“Eddie was killed in the South Pacific,” Margaret said.
Slim remembered the shy naval cadet who had escorted her best friend to the dance. He’d been smitten with Margaret to the point of being almost tongue-tied.
“His mother wrote me. A kamikaze hit his destroyer. She found some pictures of the two of us from that night among his belongings and thought perhaps I was someone special. I just hope he died instantly.” Neither of them spoke for a moment, and then Margaret said, “Are you staying at the Excelsior, like always?”
Slim nodded, and Margaret gripped her by the elbows, pulled her forehead next to hers.
“Slim, you’re the sister I never had.” She smiled.
“Who would have thought you’d wind up a nun?” Slim countered.
“I thought we’d both marry Georgetown boys, have four or five or six kids, and live happily ever after.”
“Then everything changed,” Slim said.
“You know, Slim, it is what it is. I like my life. I supervise the novitiates, study for my Master of Philosophy degree at the University of Roma, and when I finish that, I will be back at Trinity teaching the next generation of Catholic women.”
“Maybe you’ll be president of the college one day.” Slim looked at Margaret, expecting a roll of the eyes but instead got a shrug to acknowledge that possibility.
“Come, let’s go back to reception and have Gudrun call you a taxi.”
“Is that the young woman at the desk?”
“Yes, she’s been with us since the war ended. She’s an orphan. Her father was some Nazi higher-up. No one would take those children after Reich fell but the Church,” Margaret said.
While they waited for the taxi to arrive, they caught up with Margaret’s family. Her youngest brother just had his second child, this time a girl, and that seemed to be a sort of balm for all Margaret’s parents had lost, including Margaret to the nuns.
“And what about you? Anyone special in your life, Slim?”
“I’ve been seeing someone. He’s meeting me at the hotel tonight.”
“Is it serious?”
“No, it’s not anything really.” She avoided Margaret’s eyes and wondered what she would think if she knew that she was sleeping with not one but two men, and one of them was a Jew.
“Whatever it is, it’s nice that you have someone.” Margaret smiled sadly. “Slim, we should make our lives worth something after all this loss.”
Slim spent the afternoon on Rome’s famous shopping street, Via dei Condotti. She picked up several pairs of gloves at Sermoneta and then headed over to Gucci, where she had spent hours with her father while he had shopped for his giant, hard-to-fit feet. Back then, the black-shirt carabinieri had patrolled the streets under the aegis of Il Duce, and the trains had run on time. She wondered if they still did; probably not, knowing the Italians. During the war, Churchill called Italy a “nation of waiters.” Slim smiled. To her, the Italians were dreamers who came alive in the morning, slept through the heat of the afternoon—the time most of the western world considered the most productive of the day—and then stayed up all night arguing, drinking, and making love. From the gorgeous hedonists tap-dancing through a land of ruins to the early morning markets piled high with truffles at Campo di Fiori and the gelateria at the Parthenon, Slim loved the energy and, of course, the food of Rome. At times, she loved it even more than her adopted city of Paris.
Once inside the store, a canvas bag with the ubiquitous letter G with a single green-and-red stripe caught her eye. She picked it up off the shelf.
“Signorina, I am so sorry, that is not for sale,” a tall man said in Italian.
Slim looked up and smiled. “Signor Gucci?”
“Sì, sì.” He smiled back, and then he grew incredulous. “No, no, it cannot be! Rudolfo!” he called behind him.
“What? What? Aldo, I’m busy,” a man talking to a sales clerk yelled back.
“You must come. You must see who is here!”
“I tell you I am busy. Unless it is the pope himself, I am busy.”
“It is better than His Holiness; it is the principessa!” He said kissing her on both cheeks.
“The principessa? Which principessa?” Rudolfo came over, and Slim grinned as he grabbed her, kissing her on both cheeks.
“We were so sorry to hear about your papa. He was a great man,” Rodolfo said.
