by Ariel Lawhon
“Keep the spare key,” Henri told Ficetole. “I’ll need you to come back a week from today for another trunk. But I won’t be here to let you in.”
There are business affairs he must attend to in Marseille, but Henri plans to wait no longer than necessary before joining his wife in England. Tonight, however, he doesn’t have the stomach to be alone. He lifts the glass to his lips and lets the rich, amber liquid slide across his tongue. He could live to be one thousand years old and the joy of good brandy would never be lost on him.
The barstool next to Henri has remained empty for much of the night—he clearly doesn’t look like pleasant company—but someone slides onto it now. He turns his head to the right. The face before him is familiar but he struggles to place it.
“Bonjour, Henri,” she says.
The voice brings everything together. He did not recognize her because her head has been shaved and without her long, blond hair, each of her features looks strange and out of place.
“Marceline.”
She leans in for la bise—the customary double kiss favored by his countrymen—but he turns his face away.
Marceline pouts. “What’s wrong? Don’t you like me anymore, Henri?”
“I never liked you.”
“You liked me just fine from what I remember. No need to lie. It isn’t very nice.”
“Neither are you.” He watches as she sets a self-conscious hand against her head, fingering the uneven locks. “You are working with the Germans?”
“Non. I am loyal to Vichy. It’s not the same thing.”
“You’re right. It’s worse.”
“That wife of yours has infected you with stupid ideas. France belongs to the French. I couldn’t care less if the Germans purge the foreigners.”
“By which you mean Jews?”
The corner of her mouth curls upward. Most men would be enchanted by Marceline’s smile. Her bright teeth and the sharp point of her Cupid’s bow. But he has always found it threatening and calculated. As though she wants to bite him. “And Australians.”
Henri is rarely unkind to women. But he doesn’t have the patience for Marceline tonight. As usual, she is wearing far less than the weather requires. He recognizes the brown satin blouse as the same one she wore to dinner several years back with Nancy and his father, but like everyone in Marseille, she has lost weight, and it hangs looser on her now.
“I know your wife is away. And she won’t know we’ve spent the evening together. Unless you tell her.”
“We are not spending the evening together.”
“Why shouldn’t we? We’re both adults. The night is young—”
“Good night.” Henri sets his glass down and leans away from her. He no longer wants his brandy. He no longer wants to be here at all.
“Wait.” Marceline sets her hand on his knee and runs it up his thigh. “You have needs. I can meet them.”
He knocks her hand away and stands up. “Leave me alone.”
Henri digs through his wallet and pulls out enough to cover his tab and tip Antoine as well.
“Walking away from me would be a mistake, Henri.”
He shakes his head in disgust and leaves the bar, cursing quietly as Marceline follows him. But he stops at the door, inches before colliding with Police Commissioner Paquet.
“This would have been so much easier if you’d just taken me home. I did give you the chance,” Marceline says. “Now it would be best if you didn’t make a scene.”
“Best for who?” He turns, slowly, to look her in the eye, because something has just occurred to him. He takes one menacing step toward her. “How did you know my wife is away?”
She closes the gap between them and sets one palm against his cheek. He tries to shake it off, but she returns that hand to his skin with a sharp little slap. Once again, her voice is so low that only he can hear it.
“Who do you think has been following her all these weeks? Your wife bought a ticket to Toulouse this afternoon and took nothing but her purse. This trip is quite different than the others, I think. As a matter of fact, I doubt she’ll be coming back at all. I’ve already phoned the Vichy police to let them know which carriage she’s riding in.”
Enough. He turns from Marceline and moves toward the door again, but Paquet steps forward.
“What are you doing here?” Henri asks.
“You can come with us willingly,” Paquet says, “or I can arrest you in front of everyone.”
“On what charge?”
“I don’t need one. Vichy has given me the authority to perform preventative arrests anytime I see fit. I can imprison you on the mere suspicion of being an enemy of the state.”
Henri has just enough time to glance at Antoine before getting shoved into the lobby. The barkeeper, helpless to do anything else, nods once in acknowledgment.
As usual, the lobby is filled with Brownshirts, and each of them watches, curious, as Henri, Marceline, and Paquet pass through. Once outside the hotel and down the broad steps, Paquet leads him toward a black vehicle flanked by two more Vichy police officers with pistols in their hands. The back door is open and Marceline saunters past him and climbs inside. She pats the seat beside her.
“Do get in,” she says. “I didn’t like it the last time you sent me off alone.”
* * *
TOULOUSE
My thoughts collide like marbles being shaken around in a bucket. I left that message for O’Leary. My train was boarded outside Toulouse. I was arrested. Interrogated. Knocked around. And now O’Leary is here, standing between Beetle Cap and one of the vice officers, looking for all the world like the cat that ate the canary?
