Lana's War

by Anita Abriel

  Natalia wandered off, and Lana gulped her champagne. Suddenly she had the sensation of being watched. She looked up to find Alois Brunner approaching.

  “Countess Antanova.” He nodded. “It’s lovely to see you. You are a vision of beauty, a welcome distraction as I’ve had a disturbing week.”

  “Did something happen?” Lana asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

  “Captain Von Harmon was murdered in his hotel room recently,” Brunner said shortly.

  Her stomach dropped. Of course, she knew Von Harmon’s death would come up soon, but Brunner’s mention of it made her doubly nervous.

  “How horrible!” Lana put her hand to her mouth.

  “Apparently it was the night that you joined him for dinner.” He looked at her closely. “I thought perhaps you might be able to help me.”

  “Help you?” she repeated.

  “The police said it was a robbery. You were at the hotel; perhaps you saw something suspicious.” Brunner waved his glass. “Someone lurking around the elevator or a disturbance on his floor.”

  Lana took a deep breath. She turned to Brunner, and her eyes were as bright and clear as the chandelier floating above them.

  “I did have dinner with Captain Von Harmon, but it ended abruptly,” she began. She couldn’t tell Brunner that Captain Von Harmon propositioned her. He might construe it as a motivation for her to shoot him. “I wasn’t feeling well and needed to go home.” She looked at him levelly.

  Brunner’s black eyes roamed over her beaded bodice, and Lana tried to hide her revulsion.

  “My apologies if I’ve caused any offense, Countess Antanova,” he said, bowing. “I didn’t mean to imply that you visited Von Harmon in his room.”

  It took all Lana’s willpower to keep her expression blank.

  “Please send my condolences to Von Harmon’s wife. No woman should experience the grief of losing a husband.”

  * * *

  The rest of the dinner party passed in a blur. Lana was desperate to leave, but Natalia would be hurt if they didn’t stay for the dancing. Lana noticed a Gestapo officer with short blond hair and was reminded of the portrait in Giselle’s studio. Perhaps it had been of Hans. Maybe that was why Giselle never seemed to paint when Lana was around.

  Finally, Guy collected their coats, and they walked down the steps to the convertible.

  “Natalia outdid herself this time,” Guy said, backing down the driveway. “God knows where she got the steak. It must have cost a mint.”

  “Brunner questioned me about Von Harmon, but I think I satisfied him,” Lana said distractedly.

  Guy’s head turned abruptly.

  “What did you say to Brunner?” Guy maneuvered around a bend.

  “I told him that I wasn’t feeling well at dinner and had to go home,” she answered. “He believed me.”

  “Then tonight was a success on all fronts,” Guy said, and smiled. “I learned the date and time of the raid on Old Town.”

  “How?” Lana asked.

  “By hanging around the kitchen; it’s the best place to be at Natalia’s parties,” he said. “I sample the entrées before anyone else and hear the gossip. One of the waiters warned the chef that there’s going to be a raid on the streets above Old Town on Friday.”

  Would she have time to warn Sylvie? Could she get Sylvie and Odette to Algiers, then to England?

  “That’s in five days!” Lana’s pulse quickened. “How will we stop it?”

  “Don’t worry, we have the map. Pierre and I will warn everyone, and the boat will leave on Thursday night. When Brunner and his men show up, all they’ll find is empty houses.”

  “What if they’re monitoring the homes? They’ll be suspicious if everyone is gone.”

  “I thought of that.” Guy nodded. “We’ll ask residents to leave the lights on in case any German soldiers are patrolling the streets at night. And there’ll still be enough foot traffic during the day so no one will grow suspicious.”

  “I’m going with you, it will be faster if we all work together.”

  “That’s too dangerous.” Guy shook his head. “With Von Harmon dead, you can’t be seen anywhere that might be suspicious.”

  “What will I do?” she asked. “I feel useless staying at the villa.”

  “You can go to Giselle’s for company,” Guy suggested.