“Signor Moran was a cheap man. He had the same pair of shoes since we opened. I must have resoled them fifteen, twenty times. I think he was one of our first customers, but still, your papa brought all his Hollywood friends. So how are you? Are you married? Where are your bambini?”
Slim was caught unexpected and replied, “My fiancé. . . his plane went down over Germany. He was never found. He’s dead.”
Rodolfo reached for her and held her as she cried. It was odd to feel still so emotional about Patrick’s disappearance. Maybe it was the mention of her father that set had her off. Maybe she was just tired, but this was the first time she’d said aloud that she thought Patrick was dead instead of missing.
“Many boys were lost. Such a waste is war. So many lives ruined.” Aldo wrung his hands. Like most Italian men, he hated to see a woman cry. He could deal with them scolding and yelling and slapping him, but he could never bear to see a woman weep.
“You need shoes. She needs shoes, Rodolfo. And a new bag, a new pocketbook.” He snapped his fingers.
“How about that canvas one?” Slim wiped her eyes with the monogrammed handkerchief Aldo had given her.
“No, it is not for sale, not even for you, principessa.”
“Why not? It was in the front window,” Slim asked, confused.
“We could not make leather bags during the war because of the shortages. So we made canvas ones, but we had to let everyone know they were made by Gucci, so we put the G and then used the colors of Italy. This bag symbolizes that nothing could crush the Gucci family, not Il Duce, not Hitler, no one. So it is not for sale. And now, principessa, we have the materials, the leather, we will make up whatever your heart desires. We have a new pocketbook we are calling the bamboo bag because of its handle. You will have a brown one, I think, yes? As for shoes, a nice soft pump, I think. Your bag and shoes must always match, principessa. Sit. I will have Estrella help you,” Rudolfo said as he snapped his fingers.
An elegant woman clad in a mid-calf length black dress came over. Slim noticed she wore a wedding ring.
“Please, Estrella, you find the principessa some shoes, yes?”
“Of course I do, Signor Gucci,” Estrella replied in halting English as she measured Slim’s feet.
“They’re not usually this swollen. It must be all the walking and heat,” Slim said, happy to be sitting down.
“You have a high arch, so you’ll be easy to fit, but maybe we go a half size larger.”
Slim leaned back in the chair and sipped the glass of water Estrella’s assistant, Marco, brought her.
“Marco, you bring up these shoes, yes?” she said, handing him a chit of paper.
“Yes, Signora.” He left with a small bow and a shy smile.
“Signora, how did you come to work for the Gucci family?” Slim was fascinated that a married woman was working when most women of her age were at home tending their families. Italy might be a hedonistic culture, but it was also a very traditional one as well.
“I lost my husband in the war.”
“He was a soldier?” Slim asked.
“No, an ordinary man. Too old to be a soldier.”
Slim wondered if he wasn’t a soldier, how did he die? He couldn’t have been killed in a bombing raid. Rome had been declared an open city; thus neither the Allies nor the Axis bombed it.
“At the end of the war, the Italian Resistance killed twenty-eight members of the Gestapo with a bomb as they marched through the Piazza di Spagna. In retaliation, the Nazis rounded up ten men for each of theirs who had been killed. They took the wealthy and poor, the Catholics and the
Jews, teachers and laborers, lawyers and doctors from ages fifteen to eighty. They brought them to the Ardeatine Caves outside the city. They tied their hands behind their backs and made them kneel, and one by one they were shot. One was my Antonio.”
“Who ordered this?”
“The head of the German Gestapo, Erik Priebke.”
“Was he brought to justice?”
“No, he escaped. Some believe he is in South America, like the rest of the Nazis. Some say Hitler is there as well. Some say they are forming a fourth Reich down there. I don’t know how they get there or who helps them out of this country. But whoever it is, I’d like them to be burned in Dante’s ninth circle of hell. Ah, here is Marco with the shoes. Come, let’s have some fun.”
