The Keeper of Happy Endings

by Davis, Barbara

  Working with the Resistance means expecting the worst, accepting that capture, torture, even death is inevitable. But I cannot and will not accept those inevitabilities for Anson. He must be safe. He must be. But the day drags into evening, and there’s still no word, no sign of him anywhere. I think of Maman, her hands busy with her beads as she spoke of Erich Freede, and I suddenly understand. At such moments, we will trust anything, believe anything that allows us to hold on to hope.

  Adeline senses that something is wrong. I insist it’s only a headache, and there’s no need to go home, but she continues to press me until I agree to at least go to the mess and eat something.

  I taste nothing as I try to swallow some soup. Adeline is beside me, insisting that I go home and get some rest, when he’s suddenly there in the doorway. I nearly drop my spoon, gulping down tears I mustn’t let spill. He looks spent, his eyes heavy and smudged with shadows, but he meets my gaze across the busy hall, holding it in a way that says everything I need to hear.

  I’m safe. I’m sorry. I love you.

  I stand on wobbly legs and duck into the nearest lavatory to sob out my relief. When I find him again, someone has brought him a cup of coffee. It’s black, not light and sweet the way he likes it, but he doesn’t seem to notice. I see Elise catch his eye from across the room, brows raised. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly. I wonder what it means but know better than to ask him anything with so many people around.

  Later, when the mess is empty and Anson has finished his second sandwich, I ask him what happened. I know it’s breaking the rules, but I don’t care.

  “Where have you been?”

  He shakes his head. “I can’t.”

  “I thought you were dead,” I whisper raggedly. “Or gone to one of the camps. Don’t tell me you can’t.”

  “I need to talk to Sumner,” he says blankly, as if I haven’t spoken at all. “Where is he?”

  His stare is empty, devoid of warmth or affection. He’s in Resistance mode—clandestinité—that stoic corner of his heart where there is no room for me. Or for anything that doesn’t involve the cause.

  “Four new casualties arrived a few hours ago,” I tell him, trying to keep my voice even. “I heard someone mention a double amputation, but he might be out by now.”

  Anson nods, then drains his coffee cup and stands. “We need to talk. But I have to do this first. Go home and sleep. I’ll come later.”

  I frown at this breach of the rules. It was a precaution we had agreed on when I joined the cell: he would never, under any circumstance, come to the apartment on Rue Legendre. So far as the outside world knew, we were colleagues and nothing more. For my protection, he’d explained, so there was never a chance of leading trouble to my door. But something has changed his mind, and I’m frightened.

  “I thought we needed to be careful about them learning my address.”

  His eyes darken. “We’re past that now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they already have it.”

  A shiver runs through me, like a cold finger sliding down my spine. “The Gestapo knows where I live?”

  “They know everything, Soline.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  SOLINE

  Much can go awry between the asking and the doing, for that is when a union is most at risk—before the charm has been woven and the vows exchanged. The Spell Weaver must be on her guard against any and all tempests, and there will almost certainly be tempests.

  —Esmée Roussel, the Dress Witch

  27 August 1943—Paris

  I feel like a character in a spy novel as I glance over my shoulder, then slide the heavy brass shop key into the lock. No sign of a black Mercedes-Benz—the Gestapo’s vehicle of choice—parked anywhere on the street. No man in a gray suit and black fedora loitering in a nearby doorway.

  They tell us what to look for. They also tell us what to expect if we’re arrested. Beatings, being shackled and hung upside down, or forced into a tub of frigid water, held under until you nearly drown, then repeated again and again. The baignoire, it’s called—the bath.

  It’s also common to pick up and question a suspect’s female loved ones—mothers, sisters, lovers—and interrogate them for hours. One technique, said to be highly effective, is to threaten to send them to one of the specialty brothels favored by German soldiers. The prospect makes me shudder as I push inside and bolt the door behind me.

  I come home only to bathe and sleep now. The apartment hasn’t felt like home since Maman died, and with the blackout curtains drawn, the rooms feel claustrophobic and unsettlingly empty.

