This Light Between Us: A Novel of World War II

Yes, my weird, strange little brother, you’ve always had your head in the clouds. But that ain’t so bad a place to be when your heart’s in the right place. And crazy as this sounds, I hope you find what you’re looking for.

63

MARCH 22, 1945

NICE, FRANCE

Nice is nothing like Alex imagined it.

He envisioned a provincial little beach town. But instead it’s a bustling city: alive, vibrant, with a mind of its own. The other three soldiers in the jeep perk up as they speed down boulevard Victor Hugo, their heads swiveling back and forth at the passing buildings and people. And at the women, so many of them. As soon as they reach the town center, they leap off the jeep and race across the street, hooting and laughing, for a brothel around the corner.

Not Alex, though. He has other plans.

Thanks to Frank—whose letter Alex must have read a dozen times, each time with tears—he now knows the address of Monsieur Schäfer’s summer apartment. 11 quai des Deux Emmanuels, appt. 3. Alex doesn’t really expect to find Charlie—or even Monsieur Schäfer, for that matter—in that apartment. This is nothing but a stab in the dark. A fool’s errand.

But Alex has no other way of finding Charlie. He has to try something.

He asks locals for directions. But they are tired of foreign soldiers, and rude. For three years, foreign troops—first the Italians, then the Germans, now the Americans—have invaded their city. The locals wave Alex off, or stare at him in confusion, this Japanese man in an American uniform speaking passable French. Only an older man in an open square stops his bowling game to point Alex the way.

But it is the wrong way. For hours he walks past stores, restaurants, cafés, helplessly lost. One hotel, the Excelsior, inexplicably gives him the chills as he walks past. He asks a storekeeper for directions, is sent down to the shoreline. There he walks on a wide promenade alongside a rocky beach. Less than a year ago the beach was littered with mines and antiaircraft weapons and barbed wire against an Allied invasion. Now it’s been scraped barren and ugly.

He keeps walking, certain he’s heading in the wrong direction. A dilapidated pier extends out from the promenade, and he sees, at the end the Palais de la Jetée, a massive building modeled after London’s Crystal Palace. It’s been razed down to a husk, its metal stripped by the Nazis for building warplanes. A metaphor, Alex thinks, of what war does to places. And to people.

Few strollers walk the promenade, and those who do ignore his request for help. By five o’clock he’s cold and miserable. He begins to wonder if such an address even exists. Or even why it would matter. Charlie stayed there many years ago, after all. His plan is absurd and naive, full of childish optimism. Why did he bother coming?

Almost ready to give up, he turns a bend in the promenade. He sees a pier. Sailboats and rowboats docked along its length, the sound of anchor ropes creaking. I can see a pier from my window, she’d written long ago. The sea so blue! He walks on, faster now. A few minutes later he is standing in front of 11 quai des Deux Emmanuels.

Apartment 3 is on the second floor. He takes the stairs two at a time, then hurries down the length of the hallway. In front of the apartment, he pauses, his heart thumping wildly. His throat has gone raw and dry. Then he raps the door with his knuckles.

Footsteps. The door opens, only partway. Through the slim gap, Alex sees a man with a full head of sheer white hair and sharp intelligent eyes. He frowns at Alex, stares confused at the uniform.

“Excusez-moi,” Alex says. “Êtes-vous Monsieur Schäfer—”

The man narrows his eyes. He answers back in a torrent of French, too fast for Alex to understand. He starts to shut the door.

Alex rams his boot into the gap. The man’s eyes widen angrily at Alex.

“Stop!” the man shouts. He leans against the door, pushing hard. “Take your foot out!”

Alex ignores the pain. “You can speak English, then.”

The man stops pushing. “Go away,” he growls.

“Please. I don’t wish to cause trouble. I’m looking for someone. His name is Monsieur Wolfgang Schäfer. This is his summer apartment.”

“Who? Go away.”

“You don’t know him? Monsieur Schäfer?”

“You have wrong place. Go away.”

“Please. He’s a businessman from Paris.” Alex tilts his head, staring keenly back at the man. “Are you Monsieur Schäfer?”

“I do not know this man. Perhaps he live here before. But I cannot help you.”

“Please, can you—”

“I already tell you. I cannot help you.” He leans against the door again.

But Alex only wedges his boot deeper into the gap. That’s when he notices through the narrow opening the shoe the man is wearing. A two-toned oxford. With fancy wing tips, pattern swirls, a distinctive monk strap. Identical to the pair Charlie once sent him.

“Your shoes,” Alex says. “They’re very distinctive.”

The man stops pushing. He looks down, then back up at Alex.

“A friend once sent me a pair just like those,” Alex says. “A girl from Paris. Her father owned a shoe factory with Monsieur Schäfer.”

The man blinks. He examines Alex carefully as if reading tiny words on his face.

“You are Monsieur Schäfer, I know you are.” Then the question comes out like a breath too long held. “Where is Charlie?”

The man stares back, then shakes his head. “I cannot help you.”

“Did she ever make it here? Is she still alive?”

“I said I cannot help you, Monsieur Maki.”

“Please tell me,” Alex whispers, and there is a deep dull aching in his lungs. He puts his hand into the gap, wraps his fingers around the edges of the door. “Anything you know.”

Monsieur Schäfer stares at Alex. Finally, with a sigh, he opens the door wide. “Come inside.”

* * *

In the small kitchen Monsieur Schäfer motions to the table while he busies himself, putting the kettle on and lighting a few candles. His movement is efficient and decisive, and even in these

simple actions, an intelligence percolates.

Alex pulls out a chair, sits. A lifetime’s worth of fears and hopes tumble inside his head. But he knows better than to pepper the man with questions. Not now. Not yet. He listens for sounds of another in the house. But hears nothing in this quiet, immaculate apartment. Even the kitchen is tidy, not a utensil out of place. Only a bookshelf set off against the far wall is in disarray, stuffed with books every which way. Books in French, German, English.

The far window overlooks the pier, and in the deepening dusk, Alex sees the gentle bobbing of boats. On the windowsill stands a framed black-and-white photo of two young soldiers, grinning. One of them is clearly a young Monsieur Schäfer. The brashness of youth in both men’s eyes, their arms draped comfortably around each other.

“That’s Charlie’s father?” Alex asks.

He nods without looking up. “It was many years ago. A lifetime ago.” He brings out two empty teacups, sets them on the kitchen counter. Then, reluctantly it seems, he moves to the table and sits down across from Alex. In the candlelight he seems softer, less stern.

“How do you know I am here?” asks Monsieur Schäfer. “I have tried to be very careful. I don’t even use my real name anymore in Nice.”

“Charlie spent a summer here. Many years ago. She wrote a few letters to me. That’s how I got your address.”

“And how you found me.” He nods to himself. “Of course, it makes sense now.” He blinks slowly, then stares grimly at the trembling candlelight. “You asked about Charlie. She never come here.”

“Then where is she now?”

“I do not know.” He takes a long breath. “You asked me if Charlie is alive. I also do not know this. But I think maybe she is not alive.”

Alex feels the air in the room drain away.

The kettle starts to whistle. Monsieur Schäfer gets up, returns with two cups of tea. He sets one down before Alex, adds a few drops of honey.