by Pam Jenoff
“And the flat itself can’t be used as a safe house?”
Julian shook his head. “Too visible. It wouldn’t be safe to hide agents on the run there.” Then how, Marie wondered, could it possibly be safe enough for her? “There are different types of safe houses for different purposes,” he explained. “Messages, radio operators, agents on the run. Each designated for a specific purpose and separate than the rest.”
He led her through an alley and stopped before the rear of one of the houses. “Here.” He produced a skeleton key and unlocked a door, then started up a set of steep stairs.
When they could not climb any farther, he opened a door so low he had to duck to get through it. The room was a garret, with a sloping roof. There was a bed and a washstand and not much else. Still, it was much better than the shed where she’d spent the previous night.
“I suppose that’s yours.” He tilted his head toward the corner, where a familiar case sat.
“My radio!” Marie crossed the room eagerly. She reached for the radio case and opened it, running her hands over the machine. She was relieved to see that it had not been badly damaged in the landing. The coil of the antennae was a bit bent, but she was able to straighten it with her finger. And the telegraph key was loose. It had not been quite right since Eleanor had dismantled the machine, and it seemed to have worsened in transit. She could fix that, though. “Do you have any glue?” she asked.
“No, but I’ll have some sent over.” Marie made a note in her head to find some pine sap or tar if the glue didn’t arrive. She understood then that Eleanor’s tearing apart the radio at Arisaig House had prepared her exactly for a moment like this.
“You’ll need to hang your wire out the window to transmit,” he said. She looked out the window, where he indicated a poplar tree, its buds just beginning to bloom. Then she noticed something familiar across the street. The bookstore. Her stomach did a queer turn. Her flat was just over the café where she had seen the SS.
“But the SS...” she began. “How can this possibly be safe?”
“Because they would never expect you to be here.”
“And if they find out?”
“They won’t—if you are discreet. Are you hungry?” he asked.
“I am,” she admitted. The bit of breakfast she had enjoyed with Albert and the others was a distant memory. Julian went to the cupboard and pulled out half a loaf of bread and some cheese wrapped in paper. Marie wondered whether he had stocked the larder or someone else had a key.
He brought the food to the table and went back for two glasses of water. His hand trembled as he passed one of them, sloshing the water. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Just exhaustion,” he said, trying to smile. “Sleeping in a different place every night, being alone for weeks on end... It wears on you.”
But hands didn’t tremble just because one was tired. “How long has it been like that?”
His smile faded. “I’ve had it for years, nerve damage from some shrapnel earlier in the war. It’s only been the past few months that it’s worsened. Please don’t say anything. If the others knew...”
“I swear it.”
“Thank you.”
They ate in silence. The air grew chilly. “Is it all right if I make a fire in the grate?” she asked, fearing that she would be expected to stay in the cold and dark as she had been in the shed.
He nodded. “Yes. It’s no secret that the apartment is occupied.” As she tended to the fire, he sat back and stretched his legs out, crossing his black boots. It was the most relaxed she had seen him since they had met.
“So what happens now?” she asked.
“You’ll stay here and you’ll receive messages to transmit. They’ll be brought by couriers or Will, the pilot who flew you in.” Julian didn’t mention that Will was his cousin, and Marie wondered if the omission was intentional or whether, in his focused world, he considered the information irrelevant. “He’s the air movements officer, but he helps coordinate the transmissions as well as the flights. It likely won’t be me,” he added. “My men—and women,” he added, this time correcting himself, “are spread across two hundred miles of northern France. I’m constantly traveling between them to make sure they are doing what is needed.” She saw then the responsibility he carried on his shoulders.
“One other thing—be careful when you are transmitting. The SD have become more aware of what we’re doing and they’re on the lookout for transmissions.” Eleanor had said the same, Marie recalled, right before her departure. “Don’t transmit for too long and keep an eye out for the direction-finding wagons or other signs that anyone is onto you.” Marie nodded. She had heard of the vans that prowled the streets, containing special equipment to detect the source of radio signals. It was hard to imagine the police had such things in this sleepy little town. “You can’t stop transmitting, though,” Julian continued sternly. “You have to get the messages through. The information we send to London is critical. They need to know that we are making everything as hard as possible for the Germans to respond when the invasion comes.”
“When will that be?” It was the ultimate question, and asking it felt audacious even for her.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, frustration creeping into his voice. “But it’s supposed to be that way. Need to know, remember? Safer for everyone. The invasion is coming. That much is certain. And we are here to make sure it is a success.” His tone was not boastful but clear and unwavering, one of ownership. Marie saw then that his intensity came not from being arrogant or mean, but from having the weight of the entire operation on his shoulders. She saw him in a new light then, admired his strength. She wondered again if it was wise to have so much go through one person. “That’s all you—or anyone else—needs to know.”
They were risking their lives, Marie thought. It seemed they had a right to know more.
He rose from his chair. “I have to go. You’re to stay here, act normally and transmit the messages the couriers bring you on schedule.”
