by Tracy Groot
“What are they doing to him?” she suddenly asked.
The others were silent, until Charlotte murmured lightly, “We will not think of it, my dear. It will not give him aid.”
Monsieur Rousseau stood at the window, hands behind his back, the same place he had long stood yesterday. Brigitte had already learned he thought best when he was very still. Rafael, like Tom, preferred to pace his thoughts. The fact that he sat in Monsieur Rousseau’s chair, his face empty of yesterday’s passionate determination, meant he had nothing left to pace.
Brigitte learned that for Tom, there would be no transfer to Paris. Caen was close to the Atlantic Wall; some of the prisoners at this Gestapo headquarters were captured submarine personnel on reconnaissance missions, or Allied engineers, or Navy men, or airmen. Most Gestapo commanders hated to give up prizes like captured Allies. Monsieur Rousseau had told Brigitte that airmen were always sent away to a different interrogation place, likely some Luftwaffe base. But Tom had crossed over to Resistance. His uniqueness gave him VIP status. Some Caen prisoners were kept as potential exchanges, some for the information they might know, and some until their usefulness came to light. Tom was likely all three.
Plans for Tom’s rescue ran the gamut from staging a prisoner transfer, a tired trick now seldom considered, to blowing up a portion of the building. But the Gestapo headquarters in Caen was heavily guarded twenty-four hours a day. One of the more stately buildings in Caen, a courthouse renovated shortly before the Occupation, it stood apart from other buildings; an approach could be seen from any direction.
“So many unknowns,” Monsieur Rousseau murmured. “So many variables. We do not have someone inside, not there.” He paused. “And yet . . .”
Rafael lifted his head.
“I suspect your thoughts, Monsieur Rousseau,” Charlotte said from where she sat near the fireplace. “It is far too risky.”
“You said yourself he is a good man.”
“I think he is. We cannot be sure, and we put far too much at risk to find out.”
“You’re the one who said to stop being so responsible,” he said, rather sharply.
“Who is he?” Rafael asked, looking from Charlotte to Rousseau. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of Hauptmann Braun.”
“He helped us learn about Clemmie.”
Rafael leaped to his feet. “Helped? It would have helped if he got to her on time! It would have helped if he got her free! What did he do? He told us she was dead. Does this mean he is our ally?”
“No,” Charlotte said firmly.
Rafael began to pace, staring hard at Rousseau as he did. “Oh, I know you, Monsieur Rousseau. I know once you have an idea, you will stay with it. Well, I don’t like it. And I don’t like him. You get a measure of a man, don’t you, by the way he treats others? He treats me like a stupid peasant. ‘Run along,’ he said to me the other day. He is just another arrogant, conquering German, and I hate him. He probably played the big man, doing you a grand favor; let me tell you, he will make you pay for it. It would be far better to storm the place in a full frontal assault than trust him.”
“I agree, Michel,” Charlotte said quietly. “We simply do not know him.”
Rousseau glanced over his shoulder at Charlotte, then at Brigitte. “She called me Michel.” He gave a little expression of mock fright.
“He can’t be trusted,” Rafael declared. He gazed at Rousseau with such intensity he did not notice all attention on him. Then he flushed, resumed stride.
“It was just a thought,” Rousseau said mildly.
“His appointment is at one,” Charlotte said, a trace of warning in her tone.
“It was just a thought.” Rousseau went back to the window.
“But what can I do?” Brigitte said, agitated. She had not the self-possession of the man at the window. She had not Charlotte’s poise. “I feel helpless. I want to do something. It is maddening.”
Rafael stalked the office. He paused when he came even with her chair and said bitterly, “Welcome to the Resistance, m’selle.” He flung a hand in the direction of Gestapo headquarters. “While we try to hatch our grand scheme, he is—”
“Rafael,” Rousseau said sharply.
Rafael turned a face of innocence to his boss. “I was only going to say he is probably taking a bath.” He looked at Brigitte and smiled a garish smile. “La baignoire.” He stalked on.
“What is he talking about?” Brigitte said, fear in her throat.
“Oh, why don’t you just go home,” Rafael snapped.
