Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“A new life. Maybe a new nation in the making.”

“I want you to meet someone. We’ll leave for Paris in two hours.”

“Meet whom?”

“You’ll find out when we get there.”

“Do you realize how presumptuous you’re being?”

“You’re going, Rosita.”

“It’s been very good of you to come here. You’re a fine man. We’ll always be friends. But you should not be a romantic about these things. You shouldn’t dictate to others, either.”

“There are other boats to Haifa. We’re going to Paris. We’ll go back to the pension and pack your things. Then we’ll go to the train station.” I didn’t know how long I could brass it out. My heart felt like a lump of lead. “Rosita?”

“What?” she said irritably.

I took her hand and held it on top of the table and did not let go of it. “You’re the one,” I said.

“One what?”

“You know what I mean. If things don’t work out, I’ll take you to Haifa myself. I give you my word of honor.”

I GOT US A compartment for the trip to Paris. We pulled out of the station at 10:46 A.M. and were within sight of the Eiffel Tower at twilight.

“Where is this person I’m supposed to meet?” she asked.

“At the Jardin des Tuileries. Come on, he’s quite a fellow.”

“Where are we supposed to stay?”

“At a hotel on the Left Bank.”

“How do you know Paris?”

“I was here the day we liberated it. I met Ernest Hemingway here. He bought me a drink in the bar at the Ritz. I’ll take you there.”

“I can’t believe I’ve done this.”

“You’re going to love this friend of mine.”

I hailed a cab in front of the train station. We got in the backseat, and she felt my forehead, then her own.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“I wondered if you might have a form of brain fever. Or if perhaps I do.”

At the Tuileries I paid the driver and took our suitcases out of the cab and set them down on the walkway that led into the gardens. The air was damp and cold and smelled of the sewers by the Seine and the sodden leaves of the chestnut and maple trees that stained the fountains and stone benches. The light had gone out of the sky, and I could feel the temperature dropping. The autumnal odor on the wind seemed to presage more than a change in the season; it spoke of a winter that had no April on the other side of it; it spoke of the way the world had been since September 1, 1939.

“Where is your friend?” she asked.

“He’s coming.”

She had tied a scarf on her head. She looked up and down the walkway. “I think we should go. I think perhaps both of us have acted foolishly.”

“Look yonder,” I said, pointing. “He’s a little eccentric, but he’s a man of his word.”

The figure approaching us wore a cowl and had a face that was a cross between a Canterbury pilgrim’s and a goat’s. He walked with a thin cane and wore oversize shoes and baggy pants and probably could have been called Chaplinesque. His teeth were purple with wine. He smiled broadly at Rosita and bowed.