Night of Flames

by Douglas W. Jacobson

  The nurse nodded. “Ja. Can I help you?” Her German was heavily accented.

  Anna sighed. “I’m here to visit a friend, but I don’t speak Czech and I’m having trouble communicating with the woman at the reception desk.”

  “What is your friend’s name?”

  Anna handed her the slip of paper. “Irene Pavelka.”

  The nurse walked to the reception desk while Anna stood back, listening but not understanding. The woman behind the desk repeated the same phrase over and over, shaking her head. She mentioned someone’s name several times. Finally, the nurse turned away and returned to Anna looking perplexed. “She said she’s been given instructions not to release any information about your friend.”

  “My friend and I are from Krakow,” Anna said. “We were on our way to Italy when—” She stopped. The nurse’s eyes were darting around the room. Anna reached out and touched her arm. “Bitte! Could you find out about her condition? If I can’t see her, could you just check and let me know how she is?”

  The elevator door opened, and a dapper man wearing an elegantly tailored blue suit stepped out, marched across the waiting room and paused at the reception desk. He spoke quietly to the woman behind the desk, who pointed toward Anna then looked back down at her paperwork.

  The man approached and shot a glance at the nurse. The young woman backed away and disappeared into the elevator. He looked at Anna through steel-rimmed spectacles, his eyes moving up and down the length of her body. He had thin gray hair plastered straight back on his head. “Setzen Sie,” he said in crisp German and pointed to a chair.

  Anna didn’t think he was Czech.

  When they sat down the man smiled thinly. “So, I understand you are here to see a patient—Irene Pavelka, is it?”

  “Ja, that’s right,” Anna replied. “I’ve been waiting a long time.”

  “Are you a relative of this person?”

  “Nein, I’m her friend. We’re on our way to Italy, and she became ill at the train station. May I see her?”

  The prim man glanced at his fingernails. “And you are…?”

  “My name is Anna Kopernik.”

  “I see. Well, our regulations permit only family members to visit patients.”

  Anna glared at the man. “But she has no family here. As I said, we’re traveling together to Italy. I’m the only person she knows in Prague. Please, I’m very concerned about her. May I see her?”

  “Nein. I’m afraid I can’t help you. Our regulations are very explicit: family members only.” He paused as though he was expecting her to say something. Then he leaned forward and whispered, “I understand her son is traveling with her. Perhaps if he were here…”

  Anna’s heart pounded. The man stared at her with the same thin smile. She struggled to control her breathing. “I’m afraid he’s not feeling well,” she managed to say. “He’s come down with the flu. I don’t think it would be wise to bring him here.”

  The man shrugged and stood up.

  Anna pressed on. “If I could just see my friend for a minute, I’m sure it would—”

  He leaned over and peered at her, his black eyes magnified by the spectacles. “Perhaps when her son is feeling better you can bring him here and he can see his mother. Auf Wiedersehen.” He turned away and headed for the elevator.

  “Can you at least tell me how she is?” Anna called after him.

  Without answering the man stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind him.

  Anna stood on the front steps of the hospital, wanting to scream. It was cold, and a strong wind blew as she stood quietly for several minutes, staring at the ground until she started to shiver. She buttoned her coat, wrapped a scarf around her neck and walked down the steps, heading back toward the Stare Mesto and Mama Zdena’s house.

  After a five-minute walk she found herself standing on the corner of a busy intersection, waiting for the light to change. A familiar voice from behind said, “Guten tag, Fräulein.” Startled, Anna spun around. The nurse from the hospital stood behind her, wearing a brown overcoat with a blue shawl over her head.

  “Follow me,” the nurse said.

  The lights changed and they crossed the intersection, walking in silence for several minutes. They came to a narrow, cobblestone side street, and Anna followed the nurse around the corner. In front of a four-story brick apartment building, the nurse stopped and looked at Anna. Her face was pale. “Your friend isn’t in the hospital,” she said.

  Anna felt the tingling, the icy fingers. “Where is she?”