“I don’t live there anymore.”
“Then go someplace else. You’re right. You’re useless.” He reached the fireplace and began his return patrol. Charlotte watched him warily.
“I came here to see him free,” Brigitte said evenly. “After that . . . I need a job. I worked at the US embassy in Paris.” Her chin rose. “I worked for Ambassador Bullitt. I used to type, and I was good at it. I can speak English, I can—”
“You can bed Germans,” Rafael said, sauntering past. “I’ll bet you’re really good at that.”
Charlotte’s hands flew in the air, Rousseau spun from the window, and Brigitte declared above their protests, “You have no idea. They line up for kilometers.”
“So business is booming,” he said when he reached the wall. He turned and leaned against it, taking out a pack of cigarettes.
“Like a run on a bank.”
“They leave your place quite satisfied,” he suggested, lighting up.
“You are mistaken. They leave transformed.”
The barest suggestion of a smile touched his lips, and while Rousseau and Charlotte took in this exchange with astonishment, Brigitte took in a drawn face that had not slept, red-stained eyes, dark, puffy circles beneath them. He pulled on the cigarette, daring her to see more, and when she did, he looked away.
“Braun will be here soon,” he said after a time. “You want to get some soup?”
“Sure.”
He went to Charlotte’s office and returned with her coat and purse. He helped her into the coat and looked over at Charlotte, who now exchanged perplexed looks with Rousseau.
“You want to come, Charlotte? I heard they have Camembert. Wilkie said it’s a vicious rumor, but some rumors play out.” He looked at Brigitte. “A pity there are not male brothels for German women. I would sacrifice myself for Camembert.”
Brigitte sniffed. “What makes you think they would come?”
“Mademoiselle.” He displayed himself, turning in a slow circle, arms outstretched. “Reacquaint yourself with French real estate. Though I have a feeling you’d prefer the States, hmm?” He grinned at her quick glance. Then he looked at the secretary. “Coming, Charlotte?”
Charlotte said haughtily, “Of course I cannot come. I am on duty.” She hesitated. “But if it is true about the Camembert . . .”
Rafael bowed. “For you, madame, I will ambush the kitchen.” He held out his arm to Brigitte and escorted her from the room.
The first blow flayed not his skin as much as his senses with the simple surprise of pain. The ferocity stunned him, took the breath from his lungs, made him feel like a bewildered child whose playmates were not playing right.
Words came into his hearing. They had been there for some time.
“Who is Greenland?”
“Thomas William Jaeger,” he gasped. “First lieutenant, United States—”
The second blow sent spatters to the drop cloth. He stared, upside down, at the drops, bright red over brown, new over old, and wondered about the poor guys who first decorated the cloth.
The third blow produced the first involuntary scream.
The idea of the underground tunnel had freshened Braun’s mind play. The new ventilation system arrested his thoughts in particular. The scope of it dazzled, appalled, and confounded him, providing some of the best diversion he’d had since he left Lisette at Lake Geneva. He nearly pulled out the latest sketches from his briefcase just to admire them, but refrained.
He would see Rousseau soon enough, and until then, he’d let his mind run nimbly along kilometers of intake ducts. Fresh air was the key to the entire operation, the very first consideration—
“Reinhart, stop the car,” he called to his driver.
Krista Hegel was running along the sidewalk, the distress in her comportment obvious enough to attract attention even from within a moving vehicle.
“That girl—pull ahead of her, then pull over.”
The corporal complied, and Braun quickly opened the door and got out of the car. She approached in blind haste, and he knew she would not hear him. He stepped into her path and, when she came close, called, “Fräulein Hegel!”
She stopped short, breathing hard.
“Why, Krista,” Braun said, astonished. “Whatever—”
Instead of bolting away as he feared she might, she ran straight for him, threw her arms around his middle, and began to sob most pitiably.
Braun froze. He had no daughters; he had two grown sons, and neither had cried on him since they were small. Awkwardly, he patted her arm, and then, seeing a distressed Lisette in his mind as surely as he had seen intake ducts not a moment earlier, put his arm around the sobbing girl and held her close. Lisette approved.
