by Amy McAuley
“I think we’re being followed,” I whisper.
I tug on him to change direction toward the livelier heart of the district in search of a crowd large enough to get lost in. We cross paths with a cyclist who gives us a cordial nod. An elderly woman sweeping her steps ambles into our path, and we jostle her in passing. Robbie wisely keeps his mouth shut and lets me do the apologizing. We’re leaving witnesses behind like a trail of breadcrumbs.
Robbie glances over his shoulder.
I pull him frontward. “Don’t look.”
“But Adele, there’s no one there. We’re not being followed.”
“We are.”
He drops back to get a better look. “There’s a young fella, but he’s not giving us the time of day. He’s entering a shop.”
I put some real muscle into getting him moving again.
“Trust me. And be quiet.”
The active hub of the district appears at the end of the street. Pedestrians are as likely to be German soldiers as anyone else. By walking into a crowd, we’re giving the enemy on our tail the advantage of numbers. One shout and Robbie and I might find ourselves surrounded with no hope for escape.
My impetuous decision to dash for the alley across the street brings Robbie flailing down on one knee. The only pair of men’s shoes available was a size too large. Like a puppy, his big feet are disproportionate to the rest of him. They are not making for a fleet-footed getaway.
“Oh, the misery,” Robbie groans, rubbing his knee as he stands.
Once we reach the cover of the alley, I break into a run. Robbie flaps along next to me. We come out in a shaded courtyard, bound by buildings on all sides but one. There will be no getting at us without first funneling down the alley.
I release Robbie’s arm and take a running leap at the low, crumbling stone wall that fences us in. I vault over the top and land feet together on the other side. Robbie straddles the wall. Wings of fabric flutter open on his pant leg to show a nasty scrape on his knee.
I wave him down. “Anyone coming?”
With a shake of his head, he drops to the ground.
I do a quick visual search for a hiding place. A nearby church will have to do. I loop my arm through Robbie’s. We stroll crosswise through the street to the church.
The alcove behind the decoratively carved archway gives us a shadowed lookout. We nestle into it, jockeying for space. The tight squeeze forces our bodies to intertwine in a hug. Robbie’s heartbeat pulses like a frightened rabbit’s against my shoulder. The warmth of his hand radiates through my blouse. Goose bumps spring up on my bare flesh.
Our eyes meet. He leans toward me, tilting his head.
My breath catches. Robbie has chosen me for his first kiss? What do I do? Do I want to kiss him back?
Without giving it another thought, I stand taller to meet his lips halfway.
But Robbie’s lips carry on past my mouth to my ear where he whispers, “Do you still believe we were followed?”
My cheeks burn. Robbie didn’t want to kiss me after all. And I’d been prepared, excited even, to kiss him back. I could almost cry with disappointment. Dropping to flat feet, I press my back against the wall.
“Didn’t you feel the sensation of being watched?” I say. “His stare was like a rope lassoed about my waist. You didn’t feel that?”
“No, Adele. And if somebody was chasing us, he sure did a lousy job of it, don’t you think? We didn’t hear or see a thing.”
I rest my forehead against the smooth stone wall.
“Hold on,” Robbie says. “He’s climbing over the wall.”
I stretch on my tiptoes. “I can’t see.”
“It’s the fella I saw going into the shop.”
“What is he doing?”
“He’s at the street. He’s bending down, pretending to be preoccupied by something on his shoe. He’s looking for us.” Robbie flattens against the wall. “He’s getting into a bicycle taxi. Here, quick, switch places with me.”
We do a rigid circuitous dance, careful to remain hidden.
I move into position as the taxi rolls away. A cold sweat comes over me.
“Did you get a look at him?” Robbie asks.
“A young man in civilian clothes with a thin build and neatly combed brown hair?”
“Yes, that’s him all right. What do you make of that?”
I honestly don’t know what to make of it. We were followed by Shepherd.
TWENTY
I drop Robbie off in front of his safe house.
