Sisters of the Resistance

by Christine Wells

  “That’s simple. I don’t believe that, and you know it.” He sent her a searing glance. “Do you think I don’t know you, Gabby? You take care of people. It’s what you always do.”

  “Oh, so you wanted to save me from this terrible sacrifice. Is that it? You made that decision for me, did you?”

  “You wouldn’t make it yourself.” He threw out a hand and his eyes were infinitely weary. “I want you to be free. My darling, I know it’s painful now. Believe me, I know. But you’ll find someone else.”

  Gabby felt like a volcano, long dormant, ready to erupt. “What if I don’t want anyone else? I haven’t found anyone in the past three years, have I? I will live out my days taking care of the tenants at number ten rue Royale if you won’t have me!” Even as she said the words, she realized how pathetic they sounded. How pathetic she must seem to him, sitting here, begging. She had abased herself last night and he had rejected her. Why was she doing it again?

  And then, suddenly, fire was shooting through her veins, steam rising, her chest expanding, all the suppressed rage that had hardened like rock inside her turned molten with the pressure and the heat. He was right! She was tired of looking after people, tired of accepting that her only value to another human being lay in what she could do for them. Her mother, Yvette, Jack—everyone had told her and told her she needed to stop, but she hadn’t listened. She’d needed to think of herself as that person. That kind, compassionate helper, the one they all could count on through thick and thin.

  She was done. No more. No more cleaning up other people’s messes. No more doing her mother’s work for her, no more reliable, dependable, doormat Gabby.

  She yanked off the scarf that seemed now to be strangling her and shot to her feet. “You know, Jack, you were wrong about me. I was wrong about me, too. I don’t want to take care of you. I don’t want you in this state. This pathetic, bitter weakling who won’t even try to do what it takes to make himself better so he can live as my husband and as my equal. That is not the Jack I fell in love with. It’s not the man I deserve. I don’t know who you are now, but I know that you were right. You’re not good enough for me. Not because you have this illness. But because you won’t even try to get better. Until you are prepared to do what it takes to deserve me, I don’t want you.”

  She’d leave today if she had to walk to the station. There was nothing for her here.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  England, February 1947

  YVETTE

  Morning sunlight limned the tattered blinds when Yvette woke, still tangled with Vidar, on the narrow bed. The room was icy, but he was solid and warm, and she trailed her fingertips over him, marveling at the places where his skin was unexpectedly soft. His arm lay across her torso, his head pressed into the crook of her neck. She breathed in the subtle scent of expensive cologne and the earthier smell of man. A fierce longing swept over her, and in its wake, a tenderness that could only spell disaster if she didn’t stamp it out.

  Suddenly, she was angry. At herself, more than at him. Vidar had never pretended she meant anything to him. Last night, she had followed her impulse, ignored the warnings of her brain, and headed straight for trouble, as she had always done in the past.

  Biting her lip, she tried to ease herself free. His eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright, instantly alert for trouble. After a couple of beats, his shoulders relaxed. “Sorry.” He looked down at her, his dark fringe shadowing his eyes, a rueful smile playing on his lips. Then he sobered. “Having regrets?”

  Leaning down, he kissed her forehead, then the vulnerable space behind her ear. “Let me make you forget all about them.” Sliding back beneath the covers, he pulled her against him. She yielded because she didn’t know when she might see him again, and besides, she wasn’t strong enough to deny herself the pleasure of his touch.

  Afterward, he seemed in a somber mood. He lay on his back, his feet sticking out beyond the edge of the small bed in an endearingly comical fashion. He lit a cigarette, offered her one, but she waved him away. “You know I don’t smoke.”

  “One doesn’t like to assume,” he said, “that things are the same with you as they were during the war.”

  Was that a probe about her level of experience with men? Inwardly, she smiled. “The truth is that we don’t know each other very well.”

  “We know the important things.” His chest expanded, held still, then he breathed out. “I think we should get married, don’t you?”

  She froze. She wanted to make jokes about honest women and such but she couldn’t speak.

