FORTY-FOUR

Anna’s tears were dripping into her glass of wine in the Shepherdess Café.

“You can’t, you can’t. Please darling, don’t go there, unless you take me with you.… You know how tough I was in Denmark and how good I was in Alsace. I can help you, and I don’t know what I’d do if you were there and I was in London waiting for you to come back to me.”

“I would take you with me, darling, if they let women into Oberkirch. But it’s one of those stuffy, exclusive kind of men-only places. And all the men would be flirting with you every single day, and I’d be so jealous I’d start to cry and I’d probably write my mother that I wanted to come home.”

Anna started to giggle while she cried. “That’s not funny,” she said. “And I tell better jokes than you.”

“Well, let’s hear a few. I could use a good laugh right now.”

“I don’t feel like telling jokes. You don’t love me anymore.”

Tom pulled his chair next to hers, put his arm around her shoulders, and kissed her for such a long time that a crowd started to assemble around them. When Tom and Anna looked up, the crowd yelled, “Well done!”

“I’m so embarrassed,” Anna said.

“Thank you ladies and gents,” Tom said to the crowd. “Very kind of you. Our next performance will be in approximately ten minutes.” The audience applauded. Some were holding hands as they went back to their seats.

Tom held Anna’s hand and looked into her beautiful blue-green eyes. “After what he’s gone through for me, I just want to get Gilles out, Anna. I think the war is coming to an end soon and chances might be better now than they would have been a few months ago. Please trust me, dear. I will come back. If I didn’t it would ruin our marriage. So show me how tough you can be by staying here and waiting for me.”

Anna put her head on his chest and said in Danish, “Okay, min kaereste mand.” (Okay, my dearest husband.)