Once More Unto the Breach

by Meghan Holloway

  I hurried after him, breaking into a run. When I turned the corner and caught sight of him again, I started to call out. The way the man moved, though, caught my attention and stilled my voice.

  He was, as the nurse had said, neither tall nor short, thick nor thin. He was indistinct aside from the hat, moving with the flow of people. He did not meander along, but neither did he rush. He pace was measured, but it was purposeful enough that I could tell he had a destination in mind. He lifted the hat from his head and held it in his hand by his side. After a few steps, he causally dropped it on a doorstep without ever altering his pace.

  I followed him. I kept well back, knowing my height set me apart from the crowd on the walk, and did not allow my gaze to rest on him for more than an occasional, sporadic second. He continued east, away from the river, into the same area from which I had just returned.

  The crowd thinned to nothing, and I hung back, ducking into the recess of an entryway when he stopped and spoke to a woman. Their exchange lasted only moments, but when he continued, she fell into step beside him. She was gaunt to the point that her dress hung from her shoulders like a quilt draped over a sagging line to dry. I could tell no more about her from this distance.

  I kept a street corner between us as I followed the pair, and within a kilometer, I watched from a narrow alley between buildings as he led the woman into a shop.

  It appeared abandoned, vandalized and on its way to becoming derelict. I studied the building, noting that there were more windows on the second floor. Perhaps an office or apartments. It reminded me of the shop with the red awning on Rue Pavée in Paris. How long ago that seemed, I wondered.

  There was no movement on the street around the shop, no shadows moving before the windows on the upper floor. I slid my hand within my shirt, eased the Luger from the holster at my side, and checked the box magazine. It was full. I kept a careful eye on the building as I crossed the street. The façade was abutted on either side by two taller buildings. I did not know if there were a back entrance, but I did not care to delay and find out.

  I checked the door and eased it open when I found it unlocked. It swung soundlessly on its hinges. The smell of staleness and dust greeted me in the dark, and I nudged the door closed behind me.

  I dropped into a crouch in the entryway. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. All was quiet, and the shadows within gradually took shape and revealed themselves to be overturned shelves. I straightened and crept along the wall, glass crunching underfoot, gaze darting along the darkness.

  I froze when I heard movement, the creak of footfall, but as I strained to hear, I realized it came from upstairs. I eyed the ceiling, listening closely to the footsteps, hearing a murmur of voices I could not distinguish.

  And then the screaming began.

  19 May 1944

  Dear Nhad,

  I’m to be a father, I am.

  -Owain

  xxiv

  Henri

  He was awake when I returned from inquiring about the woman. It had been a risk, going back to the hospital, but her condition concerned me. I thought of Mila and pressed my hand to where the cigar box rested over my heart in my shirt pocket.

  I was relieved to hear Owain’s wife was recovering. That she had been found by her husband’s father did not surprise me. He had struck me as a tenacious man.

  There was a careful, subtle flex in Owain’s forearms, and I knew he was testing the bonds where I had tied him to the chair. He studied me, his one eye squinting and then going wide as recognition swept over his battered face.

  “I thought you were dead.” His voice was raw and sounded as if it were being dragged over glass and barbed wire on its way out of his throat.

  “I did as well for a time.” I rubbed my chest and could feel the knotted scar under my palm. I had always liked this boy. I knew he had been suspicious of me. He was intelligent, though, fearless and honorable but biddable and naïve. Or so I thought until he had put a bullet close to my heart in a shadowed attic two years ago. I felt no ill will toward him. Men killed one another all the time, especially in war. Our opinions simply did not align over what was worth killing for. “Lucky for me, your aim is not perfect.”

  His chuckle was a wheeze of air. “I always knew you were not what you claimed.”

  “You did, and I can respect that.” I drew my chair closer until our knees touched. “But I need you to tell me what you know now.”

  His one eye was bloodshot, but it met mine evenly. “You will get no more from me than they.”

  I studied him. “I believe that. You are tougher than they gave you credit for, I imagine. And I am not so much the animal Klaus is, so I will not make you watch what is done to her.”

  His eye went wide, and he yanked at the rope bindings. “No. No. You said she was safe.” His chin trembled. “Please.”

  I stood and walked to the door. “And she will be, once you tell me what I need to know.” I opened the door and leaned my head out. “Proceed.”

  The screaming was painful to hear, but even more so was Owain’s. He howled like a ferocious animal, fighting his bonds so fiercely his chair tipped over. His head bounced against the floor and still he struggled. I could not blame him. I would have been just as wild had it been Mila.

  “Stop!” It was a roar that tore from him so violently I started. “Stop. I will tell you. I will tell you anything you want to know. Just please…” His voice broke. “Please do not hurt her anymore.”

  “Very well.” I retrieved the sack I had left by the door and exited the room. The young woman standing down the hall cut off mid-scream when she saw me. “Perfect performance, mademoiselle.”

  “Is that all? Do I still get paid?” Desperation was plain in her gaunt, sallow face.

  “Oui, bien sûr.” I handed her the sack of food I had taken from the farmhouse, pity piercing me when she clutched it to her chest and scurried away as if I would snatch it back from her.

