, we'll get it fixed up in a moment."
     Ben raised his eyebrows in amusement as Defferre gushed his relief. Neither of us had seen this side of the "pompous socialist."
     "Please, come inside," he said, releasing Benjamin from his embrace, "I saw them dynamite your house, and I was hoping you'd come to me for help."
     Once inside the foyer, he said, "This is my wife, Andrée."
     "You are the Americans," she said with shock in her voice, putting a hand to my sunken face in concern, "You need food."
She ran into another room without another word, and Gaston motioned for us to follow him upstairs.
I held on tightly to Benjamin, but I had barely enough strength left to make it up the steps.
"He has a wife?" I whispered to Ben incredulously.
     "I'm just as stunned as you are," he chuckled.
"You can have this bedroom," Defferre said, opening the door to an enormous guest room with the golden evening sunlight streaming through the sheer curtains, "and stay as long as you'd like."
Benjamin pulled back the cool satin covers and knelt to take off my shoes as I sat on the edge of the bed, a sense of calm overtaking me.
"So what happened to you?" Gaston asked hesitantly, sitting in a chair by the door.
"Where do I start?" I sighed, sitting back on the propped up pillows, "Royallieu Compiègne Camp d'Internement."
He glanced at Benjamin, with raised eyebrows. "And they torture and starve people in internment camps now, do they?"
"The Germans do."
Defferre put a hand to his forehead, running his fingers through his greying hair. "I don't even—I don't know—I didn't expect to see you like this."
Benjamin placed our pile of clothes on the desk facing the window, and scoffed, "Imagine how I felt."
"How did you find her?" Gaston asked Ben.
"I took up with the RAF after the invasion of Normandy, and they sent me on a mission to bomb the city of Compiègne. They suspected that Nazis from Paris were escaping there, so we saw a strange-looking place that looked perfect for hiding Germans, and bombed the heck out of it. Only then did we realize there were civilians and children coming from the barracks, and we made an emergency landing. I finished putting away my flight gear to find my wife translating for the rest of the prisoners."
Ben sat on the bed and kissed my hand affectionately.
"Are you going back to the States?" Defferre asked.
"Yes," I said, "As soon as possible."
"Then you'd better get some sleep," he said, closing the blackout curtains, "and Andrée will be up with food for both of you as soon as you wake up."
"Thank you."
"Goodnight."
He shut the door and Benjamin sighed, standing in the dim moonlight that peeked through the corners of the curtains.
"How do you feel, Lou?"
I ran my hand blindly across his face as he climbed into the bed next to me. "I don't know. Sad, and also more burdened than I ever have before. I don't know what to do with myself."
He pulled me close, both of his arms resting gently around my skeletal frame. "I understand."
"Benjamin," I said with a change in tone, "I don't think you should lay this close to me. You're gonna get lice."
He chuckled. "No I'm not."