The Gown(108)
She tilted her head back, curious about what he meant, and he bent down and kissed her until she was deliciously dizzy.
After supper they did the washing up together, and then they sat on his big, comfortable sofa, drank the black coffee he had made in his little espresso pot, and they told each other of their respective days. It was getting late, and she would ask him to walk her home before too long, but it had become their habit to listen to Walter’s favorite pieces of music on his gramophone after supper. He had strong opinions about music, and some of the pieces he played were not at all to her taste, but one concerto had been echoing through her mind for days.
“The music with the cello—you played it several times last week. What was the name of the composer? You told me but I have forgotten.”
“Edward Elgar.”
He found the record, set the needle arm onto the spinning disc, and a swell of music filled the room. The melody was plaintive and swooning, the chords insistent, haunting, mournful. Miriam held her breath, waiting for her favorite part, a rising thread of sound so anguished and expressive that tears always sprang to her eyes.
Normally she was able to blink them back, but now they overflowed, cascading down her cheeks, and though she knew she ought to wipe them away, she did nothing. This time she wept and let him see. She could hide nothing from him.
A heartbeat later he was kneeling before her, so tall that it put them eye to eye. He touched his brow to hers.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered. “Please. I can’t bear it.”
“I never meant for this to happen. Any of it. But there you were in the street, rescuing my shoe. Rescuing me.”
“No,” he said. “You rescued yourself. Never forget it.”
“I was so sure I would be alone. That it would be easier, better, after what I had lost. It comforted me to know it.”
“Why? Solitary confinement is the worst sort of imprisonment. Nothing is worse than being alone, my darling. Nothing.”
“I—”
“You survived. Do you think yourself unworthy of it? I fear that you do.”
“I didn’t—”
“Did you collaborate with the Nazis? Of course you did not. Did you take up with a German, and make use of his weakness for your protection? I don’t believe for one second that you did, but even if you had I would not condemn you. We all found ways of surviving the war, and the enemy who sought to kill you was a far more determined and pitiless foe than the enemy I faced at a distance.”
“Please do not make me think of it, not now. Not tonight.”
“I won’t,” he said, and he bent his head in contrition. “Only believe me when I say I am glad beyond measure that you survived. Every selfish particle of me is glad, because without you I would have been alone, too. I won’t pretend to have suffered as you did, but when Mary was killed I thought I might die from the grief of it.”
“Do you miss her?”
“Of course I do,” he said, and now he looked up and met her gaze steadily, his pale eyes shining with emotion. “She was my friend, and my lover, for many years. But I don’t see her when I look at you. I don’t long for her when I’m with you.”
He pulled off his spectacles, tossing them on the table, and took her face in his hands, cradling it ever so gently. And then he touched his mouth to hers, deepening the kiss by degrees, and she leaned forward, almost tipping off her perch on the sofa, so eager was she to reciprocate.
He pulled away, only far enough to scatter kisses across her cheek, and then to whisper in her ear. “You are the woman I want, the woman I desire, and I will wait for you as long as you need. For years, if it comes to that.”
“You do not need to wait,” she said, and if she was trembling it was only out of happiness and excitement and more than a little apprehension. But she was safe with this man, and sure of his intentions, and she wanted this intimacy with him more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.
He sat back on his heels, his breathing a little ragged, and looked her in the eye. “I love you. I need you to know that.”
“And I love you,” she told him. “I do.”
“Then will you be with me now, and tomorrow, and the days after that? Is that something you can give me?”
“I will,” she promised. “And now, if you are ready, I should like for you to kiss me again.”
Epilogue
Ann
March 21, 1997
It had been years since Ann had gone to downtown Toronto on her own, and she was more than a little nervous of getting lost on the way to the gallery, but it wasn’t enough to deter her, nor did she want to ask her daughter to come along. This was something she needed to do on her own.
It was a Friday afternoon, the day of the week when she usually took care of the sort of errands that couldn’t be done on the weekend. Visits to the bank, medical appointments, that sort of thing. Today, though, she took the subway all the way downtown, and then, instead of getting on a streetcar, she decided to walk. Her route took her through the heart of Chinatown, which had always been one of her favorite parts of the city, but she didn’t have time to stop. Not today.
She soldiered on, and just as she was beginning to feel a little tired she caught sight of the banners.
MIRIAM DASSIN