The Room on Rue Amélie

by Kristin Harmel

  She didn’t reply. “What are you doing here, Dexter?”

  He hesitated, which was just long enough to make up her mind. She didn’t know how he had arrived at her front door, but she had the feeling it had something to do with Marcel. And in the time that Dexter had been babbling, she had spotted the RAF patches on his chest. He was a British pilot, or at least he was dressed as one. And that meant that both of them would be in danger if anyone saw them together.

  “Well, miss, you see, I was flying over northeast France, or at least I thought I was, when—”

  “Come in,” she interrupted. “Quickly. Before someone spots you.”

  He blinked a few times. “Thank you. Thank you so much, miss. I—”

  She grabbed his right arm and pulled him inside, but as she began to hurriedly close the door behind him, she realized she was already too late.

  Charlotte was down the hall, in the sliver of her own open doorway, staring at Ruby and the British pilot, her mouth open in an O of surprise.

  Ruby could feel the blood draining from her face, but she managed to put a finger to her lips. Tell no one, she mouthed to Charlotte. Please.

  Silently, Charlotte nodded and slipped back into her own apartment, closing the heavy door behind her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  August 1941

  Ruby was helping Allied airmen?

  Charlotte stood with her back to the door for a long time. Her apartment was silent, her parents in bed. She’d heard a commotion in the hall and had gone to the door to investigate. Perhaps it was Monsieur Benoit, up to no good again, she’d thought. If she could see what he was doing, she would have something to share with Ruby. But instead, when she peered out, she realized there was a strange man in the shadows outside Ruby’s apartment, knocking insistently. She had opened the door a crack, intending to tell him, in her firmest possible voice, to go away, for Ruby already had so much to deal with. But then Ruby’s door had opened and the light spilling into the hall had revealed his uniform. Charlotte had frozen, terrified.

  At first, she’d thought the man was German. After all, she’d gotten accustomed to seeing German uniforms spreading across her city like a growing mold. But his voice sounded different, and as he spoke in low tones to Ruby, she made out a few familiar words—Sorry. Flying. Thank you—and she’d realized he was speaking English. So he was British, then, or perhaps even American. He had to be. And he must be a pilot too. There was no other reason an Allied soldier would be in Paris.

  Before she’d stopped going to school, Charlotte had overheard gossip from her classmates that there were Resistance networks sprinkled throughout Paris, French citizens who smiled to the Germans’ faces and behind their backs helped pilots who’d been shot down. She knew, too, that the penalties were stiff for those who were caught working against the Nazis. The men were most often executed, the women shipped off to prison camps in Germany.

  But Ruby was helping? Why hadn’t she said anything? Charlotte had thought she and Ruby were friends, but friends confided in each other. Friends trusted each other. The only explanation was that Ruby saw her as merely a child. But Charlotte was twelve and a half now, old enough to help out, old enough to make a difference. Besides, she could keep a secret. Even from her parents. Ruby could trust her. Charlotte was determined to prove it.

  She snuck into the kitchen, where she packed a small bundle for the airman: a little cheese, some stale bread, sardines in a can. Ruby’s rations weren’t any more plentiful than hers, and though she knew her parents would probably notice the missing items, she vowed she’d simply eat less over the next week to even the scales. If she arrived at Ruby’s door with food for the fugitive, surely Ruby would see how serious she was about joining her secret mission.

  Charlotte checked on her parents before she left to make sure they were sleeping soundly. Maman was curled on her side, her shoulder rising and falling, and Papa was on his back, snoring loudly. They were both deep sleepers; there was no way that she would wake them now as she slipped out of the apartment.

  A moment later, she knocked on Ruby’s door. She heard shuffling inside, but no one answered. She knocked again, but there was still no answer, only silence from within. Finally, she rapped for a third time and said quietly through the door, “Ruby, open up! It’s Charlotte! I know about your airman.”

  There was a moment of quiet, and then Charlotte could hear footsteps. The door swung upon to reveal Ruby, red-faced, staring down at her.

