Chateau of Secrets: A Novel

by Melanie Dobson

  — CHAPTER 48 —

  Riley and I trekked down the hill beside the château, to the path along the Vire, so he could record footage of the river and the valley beyond it. My headache was already gone, replaced instead with an odd giddiness, as intoxicating as the nectar-laced honeybees that danced around the hawthorn blossoms.

  Riley didn’t say anything else about Austin or mention our awkward exchange in the kitchen, but after he filmed the valley, he began to ramble on about a man he’d interviewed named Benjamin Tendler, a part-Jewish officer who had served in the Wehrmacht.

  “Mr. Tendler knew the last name of the man who helped my grandfather with his papers. He said it was another German Jew in the Wehrmacht, a man named Josef Milch. Apparently, Milch falsified what was called an Abnenpass for Mr. Tendler to prove his Aryan lineage. With this document, he could stay in the military.”

  “I still don’t understand why a Jewish man would stay in the German military,”

  Riley returned his camera to his backpack. “The rest of Mr. Tendler’s family was killed at Auschwitz.”

  “So he hid behind a German uniform?”

  “How can you judge him, Chloe?” A look akin to torment flashed through Riley’s eyes. “How can any of us judge?”

  I instantly backed down, and we began walking again toward the town. How could I judge a man’s decision to choose life over certain death, even if it meant he had to compromise what he valued? I’d hidden many times, even when the reasons for hiding weren’t life-and-death.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I can’t judge him or Mr. Milch.”

  “Mr. Tendler said he had a picture of him and Josef someplace. He’s going to try to email it to me.”

  “If your grandfather met Josef Milch here, perhaps my grandmother knew him as well.”

  Riley stopped and looked at me. “Mr. Tendler was in Saint-Lô the weeks after D-Day. He said he saw Josef here, sneaking through the night with a group of children.”

  “Where were the children from?” I asked.

  “There was a Catholic orphanage outside of the city that had taken in Jewish children after their parents were sent to concentration camps. The Nazis raided it in the days before the Americans liberated Saint-Lô, but the children were gone.”

  “I wonder what happened to them.”

  “Mr. Tendler didn’t know, but I want to get some footage of the place,” he said. “I’m hoping Madame Calvez can tell us where the orphanage is.”

  “I’d like to go with you.”

  He nodded.

  “Can I ask you a personal question?” he asked as we neared Madame Calvez’s home.

  I laughed. He’d never bothered in the past to obtain permission before asking after my personal life. “Why not?’ I said. My pride had already been wrecked.

  “It seems to me—” He sounded a bit nervous. “Well, what did you see in a guy like Austin?”

  Instead of hiding behind my polished shield, I decided to be gut-wrenchingly real with him. “Everyone wanted Austin.” I took a deep breath. “But Austin—I thought he wanted to be with me.”

  And with those words, I realized that Austin was not the only selfish one in the relationship. Austin wanted to marry me for what he thought I could offer him, but I too wanted to marry Austin for what he could give me. Somehow I’d mixed up my worth with Austin’s love.

  He turned to me. “You are valuable, Chloe. Without him.”

  I kept walking, no longer wanting to talk about me. “Did you leave behind a girlfriend in New York?”

  He was silent for a moment. “It’s been a long time since I had a serious relationship.”

  “Not enough women in New York for you?” I quipped, the online pictures of him looping through my mind again. He was certainly handsome enough, and confident enough, to get mobbed by a horde of single women.

  “I have no desire to be in a relationship for the sake of being in one,” he said. “I’ve made mistakes in the past, terrible ones. The next time I date a woman, I hope it’s for keeps.”

  For some reason I blushed. Perhaps it was the intensity in his words. Or because I was still trying to figure out my upside-down emotions in the kitchen.

  “One day, a man is going to try to earn your trust again, Chloe,” he said. “But the only one who won’t fail you is God.”

  A verse flooded back to me, one that Mémé used to quote for me.

  Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.

  Maybe I did need to learn to trust Him completely before I trusted another man.

  When Riley stopped again to film along the path, I heard laughter in the trees. Hiking a bit farther down the path, I saw Madame Calvez’s house. And then I saw Isabelle on the swing, her long hair flapping in the wind as the swing pitched her toward the sky.

  “Mademoiselle!” Isabelle shouted, and then switched to her English at the peak of her swing. “Miss Chloe.”

  I waved.

  Her arms were flapping as she leaned forward and swung back toward me. “I’m flying.”

  She flew past me, pumping up toward the sky.

  “Is that man gone?”

  I shouted up to her. “Which one?”

  “The mean one,” she hollered as she swung past me again.

  “He is.”

  Her swing slowed. “I didn’t like him one bit.”

  I smiled. “I’m not particularly fond of him either.”

  “He said you were supposed to marry him.”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Good,” she said. “I think you should marry Monsieur Holtz instead.”

  “I—”

  Riley cleared his throat, and I wished I could fly with Isabelle. Far, far away.

  When Isabelle saw him, she hopped off her swing and raced toward him. Kissed him on both of his cheeks. He looked as if he wanted to fly away as well.