An hour later, Slim left Gucci feeling a bit renewed, loaded down with wrapped bundles tied with string but no shoes, as her size was not in stock. Perhaps the two brothers were right; a new pair of shoes and pocketbook was exactly what she’d needed to lift her mood. The afternoon sun hit her hard as she climbed the Spanish Steps. Her feet were killing her, and sweat began to stain her dress. By the time she got to the Excelsior, she was drenched.
As she limped toward the reception desk to pick up her key, the concierge said, “Signorina, there is a young lady to see you. She is sitting in the lobby.”
“I’m not expecting anyone.” Slim wondered who it was.
“She is most eager to speak with you.” The desk clerk pointed to a large chair with its back facing both of them. Slim walked over to the chair, and a young woman in a white habit turned around.
“Sister Gudrun?” Slim asked, wondering what the young novitiate from this morning was doing there.
“Miss Moran, Sister Margaret sent me.”
“Why? Do you have information from her?”
“I can help you find whom you’re looking for.”
“You can help me find Marie Claire?” Slim asked, confused. Who was this girl?
Gudrun shook her head no. “Sister Margaret said you wanted to find a man named Gerhard Brandt. He was a doctor in the Natzweiler camp.”
“Yes,” Slim said, starting to feel weak at the knees.
“The thing is, Miss Moran, I am German.”
“Yes?” Slim looked for a chair to sit down. Why did she feel so faint?
“I was born in Karlsruhe.”
“Yes?” What was this girl blathering about? Slim grew even more lightheaded and suddenly nauseated.
“Dr. Brandt is my father.”
Slim gripped the back of the chair and collapsed onto the floor.
She woke up in bed to Daniel fanning her and looking at her with a worried expression. She tried to sit up but was too weak.
“No, you must rest.”
“Where is Gudrun?”
“I sent her to fetch a pitcher of cold water.”
“Where am I?”
“In my room on the first floor.”
“Your room? Why aren’t you staying with me?”
“Slim, are you pregnant?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You fainted.”
“It’s hot. I’m not pregnant.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am sure.” Slim had told no one, not even Margaret, how she’d had a botched abortion after she’d found out Patrick was missing in action. How hours afterward, she’d found herself bleeding profusely and incredibly scared, and she had called the last person she’d thought she would: her father. From his home in Homly Hills, he’d arranged for a surgeon and a private room at General Hospital in Washington, DC. There she was told that such extensive damage had been done to her by that quack of a doctor that she wouldn’t be able to have children.
“I can’t have children, Daniel. You know that.” She’d never told Daniel the reason, but he seemed to accept it without question. In her experience, most men had little desire or interest to learn about the female reproductive system.
“You fainted, and you look exhausted,” he said. Slim wondered if she’d caught a fleeting look of disappointment on his face about her not being pregnant.
“It’s the heat, and yes, I am fatigued. I’ve been traveling nonstop. Why did you want to meet me here?”
“Who were you with the other night, when I called?”
“Don’t make me lie to you, Daniel.”
“Why would you lie?”
“I don’t ask what you do when you’re away. So don’t ask me.” She pushed his hands away and sat up. Her head ached.
“Slim, you left Paris without saying goodbye. I know I’m not . . . always . . .” He paused and then said, “I don’t say what you want to hear.”
“You don’t have to say what you don’t feel.”
“It’s not that I don’t feel . . .”
“Look, I know for the most part that I am nothing more than a checking account to you.” Slim was annoyed. Why had Daniel come? Why was he wasting her time like this?
“Is that what you think?”
“Please, let’s not kid ourselves. I’m wealthy; you’re not. I have what you need.”
Daniel backed away from Slim, horrified. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“It’s true, isn’t it?” She was tired of these games.
“Of course it’s not true.” Daniel looked shocked. “I may not always tell you how I feel.”
“Daniel, you have never told me how you feel about anything. I don’t even know if you’re capable of feeling after what happened to you.”