  “Yvette? What do you think?” She heard the faint crackle of the cigarette as he drew on it. Her heart beat fast.

  After some time, she said, “I think that is a terrible idea. I don’t even know what you do for a living.”

  “Well, I’m a banker.” The last thing she would ever have imagined he would say. “In Berlin. But there might be a diplomatic posting at some stage.”

  “I thought you were still a spy.”

  When he didn’t answer, she looked up at him. “You are working right now, aren’t you? I should have known.”

  “At this very moment, no. But I have been in Germany, hunting the gang from the rue de la Pompe.”

  That was dangerous work. Those men would be like cornered rats, vicious and fighting to survive.

  He turned onto his side to face her and propped his head on his hand. “Don’t you see, Yvette? It makes sense. As my wife, you could do real intelligence work, the kind you dreamed of during the war.”

  Now she realized. He only meant to marry her as a means to an end, a kind of business partnership. “How do I know you wouldn’t treat me the way Louise did? Don’t diplomats’ wives have affairs and pass on pillow talk?”

  He regarded her steadily. “I think you know the answer to that.”

  His proposal had nothing to do with love. She sat up and reached for her robe, pulled it on. “I’m afraid I must decline your flattering offer,” she said, yanking the belt tight. “My life is in Paris with Dior. I could not go with you to Berlin, or to whatever foreign posting there might be in the future—if in fact you do become a diplomat.”

  She heard movement below. The landlady rattling pots and pans, starting breakfast. “You’d better go.”

  Vidar observed her for a long moment. She had to steel herself to return his gaze without expression. As if disappointed, he stubbed out his cigarette and began putting on his clothes.

  “Think about it,” he said. “If you change your mind . . .” He propped his card against the clock on her bedside table, then stooped to kiss her.

  “I won’t change my mind, Vidar,” she said as he eased open the door.

  He left without looking back, silent as a ghost.

  Yvette stayed in bed like a slattern, pleading illness when the landlady tapped on her door to tell her breakfast was ready. It wasn’t a complete lie. The thought of a greasy English meal turned her stomach. She wished she was back home again. She hated England, and she hated this boardinghouse in particular.

  Why was she so miserable? Yvette rejected the most obvious answer. She hardly knew Vidar. She could not possibly be in love.

  She wondered how Gabby was finding her visit to Burnley. She hoped it was going better than her own time in London. It could hardly be worse, could it?

  This maudlin feeling could not be allowed to continue. She got up and dressed warmly and packed her bag, more than ready to leave.

  She was putting on lipstick and feeling a little more like herself again when the door handle rattled. She was about to call out to ask what the landlady wanted when Gabby walked in.

  The look on her face made Yvette’s heart give a single, hard ache.

  “Let’s go home,” she said, opening her arms to her sister.

  Gabby nodded and walked into her embrace.

  Paris, July 1944

  GABBY

  When Rafael and his henchmen had finally gone, Gabby rushed up to Madame LaR
oq’s apartment. She found Catherine Dior there with a dustpan and brush, sweeping up the debris.

  Gabby scarcely acknowledged her but went straight to the cabinet, broken crockery crunching underfoot. She felt a shard of glass spear through her shoe and pierce her big toe but she didn’t hesitate. With a heave, she rolled aside the cabinet to reveal Jack’s hiding place.

  No one was there.

  “Gabby,” Catherine said softly from behind her.

  “What?” Gabby whirled around. “What have you done with him?”

  “Gabby, let us sit and talk.”

  “Where is he?” She didn’t wait for Catherine’s answer. She flew about the apartment, checking behind curtains, under beds, any place he could be hiding. Jack wasn’t there.

  Tears gathered in Gabby’s eyes. She stood in the spare bedroom, bewildered, lost, shaking her head as the implications of the empty apartment came home to her.

  “My dear.” Catherine’s touch was light on her shoulder. “This whole business has been a horrible shock, I know.”

  Gabby let herself be guided to sit on the spare bed, the place where she and Jack had spent so much precious time together. “Where is he?”