  The nurse slumped against the building. She spoke softly, and Anna had to strain to hear her. “She’s dead.”

  Anna staggered back, grabbing the iron railing on the steps. She stared at the young woman and tried to speak but nothing came out. She took a deep breath, then another, gripping the railing. “What…what happened?”

  The nurse looked down at her shoes. “I was on duty in the emergency room when they brought your friend in from the train station. She was unconscious and had lost a lot of blood.”

  Anna closed her eyes and the image came back…Irene on the floor…Justyn’s shoes in the blood…

  The nurse continued, her voice just a whisper. “The doctor on duty was examining her when a policeman and an SS officer came in and went into the examining room. The doctor told them to wait outside, that the woman, your friend, was in very serious condition. The SS officer…” The nurse fell silent.

  Anna opened her eyes and looked at her. The nurse glanced around. She looked frightened. “Please, go on. Tell me what happened.”

  The young woman wrapped her arms around her chest. “The SS officer closed the door. I heard more yelling, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then the door opened and the doctor stormed out. His face was red. He stripped off his gloves and walked out of the emergency room.”

  Anna’s stomach churned. She sat down on the front steps of the building.

  The nurse sat next to her. Tears streamed down her face. “They wouldn’t let us help her. They said…they…Ach Gott!…I’m sorry.”

  They sat on the steps for a while in silence. It had started to snow, but Anna was numb, oblivious to the cold. “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Kristina,” the nurse said.

  “I’m sure it was dangerous for you to tell me all this. Danke schön, I’m very grateful.”

  Kristina nodded. “I should be going.”

  They stood up and Anna suddenly realized how cold she was. She embraced the young woman and kissed her on the cheek. “Danke, Kristina.”

  “What will you do?” the young woman asked.

  “I’ve got to tell a ten-year-old boy that his mother has died,” Anna said, surprised that she could even get it out. “Then I’m going to get him out of harm’s way.”

  Kristina nodded and turned away.

  Anna watched the nurse as she rounded the corner and disappeared into the crowd. A moment later the snow covered her footprints.

  PART TWO

  Belgium

  1943

  Chapter 27

  THE DIRT ROAD FOLLOWED a high flat ridge for more than a kilometer, bisecting a field of freshly planted potatoes and a pasture before it disappeared down a gentle slope into a thick pine forest. The valley below extended far to the south and on a clear day it was possible to see all the way to Luxembourg.

  Justyn had trekked along this road so often in the last two years, making the trip to and from the tiny village of Warempage, that he long ago stopped paying attention to the view. He concentrated on the wagon he pulled carefully over ruts in the road, trying to avoid tipping it over and spilling its precious cargo of fresh milk, eggs, butter and a smoked ham. It had taken a week of sweat, mending fences on Monsieur Marchal’s farm in the late August heat, to earn the food. Losing any of it along the way was unthinkable.

  Justyn pulled the cart down a slope toward the pine forest, where their chalet was nestled in a secluded clearing, when he heard the
sound of an airplane from the east. He looked up as an enormous four-engine bomber soared overhead, engines sputtering, trailing a thick plume of black smoke. Justyn stared transfixed as the mortally wounded American B-17 carved a long, smoky arc in the sky and disappeared in a thunderous explosion deep in the valley.

  An instant later an immense fireball ballooned into the sky, and Justyn dropped to his knees, covering his eyes. When he looked up again, the fireball had dissipated, and a cloud of thick, black smoke drifted off to the south. Then he noticed the parachute.

  The small white umbrella, with a figure dangling below, floated across his field of vision and dropped out of sight at the far end of the south field. Justyn sprang to his feet, leaving the wagon in the middle of the dusty road, and sprinted across the field. When he got to the south fence line he searched the valley below and spotted the white material flapping back and forth in the middle of a wheat field belonging to M. Marchal’s neighbor. The burning wreck of the airplane flared in the distance. He hurtled the fence and raced down the hillside.

