Gudrun’s face lit up as she shyly picked out three flavors for her paper cone.
They ate their treats slowly as they strolled along the piazza. They didn’t speak much; Slim didn’t want to interrupt Gudrun, who was so clearly relishing every bite of her treat. When they finished, Slim looked up and saw the toy store where her father had always taken her.
“I can’t believe that it is still there.”
“What is it?”
“A toy store. Come now, you’ve must have had them in Karlsruhe.”
“Can we go inside?” Gudrun asked excitedly.
“Sure, let’s go.”
A bell jingled as Slim pushed open the door, and a woman dressed in black and a teenage boy around the same age as Gudrun both looked up, a bit startled to see two nuns.
“Do you speak English?” Slim asked.
“I speak a little,” the youth answered. “How may I help you?”
“I came here with my father years ago. He bought me a monkey with a pair of cymbals.”
Slim noticed that Gudrun was gravitating toward a display of dolls.
“A monkey? I don’t know what cymbals are,” the youth said.
Slim mimed the robotic monkey clanging cymbals.
“Oh, we not have the monkey anymore. Upstairs, we have many animals. I can show you.” The youth motioned for them to follow him.
“Gudrun, would you like to come up and take a look?”
“The dolls are cute. Look at this one.” Gudrun shyly held out a small baby doll in a pink smocked dress.
Hearing Gudrun’s German-tinged English, the woman turned to the youth and spoke to him sharply.
“I’d like to buy that doll. How much is it?” Slim asked, wanting to reward Gudrun for the work she’d done today.
“I’m sorry, it is not for sale,” the youth said with his eyes lowered.
“But it has a price tag,” Slim persisted.
“We should go,” Gudrun said.
“I’m sorry, my mother said I cannot sell to her.” He nodded toward Gudrun.
“What are you talking about? Why can’t you sell to us?” Slim asked.
“I will sell to you, but not to her,” the youth said.
“He will not sell to me because I am German,” Gudrun said, reaching for the door. “Please, let’s go. I don’t want to have a scene.”
Gudrun passed through the door, but before she followed, Slim looked the youth in the eyes and said, “The war is over. We must move on.”
“For us, it is not possible to do that. I am sorry.” He waited for Slim to leave and then closed the door. The bell above it jingled again, and she could see him gesticulating angrily with his mother.
Slim walked over to Gudrun, who was standing on the corner, wringing her hands and crying.
“You mustn’t take what he said seriously.”
“We’re to blame for everything. People are going to hate us forever.”
“At some point, this hate will have to stop, and the world move on. Come, it is time to get you back home.”
They began to walk away in the direction of the Piazza di Spagna.
“Scusi!”
Slim turned around and saw the youth from the toy shop running toward them. He was holding the small doll Gudrun had admired.
“I would like to give this to you.” He held it out to Gudrun.
“But I thought you said that you couldn’t sell to Germans,” Slim demanded.
“I told my mother the hatred has to stop and that we have to move on.” He smiled, and Slim was gratified to see Gudrun returning the smile.
“Thank you very much, but I know you have a business to run, so I am going to insist upon paying for it.”
“It’s my gift.”
“No, your gift was running out and apologizing.” Slim pulled a coin purse from her pocket and pulled out a small wad of bills.
“No, no, no. This is too much.” He tried to hand the bills back.
“Please take it. What is your name?”
“My name is Enrico.”
“This is Sister Gudrun, and I am Sister Margaret.” Slim hesitated before telling the youth her false name. She hated to lie, but she needed to be consistent in whom she was pretending to be in case she was being watched.
“It is an honor to meet you both.” He bowed slightly and then said, “I must go, but maybe I see you both again.” His eyes lingered upon Gudrun’s freckled face, and Slim could see that the admiration was mutual. Perhaps her young friend was not meant to be a nun after all.
“I feel silly holding this doll,” Gudrun said, smiling, as she watched the youth run back to the store.
“What’s the last toy you had?”
“I don’t know. Once I joined the BDM, I threw out all my dolls.”
“That’s a shame.”
“I had such beautiful dolls. Some of them were my mother’s. Did you play with dolls as a little girl?”
“No, I liked to play cowboys and Indians. I had a lot of cap guns and cowboy hats. I wasn’t a typical girl.” Slim smiled. “So Enrico seemed to like you.”
Gudrun blushed. “I’m a nun.”
“You’re a novitiate; you have some years before you become a full-fledged nun.”
After she had put Gudrun into a taxi back to the motherhouse, Slim went to the front desk to ask if there was a message from Daniel.
The concierge did a double-take when he saw Slim in her habit.
“I had no idea that you were a suora, signorina.”
“People can be many things. If a man named Daniel Cohen calls, will you please put him through immediately? Likewise, if a nun named Sister Margaret calls.”
“May I ask you something, Suora?”
“I’m in a terrible rush, so if you could make it quick, that would be most helpful.” Slim wanted to get up to her room and take off the suffocating wool habit before she passed out again.
“Did you used to come here as a little girl with your father?”
Slim looked up at the man. Of course, it was Signor Brancati! How could she not have recognized him?
“Signor Brancati, forgive me for not knowing you.”