  I go up to bathe, then try to lie down, but my thoughts keep churning back to Anson’s words. They know everything. Eventually, I give up and get dressed. I try to scare up something to eat, but I’ve been taking most of my meals at the hospital, and there isn’t much in the larder.

  I’ve just unearthed a tin of stale crackers and a jar of jam when I hear the bell ring downstairs, three sharp, shrill pulses. It’s Anson, of course, but the sound still startles me. It seems an eternity since anyone’s rung that bell.

  He’s peering over his shoulder when I pull back the door, scanning the street for danger. For a moment I forget myself and reach for his hand. He flinches, flashing a silent warning as he ducks past me. I bolt the door behind him, then watch as he tests the knob, not once but twice.

  He groans as he drops into the nearest chair, clutching the small canvas satchel he often carries when he leaves the hospital—his passport, as he calls it, because the AFS emblem on the flap keeps the Nazis at bay.

  If possible, he looks even wearier than when I left him at the hospital. But there’s more than just exhaustion weighing on him. There’s a barely tamped-down panic in his eyes, something I’ve never seen. “Anson, what is it? What’s happened?”

  He rakes a hand through his hair, as if torn. “I shouldn’t be here. We agreed—”

  “I don’t care what we agreed. I care about where you’ve been. And you’re here now. If you were followed, the damage is done. Tell me what’s happened.”

  He nods, then drops his head in his hands with a groan. “I ran into trouble last night.”

  My heart does a little gallop. “What kind of trouble?”

  “The kind I’ve been dreading since the day you followed me down to the basement.”

  “Tell me. Please.”

  He’s eerily stoic as he pours out his story, as if reciting it from memory. He’d set out just after dark, to shuttle a man wanted by the SS to the next in a series of safe houses. The man’s carte d’identité identified him as Marcel Landray, farm laborer, born 1919 in Chauvigny, France. But none of it was true. In truth, he was Raimond Lavoie, a fugitive wanted for printing anti-Nazi propaganda and engaging in degenerate behavior—boche code for homosexual activity.

  He’d already spent a month in a safe house, driven underground after being denounced by a neighbor in exchange for a few francs and a pat on the head from the SS. Capture would have meant transport to one of the camps, Dachau probably, or Buchenwald, where he would have been made to wear a pink triangle on his shirt—until he was eventually gassed, beaten, or starved to death. Remaining in France had been out of the question.

  The handoff went as planned, but on the way back the engine had overheated, forcing Anson to pull off and wait for the radiator to cool. He was found by the French police at two in the morning, five hours past curfew, on a road where an ambulance with the AFS had no business being. They took him in for questioning. His cover story, arranged in advance, was that he had snuck away from the hospital to rendezvous with a sweetheart and had lost track of time. He gave them a name—Micheline Paget—and an address, neither of which fooled the police. A short time later, two men in gray-green uniforms arrived at the jail, Gestapo under orders from Major General Karl Oberg—known to many as the Butcher of Paris—to rid the city of resisters by any means necessary. They didn’t want to talk about Micheline Paget. They wanted t
o talk about Sumner Jackson.

  Anson goes quiet. I cover his hand with mine. “Why don’t you sleep a little? Just an hour, and then you can tell me the rest.”

  He shakes his head but lets his eyes close. “I didn’t give them anything.”

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  I reach up to smooth the crease from his brow, but he pushes my hand away. “I didn’t have to tell them anything, Soline. They already knew it all—or most of it. The forged papers, the safe houses, the airmen we’ve moved. They know Sumner’s involved.”

  “But how?”

  He offers a half-hearted shrug. “Someone inside, one of Oberg’s informants probably, watching us for months and waiting for one of us to slip up. And I was the one. It’s only a matter of time now.”

