The exclusive ones, she had no doubt. She almost made a snide comment about the woes of the upper class, but something flashed in his eyes as he took another sip of his wine. Regret, perhaps. Vulnerability.
This time, she held her tongue.
“Do your parents live in London?”
“Yes,” he replied. “In Brentford. How about your parents?”
The server placed a bowl in front of her, and she dipped her spoon into the onion soup served with pancetta and a poached egg. The egg bounced in the wake.
Mr. Knight had said he wouldn’t tell Lucas about her past, but she’d assumed he would surely learn the worst of it. “I thought you knew—”
“I’ve read plenty about your career, but nothing about your family.”
“My father died when I was four, and my mother—I think I’ll have to decline commenting about her.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Family can be a tricky subject.”
She nodded, dipping her spoon back into the soup. It tasted like peppered bacon and wine.
“They are part of who you are,” Lucas said, “and yet sometimes you wish another family was blessed to have a member or two of yours.”
She wouldn’t wish her mother on any family.
“How about your grandparents?” he asked.
“I never knew my dad’s dad, but my grandmother was my best friend.” She swirled the water in her glass, watching the bubbles cling to the sides. She and Grammy hadn’t had much money, but they had each other—something she’d never taken for granted. “My grandmother loved God and loved Germany even though she had to leave her country after she married. When I was a child, she’d alternate reading to me from her Bible and the Grimms’ fairy tales in German.”
“An interesting mix.”
“She was more like a mom to me than my own mother.” The words slipped out of her mouth quickly, as if she were confiding in a friend, and when she saw the startled look on Lucas’s face, she wished she could retract them.
“What about your mom’s parents?”
“I never met them,” she replied briskly and then changed the subject. “Does Mr. Knight have family in the States?”
“None that are still living.”
“Did he ever marry?”
Lucas shook his head as the server delivered their main course. She picked up her fork to eat the risotto. “Surely you can tell me about his life as an adult.”
He leaned forward, pressing his knuckles together as he spoke. “Mr. Knight has worked his entire life to right this upturned world. He’s a generous man who is fascinated by heroes from history, discounting the fact that those who know him think he’s a hero as well for his compassion and willingness to help people in need. And he’s determined to find out what happened to Brigitte before he passes away.”
“What if Brigitte doesn’t want to see him?”
Lucas took a bite of mahimahi, spiced with coriander and lemon juice, before responding. “He would be disappointed but relieved knowing that she’d survived the war.”
“And if she didn’t survive?”
His eyes met hers, steady and calm. “Perhaps we’ll withhold that information.”
She set her fork beside the plate. “What do you mean ‘we’?”
“Mr. Knight has asked me to help with whatever you need.”
“But I haven’t agreed to look for her—”
“He’s convinced that you will.”
These men were exasperating. They had certainly piqued her interest, but she hadn’t made any promises. Nor would she until after she talked to Chandler.
“I can have an answer to you next week,” she said. “In the meantime, I have a story due for the syndicate by Friday.”
He leaned forward again. “If I help you finish your story, will you ask your boss for a week off?”
She stiffened. “I don’t need your help on my story or any search.”
“I spent almost two years trying to help one of the investigators find Brigitte.”
“And—”
“We kept smashing into dead ends.”
She glanced over at him. “What happened at the monastery?”
“Are you trying to derail me?” he asked, reaching for his glass of wine.
“Trying to put you back on track.”
He stared at her for a moment, his glass in front of him.
She shook the hair off her face. “What?”
“I was just thinking,” he said, taking a sip of his wine.
“Thinking about telling me the rest of the story?”
“No.” The server refilled his wineglass. “I was thinking I was still hungry.”
“You’re a rotten liar.”
He laughed. “Do you really want to guess my thoughts?”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
“You are a wise woman, Quenby Vaughn.”
She shook her head. A wise woman would step away from this story before it consumed her.
“Why did you decide to become a journalist?” he asked.
She hesitated. “The answer is as complex as my family.”
“You’re nosy?”
She laughed with him. “I suppose that’s part of it, but I really like capturing the heart of a story. Digging deep to find what others missed.”
He considered her words. “It would be impossible, I imagine, to really capture someone’s heart on paper.”
“A good writer shows someone’s heart by recording their actions.”
“Out of a person’s heart come evil actions,” he said. “That’s what Jesus said, in the book of Mark.”
She leaned back in her chair, surprised to hear him quote the Bible. “But every good and perfect gift is from above—”
“The book of James.”
“Exactly.” She smiled. “We each choose between good and bad in our hearts, and our actions follow. The hardest choices are when we don’t know if something is good or bad.”
“Or someone, I suppose.” He set down his glass. “Mr. Knight doesn’t want to wait until next week for you to begin searching for Brigitte.”
“But it’s been more than seventy years since he lost her.”
“The matter is quite urgent to him.”
She didn’t like to be pushed, and yet . . . “I’ll let you know in two days.”
“He’s asked for tomorrow.”
She didn’t respond, either way. While she wouldn’t admit it to the man across the table, she was hooked on the heart of this story.