“Come now,” he said gently. “Let’s go get a cup of tea, shall we?”
Her nose was swollen, her eyes red-rimmed but clear. She was quiet. It relieved Braun somewhat, but her silence was almost as disconcerting. She wasn’t the vibrant young girl he’d had coffee with last fall.
They sat in Braun’s favorite café not far from the Château de Caen. He seldom came for tea. It was the only place in Caen he could get something resembling beer. The French might be known for wine, but they were not known for beer.
Krista put her chin on her fist and looked out the café window. She looked so very much like her mother, and she had the same qualities she’d possessed since she was a girl. Sweet, and gentle, and kind. She had a purity of loveliness that had him and Lisette exchange occasional glances, thinking of their son Franz. Then the war came, and all young people in Germany went in opposite directions—Italy, North Africa, Greece, France, Norway, Denmark, Holland.
“Thomas William Jaeger,” she said softly. “First lieutenant, United States Army Air Forces. One four oh nine six five two six. I write it over, and over, and over.”
A cloak descended on Braun’s heart.
She gazed unseeing out the window. “Schiffer would be surprised to know not all the guards are as cruel as he.”
Schiffer, he thought grimly. Braun had been introduced to Schiffer when intelligence wanted him to put a toe in the political waters of the Rousseau Cimenterie.
“The pilot is to—” A spasm of anguish crossed her face in the first falter since she had contained herself. “He is to remain in his state of . . . incarceration . . . for the day. Schiffer left the room for lunch. I had a bottle of water concealed in my sweater. I went to him and tried to—” She broke from her outside gaze, blinking back tears as she looked down at her hands. “I tried to give him a drink, but the angle of the . . . He couldn’t swallow, you see . . .”
Then she raised wondering eyes to Braun. “And do you know? One of the guards came and helped. He held up the boy’s head while I gave him water.” Hope freshened the reddened eyes, and he saw a little of the girl he used to know. “I felt as though I were the one, Herr Braun, that someone came and gave me a drink.”
A strange compression came to his middle.
She had seen what he had heard and ignored, strolling on the sidewalk past Gestapo headquarters. That this . . . child, this daughter of his friend should be subjected to such—he wanted to crush the teacup in his hand and welcome lacerations.
“To find a kindred spirit in such a place, that is a gift.” He had a brief image of Michel Rousseau. “I am glad for—” He broke off and said in surprise, “The prisoner is a downed pilot?”
She nodded. “He flew a P-47.”
“Then why is Schiffer interrogating him? He should be sent to Frankfurt.” A Luftwaffe interrogation center was just north of Frankfurt. It was the initial processing and interrogation center for all captured Allied Air Forces personnel.
The brief visit of the sun left her face. She looked at her hands in her lap. “I wish it were so. With all my heart I wish his interrogator were Hanns Scharff. Father wrote to me about him, to let me know I am not alone. He doesn’t hurt the POWs. He doesn’t even raise his voice.” Though she sent a few cautious glances around the café, she seemed less concerned about divulging secret information. Unburdening her soul had loosened her up. “Schiffer wants Greenland, and this pilot is connected to the Resistance. His identification papers say he is a Dutch Nazi, assigned by Rommel to the Rousseau Cimenterie—”
“To where?” Braun said sharply.
“The Rousseau Cimenterie. The paper says he is to interview Dutch conscripts there. But he was caught in Bénouville—”
Bénouville. Where Rousseau had held the dying body of Claire Devault. Braun’s eyes narrowed.
“—by the Milice, who had connected him to a radio transmission, intercepted weeks ago. It said his name was Tom. Thomas . . . William Jaeger . . .” She drew a quick breath, but instead of tears, bleakness filled her eyes. “Do you know? I told him to let his head hang, and it would help him pass out. You don’t dream of these things when you are a little girl. You don’t imagine that the kindest thing you’ll say to someone for the day is the way they can best pass out.”
“Krista, I will write to your father,” he said quickly, pushing aside new thoughts of Rousseau. “We will get you out of there.”
