“We'll bring them here tomorrow night, with their papers and yours. You'll have to hide your other papers in the lining of your valise. Your papers will show that you're their mother, and you're going down to visit family in Besse.” It was in the heart of the Dordogne, where her father was from. She had never been there, and had always wanted to go. She wondered if she would see his château on the way, although she had more important things to do. “You'll have to borrow the car from the farm.” He knew that would be no problem.
She spent the rest of the day in prayer in her room, after she did her chores. She had hardly eaten in the last few weeks, and it showed. The next day she sewed her papers as Amélie Dumas into her suitcase. She knew she'd have the others by that night.
After dinner, they arrived. One of the women from the Paris cell had driven them down. They were beautiful children, and they looked terrified. They had been hidden in a basement for two years, and the only relative they had in the world had died. Serge was right. They were adorable, and they looked like her. They made her wonder what their children would have looked like if she and Jean-Yves had had babies. But there was no point thinking of that now. She sat down and talked to the children for a little while. They fed them dinner, and she tucked them into her own bed that night, and slept on the floor next to them. The little boy held his sister's hand all night. And they both understood what they had to do. They had to pretend she was their mother, and call her “Maman.” Even if scary soldiers questioned them. She promised them that she wouldn't let anything bad happen to them, and prayed she was right.
They left right after breakfast the next morning, in Jean-Yves's uncle's car. She knew she could make the trip in six or seven hours. She brought food with them so they didn't have to stop anywhere. They passed one checkpoint, and she handed the soldiers her papers. They looked at her, glanced at the children, handed the papers back, and waved them on. It was the easiest mission she'd been on so far, and the children slept in the car, which gave her time to think. She felt better than she had in a while, and she was glad she had agreed to do it. They were sweet children, and she felt sorry for them. She was taking them to meet a member of a cell in Dordogne, and he was going to deliver them to the safe house that had been provided. He had said Amadea could spend the night there before she went back. It was a long trip.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived in the rolling countryside that seemed not to know there was a war on. It looked lush and green and luxuriant. She drove to the address she'd been given, and found it easily. There was a young man waiting for her, who was as blond and blue-eyed as she and the children. He looked as though he could have been their father as easily as she could have been their mother. He thanked her for bringing them down.
“Do you want to come with me, or stay here?” he asked. The children looked panicked at the thought of leaving her. She was the only person there they knew, although they hadn't known her for long. But she had been nice to them. She tried to reassure them, but they both started crying, and she looked at the man she knew only as Armand.
“I'll come.” He got into her car with the three of them, and told her where to go. Five minutes later, they were driving past an imposing château, and he told her to turn into the courtyard. “Here?” She looked surprised. “This is your safe house?” It was a beautiful old house, with many outbuildings, stables, and an enormous courtyard. “Whose house is this?” she asked, suddenly curious. They were not far from her father's boyhood home, although she wasn't exactly sure where it was either.
“Mine,” he said, and she stared at him, as he laughed. “One day. In the meantime, it's my father's.” She smiled in open admiration as she looked around and they got out. The children were staring up at the château in wonder. After two years in a basement on the outskirts of Paris, this was like going to Heaven. She knew they had papers for them that attested to their aristocratic birth. They were allegedly distant relations of the châtelain.
An old housekeeper led them away to get them dinner, as an older gentleman came down the steps of the château. Amadea assumed he was Armand's father. The distinguished-looking man shook her hand and was very pleasant to her, as Armand introduced them. All he knew of her was the name on her most recent set of papers. Philippine de Villiers. Which was how he introduced her to his father, whom he then introduced to Amadea. “May I introduce my father,” he said politely, “Comte Nicolas de Vallerand.” Amadea stood staring at him, and as she did, she saw the resemblance, although he was older than her father had been the last time she saw him. Her father was forty-four when he died, and would have been sixty now. As she looked from Armand to his father, she looked shocked, but said nothing. Armand could see that something had disturbed her severely, as the count invited her inside. They had prepared a meal for her, and served it elegantly in the dining room, as the two men joined her. She was quiet as she looked around, and the count noticed her pained silence but didn't comment.
“It's a beautiful old house. It was originally built in the sixteenth century. And rebuilt about two hundred years later. I'm afraid it's badly in need of repair these days. There will be no one to do it until the war is over. The roof leaks like a sieve.” He smiled. He was looking at her as though there was something familiar about her too. She knew what it was, she was the image of her father. She wondered what would happen if she told him the truth. But things must have changed, if he was hiding Jewish children. It seemed the ultimate irony now, since her father had been banished and never seen again by any of them because he had a Jewish wife.
They finished dinner, and the count invited her to walk in the gardens. He said they had been done by the same architect who had designed the gardens at Versailles. It was a strange feeling walking through the same halls and rooms and places where her father had lived as a boy, and as she walked outside, the thought of it brought tears to her eyes. These same rooms had been filled with the sounds of his voice and laughter as a child and as a young man. They were the echoes of her past, which she shared with these two men, although they didn't know it.