  Justyn slowed to a walk as he approached the downed aviator, watching as the man struggled to sit up, his right foot bent backward at a severe angle. Justyn stepped up to the man, grabbed the parachute lines and gathered up the billowing cloth, securing it with rocks. Then he bent down and unfastened the harness from the aviator’s chest.

  The man tried to sit up again but Justyn put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Laissez moi vous aider. Let me help you.”

  The man looked confused, apparently not understanding French. He mumbled something that Justyn vaguely recognized as English but couldn’t understand.

  “Laissez moi,” Justyn coaxed.

  The aviator nodded and laid back, closing his eyes and clenching his fists.

  Justyn heard someone shout his name and turned to see M. Marchal and Anna standing at the fence.

  The trip by bicycle from Warempage to La Roche normally took Anna a little over an hour. Justyn could make it in less than forty-five minutes, but he was fourteen and had grown tall and muscular. Anna was anxious to get there and find out what van Acker intended to do about the aviator, but it was a warm day and she stopped along the side of the hilly, winding road to rest.

  She knelt on a rock alongside a narrow stream flowing from the hillside and bent over to scoop some water when she paused, taking in her reflection. Her red hair, now cropped short, was beginning to show a few streaks of gray and her face was thinner than it had been. Had been when? When she last had a normal life? When she had last seen Jan?

  Anna cupped her hands, dipped them into the cool water and took a drink. She splashed some water on the back of her neck then stood up and stared into the stream, recalling his image. It was always the same…he was in uniform, blond hair tousled from the wind. He was waving…waving good-bye.

  It was almost noon when Anna arrived in La Roche. She pedaled along the narrow cobblestone street running through the center of the ancient resort town, turned a corner and parked her bicycle behind van Acker’s butcher shop. It was a simple, single-story structure constructed of the ubiquitous brown and gray shale of the Ardennes region of southern Belgium. Without knocking she let herself in the back door and nodded to van Acker’s assistant who was busy carving a fat hog from one of the local farms. Anna knew that the meat, if it could be hidden from German field agents, would bring at least 3000 francs on the black market.

  She proceeded through the cool, damp cutting room, stepping around the pools of blood, to a small office. She knocked twice and opened the door. A rotund, bald man sat behind a cluttered desk, his bloody white apron lying in a heap on the floor. He glanced up and waved for her to come in.

  Anna stepped into the cramped office, closed the door behind her and removed a pile of dusty newspapers from a chair in front of the desk.

  Jules van Acker took off the small, rimless glasses that were perched on the end of his bulbous nose and leaned forward with a smile, exposing a row of yellow, uneven teeth. “Bonjour, Anna.” His voice was a gravelly rumble. “A couple of buffoons from the local Gestapo stopped in here earlier this morning. They were asking questions about the crash of the American bomber—wanted to know if there were any survivors. I thought you might find that interesting.”

  Anna’s pulse quickened at his mention of the Gestapo. She shifted in the chair and said, “You’ve heard about my new ‘house-guest,’ sans doute.”

  “Oui, bien sûr. Marchal told me about it; very gracious of you to take him in. How’s he doing?”

  “His ankle was fractured and he has several cracked ribs, but his color is good and he’s eating like a horse.”

  Van Acker leaned back in the swivel chair. It creaked under his weight. “Well, if it’s any consolation to you, I think the incident is quite well contained. No one here in town seems to know anything about survivors, and Marchal tells me that none of your other neighbors out there noticed the parachute.”

  “What about the doctor?” Anna asked.

  “Perfectly fine, Peeters is one of us. He’s seen a lot more than this. Don’t worry.” Van Acker shifted his bulk in the rickety chair.

  “What’s next?” Anna asked, wondering what she would be getting into now that she was harboring an enemy of the German Reich.

  Van Acker leaned forward across the small, wooden desk. “In a few days I’ll stop by and have a discussion with your aviator friend. If he is who he says he is, we’ll wait until he can get around, then we’ll link him up with the…ah…Comet Line.”