Chapter 12
English Channel, October 1940
The night fog was thick as paste, so dense that Dietmar could rub it between his hands. After a few hours, the monks had awakened Brigitte and him and led them away from the monastery, under this cloak of black sky and haze, until they reached a strip of sand along the channel waters separating captivity from freedom.
In the late hours, after Hitler’s men had left, the monks had burned his knapsack and given both him and Brigitte a clean set of clothing, the pockets stuffed with their treasures from home. The monks had no shoes to spare, but Dietmar told them it didn’t matter. He’d thought he’d lost Brigitte, but after a warm meal and some sleep, she was walking beside him again, clinging to his hand.
They were stored like fish in the dark hold of a trawler. Wind and waves battered the wooden frame as they motored across the channel, shaking them like glass marbles in a jar. Brigitte vomited her meal on his new trousers, but she didn’t say a word. Nor did she cry.
He tried to pretend that the stormy sea didn’t bother him. Or the stench and frigid air. England wasn’t far now. They would be warm and well there. In England Brigitte would find her strength again.
Several hours later, the rocking ceased, and Dietmar waited, praying they were safe. A fisherman opened the hatch, and he and Brigitte emerged slowly. The fog was clearing in the sunlight, and he saw a desolate beach before them, covered in pebbles.
One of the fishermen carried Brigitte through the
water, up to a patch of tall grass. The sharp rocks cut Dietmar’s feet as he crossed the beach, but he was grateful to be off the boat.
Turning, he looked back at the strait of water. Searching for dogs, for men in black uniforms and lightning bolts chasing them. But all he saw were waves.
No one would follow them here.
He tried to thank the fishermen in English, assuring them he could find transport to London, but they didn’t seem to understand. Minutes after landing, the fishermen climbed back into the trawler, their boat vanishing into the fog.
Dietmar and Brigitte tromped across muddy fields for hours until another fisherman gave them a ride. But instead of taking them to London or the depot for trains, the man left them at a police station.
A constable, dressed in dark blue, glanced between them. There was no red band around this man’s arm or iron cross dangling from his collar. “Where do you come from?” he asked.
Dietmar stood tall, hoping he looked older than his thirteen years. “London, mister.” Mother once told him to call the men from England mister instead of Herr. He hoped this man would understand him and direct him to the city.
“And your parents—”
Dietmar’s gaze fell to his bare feet.
“I see.” He spoke to another officer in English, but his words were a flood, so rapid that Dietmar couldn’t decipher one of them.
The constable looked at Brigitte. “What age are you?”
Dietmar felt Brigitte’s hand tremble in his.
“She—” he started, practicing the words in his mind before he spoke. “No talk.”
The constable’s eyes narrowed for a moment, and Dietmar feared he would find out about the boat. That the man would send them back to Germany.
“We need aunt,” Dietmar said, trying to be clear.
“What’s your name, son?”
Dietmar understood the question, but he couldn’t tell the man his real name. His mind raced until he remembered the name of his uncle in London.
“Daniel,” he said, hoping it was a good English name.
“Daniel—”
“Knight,” he replied.
The man jotted a note into a book.
“Come along, Daniel Knight,” the constable said when he looked back up. “And bring your sister. I’ll drive you up to Tonbridge.”
Dietmar shook his head. “London.”
“No children are going to London until the Huns stop dropping bombs, but plenty of boys and girls are being billeted near here. The people in Tonbridge will find you a home until it’s safe to return.”
Dietmar didn’t remember his mother saying the word billeted—or Huns—but he knew the word home well. That was what Brigitte needed most of all.
The man fed them sausage and chips and somehow found them each a used pair of shoes that fit well enough. Then he drove them to the public hall in Tonbridge. Brigitte clung to Dietmar’s hand, her fingers trembling as they waited with the other children for a home. Men and women circled the vast room, examining the girls and boys as if they were livestock.
The younger children were led away first from the room, and then the girls. One couple stopped before Dietmar and Brigitte, but Brigitte recoiled from them, burying her head in Dietmar’s shoulder when they tried to speak to her. They appraised Dietmar for the briefest of moments before the woman turned up her nose and backed away.
No one else attempted to talk with him or Brigitte. Perhaps it was because he stank of vomit. Or because he was an unruly-looking boy. Besides Brigitte, only older boys remained in the room.
He reached into his pocket and clutched the knight hidden beside Brigitte’s princess. He might have helped Brigitte find safety across the channel, but now he was an anchor that prevented her from sailing any farther. A crutch splintered into a hundred lousy pieces. In order to rescue Brigitte now, he must walk away. Because if he stayed here, standing beside her, no one would ever take her home.
He leaned toward her. “I need to speak with the Chef.”
“Please don’t leave me.” Her whisper trembled like her hand, but the return of her speech emboldened him.
Brigitte didn’t need him anymore. She needed a warm bed for the winter and good food. She needed a doctor and medicine to make her well again. Here in England, she would recover her strength and her laughter. Her love of princess stories and fairy tales.
Removing the knight, he placed it in her palm, gently folding her fingers over it.
“I’ll only be a moment,” he lied. “The knight will protect you until I return.”