“No!” she said, alarmed. “No, please, Herr Braun. If I go, someone may take my place who will not give them water.” She sat up straighter, and her hands unconsciously sought small actions, righting a teaspoon, smoothing a napkin. Her hands sought order. “I am better now,” she said, trying to convince him. “You’ve helped me. The guard helped me.” The hands stilled. “You have no idea what it meant.” She looked earnestly into his eyes. “I know what water can do for the soul. More than ever, I know God wants me for this job.”
He filed it away to tell Lisette he had found a wife for Franz.
“So. The pilot is being interrogated as a spy . . . ,” he said.
“Schiffer said his papers were traced to the forger who worked for Greenland. And Schiffer wants Greenland. Very badly.”
“Everyone wants Greenland.”
“Not as badly as Schiffer. I heard him say the other day, ‘Klaus Barbie shows me up.’ He is the one who captured the famous Resistance leader last year.”
“Jean Moulin.” He added, “Barbie didn’t just capture him; he tortured him to death.”
“Greenland will be Schiffer’s Moulin.”
Whispers of Greenland from Dunkirk to Brest had a centering whirlpool in the Caen area. Though G might have operated earlier, reports had begun to surface of his or her existence in early ’43. That was what Schiffer had told him.
“What happened to the forger?” Braun asked.
“He killed himself after the second day. It was a cyanide capsule, wrapped in cellophane, sewn into the hem of his coat. I was glad for him.” She sent him a little look to see what he thought of this admission.
“I believe Schiffer interrogated Claire Devault,” Braun said darkly, more to himself than to her. Rousseau had offered to tell him what had been done to her, and Braun had quickly declined. “Her code name was Jasmine.”
At the name, fresh pain appeared on Krista’s face. Her lips trembled.
That such innocence should be in the presence of such evil and bear this burden. He felt some of Reinhold Hegel’s heart toward her and wanted to make things right as if she were his own daughter.
“I wish you would leave that place,” he said stiffly. “It is not good for your soul. I do not want it to change you.”
She put a hand on his arm. “You have done me good, Herr Braun. I have said far
too much. I should not have said anything at all—I could lose my job—but it has taken some of the poison from my heart. If . . . I am the last . . .” Her eyes filled. She took a moment to compose herself and looked at him with such firm resolution it prickled the back of his neck. “If I am the last decent human being they will see, I will be there for them to see. It is all I can do. I will do it.”
“Please tell me you were there for Antoinette Devault,” he said impulsively.
Her blue eyes lowered. She nodded.
Somehow he had known Schiffer had murdered Antoinette Devault, Claire’s grandmother. He had no proof, but he knew it for truth the moment he saw the old woman’s battered face under the sheet at the Caen hospital. Krista Hegel worked for this monster.
“Can you take me back to headquarters, Herr Braun?” Krista asked in a small voice. “I must report back by two.”
“Certainly,” Braun said.
She dried her eyes, wiped her nose. “Thank you,” she said fervently. “Thank you, Herr Braun. You will never know.”
She was thanking him?
“I have done nothing,” he said with strong self-remonstrance, all of a sudden painfully aware of his lack of worth in the whole human scheme.
“Nothing?” She looked at him in surprise. “You stopped your car.”
He shepherded her to the waiting vehicle, accompanied by the new and troubling thoughts of Michel Rousseau.
But now I know, and now I must follow my conscience.
I wonder that about you, Rousseau. I wonder how often you do follow your conscience.
They rode in silence back to Gestapo headquarters. The corporal pulled the vehicle to the curb in front.
As she trotted up the stairs to the door, he looked at the breathing building, with the great black-slashed crimson stain like a wound in the center. He’d never again walk past this building and deafen himself to a scream. Krista was in that room.
Braun was late. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Twenty. It wasn’t like him. Michel tossed down his pen and rubbed his forehead. The last thing he wanted to do was discuss Braun’s crazy ideas for the tunnel. He wished the hauptmann would stick to the plans for the new bunker at Fontaine-la-Mallet. Rommel was due for an inspection soon. He was all over the Normandy coast of late. And he would expect more progress out of his favorite engineer.
