The Black Swan of Paris

by Karen Robards

Shaking to the point that the chains holding her rattled, she could feel the fear, corrosive as acid, surging in her throat.

  “She’s not here!” The cry—a woman’s voice—cut through her growing panic. Her head lifted. She knew that voice. “Maman! Maman, where are you?”

  Emmanuelle. A burst of adrenaline rocketed through her veins. She didn’t know how, but that was her daughter.

  A terrible possibility assailed her. Had Wagner done as he’d threatened and found her child?

  Her blood ran cold at the thought.

  “Maman, if you can hear me, answer me!”

  She knew the nuances of her daughter’s voice. That wasn’t how she would sound if she’d been captured or was being threatened. It was how she would sound if she was desperately seeking her mother.

  “Here,” Lillian screamed, or tried to scream. Harsh and painful, her voice was no louder than a croak. She tried again, willing her body to rally, willing herself to find the strength to shout. “Here!”

  It emerged no louder than a hoarse bark, no proof against stone walls and doors and all the outside noise of fire and chaos.

  “Search the other cells. Hurry.” A man’s voice, unknown. He and Emmanuelle were farther down the hall, where the cells were, where she had been. They were looking for her. Emmanuelle worked for the SOE. Was it possible—had they come to rescue her? Her heart pounded with fear even as a tiny bud of hope began to blossom inside her.

  “Here!” No louder than before. Would they think to look in this, which from the outside looked like a doctor’s examining room?

  “Maman! Maman, can you hear me?”

  “Here!” She dragged in lungfuls of air, never mind how much it hurt rasping past the still raw tissue of her mouth and throat. “Here!” There it was, a squawk more than a yell, but loud. “Here!”

  A shape at the door. A woman.

  The door burst open.

  “Emmanuelle!” It emerged as a thankful sob as her heart soared and shook with love and gratitude and fear for her child and all manner of wild emotions. Her daughter came flying to her, Emmanuelle in a dark sweater and trousers with a pistol in one hand and a leather pouch in the other.

  “Maman! Oh, Maman!”

  Her daughter’s hand, a gentle, hesitant touch on the uninjured side of her face. Her expression, horrified, aghast.

  Lillian’s heart stuttered with fear for her child. If she should be captured, if Wagner should get his hands on her as he had threatened... “You have to go. Leave me.”

  “I’m not leaving you. We’re going to get you out of here.” Emmanuelle was already looking down, fumbling in her pouch. It was her stubborn voice. Lillian knew that one, too: there was no moving her when she sounded like that.

  The worst news, the most important news, had to be told while she could tell it. “Your papa—they killed him.”

  “I know. Maman, don’t talk.” She pulled something from her pouch—a skeleton key? “Save your strength.”

  “You have found her?” Another woman rushed in after Emmanuelle. This one, middle-aged, plain faced, with braids pinned around her head, she didn’t know. She, too, carried a pistol and a different bag, a military rucksack. “I have a medical kit—what does she need?”

  Lillian said, “Something for the pain.”

  “I see.” The woman stopped in front of her, dragging the last word out as she took in her injuries with a single comprehensive look. Instead of registering horror or shock, she shook her head, muttered “Filthy Nazi pigs” and immediately delved into her rucksack. Emmanuelle, on her left, fit the key into the lock on that manacle. It opened with a creak. Her left hand suddenly free, her arm dropped like a felled tree and she sagged helplessly toward the floor. But that tiny bud of hope in her heart grew. My God, could they really save her?

  To her surprise she found herself craving life with a feral fierceness.

  “Berthe, catch her.” Emmanuelle pushed past the other woman to get to the second manacle. Berthe shoved a solid shoulder beneath Lillian’s armpit, holding her up. Lillian felt a prick and looked around to discover the needle of a syrette, a single-dose syringe of the type used to treat soldiers in the field, being plunged into her arm.

  “Morphine,” Berthe told her in response to Lillian’s surprised look as she withdrew the syrette. “Just enough to treat the pain. You’ll stay awake.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Be quick!” A man—tall, lean, black haired—appeared in the doorway, his tone urgent. He held a rifle.

