My heart beats so hard I feel sick from it. “An error?” I ask.
“There is no stamp on this,” he says, holding my travel papers in the air.
The whole world seems to still in this moment. Roche screwed us over. Intentionally. He had to have known that stamp was important. And there are no good options available to me. If my travel papers are bad, the children’s are as well. If he intentionally messed up the travel passes, then their passports are probably no good either.
My hand slides beneath my seat, feeling for the cool metal of the gun. “Oh, the magistrate’s office must have made a mistake. I’ll just go back to get it fixed.”
He starts to shake his head when the sound of gunfire draws our attention. The male of the couple, maybe forty at most, lies on the ground bleeding, and the woman weeps and falls to her knees beside him.
The soldier looks behind us, at the line of cars now backing up down the road. “Go,” he barks. “Make sure you’ve got a stamp before you return.”
I’m shaking so hard I can barely push the accelerator down, but I manage to drive another twenty minutes, trembling all the while. We need to get out of this car, but I don’t know how we’ll make the journey to Paris on foot. The cash against my skin is soaked with sweat when I finally drive off the road and cut the engine.
“Are we in Paris?” asks Charlotte.
I open the door and throw up in the grass. “No,” I reply. “I think we’ll walk through the woods the rest of the way.”
* * *
It takes us most of the day to travel that remaining few miles. Our suitcase is gone, left behind when it became necessary to carry Lucien in one arm and Cece in the other. “Not too much farther,” I tell Charlotte. “I wonder if there’s anywhere in Paris that still has pastry.”
Her excitement at the idea breaks my heart a little. These children who’ve lost their parents, who’ve spent nearly a year in hiding…they are still children. They still light up at the smallest pleasures and my God what I wouldn’t give to get them to a place where those pleasures were possible.
We stop in the woods to eat, and I tear a bit of bread to feed Cece. The penicillin is already doing its job. She smiles for the first time in weeks when I place a piece in her mouth.
Charlotte rests her head on my chest. “I wish we were home,” she says quietly. She’s had the hardest day of the three children, and I imagine her feet are as blistered as mine by now.
“Not too much farther,” I reply, praying it’s true.
* * *
The city, when we reach it, is greatly changed. Massive swastikas hang from the buildings, and German soldiers patrol the streets, fill the cafes, sometimes strolling arm-in-arm with girls, as if the city is now a luxurious resort destination open only to them.
We pass through Saint-Germain-des-Pres, where Henri and I once spent a lovely day together, bickering and pretending not to enjoy each other’s company. It’s overrun with soldiers now, but for a single moment longing fills me. I want another day like the one Henri and I had. I want to do the things I refused to do with him at the time—a walk through the Orsay, the Louvre, the sculpture garden at the Musee Rodin. I thought at the time that I wanted to save those experiences for Mark. I realize only now that I was scared: I didn’t want to share anything special with a man I already liked more than I should.
It's another mile to Edouard’s church, which is in an undesirable part of the city. People won’t meet my gaze as we walk toward the doors, and inside, the church is ice-cold and in grave need of repair. Edouard is clearly being punished with this assignment, and I can’t say I’m sad about it. I knock on a door to the right of the altar, hoping I might find someone who can lead us to him, and the nun who answers gasps at the sight of us.
“Amelie,” she says. “My God.”
Marie. Marie is here and she’s now...a nun?
“What on earth are you doing here?” she asks, ushering us in. She looks as shocked to find me as I am to find her.
I feel relieved tears stinging my eyes. I didn’t realize until just now how scared I was that we wouldn’t find her alive.
“You’re a nun?”
She flushes. “It’s a long story.” She looks over my shoulder and panic flickers in her eyes. “Henri...he’s still fighting? Or captured?”
I sigh. “He’s been captured, I think, but that’s a long story too.”
As she leads us to a set of rooms in back, my relief at finding her alive is quickly tempered by anger. The past ten months would have been so much easier with her there, or if she’d gotten Cece to England. She is not married, and there appears to be no child—so what was it all for?
“We’ve walked all day and the children need to be fed,” I say stiffly. “Can you help us?”
“Of course,” she says. She removes her headpiece and takes Cece from me. “She’s so big.”
“It’s been ten months,” I reply coolly. “That’s what happens.”
Her shoulders sag. “I had no idea—” She glances at Charlotte and Lucien. “I thought you were in England.”
I’m too tired to stay angry and it’s as much my fault as hers. “Where’s Edouard?” I ask.
She blushes. “He’s giving last rites. He won’t be home until late.”
Home? I understood her fascination with Edouard and even the affair, though Henri did not. But living together like this, while he’s a priest...is a tough sell even for me.
“And Henri?” she asks. “What makes you think he’s been captured?”
I tell her about his journey south and the fact that he never returned. Saying it aloud forces me to see just how bleak the situation is. He didn’t come home, which means he was caught somewhere, and being caught in his position is more likely to end in death than imprisonment. I shake my head, unable to face the idea of it. “I’ll know more tomorrow when I speak to his contact,” I conclude.
Marie sighs and nods her head. “If that fails,” she says, “Edouard may be able to make some inquiries.”