  “I will go find Grand-mère,” she said, skipping toward the back door.

  Riley and I stood there in an uncomfortable silence. It was strange how one minute of time—one awkward comment—put us both back on edge. I couldn’t erase that moment, so I decided to make light of it. “For some odd reason, Isabelle likes you.”

  His smile hung crooked with his shrug. “I suppose I am irresistible.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Really, I think you’re just plain irritating.”

  He laughed, and it felt so good to laugh with him.

  We sat down on the patio again. “I’ll wait here,” I said. “Madame Calvez won’t tell you anything if I go inside.”

  The back door slid open, and Isabelle hurried outside. Her brown eyes creased with worry, her smile erased.

  I jumped up from my seat. “What is it?”

  Her voice shook. “Something is wrong with Grand-mère.”

  Riley and I rushed inside.

  Chapter 49

  Adeline squealed when she dipped her toes into the cool lake water, and then she began twirling, both hands overhead. Gisèle spread her khaki blanket across the grassy shore and then lay down, closing her eyes as she listened to Adeline splashing in front of her and the gentle rustle of leaves overhead.

  This had been her favorite spot to play in as a child, but she hadn’t returned since—

  She opened her eyes and looked up at the spring buds bursting from the branches, at the afternoon light that gently filtered through them and danced among the pods of green. In the past four years, she’d tried to forget that terrible night when she and Michel had found her father’s body, wanting instead to remember her father when he was alive. But on days like this, her heart still ached.

  Adeline splashed water toward her, and Gisèle smiled. When she was younger, she and Michel and Nadine used to jump from the dock and hold their breath under the water for as long as they could, competing to see which of them was the most tenacious. Their parents were haunted by their memories of the Great War
, but the three of them weren’t weighed down by the burdens of warfare. Nor were they worried one iota about their future. They had each other, a beautiful lake, and the summer sun. At the time, nothing else mattered.

  The good memories of her childhood were beginning to fade. One day she would leave this château, and when she did, she wanted to remember all the laughter before their loss, before Michel joined the resistance and Nadine disappeared. Before the woman her brother loved began spending her afternoons in the servants’ quarters.

  Two German fighters darkened the sunlight, and she looked over to see if Adeline was frightened, but the girl only glanced up at the sky in annoyance. Then she continued playing in the shallow water. In the shattered world of her childhood, Adeline’s life among the German soldiers and the aeroplanes flying were as normal as the summers that Gisèle had spent swimming in the lake.

  The major had been raging for two days about the aeroplane that crashed into the valley, searching for its missing crew. But more Allied aircraft flew overhead now, both day and night, and the Germans seemed to be growing nervous.

  She hadn’t been able to obtain the identity papers yet, but she prayed the men in the tunnels were all safe. If she’d learned nothing else during the past four years, she had learned that life was as fleeting as dandelion seeds in a storm. In her heart, she’d begun saying good-bye to those she loved, even before they were gone.

  A shout from the ridge above shattered the silence, and before Gisèle could react, a rock plummeted through the branches, hurling toward them. She lurched forward and grabbed Adeline as the boulder crashed into the lake, several meters from where Adeline had been playing. Before she could pull Adeline to shore, another rock catapulted over their heads, spraying water on both of them.

  Adeline clung to Gisèle’s neck, sobbing, as Gisèle scanned the ridge above them. She couldn’t see anyone in the trees. Either someone was threatening them or they didn’t know she and Adeline were here.

  “Stop,” she yelled up in French and then in German. “There’s a child down here.”

  The woods grew still, and she sat back down on the shore and held Adeline on a towel, drying her tears along with her soaked feet. She was so tired of running and hiding and trying to protect those she loved. But when she heard the stomp of boots on the branches, she stood with Adeline clutched beside her. No matter how exhausted she was, she couldn’t stop fighting, for Adeline’s sake.

  A solitary soldier descended the hill, and when she saw it was Hauptmann Milch, she released her tight hold on Adeline.

  “Forgive me,” Milch said when he stepped beside her. His German accent was strong but his voice sounded broken. “I did not know you and your daughter were here.”

  She looked up into his swollen eyes, and her breath caught when she realized that tears streaked his clean-shaven face. Even though she thought she had nothing left to feel, the pain in his eyes resonated in the hollows of her heart.

  Adeline clapped her hands together. “Guten Tag, Josef.”

  Gisèle glanced at Adeline and then looked back up at the man in front of her. “Josef?”

  He shrugged. “She asked my name . . .”

  She didn’t know which disturbed her more—that Adeline was learning German or that she’d begun calling the officers—their enemy—by their first names. At least this friend was the man who’d saved her life. “Why are you throwing rocks?” Gisèle asked.

  He crumpled a piece of white paper in his hands. “Something happened, and I—I didn’t know what else to do.”

  She kissed Adeline’s hair and scooted her back toward the water. “You can play again.”

  The pull of the water and perhaps the sight of Josef seemed to soothe Adeline’s fears. When she began splashing again, Gisèle pointed the officer to her blanket. His long legs stretched across it.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  He tossed the paper onto the blanket. “Have you heard of the Gestapo?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “I just found out—” His voice cracked. “They deported my mother from Berlin.”

