The Iron Shadow

by Stefano Siggia

  Melbourne smiled.

  Monsieur Esmond pushed himself up from the chair by placing one hand on Melbourne’s shoulder and the other on his cane. He grunted as he finally stood up. “Well Remy, it’s well past bed time for me.”

  He started walking away, grunting slightly at his sore leg. Moving with difficulty, he walked up to the window and peaked outside, moving a curtain slightly aside.

  “Best of luck with what you are looking for, Remy,” he said as he kept staring out the window.

  “Goodnight, Monsieur Esmond,” Melbourne said.

  “Goodnight to you too, son.” Monsieur Esmond moved back towards the door of the living room before he stopped. “By the way, what exactly are you looking for?”

  “I wish I knew,” Melbourne said.

  XVIII

  - 5 days

  Melbourne was jolted awake by the sound of scampering feet near him. He realised he had fallen asleep with his head bent over the dinner table. The pieces of burnt poems were still scattered in front of him. He slowly stretched, his neck cracking. It was still better than the rest of his bruised body. He turned to look at the windows while massaging his neck. Sunlight shone timidly through the curtains.

  Monsieur Esmond burst into the room, holding in his arms an array of what seemed to Melbourne like copper plates. He ran up to the large cupboard that stood at the back wall of the living room and threw the plates to the floor with a loud crash. He opened the two doors of the cupboard and fumbled with his hands in the back of the first two shelves housing porcelain plates.

  With an audible chink, the shelves opened up like doors, revealing a secret room.

  “Come on sleeping beauty,” Monsieur Esmond said. “Help me get these things inside.”

  Melbourne felt as stiff as a corpse when he pushed himself from his chair. “What’s going on?”

  “The Germans, they’re outside breaking into people’s houses. Looking for copper.”

  Melbourne walked over to a window and peered through the curtain. A dozen German soldiers had taken over the street, shouting, bursting through open doors of nearby neighbours. He ran over to Monsieur Esmond and picked up the copper plates.

  “Place them inside and then get to my wife.”

  Melbourne nodded. He had to duck to get inside the secret room, but it was fairly large, with room for a couple of people to stand in. Documents, books, and bicycle tires lay neatly stacked inside. Melbourne placed the copper plates down and headed to the kitchen to help Madame Esmond.

  He found her inside, removing cutlery from a box.

  “Take them.” She handed him the forks and knives. Her hands were shaking.

  A loud pounding resounded throughout the house.

  Melbourne ran back to the living room and almost threw the cutlery inside, leaving order for another time. The pounding came again.

  Monsieur Esmond quickly shut the secret door and the two large doors of the cupboard. Melbourne scooped up the poems from the dinner table together with the letter and shoved them in his pocket.

  As he walked out into the corridor, he could hear voices coming from below. Madame Esmond ran up to him, holding one last, small copper dish in her hand. She was trembling. Melbourne grabbed it and without thinking shoved inside his pants, just as the first German soldier ran up the stairs. The soldier looked about and ran inside the living room. A second one appeared, running up the stairs to the third floor. He was followed by a German officer who greeted Melbourne and Madame Esmond.

  “Under the new German decree, I have the authorisation to confiscate any copper you may have in this house that will be needed to defeat our common enemy.” He turned to Madame Esmond. “Is there anything you have that has copper in it, Madame? Dishes? Goblets? Art?”

  She could barely speak from fear and whispered, “No.”

  “If we do find that you are hiding copper from us, do you know what will happen to you?” The officer walked closer to Monsieur Esmond and looked him straight in the eyes. Monsieur Esmond stood his ground, his eyes fixed on the man’s.

  “Prison,” the officer said. “At least for you. With your stick you are no good to us. But the lovely Madame here, well…” He smiled at her. “She will easily find a job in Germany.”

  The soldier opened every drawer and cabinet they could find, taking out everything that was neatly placed inside, turning the entire living room inside out. No nook or corner was left unturned. When wholly satisfied, he moved upstairs to join the other soldier. The officer stayed with the Esmonds and Melbourne. They could hear the heavy feet of the soldiers above them. They had entered Melbourne’s room. They left after a minute and entered the Esmond’s bed room.

  The feet stopped moving.

  One of the soldiers shouted in German that they had found something.

  The officer smiled once again. He ordered them to bring down whatever they had found.

  Madame Esmond turned pale and placed her arm under her husband’s.

  The soldiers came down the stairs; one of them was holding something in his hands – two of Madame Esmond’s wool coats. The officer’s smile quickly faded.

  “Wool,” he said.

  “Yes, sir. We found no traces of anything with copper.”

  “Very well,” the officer said. “We will take the wool coats with us. Decree number 27. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  He was about to leave when he turned towards Melbourne and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Why aren’t you fighting in the trenches, son?”

  Melbourne could feel the copper plate slowly slipping down his pants. The plate, made for bread, was small enough that it could fit through one of the legs, and that was exactly where it was heading. He stood still, trying not to move.

  “I am due to ship soon,” Melbourne said. “I am taking care of my family for now.”