“I can’t come in. I have to talk to Denise right away,” I say, turning to leave.
His sad droop can’t sway me, this is too important.
“I’ll visit tomorrow. Promise!”
Denise found housing in a charming stone home owned by a widower, Stefan, whose Jewish wife, a French-born citizen, was handed over by her own sister-in-law and sent to the German work camp on the outskirts of the city. She hasn’t been heard from since.
Stefan often travels to the country for days at a stretch, to smuggle much needed meat and vegetables into Paris for his friends and extended family. This suits Denise just fine. She prefers to go through her day without relative strangers “hanging about and watching her every move,” even if they are sympathetic to the cause.
I run the entire distance to Denise’s until my throbbing shins feel ready to splinter.
Our coded knock—the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony—allows us to identify each other without opening the door. The beats also represent Morse code for the letter V—dot, dot, dot, dash. As part of the V for Victory campaign, the BBC began playing the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth to introduce its foreign broadcasts.
Against the weathered wood of the courtyard door around the back of the house, I follow three clipped taps with a heavier final knock. Denise lets me inside, and we sit across from each other at the kitchen table.
“Robbie and I were just followed by Shepherd,” I say, catching my breath.
Her head jerks back in surprise. “The same Shepherd who got himself captured the night we dropped?”
“One and the same. We ran and hid, hoping to draw him out into the open. Robbie saw a man entering a shop behind us, and that same man showed up minutes later. I only got a peek at him, but I know it was Shepherd.”
“Well, if it was him, there must be a logical explanation. He escaped or he was freed after questioning.”
“But why was he following me?”
“Why wouldn’t he follow you, Adele? Maybe he needed help from a fellow agent. Maybe he wanted to talk but couldn’t approach because you weren’t alone. He doesn’t know Robbie. Seeing you with a strange man, he may have thought you were in danger.”
Denise’s reasoning confronts me with possibilities I didn’t consider.
“He didn’t run after us or follow too closely, though. He kept his distance. Why pretend to enter a shop? He wanted to watch us without being seen.”
“I’ll bet he was only curious. Or jealous.”
I don’t know what to think anymore. Did I totally misread the situation?
“Enough with that fretful face,” Denise says. “Don’t worry, if he needed help he would have found a way to get your attention.” She drums her fingernails on the tabletop. “I know just the thing to take your mind off Shepherd.”
I need her to take my mind off the other situation I read wrong, the near-kiss with Robbie. The closeness we shared in the alcove is something I didn’t even know I wanted until it happened.
“Let’s spend an hour at the Neptune Pool!” Denise cheers, as if that’s a brilliant idea. “We’ll relax, get some fresh air.” My disapproving scowl forces her to add, “I know what you’re going to say. You think it’s a bad idea. I wholeheartedly disagree.”
“I don’t swim,” I say.
“Please, Adele, I need some sunshine. I’m withering away in here. We’re supposed to be playing regular French girls. And where are regular French girls o
n such a beautiful day? That’s right, they’re at the pool.”
“It’s not a good idea,” I say. “And you can’t wear me down, so don’t even try.”
Everywhere I look around the crowded pool deck I see scantily clad French girls and handsome blond men wearing skimpy shorts. Even Denise wears a two-piece bathing suit she bought off the black market. It covers her navel, of course, but just barely. I know what every man and woman at the pool probably looks like in their underwear now. And that’s a whole lot more than I want to know about them.
A girl runs toward me, squealing, with a soldier hot on her trail. But we’re surrounded by Germans. There’s not much I can do to lend her a hand.
“I have you,” the soldier says, scooping her up.
She bats his chest, putting on quite a show, as if being chased down and conquered by a German soldier behaving like a caveman is something to celebrate.
Denise taps my right shoulder. “Look. Twelve o’clock.”
A soldier picks his way toward us, consulting a small book in his hands.
“Hello, girls. My name is Ludwig. It is sun and beautiful afternoon, I believe, and you?” he says. A nervous smile appears on his face, a rickety whitewashed picket fence of teeth. He searches the book. “Some time you would like a drink?”
