The Room on Rue Amélie

by Kristin Harmel

  Claude shrugged. “It is what anyone would do.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “Anyone with a conscience,” Claude amended.

  Thomas nodded. “How did you find me?”

  “I was in the field when I saw you stumble toward the stream. When you sat down and did not move, I thought perhaps you were dead. But I had to wait until after dark to check, because it is impossible to tell when the German patrols are out. The lazy bastards turn in early, though. You can find them in town getting drunk on our best wine.”

  “Where are we?” Thomas asked.

  Claude raised an eyebrow. “Near Ayette. Where are you coming from?”

  “Arras. I think. My plane went down this morning in a dogfight.”

  “Ah, so they will be looking for you. All the better to have brought you in for the night. You covered quite a distance in a day, though. Especially with that injury.” He gestured to Thomas’s ankle. “Henriette can wrap it, although I do not know how much it will help.”

  “Thank you.”

  Claude nodded. “Now, why are you in such a rush to get to Paris? It is crawling with Nazis, you know.”

  Thomas hesitated. Claude seemed friendly enough, but what if he was a Nazi plant, fishing for information? “It seems my best bet of hooking up with an escape line.”

  “Yes. Yes, it does. We have seen only a few of you fellows around here, and all we can do is help you move on without getting caught.”

  “There have been others?”

  “Yes. A fellow named Kenneth about six months ago. Went down near Arras, like you. And about four months ago, a man named Michael. Leg was so badly injured that you could see the bone. Henriette cleaned and set it. Nazis snooping around, since his plane did not go down far from here. But he made it to Paris, at least.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My father drove him.”

  Thomas looked up in surprise. There was someone here giving rides to pilots? That would certainly make the next few days easier. But then Claude shook his head.

  “My father died last month. Heart attack. I think that risking his life for that pilot cleansed his soul at the end, though.” He didn’t wait for a reply. “Now enough of that. Let us get you fed and dressed so you can sleep.” Claude smiled. “You do not think you will go wandering into Paris dressed like that, do you? You might as well be waving a British flag.”

  AFTER THOMAS HAD EATEN A surprisingly delicious potato soup prepared by Henriette, who then wrapped his ankle, Claude showed him to the barn, where there was a trapdoor in the floor beneath an empty stall.

  “We used to have six horses,” Claude explained, his expression darkening. “The Nazis requisitioned them all.”

  “I’m sorry,” Thomas said.

  “As am I. Sorry for all of us.” He handed Thomas a small stack of clothing—a shirt and some pants, it appeared, with a pair of scuffed shoes. “These were my father’s. He was a tall man, so they should fit you well enough. Now get some sleep, and put these on in the morning. I will come get you at first light.”

  He opened the trapdoor and gestured down into the darkness. It smelled musty and stale, but Thomas realized that it was probably the best place on the property to hide.

  “Not that we expect anyone to come looking,” Claude said, “but if anyone arrives, they will not see the door. We will cover it with a few bales of hay for the night.”

  Thomas climbed down into the cellar, the bundle of clothes tucked under one arm, and within five minutes, he was fast asleep on the cold, hard floor.

  In what felt like no time at all, light poured into the cellar, waking him. Thomas blinked into the sudden brightness and saw Claude’s face in the opening overhead. “Hope you slept well, friend,” he said. “Now put those clothes on, and fast. It is just past dawn, and you need to get into the woods before the Nazis are awake.”

  Thomas dressed quickly, and even though the clothes were a bit tight—he had to leave the pants half-undone and he couldn’t fasten the top two buttons on his shirt—the shoes fit surprisingly well. He climbed the ladder, clutching his flight suit and boots. “I’ll take these with me and bury them,” he told Claude. “I don’t want you to get caught with them.”

  Claude nodded and handed Thomas a small parcel. “Here is a bit of bread and cheese and a jug of water to get you through until you reach Paris.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Oh, that is simple,” Claude said, putting a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “You get back to England, and when you return to the skies, give those Nazis hell. We are going to win this war, and we need men like you to do it.”

