The Silver Goblet
Dust-cloth in hand, Marie picks up the antique silver goblet and wipes it, admiring the delicate engraving of waves and curls on the bowl. Canned laughter blares from the TV in the living room, but Marie pays no attention. She reminisces about the story of the beautiful goblet in her hand, an heirloom Grand-Mère brought from France after World War II. It was an antique even then, passed down for generations and rescued from the old ancestral home when the Nazis occupied France. Marie always suspected Grand-Mère worked with the Resistance, and though she never said it outright, Grand-Mère always dropped brief hints and allusions that only made sense later in history class.
Grand-Mère left France with nothing but the family diamonds sewn into the hem of her undergarments, and the one thing she never parted with: the silver goblet. Grand-Mère always said the goblet reminded her of the beloved brother she left behind and lost to the war. When pressed, Grand-Mère offered no further explanation.
The slamming screen door interrupts Marie’s reverie, and she glances up from the silver goblet as her son, Eric, shuffles towards the living room. He offers no help to clean the house, and slumps with a loud thud on the couch in the front of the TV, which Marie switched on for mere background noise in the silent house.
She shakes her head, expecting Eric’s Xbox to blare. Her cheerful child is now a morose and bumbling teenager. Marie suspects a girl’s involvement, but he has clammed up as tight as Grand-Mère did about the Resistance and losing her beloved brother. Like Grand-Mère, Eric also drops hints and intimations now and again.
Marie finishes dusting the dining room. The TV booms what sounds like a movie. Marie pauses and listens; Eric only plays video games. Wasn’t it playing a sitcom?
Marie creeps into the living room, perplexed, and stands behind the couch; her son stares at the TV, enthralled.
“What are you watching?” Marie asks.
“I don’t know,” Eric shrugs, “this was already on when I sat down.”
Marie focuses on the screen, which plays a black-and-white movie in French.
“I thought you hate old movies,” Marie asks.
“Well, this one’s pretty good.”
“What’s it about?”
“The rich girl is a member of the French Resistance, but the Nazis arrested her best friend and sent her away to a concentration camp. She’s trying to find out who blew the whistle, because the friend was hiding in her house.”
Marie sits down beside her son, who does not move away. She watches the movie, and marvels at how much the young actress reminds her of Grand-Mère. The scene takes place in a lavish living room, where the actress sits deep in thought.
A door slams, and a young man enters the scene. The actor and the actress look very much alike, and Marie is about to say something when she notices the swastika wrapped around the young man’s arm.
“Huh,” Eric snorts, “the brother’s a Nazi? Didn’t see that coming.”
The young woman in the movie raises her eyebrows, and her face lights up with sudden realization. She ponders something for a moment, then offers the young man a drink. He nods, and she pours wine into a goblet. The young man drinks it, then chokes while the young woman looks on with tears in her eyes. Gasping for air, the Nazi slumps back onto the high chair, his eyes roll backwards, and then dies. The goblet falls from his hand and the camera zooms into it as it rolls on the marble floor.
Marie gasps, and Eric looks stunned.
“Isn’t that Grand-Mère’s…?” He stammers and points to the living room.
They gaze past the threshold and at the silver goblet taking pride of place on the dining room display cabinet.
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