The Other Side of Midnight

When Noelle had not heard from him by Sunday noon, she could stand it no longer. She had to telephone him. But how? With a war on it was difficult to place an overseas call and she was not even certain where Larry was. She knew only that he flew with the RAF in some American squadron. She picked up the telephone and spoke to the switchboard operator.

‘It is impossible,’ the operator said flatly.

Noelle explained the situation, and whether it was her words or the frantic despair in her voice she never knew, but two hours later she was talking to the War Ministry in London. They could not help her, but they transferred her to the Air Ministry at Whitehall who put her through to Combat Operations, where she was disconnected before she could get any information. It was four more hours before Noelle was reconnected, and by then she was on the verge of hysteria. Air Operations could give her no information and suggested she try the War Ministry.

‘I’ve talked to them!’ Noelle screamed into the phone. She began to sob, and the male English voice at the other end of the phone said in embarrassment, ‘Please, miss, it can’t be that bad. Hold on a moment.’

Noelle held the receiver in her hand, knowing that it was hopeless, certain that Larry was dead and that she would never know how or where he died. And she was about to replace the receiver when the voice spoke in her ear again and said cheerfully, ‘What you want, miss, is the Eagle Squadron. They’re the Yanks, based in Yorkshire. It’s a bit irregular, but I’m going to put you through to Church Fenton, their airfield. Their chaps will be able to help you.’ And the line went dead.

It was eleven o’clock that night before Noelle could get the call through again. A disembodied voice said, ‘Church Fenton Air Base,’ and the connection was so bad that Noelle could barely hear him. It was as though he were speaking from the bottom of the sea. He was obviously having difficulty hearing her. ‘Speak up, please,’ he said. By now, Noelle’s nerves were so frayed that she could hardly control her voice.

‘I’m calling’ – she did not even know his rank. Lieutenant? Captain? Major? ‘I’m calling Larry Douglas. This is his fiancée.’

‘I can’t hear you, miss. Can you speak louder, please?’

On the edge of panic Noelle screamed out the words again, sure that the man at the other end of the phone was trying to conceal from her that Larry was dead. For a miraculous instant the line cleared, and she heard the voice saying as though he were in the next room, ‘Lieutenant Larry Douglas?’

‘Yes,’ she said, holding on tightly to her emotions.

‘Just a moment, please.’

Noelle waited for what seemed an eternity and then the voice came back on the line and said, ‘Lieutenant Douglas is on weekend leave. If it’s urgent, he can be reached at the Hotel Savoy ballroom in London, General Davis’ party.’ And the line went dead.

When the maid came in to clean the room the next morning, she found Noelle on the floor, semiconscious. The maid stared at her a moment, tempted to mind her own business and leave. Why did these things always have to happen in her rooms? She went over and touched Noelle’s forehead. It was burning hot. Grumbling, the maid waddled down the hall and asked the porter to send up the manager. One hour later an ambulance pulled up outside the hotel and two young interns carrying a stretcher were directed to Noelle’s room. Noelle was unconscious. The young intern in charge raised her eyelid, put a stethoscope to her chest and listened to the rales as she breathed. ‘Pneumonia,’ he said to his companion. ‘Let’s get her out of here.’

They lifted Noelle onto the stretcher and five minutes later the ambulance was racing towards the hospital. She was rushed into an oxygen tent, and it was four days before she was fully conscious. She dragged herself reluctantly up from the murky green depths of oblivion, subconsciously knowing something terrible had happened and fighting not to remember what it was. As the awful thing floated closer and closer to the surface of her mind, and she struggled to keep it from herself, it suddenly came to her clear and whole. Larry Douglas. Noelle began to weep, racked with sobs until she finally drifted off into a half-sleep. She felt a hand gently holding hers, and she knew that Larry had come back to her, that everything was all right. Noelle opened her eyes and stared at a stranger in a white uniform, taking her pulse. ‘Well! Welcome back,’ he announced cheerfully.

‘Where am I?’ Noelle asked.

‘L’Hotel-Dieu, the City Hospital.’

‘What am I doing here?’

‘Getting well. You’ve had double pneumonia. I’m Israel Katz.’ He was young, with a strong, intelligent face and deepset brown eyes.

‘Are you my doctor?’

‘Intern,’ he said. ‘I brought you in.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’m glad you made it. We weren’t sure.’