  Anna stared at him for a moment then smiled. “I was wondering if it was still in operation.”

  “Oui, oui. They’re still in operation,” van Acker said. “Very covert, but quite efficient—transported several hundred Allied airmen back to Britain during the last couple years.”

  Anna nodded, her mind wandering, remembering a young, intense woman back in Antwerp.

  “You knew her, didn’t you?” van Acker asked.

  Anna blinked. “Andree de Jongh? I met her a few months after Justyn and I arrived in Antwerp, February or March of ’40, I think. She was trying to get it started.”

  Van Acker leaned back and smiled, the chair continuing its creaking protest. “Leffard mentioned it to me once right after you moved out here. I got the impression he didn’t approve of your involvement.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t really involved,” Anna said, “not as an escort, certainly. I did small things, delivered some ‘packages’ around the city, nothing big. Rene wouldn’t hear of it. Besides, I had to think of Justyn.”

  Van Acker’s eyes brightened at the mention of the boy’s name. “He’s a good lad, gotten quite tall and his French is excellent. You’d never know…” He caught himself and stopped. “Marchal says he works like hell, puts his own boys to shame.”

  Anna smiled. She knew how fond he was of Justyn. “I guess country life agrees with him.” She looked into van Acker’s eyes. “We’re very grateful, Jules; you know that.”

  Van Acker pushed the creaking chair back and got to his feet, waving a meaty hand dismissively. “Of course. Go take care of the fly-boy. À bientôt.”

  It was after nine o’clock that evening before Anna got a chance to rest. The aviator, who had identified himself as First Lieutenant Andrew Hamilton of the US Army Air Corps, had dropped into a deep sleep after taking the pain medication. Justyn had left shortly after dinner for the Marchals’s house.

  Anna poured a cup of the malt and chicory concoction that substituted for coffee and went out onto the porch. The sun was setting, and the sky was an array of pink and purple cast against a darkening blue background. She sipped the hot, bitter drink and pondered her situation.

  She had felt relatively safe living in this out-of-the-way rural area the past two years. Certainly it was safer for Justyn, compared with what was happening in Antwerp and Brussels, where tens of thousands of Jews were being deported to “the east.” She gazed at the rippling colors in the sky and thought about her conversation
with van Acker, the Comet Line, Andree de Jongh and Rene Leffard. She sighed, thinking about Rene and Mimi Leffard and how much she missed them. They had been their saviors, taking them in when they arrived in Antwerp four years ago, accepting Justyn as one of their own, the grandson they never had. And when it became too dangerous for Justyn in Antwerp, Rene had brought them here, to Jules van Acker and Leon Marchal, who protected their secret.

  She took another sip of the hot drink, trying to remember what real coffee tasted like, and looked around at the tall pines and birch trees. Jan would like it here, she thought. He would like these people—van Acker, Marchal and the other men in the area—tough, solid men, anti-Nazi partisans of the maquis carrying on the fight. Though they didn’t discuss it with her, she knew about their affiliation with the White Brigade, about their connection with Leffard and the money he raised to finance acts of sabotage against the Germans.

  Anna was so engrossed in her thoughts, she didn’t hear Justyn return until he clomped up the wooden steps. The tall, wiry youth flopped down on a bench and pulled off his boots, which were caked with mud.

  “Where did you get into all that mud?” she asked.

  “Checking out the drop site,” Justyn answered.

  “The drop site?”

  “Yeah, it’s just off the road to Ortho, on the other side of the Delacroix place.”

  “Justyn, what are you talking about? A drop site for what?”

  “For supplies. Jean-Claude says we’ve got to scope out some sites…for the Allied planes to drop supplies.”

  Jean-Claude was the Marchal’s seventeen-year-old son. Now Anna understood. She set her cup on the railing. “Justyn, I thought we had an agreement. C’est dangereux. You promised me you weren’t getting involved.”

  He looked up at her and shook his head. “Non, non. This is just, you know, scouting around. Luk and I are helping Jean-Claude—it’s nothing.”