  When I returned to the room, Owain’s head sagged against the floor, his breathing ragged. I heaved his chair upright and helped him take a drink of water from a canteen. He drank too quickly and choked, and I returned to the chair across from him, waiting until he calmed and regained his breath.

  “That was to gain your attention and ensure your cooperation.”

  He lifted his head, and I almost recoiled at the look in his eye. Gone was the boy I had known at the beginning of the war, when he was naïve but seeking purpose. Instead, a man stared back at me, gaze hard with resolve and tempered with an underlying steel the last years had forged. “You are one of them, then.”

  “German, yes. But I am not part of the Gestapo. I leave that to lesser men. Their concerns are not mine.”

  His face was blank. “If their concerns are not yours, then I do not understand what you wish to know.”

  “About the paintings!” I leaned forward. “The paintings from the attic where you shot me. Where are they?”

  “The paintings?”

  The confusion in his voice frustrated me, and I shoved my chair back to stand and pace. “There were three, all by Caspar David Friedrich. One was his final black painting. I need to know where they are.”

  He stared at me and realization slowly dawned across his face. A smile pulled at the gash on his swollen lip. Blood dripped down his chin. “They are still in the attic.”

  It was my turn to stare. “You did not take them.”

  “No. I left them. I had to get the children to safety.”

  I studied him. “You worked tirelessly to keep those collections out of Nazi control. And now you would just give me these pieces?”

  “My wife, the baby she carries.” His throat worked as he glanced toward the door. “They are all I care about now. Art means nothing to me.”

  “Art is the only thing that survives,” I said absently as I crossed to the window. I peered out at the roofline of Lyon. I had searched every hidden storehouse in Par
is, but I had never thought to return to that attic. I threw my head back and laughed. “Was für ein Trottel!”

  7 June 1944

  Dear Nhad,

  Word of what has transpired at Normandy has reached Paris.

  An uprising is being organized even now.

  -Owain

  xxv

  There was an undercurrent in the screams, a second, lower voice that sounded tortured past the limits of humanity. It raised the hair at the back of my neck.

  “Stop!”

  The shout was loud enough, forceful enough to thunder through the entire building. It reverberated through me.

  The screaming went suddenly silent, but the echo of it pulsed in my ears. Footsteps fell hollowly above me, and a murmur of voices drifted down from the floor above.

  I edged toward the stairs but fell back into the shadows when I heard a clatter of descent.

  The young woman rushed into view. She looked no worse for wear than she had when the man approached her on the street. She clutched a bundle to her chest, fumbling within as she tripped through the shop and out onto the street.

  I waited for several moments, watching the stairs. No one appeared, and I could still hear a murmur of voices. The timber of one made my heart knock painfully and forcefully in my chest, but I took the stairs with care. I ascended slowly, cautious of any creaks in the wood, gaze watchful on the space above me.

  The second floor was better lit than the one below. Five doors led off of the hall, and low light spilled through the thresholds. Dust and the flotsam of interrupted lives littered the seams of the hallway and the corners of the apartments. I stayed close to the wall, glancing into each small, deserted home as I passed, gaze continually darting to the doorway at the end of the hall.

  It stood ajar, and though the voices were low, I could distinguish two. Both male. One so familiar I almost forgot to breathe.

  I placed my feet cautiously with each step. My heartbeat was cacophonous in my ears, and each breath seemed to have the force of a gale.

  The apartments were all empty, save for the last one. I stayed in a slant of shadow, angled to peer between the gap in the door. I could just make out the edge of a bandaged profile. A young man sat canted to one side, held into the chair by the rope binding his arms to the back and his legs to the feet.

  “Art is the only thing that survives.”

  The English words spoken by the other man gave me pause. I could only see a shadow of his movement as he paced away from the young man held captive. The voice held no discernible accent, and the tone was strangely courteous.

  The sudden burst of laughter startled me, and I took the risk of easing the door open a few breaths more. Only two men occupied the room. The man I had followed from the hospital stood across the apartment at the window, his head thrown back with the force of his guffaws.

  His next words were undeniably German.

  I stepped from the shadows into the doorway and leveled the Luger at him. When he turned, still chuckling, I fired a carefully aimed bullet into his chest.

  19 July 1944

  Dear Nhad,

  If the war draws to a close, I will be able to finish my work here.

  Home calls to me.

  -Owain

  xxvi

  Henri

  I turned back to Owain, still chuckling, and the bullet caught me in the chest. Almost in the same spot Owain had shot me, I thought as I fell. The bullet pierced the cigar box, and I imagined I felt the splinters being driven deep into my heart. I reeled back into the wall and slid down, the world tilting on its axis. My vision wavered, blurred, but I blinked and for a moment was able to focus.

  The man I had seen in Paris and followed across France rushed into the room and knelt at Owain’s side. Light from the window spilled over the pair as the father cupped the back of his son’s head in his hand and pressed their foreheads together.

  I slipped my hand into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around Gerhardt’s collar. I smiled, and my breath was a gurgle in my chest. It was like a painting, the scene before me, and I hoped I remembered it.