‘How long have I been here?’

‘Four days.’

‘Would you do me a favour?’ she asked weakly.

‘If I can.’

‘Call the Hotel Lafayette. Ask them – ’ she hesitated. ‘Ask them if there are any messages for me.’

‘Well, I’m awfully busy —’

Noelle squeezed his hand fiercely. ‘Please. It’s important. My fiancé is trying to get in touch with me.’

He grinned. ‘I don’t blame him. All right. I’ll take care of it,’ he promised. ‘Now you get some sleep.’

‘Not until I hear from you,’ she said.

He left, and Noelle lay there waiting. Of course Larry had been trying to get in touch with her. There had been some terrible misunderstanding. He would explain it all to her and everything would be all right again.

It was two hours before Israel Katz returned. He walked up to her bed and set down a suitcase. ‘I brought your clothes. I went to the hotel myself,’ he said.

She looked up at him, and he could see her face tense.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, embarrassed. ‘No messages.’

Noelle stared at him for a long time, then turned her face to the wall, dry-eyed.

Noelle was released from the hospital two days later. Israel Katz came to say good-bye to her. ‘Do you have any place to go?’ he asked. ‘Or a job?’

She shook her head.

‘What work do you do?’

‘I’m a model.’

‘I might be able to help you.’

She remembered the taxi driver and Madame Delys. ‘I don’t need any help,’ she said.

Israel Katz wrote a name on a piece of paper. ‘If you change your mind, go there. It’s a small fashion house. An aunt of mine owns it. I’ll talk to her about you. Do you have any money?’

She did not answer.

‘Here.’ He pulled a few francs out of his pocket and handed them to her. ‘I’m sorry I don’t have more. Interns aren’t very well paid.’

‘Thank you,’ Noelle said.

She sat at a small street café sipping a coffee and deciding how to pick up the pieces of her life. She knew that she had to survive, for she had a reason to live now. She was filled with a deep and burning hatred that was so all-consuming that it left no room for anything else. She was an avenging Phoenix rising from the ashes of the emotions that Larry Douglas had murdered in her. She would not rest until she had destroyed him. She did not know how, or when, but she knew that one day she would make it happen.

Now she needed a job and a place to sleep. Noelle opened her purse and took out the piece of paper that the young intern had given her. She studied it a moment and made up her mind. That afternoon she went to see Israel Katz’s aunt and was given a job modeling in a small, second-rate fashion house on the rue Boursault.

Israel Katz’s aunt turned out to be a middle-aged, grey-haired woman with the face of a harpy and the soul of an angel. She mothered all her girls and they adored her. Her name was Madame Rose. She gave Noelle an advance on her salary and found her a tiny apartment near the salon. The first thing Noelle did when she unpacked was to hang up her wedding dress. She put it in the front of the closet so that it was the first thing she saw in the morning and the last thing she saw when she undressed at night.

Noelle knew that she was pregnant before there were any visible signs of it, before any tests had been made, before she missed her period. She could sense the new life that had formed in her womb, and at night she lay in bed staring at the ceiling thinking about it, her eyes glowing with wild animal pleasure.

On her first day off Noelle phoned Israel Katz and made a date to meet him for lunch.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she told him.

‘How do you know? Have you had any tests?’

‘I don’t need any tests.’

He shook his head. ‘Noelle, a lot of women think they are going to have babies when they are not. How many periods have you missed?’

She pushed the question aside, impatiently. ‘I want your help.’

He stared at her. ‘To get rid of the baby? Have you discussed this with the father?’

‘He’s not here.’

‘You know abortions are illegal. I could get into terrible trouble.’

Noelle studied him a moment. ‘What’s your price?’

His face tightened angrily. ‘Do you think everything has a price, Noelle?’

‘Of course,’ she said simply. ‘Anything can be bought and sold.’

‘Does that include you?’

‘Yes, but I’m very expensive. Will you help me?’

There was a long hesitation. ‘All right. I’ll want to make some tests first.’

‘Very well.’

The following week Israel Katz arranged for Noelle to go to the laboratory at the hospital. When the test results were returned two days later, he telephoned her at work. ‘You were right,’ he said. ‘You’re pregnant.’

‘I know.’

‘I’ve arranged for you to have a curettage at the hospital. I’ve told them that your husband was killed in an accident and that you are unable to have the baby. We’ll do the operation next Saturday.’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Is Saturday a bad day for you?’

