She opened the wardrobe and took it out, running her hand along the skirt out of habit, the black satin pooling in her fingers. She put it on, the white bodice covered with delicate and lovely lace, the scooped back reminding her of the Jessica May in the magazine photos she’d once been, the nipped-in waist underscoring the fact that rations were not enough to subsist on for very long, the skirt dropping like midnight into a long train that would most likely be crushed and torn by the boots of the GIs who came to the party.

She would wear it anyway and she would smile and behind the lipstick she would hide the fact that every night when she lay down, she had to first drink enough whiskey so that the images before her eyes blurred into indistinction.

Hemingway came, along with all the correspondents in Paris. He took up a place on the balcony among the jerry cans of fuel and waited with a bottle of whiskey for everyone to pay homage to him, which Mary Welsh was still doing. Marty rolled her eyes at Hemingway and danced with James Gavin, the divisional commander who’d caught more than her eye. Picasso and Simone de Beauvoir strolled in; Jess’s currency as a model and her past relationship with Emile—who’d thankfully given up his accreditation pass and, even though he was now living in Paris, knew well enough not to come—was enough to make sure that if she was having a party, most of one slice of Paris would hear about it and come along.

Then came the GIs, not just from Dan’s battalion but others she and Martha had met over the past eighteen months. The tiny room was thick with bodies and she could see that was all part of the appeal, the press of flesh to flesh, a dance and a kiss and who knew where it might lead. Because they all had a reason to seek oblivion, to erase, for just one night, the awful press of knowledge that Allied victories didn’t erase the abominable things that had already been done.

To help the mood, the gramophone played French jazz, the lights were off, the room was lit by candles, and Jess had found some vermouth, which she’d used to make a Manhattan; a Manhattan wasn’t champagne and it wasn’t schnapps and therefore it couldn’t remind her of war. But as for everything else…

She leaned her back against the door, holding the almost empty Manhattan by the rim, the glass resting against her leg. The door behind her opened suddenly, propelling her forward, knocking the remaining liquid from her glass.

She turned around and saw Dan.

“Oh, it’s only you,” he said, then shook his head. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I just meant…”

“That you’re glad it’s not someone who’ll make a fuss about being knocked over by a door and having vermouth spilt on her one fine dress.”

“You’ve never made a fuss about anything even though you’ve had more cause than most.” There it was, a veiled reference to what they’d seen and he smiled at her but she could see it was an action rather than a sentiment. That he’d forgotten how to be happy.