Echoes

by Danielle Steel

  “Yes, I do. And it's not silly. What's silly is you locking yourself up in a convent for the rest of your life. Now that's silly.”

  “No, it's not. It's the life I want.”

  “Why? What are you afraid of? What are you hiding from? What's so terrible out here?” He was almost shouting at her, but he had been in love with her for months, and he was frustrated by the way things were. They sounded like two children arguing as they drove along on the way home.

  “I'm not hiding from anything. I believe in what I'm doing. I love the convent, and being a nun.” She was almost pouting as she crossed her arms, as though slipping them into her habit. She still missed it and felt naked without it.

  “I watched you with those children tonight, especially the sick boy. You need to have babies. That's what women were made for. You can't deny yourself that.”

  “Yes, I can. I have other things.”

  “Like what? You have nothing in there except sacrifice and loneliness and prayers.”

  “I was never lonely in the convent, Jean-Yves,” she said quietly, and then sighed. “Sometimes I am much lonelier out here.” It was true. She missed convent life and her sisters there. The Mother Superior. And her mother and Daphne. She missed a lot of things. But she was grateful to be here.

  “I'm lonely too,” he said sadly, as he looked at her. He saw then that there were tears on her cheeks. “Ma pauvre petite,” he said, and pulled over. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shout at you.”

  “It's all right.” Suddenly she was crying, and he was holding her. She couldn't stop sobbing. It was worse somehow because of Christmas. It had been the year before too. “I miss them so much…I can't believe they're gone…my sister was so beautiful… and my poor mother wanted to do everything for us. She never thought of herself…I always think of what must have happened to them…I know I'll never see them again…oh Jean-Yves …” She sobbed in his arms for a long time as he held her. It was the first time she had allowed herself to let go. She never let herself think of what must have happened to them. She had heard horror stories of Ravensbrück. It was unthinkable that they were gone forever, but in her heart she knew they were.

  “I know…I know…I think those things too…I miss my brothers … We've all lost people we love by now. There's no one left who hasn't lost someone.” And then without thinking, he kissed her and she kissed him back. All those months of standing back and respecting the vows she had taken, the life she said she wanted, the convent she wanted to flee to. He didn't want her to. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, have babies with her, and take care of her. All they had left now was each other. Everyone else they had ever loved was gone. Both of them. They were like two survivors alone in a lifeboat adrift in a stormy sea, and suddenly they were clinging to each other.

  Amadea had no idea what was happening to her, but she was overwhelmed by such waves of desperation and passion, beyond reason, that they couldn't stop kissing and holding on to each other. And before either of them could stop it or control it or even think about it, he was making love to her in the truck, and it was all she wanted. It was as though she had instantly become someone else, someone other than the woman she had been for all these years. Wars did strange things and transformed people. Just as it had her. All her vows were forgotten, her sisters there, the convent, even her love for God. All she wanted and needed at that exact moment was Jean-Yves, and he needed her just as badly. They had both been through too much, lost too much, had been brave too many times for too many people, survived too many terrors while putting on a brave face. All their walls had come tumbling down that night, and he held her afterward, sobbing into her long blond hair and holding her, and all she wanted to do was comfort him. He was the child she had never had and never would, the only man she had ever wanted or loved. She had reproached herself for it a hundred times as she prayed in her room, and now all she wanted was to be his. They looked at each other like two lost children afterward, and he looked at her, terrified.

  “Do you hate me?” He hadn't taken her by force, she had wanted him, and welcomed him. They had wanted each other, and needed each other more than they ever knew. They had simply been through too much, and whether or not they acknowledged it, the toll it had taken on both of them was huge.

  “No. I could never hate you. I love you, Jean-Yves,” she said quietly. In some part of her, she understood what they'd been through, and forgave them both.

  “I love you too. Oh God, how I love you. What are we going to do?” He knew how strongly she felt about her vocation, but it seemed wrong to him, it always had. She was too beautiful and loving a woman to hide in a convent for the rest of her life. But it was the life she'd said she wanted since they met.