Marie stood. “Wait.” She didn’t particularly like Julian; she found him prickly and ill-mannered and too intense. But he was one of the few people she knew here and she was not eager to be left alone in this strange apartment, surrounded by Germans.
There was nothing to be done about it, though; going was his work and staying hers. “Goodbye, Marie,” he said, and walked out the door, leaving her alone again.
Chapter Twelve
Grace
Washington, 1946
The next morning, Grace found herself on a train headed south for Washington.
After leaving Mark the previous day, she’d gone straight to work, still thinking about her meeting with the consul. At the beginning, she had only been interested in returning the photos to the suitcase. But after learning that the suitcase belonged to Eleanor and that she had worked for the British government, Grace’s questions had multiplied: Who were the girls in the photos and how were they connected to Eleanor? Could the answers possibly be in some files in Washington? The likelihood of finding anything seemed increasingly remote, and her doubts about going there to meet Mark grew stronger as the hours passed.
She hadn’t mentioned needing time off to Frankie until the end of the day. “Is everything all right?” he asked when she finally made the request. The lines on his brow deepened with concern. Grace understood his reaction; she hadn’t missed a single day in all of the time she had been working for him.
“Fine, fine,” she reassured. “Just a family matter,” she added with a firmness that she hoped would ward off any further questions.
“You know working, keeping busy, that’s the best thing,” he offered. Grace’s guilt rose. He thought that she was taking time because of her grief over Tom. Instead, she was jetting out of town to chase a mystery that was none of her business with a man she should never see again. “Yo
u’ll be back the day after tomorrow?” Frankie asked. It was both question and plea.
“I hope so.” She couldn’t see the trip taking longer than that.
“Good.” He smiled. “’Cause I’ve gotten kinda used to having you around.”
Grace smiled inwardly at the begrudging admission that Frankie had come to depend on her. “Thank you,” she replied. It was more than just the time off for which she was grateful. It was his making a place for her here and holding it. His understanding. “I’ll hurry back. I promise.”
The train, a sleek blue Congressional Limited, whooshed across the wide expanse of the Chesapeake. Grace looked around the railcar. The seats were straight-backed, but made with a comfortable leather. The gleaming plate glass windows offered a splendid view of the sun-dappled water. A boy came through with his cart, selling coffee and snacks. Grace shook her head; she was cautious with money, not knowing how much things on the trip would cost. Instead, she pulled out the egg salad sandwich she’d packed.
As she unwrapped the sandwich, Grace peered out the window at a Maryland suburb, freshly built ranch houses in neat culs-de-sac. Manufactured towns like this one seemed to be springing up like weeds everywhere since the men had come home from the war and couples moved out of the cities to start families. Grace imagined women in each house, doing dishes and straightening up after the children had gone to school. She was mixed with equal parts guilt and longing and relief at not being one of them.
When she finished her sandwich, Grace balled up the wax paper. She took out the photographs of the girls, studying the mystery their eyes now seemed to hold. Each had a name written on the back in the same flowing script. Josie. Brya. Grace wondered if it was Eleanor’s handwriting or someone else’s.
It was after eleven o’clock when the train pulled into Union Station. Mark met her on the platform, freshly shaven in a crisp white shirt and sport coat, holding a smart gray fedora rather than wearing it. Seeing her, he seemed almost surprised. He had thought she might not come, she realized, as he kissed her cheek in a gesture that was at the same time too familiar and yet not at all enough. She savored the familiar scent of his aftershave in spite of herself. “Smooth trip?” he asked.
She nodded, stepping away from him with effort. “So what’s our plan?” she asked as he led her across the vast marble lobby of the station. She marveled at the high-arched ceiling, which was adorned with an octagonal pattern, gold leafing in the center of each plaster coffer.
“I did some checking on the SOE files,” he replied. They walked outside the station. The air was a hint warmer than it had been in New York. Above a cluster of bare trees, Grace could make out the dome of the US Capitol. She had seen it only once before as a girl on a trip with her family. She paused now, admiring its quiet majesty.
He led her to a waiting taxi and held the door. “Tell me,” she said, when he had climbed in and closed the door behind him.
“Remember we discussed that SOE was a British agency that sent its people into Europe undercover during the war?”
“I do. What were they sent into Europe to do? Were they spies?”
“Not exactly. They were deployed to help the French partisans, supply weapons, sabotage German operations, that sort of thing.” Whatever could Eleanor have to do with that? Grace wondered. Mark continued, “Anyway, I did some checking. An old army pal of mine, Tony, has a sister who works at the Pentagon. She confirmed what the consul said—some of SOE’s files were transferred here after the war.”
“That seems odd.”
He shrugged. “Not a whole lot was making sense right after the war ended. But maybe there’s something about Eleanor in those files.”
“Or about the girls in the photos,” Grace added. “Perhaps they had something to do with SOE as well.” The whole thing had become about something larger than just Eleanor now. She pulled the photographs from her bag.
He moved closer to have a look. “May I?”
