The Siren of Paris Read online

  The Siren of Paris

  David LeRoy

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

  11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

  21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30

  31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40

  41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48

  Discussion Questions

  Copyright © 2012 by David LeRoy

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  The following is a work of fiction that includes characters whom are based, in part, upon real people as described in various written histories, biographies and autobiographies, but the conversations, relationships, and thoughts of these characters, and at least some of their actions depicted in the book are completely fictional and this book is not intended to be an accurate history of the actions of these real people.

  Acknowledgments

  The Siren of Paris is due in large part to the work of several editors, and I am very thankful to the talents of Thom, Jennifer, and Chris. Yves provided insight regarding my questions about Saint-Nazaire. Vickie, Mark, Charlie, Theresa, and many other friends have listened to me go about the story with encouragement and patient endurance. Tupelo coffee house’s friendly staff provided a place away from homes distractions to write. Valerie’s group critiques helped improve the text. My writing coach Sarah has always been there for me and I am very grateful for her encouragement.

  To all of those who rest as ‘Known Unto God,’ may the Lord be with you.

  Chapter 1

  Saint-Nazaire, France

  “May the Lord be with you,” the priest’s voice rang out to all gathered at Marc’s graveside in September 1967.

  The cloaked man stood taller than all others gathered, with the hood of his smock pulled over his head. He held in his right hand a staff with a round clock mounted on top.

  Marc stood beyond the gathering, gazing back upon his grave. He saw his only sister, Elda, surrounded by all his other friends from France. The body of his soul beamed a reddish-golden light, as he anticipated the final moment he would leave in peace. He strained to see the face of the priest obscured from view under the hood.

  “And also with you,” Marc whispered, looking toward the release from his life.

  “Let us pray,” the priest asked softly. With a rush, the first eleven souls then appeared around him. They had come from the graveyards of Angoulins-sur-Mer, Les Fortes, Saint-Charles-de-Percy, Saint-Clément-des-Baleines, Saint-Palais-sur-Mer, Chatelaillon- Plage, Saint-Sever, Traize, Brest, Saint-Hilaire-de-Talmont and Saint Pancras. They wore drab olive-green uniforms, with kit bags ready for war, but they were soaked to the bone and only a few had boots. The dial on the clock stopped as a moment of Marc’s life flashed before him.

  “I no longer want to see you, Marc. It is finished and over,” Veronica said to him outside his dorm room in the winter of ’39. Marc recognized this is why he dropped out of medical school. Once she cut her bond with him, he decided to run. Marc’s soul turned a dark red over the pain of her words.

  “O God, we pray you lead us to truth, deliver us all from violence, battle, and murder, and from dying suddenly and unprepared,” the priest said as he glanced up from his hood and then down again before Marc could catch his face.

  A second group of twenty-two souls gathered by the grave. They came from the graveyards of Bretignolles-sur-Mer, L’Aiguillon-sur-Mer, Port-Joinville, Les Sables-d’Olonne, Nantes Pont du Cens, Sainte Marie, Yves, Piriac-sur-Mer, Olonne-sur-Mer, Coulac and Charroux. Among the soldiers stood one woman dressed as a nurse, a Belgian boy and little girl, all with no names.

  The clock came to a second stop. Marc glanced back upon the moment of his life.

  “I can watch out for myself, you know. I am not small anymore. You should go,” flashed with lightning speed in front of Marc. She was only eight years old at the time, yet Marc could see she held herself silently to blame. His soul constricted as the time on the clock once again started. His light turned to blue.

  “O God, we pray for those who suffer in silence with guilt, and for those who suffer with shame, regret, and remorse.”

  “I have seen enough,” Marc called out to the priest. Another thirty-three souls arrived from the graveyards of La Couarde-sur-Mer, La Turballe, Saint-Denis-D’oléron, Sainte-Marie-de-Ré, Olonnes, Bouin, Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, Aytré and Barbatre. The clock slammed to a stop.

  “One-way ticket for first class, June 14, crossing on the Normandie, please,” Marc asked the ticket agent, smiling satisfactorily over his decision. Marc’s soul stepped back from this moment of his life. The self-knowledge of his motives as a younger man churned inside of him. The time upon the clock rolled on again. The light of his soul turned a dark purple.

  “Please, let this go, it is just the past,” Marc called out to the priest. The priest held the staff steady.

  “O God, our time is in your hands, and we pray that you look upon us with favor as we, your servants, begin another year of life.”

  Sixty-five more souls appeared in a flash from the graveyards of Le Bois-Plage-en-Ré, Château-d’Olonne, Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez, Ile d’Yeu, Beauvoir-sur-Mer, Saint-Georges-D’oléron, Ars-en-Ré, La-Barre-de-Mont, Dolus, Saint-Trojan, L’Épine, La Plaine-sur-Mer, Noirmoutier-en-l’Ile, L’Herbaudiere, and Le Clion-sur-Mer. Marc felt the pull of time upon him as it stopped again upon his life.

  “Happy birthday, young man. Better get a move on it. You have a ship to catch today,” his mother Lynette said to him the morning he left for France. The words pierced him as he perceived the truth that she drank herself to death from worry in the spring of ’42.