  “Do we have to decide that right now? I'm not sure if I've committed a terrible sin, or if this is what was meant to be. Maybe this is what God has in mind for me. Let's just see what happens, and pray about it for a while,” she said sensibly as he held her close to him. She had no idea where God would lead her, but she knew she had to explore this new path for now. It felt oddly right to her.

  “If anything ever happens to you, Amélie, I'll die.”

  “No, you won't. I'll just wait for you in Heaven, and we'll have a wonderful time when you arrive.” There were tears in her eyes, but she was so happy with him. She had never been as happy in her life. It was different than her love for the convent, but there was a definite sense of joy to this new life that she loved. For the first time in her life, she felt frivolous and young. For once, life didn't seem quite so serious, the tragedies all around them not quite as acute. This was what they both needed to counter the realities of their lives, at least for now.

  “God, how I love you,” he said with a broad grin, as they sorted themselves out, suddenly giggling like schoolchildren, and he started the truck up again. He wanted to ask her to marry him, but he didn't want to ask for too much too soon. She had made a big step that night. And maybe she was right, if it was meant to be, the rest would come. All in good time. They didn't have to decide everything in one night. If he had anything to say about it, she was going to be his wife, and the mother of his children. He just hoped that God agreed, and that Amadea would be willing to give up her dreams of returning to the convent now. But it was way too soon. She was still stunned by what they'd done, and so was he.

  They talked quietly on the way home, and he kissed her and held her before she got out. “I love you. Don't forget that. Tonight was just the beginning. It wasn't a mistake,” he said earnestly, “or a sin. I'll start going to church again regularly,” he promised, and she smiled. He hadn't been since his brothers died. He was still too upset at God.

  “Maybe that's why He sent me to you, to get you back to church.” Whatever the reason, she looked as happy as he did, in spite of the shock of what they'd just done. Much to her own amazement, she didn't feel wrong about it, she felt happy, and in love. She knew too that it would take a long time to sort this out. It was one of the aftershocks of war.

  As she lay in her bed that night, thinking of him, much to her own amazement, she didn't have a crisis of conscience, or even regret it. Oddly enough, it seemed right to her. She wondered if this was what God had in mind for her after all. She was still thinking about it when she drifted off to sleep. And when she woke up the next morning, he had dropped flowers off to her on his way to work. He had come by his un-cle's farm and left a tiny bouquet of winter flowers outside the barn with a note, “I love you. J-Y.” She tucked the note in her pocket with a smile, and went in to milk the cows that were waiting for her. She felt like a woman for the first time in her life. It was an unfamiliar sensation to her in every way. She was suddenly experiencing all she had denied herself, and had planned to deny forever. Her life had turned around entirely, and it was impossible to know which path was right, the enticing one she had just embarked on with Jean-Yves, or the one that had meant so much to her for so many years before. All she knew, and could hope, was t
hat in time the answers would come, and the mystery would unfold.

  20

  FOR THE REST OF THE WINTER, AMADEA CONTINUED RUNNING missions with him. Supplies and men were steadily being parachuted in by the British. They waited for a British officer to parachute in one night, and after they helped him bury his parachute and sent him on his way in an SS uniform, Jean-Yves asked Amadea if she had heard of him. His name was Lord Rupert Montgomery, and he was one of the men who had helped start the Kindertransport that got ten thousand children out of Europe before the war started.

  “I asked my mother to put my sister on it,” Amadea said sadly as they drove home. “She never thought we'd have a problem, and she was afraid of what would happen to her if she went. She was thirteen then, and was deported when she was sixteen. He did a wonderful thing for many children.”

  “He's a good man. I met him once before last year,” Jean-Yves commented, with a smile at her.