“I read that your father died after the war, I give you my deepest sympathies.” He bowed slightly, signaling his respect.
“Thank you. The drink got him in the end.” Slim remembered when Signor Brancati had helped carry her drunk, foul-mouthed father up to his room while she’d trailed after him, sobbing.
“Suora, whatever I can do to make your stay pleasant, I am here to help.”
“Thank you, Signor Brancati.” Slim started to walk away.
“One more thing, Suora.”
Slim turned around, puzzled.
“La tua chiave! Your key!” He smiled as he handed her a heavy metal room key.
Slim called Françoise that afternoon to check in with her. She told Slim that Amelie had been buried quickly with a small ceremony attended by only her fellow agents.
“Did you find out what her note said?” Slim asked.
“Yes, Bronwyn translated it from the Morse Code. The note said, ‘I believe that I am in hell. Therefore, I am there.’”
“To quote the poet Rimbaud—how fitting, how sad.”
“The other agents wanted to know if you’d given up your quest to find Marie Claire.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I said I had a bar to run and an old friend to bury. What you are up to is not my concern.”
“Good. Did Daniel call?” Slim asked.
“I thought he was in Rome with you,” Françoise said, exasperated. “What has that man done now?”
Slim let the line fall silent, and she could hear Françoise let out a heavy sigh. When the latter realized she wasn’t going to receive an answer, they exchanged a couple more pleasantries and hung up.
The line rang a minute later. Slim grabbed it before the second ring, hoping that it was Daniel, but it was Margaret, calling from the convent.
�
��So how’d you like being in the penguin suit?” Margaret asked, referring to what they used to call the habits the nuns wore at Trinity.
“I think the vow of chastity might be easier to keep than wearing that getup. How do you do it? It’s stifling,” Slim said, staring at the heat rash on her arms and legs.
“Oh, you get used to wearing a habit. I play tennis in it.”
“You do not!”
“Just because I became a nun doesn’t mean I have to give up my drop shot.”
Margaret had been a notoriously dirty tennis player for the Trinity tennis team, and when she’d teamed up with Slim as a doubles partner, the two of them had been unbeatable.
“Listen, I just received a call from the office of His Excellency, Bishop Hudal.”
“That man makes my skin crawl.”
“Skin crawl or not, he’s sending a car tomorrow for you and Gudrun. So you need to get here tonight.”
“Tonight? Why can’t I just come over in the morning?”
“The car is due at the motherhouse at six a.m. Slim, I’ve been asking around about Hudal, and I don’t know if this is such a great idea.”
“Gudrun wants to find her father.”
“She belongs here with us. We’re her family now,” Margaret said.
“Margaret, she’s no longer a child. She’s growing up.”
“I want you to promise me that nothing will happen to her.”
“She wants to see her father.”
“Her father is a war criminal. Slim, she’s like my kid sister. Please be careful. I’ve lost three brothers, and I don’t want to lose you both as well. So promise me that you’ll be careful.”
“I promise.”
“Now, what the heck is that weird doll she brought back? One of the older sisters who is in her dotage thought that Gudrun had had a baby. It was a bit awkward,” she said, laughing, and then added, “They lock the doors at nine, so make sure you’re here before that.”
Slim arrived well before nine and spent a restless night at the convent in a sparse room on an uncomfortable cot. Margaret awakened her the next morning, saying that a car was waiting outside the convent gates. The driver opened the door, and she and a very sleepy Gudrun climbed in, and off they sped. The dark light of night turned to dawn, and suddenly, it was a bright morning. Slim blinked, adjusting to the sudden sunlight. In thirty minutes, they were in the foothills of the Apennine Mountains. Slim looked over at Gudrun, who fingered her rosary beads, nervously mouthing prayers.
The route the driver was taking through the mountains was as circuitous as Marie Claire’s missing person’s case. Was she putting herself and Gudrun in danger by trying to find an agent who was most likely dead? However, the message on the handkerchief made her think that there was a possibility that Marie Claire might still be alive. She felt in her gut that she was. Slim had learned to listen to her gut when she’d worked for the Red Cross. Granted, most of the people she’d searched for were dead, but sometimes she would be pushed forward to find someone declared dead who wasn’t. It was the oddest thing, and yet it was this intangible thing, this instinct, that made her so good at finding people. She only hoped that whatever this indiscernible gift she had was not leading her astray.
“We’re going to Subiaco,” Gudrun said, pointing above to the series of brown-stone buildings wedged into the side on a cliff.
“Subiaco? What’s Subiaco?” Slim asked.
“It’s a monastery dedicated to Saint Benedict. He lived in a sacro speco.”
“Sacro speco?”
“It means sacred cave. Saint Benedict was a hermit.”
“It’s certainly well hidden.”
“I’ve been here before. Sister Margaret took me to see the cave. The road up to the monastery passes by the ruins of Nero’s villa. Look, the bell tower was bombed by the Americans, and they’re just now rebuilding it.”
Slim could vaguely make out a decimated tower through the bright morning sun’s glare.
“It’s going to be odd to see him again.”
“Your father?”