  The second manacle fell away. Lillian would have fallen if Berthe hadn’t been holding on to her. Emmanuelle dropped to her knees, made quick work of the irons around her ankles.

  A German voice: “Drop your weapon! Or I shoot!”

  The man in the doorway whirled in response to the shouted command and fired.

  “Let’s go.” He threw that at them as he disappeared from the doorway. She could hear him running—could hear gunfire in his wake.

  Her daughter and Berthe already each had an arm around her.

  “Wait. I need—” Desperate for a weapon of her own, prepared for a fight to the death and promising herself that she would not allow her daughter to be taken or herself to be captured again, Lillian lunged for and snatched up the yellow-handled knife from the table where Wagner had left it. Then she found herself being lifted almost off her feet as the other two grabbed her and took her with them toward the door. They emerged into the hall as a number of German soldiers, sidearms drawn, burst into view around a bend in the hallway.

  Lillian’s heart lurched. The sound she made was a moan of horror.

  The man jumped out of a doorway, mowing down the soldiers in front with a burst of gunfire. Screaming, the casualties fell. The survivors jumped back out of sight.

  “Get out of here,” he yelled at the women.

  “Quick! That way!” With the other two all but carrying her between them, they ran in the opposite direction.

  The man was firing his weapon again as the soldiers tried another rush around the bend. Badly outnumbered, he still managed to hold them off.

  The three of them reached the end of the hallway and ran across a large empty room into another hallway. With the help of terror or morphine, Lillian managed to provide at least minimal help. But she was slowing them down.

  Berthe missed a step, looked back. “Can you manage her? I must go back and help M’sieur Max.”

  “Yes. Yes, I’ve got her.” Emmanuelle’s arm clamped tighter around her waist as Berthe withdrew her support, whirled and, weapon at the ready, raced back toward the gunfire.

  “Come on, Maman.” Lillian could feel her daughter’s tension, feel the tremendous effort she was putting forth.

  Leave me, she almost said again as Emmanuelle dragged her on, but she knew her daughter wouldn’t.

  Her legs felt wobbly. Her heart pounded so that she was afraid it would burst from her chest. Knowing that Emmanuelle’s fate was entwined with hers, Lillian summoned every last bit of strength she possessed. She was weak, but she couldn’t falter or Emmanuelle would be lost along with her. She reached down deep inside herself, praying for the will to keep going.

  “You can do this.” The desperation in her daughter’s voice filled Lillian with fear. “Maman, did I tell you Genny is with me? She came with me to rescue you. She’s waiting for us. You have to run with me now, so we can get to Genny.”

  “Genevra?” The rush of excitement that accompanied the instant image of her younger daughter, so lively and sweet with her black curls and dazzling smile, the heart-shaking news that she was here and waiting sent a burst of energy through her. There it was: the strength she needed. “She is here?”

  “Yes,” Emmanuelle said.

  “My God,” Lillian breathed, as it occurred to her that Wagner had them both, her two daughters, within his reach. If h
e caught them...

  Terrified of the consequences if they didn’t get away, she ran on with her older daughter toward her long-lost youngest, knowing all their lives depended on her ability to find the strength.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Spurred on by the sounds of the fire and shrieks and shouts and a distant popping that was almost certainly gunfire, Genevieve made it to her room and shut the door. Shaky with fear and reaction, knowing she needed to hurry, she followed the plan and did what she was supposed to do. Whipping off the frothy red skirt she’d been wearing over a black bodysuit, she jerked on trousers, pulled on socks and thrust her feet into sturdy shoes: they would be escaping in the open air, and the night was cold. She grabbed her sweater as well as the coats for herself, Emmy, Lillian and Berthe that had been tucked into her luggage. Arms loaded, she was just straightening when the door to her room, which she’d discovered upon arrival didn’t lock, raising questions in her mind about Wagner’s intentions upon assigning her the room, burst open.

