Eleven

Ava

Ava was not the only one thrilled with the discovery of the clandestine French newspaper. Mr. Sims's glower had lightened to a frown, and he informed her a month later that DC wanted more. She and Mike were to share the duty of photographing all the periodicals and publications, and she was to put extra effort into obtaining as many underground newspapers as was possible.

In the months that followed, she accompanied James to Estoril on enough occasions that she eventually acquired her own dinner party dresses and had Peggy teach her a few new hairstyles. Lamant met Ava often, providing her not only with French clandestine papers, but occasionally ones from Holland and Poland as well.

"There is an art to these," he explained after handing her a small stack to tuck into her handbag at a soiree at the Estoril bar one night. "It is resistance among oppression, words rivaling heavy artillery, seemingly insignificant and yet still efficacious. This is strength in its rawest form. It is beautiful."

Lamant was a rare soul who saw some element of magnificence in most things. She smiled at his assessment. "That's poetic."

"You must look beyond the page." He lifted his drink but paused before taking a sip. A sliver of lemon bobbed in the clear liquid. "To the men and women who worked so seamlessly together. Not only the author who wrote it, but the typographer who meticulously assembled it, to the person manning the complexities of the printing machines, to the courier who delivered it and the citizen who smuggled it from French soil to end up here in Portugal."

This was one of the things she enjoyed about the rare moments she spent with Lamant. Never had she considered more than the authors or the piece itself. But he was correct in his appraisal, at the string of involvement to bring these clandestine papers to her hand.

"Even you." Lamant gestured to her with his glass, his cheeks slightly reddened from spending too much time by the ocean. "Those papers would die here in Lisbon. They would become rubbish over time, tossed out with the rest of the trash. History discarded. But you are sending them on to America. You are preserving these moments in time so all will look back on them later."

With that proclamation, he put his drink to his lips and drained the contents so only the lemon twist remained. He held up his glass as a waiter passed to summon another. Again. As if catching her assessment, he winked at her. "This is better than the pills most refugees take for their nerves."

Regardless of what he said and the luxurious surroundings he enjoyed, the wear of waiting so many months began to whittle at his appearance. He remained slender despite the abundance of canapés and heaping plates of meats and pastries and delicacies from around the world. Most of which he didn't touch. Instead, his attention swung to what could be splashed into a crystal glass. And though he said it settled his nerves, the slight tremor in his hands never seemed to abate, and the lines around his mouth and on his brow appeared to be etched deeper every time they met.

A man and woman walked by the table, their conversation in German apparent. Lamant's hold on the cup tightened until his bony knuckles went white.

"Are you all right?" Ava asked when the man and woman passed.

He swallowed, appearing pale beneath his light sunburn and offered her a wan smirk. "Forgive me, German being spoken nearby never ceases to rattle me."

She nodded. While she would never understand on the level Lamant had experienced, she understood about the shift in emotion hearing German elicited. "My father was fluent in German. And French," she added with a smile. "Once hearing German reminded me of him."

"Now it is sullied," Lamant finished for her.

"Precisely."

A waiter appeared and exchanged Lamant's glass with a fresh one, offered on a glossy silver platter. Lamant took a generous sip and visibly relaxed. "I spent much of my life enjoying the works of Goethe and find I can only stomach his words in French now. It is a pity as the translation is never as true as the original."

"It doesn't surprise me that you are a man who appreciates Goethe." Ava finished the last of her wine as James caught her eye from across the room.

It was time to go. And time to tell Lamant the news she had been dreading the entire night.

"I confess, I have been trying to secure a visa for you from the American Embassy." Ava stared at her empty glass, a remaining circle of wine pooled at the bottom like a drop of blood. "But I have failed."

Lamant blinked in surprise. "I would never ask that of you."

"I know." Ava set her wineglass on the small table between their chairs. "I wanted to help regardless."

And she still did, to repay him for all he had done in procuring the foreign publications. At every turn, her requests had been denied. She had been warned by Peggy, then snubbed by the vice-consuls at the embassy who refused to hear her pleas and then refused by a contact in DC she knew through one of her former roommates.

"I didn't want you to think I hadn't tried," she said softly. "Not that it did any good."

A waiter whisked by, and her glass disappeared.

Lamant studied her for a long moment. "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted," he said, quoting Aesop.

"My father used that quote often."

"Then he would be proud of you." Lamant settled his hand on hers, his fingers cold from cradling his drink. "You are meant to do great things."

