Hand Grenade Helen

by Liliana Hart

  The Sirens

  I met Jakob Novak by accident.

  Pierre was quite the playboy and liked by the locals, and there was almost a sense of willful ignorance in the people who occupied the area—they drank and ate and laughed as if their fellow man weren’t suffering just miles down the road at the nearest camp. It was unsettling and left a bitter taste in my mouth, but our role was different here.

  We were one of them. And more importantly, the rumors had been spread that the wealth that lined Pierre’s pockets was funding Hitler’s vision. At least, that was the rumor.

  I jumped into the fray of nights on the town with dinner and dancing into the late hours. There were no curfews like we’d had in Marseille. And they weren’t strict on rationing. Captain Rolfe enjoyed his comforts, and he found that by letting everyone else remain comfortable then he got everything he wanted as well.

  I found Pierre fascinating. He didn’t treat me like other men did. He didn’t fawn over me or stare lustfully. But it was easy to see his mind was brilliant and he was always playing a part. I wasn’t sure if the man—the SOE agent—I spent time arguing with about everything from politics to American baseball was real or an actor. He was an enigma. And the more he confused me, the less I trusted him, because I couldn’t figure him out.

  But boy, did he play the part well. I fit easily into his arms when we danced, and our conversations flowed as if we’d known each other our whole lives. It was easy to lean into his kisses and affection so people could see how in love we were.

  The soldiers frequented a tavern called the Der Rote Esel—The Red Donkey—and it was loud and rowdy, the drinks plentiful and the music and dancing the kind forbidden by Hitler. And though Captain Rolfe was what Pierre called a “good soldier,” there was a streak of rebellion in him that was in opposition to his leader’s vision. Pierre said Rolfe saw himself moving up the ranks and had aspirations of becoming greater than Hitler. A man like that was dangerous because he had no loyalty and he was a government unto himself, though the reports he sent back to Berlin were no doubt filled with their devotion and allegiance to their master.

  It was a night where the Der Rote Esel was filled so that dancing couples spilled out onto the streets. The night was cold and snow fell in lazy flakes, but there was still a sheen of sweat on the bodies pressed close together.

  I’d found a rhythm to Pierre’s conversation as we danced through the room. He made deals and brokered trades between soldiers and locals alike, and he did it with the authority of a man who knew how to make life better for people or intrinsically worse. I wasn’t sure if the people of Waldenburg were in awe of Pierre or afraid of him.

  “You’ve been quiet tonight,” he whispered, tucking my hair behind my ear. “Are you tired?”

  “Never,” I said. “I’ve missed this. Missed you. The Swiss are not so enjoyable in these things.”

  He chuckled and steered me smoothly through the crowd as the band played another song.

  “You are more beautiful every time I look at your face,” he said. “I’d almost forgotten what you looked like while you were gone, but now that I see you, I don’t know how it’s possible to forget such beauty.”

  The romance of his native tongue rolled over me. I couldn’t speak, so I held him tighter. The crowd was raucous around us, but it was as if the noise had been canceled and all I could hear was him. There was the smell of sweat and beer in the air, but it faded next to the scent of his aftershave.

  The sirens took us all by surprise, and the crowd rushed out the front door of the tavern until everyone stood in the streets looking up at the sky. In Marseille, when the sirens had gone off, it meant to find shelter. But the sirens we were hearing weren’t our own, and the planes already buzzed overhead as they flew toward the Polish towns just across the border. It was their sirens that echoed off the mountains. And I watched in horror as the bombs fell from the planes and lit up the night sky like a heat lightning storm over Whiskey Bayou.

  Pierre and I stood at the back of the crowd, and I leaned against him as he wrapped his arms around me. People were dying, and the soldiers in the crowd cheered as if it were a celebration.

  I didn’t think much of the small man who came up and stood next to my right side. But he moved closer, until he bumped my arm, and then I looked over at him. He was thin and unassuming, and even looking straight at him I wasn’t sure there was any distinguishing features about him that made him anything more than completely ordinary. He hadn’t bothered with a hat and his face was clean shaven. He wasn’t handsome or unattractive. He just…was.