  Whirling, she found Emmy lurching through the door with her arm around a wilting figure that bore no resemblance to the mother she remembered. She was staggered by the visible injuries, by the frail and ragged form. But even as Emmy nudged the door shut behind them, an unerring recognition sent some primal piece of Genevieve’s soul flying toward her mother as unerringly as a homing pigeon. It was as if the seven years they’d been apart vanished just that fast. The connection was still there, unbroken, she discovered, and she was reminded of the revelation she’d had after her abortive visit to Anna: the tie that bound mothers and daughters was like no other. It was eternal, stronger than any separation, stronger even than death.

  So it was with her own mother. She felt a wave of such shattering love and connection that her heart shook.

  “Maman.” Dropping the coats, she instantly ran across the room. “Thank God!”

  “Genevra.” Lillian wrapped her in a fierce embrace. “I’m so glad to see you.” Lillian’s voice throbbed with emotion. Genevieve could feel her mother trembling. “I’m so sorry I sent you away. I’m so sorry I never got to know my grandchild. I was wrong to care what people thought, wrong to care about anything except you and your daughter. I regret it so much. I beg you, please forgive me.”

  As she registered the emotion in Lillian’s voice, the part of her that had blamed Lillian for Vivi’s death, the hard, cold knot that had lived inside her for seven years, seemed to melt. Now she saw that it had formed because in her deepest heart of hearts she really blamed herself—if she hadn’t gone out that afternoon, if she’d taken Vivi with her—and the burden of that had been too great to bear. She had shifted it onto her mother in order to survive.

  “I forgive you,” she said, and at the same time she found the distance and perspective to forgive herself, too. “None of that matters now. Maman, you’re hurt.” Wrapped in her arms, Lillian felt fragile enough to break. Genevieve found herself wishing with all her heart that she could heal the injuries and take the pain away and make her mother whole again. She felt so fiercely protective that it was almost as if their roles were reversed, and she was the mother and Lillian the daughter.

  “It’s not that bad.”

  At Lillian’s answer, Genevieve’s mind spun back through the years—that was her mother, always trying to reassure her. But now, as an adult, she knew better. Lillian’s voice was a croak, hardly recognizable. Her face—her beautiful, fine-boned face—was hideously damaged, with one eye swollen shut and her skin marred by livid stripes. She was bone thin, unsteady on her feet and filthy. What Genevieve could see of her body in the ragged brown dress that was all she wore was black and blue with bruises and marked with other injuries.

  “It looks bad.” Even as she bled inside for Lillian’s suffering, Genevieve was overwhelmed with love and regret. “I’m so sorry this happened to you. I’m so sorry I stayed away so long. I should have come home sooner. I love you, Maman.”

  “I love you, too, Genevra, my dear one. How I have missed you.” She pressed a kiss to Genevieve’s cheek.

  “I’ve missed you, too.” She’d just now realized how much. The first time she’d performed in Paris, she’d almost gone down to Rocheford to see her parents, but the thought of Vivi and then the Nazi invasion had kept her from following through. Now her heart ached with remorse. Tears stung her eyes. “Papa—”

  “He loved you. You loved him. That’s all that’s important.” Lillian’s voice was firm.

  There was more, much more that needed to be said on that and other subjects, but now was not the moment, Genevieve knew. There was no time.

  “Maman, sit for a minute. We have to get ready to go. And you need warm clothes.”

  “How are we going to get out of here?” Lillian’s voice shook, and Genevieve felt her heart turn over at the fear in it.

  “Don’t worry, Maman,” Genevieve said.

  “We have a plan,” Emmy added.

  “You shouldn’t have come for me, you girls. You’re in terrible danger here. I’ve put you in terrible danger.”

  “Of course we came for you.” Genevieve kept her arm around her mother’s waist as she led her toward the fainting couch. Emmy, she saw, had crossed the room and was leaning against the wardrobe. By now she should at least be putting on her coat. “And you don’t have to worry about Emmy and me.”

  “I always worry about the two of you,” Lillian said with conviction. “I always will.”

  “Get the knife away from her,” Emmy warned as Genevieve helped Lillian sit down.

  Genevieve realized that her mother was indeed clutching a wicked-looking knife in her fist. The cheerful yellow hilt belied the businesslike length of the blade. Gingerly she took it and laid it down on the small table next to the fainting couch.