“Are you all right?” Armand could see that she was deeply moved by something. His father was already waiting for them in the garden. She nodded as they went outside, and he showed them around.
“You're a very brave woman to bring those children down on your own. If I had a daughter, I'm not sure I would let her do that. In fact, I'm sure I wouldn't.” He looked at Armand then, frowned, and lowered his voice. “I worry about Armand as well. But none of us has any other choice these days, do we?” In fact they did. There were others who made different choices. She liked the one she was making, and theirs.
As they walked around through the once-beautiful gardens, the count asked her nothing about herself. They were all better off not knowing too much. Everyone was careful these days. It was dangerous to say too much to anyone. But as she sat down on one of the ancient time-worn marble benches that had been rubbed smooth by the elements, she looked up at him with sad eyes.
“I don't know why,” he said gently, “but I have the feeling I know you, that we've met somewhere.” There was no one around but Armand. “Have I?” He was in his late fifties, she knew, and not old enough to be senile. But he looked confused, as though he heard voices from another time, and wasn't sure what he was hearing, or seeing. “Have we met?” he asked her again. He didn't think it likely, but he might have forgotten. And as she sat there, looking at him, she looked remarkably like Armand.
“You knew my father,” she said in a gentle voice, never leaving his eyes with her own.
“Did I? What was his name?”
“Antoine de Vallerand,” she said calmly. Nicolas was his brother, and her uncle, and Armand her first cousin. There was absolute silence between the three of them for an endless moment, and then without saying a word, tears began to roll down his cheeks, and he took her in his arms.
“Oh my dear…oh my dear …” He couldn't say anything else for long minutes. He
was overwhelmed by the memories she had brought with her. “Did you know when you came here?” He wondered if that was why she had taken the mission. But she hadn't known.
She shook her head. “Not until we drove in here, and Armand said your name. It was a bit of a shock, as you can imagine.” She laughed through her own tears. “I wanted to say something at dinner, but I was afraid you'd ask me to leave. I wanted to savor it for a little while. My father always talked to me about all this, the place where he grew up.”
“I never forgave my father for what he did. I hated him for it, and myself, for not having the courage to defy him. We were barely civil to each other after that. And when he died, I wanted to ask your father to come home and forgive us. He died two weeks later. And my wife died the year after. I wanted to write to your mother about how I felt about what happened, but I never knew her, and I felt sure she hated all of us.” Instead, he had written a proper letter of condolence, and nothing more.
“She didn't hate you,” Amadea reassured him. “Her family was even worse to her. They wrote her name in the family's book of the dead, and wouldn't let her see her mother when she died, or go to the funeral. My grandmother had come to us two years before, and we got to know her. I never met the others.”
“Where are they now?” he asked, looking concerned, as Amadea took a breath before she answered. The rest was all bad news.
“The entire family was deported on Kristallnacht. Some people thought they were sent to Dachau, but I don't know for sure. My mother and sister were deported to Ravensbrück two years ago. I haven't heard from them since.” He looked horrified by what she had said.
“And you came here?” He looked confused as Armand watched her intently. She was an amazing woman. Armand had no sisters, and wished he had one like her. He was an only child, with no relatives other than his father. They had made the decision to join the Resistance together, all they had in the world was each other, and this house, which was in a genteel state of disrepair as was the property all around them.
“I was in Theresienstadt for five months. Friends hid me before that, after my mother was deported. I was in a Carmelite convent for six years before that.”
“You were a nun?” Armand looked shocked.
“I still am, I suppose,” although that had been questionable for a while. But she was sure again now. Ever since Jean-Yves died. She had found her vocation again. She wasn't sure now that she had ever lost it. She had just taken a brief detour, in extraordinary circumstances. “Sister Teresa of Carmel. I'll go back after the war. I had to leave the convent so as not to endanger the others.”
“What a remarkable girl you are,” her uncle said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Your father would be very proud of you, if he were alive. I am, and I hardly know you.” And then he looked at her wistfully. “Could you stay longer?” They had a lifetime of catching up to do. And he wanted to hear all about the years he had lost with his brother. There were a thousand things he wanted to know.
“I don't think that would be wise,” she said sensibly, showing Carmelite good judgment, as Serge would have said. “I'd like to come back, if I may,” she asked politely. He could see that she was beautifully brought up.
“I'd be heartbroken if you didn't.” They walked back inside then, and spent the rest of the night talking. They never went to bed, and then finally she went to lie down for a few hours before she left.
She went to kiss the children good-bye, and they cried when she left them. And she, Armand, and Nicolas all cried as she drove away. She had promised to come back, and her uncle had begged her to be careful and take care of herself. She could still see them in the rearview mirror, standing in the courtyard, waving, as she turned and they disappeared out of sight. It had been one of the best nights of her life, and she wished that Jean-Yves and her father could have been there. But as she drove back to Melun, she felt them close to her, along with her mother and Daphne. They were all part of an unbreakable chain, linking the present, the future, and the past.
