Grace
New York, 1946
One month later, Grace walked out of Bleeker & Sons at the end of the day and took the subway north to Forty-Second and Lexington. She reached the street and found Mark, waiting for her at the corner. “You do have a way of turning up,” she teased. It was a joke, of course; this time she was expecting him. After abandoning him at Frankie’s office to find Marie and then figuring out how to help her, Grace had returned to work to find him gone. He was needed back in DC on business, he’d told Frankie. She phoned him to apologize. She didn’t want him to think the kiss they had shared had put her off (very much to the contrary). He had been understanding, and though he was expected back in DC that night for work, he promised to let her know the next time he was in New York.
Mark was as good as his word: he’d phoned the previous night to say he would be in town for work and could she meet him for a drink? Grace had said yes straightaway, had taken care through the seemingly forever day at work not to mess her curls or smudge her makeup. She was genuinely excited to see him. She could get used to these fun meet-ups every few weeks, without obligation or surprise.
“So the British government itself betrayed the girls?” Mark asked.
Grace nodded. “They wanted the Germans to think that everything was fine and that the circuit was still active. So they kept broadcasting, as if everything was normal. They kept broadcasting and deploying agents and weapons. They wanted the radios in place so they could plant false information about the time and date of the invasion.”
“But that would mean that they sent the agents into a trap.”
“Yes.” Even confronted with absolute proof, it was still impossible to believe. Grace shuddered. The girls had been arrested and SOE had let them disappear, just as surely as the Nacht und Nebel program had intended. “That governments could do such things to their own people…” But of course that was the lesson of the war. People had scarcely believed the things the Germans had done to their own people. In the other countries, too, Austria and Hungary and such, people had turned on their Jewish neighbors who had lived beside them for centuries.
“Who’s to say that it stopped with the British?” Mark said. “The Americans had great stakes in misleading the Germans right before D-Day, too. They might have been in on the radio game as well somehow. We’ll probably never know.”
Or would they? Grace mused. If Raquel could get them back into the archive at the Pentagon… She pushed the thought from her mind. “Why didn’t the truth come out after the war?”
“No one wanted to think about the past. It all changed, you see, the players and the sides. The Russians were suddenly the Soviets. German scientists, who had helped kill people by the millions, were being brought to the US instead of prosecuted in order to work on the atomic bomb. The British government was happy to leave the whole thing buried.”
“Except Eleanor. She wouldn’t leave it alone. They had kept up the radio game intentionally, undermining everything she had built—Eleanor wanted the world to know.”
“What happened after you saw Marie?”
“When we realized the truth about what had happened and Eleanor’s innocence in the matter, I knew we needed to finish the job she’d set out to do—getting the real story into the proper hands. I helped Marie prepare a testimonial about what had happened during the war. Frankie used a contact of his to reach out to the British ambassador in Washington and get Marie’s statement to Parliament.” Grace had wondered if Marie would need to return to London to testify. She didn’t know if the poor woman would have what it took to return to the country she’d left behind. Fortunately, they’d received word that the statement would suffice. They had not known if it would do any good.
But just a few days earlier, Frankie received word. “The girls’ dispositions have been changed, too. From ‘missing, presumed dead’ to ‘killed in action.’” Three words that could mean so much. “Josie is going to be nominated for the George Cross.”
“And Eleanor?” he asked. Grace shook her head. She would remain a footnote in history, unknown but to a few. But of course that was what she had always wanted.
So much of the truth had died with Eleanor and would never be known. Of course, there was much they would never know. Who knew among the British? Was it MI6 that had made the calculated decision to sacrifice the agents or had SOE betrayed its very own?
But it was a reckoning, a start.
“Two champagnes, please,” Mark said to the waiter when they were seated in Stiles’ Tavern, a simple, unpretentious spot not far from Grand Central. “We have to celebrate.”
“Are you back in New York for a case?” she asked after their drinks had come. She lifted her glass.
“Not exactly. I’ve been offered a position with the War Crimes Tribunal. Not Nuremberg, but one of the satellites.”
“Oh, Mark, that’s wonderful!”
“I should thank you. Working with you on finding out the truth about Eleanor and the girls made me realize how much I missed that sort of work. I decided to try again.”
Grace raised her glass. “To your new position,” she offered.
“To second chances,” he said, a deeper note to his words. They clinked glasses. “I wanted to see you.”
To see her, Grace realized, before he left. Her hand hovered in midair. He was going back to Europe for good. She took a sip, the bubbles tickling her nose. She had no right to mind. They’d shared a few fleeting moments together and she couldn’t expect more. Still, she had gotten used to the idea of him, and the thought of him leaving made her sadder than she expected.
“I was wondering…” He faltered. “I was wondering if you would like to come with me.”
“I’m sorry?” She thought she had heard him wrong. To go to Washington was one thing, but to upend her life and move to Europe…with him.
“I could arrange a position with the tribunal for you. With your investigative skills, you’d be a real asset.” She considered it for a moment.
“You could even follow up more on SOE and the other girls.” He held the chance to continue Eleanor’s journey out in front of her like a promise. Part of her wanted to take it, to follow him to Europe, to pursue the work she had started. But it would still just be running.
“Gracie, there’s something special between you and me.” Her breath caught. He was acknowledging aloud what they both felt, but had not dared to admit to one another until now. “I’ve felt it since the moment I ran into you a few weeks ago. Don’t you?”
“Yes.” She felt it, too, and couldn’t have denied it, even if she wanted to.
“Life is too short to let something like this pass us by,” he pressed. “Why not take a chance on that?”
He was offering her not just a job, but a life together. The idea of picking up and moving to Europe with Mark was outlandish, even crazy. Yet a not-small part of her wanted to say yes. She had finished with the story of Eleanor and the girls. There was really nothing holding her back.
Except that it was time to write her own story now. “Mark, I’m honored, and there’s nothing I want to do more.” His face rose with hope and she cringed, bracing herself for what she had to say next. “But there are things I have to take care of here.” The office was teeming with more clients every day. And Frankie, caught up in getting Sammy adjusted to school, needed her more than ever. “I’m not saying no, just not right now. Maybe in a few months when things are more settled.”
But the future, they both knew, was promised to no one. He pushed back from the table, accepting.
“One last thing,” she said, when they walked outside of the bar. “I’d like to pay for Eleanor’s funeral. That is, if it’s still possible.” She deserved a real gravesite with her name for someone to remember—the girls had been denied that. Grace took the check from Tom’s attorney out of her purse and signed it over to him.
He looked at it and whistled low. “That would be one hell of a funeral.”
“If you could send the rest to Marie to use to care for her daughter, I’d be grateful.” Though Marie had been grateful for all Grace had done to help set the record straight for Eleanor and the girls, there had been a part of her, Grace could see, that wanted to be free of the past. Grace had decided not to bother her further and let her get on with her life.
“I’ll see that it’s done.”
“Goodbye, Grace,” he said, his hazel eyes holding hers. He kissed her once, sweetly, and just long enough.
She fought the urge to lean in once more, knowing if she didn’t leave him now, she might never go. “Good luck, Mark.”
She crossed the avenue toward Grand Central, unencumbered and unafraid, and started through the doors of the station, headed for the life that awaited her.