  “Charlotte!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing up?”

  “I know about your airman,” Charlotte repeated, presenting her carefully assembled bundle. “That’s what he is, right? I’ve brought him some food.”

  Ruby’s face went blank, though Charlotte noticed her cheeks were still flaming. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s no airman here.”

  “Ruby,” Charlotte said slowly, her feelings hurt, “I saw him.”

  “Charlotte—”

  “No! I’m tired of everyone treating me like a child! Maman and Papa act like I have no idea what’s happening, but I see it every day. I understand way more than they think I do. And you! I thought we were friends. But friends don’t keep secrets like this.”

  Ruby blinked a few times. “Come in.” She put a hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. “But you must be quiet. And you mustn’t breathe a word of this. It could get us all killed.”

  Her heart thudding, Charlotte stepped into the apartment and looked around as Ruby closed the door. The pilot was nowhere to be seen. “Where is he?” Charlotte asked.

  Ruby sighed. “Charlotte, dear, I’m not keeping things from you because I believe you’re a child. I know you’re not; this war has forced us all to grow up. And I feel that we’re friends too. But some things are better not to discuss.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if you’re ever questioned by the police or by the Germans, you could be in danger. I’m American, so they might be more careful in the way they treat me. But you’re—” She stopped speaking.

  “I’m Jewish,” Charlotte filled in. “That’s what you were going to say.”

  “Yes. Yes, Charlotte. And if there’s ever a problem, I want you to be able to say you haven’t seen anything.”

  “But I have seen something. I saw the airman!”

  Ruby turned away, placing her hands on the kitchen counter and staring out the window into the darkness beyond. Finally, she turned back around. “Honey, if the Germans come asking, you need to be able to deny having any involvement in anything illegal.”

  Charlotte held up the care package. “I’m already involved. See, I’m feeding your airman.”

  Ruby eyed the bundle. “Your parents will notice.”

  “I’ll tell them I ate the food myself. They’ll be angry, but it will be okay. It’s better than him starving, isn’t it? I know you don’t have enough food.”

  “I have some.”

  “And now you have more. If he’s injured, he’ll need his strength back, right?” Charlotte could see Ruby wavering, so she pressed on. “Ruby, I hate being helpless. There’s not much someone my age can do to assist the Allies.”

  “It’s not just people your age, Charlotte. I feel helpless too.”

  “Then let’s help together.”

  Charlotte was certain Ruby was about to say no. But then there was a mighty crash from the back of the apartment. Ruby ran toward it, and Charlotte ran after her.

  In the bedroom, they found a scene that would have been laughable if they weren’t both so on edge. The airman was half-buried in a mound of clothes on the floor outside Ruby’s wardrobe. Charlotte realized in an instant that Ruby must have hidden him there when she heard a knock at the door, and he’d somehow managed to fall out.

  “Dexter?” Ruby said loudly, rushing to the airman’s side. “Dexter, are you all right?”

  To Charlotte’s relief, the airman was awake, and he struggled to sit up, his face red. He mumbled something that Charlotte
couldn’t understand. Ruby replied in English, and it was then that he noticed Charlotte. His eyes widened.

  “He said he was feeling a bit weak,” Ruby said, turning to Charlotte. “I think he may have lost more blood than he realized.”

  “How did he come to be here?”

  “I was just about to ask him that when you knocked on the door,” Ruby said. “Now let me explain to him who you are and that you don’t mean him any harm.”

  She turned back to the man and said something in rapid English. He glanced up at Charlotte once more and smiled, almost shyly. “Merci,” he said with an awful accent. “Merci beaucoup.”

  Ruby turned back to Charlotte. “I explained that you brought him a bit of food and that you’re a friend who can be trusted. Now, do you think you can help me get him up?”

  Charlotte moved quickly to the airman’s side. Up close, he smelled of grease and grass. He was breathing shallowly, there were beads of sweat on his tanned forehead, and his eyes were glassy.

