Code Name Butterfly, page 2
“I … what?”
“Every time I turn down this path, I see you sitting here watching me like a hawk having caught sight of its prey. At my age it’s a bit flattering, I’m not going to lie. But, my dear,” he said kindly, “you are barking up the wrong tree. I’m probably old enough to be your father.”
Elly turned her head, looking straight ahead at the water. She carefully reached for her satchel, placing it in her lap. Her fingers fiddled with the metal clasp. Men. They always ruined the fantasy when they opened their mouths.
“How long have you been in Paris?” he asked, infusing his voice with the gentle patience of a professor or a religious minister of some kind. She felt her cheeks grow warm. Was this a joke?
Still not looking at him, she cleared her throat. “I’ve been here for nearly five months.”
“Oh?” he said in surprise. “What are you here for?”
“School.” It was the easiest answer to give. “What are you here for?” she asked politely.
“I’ve just always liked France. I moved here about thirteen years ago.”
Thirteen years ago? She flicked her gaze in his direction. He just didn’t seem that old. There was not a gray hair or a wrinkle to be found on his face. She’d put him somewhere in his late twenties at most. She returned to looking at the river. Her shoulders were beginning to hurt from the stiff way she was carrying them.
“School,” he said, repeating her answer from earlier. “Do you attend the university just over there?” Would he just go away? Why was he sitting here making this pointless small talk?
“Yes.”
“What are you studying?”
“Literature.”
“How long will you be here?”
“Not long.” God willing, she’d be on the next boat out of this country any day now.
“Because of the end of your studies or the war?” Elly pressed her lips together. Just leave, she wanted to say.
“Both.” Elly checked her watch. Ten more minutes.
“Where are you from?”
“Chicago.”
“I’m originally from New York.” Elly frowned. That didn’t sound right. She turned and squinted at him. His eyebrows raised in delight and he smiled, revealing white teeth. “I take it you can still hear the accent? I’m from New York by way of Surry, Virginia.”
Now that he mentioned it, it was the accent she was hearing. It was very faint, but he drawled his words a bit. And what was that he’d said? Something about barking up the wrong tree. A very southern phrase.
“My wife always said I could never sound like anything other than a Virginian.”
His wife! Elly filled her cheeks with air and then released it. He could have just started with that. Or, he could have just never come over here to speak with her in the first place. Ignoring her had always been an option.
Having finished his crêpe, he crumbled the wrapping and then reached into his coat. He pulled out two small pieces of paper and held them out toward her. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, she took them.
“Have you had a chance to see Josephine Baker yet?” She looked down at the first note. Or rather, ticket. “If you haven’t had a chance to see a show, you should come tonight. It’s the grand finale.”
Startled, she looked at him.
“Oh. Not with me,” he said quickly, lest she get any ideas. “That’s just one ticket. For you,” he stressed, in case she didn’t understand. “The second ticket is for another show tonight that takes place right after Jo’s. Only come if you feel homesick. And don’t worry. This isn’t a gimmick. They’re real, not fake.”
As a matter of fact, she had not seen Josephine Baker perform although the woman was everywhere in Paris. You couldn’t walk down a street without seeing her famous silhouette draped over something. When Elly had first arrived in France, seeing Ms. Baker on the stage had been one of her goals. Except she hadn’t wanted to go alone. But look, this nice man had given her a ticket to do just that.
“Have you seen any of her shows?”
“No, sir.” She added the sir since he was so convinced of their age gap.
“Well, Miss … what’s your name?”
“Elodie Mitchell.”
“Miss Mitchell, you shouldn’t leave Paris without seeing Jo Baker in action.” He said the woman’s name as though they were friends.
“You’ve been to a lot of her shows, have you?” she asked, raising one eyebrow in stark judgment. He hesitated. Body language hadn’t worked, her short responses hadn’t gotten the job done. It was time to pull out the talent she was famous for. She leaned a half an inch in his direction and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I hear she dances wearing only bananas as a skirt.”
She’d also heard that these days Ms. Baker wore more clothes at her performances and you were quite unlikely to see the revealing bits, but he didn’t have to know that.
For the first time since he’d sat down, the man dropped his eyes. “I’ve been to a lot of her shows, yes. But that’s a bit of a misconception. Jo rarely dances in the nude.”
“A misconception! I’ve seen the pictures! The whole world has seen the pictures. Oh,” she said, drawing back and placing a delicate hand over her mouth. “Is that how you explain it to your wife? Mr. …?”
“Grant Monterey,” he said, his voice slightly cooler than it was before. “And my wife is dead, so I don’t think she cares much. It’s a misconception to believe that she still dances in the nude. She’s famous now. She doesn’t have to take off her clothes. It’s a good show. I thought you might enjoy it. Every time I see you sitting here, you look a bit lost, and you certainly look alone. I was trying to be helpful.”
Lost and alone. He was not holding back his punches.
“Mr. Monterey, I’m so glad that I’ve met you today.” At that statement, he reared back, his eyes widening for a second in surprise. “It’s been nothing but a real joy. Speaking with you has fulfilled all of my fantasies.” At that statement, he made a small noise in the back of his throat. “Oh, forgive me. I forgot—you have no desire to star in any of my daydreams. From here on out, you won’t.” Elly extended the two tickets toward him. “But I can’t accept these. You should give them to someone who really appreciates the gesture.”