  For a moment, Lana had forgotten about Giselle. She looked up at the night sky and wondered where Giselle was now. Perhaps the Germans had captured her too. Perhaps she was being interrogated as they spoke.

  “Giselle is gone. I don’t know if she’s coming back.”

  “What do you mean, she’s gone?”

  Lana told Guy about her conversation with Natalia, despite Natalia’s warning.

  “That’s what you were talking about with Natalia,” Guy said when she finished.

  “I feel terrible, I knew something was different about Giselle. The first time I visited she said she hadn’t been with a man in years, but there was a humidor with an inscription in the living room. And she said she only painted still lifes, but I found a portrait of a man in her studio. And there were other things.”

  Guy pulled into the driveway of the villa and turned off the engine.

  “What other things?” he inquired.

  Lana told him that she thought Giselle had lied about going to Paris. There was the great-aunt who had died and the heart-shaped bracelet Giselle brought back from her trip.

  Guy turned to Lana, and even in the dark she could see that he was concerned.

  “An engraved humidor isn’t so unusual. She could have picked it up anywhere. And why shouldn’t Giselle buy herself a bracelet? We’re at war, and there are hardly any men. She can’t wait for a new lover to buy her jewelry.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Lana felt a little better. “What do we do now?”

  “We wait and hope she returns,” Guy said. “The Gestapo are very hard on traitors. Some eager officer would take particular pleasure in torturing Hans’s mistress. She wouldn’t know of our activities, I think.”

  Lana pictured Giselle with her high cheekbones and delicate mouth locked in a cell, tortured for any scrap of information, and her breath constricted.

  “I never mentioned the Resistance,” Lana assured him. “She doesn’t know what we are doing.”

  Guy looked at Lana. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

  “I hope you’re right,” he said. “A lot of Jews are counting on us to help them escape.”

  The next raid! She remembered her terror after the last raid; the German soldier stopping her at the dock, the fear that Guy might have been shot.

  “What if the Gestapo come around and ask questions about Giselle? It could be dangerous for us and Pierre.”

  “We don’t have a choice.” Guy opened the car door. “If we don’t stop the raid, dozens of Jews will be marched down the Promenade des Anglais to the train station and then to Drancy.”

  She followed him up the steps and prayed the mission would be successful. In a few days she and Guy would be eating a celebratory omelet in the villa’s kitchen. Because right that minute, the future seemed as dark as the night sky.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Lana was in the living room when the phone rang.

  “Lana,” a male voice said. “It’s Charles Langford.”

  “Charles!” Lana exclaimed. “This is a surprise.”

  “I wanted to thank you and Guy for coming to the party in Menton. I hope you had a good time.”

  “It was lovely, thank you.” Lana sat on the sofa.

  “I’m calling because I’m having a Christmas party and wondered if you and Guy would come. It’s going to be very festive.”

  They had just been to Charles’s house. Would Guy agree to go to Menton again? He had helped Raoul across the border without incident; perhaps his view of Charles was softening.

  “I’ll have to ask Guy.” She hesitated.

  “Please sa
y you’ll come,” Charles said. “It’s very festive. I bring out all my parents’ decorations. What’s the point of Christmas if one doesn’t celebrate it with friends?”

  Lana couldn’t think of an excuse to say no.

  “I’d love to come.” Lana twisted the phone. “And Guy will be there if he’s available.”

  “Excellent. I’ll call soon with the details.” He was quiet for a moment. “I was going to ask Raoul Gunsbourg to perform a small concert, but he disappeared.”

  Lana’s tongue felt as if it were glued to the roof of her mouth.

  “Disappeared?”

  “After the dinner party. No one knows where he went.”

  Lana swallowed and tried to sound uninterested.

  “That’s odd,” she said offhandedly. “I suppose you’ll have to get someone else to perform.”

  “I don’t know anyone who plays so beautifully. Hopefully he’ll turn up.” Charles’s voice was cheerful. “It would be lovely to hear Brahms’s lullabies at Christmas.”

