“Would you like a drink?”
“No, thank you.” She leaned back and closed her eyes.
“I'm sorry, Liane.” His voice was gentle. He felt so helpless as he watched her. As helpless as she had felt that day as she tended to the boy who'd lost his arms. “Is there anything I can do?”
She opened her eyes slowly. She felt paralyzed and numb. “Not really. It's all over now. We just have to learn to live with it.” He nodded, and in spite of himself he thought of Nick, and wondered if she would write to him now.
“How did it happen?” He hadn't dared to ask her before, but she seemed calmer now.
She looked him straight in the eye. “The Germans shot him.”
“But why?” He didn't dare add “Wasn't he one of them?”
“Because, Uncle George, Armand was a double agent, working for the Resistance.”
He opened his eyes wide and stared at her. “He what?”
“He appeared to work for Pétain as a liaison with the Germans, but he'd been feeding information to the Resistance all along. He was the highest-ranking official double agent they had in France. That's why they shot him.” There was no pride in her voice, only sorrow.
“Oh, Liane …” The things that he had said about Armand came to mind instantly. “But why didn't you tell me?”
“I couldn't tell anyone. I wasn't even supposed to know, and for a long time I didn't. He told me just before we left France.” She stood up and walked to the window and stared out at the bridge for a long time. “But someone must have known.” She turned back to look at her uncle. “The Germans shot him three days before he was to leave for England.” She had pieced that much together from his letter and Moulin's. And her uncle came to her now and took her in his arms.
“I'm so very, very sorry.”
“Why?” She looked at him strangely. “Because now you know he was on our side? Would you care as much if you still thought he worked for the Germans?” Her eyes were sad and empty.
“I don't know …” And then he wondered about something. “Did Nick know?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “What are you going to do now, Liane?” He meant about Nick and she understood him.
“Nothing.”
“But surely—” She shook her head.
“That wouldn't be fair to him. He's a human being, not a yo-yo. A few weeks ago I told him it was over, but now that Armand is dead we can dance on his grave? He was my husband, Uncle George. My husband. And I loved him.” And then she turned away and her shoulders began to shake, and he came to her, sensing her grief in his very soul. She collapsed in his arms then, sobbing almost as she had on the stairs when she'd first read Moulin's letter. “Oh, Uncle George … I killed him … he knew … he must have … about Nick. …”
“Liane, stop that!” He held her shoulders firmly with his hands and shook her gently. “You didn't kill him. That's absurd. The man did a very brave thing for his country, but it didn't just happen. He made a choice a long time ago. He knew the risks. He weighed all the dangers and in his own mind it must have been worth it. That had nothing to do with you. A man makes those kinds of decisions for himself, regardless of other people, even the woman he loves. And I think a hell of a lot more of him now than I did before. But the point is that whether you and Nick fell in love or not, the man did what he felt he had to do. You couldn't have stopped him, you couldn't have changed his mind, and you didn't kill him.” The wisdom of his words slowly got through to her and she eventually stopped crying.
“Do you think that's true?”
“I know it.”
“But what if he suspected? If he heard some change in the tone of my letters—”
“He probably wouldn't have noticed if you'd stopped writing entirely. A man who makes a decision like that, Liane, does it with his entire mind and soul and body. It's rotten luck that he got found out, it's worse than that, it's a tragedy for you and the girls and his country. But you had nothing to do with any of that, and neither did Nick. Don't do that to yourself, Liane. You have to accept it.” She told him then about Armand's last letter and the things that he had said, and she admitted that there were even times when she had wondered if he cared about her, or only his country. George nodded and listened to her late into the night until her head began to nod, and at last she fell asleep on the couch, and he brought a blanket from his room and covered her where she sat. She was totally drained and exhausted.
And when she awoke the next morning, she was surprised at where she was, and touched when she saw the blanket. She remembered talking to him until she drifted off, and she had had visions of Nick and Armand, walking arm in arm and stopping to talk to a man she didn't know. She shuddered to think about it now. She sensed that the man was Moulin. And she didn't want to think about Armand. Even if she never saw him again, she wanted Nick to live. He had a life to live and a son to come home to. And then she walked to the window and looked out at the bay.
“And what about us?” she whispered to the memory of Armand. “What about the girls?” She had no answers to her questions as she went upstairs to wake them.
On August 6, 1942, the Enterprise entered the area of the Solomon Islands and the next day the Marines hit the beaches, and within days the airfield had been claimed and renamed Henderson Field but the battle around Guadalcanal raged on, and the Japanese maintained a strong grip on all but the airfield. The Marines paid a terrible price in the ensuing weeks, but the Enterprise held her own, even though she was badly damaged. Nick had been aboard when she took some of her worst blows, and he was ordered to stay with her when she went to Hawaii for repairs in early September.
Inwardly he raged to have to stay on the aircraft carrier as she went to Hawaii. He wanted to stay on Guadalcanal with the troops, but he was badly needed aboard the crippled carrier. And in Hawaii he cooled his heels at Hickam Base, aching to go back as he listened to the news. The battle at Guadalcanal was taking a tremendous toll and marines were dying on the beaches. But in the five months since he'd left San Francisco, he had seen nothing but action in the Coral Sea, at Midway, and then Guadalcanal, with scarcely a breather between them. It helped him keep his mind off Liane. This was why he had enlisted—to fight for his country. When Liane's letter had reached him, he had been stunned by what she said. The paroxysms of guilt had apparently only struck her after he left and there had been nothing he could do or say. He had begun a dozen answers to her letter and discarded them all. She had made a choice once again, and once again he had no choice but to respect it. And now he had the war to keep his mind off his pain, but every night in his bunk, he would lie awake for hours, thinking of their days in San Francisco. And it was worse once he reached Hawaii. He had nothing to do but sit on the beach and wait for the Enterprise to be battle ready again. He wrote long letters to his son, and felt as useless as he had in San Francisco. It was a beautiful summer in Hawaii, but the battles in the South Pacific raged on and he was anxious to get back. To help pass the time, he volunteered at the hospital for a while, and would talk to the men and joke with the nurses. He always seemed a good-humored, pleasant man to the nurses, but he asked none of them out.