“What happened to me has nothing to do with how I feel about you,” he said coldly.
“And honestly, I don’t even know what happened to you in Auschwitz. I don’t even know who you are.”
Daniel pulled up his sleeve, revealing the numbers tattooed on his arm. “This is not who I am. This will never be who I am.”
“It is.”
At that moment, there was a knock on the door, and Gudrun entered with a pitcher of water and a glass. She saw the numbers on Daniel’s arm and began to back away, frightened.
Daniel pulled down his sleeve, covered his arm, and left the room, slamming the door.
“He is Jewish? Your friend?” Gudrun asked after handing her a glass of water.
“Yes, he was in Auschwitz. I suppose you’ve heard of it.”
“I knew about the camps; my father worked at Natzweiler.”
“He was Dr. Brandt? Isn’t that what you said?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you live at the camp?”
“My father wanted me to grow up in Germany, and Mother did not want to live in France. So he would come on the weekends and live at the camp during the week.”
“Did your father ever tell you what they were doing in the camp?”
“I loved my father. I know what they said he did, but still . . .”
“How do you know what he did?”
“When the war ended, they interrogated me after he escaped Wuppertal. They said he did terrible things. That he did experiments . . .” The young woman faltered.
“Gudrun, did your father ever speak about a woman being in the camp?”
“A woman? No, it was a camp for men.”
“A woman was murdered there, a British spy.”
“Did they shoot her?” Even Gudrun seemed to know the protocol for dealing with spies.
“No, she was burned alive. The stoker of the crematorium said your father had a part in it.”
Gudrun looked down at the floor as tears streamed down her face. “Before the war, my father was just a family doctor. He treated everyone, even the Jews.”
She pulled out a handkerchief and blew into it. Slim noticed something.
“Are those your initials?”
“Yes, why?”
“Did you ever make a handkerchief for your father with a swastika on it?”
Gudrun blushed. “Yes, I made one for him in honor of the Führer’s birthday.”
Slim looked at Gudrun’s slender fin
gers. She grabbed her hand and squeezed it.
“I need your help. Do you think you can help me?”
“I can try.”
“Good. Why don’t we go up to my room and order in dinner and talk some more? I have some questions for you,” Slim said as she reached for Gudrun to help her up. Daniel had not come back.
An hour later, after they had finished a light dinner, Slim took out her notebook and began. “Gudrun, when was the last time you saw your father?”
“The last time I saw my father was in May 1943. I packed his lunch: a cheese-and-meat sandwich. We still had food, thanks to Father. He would bring it home from the storeroom at Natzweiler. We were lucky. Everyone around us was starving. I remember wrapping the sandwich in a handkerchief that I’d embroidered with a swastika. He left earlier than usual because he said he was picking up a prisoner. I wanted him to stay a bit longer. I remember my mother weeping. My father tried to soothe her, but she told him to go, and so he left. We never heard from him again. A year later, the French Colonial troops came.”
Chapter Ten
Karlsruhe, 1945
When they heard the French Colonial troops were starting to rape and pillage only hours after entering Karlsruhe, Gudrun and her mother made hasty preparations to hide in the cellar. At her first glimpse of the brown faces of the colonial troops marching through the street, she’d been fascinated. That fascination quickly turned to fear when her mother told her what they would do to both of them if they did not hide. “At least with the Russians, any baby born from their violations will be white,” her mother told her.
When they were finally ready to shut the door to the cellar, her mother remembered something and ran back upstairs to retrieve a chipped lavender metal candy box where she kept her papers and mementos. Gudrun heard glass shatter and her mother screaming for her to bolt the cellar door. Gudrun did as she was told. Her father had installed the lock in 1942 when the Allied bombing started and stocked the basement with provisions, two cots, and books from his student days, many of which had been banned by the Third Reich.
The Lost Spy (Slim Moran Mysteries) Page 18