Her gaze rested on the wooden toy as he kissed her cheek, his heart aching. “I will find you.”
Her blue eyes were wide when she looked back up at him. “You promise?”
He nodded. “A thousand times, Brigitte.”
Her smile shook, but it pleased him to see a glimpse of her joy. “Princess Adler.”
“Princess Adler,” he concurred. Then he turned rapidly away before he changed his mind.
There was a door beside the stage—a closet—and he slipped inside. In the shadows, he watched the crowd of adults dwindle in the hall. Only four children remained—Brigitte and three boys.
What would they do with the children who didn’t have a family to care for them? Brigitte would never survive in some sort of work camp or institution. She needed someone to care for her until she was strong again.
Across the room, the door opened again, and a thin woman entered the hall. The tiny brown-and-cream checks on her coat reminded Dietmar of teeth, a hundred of them snarling at him.
The woman scanned the remaining children and crossed the polished floor toward Brigitte. As she studied Brigitte’s hair and eyes, he leaned forward, straining to hear her words.
“What’s your name?” the woman asked.
Brigitte didn’t answer.
“Are your parents in London?”
Dietmar wanted to rush out and say that she was indeed from London, but if Brigitte refused to speak, perhaps the woman wouldn’t suspect she was German. Perhaps she’d think Brigitte deaf as well when she didn’t understand her words.
The woman surveyed the hall as if she were considering the options. Her gaze breezed past the remaining boys before resting back on Brigitte. “You need a bath, but I suppose you’ll do.”
The woman reached for her arm, but Brigitte didn’t move.
“Come along,” the woman prodded.
Brigitte’s head jerked to the right, her eyes searching frantically around the room. Before she turned toward him, Dietmar stepped farther into the closet, wishing he could hear what the woman was saying. Instead all he heard were raindrops pattering on the roof.
In the dark space, he clutched the toy princess in his pocket, silently chiding himself for transferring his care to a woman neither he nor Brigitte knew. But a knight must make the toughest of decisions for the good of those he must defend. He’d promised Herr Berthold that he would protect his daughter, and Brigitte’s father would want her sheltered. Fed. Dietmar wanted her sheltered and fed as well.
He’d keep his promise to Brigitte, too. When she was healthy again, when the bombs stopped falling, he would find her. Then they could walk into London hand in hand to find his aunt together.
He glanced back out the door and saw the woman with the tooth coat holding Brigitte’s arm near the front door. He slipped up beside the wall and hid behind the long drapery to watch them.
“I’ll take this one,” the woman said.
A second woman, seated at a desk, asked Brigitte for her name.
“She seems to be mute.”
The lady at the desk pushed up her glasses, nodding before scribbling something in a book.
“My name is Mrs. Terrell,” the tooth woman said.
“Where do you live, Mrs. Terrell?”
“On Mulberry Lane.”
Mrs. Terrell didn’t look at Brigitte again. If she had, she would have seen tears pouring down her cheeks, the trembling of her lips.
Dietmar’s heart burned inside him, longing to rush forward and rescue her again, take her to a safe place. But he had nothing to offer her at the moment. Not even an aunt to help care for her.
Through the gray window streaks in the public hall, he watched Mrs. Terrell open the door to a black motorcar. Brigitte shook her head at the woman, refusing to get inside. His chest aching, he prayed silently that she would go with the woman. Soon they would be together again.
A man climbed out of the driver’s seat. Mr. Terrell, Dietmar assumed. He was much taller than Mrs. Terrell, his shoulders as wide as those of the men who’d hurt his mother back in Moselkern. Perhaps he could coax Brigitte into the vehicle.
But when the man stepped toward her, Brigitte backed away. He said something as he grabbed her arm, shoving her roughly into the car.
A family was supposed to feed Brigitte. Give her shelter and medicine and kindness. But this man—he wouldn’t be kind to Brigitte at all.
Dietmar spun toward the front door and raced through it, down the steps to the sidewalk.
“Brigitte!” he yelled as the car pulled away in the rain. Her nose was pressed against the back window, eyes weeping with despair. And the depth of her sorrow shot straight through his chest, piercing his heart.
He wouldn’t wait until Brigitte saw a doctor or the bombing stopped in London. Somehow he would earn enough money for medicine and food. A safe place where no one would hurt Brigitte. He would find her on Mulberry Lane before nightfall and steal her away again.
“Lad?” a man called out from the other side of the street.
Dietmar glanced both ways before realizing the police officer was speaking to him. This man’s voice was gruff, nothing like the constable who’d brought them into Tonbridge.
The man marched through the puddles, water sloshing on his blue trousers as he crossed the street. “Where’s your home?”
“London, mister.”
“You’re far from home.”
“Billeted,” he said, borrowing the word he’d learned from the constable earlier today, hoping the man would be impressed with his English.
Instead the officer latched his fingers over Dietmar’s shoulder. “Come with me.”
The moment he looked up into the officer’s eyes, he knew he wouldn’t be going to Mulberry Lane this afternoon. And perhaps not tomorrow either.
Catching the Wind Page 7