  “This isn’t your fault, Anson. You just said you didn’t give them anything. How can you even—”

  The anguish in his eyes is so raw I’m almost relieved when he looks away. “They as much as said it, Soline. They’re coming for Dr. Jack. For all of us, I suppose. Oberg won’t quit until he’s got what he needs, and he doesn’t care how he gets it. Which leaves me with a choice to make.”

  Of all the things he’s said, this frightens me most. “What kind of choice?”

  “One I don’t know how to make—or live with.”

  Suddenly I can’t breathe. I lace my fingers through his, trying not to think of whips and shackles and tubs of icy water. But the question must be asked. “Did they . . . hurt you? I’ve heard the stories about what they do to make people talk.”

  “No.” His eyes are dull and unfocused, his voice queerly flat. “It wasn’t like that.” He pauses, looking down at our hands, mine small and pale, his tan and work roughened. “The Germans have an arrangement with the hospital higher-ups; they leave us alone so long as we don’t make waves and spare them the expense of treating wounded Brits and Americans. It’s the only reason Sumner hasn’t been taken yet. Beating information out of me would have looked bad—so they threatened me instead.”

  “With what?”

  “With you.”

  My mouth works mutely, trying to digest the two words. “With me? I don’t understand. How do they even know who I am?”

  “I told you. They know everything. Last night wasn’t about finding out what I know. It was about telling me what they know. They know we’re getting forged papers, but not where we’re getting them. They also know we’re using a network of couriers.”

  “And they know I’m one of them,” I supply quietly.

  “No. At least I don’t think they do. But they do know about us, that we’re . . .”

  Lovers. The word hangs unspoken in the air between us. Not strictly true—not in the physical sense of the word—but true in every way that matters.

  “Is love a crime now too?”

  “No,” he says, standing abruptly. “But it’s . . . useful.”

  I stare at him, rolling the word around in my head. Useful. And then suddenly it falls into place. They didn’t have to threaten him. All they had to do was threaten me.

  “You have to leave, Soline. There’s no way around it.”

  I get to my feet slowly, silently. They tell us what can happen, and we say we understand. But somehow we’ve all managed to convince ourselves it won’t happen to us. That as long as we’re careful, there will be no late-night knock at our door, no boots following as we slip down an empty alley, no neatly typed list with our name on it. We believe it until we can’t believe it anymore.

  “Do you understand, Soline?”

  I nod numbly. “You’re saying I have to leave the hospital.”

  “I’m saying you have to leave France.”

  It takes a moment for the words to penetrate, and even then I can’t make sense of them. “Leave . . . France?”

  “It isn’t safe for you here.”

  I wet my lips, my mouth suddenly dry. “But where will we go?”

  He looks at me, unblinking. “Not we, Soline. You.”

  The moment seems to slow, spooling out between us. I’ve heard people describe the moment they received bad news—they felt the blood drain from their face or the air leave their lungs—and for me, in this moment, every bit of that is true.

  Leave France without him? He can’t possibly have just suggested such a thing. But when I look at him again I realize he has, and that he means it.

  “I won’t go,” I tell him flatly. “Not without you.”

  “I can’t leave now, Soline. Surely you know that. There’s too much left to do, too many people depending on me.”

  “You’re one person, Anson. They can do without one person. And what about the Gestapo? You think once I’m gone, they’ll just leave you alone? They won’t. You know they won’t.”

  “Of course they won’t. But if you’re safe, it won’t matter what they do to me.”

  “It will matter to me!”

  He heaves a sigh, so very tired. “I need you to do this. Please.”

  “I can’t go, Anson. I can’t leave without you.”

  “I’ve already arranged it.”

  I blink at him, astonished. “Without talking to me?”

  “There wasn’t time. I’ve spoken with Sumner. You go tomorrow. A safe house first, then out through Spain, like the rest.”

  “No.”

  “Soline, we talked about this.”

  “Not like this, we didn’t! We talked about going together. When the war was over. It was never supposed to be just me. Are you trying to get rid of me? Is that what this is, a way to get me out of your hair?”