‘I’m not ready for the abortion yet, Israel. I just wanted to know that I could count on you to help me.’

Madame Rose noticed the change in Noelle, not merely a physical change, but something that went much deeper, a radiance, an inner glow that seemed to fill her. Noelle walked around with a constant smile, as though hugging some wonderful secret.

‘You have found a lover,’ Madame Rose said. ‘It shows in your eyes.’

Noelle nodded. ‘Yes, Madame.’

‘He is good for you. Hold onto him.’

‘I will,’ Noelle promised. ‘As long as I can.’

Three weeks later Israel Katz telephoned her. ‘I haven’t heard from you,’ he said. ‘I was wondering if you had forgotten?’

‘No,’ Noelle said. ‘I think of it all the time.’

‘How do you feel?’

‘Wonderful.’

‘I’ve been looking at the calendar. I think that we had better go to work.’

‘I’m not ready yet,’ Noelle said.

Three weeks passed before Israel Katz telephoned her again.

‘How about having dinner with me?’ he asked.

‘All right.’

They arranged to meet at a cheap café on the rue de Chat Qui Peche. Noelle had started to suggest a better restaurant when she remembered what Israel had said about interns not having much money.

He was waiting for her when she arrived. They chatted aimlessly through dinner and it was not until the coffee arrived that Israel discussed what was on his mind.

‘Do you still want to have the abortion?’ he asked.

Noelle looked at him in surprise. ‘Of course.’

‘Then you must have it right away. You’re more than two months pregnant.’

She shook her head. ‘No, not yet, Israel.’

‘Is this your first pregnancy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then let me tell you something, Noelle. Up until three months, an abortion is usually an easy matter. The embryo has not been fully formed and all you need is a simple curettage, but after three months’ – he hesitated – ‘it’s another kind of operation, and it becomes dangerous. The longer you wait, the more dangerous it becomes. I want you to have the operation now.’

Noelle leaned forwards. ‘What’s the baby like?’

‘Now?’ He shrugged. ‘Just a lot of cells. Of course, all the nuclei are there to form a complete human being.’

‘And after three months?’

‘The embryo starts to become a person.’

‘Can it feel things?’

‘It responds to blows and loud noises.’

She sat there, her eyes locked onto his. ‘Can it feel pain?’

‘I suppose so. But it is protected with an amniotic sac.’ He suddenly felt an uneasy stirring. ‘It would be pretty hard for anything to hurt it.’

Noelle lowered her eyes and sat staring at the table, silent and thoughtful.

Israel Katz studied her a moment and then said shyly, ‘Noelle, if you want to keep this baby and are afraid to because it will have no father … well, I would be willing to marry you and give the baby a name.’

She looked up in surprise. ‘I have already told you. I don’t want this baby. I want to have an abortion.’

‘Then, for Christ’s sake, have it!’ Israel shouted. He lowered his voice as he realized that other patrons were staring at him. ‘If you wait much longer, there isn’t a doctor in France who will do it. Don’t you understand? If you wait too long, you could die!’

‘I understand,’ Noelle said quietly. ‘If I were going to have this baby, what kind of diet would you put me on?’

He ran his fingers through his hair, bewildered. ‘Lots of milk and fruit, lean meat.’

That night on her way home Noelle stopped at the corner market near her apartment and bought two quarts of milk and a large box of fresh fruit.

Ten days later Noelle went into Madame Rose’s office and told her that she was pregnant and asked for a leave of absence.

‘For how long?’ Madame Rose asked, eyeing Noelle’s figure.

‘Six or seven weeks.’

Madame Rose sighed. ‘Are you sure what you are doing is the best thing?’

‘I’m sure,’ Noelle replied.

‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Very well. Come back to me as soon as you can. I will ask the cashier to give you an advance on your salary.’

‘Thank you, Madame.’

For the next four weeks Noelle never left her apartment, except to buy groceries. She felt no hunger and ate very little for herself, but she drank enormous quantities of milk for the baby and crammed her body with fruit. She was not alone in the apartment. The baby was with her and she talked to him constantly. She knew it was a boy just as she had known she was pregnant. She had named him Larry.

‘I want you to grow to be big and strong,’ she said as she drank her milk. ‘I want you to be healthy … healthy and strong when you die.’ She lay in bed every day plotting her vengeance against Larry and his son. What was in her body was not a part of her. It belonged to him and she was going to kill it. It was the only thing of his that he had left her, and she was going to destroy it just as he had tried to destroy her.