  “Why must you show me this? Is this my judgment?” he yelled back at the priest. The light of his soul turned a dark green. The priest looked up only slightly through his hood at Marc. The clock began to move.

  “O God, whose glory fills the whole of creation: Preserve and protect those who travel from every danger and bring them in safety to their journeys’ end,” the priest called out.

  An additional 233 souls of men, women, children and soldiers from the graveyards of Saint-Nazaire-sur-Charentes, Les Moutiers-en-Retz, Prefailles and La Baule-Escoublac flashed around Marc. He felt the compression of the approaching time as the clock slowed to a stop. A sense of dread now replaced his fears.

  “When you get to Paris, let Ambassador Bullitt know you are in town. He would be glad to see you. We were classmates back in college before the war,” his father said to him as the car pulled up to the French Line Pier. Marc smelled the sea air as the image flickered before him. He understood that his father never believed art school to be serious. The pain of his father’s last words to him before he passed of a heart attack in ’44 brought Marc to his knees. The priest’s eyes peered back through the hood upon Marc’s uplifted face of anguish. The clock dial started to spin.

  “O God, we pray for those who have died. May your love and light keep them eternally yours in peace and life without end,” the priest said softly without breaking his gaze, as everyone who had gathered whispered their own names. Marc then swallowed hard as another 370 more gathered from the graveyards of La Bernerie-en-Retz and Pornic to join the other souls. The clock stopped.

  “You should have left Paris, Marc, and never returned,” she said before the charges were read to him by the Gestapo officer. Marc groaned under the weight of this most painfu
l moment, feeling a mixture of regret and shame. The light of his soul turned dark as obsidian and the clock began to run.

  “Make this stop. I have forgiven her,” he pleaded. The priest then removed his hood to bear his face.

  “O God, the Father of all, who commanded us to love our enemies: Lead us both from hatred and revenge and, in your good time, enable us all, who are known unto you, to stand before you in eternal peace,” the priest said, looking directly at Marc. The words ripped through him in shock waves, fracturing him on his side three times, and once down the middle. The time upon the clock came to a dead stop, but Marc noticed that the second hand now ticked forward with temporal time.

  A number unknown rose up from the sea, the beaches, and ditches to join the 859 gathered from their rest on the land. Marc stared in disbelief at the priest’s face before him. With all of his strength, he strained to whisper, “Why?”

  “May the Lord be with you,” the priest said, his tone gentle as the clock reached June 18, 1939, eight thirty at night. A fear greater than the judgment of hell filled Marc, as he realized he would now watch his life during the war all over again.

  The S.S. Normandie’s bow parted the sea as she carried her passengers toward France that Sunday. Marc dressed for dinner in his finest tuxedo. Before taking the last dinner at sea, he entered the chapel of the ship for his evening prayers.

  “And may you, my Father in heaven, keep my family in your protection. I pray for my mother, Lynette, my father, Eldon, and my little sister, Elda. Amen,” Marc kneeled alone in the chapel. He made the sign of the cross as he rose to leave for dinner.

  Chapter 2

  Marc crossed the foyer to the large double doors entering the main dining room. The maître d’ escorted him through the large three-deck-high room, lined on each side by massive crystal light sculptures. Frosted crystal columns flanked the towering walls. Gilded golden crossbeams covered the room’s ceiling. Bas-relief carvings of peasants, farmers, kings, and soldiers decorated the sides of the entrance.

  La Paix, a tall bronze statue of a woman extending an olive leaf, towered over his table. Marc frowned as he searched the room for his traveling companions. None could be found within the nearly empty cavernous room. A silly thought crossed his mind that he somehow had the wrong time for dinner.

  Marc’s black hair, parted to the right side of his head, flawlessly hugged his scalp, a stark contrast to his body as he slumped into the chair at the empty table. His eyes scanned the tables between the light sculptures, squinting with disappointment.

  Dora descended the staircase, walked over to his table, and said, “I forgot to tell you that on the last night, we like to dine at the grill. We can speak English there without any fear.”

  Marc left the lonely waiters and sprinkling of passengers in the golden room to follow Dora up the staircase. Fifty years old, Dora appeared far younger with her hair pulled back into a small, tight bun. She glided through the dining room in a long, slender cream-colored evening dress. Marc walked with a spring to his step and smiled as he loathed the idea of eating alone on the last night. Dora met Marc on the first day out and immediately adopted him into her circle, but he did feel a tint of self-consciousness for he stood out among them, at nearly half their ages.

  “Race you,” Dora said at the base of the stairs to the aft foyer.

  “You will not,” Marc said.

  Marc climbed the stairs and lost her as they both ran across the foyer to the doors of the grillroom perched upon the aft deck of the ship.

  “It feels damn good to have a man chase me again,” Dora smirked at Marc as she swished side to side.

  “Marc, were you the rabbit or the fox?” David said with a smile as he looked up from his menu.

  “You know the answer to that question,” Nigel said. He put down the wine list.