  “Just grab him under his left arm there and help me lift,” Ruby said. “We’ll take him to the dining table, all right?”

  Charlotte nodded, and on the count of three, they hoisted the man, who was heavier than he looked, and helped him into the other room, where he collapsed into a chair. He looked terrible, but he was sitting upright, his eyes open, which was an improvement from a few minutes earlier.

  Ruby said something to the airman again, and he smiled, first at her and then at Charlotte. Charlotte found herself blushing; he wasn’t so very many years older than she was.

  “I thank you helping me,” he said in broken French, turning to Charlotte. “I know it is danger.”

  Charlotte smiled and said carefully in English, “You’re welcome,” just like Ruby had taught her. Then she turned to Ruby and said, “Perhaps it is better for him to speak in English. You can tell me what he says.”

  Ruby translated this to the airman, who nodded and began to talk. They went back and forth for a few minutes, and Charlotte caught familiar words here and there, but not enough to piece together the story.

  “He says he’s a pilot in the British air force,” Ruby finally said, turning to Charlotte. “He was on a mission over the eastern part of France when he was shot down. He managed to parachute out, and then he hid in a barn while the Germans searched the woods for him. At night, he found a river and followed it west using a compass in his flight kit. He just knew he had to make it to Paris.”

  “Why?” Charlotte whispered. “Paris is crawling with Germans.”

  “One of the other pilots in his squadron had been shot down before. And he’d been saved by a network who helped him to escape through a pass in the eastern Pyrenees mountains into Spain. He knew that if he came to Paris, he’d have a chance of returning to England.”

  “But why here?” Charlotte asked. “Why your door?”

  “Because,” Ruby said, swallowing hard and then hesitating, casting another glance at the pilot, “he says the man who lives in this apartment helped the other pilot.”

  Charlotte stared at Ruby. “Monsieur Benoit?”

  Ruby hesitated. “I shouldn’t be discussing this with you, Charlotte. I don’t want you to—”

  “I saw him,” Charlotte interrupted, cutting her off.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was in the hallway at night. He placed some sort of parcel into the closet in the hall.”

  Ruby went still. “What closet in the hall?”

  “It’s hidden. It’s just across from your doorway. I can show you, if you’d like.”

  “Wait.” Ruby glanced at the airman, who was looking back and forth between the two of them with a blank expression on his face. “You’re telling me that you saw Marcel placing a parcel in a hidden closet? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Charlotte averted her eyes. “I thought perhaps you knew. I thought you were in on it.”

  “No,” Ruby said softly. “No. It seems I’m the only one who’s been living in the dark here.”

  The pilot interrupted, saying something rapid in English and gesturing to the bundle of food on the table. Ruby pushed it toward him, then she jumped up from the table to retrieve a can opener, a fork, and a glass of water. “He says he hasn’t eaten since his plane crashed,” she told Charlotte. “He’s starving.”

  “Merci,” the pilot said again, nodding at Charlotte and pointing at the food. “Um, very hunger.” He dug in, wolfing down the bread first, then the cheese, and finally the sardines. He sighed when he was done and leaned back, closing his eyes.

  “I think he is badly injured,” Charlotte said softly. She’d been studying him while he ate. Though the kitchen wasn’t warm, his skin was pale and clammy.

  “Yes, I think so too.” Ruby sounded calm but concerned. She spoke to the pilot, and he shook his head and said something quickly. Ruby spoke again, her tone gentler this time, and finally the pilot glanced at Charlotte and then back at Ruby before nodding reluctantly. He unzipped his suit and winced as he wriggled out of the top half, exposing a torn and bloodied undershirt. He peeled that off too, and Charlotte and Ruby gasped in unison as they saw the giant, oozing gash across his right shoulder. Dried blood was caked all the way down his chest.

  “What happened?” Charlotte breathed. It looked like the kind of wound a man could die from.