How little Israel Katz had understood her! She was not interested in a formless embryo that knew nothing. She wanted Larry’s spawn to feel what was going to happen to him, to suffer, as she had suffered. The wedding dress was hanging near her bed now, always in sight, a talisman of evil, a reminder of his betrayal. First, Larry’s son, then Larry.

The phone rang often, but Noelle lay in bed, lost in her dreams until it stopped. She was sure that it was Israel Katz trying to reach her.

One evening there was a pounding on the door. Noelle lay in bed, ignoring it, but finally when the pounding continued, she dragged herself up and opened the door.

Israel Katz was standing there, his face filled with concern. ‘My God, Noelle, I’ve been calling you for days.’

He looked at her bulging stomach. ‘I thought you might have had it done somewhere else.’

She shook her head. ‘No. You’re going to do it.’

Israel stared at her. ‘Haven’t you understood anything I told you? It’s too late! No one’s going to do it.’

He saw the empty bottles of milk and the fresh fruit on the table, then looked back at her. ‘You do want the baby,’ he said. ‘Why won’t you admit it?’

‘Tell me, Israel, what’s he like now?’

‘Who?’

‘The baby. Does he have eyes and ears? Does he have fingers and toes? Can he feel pain?’

‘For Christ’s sake, Noelle, stop it. You talk as if … as if …’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ He shook his head in despair. ‘I don’t understand you.’

She smiled softly. ‘No. You don’t.’

He stood there a moment, making up his mind.

‘All right, I’m putting my ass in a sling for you, but if you’re really determined to have an abortion, let’s get it over with. I have a doctor friend who owes me a favour. He’ll …’

‘No.’

He stared at her.

‘Larry’s not ready yet,’ she said.

Three weeks later at four o’clock in the morning, Israel Katz was awakened by a furious concierge pounding on his door. ‘Telephone, Monsieur Night Owl!’ he yelled. ‘And tell your caller that it is the middle of the night, when respectable people are asleep!’

Israel stumbled out of bed and sleepily made his way down the hall to the telephone, wondering what crisis had arisen. He picked up the receiver.

‘Israel?’

He did not recognize the voice at the other end of the phone.

‘Yes?’

‘Now …’ It was a whisper, disembodied and anonymous.

‘Who is this?’

‘Now. Come now, Israel …’

There was an eeriness to the voice, an unearthly quality that sent a chill down his spine. ‘Noelle?’

‘Now …’

‘For Christ’s sake,’ he exploded. ‘I won’t do it. It’s too late. You’ll die, and I’m not going to be responsible. Get yourself to a hospital.’

There was a click in his ear, and he stood there holding the phone. He slammed the receiver and went back to his room, his mind churning. He knew that he could not do any good now, no one could. She was five and a half months pregnant. He had warned her time and time again, but she had refused to listen. Well, it was her responsibility. He wanted to have no part of it.

He began to dress as fast as he could, his bowels cold with fear.

When Israel Katz walked into her apartment, Noelle was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, hemorrhaging. Her face was dead white, but it showed no sign of the agony that must have been racking her body. She was wearing what appeared to be a wedding dress. Israel knelt at her side. ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘How did —?’ He stopped, as his eyes fell on a bloody, twisted wire coat hanger near her feet.

‘Jesus Christ!’ He was filled with a rage and at the same time a terrible frustrating feeling of helplessness. The blood was pouring out faster now, there was not a moment to lose.

‘I’ll call an ambulance,’ and he started to rise.

Noelle reached up and grabbed his arm with surprising strength, and pulled him back down to her.

‘Larry’s baby is dead,’ she said, and her face was lit with a beautiful smile.

A team of six doctors worked for five hours trying to save Noelle’s life. The diagnosis was septic poisoning, perforated womb, blood poisoning and shock. All the doctors agreed that there was little chance that she could live. By six o’clock that night Noelle was out of danger and two days later, she was sitting up in bed able to talk. Israel came to see her.

‘All the doctors say that it is a miracle you’re alive, Noelle.’

She shook her head. It was simply not her time to die. She had taken her first vengeance on Larry, but it was only the beginning. There was more to come. Much more. But first she had to find him. It would take time. But she would do it.