  Once they’d dined, Dora tapped her wine glass with her fork. “It is time for a small celebration.” The Café Grill did not have one single empty seat. Some passengers sat at tables with extra chairs. The room was loud, as if they were inside an Irish pub. David’s long, thin face looked up with a curious smile in his bright gray eyes. Nigel rested his head of thin gray hair upon his hand as his round face studied Dora’s intentions.

  “Crossings for the gods,” Dora said, raising her glass to her friends.

  After each one stood and proclaimed mockingly the number of times they had safely crossed the sea with the help of the gods, David stood. “I, David, have crossed the sea with the help of the gods thirty-two times.”

  Nigel teased David. “Tell us your secret to such luck on the waves, old friend?” Dora sat back in her chair and cocked her head to the side. Marc noticed that David’s hand had a slight twitch to it, even as he strained to smile.

  He looked out over his friends after a pause and said, “It is simple. I never sail British!”

  “Here, here, my friends! A toast—never sail British!” Dora said, raising her glass to meet the other three. The gaze between David and Dora told Marc there was more to the toast than he could grasp.

  “Now, let us dance.” Dora rose from the table as they left the Café Grill for the lounge. Marc followed Dora, her arms locked with David and Nigel, down the long staircase into the smoking room. Passing into the lounge, the air sparkled with the tune of Now It Can Be Told. Four fluted light pillars surrounded the dance floor, but only a few were dancing. In the four corners of the lounge, glass murals stretched the entire length of the walls.

  While dancing, Dora asked Marc, “So, does she have a name?”

  “Does who have a name?”

  “The woman, silly.”

  “There is no woman. Remember, I am single.”

  “Marc,” her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head back to look up at him, “a young attractive man like you does not just run off to Paris for nothing. Either you are running away from a woman, or running toward one,” she smiled. “Maybe both! Am I right?”

  “Her name is Veronica and we broke up this winter,” Marc said, his eyes glancing up and away toward the band.

  “I see. And the other one?” she pushed.

  “There is no other one. Besides, the breakup is really a blessing.”

  “How so?”

  Marc then looked back at Dora’s face as he warmed up to her charm. He reflected upon her charisma, which made her beauty all the more enchanting, even if she was in her fifties.

  “I was a premed student and hated it, because, to be honest, I was only doing it to make Veronica happy. I think this change will be good for me. I have always loved art and this will be my choice. I let her make all my major decisions. It felt good, but it was not actually good for me.”

  “Oh God, Marc, please be careful.”

  “Don’t worry. I don’t think much will happen with Germany,” Marc said. He believed she had switched to the war talk he had read in the papers.

  “I am talking about the women of Paris.”

  Marc glanced at each corner of the room as he danced, quickly studying the massive panels of glass painted in gold, silver, and platinum leaf, with designs of ships, gods, and goddesses.

  “A game?” Dora said, poking him.

  “With you?”

  “We will guess which one the other likes best,” she said, glancing at the murals.

  “You go first.”

  Dora pointed to the one called the Birth of Aphrodite, a collection of massive, tall ships, with a woman rising from the foam of the sea.

  “You’re good,” Marc nodded, smiling.

  Marc then pointed toward the one called The Rape of Europa. Dora shook her head side to side and then pointed behind Marc to a set of large pocket doors separating the lounge from the smoking room, decorated with a golden lacquer mural spanning the opening. Horses, women, and angels flew through the sky to catch stars and blow wind, a radiant golden sun at the noonday position in the sky.

  “It is incredible. I have not noticed it before. Why this one?”

  �
�The sun reminds me of hope,” she said. The band played a new number. “I think you really believe your story about art school,” she said, turning back to him.

  “Oh, you think I am a shipboard spy?” Marc joked, matching her dry wit.

  “That would be grand. Then you would know who you are and what you are doing. You are sexy enough to get secrets out of anyone.” Marc averted his eyes from her stare and glanced at the murals. Her tone turned serious. “Paris is not the place it might seem to be.”

  “I know what you mean. I can speak fluently, and, besides, I belong there.”

  “How so, handsome?”

  “I was born there,” he said, with a nod.

  Dora laughed out loud. “That explains this thick, dark hair.” She ran her hand over his head. “Marc, I was born in Baltimore, but I do not belong there. Paris is my home, but I am still an outsider, even after living there twenty years. You may be Parisian-born, Marc, but belonging there is another story.”

  “What called you to Paris?” Marc stared into her right eye.

  “A relationship. I thought it would solve everything.”

  “Must have been some love?”

  “I would like to think so.”

  “Well, I think you are being a bit rough with me,” Marc said.

  “What a nice idea, but that will have to be another time.” They continued to dance in the center of the floor between the frosted light columns. “Why did you want to leave Veronica?” Dora pressed Marc.

  “Actually, she left me,” Marc said.

  “You must have given her everything she wanted. Don’t answer that. I am sorry. I can be insensitive when I drink too much,” she looked down and then up, a blushing smile warming her face.

  Dora held Marc’s hand as they walked over to David and Nigel talking with some passengers. “Ready to have a nightcap in the smoking room?”