  Ruby exchanged a few sentences with the pilot and turned back to Charlotte with a grim expression. “He thinks a bullet went through his shoulder. He was shot before he bailed out.” She glanced at the pilot once more, then leaned in to add in a whisper to Charlotte, “I’m very concerned that it is infected, but I don’t know how to treat it. And it’s too dangerous to call for a doctor.”

  “Monsieur Benoit will know what to do.” Charlotte nodded decisively.

  “But I don’t know when he will be home. He has no way of knowing that this pilot is here. If he doesn’t make it back for a few days . . .”

  “The pilot could die.” Charlotte glanced at the man, who looked back at her blankly. She was glad he hadn’t understood. “Do you know where Monsieur Benoit goes? Or who he’s working with?”

  “I didn’t even know he was doing any of this, Charlotte. You know more about it than I do, it seems.”

  “No, I don’t.” Charlotte’s reply was instant, but then she felt guilty, for she had known more than Ruby and she hadn’t bothered to tell her. It seemed that she, not Ruby, was the bad friend. “My parents are friends with the doctor who helped you when—” She stopped abruptly. “You’ve met him,” she concluded instead.

  “Yes. But we can’t involve him in this. We don’t know if he can be trusted, and even if he can, I’m not willing to put more people in danger.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  Ruby was silent for a long time. The airman was trying to follow their conversation, but from the look on his face, Charlotte was almost certain that he didn’t understand.

  “We wait,” Ruby said at last. “We hide him, and we wait for Marcel to come home.”

  “But what if he dies first?” Charlotte whispered.

  “I’ll do everything I can to reach Marcel,” Ruby said. “And I’ll clean the airman’s wound and care for him to the best of my ability. Beyond that, we’ll just have to pray.”

  “Okay. But you promise you’ll tell me if I can help at all?”

  Ruby smiled. “You can help. You can show me this secret closet.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  August 1941

  In January, just after Thomas had buried his mother, his squadron had begun missions over France, which was exactly the distraction he needed. Defending England’s coast was important, of course, but playing defense wasn’t the way to win a war. By bringing the fight to the Huns, the RAF was finally on the offense, which meant they actually had a chance.

  Before their first trip across the Channel in late January, the CO stopped Thomas, Harry, and the others on their way to a Nissen hut for a briefing. “Don’t even think
about bailing out over France,” he warned. “The place is crawling with Krauts, understand? May as well go down with your plane if you can’t make it out.”

  The warning should have made Thomas’s blood run cold, but it was cold already. Now that his mother was gone, no one—except maybe Harry—cared whether he lived or died. He was acutely aware of that every time he went skyward.

  A huge map of the English coast and northwestern France was slung across the back wall of the hut, crisscrossed with red string. As he and Harry took seats facing the platform, Thomas noted that many of the airfields around London had string paths to a central meeting point in Canterbury, the launching point for a route across the Channel.

  “Listen up, chaps,” the station commander began, and a hush fell across the room. “We’re bringing the war to the Germans now. It’ll be dangerous, but this is a crucial step on the road to victory.”

  The CO spoke next, briefing the men on their flight positions, their target speeds, the enemy aircraft, and their mission goal—to keep German 109s from shooting down the British bombers that would drop their loads around Boulogne, a coastal area crawling with Nazis.

  “What do you think, then?” Harry asked later as he and Thomas walked briskly through a light snowfall back to their rooms. They had just a few hours to prepare for the mission. “Are we going to turn the tide, or is this suicide?”

  Thomas didn’t answer right away. The truth was, he didn’t much care if he lost his life somewhere over France, as long as he brought some Germans down with him.

  But Harry, apparently reading his mind, wasn’t having any of it. “Look, I know you’re in a bad way right now. But you’re not alone out there, you understand? I’m your brother, and so are Jarvis, Reeves, Abbott, and the rest. And I notice you didn’t ask me what I think, but in my view, things are about to change. Maybe 1941 is the year we win the war, right?”

  Thomas chuckled at this, for they both knew it was false optimism. The war would drag on at least until ’42. The Huns weren’t going to lie down at the first sniff of defeat, that was for sure.