  She hoped that Charles hadn’t noticed the tremor in her voice.

  Lana said goodbye and walked up the staircase. Her legs were stiff, and there was a pain in her neck.

  She stripped off her evening gown and turned on the faucet in the bathroom. She wouldn’t let herself think about it now. All she wanted was to submerge herself in bath salts and forget about the Riviera and the war.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nice, December 1943

  Lana finished making her bed and walked to the balcony. The overnight rain had cleared, and the sun was bright. Guy had left that morning before she was awake. There were last-minute details to take care of before the raid, and she didn’t know when he would return.

  Lana tossed and turned all night thinking about Giselle. It must have been so lonely for Giselle to keep her relationship with Hans secret. She prayed that Giselle was safe.

  She gathered her jacket and walked to the door. Right now she had to warn Sylvie about the raid on the streets above Old Town. Then she would worry about Giselle.

  * * *

  Lana parked her bicycle in the alley. A man with dark hair opened the door and peered outside.

  “I was looking for Sylvie,” Lana said, flustered.

  “Sylvie isn’t here.” The man opened the door wider. “Please come in.”

  “Who are you? Lana asked, suddenly becoming frightened.

  The house seemed even quieter than before. The curtains were drawn, and there was a small box on the coffee table.

  “My name is Gerard.” He held out his hand. He was short and wore a brown sweater and slacks. “Please sit down.”

  “I’m Lana.” Lana shook his hand.

  Was this a trap?

  “Where are Sylvie and Odette?” she asked.

  “Odette is fine, she’s upstairs.” Gerard nodded.

  Lana let out a sigh of relief. But he still hadn’t told her what he was doing there.

  “Will Sylvie be home soon?” she inquired.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” he asked. “There’s a pot in the kitchen.”

  “No, thank you.” She shook her head. Gerard’s even tone and evasiveness made her nervous.

  He sat opposite her and rubbed his hands.

  “I’m the manager of the cabaret where Sylvie works,” he said. “There was a raid last night.”

  “A raid!” Lana jumped up. “Where is Sylvie? Is she safe?”

  Gerard bowed his head. When he looked up, there was a tear in his eye.

  “I’m afraid not,” he said quietly. “Sylvie is dead.”

  Lana sunk back onto the couch. She was afraid she was going to faint.

  “But Sylvie can’t be dead!” She steadied herself. “The Gestapo don’t disturb the cabarets; they don’t want to lose their entertainment.”

  “They hadn’t until last night.” Gerard sat next to her. “An hour before the show started, two Gestapo officers entered the nightclub and asked for the girls’ papers. Someone may have told them that we had Jewish girls working there. I pretended to go to my office for the papers and ran to warn them. The other girls escaped through the back door, but Sylvie insisted on going to her dressing room.” He handed her the box. “I found this in the drawer of her dressing table after the Gestapo officers left. Perhaps she had gone to retrieve it.”

  Lana opened it, and inside was Sylvie’s wedding ring on top of a photo of Sylvie and Jacob with Odette.

  “Sylvie never wore her wedding ring onstage.” Gerard hung his head as if it were his fault. “I’m very sorry. Sylvie had a beautiful voice; she was the best girl I had.”

  “Oh, Sylvie!” Lana cried, and her heart beat wildly.

  Odette had no family. There was no one to take care of her.

  “Odette can stay with me for a few days,” Gerard said, as if he could read her thoughts. “There’s an orphanage in Lyon; someone in the cabaret will take her there.”

  Lana thought of the Jewish children at the convent in Paris. Sister Catherine had tried to hide them so that Brunner and his men wouldn’t find them.

  “That’s very kind, but it won’t be necessary.” Lana regained her composure. “Odette can stay with me.”

  “Sylvie told me about you bringing Odette home after that woman’s dog was shot. She was very grateful,” Gerard said. “But this is different. You can’t take care of Odette. You only knew Sylvie and Odette for a short time.”