“That would be nice, my friend and I would like that,” Denise says, not slowing her clipped pace to help Ludwig understand.
“Fantastic. The Commodore Bar. Do you know it?”
Denise stretches her long legs in front of her to flick the water with her toes. “We do. We will meet you there at nine o’clock. My name is Lise. This is my friend Anise.”
Yet another name to keep track of and answer to. When the war ends, will I remember how to go back to being plain Betty?
“Lise.” Ludwig takes Denise’s wrist. His lips brush the back of her hand. Switching to his native tongue, as though that might impress her, he says, “You are the loveliest woman I have seen in all of Paris.” He turns to me, outstretched hand shaking, and tacks on a compulsory-sounding “Good day, Anise, it was my pleasure to be meeting you.”
I cross my arms over the front of my blouse.
Denise’s eyes narrow at the back of Ludwig’s head as he saunters away. She rubs the back of her hand on her skirt.
“What’s the big idea, dragging me into this?” I say. “I have a fifty-kilometer ride to a dead drop ahead of me tomorrow. You can’t seriously be thinking of meeting him.”
“You know what they say. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
Denise calls on me at Estelle’s at seven o’clock. With her last transmission for the day completed she hid her radio and eagerly raced out for a night on the town.
Transmitting radio messages from within the city carries enormous risks. The Gestapo combs the streets in vans equipped to detect radio signals. Whenever I see those vans coming, I wonder if some poor radio operator’s goose is about to be cooked. Another detection method involves shutting down electricity. Like dominoes falling, the power goes out from house to house, apartment to apartment, to narrow the search. If the transmissions stop, a swarm of men in trench coats descend on the area with precision, leaving little chance for escape.
Limiting transmissions to five minutes is nearly impossible, even for Denise, a skilled and quiet transmitter. She pushes her luck to the brink. The way she sees it, the longer she goes without getting caught, the less likely it is to happen, which is the opposite of how I see it. Eventually, she might start believing capture isn’t even a possibility for her anymore and get sloppy.
“Denise, you’re done up like the dog’s dinner,” I say, borrowing one of my aunt’s favorite phrases. It doesn’t sound all that complimentary to me. I learned not to question those things while in Britain.
“Thank you.” Denise holds up a handbag, wincing as if she expects me to hit her. “I had to have it. It’s a wee little thing. And it didn’t cost much. Do you like it?”
“Everything I know about handbags wouldn’t fill that little handbag.”
She gives my simple black skirt and blouse the once-over. “And yet, there would still be room in it for everything you know about fashion. Never heard of an iron?”
She unclasps the purse, reaches inside, and launches a surprise attack, wielding a tube of lipstick.
“Please don’t make me look like a circus clown.”
“Then you’d better stop fussing.” She presses the makeup onto my bottom lip with feathered strokes. “You have nice lips. You should wear lipstick more often.”
“I’ve never worn lipstick a day in my life.”
Denise recoils in horror. “Sincerely? I will not leave this country without rectifying that.” She licks her lips, mashes them together, and pops them apart. “Do that.”
I try to follow her instructions, but my lips won’t cooperate. And the lipstick is messy. I scrub my teeth clean with my finger.
“When I was a girl, I loved watching my mother apply her makeup. Putting on her face, she called it.” Denise chuckles. “She’s a character, my mum. I hope she’s doing well back home. I’m sure she is. She’s a tough old bird.” She returns the metal tube to her handbag. “Are you going to do something with that mop you call hair?”
“I did. Thank you.” There is nothing moplike about my best feature.
Denise takes it upon herself to make me more presentable, combing and tugging and molding my hair with pins until I feel like smacking her. Hair isn’t worth as much effort as she’s putting into it, especially when that hair belongs to my head.
“What about that pretty bracelet of yours?” Denise says. “Why aren’t you wearing it for our special night out?”
“I don’t wear jewelry.”