  It’s an unfair thing to say. A horrible thing. But I’ve just had the legs knocked out from under me, and I want to hurt him as he has hurt me. I turn my back, wiping my tears on my sleeve.

  “Soline.”

  I stiffen when he touches me but don’t resist when he turns me around to face him. He hooks my chin with his fingers, forcing me to look at him. “I need you to do this. I need it for me. Do you understand?”

  He drops his hands to my shoulders when I try to pull away, holding me in place. “I can’t quit, Soline. What I’m doing—what we’re all doing—is too important. As long as Sumner’s in, so am I. That’s just how it is. But I won’t be able to keep myself safe while I’m worried about you getting picked up. And you will if you stay. Because they know all they have to do is tell me they have you, and I’ll tell them everything.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “But I would,” he says quietly. “Without thinking twice.”

  Suddenly I understand. It isn’t just me he’s afraid for. It’s the cause, the lives that would hang in the balance if I were to be arrested—because if he was forced to choose, he would choose me. But I wouldn’t want that.

  “Promise me that no matter what happens, you won’t give in to them. Not for me.”

  “I have to know you’re safe, Soline. So I can work.”

  I turn my head, blinking back tears. The decision has been made. The plans we made, the future we thought we would have together, are over. We’re over.

  “You can do this,” he says gently. “You’ll be with our people. Your papers will be ready in a few hours. You leave at dawn.”

  Dawn. Ten hours.

  I look at him, eyes pleading. “Let me stay. I’ll leave the hospital. I’ll go out to the country, somewhere they can’t find me. Please.”

  “I can’t. I need to know you’re safe and taken care of. It’s done. But we still have tonight.”

  His words are like a knife, slicing into my flesh. “I don’t want tonight. I want forever. I know we never said it, but I thought you did too. Now, after everything, I’m supposed to just walk away, not knowing where I’ll end up or if I’ll ever see you again.”

  He stares at me, his face a stunned blank. “That’s what you think? That I plan to just hand you off and that’s that? We’re through?”

  “It happens,” I whisper, thinking of Maman and Erich Freede. “People get . . . sepa
rated.”

  “That isn’t going to happen to us.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “But I do. I’ve arranged to get you to the States, though it won’t be easy for you. I’ve written a letter for you to mail when you get to Lisbon—to my father. I told him we’ll be getting married as soon as I’m home—if that’s all right with you.”

  “Married . . .” The word is like a pair of wings unfurling in my chest, threatening to lift me off the ground. I’ve never said it aloud, but I’ve dreamed it hundreds of times. “Yes,” I whisper hoarsely. “Yes, it’s all right with me. But are you sure it’s what you want? When I said forever, I wasn’t asking . . . Are you sure you want to marry me?”

  “I was sure ten minutes after I met you, Soline. I love you.”

  Love.

  I’ve been so careful about not using that word. Until tonight. Not because I don’t feel it but because I feel it so keenly. Perhaps Maman has made me superstitious with her talk of curses. I can’t help thinking of Lilou—widowed two weeks after speaking her vows—because she dared to love. But it’s been said now and cannot be unsaid, even if I wished it. Nor can it be allowed to hang between us, unanswered.

  “I love you too,” I say thickly. “More than I ever thought I could let myself love anyone. And I want to marry you. But are you sure this is right? What will your father say when I show up on his doorstep, a stranger, expecting to move into his home?”

  “I explained it all in the letter. Or as much as I can explain. He doesn’t know what I’m doing over here. And he can’t. No one can. I mean that, Soline. No matter what you hear or how bad things sound, you can’t breathe a word about what we’ve been doing. Too many people would be put at risk. The safety of one person can never be allowed to jeopardize the entire cell. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “For now, all my father needs to know is that I drive an ambulance, I’m crazy about you, and I plan to make you a Purcell the minute I’m back on American soil.”

  He grins at me, taking both my hands in his. “I can’t wait to show you where I grew up and introduce you to everyone. My sister will fall in love with you the minute you open your mouth. She’s a sucker for all things French.”