  The air seemed to deflate out of her. “But why—”

  “She’s not like—” He paused. “We’re not like the other Germans.”

  She studied him again, the sadness that consumed his warm brown eyes, the boyish features that would have intrigued her if she’d met him at the university. She’d already known that Hauptmann Milch was different from the other Germans occupying her house, obsessed with fear and destruction. His secret kindnesses for her and Adeline had given her peace in the midst of the turmoil. He may not have had Nadine’s dark hair and distinguished nose, but slowly she realized why the German secret police had deported his mother.

  “You’re Jewish,” she whispered.

  He nodded. “My mother was born into a Jewish family.”

  “What about your father?”

  His gaze wandered back to the water. “When they married, my father was an officer in the German army, and my mother owned an art gallery in Berlin. Twenty years later the government began harassing the Jewish people, but instead of standing up for his wife, my father took my younger sister and brother and moved to Frankfurt.”

  “You were left to care for your mother.”

  “It wasn’t a burden,” he said sharply. “I wanted to care for her.”

  In the soft light, she didn’t see a Jewish officer in a German uniform. She saw a young man who had refused to abandon his mother. A man like André, who stood by his family even when it could mean death.

  “My mother is stubborn,” he said. “She didn’t want my help, but after the Nazis closed down her gallery, she had to rely on me until there was no place for me to work either. I tried to obtain visas from the U.S. embassy, but we were denied. They said we weren’t sufficiently threatened. When the Germans began deporting the Jews who lived in the ghettos, we knew it wouldn’t be long . . .”

  He wiped his face with the back of his hand, and she looked toward the lake, not wanting to embarrass him.

  “I was conscripted into the Wehrmacht, and I went willingly,” he said, his voice weighted. “It was the only way to protect both of us.”

  “Does the army know your mother is Jewish?”

  “The major knows, but he doesn’t want to tell the others under his command. They might revolt.”

  “Why didn’t you falsify your papers?”

  “Because I thought if those in command knew who I was . . .” He picked up another rock and threw it into the water, far from where Adeline was playing. “I thought that out of respect, they wouldn’t deport the mother of a Hauptmann.”

  She wrung her hands together. “They don’t respect anyone.”

  “For the past four years, I’ve had to serve under a madman—” His voice broke again. “I’ve seen horrific things, and no matter how much I wanted to stop it, I could not.”

  “Because they would kill you?”

  He raked his fingers through his short hair. “Because they would kill my mother.”

  How could she tell him that he never should have joined the German army, that he should have sacrificed his life along with his mother’s? She didn’t know how to respond, but no matter how much she hated the Germans, no matter how she wished the Allies would crush every Nazi in the Wehrmacht, she couldn’t hate this man.

  “If the war ends soon,” she finally said, “there is hope that your mother will remain alive.”

  He nodded slowly. “That is why I must stay in the army.”

  And with his words, she knew he was also imploring her to understand. No one else except the major knew he was even Jewish. Defecting from the German army would mean certain death—for him and his mother. He’d trusted her with his secrets. He wanted her to understand.

  “We must do what is right before God,” she said. “Not before any man.”

  He sighed. “I no longer know what is right.”

  “It is right to sacrifice yourself to save another’s
life.”

  “But in order to do that, I must fight for a country—a man—who puts no value on life.”

  It was as if a net had dropped over all of them, trapping them together, suffocating them as they fought. Every day they had to make choices. In order to survive, she and Josef and others like them had to choose the least of the evils to do the most good.

  She leaned forward, her eyes focused on the lake. “I must cook and clean and house my enemy to sustain them, even as they kill those I love and destroy my beautiful country.”

  “Gisèle—” When he reached for her hand, her heart leapt against her will. “I am sorry for what we have done to you.”

  “You haven’t done anything wrong,” she whispered.

  “But I have—I am Jewish but I am also German.”

  “Josef—” She stumbled. “I’m sorry, I meant—”

  He stopped her. “No one except your Adeline has called me Josef in a long time.”

  “I won’t say it again.”

  “Not in the house,” he said. “But out here, it is nice to hear.”

  She leaned forward, meeting his warm gaze so he understood. “I forgive you, Josef.”

  The pain eased away from his eyes. “Thank you.”

  Adeline’s laughter brought them both back to reality, but he didn’t release her hand. “What happened to her parents?”he asked.

  She wanted to lie to him as she had all the others, tell him that Adeline was really her daughter. Yet as he held her hand, as he trusted her with the secrets of his past and his heart, she couldn’t do it.

  “The French police took them away during the roundup.” She took a long breath. “I had no place to hide her but here.”

  Adeline picked up a rock like Josef had done and tossed it into the water. “Are both her parents Jewish?”

  “Only her mother.”

  His hand grew tighter around hers. “I wish we could rescue them all.”

  She pulled her hand away and wrapped her arms around her knees. Her life was already tangled in the web; she couldn’t allow her heart to be as well. “Me too.” She paused. “But there is something we can do to help end this war.”