“So, apparently he’s still a priest?”
She flushes again. “He was going to leave the priesthood. But once the shelling started, people began depositing orphaned children here. Most could be sent safely to other parts of the country, but the Jewish ones could not, and had to remain.”
“They’re here?” I whisper. “Inside the church?”
She nods. “But we all leave in two weeks. Someone has found us a safe place outside the city.”
“And when that happens, Edouard will leave the priesthood?” I ask. I don’t really care whether or not they’re married—how could I, when Henri and I aren’t either? Living with someone isn’t considered risqué in my time, the way it is in hers. But I dislike the fact that he’s still a priest. Until I’ve seen him put Marie first—before priesthood, before God even—I will doubt him.
“He would already have left,” she says. “When I told him about the baby, the decision was made for him. But then the war started in earnest and I lost the baby and—” She stops, pressing her face into her hands. “It was my fault. The baby. It was all my fault.”
“That can’t be true.”
“It is,” she says. “I time traveled. I didn’t even think about it...you know how often I do it, and the baby was just gone when I landed. I suppose because he or she couldn’t travel with me.” She bends her face to her hands and begins to cry again.
It’s an aspect of pregnancy that never occurred to me until now: if males can’t time travel, what happens if you do it while you’re pregnant with one? But if that’s the case, how did Katrin escape while pregnant with my father?
“You couldn’t have known,” I whisper.
She nods, drying her eyes. “Once we leave here and are safe, we will try again.”
I sigh. “Marie...no place in France is safe. Not until the war is over. Where, exactly, are you going?”
“Chateau de Nanterre. To the west of Paris. We have someone working on getting the child
ren forged papers, but until then I believe we’ll be well hidden.”
“Could your contact help get us papers as well?”
She shakes her head. “It’s a lengthy process. You might be better off asking Yvette. She’s the companion of a German colonel now. Very well-positioned. She could probably help you.”
“Why would Yvette help me?”
“She wants to see Cecelia. She’s helped Edouard get medical supplies and food when we were under attack. She isn’t entirely bad.”
I seriously doubt that, and allowing Yvette to see Cecelia seems like a bad idea. “You think she’d really help Lucien and Charlotte?” I ask.
Marie nods. “I know she is lazy and selfish, but she isn’t a monster. She liked Jeannette and she liked the children.”
“What if she tries to take Cece?”
Marie smiles. “The benefit of time travel is that we can undo what goes wrong, yes?”
I nod. But something about it just doesn’t sit well. I’d say the odds here are not in our favor.
44
SARAH
The next morning, I find Roche’s contact in a small room behind the café he directed me to, a room from another time. They use candles for light, a fireplace for heat.
Three men sit inside, all staring me down as I enter. One keeps his hand on his gun.
“I’m looking for my husband,” I say. “Henri Durand. You sent him off in early January to get three airmen to Spain. He should be home by now.”
The man closest to me sighs. “I’m sorry to tell you, madame, but they were taken near the base of the Pyrenees. They were last seen being held in Mirepoix.”
He says it as if he’s delivering the weather or informing me that a sale has ended. Too bad, so sad, he might say in my time. I want to lash out, but I force my anger down.
“Taken,” I repeat. “But not dead.”
He shrugs. “Good as dead—they’ll be marched to the work camps over the border, and those who survive the journey rarely survive the camp as well.”
It’s not his words that enrage me—it’s his apathy. The only man I have ever loved may die because of this stupid mission, and he couldn’t care less. I feel it again, that fury and fire, and the way it takes everything terrified and weak inside me and makes it hard, and certain. I lean forward, placing my hands on his desk. “He will survive.”
He frowns. “I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation.”
“No,” I reply. “You don’t understand. You’re going to show me where he’s headed, and I’m going to bring him home.”
His jaw swings open. “You?”
“Yes. Me. Now show me the route.”
He is reluctant, but fortunately for us both, he’s too apathetic to fight me. He pulls out a map—there is only one major road leading northeast from Mirepoix, so they’re undoubtedly somewhere along it. The road forks at Valence, and though they will probably continue north, toward Lyon, there’s no guarantee.
“So you see,” he concludes, “there’s really nothing you can do.”
“I can wait for them off the side of the road, south of Valence.”
He laughs. “And then do what, madame? Will you fight the German soldiers with your bare hands?”
I stand to leave. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
My confidence, however, is failing. He’s right. How the hell am I going to fight off several German soldiers single-handedly in order to free Henri? I walk with brisk steps down the Champs-Élysées , trying to come up with a plan that won’t get us both killed. My head remains empty.
When I glance up, I realize I’m standing beside the shop Henri took me to so long ago. The store is closed now, but I press my face to the window as if I can still see him just as he was that day—so handsome in his suit as he leaned against the wall. Sneaking glances across the aisle at me, his mouth curving upward when I caught him looking.
It hits me in the center of my chest, a vacuum that makes me want to fall to my knees. He can’t be dead. He can’t be. I won’t survive it if he is. I have to free him.