22
AMADEA'S DRIVE BACK TO MELUN WENT SMOOTHLY. SHE was stopped by soldiers only once, and although they admired her and chatted for a few minutes, they let her drive on fairly quickly. They had scarcely glanced at her papers. One of them waved with a big boyish grin as she drove off.
She was back in Melun at the farmhouse by late afternoon. By the following week, she was back with the others, picking up supplies parachuted in, and following their familiar routine. The British had sent them two more shortwave radios, which were concealed at neighboring farms.
It was late September when Serge came to visit them again. He liked to see the men and women who worked for him face to face whenever he could. He wanted to have a sense of them, to make sure that they weren't putting others at risk, and that they were as loyal as he believed. He had a sixth sense about those things. And this time there was something he wanted to discuss with Amadea. He had heard from others that she had been depressed for a long time about Jean-Yves, and still blamed herself not only for his death, and Georges's, but for the assassination of the four young boys. Even worse, she was afraid that Jean-Yves had died as punishment for her sins. Serge had grown fond of her in the time she had been doing missions for him, and he had a profound respect for her good judgment, great courage, and cool head. He wanted to make sure she was all right, and there was a mission he wanted to talk to her about. As always, when something was delicate, he wanted to speak to her in person. He sent a message to her, and they met at a neighboring farm.
As soon as she walked in, he saw that she looked drawn and tired, and her spirits were still lagging. She seemed to feel haunted by the deaths she felt she had caused, and talked a lot again about how anxious she was to go back to the convent after the war. She ate dinner with him, and filled him in on the supplies they had brought in, some of the new people working with them, and after dinner, they took a walk.
“There's something I want to talk to you about,” he said after a few minutes. “I need an operative in Paris for a special mission. I don't know if you feel up to it, but I think you would be perfect.” He had been asked by the SOE in England to find someone with specific qualifications, and she had them all. They needed someone who spoke German faultlessly, and could pass as a cool, sophisticated, aristocratic German woman. Amadea not only looked the part, but was in fact precisely that. And she could pass equally as French or German. They wanted to pose her as the wife or girlfriend of a high-ranking SS officer who was coming to visit Paris. The officer in question was going to be impersonated by a member of the British Secret Service who himself was half German and was also fluent in French. He needed a perfect match for him, and Amadea was it. The big question was if she would do it, and as always she had the choice.
Serge explained the mission to her as they walked along in the dark, and she listened to him in silence. For a long time, she didn't answer, and he didn't press her.
“When do you need to know?” She wanted to pray about it. She was happy in the countryside, doing what she could for them. It was far more dangerous for her going to Paris, and flaunting herself in the face of the SS. She didn't mind being shot by the Germans stationed in Melun, in the course of a midnight mission. The one thing she didn't want, and feared more than anything, was being deported back to the camps. That was more crucifixion than even she felt ready to risk, or face again. She knew she wouldn't be as lucky again, as she had been in escaping Theresienstadt. So far, not a single soul had escaped from Auschwitz, or most of the other camps. It had been a sheer fluke, the night of the leveling of Lidice, that she had been able to escape the Nazis' “model camp.” They were in fact at that moment preparing to show their “Town for Jews” to the International Red Cross. Deportation to any other camp, or even that one now, was almost certain death, after unthinkable torture. Serge's invitation to Paris, masquerading as the wife of an SS officer, sounded risky to her. Too much so.
“We don't have much time. And you're
our only real possibility,” Serge said honestly. “The agent who is running the mission is coming in at the end of this week. I was going to tell you about it tonight anyway. He's coming in with three men.” She already knew what those landings were like, and had assisted them often with Jean-Yves and the others. They landed a tiny Lysander for less than five minutes, while the men got out, the plane took off again, and the men dispersed quickly. They were the same planes that did their supply drops, and sometimes parachuted agents in. The landings were far harder. They came in without lights, and relied on the freedom fighters on the ground to guide them with flashlights and protect them. So far, in Amadea's time of working with them, they hadn't had a single mishap, nor lost a single man. Although on several occasions they had come close.
“He must be someone important,” Amadea said thoughtfully, wondering who it was and if she'd heard of him. She knew many of the names now of the people they worked with in England. She heard their code names on the radio, when she manned it, which she did from time to time. She was proficient now with the shortwave. Jean-Yves had taught her well. And loved her well, for the brief time they shared.
“He's very important,” Serge admitted, referring to the British agent. “He can do the mission alone if he has to, but it will provide a diversion if he has a ‘wife.’” He looked at her honestly then. “You're the only one who can do it.” None of their other operatives spoke German as fluently as she did, and could pass for German. Even if they spoke it well, which some did, it was obvious that they were French. Amadea looked completely Teutonic. Not only German, but Aryan to the nth degree. As did the officer she'd be working with. Like her, he was half German, although not Jewish. His mother was a Prussian princess, well known as a great beauty when she was young.
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