  “My dear. He is gone.” Catherine put her hand on Gabby’s. “It was time.”

  “No.” Gabby snatched her hand away and glared at Catherine. “He is not well enough yet. He—”

  “Nevertheless, you must accept it. Every day he spent here endangered us all. You more than anyone.”

  Gabby gave a choking laugh at that. “You might have considered this before you forced me to take care of him.”

  Catherine made no answer and Gabby knew her accusation had been unjust. Liliane Dietlin had urged her to be rid of the Englishman as soon as possible. It was Gabby who had felt compassion for her patient. Compassion, and later, love.

  After a moment, Catherine handed her a wadded-up piece of paper. “He left this.”

  With clumsy fingers, Gabby smoothed out the torn page of foolscap. A little metal object dropped to the floor but she ignored it. The message was brief, written hastily. It said, All my love, J.

  Catherine bent to pick something up from the floor and held it out to Gabby. Through a haze of grief, Gabby looked down. A small bird, stippled with diamonds, a tiny sapphire for an eye. She closed her hand over it, held it tightly, felt the pin pierce the fleshy part of her palm.

  A soft knock at the door made Gabby want to wail. What now? Couldn’t they all just leave her in peace? She shoved the note and the pin into her pocket.

  “Good God, what did those pigs do to this place?” Yvette appeared in the doorway.

  “Oh, go away!” Gabby snapped at her. “I can’t deal with you on top of everything else.” But she knew she would have to deal with Yvette’s crisis even while her own world was falling apart.

  “Actually, it is Mademoiselle Dior I have come to see.” Yvette spoke quietly. “It is important.”

  More important than what had happened in this apartment tonight. More important than the love of Gabby’s life vanishing without a proper goodbye.

  But how foolish of her. How utterly selfish. If Jack had stayed to say goodbye, she would have done everything in her power to make him go. He had taken the only logical course of action under the circumstances. Rafael’s men could have returned and found his hiding place.

  She regarded her sister dully. “You’d better talk, then.” To Catherine, she added, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  Catherine moved to the door. “Perhaps it is best if we all sit down in the drawing room. There is much to discuss.”

  Catherine made them a tisane from the scant leaves madame had left in the pantry. Gabby accepted her cup and sipped with automatic politeness. It was faintly bitter, as if made partly from nettles, but she detected a calming note of chamomile, too. All she could think was how inadequate such gestures were on an occasion like this, and yet it was all they could do.

  She wanted to hurl her teacup across the room. She wanted to sob and pull at her hair like grieving women in ancient times. Instead, she simply sat there on Madame LaRoq’s wrecked sofa, staring into her teacup, wishing with all her heart that she could be alone. But her sister was in trouble, real trouble, and she had to rouse herself to help deal with it.

  As Yvette related the story of Jean-Luc, Gabby’s brow furrowed. “Do you mean to tell me that you actually went to this gathering because you thought you could stop a bunch of men—grown men—from going on a suicide mission?”

  Her voice had risen and Catherine halted her with an upraised finger. “Softly. Softly now,” she said. “We have had enough disturbances tonight.”

  “I was trying to stop a friend from being killed,” Yvette retorted in a low voice vibrating with passion. “I was sticking my neck out for someone else. Not that you’d know anything about that.”

  Gabby felt her face drain of blood. She had never been so furious with anyone in her life. “Some of us don’t go parading our heroism for everyone to see. Some of us are cautious, and careful, and . . .” Now the tears came. Now, at the worst moment.

  She dashed the heel of her hand across her eyes and let out a shuddering sigh.

  “Gabby?” Yvette turned to Catherine. “What has been going on here?” She looked about her. “Where is madame?” Her eyes widened. She looked at the maid’s room, exposed now, showing evidence of recent habitation. “Were you hiding someone here?”

  “That is a discussion for another day,” said Catherine calmly. “Now we must consider what to do with you.”

  “What do you mean, ‘do’ with me?”

  “Yvette, my dear.” Catherine’s thin eyebrows raised. “You cannot remain in Paris now that Jean-Luc has been taken. You do see that, don’t you?”