  “And men like you,” Thomas said with a smile.

  Claude shrugged. “I am merely a farmer. Now, be on your way before the Nazis catch your trail. Godspeed.” He pointed in the direction of the woods before turning away and walking slowly back toward the farmhouse. The lights were on inside, and Thomas could see Henriette’s silhouette in the kitchen window. For a moment, he felt a strange surge of jealousy. Though Claude’s life was obviously hard—it was clear in the light of day that the Nazis had razed his farm—he was still doing some good, and he had a nice home and a woman who loved him. What would it be like to have that kind of peace in one’s life? Would it help make the work he did easier? For the first time in a while, Thomas felt painfully lonely. He raised a hand toward the house, just in case Henriette was watching, and then he set off into the woods. With his ankle wrapped, his belly somewhat full, and a good night’s sleep behind him, he felt ready for what was to come.

  THE REMAINDER OF THE JOURNEY took Thomas three days. He had to stay away from the main roads, which meant that the terrain was harder on his injured ankle. Still, Henriette’s bandage helped, as did the bread and cheese she and Claude had packed. Thomas was hungry and parched by the time he reached the outskirts of Paris, but he would have been near starving without them.

  Thomas spent the last day of his walk trying to perfect his French accent, repeating aloud to himself again and again, “Excuse me? Do you know where I can find an art gallery that specializes in ballet? I’m supposed to meet a friend there.” By the time he’d slept and emerged from the woods the next morning, he felt he had it mostly down, but he’d need to be careful.

  As he began to move through Paris’s suburbs, he kept his eyes on the ground, but he was sure he could feel people staring. He must have looked odd—like a hobo, perhaps—as he trudged along in rumpled farm clothes. Still, when he dared glance around, he saw plenty of people in ill-fitting, grimy clothes, which both relieved and depressed him. It would be easier to go unnoticed, certainly, but at the same time, he had always imagined Paris as a glamorous place, and the reality was that the city was just as downtrodden as London.

  It was early afternoon by the time he arrived in Paris proper. He stopped the first man who made eye contact with him and asked him, in the French accent he’d rehearsed, about the location of the gallery, but the man only shook his head and hurried on. Two more requests for information were met with the same blank looks, and Thomas was beginning to get worried. Surely pausing to find a map would draw unneeded attention to himself. And he didn’t want to be wandering the streets any longer than absolutely necessary. There were German soldiers everywhere, strolling around in their uniforms, lunching at cafés, even escorting French girls, which made Thomas’s skin crawl. Tour buses overflowing with laughing German soldiers rumbled down the grand boulevards, and the ball of anger in Thomas’s stomach tightened.

  He thought hard as he walked with purpose, doing his best to look like he belonged. Harry had mentioned the shop being close to the Eiffel Tower, hadn’t he? Perhaps that was the key, then: head for the tower and simply walk the streets nearby until he stumbled upon the place. It was the best plan he could come up with anyhow, and he knew the clock was ticking. Paris surely had a curfew. He couldn’t be wandering around after dark without drawing attention to himself.

&nb
sp; “Can you direct me to the Eiffel Tower?” he asked a man who passed by. The man gave him a strange look, but he pointed behind him, explaining to Thomas that he needed to go a long way, following the main boulevard as it turned into the rue Montmartre and then the rue du Louvre. After he crossed the river, he was to turn right at the quai and follow the Seine until the Eiffel Tower loomed in front of him.

  Thomas couldn’t help but notice, as he continued on, how beautiful the city actually was. The Nazis had taken much of the life out of it, it seemed, for the gardens were bare and the window boxes of many apartments were filled with dying plants instead of the flowers Thomas had seen in pictures. Passersby seemed defeated, their expressions as dark and worn as their clothing. The cafés were largely empty, except those bustling with Germans.