  “Jakob,” Pierre said softly, the words a whisper in my hair.

  “We need to meet,” Jakob said. “The supply train is coming soon. There will only be one chance.”

  “This is too risky,” Pierre said.

  “I know, but I’ve been waiting for an opportunity for three days.” Jakob’s mouth barely moved with the words he spoke. “I can wait no longer.”

  “We’ll meet you in the cellar in the bookshop,” Pierre said.

  Jakob nodded and disappeared as suddenly as he’d come. I held my questions, of which I had many, and I waited impatiently for several more minutes as the bombing continued. And then Pierre made sure to say his goodbyes to the tavern owner and a couple of soldiers, and then he put his arm around me and led me across the square toward the boulevard where our apartment was.

  The streets were dark and deserted, but Pierre didn’t stay to the shadows. We walked down the middle of the road. I could feel eyes on us, and I worried Pierre might be too cocky. I’d known the Gestapo in France. They were consumers of people and things. They cared about no one who wasn’t the same as them. And they were cruel and violent. They would think nothing of shooting down someone like Pierre in the streets—someone of influence and who was well liked—if only to strike fear into the people they needed to strike fear into.

  That moment hadn’t come yet. For some reason, the Nazi party liked the attention and lavishness Pierre heaped on them. But it wouldn’t last forever. And then someone would die. I’d seen it too often for it to not be true. I knew Pierre knew this as well as I did, but he was playing fast and loose anyway. I wasn’t sure if he was a genius or an idiot.

  He unlocked the door of the stationary shop and opened it so the little bell tinkled above us. The soldiers on duty would hear us come in next door, and they’d be listening as we made our way upstairs to our apartment, just as they always did. Sometimes they even joined our conversations through the walls.

  Pierre moved into the stationary shop with familiarity, chatting about mundane things like what we needed to buy from the market the next morning. There was a private staircase in the back of the shop that led to our apartment, and I took off my wrap and pulled the pins from my hair, massaging my scalp as I followed Pierre. The blisters on my feet hadn’t fully recovered, but we’d wrapped them good, and Pierre had somehow acquired soft Italian leather slippers so I could play my role without whimpering in pain with every step I took.

  I wasn’t sure what the plan was. I didn’t know who Jakob was. And I didn’t know what the safe room was in the bookshop. All I knew was that I had no choice but to follow Pierre’s lead. And I was trying to keep my irritation at a minimum for being kept in the dark. Of course, I knew Pierre didn’t trust me either, so that lessened the sting somewhat of him not sharing what seemed like important information.

  I could tell by the devil in his grin that he was well aware of my aggravation, but he kept up a stream of conversation that moved from general information about some of our neighbors to asking if I was ready for bed, followed by a very explicit account of what he wanted to do to me once we got there.

  I crossed my eyes at him and stuck out my tongue, and then I ran the rest of the way up the stairs, laughing seductively. He tugged my hand toward the bedroom and then put his finger to his lips as he closed the door loudly behind us. Then he ushered me into the large closet we shared.

 
I didn’t know where the clothes in the closet I’d been wearing the last couple of days had come from, but they fit well, and Pierre had told me they’d been hanging there since before the Nazis had arrived. One of the first thing the Gestapo had done when they’d taken over the city was to search every apartment on the boulevard so they could eradicate those who didn’t fit Hitler’s ideal.

  But the clothing in the closet had been a surprise, and it made me wonder how long ago Pierre had chosen me for this mission.

  I watched with curiosity as Pierre moved to the middle of the back of the closet and reached behind several dark suits, swiping his hands along the wall and pressing in different locations until there was a soft snick.

  He gestured with his fingers to come forward, and he held the suits back so I could slide though a small opening in the wall.

  “Reach your hand out,” he whispered, his lips pressed to my ear. “There’s a stair rail. Follow it all the way down.”