Those marbles start shattering now, sharp little splinters spinning off inside my mind, vicious in their destructive possibilities. I trusted O’Leary. He knows everything about our Resistance operation. He knows everything about my husband. Has he betrayed me? Am I capable of killing a man with my bare hands? Because that’s what I’d like to do right now as I look at him.
O’Leary whispers something else to Beetle Cap and begins to walk toward me. I curl my fists and open my mouth to hurl the best insults I know. Before I can speak, however, he hisses, “Smile, you fool, you’re supposed to be my mistress.”
And then he gives me the most aggressive, ridiculous kiss right in the middle of the hallway. It’s like something from a silent movie. Exaggerated. Pantomimed. What the ever-loving hell?
“Come on, then,” he says, loud enough for everyone to hear as he smacks my rear end, “let’s get you out of here, darling.”
I am not the sort of woman who is often rendered speechless, but I stare at him, pop-eyed.
“I have a few questions first, if you don’t mind. In my office,” Beetle Cap says.
By this point O’Leary has grabbed my hand and is squeezing so hard I’m certain he’s cut off my blood supply. But I get the message: Don’t say a word, Nance. Let me do the talking.
“Why did you lie to me?” Beetle Cap demands once we’re standing before his desk. He looks at me as though I’ve murdered a puppy.
O’Leary clears his throat. “As you can imagine…my friend here has a very…ah…jealous husband. He’s an important man. Wealthy. Likes maintaining control of his own property, if you know what I mean. So we prefer to keep our rendezvous a secret.”
“That’s all she had to say.”
“It was none of your—” O’Leary squeezes my hand again, so I snap my mouth closed.
“Get out,” he says, disgusted. “Both of you.”
O’Leary wastes no time thanking Beetle Cap and steering me into the hallway.
“Is that it?” I whisper.
“You want more? Because I don’t. Let’s get out of here while we can.”
O’Leary has on
e hand and my purse dangles from the other. “But he still has my papers.”
“Your pick, Nance. Your life or your papers.”
Fair enough.
Once we’re outside on the street and have walked several blocks, I laugh and throw my arms around O’Leary. “Thank you,” I say. “But if you ever put your dirty Belgian tongue in my mouth again, I will strangle you with it.”
* * *
—
“How on earth did you find me?” I ask O’Leary.
We have been walking through the streets of Toulouse for an hour. Our safe house is less than a mile away, but he wants to make sure we’re not being followed. So we take a winding route through several wealthy neighborhoods and I lean against him, freezing.
“I got your message,” he says. “So I guessed you left Marseilles and would be coming to Toulouse. And when you never showed up at the safe house, I knew that something had happened during the trip. I was just relieved to hear, from our whisper network, that the arrest had happened here instead of somewhere else along the tracks. I might have never found you, had that been the case.”
“But you walked right into Vichy headquarters. Do you even understand how risky that was?”
Patrick O’Leary stops then, right in the middle of the street. He sticks a finger in my face and shakes it. “And you walked right into Mauzac to free Ian Garrow. Did you think I would do any less for you?”
My face burns bright and I hope he interprets it as gratitude and not the shame I feel for believing that he had betrayed me.
“But how?” I ask. “How on earth did you ever convince them to let me go?”
He shrugs. “You aren’t the only one with fake names and documents. I keep a set stating I’m a member of the Milice.”
I raise one eyebrow.
He laughs. “I may have also insinuated that I am a close associate of Pierre Laval.”
“The Vichy vice president?”
“I would have gone for Marshal Pétain himself. But claiming to be friends with the president seemed a bit like overkill. Besides, I happen to know that Laval is in Berlin right now. So they had to take my word for it. And rejecting me was the greater risk since they had nothing on you.”
I shake my head. There are a few streetlamps in this part of town and the shadows stretch long between the buildings. The snow has stopped but there is a fine dusting of powder still on the ground and the stars have been swallowed by low-hanging clouds. I shiver. And then I am overcome with the urge to cry. I shove the heels of my hands into my eyes to stem the flow.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m just glad it worked,” I say.
“Well, you’re not in the clear yet, Nance. There’s still a mountain between you and freedom.”
* * *
—
Patrick O’Leary delivers me into the capable arms of Françoise thirty minutes later. She is the ugliest woman I have ever met. Her face is a perfect square and she has the strangest owl eyes—enormous, unblinking, and so light brown they are almost yellow—but there doesn’t seem to be a single eyelash on either top or bottom lids. Her brown hair is parted down the middle and pulled into two tight plaits that fall to her waist. It is impossible to tell her age because she doesn’t do a single thing to improve her looks. And then of course there’s the fact that she is an incurable chain-smoker. Inside. Outside. It doesn’t matter. She is never without a cigarette holder in one hand and a drink in the other. Françoise has never volunteered her last name and, as far as I know, no one in the Resistance network has ever asked. The less we know, the better. She cuts an intimidating figure and I doubt the information could be wrestled out of her, regardless.