  Their affair had continued unchecked by then since Christmas. He had broached the subject of marriage to her, but she wasn't sure. She still didn't know if God wanted her to go back to the convent. But the prospect of that seemed more difficult now, even to her. She had killed one man, even if accidentally, and now she was deeply in love with another. They were making love to each other every chance they got. He could hardly keep his hands off of her. There was no way he was letting her go back to the convent after the war, he vowed to himself. Surely, that couldn't be what God wanted. It was an unnatural life, as far as he was concerned, and he was very much in love with her.

  Serge came down from Paris in the spring to see them. It was 1943. And he could see what had happened between Amadea and Jean-Yves, without their explaining it to him. He told his brother Pierre when he went back to Paris that he thought the Carmelite order was going to be minus one very pretty young nun after the war. But more than that, he was profoundly impressed by the work Amadea had done with Jean-Yves. They had been bringing in successful missions since she'd arrived, and from what Jean-Yves said, she was fearless, although always cautious not to put any of the members of their cell unduly at risk.

  Serge and Jean-Yves had talked about blowing up a nearby German munitions dump in the next few weeks. Jean-Yves had insisted that he didn't want Amadea on the mission with him. Serge thought it should be up to her, but he understood what motivated Jean-Yves's concern. He was in love with her. The fact was, they needed her help, and she was good, and quick, from what he heard. Serge trusted her almost more than anyone else in Melun, with the exception of Jean-Yves.

  They were still debating the matter hotly when Serge left, and Amadea agreed with Serge. She wanted to go on the mission with Jean-Yves. The war was starting to turn around. The Germans had surrendered at Stalingrad in February, in the first defeat of Hitler's army. They had to do everything they could now in France to defeat him here, too. And there was no question, blowing up their arsenal of weapons would be a major blow to them.

  They planned the mission carefully over the next several weeks, and Amadea finally convinced him. It went against all his protective instincts, but Jean-Yves agreed to let her come. The final decision was his, as the leader of the cell. The fact was that they were short of men. Two of his best men were sick.

  Jean-Yves, Amadea, two women, Georges, and another man set out for the munitions dump late one night. They took two trucks and an arsenal of explosives hidden in the back. Amadea was in the same truck as Jean-Yves. Two of the men got out and cut the sentries' throats. This was the most dangerous mission they had ever done. They set the explosives carefully around the munitions dump, and then as they had planned, all but Jean-Yves and Georges ran back to the trucks. They knew they only had minutes to light the fuses and get out. The explosives they were using were crude, but they were the best they could get. And before they even got back to the trucks, Amadea heard a tremendous explosion, and what looked like the biggest fireworks display she had ever seen lit up the night sky. She and the others looked at each other, as they started the trucks, and there was no sign of Georges or Jean-Yves.

  “Go!… Go!” the man in the truck with her said, but they couldn't leave Georges and Jean-Yves. All of the local military forces would be arriving any minute, and if they found the other two, they'd be shot. The other two women were waiting in the second truck for Georges. Amadea was at the wheel of hers.

  “I'm not leaving,” she said through her teeth, but as she looked behind her, she saw an enormous ball of fire, and the second truck shifted into gear and took off.

  “We can't wait,” the man next to her begged her. They were going to get caught, and Amadea knew it too.

  “We have to,” she said, as a series of explosions erupted behind her and the truck shook. The fire was spreading as sirens went off, and without hesitating, she stepped on the gas and took off too. They bounced over the fields in the two trucks, and she was shaking from head to foot as they pulled into the barn where the trucks were stored. It was a miracle they hadn't gotten caught, and she knew they had waited too long. She had nearly jeopardized all the others for the sake of the man she loved. They stood silently in the barn in the darkness, listening to the explosions and crying softly. All they could do now was pray that Jean-Yves and Georges had gotten out, but Amadea couldn't see how they could have. The explosives had gone off much faster than they'd expected, and it seemed more than likely now that the two men had either been badly wounded or killed on the spot.

  “I'm sorry,” she said to the others, with a shaking voice. “We should have left sooner.” They all nodded, they knew it was true, but they hadn't wanted to abandon the two men either. She had very nearly cost all their lives by waiting too long. They had just managed to get out.