Grant Monterey did not move to take the tickets. Instead, he folded his arms over his chest, and it was his turn to look out over the water before them. “Which part offended you?”
“All of it.” She jabbed him in the arm with his offerings. “Rest assured, Mr. Monterey, I won’t ever wait here to see you again.”
He released a snort. And then he laughed, and it was such a nice, rich honest laugh that strangely enough she found herself laughing too.
Grant Monterey stood up and collected his trash. “I refuse to take those tickets back. Come to the show. Don’t leave Paris without seeing Jo. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you walk away from this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And as for the second show, Miss Mitchell, we’ve all been a little homesick sometimes.” And with that, he turned, tossed his trash into the nearest receptacle, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked away.
Elly looked down at the pieces of paper in her hand. The first show was at the Casino de Paris starting at eight p.m. It was a very pretty ticket with gold embossing that probably cost a pretty penny in the making. The ticket for the second show did not look to have been printed by any company. If she wasn’t mistaken, the information had been written in ink. That show started at eleven p.m. but the address was the same as Casino de Paris except it said ‘Door One’ written in tiny letters on the side. Very sketchy. What if Grant Monterey was one of those perverts who pretended no interest just so you would lower your boundaries, making it easier for him to attack you?
She pursed her lips. No, he’d seemed very clear about finding her unappealing. She almost tossed the tickets into the trash with the remainder of her very cold crêpe. But for some illogical reason, she jammed them into one of the pockets of her satchel, even though she already knew she wasn’t going.
CHAPTER 2
For a variety of reasons, Elly always took the river taxi if she could. She liked to watch the boat cut through the small waves, forming new ones. She liked the cool breeze that sent shivers down her spine every few minutes—and it was cool. Thanksgiving was around the corner. American Thanksgiving, that is. She liked plopping down onto a bench and becoming as silent and small as possible so that she could eavesdrop on conversations she hadn’t been invited to. But mostly she liked that it was slow.
Only come if you feel homesick. Deciding against taking a seat, Elly stood next to the railing, eyeing the second ticket again. Homesick. Elly had a very odd relationship with that word. To her mind, homesick had different meanings that all culminated into one conclusion: Elly felt as though she’d been homesick her whole life.
The first time she’d experienced that intense longing for something she could not grasp was after her mother died in childbed trying to bring a third baby into the world. Her mother’s death had changed everything and she’d woken up more times than she could count, wishing she could turn back the hand of time. The second time she was introduced to homesickness was right after she’d found her father hanging from the ceiling of their living room. She’d stared up at him, hands fisted at her sides, craving something she couldn’t even begin to name.
And now. Now, she was homesick for America. She was tired of hearing French all day. Irritating as Grant Monterey had been, it had felt good to hear English. It had felt good to talk to someone with whom the foundation had already been set. She was tired of having her brain constantly on alert, trying to parcel out different bits as people spoke. She was tired of the sort of rude way the French went about doing things, making her miss the superficial friendliness of her countrymen. She was tired of the stares and constantly feeling like a fish out of water.
She yearned for her uncle and aunt’s house that was always filled with people and talk and food. They’d laugh to hear that. She was notorious for hiding in her room whenever guests were visiting. But there were always a lot of guests. That happened when your uncle was a reverend. She missed her brother, Catau, who was always charging into her life with a new idea; her cousins who never finished a conversation but started ten; her uncle’s jokes, which weren’t that funny; and her aunt’s fluttery ways as she moved from one task to the next, the last having never been entirely completed. She missed greens, and sweet potatoes, ham and turkey. She missed red beans and rice and macaroni and cheese. She missed a burger and fries.
Hearing her thoughts, her stomach growled despite having eaten most of the lemon and sugar crêpe fifteen minutes ago. She patted her stomach in understanding. French food, while good, was just not the same.
She looked down at the ticket fluttering in her hand. Only come if you feel homesick. Her uncle would argue that there was another sort of homesickness. Six months after she and Catau had moved in with her uncle Minor and her aunt Tabitha, she’d tried to explain to Uncle Minor how she was feeling. It had been late at night when most lights in the house had been turned off and everyone was tucked in their beds. But she had been unable to sleep. Thanks to her father, it had taken her years to find peace in her dreams.
But her uncle studied for his sermons at night, and she’d known she would be able to find him sitting at the kitchen table reading different books and jotting down notes. In a rare moment of vulnerability, she’d tried to describe how she was feeling. It was he who had diagnosed her.
“Sounds like you’re homesick to me,” Uncle Minor had told her in that airy way of his. “We’re, all of us, homesick because earth is not our home. Heaven is.” At ten years of age, this answer had been more than a little bit unsatisfactory. She would learn then, as she knew now, that Uncle Minor, God bless his heart, often provided the most disappointing answers to life’s hardest questions. Nine times out of ten, Elly just squinted at him in response. Arguing with someone was never her first reaction. She was usually content to just remove herself from the situation and ponder things on her own.