  But beyond the signs of occupation, Thomas could see why people said Paris was one of the loveliest places in the world. His parents had come here on holiday before he was born, and his mother had always talked of it with nostalgic delight. The things she had mentioned—the beautiful old buildings, the ornate lampposts, the wide avenues, the meticulous landscaping—were still evident, and Thomas could imagine how the city must look in all its glory. “I finally made it to Paris, Mum,” he said softly as he crossed the river. He could see the Eiffel Tower off to the right in the distance. “Now I’m in need of a bit of luck.”

  Unfortunately, four hours later, the sun was inching toward the horizon, and Thomas still hadn’t located the gallery, despite going up and down so many side streets that his head was beginning to spin. He had no backup plan, and he was mumbling to himself in frustration and looking down at the sidewalk when he found his path blocked.

  He looked up, startled, and swallowed hard when he realized that he had nearly crashed into a Nazi soldier. The man was standing in full dress uniform in the middle of the sidewalk glowering at Thomas. He barked something in unintelligible German, and Thomas stared at him miserably, sure that he’d been caught. Was there a way to run? It seemed like the end of the line. The man said something else, seeming to wait for an answer, and finally, Thomas said in French, “I’m sorry. I don’t speak German.”

  The man eyed him and then, surprisingly, switched to French too. “You French are imbeciles. Don’t you know German will be your national language soon enough?”

  Thomas was too startled to reply right away. It took a few seconds to register that the man hadn’t stopped him because he believed he was an RAF pilot. He believed him to be a Parisian. “Right,” Thomas finally managed to say in French. He knew his accent was lousy, but he suspected the German wouldn’t notice, since his own accent was even worse. “Excuse me.”

  The man snorted. “Now, as I was asking, where are you going?”

  Thomas hesitated. “To an art gallery.”

  The man looked him up and down. “What sort of art gallery?”

  “One that specializes in ballet-themed art.” Thomas felt foolish.

  “You? A laborer? What could your business there possibly be?”

  “I’ve been, um, hired to clean it and help them hang some paintings.”

  “You waste your time with ballet and art in the middle of the war?” The soldier was still blocking his path. “And you call yourself a man?”

  “It’s only a job. I’m hungry and out of work.”

  The soldier looked him up and down again with an expression of disgust. “Well, you are heading in the wrong direction.”

  Thomas didn’t say anything.

  After a moment, the soldier sighed and pointed to a street two blocks behind Thomas. “La Ballerine is just there. Rue Amélie. Midway down. I’d better not catch you wandering around after curfew.”

  “No, you certainly won’t.”

  “Well?” The soldier still hadn’t moved. “Aren’t you going to thank me for my help?”

  “Thank you,” Thomas muttered, hating himself a little for being cowed by the Nazi bastard.

  “In German,” the man said with a smirk.

  Thomas searched his memory and managed to spit out one of the only German words he knew. “Danke.”

  The soldier looked pleased. He smiled icily and stepped aside. Thomas hurried away without looking back, a foul taste in his mouth. That had been a narrow miss.

  A few minutes later, Thomas’s heart lurched in gratitude as he passed a doorway with a plaque that identified it as La Ballerine. The doors and windows were pasted over with paper, and he wondered if the place was even open, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going there anyhow. To the left of the shop was an apartment building with a huge red door, just as Harry had described.

  Thomas swallowed hard and hurried past the building. He circled the block twice, just in case the Nazi soldier was following him. On his third loop, finally confident he hadn’t been tailed, he ducked into the shadows and, glancing around once more, pushed the red door open. He had expected that it might be locked, but luck was seemingly on his side as he tumbled into a dimly lit hallway with a broad spiral staircase leading up at least five flights. He paused and drew a deep breath. Harry had said the man with the limp lived on the first floor, but he had never specified which apartment, and now Thomas wasn’t sure what to do.