  “It’s true we hadn’t known each other long,” Lana acknowledged. “But Odette needs a family. She can’t go to an orphanage. I live in a villa in Cap Ferrat. She’ll be safe there.”

  Gerard was silent, thinking it over.

  “I only want the best for Odette.” He hesitated. “Taking in a Jewish child would be risky for both of you.”

  Lana stood up and smiled.

  “What about if I go upstairs and ask her?”

  Gerard nodded.

  Odette was sitting on her bed when Lana opened the door. She threw herself against Lana, and her small body convulsed in sobs.

  “Why did they shoot my mother? She didn’t do anything wrong.” Odette’s voice was fierce.

  “It had nothing to do with your mother,” Lana offered. “Sometimes during a war, innocent people are killed. I told Gerard you could come with me. That is, if you want to.”

  “Go with you where?” Odette wondered.

  “To the villa in Cap Ferrat,” Lana answered.

  “I can’t leave,” Odette said stubbornly. “All my mother’s things are here.”

  “You can’t stay here alone. I’ll come back for her things. The important thing is to take you somewhere safe.”

  Odette was quiet as if she was thinking.

  “My mother trusted you. She believed you cared about us.”

  Lana walked to the closet so Odette wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes.

  “Do you have a suitcase? We’ll take your dresses and books.”

  “I don’t need any of those things. I just want the box,” Odette said.

  “The box?” Lana turned around.

  Odette stood up. “The box from my mother’s dressing room.”

  For a moment Lana could see the young woman Odette would become: strong and brave and forever changed by the war.

  “Of course, we’ll take the box. I’ll pack a few things, and we’ll go downstairs.”

  Gerard offered to lend her his car so she could take Odette to the villa. She would return it later and come back for her bicycle. She felt a surge of relief when she drove through Old Town. But the minute they left Nice, Lana’s courage wavered. She drove along the cliffs faster than ever before.

  She pulled into the driveway of the villa and Odette hopped out of the car. She gazed up at the stone facade and green lawn, and her mouth dropped open.

  “It’s like the movie star homes in magazines,” she breathed.

  “Not quite, but it’s pretty.” Lana smiled. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to see the rooms. You must go
straight to the attic. It will be safe up there, and we’ll figure out what to do when Guy gets home.”

  “Who’s Guy?” Odette scrunched her nose.

  Lana gulped, and for the first time since Gerard had told her about Sylvie, she thought about Guy. What would he say when he discovered what she had done?

  “Guy is the man who owns the villa. He’s a good friend. But we must hurry, we don’t want anyone to see us.” Lana took Odette’s hand and led her quickly inside.

  A light bulb hung from the attic ceiling, and the walls were covered with faded wallpaper. Boxes stood in the corner and there was an armchair with frayed stuffing.

  “I’ll bring up some books,” Lana said, trying to remain upbeat. “And a blanket and pillows from my bedroom.”

  “How long will I be here?” Odette asked uncertainly.

  “I don’t know,” Lana said honestly. “Guy will have a plan.”

  She hoped that was true. Odette ran her small hand over the wallpaper.

  “It’s nice, but I want to be at home.” Odette’s voice was plaintive. “At least I could go downstairs and make my own meals. What will I do if I get hungry?”

  “I’ll fix a tray,” Lana suggested. “There’s bread and cheese and tomatoes. I’ll make sandwiches for both of us, and we’ll have a picnic.”

  “I’m tired of having indoor picnics.” Odette started crying again. “I want to be a normal child who goes to school and plays with friends and comes home to dinner with her mother and father.”

  “I want that for you too,” Lana breathed into her hair. “More than anything in the world.”

  * * *

  Lana left Odette in the attic and went to the kitchen to make her something to eat. She heard footsteps and saw Guy standing in the doorway. His jacket was draped over his shoulder, and he carried a package.

  Seeing his face, the bright eyes and angular cheeks, she realized how much she had missed him.