Though his compliment warmed her, it was another brick of expectation she did not feel she could support. In her months in Lisbon, she had not helped the refugees save for a few books given to children in the mornings and while she worked hard at collecting the newspapers, she wished she could do more. Daniel was still in danger, she was unable to find her neighbor who had been arrested by the PVDE, the world was still at war, and she could not even procure one American visa.

She was letting everyone down.

The sense of her own helplessness did not diminish as the months slid into October, when the chill of autumn gilded the foliage, leaving the trees awash in a splay of burnished gold. However, it was then she received two letters. One from Daniel—short and sweet, erring on the side of censorship, safe rather than the elaborate. And one under the door of her apartment from Lamant who she had not seen in several weeks.

I have finally not only secured an American visa but am leaving on a ship tomorrow. I wish to enjoy the final night of Lisbon with the people I cherish most in this stunning city.

Sheer joy engulfed her at such a letter, exquisite and filled with light. Despite the hurdles in Lamant's path, he had managed to scale them and was on the other side at last. It was a worthy cause for celebration indeed.

That was how she and James found themselves navigating the ancient section of Lisbon known as Alfama with a moon hung high and full overhead in an inky, star-studded sky. The rest of the city was charted in a modern grid-like Pombaline pattern with widely spaced streets, but Alfama maintained its narrow winding passages with a complex maze of stairs and steep slopes, exactly as it had been in the medieval days.

That area was one of the few to have survived the fateful day in 1755 when an earthquake struck and destroyed most of the city. But the tragedy was not finished there. The shuddering earth enraged the Tagus River, which swelled into tidal waves and washed away pieces of Lisbon. As if that were not enough, the tipped candles and lanterns from the earthquake set ablaze what had not been reduced to rubble or submerged.

The devastation was momentous and resulted in tens of thousands of lost lives. Its worldwide news deeply impacted Voltaire who not only incorporated the tragedy into his tales of Candide but wrote an entire poem lamenting the disaster.

Even though by some miracle Alfama still stood, reinforcing brackets now thrust from the painted exteriors of the homes from those archaic days, like stitches on torn skin.

James was able to navigate the complex layout with an expertise she admired. The buildings around them rose three to five stories tall, their pastel faces dotted with shuttered windows, which residents leaned out of to chat with one another, some only an arm's length away. Aromas of home-cooked dinners filled the streets, sizzling sausages and smoky, grilled seafood.

Ava's mouth watered at the tempting scents, especially since they had been told to arrive hungry.

As they carefully made their way down a steep set of stairs toward a crumbling building, Ava caught sight of Lamant waiting for them at the bottom with a younger man who wore a genuine smile and a simple button-down shirt and slacks to James's and Lamant's tailored suits. Despite his youth, there was an exhaustion swelling the skin beneath his eyes and dulling his appearance somewhat.

Lamant introduced the man as Ethan Williams who worked with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

"JDC," Ethan abbreviated as he held out his hand.

Ava accepted it with a firm shake that earned her a nod of approval from the man.

"Ethan works closely with the refugees and can help you acquire more of the newspapers I've been supplying you with," Lamant said. "Which is why I found it imperative to introduce you prior to my departure." He put a hand on Ethan's shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze, as a father might do to his son. "Ethan has been crucial in gathering a majority of the material I pass your way, as well as finally getting me to America."

"It was so good of you to assist Lamant." She smiled at the older Frenchman and pushed down the emotion threatening to overwhelm her. Not only the sorrow at knowing she would soon be absent his company forever, but also the joy at his escape.

Ethan nodded. "Of course. I'm happy to help."

Lamant beamed at them all. "My favorite people are together here in this place of refuge even as my own countrymen tried to have me deported. I have been far more fortunate than most to enjoy the splendor of Portugal. It is a country of beauty and art and friendship, and I want to relish this final day with those I love."

His words were true. He was fortunate. Not only for the luxury his wealth had afforded him as he bided his time, but also in how he saw the world, like a wrapped confection with new delights beneath each opaque covering.

"And now we must hurry, or we will miss the next singer." Lamant ushered them toward the door.

Ava allowed him to guide her inside. "Singer?"

The inside of the building did not match its deteriorating exterior, but instead was filled with heavy wooden tables and chairs, the seats padded with a red, plush fabric. Overhead, the concave ceiling reflected the striated exposed brickwork she had grown so used to seeing over the last few months in Portugal.

"Fado," Lamant replied with reverence.

While she had not stayed out late enough to enjoy the music, she was aware of what fado was. The woeful lyrics were unique to Lisbon, people who had been subjected to hardships of poverty and loss, especially in the century following the famed earthquake while their city rebuilt, when fado first was noted to have begun.

