There was dead silence in the room.
Gabrielle kneeled, sat back on her heels, and smoothed her skirt. She lifted her chin defiantly and stared at her captors. There was Tiedemann, sitting with an unreadable face in her father’s reading chair. There was another Nazi officer with round glasses and a mustache who was peeking at her over his notebook. And there was Springer, who had a raised eyebrow and bemused smirk. Gabrielle glared at him the longest; she knew Springer spoke French and would have understood what she had said.
“Interessant,” Tiedemann said to no one in particular.
A short conversation transpired between Tiedemann and Springer.
“That is quite a show of defiance, Fraulein,” Springer finally said. “Should we conclude that we have found the murderer already?”
Alarm bells rang in Gabrielle’s head. It was hard to swallow her pride. It was that much worse that Springer was quite obviously enjoying himself dominating a pretty French girl. She had met that type before. But for survival’s sake alone, a meeker tone seemed to be the prudent thing to put on. Gabrielle managed to look sullenly at the floor in what she hoped was an acceptable show of subjugation. Inside, she was fuming.
She heard the captain speak in German before Springer translated. “So, Fraulein Conti. Tell us about last night.”
“What do you want to know?” she answered.
“That is for you to tell us.”
Gabrielle sniffed incredulously at such vague direction. “What?”
Springer stiffened. “Don’t annoy me, Fraulein. It is not something you want to do.”
Gabrielle struggled to find a meek nod.
“I am asking you to tell us about last night,” the German continued. “Why don’t you start with what you did after we arrived at your home?”
That seemed simple enough. “Once your men came inside the house, my father told me to collect extra linens and take them to their bedroom. So I did.”
“Extra linens?”
“Bed sheets. For the cots for your men, since that’s where I was told you were going to be sleeping.”
Springer translated for his captain, who thought for a moment and then spoke in a voice too low for Gabrielle to hear.
“Did you bring the cots as well?” said Springer.
“What?”
“You brought the sheets and bed linens. Did you bring the cots to the master bedroom as well? They were there waiting for us when we went upstairs.”
It seemed like an odd question. “No.”
“Who did?”
Gabrielle paused for a moment. “Girard.”
Springer conferred with Tiedemann, then turned back to her. “The one with the limp? Not a very nice thing to make him carry such unwieldy things up the stairs.”
“He is our hired worker,” she replied simply.
More discussion amongst the Germans. The officer with the round glasses was busily writing into his notebook. Gabrielle shifted uneasily at the level of attention they seemed to be giving such simple comments.
“Very well,” Springer said eventually. “Then what did you do?”
“I was told to go to the sitting room and wait. I stayed there until my father got the rest of the family together to discuss our situation.”
“And what situation was that?”
Gabrielle looked Springer right in the eyes. “You’re joking.”
“Not at all,” the German replied.
Her temper started to bubble again. “You beat down our door at gunpoint. You threaten my mother and father and then take over our house. And you ask what our situation is?”
As boorish and rude as Springer was, he actually flinched at Gabrielle’s verbal lashing. She couldn’t resist following up. “Any problem we may have had about your presence here has been completely validated that you’ve imprisoned us, and beat us, in this strange interrogation you’re undertaking. We haven’t done anything! You’ve terrorized us from the beginning and now you are treating us like the fault is ours? How dare you!” Her voice was rising now, and a little tickle in the back of her brain was flashing danger, but she couldn’t stop. “We are out here minding our own business, just trying to make a living making wine so that we can afford to eat while your government takes more and more things away from us. Then you come here and take our home and our freedom away, even after we let you stay to get out of the storm. And the way you repay us is by taking us prisoners and threatening us. Mon Dieu! And you have the nerve to ask me what I mean when I say we were discussing our situa—”
Springer punched her.
At first, Gabrielle didn’t know what had happened. Her brain tried to rationalize how it was that her head was flat against the wood floor, and flecks of light danced in front of her eyes as if to mock her for her insolence. Gradually she realized that she was being brought back upright by several sets of hands. She was still woozy and the Germans had to hold her steady.
Springer’s voice was busily chattering with the other German officers. Gabrielle gradually came to her senses. Her cheek ached. Part of her couldn’t believe what had just happened. The rest of her couldn’t make sense of anything else.
After a lively conversation with Tiedemann, Springer at last turned back to her and addressed her again in French.
“You’d best mind your attitude before I have to hit you for real. Now, you say your family was in the sitting room. Who specifically was there?”
Back to it—just like that? Still stunned, Gabrielle gave a straightforward answer. “Myself and Papa. My mother, grandfather, and brother. And Girard.”
“Was the British airman there as well?”
What did he say?
Gabrielle turned in shock towards Springer. Had they found Stefan? They had not brought him to the Great Room. And surely her grandfather had not betrayed his presence; after all, it was at his insistence that they take him in to begin with. Yet somehow the Germans knew about the Englishman and that he was on the premises.
Despite the sting in her jaw, Gabrielle focused on Springer’s eyes and spoke very carefully. “There was no British airman in our sitting room.”