“You’d rather it rot in your pocket?”
I had a hunch her curiosity would get the better of her, and she’d bring up my bracelet sooner or later. I draw it from the pocket of my skirt.
“After boarding school, I lived with my aunt and uncle in London. When I left for this mission, literally as I walked out the door, my aunt gave me this bracelet.” I go through the tiny charms one by one. “This hedgehog represents my cousin Paul. He collects ceramic hedgehogs and has a pet one named Roly-Poly. The Yorkie dog is my cousin Philip. He and his dog, Biscuit, are inseparable. For reasons you can probably guess, the beer stein is my uncle Edward. Also for obvious reasons, my aunt Lib is the teapot.”
I drop the bracelet into my pocket.
“What a thoughtful gift to remember them by.” Denise runs through a cordoned-off section of my hair several times with her comb. “You’re from the United States. Rather than return home, you went to live with your aunt?”
“My father remarried after my mother passed away. He was going to send for me when I left school, but the war changed his plans. And besides, he and his wife have a new baby. A little boy. It ended up being for the best that I moved to London. I would have just gotten in the way.”
After some hesitation, Denise says, “Oh, I see.” She switches to her brush to tug out a tangle. “Robbie wasn’t too pleased that you’re going to the Commodore this evening.”
My head jerks to glance over my shoulder. The large chunk of hair clutched within Denise’s hand stays put.
I rub the sore spot on my head. “You talked to Robbie? What did he say?”
“It wasn’t so much what he said. His mood took an abrupt downturn, even though I’d brought him some beans and canned fish from the black market.” Denise wheedles a pin into my upswept hairdo. “You know, he likes you, Adele. Have you not noticed the lovesick goo-goo eyes he’s given you since that day we rescued him?”
“We’re just friends.” My heart pounds as if I’ve been cornered with nowhere to run. “We’re supposed to take care of him until he’s sent back to Britain. That’s what we signed up for.” Through the window next to the sofa, I watch a pigeon waddle along the stone ledge. “I don’t want him to be lonely while he’s here, that’s all.
We owe it to his family to keep him safe.”
“That’s admirable. But he isn’t like me, and he’s not like you. He’s soft, like a turtle without a shell. There’s a war going on. War is dangerous. It’s terrifying. Protect him too much and he might not last a minute out there. He has to reach England a man. Not a boy.”
I rest my chin on the back of the sofa to hide the tears welling up in my eyes.
“Where is Marie?” Denise asks. “She should join us.”
In the evenings, Marie sings her tone-deaf heart out in the hallway to drown out the radio. Only one neighbor complained. She should be thankful for Marie’s singing and use it to muffle the sounds of her own radio. Madame Richelieu, a sourpuss with a mean clenched mouth, is a neighbor to keep an eye on.
“Where will I be joining you?” Marie asks, entering the apartment.
“Speak of the devil,” Denise says. “Were you eavesdropping outside the door by any chance, Marie?”
“If I say yes, will you be angry?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then yes.”
Like a butterfly setting down on a flower petal, she takes up the sofa opposite me and wraps her coltish legs within her skirt.
“We are going to the Commodore Bar tonight, Marie. Would you like to come?”
“What Denise means to say is we’re going to a bar to fraternize with the enemy.”
Skirt twirling, she runs to the door undeterred. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I will get ready. You won’t tell Grand-mère, will you?”
“No, we won’t,” Denise says. “Right, Adele?”
I shrug. As if I have any say in the matter.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I say, after Marie skips home on cloud nine.
“You look divine. And that lipstick is hard to come by. Don’t let it go to waste. We’ll get tipsy on free champagne and laugh as men fall all over themselves to talk to us.”
I bite my lip, seriously contemplating coming clean about my age. Denise is my closest friend. She’ll understand. I’ve never gone out for a night on the town. My work shifts at the London pub ended in time for supper. The Commodore is a place for social butterflies, not caterpillars like me. I’ll be the only inexperienced, socially inept person there.