  I grasped the railing tightly and put one foot in front of the other, searching for the steep steps in total darkness. It was disorienting to not be able to see shapes or the hint of what was ahead of me or below. Then I felt Pierre on the step above me and heard the secret door click shut behind him. The space seemed to get smaller the farther I went down, and I wondered if Pierre would be able to get his broad shoulders through.

  The air was hot and musky, and my breath was shallow as the walls closed in. I could no longer tell which direction was up or down, and panic started to claw at me as the darkness became consuming. I felt myself falling forward, and even as I had the thought that I’d be falling into an abyss of nothingness, my feet hit solid ground.

  I stumbled and gasped as Pierre wrapped his arms around me.

  “Steady,” he whispered. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded my head, but couldn’t speak just yet. The world was starting to right itself, and I could see shadows forming in the darkness. There was light seeping in from somewhere in the room, and the air had grown cool and smelled like earth.

  “We’re safe here,” Pierre said. “We’re in the cellar of the book shop next door.” I heard the familiar scrape of a match being lit, and he cupped his hand around the flame. “There’s a door just there. Jakob is waiting.”

  I nodded and took a steadying breath and moved toward the door I could see clearly now. The iron knob was cool to the touch and I pushed it open, walking into a dank room lit only by lanterns. There was an old wooden table in the center of the room, and next to it stood Jakob, the man from the tavern. But he wasn’t alone. In the corner stood an older, well-to-do couple who ran the book shop and lived in the neighboring apartment to ours.

  “Scarlet Holmes,” Pierre said. “This is Jakob Novak. He’s an SOE agent out of Poland. Does excellent ground reconnaissance, and moves like a shadow.”

  “I heard of your work in Marseille,” he said simply, nodding a hello.

  “And you know Gregor and Anna,” Pierre continued. “They’re German citizens from Waldenburg, but volunteered their services to the SOE after the first raids were done in the city.”

  I almost wished I hadn’t known that information. I’d been polite to our neighbors the few times I’d seen them, chatting with Anna about my time in Switzerland and my mother’s death. But knowing they were German-born citizens who’d volunteered to become double agents didn’t set my mind at ease. This was another element we had to take into consideration, because whether they were true to their word or not, I had no choice but to believe that they’d betray us at any moment.

  Ada Mae

  “Granny says to never trust anyone who chooses white wine over red,” Ada said.

  “Granny is the expert on such things,” Scarlet said. “I probably should have asked Gregor and Anna which they preferred.”

  “I don’t think I would’ve liked going down that dark hole. I get scared of the dark sometimes.” She yawned and snuggled her baby doll closer.

  “It’s not my favorite thing either,” Scarlet agreed. “I’m of the mind that I’d rather see what’s trying to kill me than be surprised. It’s why I never sleep in a car or airplane. I want to be awake if I’m going to die.”

  “That’s very brave,” Ada said. “I don’t think I’d want to be awake.”

  Scarlet waved her hand dismissively. “It’s not something you have to worry about for a long time, so there’s nothing to be scared of in the dark. Though I have to confess, after my experience crawling down into that hole, I developed a bit of claustrophobia.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “It means every time I get in a closed in space it feels like I’m in a coffin being buried underground.”

  Ada nodded. “You should get cremated. Then you won’t have to worry about that.”

  “Already a step ahead of you. I’m going to have my ashes shot out of a cannon with a bunch of confetti and fireworks. It’ll be a real party. And it’ll be hilarious to settle on your Grandmother Dempsey’s shoulders like dandruff. I’m going to haunt her for a long time.”

  “Daddy says you can’t pick your parents,” Ada said.

  “That’s true enough. I know that better than anyone.” Scarlet stretched her legs, feeling the stiffness in her knees and wondered how long they’d been sitting there. “Are you getting tired? You probably need to go to bed. You know everyone is going to be up early.”

  “I’m not going to bed until I hear the end of the story,” Ada said. “What did Jakob have to tell you that was so important?”