  Then she grabbed up the sweater she’d been planning to wear with the intention of putting it on her mother.

  “Genny, do you have something I can tie this up with?” The strain in Emmy’s voice caused both Genevieve and Lillian to look at her.

  Still leaning against the wardrobe, Emmy was holding up the hem of her dark sweater—she’d changed into it and trousers in the anteroom before going after Lillian—and looking ruefully down at a long gash just above her waist on the right side. Blood poured from it in a steady stream.

  “Emmanuelle, my God, what happened?”

  “Emmy! Maman, don’t move.” Genevieve snatched up the skirt, a cascade of multicolor silk ruffles, she’d so recently discarded and rushed to her sister. “Are you shot?”

  “A little bit, it seems.” Grimacing, Emmy rested against the wardrobe as Genevieve pressed the wadded-up skirt to her side.

  “How bad is it?” Lillian sounded terrified.

  “Not bad.” Emmy’s tone was reassuring, which, Genevieve knew, was largely for their mother’s benefit. Like Lillian, Emmy was making light of her injuries so as not to alarm someone she loved. “Not much more than a scratch. The bullet just gouged out some flesh as it passed right through. But it’s bleeding like the devil.”

  “Hold this.” Genevieve caught her sister’s hand, placed it over the makeshift bandage, then grabbed a long woolen scarf out of the pocket of her coat. “What happened?”

  “The soldiers all left the dungeon when the bomb went off, but then some of them came back. There was gunfire. I got hit. Right when I thought we’d gotten away clean, too.” Emmy’s shrug tried to dismiss it.

  “You didn’t say anything,” Lillian said.

  “Because it’s nothing,” Emmy replied.

  “Where’s Max?” Trying not to think terrifying thoughts, wanting to distract their mother, Genevieve asked what she suddenly badly wanted to know while she wrapped the scarf around her sister’s waist and knotted it in such a way as to apply pressure to the wound. “And Berthe?”

  “Max stayed to hold off the soldiers while Berthe and I got Mam
an away, and then Berthe went back to help him.” She took one look at Genevieve’s face and added, “Don’t worry. Last time I saw him, your Max was fine. I know he said to wait for him here. But I’m starting to feel a little weak and—I think we should go on to Otto.”

  “I do, too.” Knowing that both her mother and sister were injured with only her to help them was terrifying. What would happen if...

  “The blood! It leads this way!”

  The shout in a harsh male voice was muffled, but the fact that they could hear it galvanized all of them: it almost certainly belonged to a soldier, and it wasn’t far away.

  “God in heaven, I’ve left a trail.” Emmy stared in horror at the floor. Genevieve followed suit. Drops of blood, gleaming crimson, led from the door to where Emmy stood. Undoubtedly there was more outside.

  Lillian tried to rise from the couch. “You girls—” her voice shook “—stay here. I will go out there, give myself up.”

  “Maman, stop. No. You and Emmy have to hide. In the wardrobe, quick.” Genevieve grabbed Lillian, hustled her toward the wardrobe where Emmy was already squeezing inside. She practically shoved Lillian in, too, as more shouts punctuated the sound of numerous boots on stone pounding toward them.

  Emmy said urgently, “Genny, the blood—”

  “Shh. I’ll deal with it. Just stay in there and stay quiet.” She shut the door, then turned wide-eyed toward the hall. She looked at the blood on the floor: there was a lot, with no time to wipe it all up. But if she didn’t, and the soldiers saw, they would be caught, the three of them. They would be arrested. They would be killed. Unless—

  Quick as the thought, she snatched up the knife her mother had carried in and sliced her own arm. Blood welled up, flowed. The sting of the cut made her eyes water. She dropped the knife as dizziness assailed her. Staring down at the blood running down her arm, then dripping to the floor, she had to sit abruptly on the fainting couch.

  She’d no sooner done so than the door was thrown open with such force that it bounced back on its hinges.

  Wagner stood in the doorway at the head of what seemed to be a gaggle of soldiers, staring at her as she sat there looking back at him while she clutched her bleeding arm.