Springer smiled. “No, of course not. He was hiding in the cellar.”
Gabrielle stayed silent. To her surprise, so did the Germans. When she glanced over at Tiedemann he was watching her like a hawk, but somehow the captain seemed disappointed in her answer. After what seemed like forever, he spoke again to Springer.
“How many times did you go down to the cellar to see him last night?”
“I never went to the cellar last night.”
Springer leaned forward. “Are you sure?”
“Quite.”
“That Englishman is surely a dangerous spy, Fraulein. Herr Tiedemann wants to know what sort of contact you’ve had with him.”
There was a lie on the tip of her tongue, one that would maintain that she didn’t know to whom they were referring. But Gabrielle realized that it would be pointless. The boches had obviously either discovered or captured Stefan. Denying his existence was not a good strategy. So she quickly searched for a minimal answer.
“I’ve only barely seen him. My father shuttled me off to tend to chores when he arrived and I have not been involved.”
“How long ago did he arrive?”
“The night before last, I think, but I can’t remember exactly.”
“He has been here two days and you have had no contact with him? I don’t believe you.”
“It hasn’t been as much time as that,” Gabrielle replied. “It was late at night when he came here. Then I was busy with the usual work around here. You arrived yesterday. I’ve been too busy helping my mother to get involved with anything else.”
Springer translated for Tiedemann and the third officer with the glasses scribbled in his notebook. Gabrielle hoped she wasn’t saying anything that would contradict someone else in her family. How could the soldiers have found out about Stefan? He had been hidden so well. The nook underneath the floorboard
s in the green bedroom was far too difficult to find without help. Gabrielle hoped to God that someone like her mother or Philippe hadn’t been beaten to force some kind of confession. The thought of any of them being hurt made her stomach turn.
Tiedemann unexpectedly barked an order in German and a soldier came into the room. Springer pointed to Gabrielle and gave some instructions that she didn’t understand, but it appeared that her interrogation was over when the soldier grabbed her roughly and started hauling her out of the room.
“Wait! Stop!” Gabrielle cried out. Her stomach was doing flip flops.
Everything was happening too quickly. It was as if she was being pushed inexorably towards a cliff, where the drop off to her doom was clearly in place, but she couldn’t comprehend why she was being pushed, or whether it was for real or just a misunderstanding. All she knew was that she had no control over her own safety, and it was terrifying.
“Where are you taking me? What about my family? We haven’t done anything to you. Why are you treating us like this?”
Then the Germans were out of sight. Gabrielle was pulled like a sack of potatoes through one of the corridors to an old storage room and thrust through the open door. She stumbled right into an end table and knocked it over, taking herself along with it. The door slammed closed behind her. Aching, she sat in the middle of the floor, alone with the throbbing pain in her cheek.
What was going to happen to her and her family?
* * *
“That’s a feisty one,” Springer admired. “Did you see how she smoldered when I punched her?”
Krauss nodded in agreement. “Her temper certainly suggests that she could have killed someone.”
“Oh, yes, I bet she could have. So much attitude. How sweet would it be to take her down a notch or two?”
“No, no,” Tiedemann replied, stroking his chin. “She doesn’t strike me as the type. I find her attitude more youthful impetuousness than malice. What is she, sixteen? The girl has spirit, but that doesn’t make her a threat—particularly when she crumples on the ground from one simple blow.”
“But you can’t rule her out, can you?” said Springer.
Tiedemann thought. “No. At least, not yet. But other things don’t line up either. First of all, she gave very clear indications that she had not been to the cellar at all last night.”
“She could have been lying.”
Tiedemann shook his head. “The eyes, Springer, it’s all in the eyes. She showed no recognition whatsoever. And honestly, I’m not surprised. If I were her father, I wouldn’t let her out of my sight lest a German soldier get too interested.”
Springer’s eyes had a dangerous glint in them. “Wise man.”
“But,” Krauss squeaked in, “just because the girl didn’t go down to the wine cellar, that doesn’t mean Cartwright hadn’t been down there.”
“She showed no knowledge of him hiding there,” Tiedemann replied. “And that’s the crux of it, Krauss. We have to build the story from the fragments of their interrogations. There are lots of things that could have happened. I want to trap them in their lies.”
“Do you believe her? That she didn’t know where he was hiding?”
“I suspect that everyone knew. In fact, their coordination was probably vital in hiding him.”
Krauss grumbled. “She certainly didn’t provide much of an alibi for any of the Frenchmen. Conti, Rimbault, and the servant.”
“No, she didn’t,” Tiedemann agreed. “In fact, I’m more suspicious of them than ever. We’ve heard Rimbault’s version of last night. Let’s move on to Conti.”
