Free The Obedient Assassin: A Novel by John P. Davidson Page B

mother, that I’m very close to her. I’ve always done everything I could to please her.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œYou must understand that the world I come from is very different than yours. We aren’t free the way you are. What your father did could never happen in Brussels. We’re always aware of the past. History guides us in everything. We always feel this obligation to family.”
    â€œYes, I think I understand.”
    â€œWhen I was younger, too young to know better, my parents selected a girl for me to marry. Yes, Sylvia, it is still done that way. The girl wasn’t from the nobility, but my parents wanted an alliance with her family for business reasons. She is a very nice girl but not interesting, at least not to me.”
    He studied his hands resting on the table before him, then took a cigarette from his case and lit it. “Well, I did what my parents wanted and married her. I tried to please everyone, but in the end I couldn’t.” He smiled sadly. “Here, the civilized thing would be to take a mistress. Marriage is about family and property. Romance is something else. But I want to be loved for myself and to love someone who understands me. That’s why I’m here in Paris.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œI’ve asked for a divorce, but she refuses and my parents have taken her side. They say I’m being immature, that I have to keep my end of the bargain.”
    â€œYour end of the bargain?”
    â€œYes, that’s how they think.”
    â€œAre there children?”
    â€œNo. If there were I could never leave. And meeting someone like you, someone who is free, I now realize that I must.”
    â€œYou can’t stay married to a woman you don’t love. Your parents have to understand. They can’t stop you, can they?”
    â€œThey can stop the money,” he replied.
    â€œYou’re still young. You’re well educated. You can start a career.”
    â€œYou don’t know what it’s like for us here in Europe, so burdened by the past, history, hemmed in by all of these traditions. Change , start —those are not words that mean the same thing for us. We see life in a different way.”
    â€œBut if you’re unhappy then you must change. There are always exceptions. We only have this one life. We have so little time, we have to make the best of it.”
    He placed his right hand over her left and gripped it. “Sylvia, I’m so glad I’ve met you.”

ELEVEN
    I t gives your appearance a bit of dash,” Jacques said, studying Sylvia’s reflection in the mirror. He’d selected a small straw hat, lacquered white, that sat jauntily to the right side of her head.
    â€œYou don’t think it looks like a plate?” She smiled.
    â€œNo, not at all. It is the size of the smaller one. The saucer.”
    He turned to the saleswoman and started speaking rapidly in French. Sylvia understood the words drôle , gamine , mignonne . For Jacques, it seemed only natural to take Sylvia shopping. Sylvia knew nothing about fashion, and he’d had spent so much time listening to the girls at the cafés talk about clothes, he could guide her to the right shoes, the perfect belt. He’d taken her to a hairdresser for a stylish short cut, and, with his guidance, she’d started tying a small silk scarf round her neck and rolling up the short sleeves of her blouses the way she’d seen boys do.
    â€œYes, the hat gives you flair,” he pronounced, taking out his billfold, the saleswoman nodding in agreement.
    Sylvia’s friends staying at the Hotel St. Germain noticed the handsome, well-dressed Frenchman arriving each morning at eleven, bringing Sylvia’s mail from the American Express office. He would smoke a cigarette while he waited for her, then escort her out to the black Citroën to whisk her away.
    Imagining she would hear brilliant speeches and debates, Sylvia had come