Much like Marseille, Toulouse is an old city constructed around the whims of long-gone farmers and merchants. But without the seaport, it has less charm and feels claustrophobic to me. Once we are situated in her flat, Françoise is quick to tell me that she owns and operates the bakery three floors below us. The floors between are her personal residence. The attic, where I now find myself, is where she hides and feeds the refugees whom we send to her. It feels strange to be in need of her services myself.
Once we are alone she turns to me, cheeks pink, and asks, “How is Antoine?”
“I haven’t seen him in a few days, but I believe he’s well.”
She sighs, wistful. “Handsomest man I’ve ever met. Have fancied him for years. Even though my mother once made me promise I’d never bed a Corsican. Said they’re all devils.”
My mouth falls open. I snap it shut. I cannot imagine Françoise and Antoine in the same room together—much less the same bed—so I nod and say, “He’s a good man.”
“Pity about that wife of his.”
“He’s married?” I gasp.
“She won’t leave Corsica and he won’t leave her.”
“I’ve known the man for seven years and he’s never mentioned a wife.”
“Love is strange,” she tells me, and then, “Sleep. We have much to arrange tomorrow.”
* * *
—
I wake to sunlight and a gentle shake from Patrick O’Leary. “Get up,” he says.
“I’d rather not if it’s all the same to you.”
“Listen. I’m heading out and I need to give you instructions. I can’t do that while you’re drooling on the furniture.”
“I do not drool,” I argue, wiping my chin, even as I glare at O’Leary. “I am a deep sleeper, that’s all.”
“Well, all that sleep of yours is messing up the throw pillows.”
I hurl one of said pillows at his head and he ducks just in time.
“I’m off to meet with a new volunteer. He was brought on by a colleague in Paris and has made his way south to help move people through the escape route.”
I sit up. Stretch. Yawn. “If you give me a few minutes to clean up I can come with you.”
“No. I can’t take you along.”
“Why?”
“Because something seems off about him. When we made contact a few days ago by phone he asked if I would bring along ‘that amusing girl from Marseille that he’s heard so much about in Paris.’ ”
“How has he heard about me?”
“That is the very thing I aim to discover.”
“Then why the hell are you going? This could be a trap.”
“Yes. It could be. And I’ll find out soon enough since I told him that I would bring you along.”
“Have you lost your damn mind?” I ask. “What the hell do you plan to do if he corners you?”
He smiles then. “I mean to kill him. Because if he is who I suspect him to be, then it means we have a traitor in our organization. If I am not back by noon, you are to leave here immediately and head for the Pyrenees. Do you understand?”
“Yes. But—”
“There are no buts, Nance.” He taps my forehead with his finger, hard, three times. “They had you at the train station and I won’t let that happen again. You know too much. You are too important to this organization. I cannot let you be captured.”
“So you’re going to throw yourself into a trap?”
“No. I’m going to figure out who betrayed Garrow. And who got you arrested.” O’Leary steps back and walks toward the door. “Remember, if I’m not back by noon, you run. Promise?”
Everything about this feels wrong to me. “O’Leary, who is this man you’re meeting?”
His jaw is clenched so hard his teeth are grinding together. “Say it.”
“I promise! Okay? I swear. But who is this man?”
“They call him the Légionnaire. But his name is Roger le Neveu.”
* * *
—
I don’t wait until noon because Françoise delivers the news with my br
eakfast. She bustles into the attic carrying a tray laden with freshly baked bread, soft butter, and cold milk.
“I will never be able to eat all this. You’ve brought too much,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says. “Some is for breakfast. The rest is for your journey.”
Just like that, I am no longer hungry. “What happened to him?”
“The daughter of a friend works at the bistro where O’Leary met this man Roger. She’s a mousy little thing, quite unattractive if I’m being honest. It’s her greatest gift. No one pays her any mind. She snuck away and came straight to me.”
“And what did she tell you?”
Françoise looks at me with her curious owl eyes and they are filled with genuine grief. “That the moment O’Leary sat down at the table he was surrounded by Gestapo agents. They arrested him on the spot. As they dragged him through the door she heard Roger giving instructions that he was to be taken directly to the train station.”
“We have to help him!”
“Non. You promised him, remember?”
Her words sting, like lemon juice in a cut. I knew I shouldn’t have let him force me into that promise. But I nod because Françoise strikes me as the sort of woman who does not tolerate broken promises.
“Besides,” she says, “my little friend says his train has already departed. He is to be interrogated en route. They are sending him to Dachau.”
Madame Andrée
SAINT-SANTIN, FRANCE
July 1, 1944
“Who is that man?” I ask Hubert. I don’t know how long I slept at first, or who dressed my wounds, but I can move again—not without pain, but at least it isn’t excruciating. At some point I woke to find myself in a canvas tent and had to assume that Denis, having received his new radio, requested it for me.
The man in question is walking toward my tent. He’s in his mid-fifties, wearing a French military uniform, and possessed of uncommon swagger. He reminds me of Gaspard and I dislike him already.