Gudrun nodded and then fell silent as the car started to climb the mountain road. At the entrance, a Benedictine monk wearing a hood greeted them. Slim wasn’t sure if this was because the morning air was tinged with cold or because he didn’t want them to see his face. He motioned for them to follow him. Slim looked to see if the priest who had accompanied them on the journey was coming, but he stayed in the front seat with the same impassive expression he’d worn when he picked them up at the convent.
Slim hesitated before following the monk—was she walking into a trap? The monk turned around and spoke to them both gruffly in Italian.
“He says we need to follow him quickly. This is not the time to procrastinate,” Gudrun said fearfully. Slim tried to smile at her reassuringly, but she was nervous as well.
They were led into a spartan monk’s cell through the side door of a chapel. The cold, damp room had a single small, barred window, which allowed in a beam of sunlight. Slim watched how the dust from the chamber traversed the beam as her eyes adjusted to the near-darkness. She was tired from getting up so early, and her bones ached from lack of sleep.
“Gudrun?”
They both jumped as they heard the soft voice penetrate the silence.
“Papa?”
Slim looked toward a corner from where the voice emanated. She saw the shadowy figure of a man in a monk’s robe.
Gudrun rushed toward the man but stopped when he barked a command in German.
“Is that your father, Gudrun?”
“Yes, I think so.”
The man spoke again, this time more softly and in a kinder tone.
“He wants us to sit in the chairs. He doesn’t want us too close. He has been living a cloistered life for two years. He got permission from the abbot to break his vow of silence, but just for today.”
Slim saw the two chairs and sat down.
“Do you want to talk with your father alone?” Slim asked. Gudrun shook her head vehemently no. They both sat down, and Dr. Brandt began to speak to his daughter slowly and softly. At first, the young woman replied with short answers. Although Slim could not understand more than a few words of the German being spoken, she realized that Gudrun was angry at her father for abandoning her. However, as time went on, the short answers grew lengthy, and for a while, only Gudrun spoke. When she began to sob, Slim heard the man speak soothingly to his daughter. After Gudrun finished her story, no one said anything for several minutes until Slim broke the silence.
“Dr. Brandt, I have some questions for you,” Slim said in French, knowing that Brandt must have spoken the language if he had been assigned to the only concentration camp in France.
“Who are you?” he replied back in French suspiciously and then spoke angrily to Gudrun in German, chastising her for bringing a stranger into his presence.
“I am trying to find out what happened to a British spy named Marie Claire,” Slim said quickly before he could cut the interview short.
There was a sharp intake of breath, and then he said with enmity, “I know no one by that name.”
“I think you do. The stoker at Natzweiler gave me a handkerchief that he saved from her body.”
“She is dead.”
“Is she?”
The man walked into the beam of light and pulled off his hood, illuminating a long thin scar adorning his right cheek.
“This is where she scratched me as I pushed her into the oven.”
Slim looked into Brandt’s blue eyes. “You’re lying.”
Gudrun asked him a question. Brandt shut her down harshly, and Slim saw her flinch as though she’d been hit.
“We will speak about this only in French because it is a language my daughter does not understand. Is that clear?”
“Yes. Now, why are you lying to me?”
“Why would I lie? I am admitting to murder.”
“Exactly. Why would you admit to it?”
“
Excuse me?”
“Why would you so readily admit to such a heinous crime?”
“Who are you?”
“I have been hired to find Marie Claire.”
“By whom?”
“Is that important?”
“Perhaps you have been hired to find me.”
“No, but I do find it odd that no one is looking for you besides me.”
“I was arrested and released.”
“You escaped.”
Brandt shrugged. “Have I? My son was killed on the eastern front. My wife was raped to death. My daughter lives, but this is the last time I will see her..”
“Why is that?”
“I am being moved after this meeting for my protection. Now, if you want me to tell you whether the spy you are searching for is alive or dead, you must tell me who hired you to find her.”
“Why must I?”
“I need to know that this isn’t a ruse to entrap me.”
“Flora Chapman hired me. Do you know her?” Slim asked, deciding to end the impasse.
“No. Who is she, and why did she hire you?”
“She was in charge of all the women who were sent into France as spies. She hired me because Marie Claire’s mother is dying, and she would like them to be reunited.”
“Why does this Flora Chapman person think Marie Claire is still alive?”
“Someone was sending her wireless transmissions.” Slim left out the fact that Amelie was the one sending them.
Brandt looked confused. “How is that even possible? Surely the British must’ve shut down their operations by now. The war has been over for four years.”
“In a week, everything will be packed off to the archives and the office finally closed.”
“And that’s why you think Marie Claire is still alive?” Brandt asked.
Slim took out the handkerchief and handed it to him. “Is this your handwriting? Did you give it to Marie Claire?”
Slim could see that Brandt knew he’d been found out. He handed the handkerchief back to Slim and said, “Let me begin by saying I have no excuse for my behavior. None. I am deeply ashamed of what I have done. I spend my days in near solitude, contemplating the multitude of my unpardonable sins.”
“Then why don’t you turn yourself in?”
“Because I believe that I can do more good in this monastery than rotting in some prison or by being hanged.”
The Lost Spy (Slim Moran Mysteries) Page 20