  Yvette shot to her feet. “Jean-Luc would never, ever betray me.”

  “You little fool,” said Gabby. “Don’t you know what they do to the ones they capture? I’ve been to that place, heard the screams of grown men. They all talk in the end, just to make the pain stop.” She swallowed. “You’d better pray that Jean-Luc is dead.”

  “Gabby!” Yvette stared at her, as if she didn’t recognize her sister in this hard-hearted person.

  “We cannot take the chance,” said Catherine, leaning forward and fixing her gaze on Yvette. “Those men in the alley. Did they see your face?”

  Yvette paled. “They had flashlights. But I was dressed as a boy—”

  Catherine interrupted her. “Did anyone see you return tonight?”

  Yvette frowned. “No. No one.”

  “None of the tenants? Everyone was stirred up by the disturbance tonight.”

  “It was pitch-black in the courtyard by the time I came up here.”

  “All right,” said Catherine. “Then, Gabby, I think we need to say this: Yvette went out tonight without your knowledge and never returned. You don’t know what became of her but you suspect a lover is involved. She is a headstrong girl and she was seeing a much older man.”

  “Vidar Lind, you mean?” said Gabby.

  “No. You don’t mention anyone by name. But you might say that you are a good Catholic, and if your sister is in that kind of trouble, then you wash your hands of her.”

  Gabby knew what this meant. She would lose the two people she loved most in the world in one night. Her chest cramped with the knowledge, but she could not afford to crumble now. Not when her sister needed her. She nodded curtly. “I can do it.”

  “Now, little one.” Catherine turned and drew Yvette to sit down beside her. “I know this comes as a shock and it is all too sudden and you aren’t prepared. But you need to get out of Paris before they come looking for you.”

  “But . . . but I can’t leave Paris!” Yvette cried. “You need me. What about tomorrow?”

  “There is no question of your making the drop tomorrow,” said Catherine with a touch of impatience. “Surely you must see that.”

  “Drop?” Gabby stared at Catherine. “What ar
e you talking about?” Did that mean Yvette had been working for Catherine, too?

  But neither woman answered her. Yvette begged and pleaded, but though Catherine was kind and full of understanding, she remained firm. Finally, Yvette’s arguments faded away. She hung her head and whispered, “I’ll go.”

  “You will have to stay here until we can smuggle you out,” said Gabby. “I’ll get the maid’s room ready for you.” Setting aside her teacup, she got up stiffly, with a sense of unreality, as if she was acting in a play, not taking part in real life. She felt like an old woman. It was an effort simply to construct a complete sentence. Moving was almost beyond her, but for her sister, she made herself do it.

  Yvette seemed subdued after her argument with Catherine. Gabby led her to the cell-like room where Jack had so recently hidden. It still smelled faintly of him—or was that her imagination? Gabby squeezed her eyes shut. What must he have endured while trapped during the raid?

  “Gabby,” Yvette whispered as she helped her make up the bed. “I don’t want to go. I can’t go. There’s a mission. Something I have to do for Catherine tomorrow.”

  Gabby ignored her.

  Yvette grabbed her arm. “Catherine’s at risk. I can’t let her do it on her own.”

  Anger boiled up. “You should have thought of that before you went out tonight! You risked us all, not just your precious mission. You heard what she said; you need to leave Paris.”

  “Please, Gabby. I can’t leave. I won’t do it! I . . .” Yvette looked about her wildly. “Maybe I could stay here in the maid’s room until it is over. Until the Allies come. It won’t be long now, will it? And you could bring me food just like you did for whoever was here. Oh, please, Gabby. Please.”

  Gabby shook her off. “And you would get yourself into more danger, sneaking out of here, wouldn’t you? I don’t suppose you thought about the rest of us when you went on your mission of mercy tonight.”

  A look came into Yvette’s face that Gabby had never seen before. A mature, weary defiance. “I went out of loyalty and friendship, Gabby. It was hopeless, but for Jean-Luc I had to try.” Bitterly, she shook her head. “You would not understand.”