She handed him the photos. “If we can find out who they were...” Doubts nagged at her. “But how can we get access to the files? Surely they won’t just let us walk in...” She exhaled sharply so that her breath blew her bangs upward.
Mark smiled. “I like it when you do that.” Grace could feel her cheeks flush. This was about Eleanor and the girls, she reminded herself sternly. Otherwise, she would not be here at all.
“No, it’s true the records have not been made public,” he continued. “But Tony said his sister can get us access.”
“You think she can do it?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
The taxi navigated the wide circle in front of Union Station, weaving between the streetcars as it merged onto a wider thoroughfare. Though the war had been over for months, the signs around the city were still visible, from sandbags stacked against the base of a building to bits of blackout tape still clinging to the windows. Men in tired suits smoked on the curbs in front of nondescript government buildings. There were boys in winter coats playing baseball on the wide expanse of the Mall, tourists walking between the museums—little signs of the city coming back to life.
The cab began to climb the expanse of a long bridge across the Potomac, carrying them into Virginia. The Pentagon came into view. Grace had seen pictures of it in the newspaper, built to accommodate the massive Department of the Army that had grown out of the war. As they drew close, she was awed by the sheer size: each side was the length of several city blocks. A construction crane still hovered over scaffolding on one part of the building. Did they really need all of this now that the war was over?
The taxi pulled through the massive parking lot and stopped close to the door on one side of the Pentagon. Mark paid the driver and stepped out of the car. Looking up at the American flag waving high over the entranceway, Grace faltered; she had no business being here. But Mark came around and opened her door. “Do you want to know about Eleanor Trigg or not?” He had a quiet confidence about him, a sure-handedness that made her feel more certain of herself. She stepped from the car.
Inside, Mark took off his hat and gave his name to the soldier standing behind the desk. Grace peered around the official-looking entranceway and wondered if they would be turned away.
But a few minutes later, a shapely brunette in a pencil skirt appeared. Maybe a year or two younger than Grace, she was impossibly chic, in a way that Grace herself could never quite manage. She wore her dark hair in a sleek cap, the latest style. Her mouth was a perfect red bow. A curvier Ava Gardner. As she brushed past Grace to extend her hand to Mark, there was a faint hint of jasmine.
“I’m Raquel. You must be Mark.”
“Guilty,” he quipped, with the same twinkle in his eye that Grace had seen the night they met. “Tony has told me so much about you.”
“He lies,” Raquel quipped back. Good Lord, Grace thought, with a tug of jealousy she had no right to feel. Were they flirting right in front of her?
“You must be Grace,” Raquel added, making it sound like an afterthought. But at least Raquel was expecting her as well. Before Grace could respond, Raquel turned back to Mark. “Follow me.” She pivoted on one foot. Her heels clicked against the floor as she led them down a hallway along an endless row of identical doors. They passed several men in uniform, their chests crowded with badges and medals, expressions grave. Tom would have been awed by the whole thing, Grace thought, with a note of sadness. She was suddenly homesick for New York and the messy comfort of Frankie’s tiny office.
“We don’t have long,” Raquel said in a low voice when the men had passed and they were alone in the corridor once more. “Brian—he’s the archivist—is at lunch. We have maybe an hour, tops, before he gets back.” Grace hesitated. She hadn’t realized that they would be sneaking in. But it was too late to back out now. Raquel had opened a door and was ushering them down a back staircase.
“The files aren’t classifi
ed?” Mark asked.
Raquel shook her head. “Not really public either.” The consul had said that the records would be sealed, Grace remembered, wondering if these were the right ones. “Brian said they arrived without notice from London earlier this year. He doesn’t think anyone has gone through them.”
“Why were the files brought here?” Grace asked, as they reached a landing and started down a second staircase. It was the question that had been nagging at her. Why had they shipped British documents all the way across the Atlantic?
“I have no idea,” Raquel replied. When they reached the bottom floor, she led them into a storeroom with boxes piled high behind a chain-link gate. “The ones you’re looking for should be somewhere over there.” Raquel gestured vaguely toward the right side of the room, where about a dozen boxes were stacked on shelves. “Just be sure to put everything back as you found it. I’ll be back in half an hour.” Raquel turned and went, leaving them alone in the room full of boxes.
Grace looked at Mark questioningly. “There’s no way to get through all of this in such a short time. How do we begin?”
Mark ran his hand over one of the boxes, clearing some dust. “We’ll each take half. We just need to figure out how they’re organized.”
She studied the side of the boxes. Each bore a single letter, handwritten and circled. “What do you suppose that means?” He shrugged. She thought then of the photographs in her bag. Quickly she pulled them out. There was a small notation on the bottom of each picture. “I remember that the consul said something about Eleanor working for a section of SOE.” Sure enough, on the bottom of each photo there was a small plate bearing the phrase F Section.
Mark was already ahead of her, moving through the boxes and stacks to a place on a shelf. “Here.” She followed him and looked up. At least five of the boxes were marked with an F.
“Same letter as on the box,” she remarked. “I wonder what it stands for.”