The Other Side of Midnight

When Catherine did not answer, Fraser raised himself up on an elbow and looked at her, concerned, and said, "How do you feel?"

"Fine," she said quickly. She smiled. "You're the best lover I ever had."

She kissed him and held him close, feeling warm and safe until finally the hard knot inside her began to dissolve, and a feeling of relaxation filled her, and she was content.

"Would you like a brandy?" he asked.

"No, thanks."

"I think I'll fix myself one. It isn't every night a man beds a virgin."

"Did you mind that?" she asked.

He looked at her with that strange, knowing look, started to say something and changed his mind. "No," he said. There was a note in his voice that she did not understand.

"Was I--?" she swallowed. "You know--all right?"

"You were lovely," he said.

"Truth?"

"Truth."

"Do you know why I almost didn't go to bed with you?" she asked.

"Why?"

"I was afraid that you wouldn't want to see me again."

He laughed aloud. "That's an old wives' tale fostered by nervous mothers who want to keep their daughters pure. Sex doesn't drive people apart, Catherine. It brings them closer together." And it was true. She had never felt so close to anyone. Outwardly she might look the same, but Catherine knew that she had changed.

The young girl who had come to this house earlier in the evening had vanished forever and in her place was a woman. William Fraser's woman. She had finally found the mysterious Holy Grail that she had been searching for. The quest was over.

Now even the FBI would be satisfied.

NOELLE

Paris: 1941

6

To some the Paris of 1941 was a cornucopia of riches and opportunity; to others it was a living hell. Gestapo had become a word of dread, and tales of their activities became a chief--if whispered--topic of conversation. The offenses against the French Jews, which had begun as almost a prankish breaking of a few shop windows, had been organized by the efficient Gestapo into a system of confiscation, segregation and extermination.

On May 29, a new ordinance had been issued. "...a six-pointed star with the dimensions of the palm of a hand and a black edge. It is to be made of yellow cloth and bear in black lettering the inscription JUDEN. It must be worn from the age of six visibly on the left side of the chest solidly sewn to the clothing."

Not all Frenchmen were willing to be stepped on by the German boot. The Maquis, the French underground resistance, fought cleverly and hard and when caught were put to death in ingenious ways.

A young Countess whose family owned a chateau outside Chartres was forced to quarter the officers of the local German Command in her downstairs rooms for six months, during which time she had five wanted members of the Maquis hidden on the upper floors of the chateau.

The two groups never met, but in three months the Countess' hair had turned completely white.

The Germans lived as befit the status of conquerors, but for the average Frenchman there was a shortage of everything except cold and misery. Cooking gas was rationed, and there was no heat. Parisians survived the winters by buying sawdust by the ton, storing it in one-half of their apartments and keeping the other half warm by means of special sawdust-burning stoves.

Everything was ersatz, from cigarettes and coffee to leather. The French joked that it did not matter what you ate; the taste was all the same. The French women--traditionally the most smartly dressed women in the world--wore shabby coats of sheepskin instead of wool and platform shoes of wood, so that the sound of women walking the streets of Paris resembled the clip-clop of horses' hooves.

Even baptisms were affected, for there was a shortage of sugar almonds, the traditional sweet for the baptismal ceremony, and candy shops displayed invitations to come in and register for sugar almonds. There were a few Renault taxis on the street, but the most popular form of transportation was the two-seater cabs with tandem bikes.

The theater, as always in times of prolonged crisis, flourished. People found escape from the crushing realities of everyday life in the movie houses and on the stages.