But this time, she pushed back. “Is that why my papa killed himself then? He was longing for heaven?”
Uncle Minor’s eyes had narrowed with thought. One thing she loved about her uncle, then and now, was that he took all of her questions very seriously. Even if she didn’t care for his answers. “Your father,” he had said slowly. And then stopped. “Everyone longs for heaven—for that perfect place where there aren’t any more worries. But what keeps you grounded in this place,” he’d said, jabbing a finger into the surface of the table, “is doing the thing God has put you on this earth to do. If you can’t figure out what that thing is, sometimes you want to go to heaven sooner. So, I guess in his own way, Louis was homesick.” He’d said her father’s name in that flat American way: Lou-is and not Lou-ie as he’d been called. But then again, Uncle Minor hadn’t really known Louis Valcourt. “Find that thing you were created to do, Miz Elly. Then the longing won’t be so bad.”
That was one conversation Elly held on to with both hands because at the ripe old age of twenty-four, while she still wished she could have one last conversation with Louis Valcourt where she unleashed the fullness of her rage at him, she understood her father now. Sometimes the longing was just that bad.
A sharp wind blew through the boat and Elly lost her grip on the ticket. She lunged across the railing to grab it, but it danced on the air, well above her head, and then sank into the water below. Well, that took care of that. She supposed she would never find out what Mr. Monterey’s definition of homesick was.
The water taxi drifted into the eighth arrondissement and Elly exited the boat but not before giving the captain a quick wave. He shook his head in response. The first time she’d ever used his services, he’d lectured her on the importance of knowing French … in French. She’d comprehended enough words to understand the general point of his little speech. But her ability to speak French was almost nonexistent. No matter how many French words she knew, under the fierce gaze of someone waiting for a response, her mind’s only defense was to shut down, leaving her with words that danced on her tongue but never formed. So, all she’d done was stare wide-eyed and nod every few seconds. And when he’d finished, she’d pointed at herself and said, “Je suis Américaine.”
The captain had sighed with deep exasperation, but from that day on he’d tried to be helpful. If ever she had a question about getting around, between her handful of words and his knowledge, she always got to where she needed to be and so she had no problems waiting for whatever boat he was commanding.
Elly carefully made her way down the short, stone path and then climbed the stairs until she was once again at street level. Not too far away, she saw her destination. One could not miss the stars and stripes waving to every passerby that was within walking distance of the U.S. embassy.
Elly crossed the street and headed for the stone building that was relatively new, but built to look like it had been around since the Sun King. Pausing at the wrought iron gate that encircled the embassy, Elly reached into her satchel for her passport before nodding at the military men on duty and walking through the opening.
She supposed it should feel a little bit like home when she walked through the embassy doors and maybe it did. Maybe that was why her shoulders were always a bit tense and she never quite wanted to linger.
“Hello,” she called in greeting to the somewhat gray-haired woman at the front desk. Sometimes it was nice not to use bonjour. The administrative woman peered at Elly through her glasses.
“I know you.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m Elly Mitchell. I was just here last week. How are you?”
“Listen, Elly, Mr. Passmore will contact you when it’s time.”
“Yes, ma’am. I was still wondering if I might speak with him?”
“He’s a busy man.”
“Could you please ask him if he has a moment to talk?” Elly asked politely.
The older woman huffed before reaching for the telephone. “Hello, Mr. Passmore, it’s that Elly Mitchell again.”
“Please tell him that I’ve brought cookies.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “She says she’s brought cookies.” There was a pause. “All right.” The woman hung up the phone. “He has five minutes to spare.”
“Thank you so much! Have a nice day!”
Elly quickly made her way down the marbled floors, her heels clicking with every step she took. Mr. Passmore’s office was on the second floor and so she ascended the nearest staircase, careful not to block anyone’s way as they passed her. She ignored the looks of surprise she got. They were always shocked, these Americans, that colored people were also in France.
Elly reached the third door on the right and knocked. “Come in.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Passmore. It’s me again, Elodie Mitchell.”
Richard Passmore was probably somewhere in his forties. He was tall and thin and had a head full of brown hair with a few streaks of gray. They’d met serendipitously four months ago. Shortly after Elly’s arrival in Paris, she decided to make a trip to Versailles. It was an easy train ride, her professor had told her, and on her way back, if she wanted to take in some wonderful views, she should get off a stop early and walk around. A good plan. Except in Elly’s newness, she found herself wandering around in circles and getting more and more frustrated with her lack of spoken French. As the sun began dipping below the earth’s surface, Elly was still standing in the center of some strange sidewalk and mentally scolding herself for the hundredth time for being spontaneous. Then, she was tapped on the shoulder by Richard.
His first words to her were, ‘You look American.’ Unbeknownst to him, he’d endeared himself to her in that moment. He walked with her until she finally came across the street that led to the apartment. She learned that he worked in the embassy. His job title was something fancy but he summed it up by describing himself as the transportation man. If she ever wanted to return home and needed assistance, ask for him. She’d nodded politely at the time, thinking they’d probably never meet again. And then France declared war on Germany.