They were immediately served glasses of green wine, the effervescent pale gold liquid made of grapes from the north of Portugal, consumed before the wine could mature so bubbles chased one another up the sides of the glass. This was followed by several plates of various grilled fish and octopus, as well as something that appeared to be a length of sausage curled in a horseshoe shape.

"Not pork." Lamant held up his forefinger the way Ava's philosophy instructor did when she studied at Pratt. "This is alheira." He lifted his knife and fork and sliced through the sausage. "It is spiced poultry and bread, cleverly disguised as pork. Have you heard of it?"

James looked to her as well, most likely expecting her usual detail of information. But in this case, she could not provide any.

"I have not heard of alheira," Ava confessed.

Lamant nodded sagely as he always did when he encountered something Ava had not uncovered on her own. "This was not the first time Portugal became crowded with Jews as our people were made to flee our homes to escape persecution. Near the end of the fifteenth century, Jews sought these same shores for refuge. However, the Portuguese king wanted to wed a Spanish princess and continued the oppression in an effort to appeal to Spain."

Ava nodded, familiar with the terrible history.

"Sausage has always been a popular dish in Portugal, which unfortunately made detecting Jews quite easy." He presented the food with a spread hand. "And so, alheira. It could be hung and dried in smoke rooms like sausage and eaten in public to keep from drawing attention. Genius, is it not?"

He cut a section from the middle and handed it to her. She took a bite and a burst of salt and garlic mixed with a spice that tingled with culinary heat hit her tongue.

Suddenly the lights were lowered and two men with pear-shaped guitars approached the fireplace. A woman joined them a moment later, a cobweb-thin black shawl over the shoulders of her rose-printed dress.

The entire room went silent.

The men's fingers moved over the strings of their instruments, teasing out silvery notes that danced through the room, enhanced by the broad, rounded ceiling overhead. The woman swayed to the rhythm, her eyes closed as if absorbing the delicate sound until they were one.

Her hand pressed to the center of her chest, and she began to sing, her voice husky and filled with a grief that reached deep into all the places in Ava's soul that had ever been raw. Agony and sorrow pulled at the woman's brow as she lifted her head, hand out in a beseeching manner that curled into a fist as the bright, clear notes faded into a vibrato.

As her palm went once more to her heart, she gazed around the room with tears shimmering in her eyes as her song went on. A lover whose affections were unrequited, the pain relayed through her was as adroitly written on her face as the fingers of the guitarists played over those six strings.

On and on the woman sang until tears also stung Ava's eyes. The final notes tingled to a close, and the woman dropped her head to her chest.

The room exploded in an applause that the singer graciously received with the same heartfelt emotion with which she had sung. The lights were turned up once more and Ava blinked to remember where she was, having been so enraptured by the production that she'd forgotten all space and time. On the table before her, the green wine had grown warm and the food cold. But no one cared. They were all clapping with enthusiasm for what was the most incredible performance Ava had ever witnessed.

The singer and guitarists left the makeshift stage, nodding their thanks to patrons as they disappeared, and guests resumed eating and drinking once more. As Ava followed their departure, she caught sight of a familiar face, one that made her appetite shrivel despite the veritable feast laid out before her.

Lukas.

It had been months since she'd seen him. His presence was unmistakable—not only in his straight-backed appearance at a far table, tucked away in a corner, but also how he watched her, unblinking; with purpose. Except that she refused to back down from Lukas's blatant stare and met it with one of her own. She was no coward, and she would not show fear.

Lukas smiled at her then, his white teeth, which she had once so admired, flashing from across the room. She did not smile back.

In the end, it was he who rose from the table and slipped from the room, pausing only to give her one final look before taking his leave. Whatever unease Ava had set from her mind regarding their initial meeting took root once more.

She hid her malcontent from her companions, refusing to allow Lamant's last night in Lisbon to be tarnished. Much to her relief, he did not seem to notice, nor did Ethan. James, however, caught her eye several times, his expression concerned.

Once the food had all been eaten and the wine drunk, the evening stretched late into the night with performances that continued to amaze her. Somewhere before midnight, Lamant pushed back from the seat and declared he wanted a final shot of Ginjinha—a tart cherry liquor, he stated, that was made best by a woman he knew in Alfama—before falling into America's embrace.

As they wound their way into the heart of the medieval area, Ava lost herself in the convivial spirit, forgetting Lukas. Instead, she found herself entranced by the stars winking from above the narrow alleys, beyond the strings stretched between the buildings dotted with remnants of paper flowers from the St. Anthony's Festival several months before.