  2 August 1944

  Dear Nhad,

  You spoke the truth.

  It does not matter what a man believes himself to be.

  In times of war, we are all soldiers. Sometimes violence is necessary.

  It is simply a matter of finding what you believe is worth defending.

  -Owain

  xxvii

  I did not pause to watch the German fall. I rushed into the room and knelt by the side of the young man tied to the chair. “Owain.” The word felt as if it cracked my chest wide open. “Machgen i.”

  He stared at me. Half of his face was swaddled in bandage that had a spreading yellow and russet stain centered around where his eye was hidden. His uncovered eye held an expression of disbelief. “Nhad.” His whisper, weak voice filled with hope and uncertainty, felt like a benediction.

  His eye slid closed, and a tear escaped from the corner to slide over the pulp of his raw, battered face. I cupped the back of his head in my hand and pressed my forehead to his.

  I eased him upright in the chair and drew the knife from my boot to slice away the rope binding my son. The breath left me when I caught sight of his ruined hands. My gaze jerked to the bandage on his face and the depression beneath the dressing. His clothing was tattered, ripped and bloodied, but there were clean dressings around his arm and leg. “What have they done to you, machgen i?” The words were a breath of sound, raw and shaken. Only the foolishness of wasting bullets kept me from unloading the Luger into the body of the dead man across the room.

  I tucked the pistol back in its holster. There was an unfurling in my chest, a loosening of a years-long vice, even as the pain and rage over what had been done to him was as sharp as a splinter driven into my heart.

  He tensed. “Sévèrin—”

  The import of the screaming hit me, and I glanced at the fallen German. A slight smile still lingered on the dead man’s face. “Is well. Both she and the babe. They are in a hospital nearby and have been for days now.”

  He sagged against me, his forehead dropping to my shoulder. The breath that escaped him shuddered with a sob as I wrapped him tightly in my arms. A tremor coursed through the both of us, and I was not certain if it originated in him or in me. I had found him. Broken and not left whole, but alive. And now, in my arms, he was safe. I passed a shaking hand over my face. My fingers came away damp.

  I draped him with care over my shoulder and gained my feet. I stood still for a moment, adjusting his heavy, welcome weight. My grip on him was secure and tight, and if need be, I would carry him like this all the way through this battered country across the sea to the hills blanketed in heather and skirted with sheep. “It is time to come home now.”

  27 August 1944

  Dear Nhad,

  I do not know if any of these letters will find their way home to you.

  I fear I will not find my way home either.

  I love you, Nhad. And I know even in your anger,

  you have always loved me.

  -Owain

  Epilogue

  Owain

  October 1945

  It was a challenge, coming home.

  Germany had surrendered to the Allies in May. Four of the ten children who had come to the farm with the evacuations from England had not received word from home yet. For now, for however long was needed, they were enfolded in the fabric of our family. My daughter made for the fifth Gravenor child. Aelwyd Charlotte. For the mother who remained in my mind as only a faint memory of warm hands and a soft smile. And for the woman who aided my father’s journey.

  Sometimes I was not certain if the pain Sévèrin and I had been forced to watch one another bear tethered us irrevocably together or drove an irreparable wedge between us. Perhaps it was both. Perhaps there was no return from witnessing unspeakable horrors done to the one you loved. Perhaps
there was no solace from the knowledge that neither of us had been able to save the other. Perhaps one day, if we lived long enough, we would be able to look at one another without seeing our suffering.

  Some nights, her touch was still tender and welcoming. We sought solace and forgetfulness in one another’s arms on those nights, and our second child would be born with the lambing in the spring.

  The war may have been declared over, but it still lived on for me. It was on the nights that the pain was too great between Sévèrin and I to allow us to touch one another that the war visited me with the most vehemence. I staved off sleep by roaming the starlit hills. And every time, my father fell into step beside me.

  He became my sanity’s lodestone, his presence quiet and stalwart and constant. There were times when my mind felt broken, times in which I wept and screamed. Times when it seemed as if I stepped outside of myself. Times in which the pain was as real and present as it had been back in the cell in Lyon. It was always his low voice and hand on my shoulder that brought me back.

  “Does it ever end, ever leave you?” My words had been pleading, voice raw.

  He cupped the back of my head in his hand, crouched beside me. “No, machgen i. But you learn to live with it and stay home in your mind more often than not.”

  I wept, hot with shame and shaken with remembered fear. He held me as if I were still a small boy.

  And when I would have allowed myself to waste away to bitterness and self-pity, he refused to allow it.

  “You are still strong, and you will not lie idle when there’s work to be done,” he said once at midday when he came in and found me still abed. “You may not be able to hold shears any longer, but you can manage everything else.”

  And so I did. I learned to work around my ruined hands and canted vision. Gradually, my strength returned. I found the more I breathed in the smell of river and moor, hills and heather, sheep and loyal dog, the less I smelled the memory of my own blood and sweat and fear. The more I worked in the hills at my father’s side, the quieter my mind became. He gave me the dignity and purpose to begin stitching myself back together again.