  She walked back to her own farm that night, listening to the explosions and looking up at the brightly lit sky. And she lay in bed for hours praying for him. The news was everywhere the next morning. The army was all over the countryside looking for evidence. But there was none. People on the farms were quietly going about their work. The Germans had found two men dead, burned beyond recognition, even their papers had turned to ashes. And not knowing what else to do, they took four boys off a neighboring farm and shot them, as a warning to the rest. Amadea sat in her room all that day, sick with grief and shock. Not only had Jean-Yves died, but four young boys had been killed as the result of what they'd done. It was a high price to pay for freedom, and for destroying the weapons the Germans would have used to kill so many others. But the man she loved was dead, and she had been responsible for the deaths of eight people, Georges and Jean-Yves, four young farm boys, and even the two German sentries whose throats had been cut. It was a lot to have on her conscience, for a woman who had once wanted to be the bride of God. And for the first time, as she mourned the only man she had ever loved, she knew that when it was all over, she had to go back. It would take her the rest of her life as a Carmelite to atone for her sins.

  21

  SERGE WAITED FOR THREE WEEKS BEFORE HE CAME DOWN from Paris to Melun. He had heard the news in Paris, and he was pleased at the result of the mission. The Germans had been severely hampered by the damage they'd done. But he was devastated by the news of Jean-Yves's death. He had been one of their best men. And he wanted to talk to Amadea as soon as he could.

  He found her grief-stricken and silent in her room at the farmhouse. The British had still been parachuting men and supplies in, but she hadn't been on a single mission since.

  He sat and talked to her about it, and told her they were too short-handed now to bring the men and supplies in safely. She looked at him with agonized eyes, and shook her head. “I can't.”

  “Yes, you can. He would still be out there if it had been you. You have to do it for him. And for France.”

  “I don't care. I have too much blood on my hands.”

  “It's not on your hands, it's on theirs. And if you don't continue the work you've been doing, it will be our blood.”

  “They killed four young
boys,” she said, looking sick. She was as tortured over them as she was devastated over the death of Jean-Yves.

  “They'll kill more if we don't stop them. And this is all we've got. We have no other way. The British are counting on us. There's another big mission coming up soon. We don't have time to train more men. And I need you for something else right now anyway.”

  “What?” she asked. As he looked at her, she looked gray. He was putting pressure on her because he knew she had to get back out there. She was too good at it to give up. And he was afraid she would fall apart completely from losing Jean-Yves. She was ravaged by grief.

  “I need you to get a Jewish boy and his sister to Dordogne. We have a safe house for them there.”

  “How old are they?” she asked without much interest.

  “Four and six.”

  “What are they still doing here?” She sounded surprised. Most of the Jewish children, if not all of them, had been deported out of France in the past year. The rest were being hidden.

  “Their grandmother was hiding them. She died last week. We have to get them out. They'll be safe in Dordogne.”

  “And how am I supposed to get there?” She felt hopeless and looked tired.

  “We have papers for them. They look like you. They're both blue-eyed blondes. Only their mother was Jewish. They deported her, and the father was killed.” Like so many others, they had no family left at all.

  She started to tell him she couldn't do it, and then as she looked at him, she remembered her vows, and thought of her mother and Daphne, and Jean-Yves. And she suddenly felt she owed it to them, maybe in reparation for the lives she had cost. She felt like a nun again. Jean-Yves had taken the woman she had been with him. She knew she would never be that person again. But Sister Teresa of Carmel would not have refused to do the mission. Slowly, she nodded. She had no other choice. “I'll do it,” she said, looking at Serge and he was pleased. He had taken on this particular mission as much for her as for them. He didn't like the way she looked since Jean-Yves's death, and Jean-Yves wouldn't have either. In a way, Serge was doing this for him, as much as for her, and the two Jewish children were orphans, Serge explained.