They stopped below blue-painted shutters where Lamant called to Senhora Ferreira, whom he deemed to be the kindest woman in Alfama. The older woman opened the shutters with a smile, revealing a neat apartment behind her lace curtains. She poured them all a bit of red liquor into small chocolate cups for a few escudos. Her eyes filled with tears as Lamant bid her goodbye, clearly another person whose life had been impacted by the insightful Frenchman.

As the last of the chocolate cup dissolved on Ava's tongue, about all she could manage to stuff into her overfull stomach, she shook Ethan's hand and embraced Lamant in a final farewell. "Remember to always look past the page, ma chérie," he said to her before kissing each cheek and leaving the scent of his spicy cologne lingering on her sweater.

The following day he would be on a ship bound for America, whose shores would offer him a safety that was only tenuous at best in Lisbon. He would escape the fear of Nazi observation and the threat of the PVDE. After nearly a year of being twisted in the broken visa system, he was going to be free.

"Did you like listening to fado?" James asked as he led their way through the starlit streets of a now quiet Alfama.

"It was moving," Ava said.

"It isn't common for most refugees to enjoy the sadness of it. Not when they have enough sorrow already."

Ava nodded in understanding. "Lamant sees things differently than others."

"Which is why I knew you two would get on well." James tossed her a grin.

Clipped footsteps sounded behind them. James put a hand to her lower back, nudging her to walk a little faster. Not that she needed the encouragement. The steps mingling with theirs in the thin, October night air held a note of authority and importance. This was no drunk staggering home from a late night of imbibing.

James turned abruptly down a narrow alley, then up a flight of stairs and through another slender alley. Lukas entered Ava's thoughts once more. How he had shown up that night, how he'd been so fixedly watching her.

Though Portugal was neutral, it did not mean an undercurrent of clandestine activity didn't happen beneath the government's nose. Nazis still found ways of making people disappear.

James pulled Ava into an alcove, so her back was against the wall, and he was covering her with his own body. They were face-to-face. Close. His features half-shadowed, his eyes dark in the late night, his jaw smooth from a recent shave.

But he wasn't studying her as she was him. His head was tilted, tense as he strained to listen.

Footsteps echoed in the distance. Whoever chased them knew Alfama as well as James.

"It's the PVDE," he whispered.

His attention shifted and suddenly he was noticing her, his eyes sweeping over her face like a caress. He lifted his hand and let his fingertips whisper over the edge of her chin.

Ava's pulse quickened and left her head spinning.

The footsteps grew louder.

"Kiss me," James said.

She gazed up at him in surprise. She hadn't kissed a man before. Her studies had occupied her life, and then the library and the war effort. Men's advances had always come on too strongly, their eagerness so plain, it left a wariness in her veins and a refusal on her tongue.

This was not how she wanted her first kiss, in an alley, evading someone chasing them down, like some ridiculous spy film.

"You've been to too many cinemas," she replied.

The clip of stiff-soled shoes came from the top of the street now.

James turned his gaze to the right, where the sound came from. "Haven't you at least read enough books to be tempted?"

She had. And he was no Darcy.

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than he leaned closer, his eyes holding hers.

"‘And the sunlight clasps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the sea. What is all this sweet work worth if thou kiss not me?'" His fingertips brushed her face. "You aren't the only reader," he murmured.

As the footsteps neared and Ava tilted her head, her heart pounded like a drum as her eyes fell shut. She wasn't yielding her first kiss to a coworker trying to escape a bit of trouble in a foreign country. No, she was being wooed beneath a starlit sky, in the most romantic city in the world with a man who recited poetry.

He had won and she was happy to reward the victor.

His mouth lightly touched hers, just enough to hint at its warmth, the smoothness of his lips. The footsteps stopped near them, and the man grumbled about foolish youth or something along those lines before departing.

James pressed his mouth to hers once more even as the echoing click of hard soles departed from them. The taste of tart cherry liquor and excitement lingered on her tongue.

Only when silence blanketed them once more did James lean back with a lopsided grin. "I dare say you have saved us."

"Byron?" she asked in a bid to guess the author of the poem he'd delivered so beautifully.

"Percy Bysshe Shelley," he gently corrected her. "From ‘Love's Philosophy.' However, if you're partial to Byron, I have somewhere I must take you one of these days."

She ought to decline but found herself intrigued. "I think I'd like that."

His grin grew a little wider. "As would I." He offered her his arm. This time, she slid her hand into the warm crook of his elbow, allowing him to lead her from Alfama and hopefully away from the watchful glare of the PVDE.

Though why the police suddenly followed them that night made no sense, not when they left her alone since that first week after her arrival. But she couldn't cast off her suspicion that it had something to do with Lukas.