10
While they waited for the next prisoner to be brought in, Tiedemann paced the room in an attempt to take his mind off the throbbing hangover. It had been a long time since he had had one this bad. He remembered earlier that year sitting at a café with eight other officers, back before they had been deployed east. They had thrown back the cognac as if it were water and got rowdier by the hour as inhibitions fled. He remembered an intricately beautiful mirror behind the bar, probably a hundred years old, with an ornate brass frame that stretched to the top of the two story ceiling and projected out from the wall. Dietrich, one of Tiedemann’s lieutenants, had decided through some thought process that could only be guessed at that it made sense to try and climb it. He hurdled onto the back bar over the protests of the barkeep and succeeded in scaling about one meter before the brass frame bent, allowing the entire pane of glass to slip out and shatter on the floor. Tiedemann and his men roared out in laughter of course, and there were so many glass shards afterwards that the café seemed like it surely had been bombed.
Tiedemann wanted to smile. But the cold reality that Dietrich and the others were dead on some dry steppe in northern Russia quickly stole the humor.
The soldiers who fought under him were brothers united in a cause. They no longer had homes other than the battlefield, family other than each other, nor hope other than the promise of a victory that seemed forever on the horizon. All they had was each other, and the confidence that they would be there when the time called for it.
That was why Tiedemann had to find out who killed Hoffman.
Robert Conti was brought in and ignobly dumped on the floor. Springer instructed a soldier to remain as a guard while Tiedemann reviewed Krauss’s notes from the other interrogations. There had to be a connection somewhere between Cartwright, the cellar, and Hoffman.
“Herr Conti, we have some questions for you.” Tiedemann addressed their prisoner directly, in German. “Your answers will determine whether the members of your family live or die. Do you understand?”
Conti was silent.
Remembering the reaction that Conti’s father-in-law had, Tiedemann tried to use Gabrielle for some leverage. “Particularly your daughter, I think. She had some interesting things to say.”
The Frenchman tried his best to look dismissive of the comment, but Tiedemann saw his complexion growing pale. Physiological signs were so hard to disguise. He much preferred solving matters this way, intellectually, rather than how they did in Russia. At times it was all that he had to remind himself he was a human being.
“Very well, then. Let’s start with your houseguest. How long has Herr Cartwright been here?”
“Two nights. He wandered in from the fields and so we took him in out of kindness.” Conti glanced at Tiedemann. “It’s hard to simply turn someone away when they’re in need.”
Tiedemann dismissed the jab. Conti’s response was too prepared, as if he had expected the question. Not good. That meant the investigation was starting to drag, and his prisoners were finding time to think up alibis and alternative facts.
“Where did you hide him upon our arrival?”
“In the cellar.”
Finally. With a glance at Krauss, Tiedemann pressed on. “Why there?”
“Because it was far from the front door. We were pressed for time when you arrived.”
“Who took him there?”
Conti fumbled slightly before answering. “I told him to go there and he went on his own.”
“Very interesting,” Tiedemann said mockingly. “When I first saw you, you were coming down the grand staircase into the foyer. My men have searched the house thoroughly and have found no other staircases to the upper level. So tell me, how is it that you expected Cartwright to get to the cellar, past us, when both of you were upstairs and we were standing right next to the only way to get there?”
The Frenchman did not reply.
“I’m waiting.”
“We… had arranged beforehand that that was where he was to hide, should he need to.”
Tiedemann stepped back and barked an order. Springer took a rifle from the soldier at the door and swung it solidly into the Frenchman’s ribs. Conti sprawled out across the floor. A few moments later he contracted into the fetal position, and his lungs finally allowed him to gulp enough air to release an agonizing sob.
“I do not like liars, Herr Cont
i. That is one blow. Lie to me again and your daughter will receive one in addition to yourself. Am I clear?”
“Yes,” Conti sputtered from the floor.
“Now, where was Cartwright hiding when we arrived?”
Conti gasped. “Please. I told you what I know. I thought he was in the cellar.”
Tiedemann could not get a good view of the prisoner’s eyes, so he continued with questions instead. “Then why is it we found him in the kitchen?”
“I-I don’t know. Please, please. He must have gone there on his own. I don’t know why.”
“So, somehow, this airman, this enemy soldier, was able to move around undetected in your house while we prepared to sleep for the night. Is that what you are telling me?”
“Yes, I suppose so. I can’t tell you where he did and didn’t go.”
Tiedemann thought these answers came a little too easily. Had Conti already decided who a suitable scapegoat might be? Had he offered up Cartwright because it might spare the members of his family?
“You know, of course, that the body of our comrade was found in the cellar, yes?”
Conti turned even paler, if that was possible. He stared straight ahead while Tiedemann remained silent. Eventually Conti’s anxiety caused him to steal furtive glances around the room, terrified to see what was coming next.
Tiedemann walked around in front of him and knelt down several feet away.
“Herr Conti, the problem I have is this. Cartwright was not found hiding in the cellar, and there’s no way he could have gotten back and forth without being seen by my men. That is not where I think he was hiding. Tell me, who was it that opened up the wine stores to my men?”
“What do you mean?”
“We drank some wine last night, at your invitation. Which of you took my officer down to the wine cellar and invited us to drink?”
Conti looked up at him and mumbled.
“What?”
The Hazards of War Page 7
