Lost Among the Living(67)

From his seat on the sofa, Alex took my hand where it dangled limply at my side and squeezed it as he looked up at me. “I’ll be up in a moment,” he said.

I had no time to see the reaction of the others as I pulled my hand from his and stumbled from the room.

? ? ?

In my bedroom, I pulled the pins from my hair. I took off my shoes again and tossed them next to the wardrobe. Then I stood in the middle of the room and wondered what to do.

I glanced at the bed. Part of me wanted to sleep, or at least make the pretense of it—to lie down and pretend that today, which seemed to have begun a year ago, when I got out of bed to take pictures, had never happened. But another part of me was more awake than it had been in years—perhaps ever. The fog I’d felt over my mind, over my existence, had broken up, been blown away by the reappearance of Alex Manders in my life.

I’ll be up in a moment.

He would. My husband may be a different man from the one who left me in the train station in 1918, but I knew as certainly as I knew my own name that he would very shortly come upstairs to my bedroom. And he would know exactly which room it was.

I could lock the door. There was that. It would keep him out for tonight at least. But how long, exactly, did I think I could avoid him? Did I want to?

I walked to the basin, poured water into it from the pitcher, and washed my face, scrubbing vigorously. Alex was a liar, and perhaps even a murderer, but he was also the smartest man I knew. He wasn’t just the man who had loved me and married me seven years ago. If he was my enemy now—and I had to admit that I had no idea exactly what he was—then I needed my wits about me. I needed a plan.

He didn’t give me the option of locking the door. As I was drying my face, he knocked quietly. “Jo,” he said.

I dropped the towel and opened the door, blocking his way. “I don’t suppose there is any way I could make you leave me alone?”

Something flashed across his expression—hurt, I thought—but he covered it quickly. “That’s a little harsh after three years,” he said.

I stared at the column of his neck where it disappeared into his collar. I knew exactly how that warm patch of skin tasted. “I said I was tired.”

“I can make a scene in the corridor if you like. There are guests in all the rooms, and I hear Miss Staffron lodges across the hall.” He paused. “Jo, I have to talk to you.”

I stepped back and he brushed past me, closing the door softly behind him. I was still wearing the peacock dress, and I felt the feathers waft against my legs. “Sit down,” he said.

“You needn’t explain,” I said as I remained standing. “I heard all of it. Influenza, hospitals, missing papers. It was very heroic.”

Alex sighed. “Goddamn you, Jo.”

I made myself look up at his face, the face that still, after all this time, was the handsomest face in the world to me. The shadows of my bedroom made it look familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I toyed with the idea that I was being hard on him—that I was wrong, and he’d been telling the truth—but then I remembered his file.

Things are about to become more difficult for you. Colonel Mabry had known.

“If I find a hospital east of Breslau,” I said, “and I write them about you, what do you think I’ll find?”

“You’ll find a record that I was there, suffering from influenza, and that I was mistakenly identified as a German.” The words were flat; he sounded tired. But when he stepped out of the shadows, I saw something almost sad in his eyes, something that changed and softened when he looked at me. “It was very carefully done,” he said quietly.

I felt my shoulders sag at the admission. I blinked and put my hand to my mouth. “Oh, God.”

“It’s important,” Alex said, “that they believe the story. I convinced them, though Robert still has a few doubts. But I can’t convince you, can I? I think I knew that from the first. Now, sit down, dear wife, and I’ll tell you what actually happened.”

I backed away from him. Without thinking, I sat on the bed and scooted to the farthest corner, my stockinged feet on the coverlet, my knees pulled up. Then I realized what I had done.

“No,” I said to him as he came toward me. “Oh, no. This is not a reunion. Don’t even think it.”

Alex went still for a moment, and then he pulled the room’s wooden chair out into the middle of the floor, facing the bed, and sat on it. I heard the breath sigh out of him.

It was too dark, so I leaned over and switched on the bedside lamp. The light from beneath the china shade dimly illuminated his face. “Talk,” I said.

“May I take off my jacket?”

“Yes,” I said, leaning back and hugging my knees again.

He rose from the chair and shrugged the wool coat off; then he unknotted his tie. “Don’t worry,” he said, glancing at me. “I heard you. I’m just uncomfortable, that’s all.”

When he had finished—he wore a white shirt beneath the jacket, his movements as crisp and elegant as I remembered—he draped the jacket and tie over the back of his chair and sat again. He crossed one ankle over the other knee and regarded me, his hands folded neatly over his stomach. He looked tense and controlled, aware of his every movement. Deliberately, he went very still.

“You,” he said slowly to me, “are more beautiful than ever. I have spent three years imagining you with your hair down.”