  There was a discarded, rickety-looking chair in the corner near the front door, and as Thomas stood in the hall paralyzed with indecision, he suddenly realized how very exhausted he was. He hadn’t eaten in more than a day, since his carefully rationed parcel from Claude and Henriette had run out, and walking for three days straight without a safe place to rest had taken its toll. His ankle was throbbing, and he felt parched and shaky. “No, Thomas,” he said to himself sternly. “You’ve come all this way. Hold it together for a little longer, at least.” But the chair in the corner looked so inviting, and after a moment, he sank gratefully down, relieved to be off his feet, if only for a moment.

  “Think, Thomas,” he murmured, fighting off the tide of sleep that was threatening to roll in. The encounter with the Nazi soldier had spiked his adrenaline, and now that his fear was receding, he felt more depleted than ever. “Think, lad. There’s got to be a way to find Harry’s man.”

  He was startled, a moment later, to hear the click of an apartment door opening across from where he sat. Could it be the man with the limp? But the figure who appeared in the doorway was an ancient, tiny woman bundled in a woolly sweater over a frayed dress.

  “Can I help you?” she asked in French, looking Thomas up and down suspiciously.

  “Oh, no, thank you, madame,” he replied, speaking slowly and trying his best to speak French without a telltale British accent.

  “Pardon?” The woman cupped a hand to her ear, and Thomas realized she was deaf or nearly so.

  “I’m just waiting for a friend, madame.” He raised his voice and then immediately felt far too exposed as it echoed through the building. She still looked skeptical.

  “I am the concierge,” she said. “I know everyone in this building, and none of them would have a friend in such foul clothing. Be on your way, vagrant, or I will call the authorities.”

  She slammed the door, and he shook his head. He’d been more conspicuous than he’d intended, and now he would have to work quickly in case her threat to report him hadn’t been an empty one.

  “Okay, then,” he said to himself. He needed to go door to door. His cover would be that he had just come in from the northern coast—which could help excuse an accent that didn’t sound quite right—and that he was desperate to find his wife’s cousin. It was the only way he could think of to explain why he didn’t know the man’s name. Yes, that was it; his wife had recently died, and the only relative he knew of was a man who lived here and walked with a limp, but he’d never met him. It seemed an odd story, he knew, but it was the best he could come up with. Why hadn’t he used his days hiking through the woods to invent a solid cover story? Instead, he had let his mind wander to happier times, before the war came, when his mother was still alive and the future was wide open.
The memories had propelled him forward, but now it felt as if he’d wasted three full days.

  He walked up the flight of stairs and turned to his left. Might as well begin at the beginning. There was a door there marked 1B, and before he could second-guess himself, he took a deep breath, raised his hand, and knocked.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  October 1941

  Monsieur Benoit had been dead for two months now, and Charlotte knew there was more to the story than anyone was telling her. It was impossible for her to believe the official explanation: that he had gone out one day and gotten caught up in a police action that had nothing to do with him. She knew about the secret closet in the hall and the Allied pilots, and she felt certain that his death had been linked to them. Already, the French police, accompanied by two German officers who looked like attack dogs, had come to Ruby’s door three times. Charlotte had tried her best to hear what they were asking Ruby, but she could only catch snippets here and there. It seemed that the men knew of Marcel’s involvement in the escape line, but that they ultimately believed Ruby when she said she’d had no idea what her husband was up to. “He treated me like I didn’t have the brains to understand anything,” Charlotte had heard Ruby say on their last visit.

  “Well, you are merely a woman,” a deep French voice had replied.

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Ruby had responded, and Charlotte had felt a surge of pride that her neighbor was getting the last laugh.

  Finally, the police and the Nazis stopped coming. “She clearly doesn’t know anything,” one of the French policemen had said on their way out of the building at the end of the last visit.

  “Clearly,” one of the German officers had replied with a snort. “But what a piece of ass, yes?”

  His words had been followed by a nauseating stream of sexual comments, each of the men sniggering about what they’d do to Ruby if they had a chance to get her alone. And while Charlotte longed to come to Ruby’s defense, she knew that in the end, what the men had said was better than their realizing that Ruby had played a role—albeit a small one—in the escape line too.