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.Rick opened it with a loud pop of the cork and poured for us both.“I would have thought the Germans had looted all the good wine,” I said between sips.“They left in a hurry,” Rick said, without taking his eyes from the doorway.He was expecting a ghost, I thought.She’d been haunting him all these years, and now he expected her to come through that doorway and smile at him and take up life with him just where they’d left it the day the Germans marched into Paris.Four years.We had both intended to join De Gaulle’s forces when we’d left Casablanca, but once the Americans got into the war Rick disappeared like a puff of smoke.I ran into him again by sheer chance in London, shortly before D-day.He was in the uniform of the U.S.Army, a major in their intelligence service, no less.“I’ll buy you a drink in La Belle Aurore,” he told me when we’d parted, after a long night of brandy and reminiscences at the Savoy bar.Two weeks later I was back on the soil of France at last, with the Free French army.Now, in August, we were both in Paris once again.Through the open windows behind him I could hear music from the street; not martial brass bands, but the whining, wheezing melodies of a concertina.Paris was becoming Paris again.Abruptly, Rick got to his feet, an expression on his face that I’d never seen before.He looked … surprised, almost.I turned in my chair and swiftly rose to greet her as she walked slowly toward us, smiling warmly, wearing the same blue dress that Rick had described to me so often.“You’re here,” she said, looking past me, her smile, her eyes, only for him.He shrugged almost like a Frenchman.“Where else would I be?”He came around the table, past me.She kissed him swiftly, lightly on the lips.It was affectionate, but not passionate.Rick helped her slip onto the bench behind the table and then slid in beside her.I would have expected him to smile at her, but his expression was utterly serious.She said hello to me at last, as Henri brought another glass to the table.“Well,” I said as I sat down, “this is like old times, eh?”Rick nodded.Ilsa murmured, “Old times.”I saw that there was a plain gold band on her finger.I’m certain that Rick noticed it, too.“Perhaps I should be on my way,” I said.“You two must have a lot to talk about.”“Oh no, don’t leave,” she said, actually reaching across the table toward me.“I…” She glanced at Rick.“I can’t stay very long, myself.”I looked at Rick.“It’s all right, Louie,” he said.He filled her glass and we all raised them and clinked.“Here’s … to Paris,” Rick toasted.“To Paris,” Ilsa repeated.I mumbled it, too.Now that I had the chance to study her face, I saw that the war years had changed her, as well.She was still beautiful, with the kind of natural loveliness that other women would kill to possess.Yet where she had been fresh and innocent in the old days, now she looked wearier, warier, more determined.“I saw Sam last year,” she said.“Oh?”“In New York.He was playing in a nightclub.”Rick nodded.“Good for Sam.He got home.”Then silence stretched between them until it became embarrassing.These two had so much to say to each other, yet neither of them was speaking.I knew I should go, but they both seemed to want me to remain.Unable to think of anything else to say, I asked, “How on Earth did you ever get into Paris?”Ilsa smiled a little.“I’ve been working with the International Red Cross … in London.”“And Victor?” Rick asked.There.It was out in the open now.“He’s been in Paris for the past month.”“Still working with the Resistance.” It wasn’t a question.“Yes.” She took another sip of champagne, then said, “We have a child, you know.”Rick’s face twitched into an expression halfway between a smile and a grimace.“She’ll be three in December.”“A Christmas baby,” Rick said.“Lucky kid.”Ilsa picked up her glass, but put it down again without drinking from it.“Victor and I … we thought, well, after the war is over, we’d go back to Prague.”“Sure,” said Rick.“There’ll be so much to do,” Ilsa went on, almost whispering, almost pleading.“His work won’t be finished when the war ends.In a way, it will just be beginning.”“Yes,” I said, “that’s understandable.”Rick stared into his glass and said nothing.“What will you do when the war’s over?” she asked him.Rick looked up at her.“I never make plans that far ahead.”Ilsa nodded.“Oh, yes.I see.”“Well,” I said, “I’m thinking about going into politics, myself.”With a wry grin, Rick said, “You’d be good at it, Louie.Perfect.”She took another brief sip of champagne, then said, “I’ll have to go now.”He answered, “Yeah, I figured.”“He’s my husband, Rick.”“Right.And a great man.We all know that.”Ilsa closed her eyes for a moment.“I wanted to see you, Richard,” she said, her tone suddenly different, urgent, the words coming out all in a rush.“I wanted to see that you were all right.That you’d made it through the war all right.”“I’m fine,” he said, his voice flat and cold and final.He got up from the bench and helped her come out from behind the table.She hesitated just a fraction of a second, clinging to his arm for a heartbeat.Then she said, “Good-bye, Rick.”“Good-bye, Ilsa.”I thought there would be tears in her eyes, but they were dry and unwavering.“I’ll never see you again, will I?”“It doesn’t look that way.”“It’s … sad.”He shook his head.“We’ll always have Paris.Most poor chumps don’t even get that much.”She barely nodded at me, then walked swiftly to the door and was gone.Rick blew out a gust of air and sat down again.“Well, that’s over
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