  The officer patted him hard on the shoulder. The copper plate slipped some more. It had almost reached the back of his knee. Melbourne wished he could place a hand or something on it to stop its descent. But more than that, he wished they would just leave.

  “A man of honour, just what I like. You know, we need people like you. Young and strong men to work in Germany. Be ready when we come looking for you.”

  With a shout from the officer, the three men proceeded down the stairs and left the house, slamming the entrance door behind them.

  The plate clanged to the floor. Madame Esmond let out a loud sigh of relief.

  “Those bastards!” Monsieur Esmond said.

  Melbourne placed his arm around Madame to calm her down.

  “They are taking everything!” she said. “Last month it was bicycle tires. The month before, textiles and wool. And now copper. What will be next?”

  Monsieur Esmond walked away, mumbling curses under his breath.

  Madame Esmond had calmed down a little. “Thank you for helping us. I’m sorry you have to go through this.”

  “I’m sorry that you have to go through this, too. And on top of it, you’re risking your lives to help me. I should be thanking you.”

  XIX

  The German soldiers had left chaos in their wake. Drawers in every room had been left open, contents dumped to the floor. Chairs were overturned and the beds stripped of sheets. Madame Esmond almost screamed when she saw the state that the kitchen was in – knives, forks, spoons, and plates scattered everywhere. She found nothing to be broken and thanked the Lord for it.

  The large cupboard that dwarfed all the other furniture in the living room had also been emptied. Luckily, they had never discovered the small secret room that lay hidden behind its back.

  Melbourne volunteered to help clean up and put everything back in order. He owed it to them because of their kindness and generosity. It took him a bit more than an hour, but the house was back to its state of normality.

  He left the house in the afternoon, heading to the streets downtown to take notes for his ‘article’ and see if he could find anything of interest to the Foreign Office.
As he walked the empty roads, he thought of the poems, of the burned strips of paper. At this point, they were more or less useless. But they did show one thing – his brother had developed the way of communication through poems. The brown-haired girl, whoever she was, was his contact. Was she Doctor V? Or was she the nightingale? Could they be the same person? It wasn’t Danielle after all…

  Maybe she did know something, but she wasn’t telling. And who could blame her. He had lied right to her face, fabricating his entire life. And that life was as a journalist collaborating with the Germans. It was a miracle she would talk to him at all. Unless he explained the truth about why he was there, he was at a dead end. Yet, that was outrageously dangerous. What if she wasn’t who he was looking for?

  Well, what if she wasn’t? Given her history, she apparently had no love for the Germans. How likely was it that she would turn him in?

  A child, no more than ten years old, ran up to him waving the latest newspaper. Melbourne bought it for a few cents and glanced at the front page. Then he read it with horror. A cloud of poisonous chlorine gas had wiped out roughly six-thousand Allied soldiers in Ypres. The ones that had survived were either blinded or had been severely damaged in ways that Melbourne could not imagine. And the writer of the article was proud of it. This was an achievement of German military science. He shuddered at how anyone could even think of such an abomination, let alone admire it.

  And yet, that was who he was portraying – a journalist writing articles like this one. He’d known he had to assume a false identity, to learn to lie with facility, when he agreed to the job. But it was turning out to be far harder than he’d realised. No wonder spies were so universally hated.

  He folded the newspaper, tucked it under his arm, and proceeded to take a look around the streets to free his mind from what he had just read and what he had become.

  He was amazed to find that many public and private buildings had been turned into outpatient clinics housing German soldiers who had just come back from the Front. The menus on the nearby restaurants only had a few dishes, sometimes even simply one – broth. The never-ending lines outside grocery stores and bakeries had almost become a constant in the city. He thought of the Esmonds as he passed by the solemn faced men and women, waiting patiently for the tiniest bit of food.

  As night began to fall, Melbourne bought himself a soup and heel of brown bread from a lady selling it on the street and proceeded to make his way to Le Rossignol Chantant. The night was still young, and he found the club to be half empty. The few that were there were being entertained by a small band consisting of a piano, a violin, and an upright bass. The foxtrot they were playing wasn’t having much of an effect on the few occupied tables. Only one person tapped his foot, taking long sips from his pint of beer.

  Melbourne sat at the bar and watched his surroundings with a cold beer in his hand. As the evening deepened, more people showed up. A couple of German soldiers patrolled the club, moving from one end of the room to the other, keeping an eye on the crowd of imbibers upon them. Luckily for him, none of the gang from the other night’s fight was there. Yet. However, he decided he would lay low this time. Getting into a fist fight with Germans soldiers once was bad enough. Making it a habit would be outright stupidity.

  By the time the band played their final song, every table and every seat at the bar was filled. People were spreading across the room trying to find the best spot to watch the club’s next offering, the one they were all waiting for.

  La Baronne.

  The lights dimmed, and Danielle made her entrance to a roar of applause. She glided to centre stage, waving to her loyal fans. Her long, red dress trailed behind just enough to bring out her lovely shape. Her smile made her all the more beautiful.

  At that very moment, she seemed perfect.