  “Well, the information he gave us saved our lives,” Scarlet said. “We didn’t have all kinds of technology back then like you do now. We had to use our wits and sometimes make things work out of necessity. We had street smarts.”

  Ada nodded. “Those were the good old days…”

  The Invitation

  Pierre put his hand on the small of my back and guided me to the center of the room, and Jakob placed a roll of parchment about three feet in length onto the table. He swiped his hand across it and unrolled a well-used copy of a map, littered with markings and stains.

  “The train arrives in just over fifty hours,” Jakob said. “And from my understanding, you are working with volatile materials, yes?”

  “Yes,” Pierre confirmed.

  “Then you cannot get onto the train before the Kreznow Pass,” Jakob said. “That is the most logical place because it’s a switch station, and there is a change of guards so there is a brief moment of time where there are no soldiers on the train. But you’d have to jump onto the outbound train to Austria, and then jump from the moving train onto the supply train at just the right moment.”

  “I see the problem,” Pierre said, his mouth pursed in a thin line. “We need a more delicate approach so we don’t blow up everything but the target. Hopping from train to train isn’t the best way to keep our ingredients stable.”

  “What are our other options?” I asked.

  “There is only one,” Jakob said. “The supply train is coming from Paris, and like I said, will make a stop at the switching station just before the Kreznow Pass in the Alps. Travel through the pass is not difficult, but once the train clears the pass, there is a sharp curve in the tracks as it heads toward the Waldenburg station. But the speed of the train must be slowed considerably to make the turn safely.

  “The tracks cut through the trees here,” Jakob said, pointing to a spot on the map a few miles from the Kreznow Pass. “This gives you ample cover, and the train has to go slow enough that you should be able to step onto the last car as it passes by. You’ll have to deal with the guards of course.”

  “Of course,” Pierre said. “Does intelligence know how many soldiers will be on the train?”

  “Two in the back, two in the middle, and two in the front,” Jakob said. “But here is the tricky part.”

  “Oh, good,” I said. “I was hoping you’d get to the tricky part.”

  Everyone stared at me for a few moments and Pierre said
, “She’s American,” as if that explained everything. But the others seemed to accept that as excuse enough.

  “Do you see this area here?” Jakob asked. “This is Schernburg Lake. A bridge was built for the tracks, and it’s a twenty-meter drop to the water below. You’ve got to time the detonation so the train explodes over the water, but you must jump off the train before you reach this point.” He pointed to another section of the map just before the lake. “There’s a steep drop off into jagged rocks here, and jumping too late would mean death.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything else,” Pierre said.

  “Really?” I asked. “Because I’d prefer to expect survival.”

  “What fun is that?” he asked. “If you always expect to die, then you’ll live your life to the fullest.”

  “That’s very French of you,” I said.

  “Thank you,” he said, nodding. “I think. Thank you, Jakob. I know you came here at great risk to tell us this information.”

  “Of course,” he said. “I wish you both the best of luck. You’ll need to plan your escape. There will be no coming back to Waldenburg.”

  “I’m sure we’ll think of something,” Pierre said, and then he nodded at Jakob and Gregor and Anna, and we left the way we’d come.

  The sirens had stopped, and as we made our way back up the narrow stairs and back toward our apartment, I could hear the drunken singing of those wandering home from the tavern.

  Pierre and I didn’t say anything more about the mission that night. We were both deep in our own thoughts as we readied ourselves for bed and slid beneath the covers onto cool sheets. I’d found myself more than once snuggled up next to him in the night, with his arm tucked tightly around my waist, but I didn’t mind. It had been a long time since I’d just been held, and it was nice. Besides, I didn’t think Pierre even realized what he was doing.

  But when we woke in the morning, we discovered a plan for our escape had literally been brought to our doorstep. The morning mail had been dropped in the door slot and lay in a pile on the floor. Among the envelopes was an invitation to one of Captain Rolfe’s infamous parties.