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A filling meal, a hot bath, shampoo: such were her newfound luxuries. Thinking about the life ahead of her, Etta looked forward to the prospect of going to a movie or attending the theater all by herself; solitude, which had been such a misery when her husband died, now seemed another luxury, having been denied her for so long. While she was waiting for the Drottningholm to set sail, one of the officials from the American consulate had suggested to Etta that she was the Edith Cavell of this war—Edith Cavell being the English nurse who had helped Allied soldiers to escape from occupied Belgium during the First World War. The man had meant it sincerely, and had been kind in his intentions, but Etta couldn't accept the sentiment. For her bravery, Cavell had been executed by a German firing squad, whereas she, Etta, was sailing home safely, eating roast chicken and potatoes with gleaming silverware, a snow-white linen napkin on her lap. If anyone was the new Edith Cavell (in the coming months she would insist on this over and over, though hardly anyone seemed to be listening), it was her friend Kitty, like Cavell an English worker for the Red Cross in occupied territory: Kitty, whose firm voice and imperious manner could intimidate even Nazi border guards; Kitty, who hummed to herself as she assembled a package of chocolate and silk stockings to bribe a German officer; Kitty, whose beautiful slender hands, the last time Etta saw her, were pitted with the dark craters of cigarette burns.

*  *  *

Kate Bonnefous—"Kitty" to her friends—was nine years younger than Etta; born Kate Robins into a prosperous English family, she had married a French wine merchant named Henri Bonnefous in 1926 and opened a small dress shop in Paris's ninth arrondissement. That was where Etta first met her, on one of her yearly trips to France, and almost immediately the two became close friends. At the time Etta was living on the Upper East Side of New York with her husband, Bill, and her cousin Irving, but in 1933 Irving died from a chronic heart condition, and three years later, William Shiber, too, died of a heart attack. Suddenly Etta was all alone in that New York apartment, consumed by grief, thrown for the first time upon herself. She would later write that she had always depended on Bill and Irving to look out for her, "and without them I was lost." The following year, Kate wired Etta suggesting that they live together in Paris, and Etta immediately accepted; it was there that the two women intended to spend the remainder of their lives.

Between Etta's savings and the trust left Kate by her father, they seemed to have everything they could need. Their apartment was not far from Parc Monceau, where they walked their three beloved cocker spaniels; they browsed books and old magazines at the stalls run by the bouquinistes along the Seine, haunted the city's antiques shops and flea markets. The two women were intelligent and well-read, and they shared a love of food and wine and all things Parisian. In personality, though, they were very different: Kate was sociable where Etta was retiring, self-confident where Etta was anxious, daring where Etta was cautious. To anyone who knew Etta Shiber, she was about the last person who would be the subject of the biographical index card that the Associated Press made for her:

Is second American woman to be held by Nazis in France, 13/12/40[*] 

Taken into custody by Germans in occupied France, 14/12/40 

Released by Germans after arrest in Paris, 24/12/40 

Arrested again in Paris; charged with "escape" plot, 14/2/41

All of that, however, had indeed happened to her (in fact she was the first American woman to be held by the Nazis in France, not the second), and any time Etta was asked about it, she confessed to being more astonished than anyone else.

*  *  *

It was almost eight in the morning when the Drottningholm docked at Pier F in Jersey City. Despite wartime restrictions the pier was crowded with some three hundred guests, on hand to see their loved ones after so long, and the scene assumed a festive atmosphere as the excited relatives pressed close to the railing, waving at the ship, straining to catch a glimpse of a familiar face. Newsreel cameramen from Paramount and The March of Time carefully positioned and repositioned their tripods, seeking the best vantage point to capture the moments of reunion; longshoremen hauled down luggage from the ship as if it were a day's catch from the sea, in giant nets. For more than an hour the disembarkation was unaccountably delayed, and the anticipatory clamor of the relatives on shore began to give way to a murmur of impatience and bewilderment as they stood waiting in the drizzle; then without warning the rope at the top of the gangway was unhooked and the crowd hushed, as at the raising of a theater curtain, and the first passenger stepped out. This was Adm. William D. Leahy, the United States ambassador to Vichy, who had been summoned to Washington for a consultation with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Unlike that of the other passengers, the admiral's voyage had been an especially sorrowful one, as he was bringing with him the body of his wife, who had died just a few days before the departure from France. A Navy honor guard stood at attention as the black-shrouded casket was placed in a hearse; then the admiral, silent and ashen-faced, got into the car waiting to carry him to Pennsylvania Station.