  The uproar died down as soon as she cleared her throat. With no accompaniment and no further announcement, she began singing, a wonderful melancholic melody that floated out and embraced the crowd, intimate and available to all. Melbourne looked around him at the crowd. This was probably the only time they had felt happy since their oppression began. Even the German soldiers stood still, listening intensely to the music flowing across the club, forgetting their duty. Melbourne leaned back against the bar and with a smile on his face he let himself be captivated as well.

  An hour of music passed by in an instant, and Danielle’s set was over. The crowd surged to their feet and applauded and whistled with all their heart. A few men threw red roses towards Danielle, which she carefully picked up from the ground while sending out kisses directed around the club.

  As the cheers died down, she stepped off the stage and walked towards one of the tables in the first row. One of the men sitting there rose from the table and greeted her, giving her a long kiss on the cheek. She kissed him back with a smile, and the two began talking to what seemed to Melbourne in a far too friendly manner. The man was in his fifties, quite chubby, and dressed in fashionable and somewhat expensive clothes.

  Melbourne kept his eyes on the two. Danielle laughed at the man’s remarks, and the two touched each other’s shoulders often. Melbourne felt a slight tinge of jealousy and deliberately forced it down – he had a job to do.

  Danielle laughed once more and her gaze met Melbourne’s. Their eyes locked for a few seconds, just enough for her to give him a slight smile, then her attention went back to the man.

  Melbourne turned towards the barman and asked for another beer.

  He had downed half of it when a delicate hand touched his shoulder. He turned around, and there she was, her attention now solely focused on him. She greeted him with a kiss on the cheek. Melbourne blushed.

  “You were wonderful tonight,” he said.

  “Thank you.” She caressed his arm. “There will be more, but first I need a drink.”

  Melbourne signalled the bartender as she sat on the stool next to his.

  He couldn’t help himself. “That man you were talking to down at that table, who is he?”

  She turned towards the bulky man. “Jean-Paul? He works for the government. A nice enough person but exceedingly boring, you have no idea. Worst jokes I have ever heard, and he boasts constantly about his art collection. What is it with you men and collections anyway? It seems that the only way to a woman’s heart is through amassing great quantities of useless items. I have heard them all – pen collections, plant collections, antiquities collections, book collections, everyone wants to show me their collections.”

  “I thought you didn’t like it when men approached you.”

  She took a cigarette between her lips. “Only if they’re not good tippers. Don’t tell me you’re jealous now.”

  “No,” he lied. “Is he the only one good with tips?”

  “There are others.” She turned around and nonchalantly pointed at a skinny man with a violet bowtie and moustache thin enough to be taken for a mistake. “That is Marcus. He owns a printing shop not too far from here. I still don’t know if he likes women more than men, but great tipper. Down there is Christophe Gaulein. Owns one of the biggest bars downtown. Don’t ask me what he’s doing here if he has to run his own place, but I think he’s in love with a certain singer. And — ”

  “What about Germans? For the article.”

  She pointed. “See that table down there? The man with the big beard? Colonel von Franker. Big, big tipper. But smells of alcohol and something I would rather not say.” She giggled. “But none of those men actually got into a fight for me. The wound on your lip is healing nicely, I see.”

  He rubbed it, absently.

  “You know, I had a really nice time with you the other day.” She blew a smoke ring toward her glass of whiskey. “We should do it again.”

  “We should.” He shifted on his stool. His stomach still hurt a little when he moved. “What if…”

  She was staring at him, cigarette between her lips, a slight crease between her eyebrows.

  “What if you found out some
thing bad was going to happen,” he said quickly, before he could change his mind. “And what if you could discover what that thing is. But to do so, you might have to learn something you wouldn’t like?”

  She took a big puff from her cigarette and then laughed, letting small clouds of smoke hit Melbourne’s face. “How many drinks have you had?”

  He lowered his voice. “Listen, this is serious. I’m going to tell you two words, and you need to tell me if they make any sense to you. You must, I repeat, must not to talk to anyone about this. Can I trust you, Danielle?”

  She pursed her lips when a man walked up to her and whispered something in her ear. She took another puff of her cigarette and the man was gone.

  “Sorry, dear.” She placed the cigarette between his lips. “Hold those two words for when I come back. The show must go on.”

  Danielle got up and went back up on stage to roars of applause.

  Melbourne looked around at von Franker with the strange body odours, the thin man with the violet bowtie and unknown tastes, and slumped back in his chair. How did she fit into this puzzle? And would she know what he was talking about? He lifted his drink to his lips as sudden silence was followed by Danielle’s melodic voice. Her song began to fill the filthy club with a crescendo, but the beautiful melody could not capture Melbourne’s attention this time. He took a large gulp of his cold drink and stared at his glass afterwards.

  Was he going to put her in danger?

  XX

  An hour later, Danielle sent out her last kiss towards her wildly-applauding crowd and disappeared backstage.

  Half an hour later, the club was empty, except for a few tables where men were finishing their drinks. Melbourne sat on the same stool at the counter of the bar, not having moved all night. He massaged his back a little, his muscles still felt sore after that ridiculous fight. No drunken ruffians were at the club that night, no tables filled with German soldiers. Only normal citizens, who slowly, one by one, got up from their seats and headed towards the exit.