A policeman barks at me to move along. I glance at him and swallow down the urge to challenge him, to fight, to punish. Killing Nadeau didn’t cure that urge. It fed it. Focus, I say to myself. Get Henri first. And then you can make everyone pay for what they’ve put you all through.
* * *
Edouard is home when I return. He greets me, equal parts wary and unrepentant. He shouldn’t have slept with Marie in the first place, but what’s done is done and he didn’t judge me when Yvette left, so I suppose I should extend the same courtesy to him.
I lay out my plan to save Henri: I will take a train south. Once I’ve found him, we’ll escape on foot. Of course, it requires a substantial contribution from Marie and Edouard as well. “While I’m gone, I would need you to watch the children. We’ll get to Nanterre as fast as possible, but there’s no way I can do this with them there.”
“There’s no way you can do this regardless of whether they’re there,” Edouard says softly. “How can you take on an entire unit of soldiers singlehandedly? And what if Henri is injured? You can’t carry him home, even with the abilities you have.”
My eyes widen. Marie was pregnant with his child so she could tell him about her ability. I just didn’t realize she was going to tell him about mine too.
Marie doesn’t seem to notice my surprise, however. She’s too busy agreeing with Edouard. “It’s a suicide mission.”
“Can’t you just jump back in time to warn him what’s going to happen?” asks Edouard.
Marie and I exchange a look and she answers for me. “No. Because there’s a chance he’s alive right now. Any change we make will lead Henri to different decisions, ones that could be fatal.”
It’s the part of our gift I hate the most, that potential to make things worse. He nods, though I get the feeling he doesn’t really understand. “At least speak to Yvette before you go,” he says. “See if she’ll get the children papers.”
I hesitate. If I die on this suicide mission, as Marie calls it, talking to Yvette could at least ensure the children are safe from the concentration camps. But Cece is back to her old self—currently toddling around the room on chubby legs, smiling her gap-toothed smile. I’m not sure how any woman who saw her wouldn’t want to take her from me. And Yvette would have the right to.
* * *
The building Yvette is staying in is crawling with soldiers and seems like more of a headquarters than a home. I walk with my head down and covered, fully prepared for this meeting to go poorly. I don’t see how it won’t. Yvette hates me, and more importantly, I hate her. The desire to kill still hums in my blood like a song I’m singing to myself. With each step I take, the sense of foreboding grows.
Her door is guarded by two German soldiers who take their jobs very seriously. Yvette’s companion must be important—another reason not to act on my rage while here. I’m ushered inside a large parlor, with stiff velvet chairs and walnut tables. She makes us wait, of course, but when she finally swans into the room in expensive clothes and silk hose, the smug look on her face falls away.
“Cecelia?” she whispers to my daughter, appearing stunned that the infant she left fifteen months ago could have turned into a little girl. She reaches out. “Come to mama, darling.”
Cece tucks her head into my shoulder and tightens her arms around me. Did Yvette really think her daughter would remember her? She was barely involved in childcare even when she was around. “She’s been sick, and she’s also a little shy,” I tell her. “Give her a minute to warm up.”
Yvette frowns and looks as if she plans to argue before reluctantly taking the seat across from mine. “I’m surprised you dared come here,” she says, opening a small case and withdrawing a cigarette.
“Edouard said you wanted to see her.”
She lights her cigarette and takes a long drag, observing me. “Have you enjoyed it? Playing mother to my child when you can
’t have your own?”
My elbow brushes against the pocket of my coat, where a knife rests.
“She’s a very good baby,” I reply.
She takes another drag off her cigarette and exhales. The smell of the smoke makes me gag, and I hate that Cece is breathing it all in when she’s still recovering.
“And Henri?” Yvette asks. “I suppose you got your claws in him too, didn’t you? As you can probably tell, I don’t care. I’m far better off without him.” The lie is obvious. Her bitterness and jealousy show in every line of her face, which leaves me with no good way to answer. She’ll know I’m lying if I deny it, and she’ll be livid if I confirm it.
“I know you don’t like me—” I begin, and she cuts me off.
“Don’t like you?” she repeats. “You cannot begin to imagine the depths of my hatred for you, because if you did, you’d never have dared come here in the first place. Do you know who my benefactor is?”
Benefactor...what a pretty word to describe what you’re doing, and with whom. She sees the disdain on my face.
“Ah, of course you do. Do you think you’re so much better than me, Amelie? That’s rich. It’s I who look down on you. I could send you off to the concentration camps with a single word. And what’s to stop me from doing it? It’s more than you deserve.”
She blows a plume of smoke from the corner of her mouth. “You may think he loves you, but it wasn’t you he wanted any more than it was me.”
I still. “What makes you say that?”
Her eyes flicker toward Cece. “The night she was conceived he was so drunk I was surprised he was able to…you know. Oh, but the whole time it was about Sarah. Him crying for Sarah, shouting her name at the end. I don’t even think he knew I was there. You and I, we are the same. Just poor substitutes for her.”
It only makes me love him more, hearing this version of events. My throat tightens, and Yvette laughs. “How does it feel, cousin?”
Across Eternity Page 25