by Maureen Lang
She nodded, but even as she did, she saw his anger. Someone else might not see it; surely his voice was reasonable, his manner calm. But the narrowing of his lips and the inability to look her in the eye gave him away.
So when he turned to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, she was not surprised. “How could you do it, Isa? With my mother living here, and Jonah? I thought you loved them too.”
“I do!”
“And so you’re willing to risk their lives? Because of your own naive wish to be some kind of Belgian hero?” He kept his voice low but the harsh tone made up for the lack of volume.
“No, of course not! I only thought—”
“You couldn’t possibly be thinking correctly if you’ve even considered such a foolish thing. Shall I tell you the names of those who’ve been arrested, deported to Germany, or sent to the firing squad in connection with this? Do you think your father’s money will make you immune? Hardly. In German eyes, we’re all equal—equally worthless, unless our lives, or deaths, further their regime.”
He let her go, looking again out the window. “They’ll be here shortly, and when they arrive, you’ll refuse them. You’ll have Clara send them away at the door because there must be no possible connection between this house and them. Do you understand?”
“Edward,” she said softly, “I know you want to protect your family. And if you think it’s too dangerous, then perhaps your mother and Jonah might consider returning to Viole’s. But it’s not really your place to protect this house or your mother or Jonah. Or me, for that matter, if that ever occurred to you. It’s God’s. We’re all in His hands, not yours. So is La Libre Belgique.”
Now his face reddened and then turned hard. “Maybe you’re willing to trust a God who obviously cannot—or will not—step in when the world’s gone mad, but I’m not.”
“You cannot discount the Lord. Your faith is still in you, if you would just listen to it.”
He said nothing, but his level gaze frightened her. Was he not in the least ashamed to have spoken so harshly against the same God he himself had once introduced her to?
“Why is it acceptable for you to take risks, but not anyone else?”
“It’s the degree of risk. This is your home, Isa. You wouldn’t have any hope for defense if evidence for involvement with the paper is found.”
“When you first decided to help distribute this paper, didn’t you ask yourself how far you’d be willing to go? if it was worth it?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t you think others have the right to do that too?” She put a hand on one of his. “Before I ever returned, I knew what I wanted to do. I love Belgium, Edward. It’s more home to me than anyplace else, and right now it’s sitting under an army that’s trying to stamp out everything I love. All of Belgium wakes up every morning to a foreign army telling her what to do. They’ve stripped the factories, stolen money from the banks, requisitioned everything from copper pots to wool. The only thing left to us that the Germans can’t control is what we think—and so it’s words they fear, because they know as long as the spirit of Belgium is alive they haven’t really conquered us or our faith. The only way to keep that spirit going is to keep the paper going. It’s worth every risk.”
He stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. “You don’t have to convince me, Isa. I’ve lived with it for two years, and I decided a long time ago it was worth my life. But is it worth yours? I can see you’re better informed than I realized, that the outside world educated you more thoroughly than I thought possible. But have you really considered it, or are you just playacting? Your money, your name—even your faith—won’t get you out of trouble if trouble comes.”
“I have no doubts.”
“Isa, Isa, you answer too easily.”
“No, Edward. You’re too careful.”
He clutched her hand that had touched his so lightly. “If you’d ever heard the firing squads at Tir National, you would know there is no such thing as being too careful.”
The bell at the door made Isa jump. She reminded herself that it was just a bell, not the guns of which he spoke.
Edward turned back to the window. “It’s them. Jan and Rosalie.”
“But how did they know where I live?”
Edward walked toward the door. “Rosalie knew. She thought it was funny to deliver the paper here when it housed German soldiers—especially when we had headlines about German losses.”
He reached the door just as Clara emerged from the butler’s hall. “I will answer it, Clara. And they won’t be staying, so you’re not needed . . . thank you.”
He waited until she’d turned her back, then glanced up the stairs as if to make sure no one lingered there and opened the door.
Jan stepped inside first, facing Edward. “I thought you might return here.”
Edward didn’t lead them farther inside. He leaned against the open door and faced Jan and Rosalie. “I’ve told her what you want,” he said. “I’ve also advised her to turn you away.”
Jan and Rosalie now looked at Isa.
“I’m willing for you to use the room,” she said slowly, looking at Edward even though her words were directed to the others, “but on one condition. That Genny and Jonah return to where they were living before I returned.”
Edward shook his head. “What, then, will you tell the Major when I or either of these two come round? Without ‘Aunt Genny’ here, even I have no excuse to call.”
“The room is accessible from the back of the house. The room the Major uses is in the front. If you’re careful, you won’t be seen.”
“Agreed,” Jan said. “Now, can we see the room?”
Isa nodded, leading them toward the butler’s hall and into the kitchen. Clara was at the sink, scrubbing dishes.
“You must listen for the Major, Clara. I’m taking Edward and his friends to the cellar, but I don’t want the Major to know.”
“There is nothing down there anymore, mademoiselle. If it’s wine you’re looking for, you must ask that Hauptmann who came here yesterday. I saw the label myself, one of your father’s own bottles!”
“Please, Clara, just listen for the Major.”
Edward was at Isa’s elbow as she led them through the near-empty pantry to another door at the back of the shelf-lined room.
“You see how foolish this is?” he whispered. “Someone must be on the lookout for him whenever anyone is here. And if we’re caught, everyone in this household will be suspected, even Clara.”
“Then we’ll have to trust her to help or give her the option to leave.”
“And go where? That she’s been serving Germans this long suggests she has nowhere else to go.”
“She has relatives in the country; she’s stayed this long only because of the money my father left her.”
Isa led the way down the stairs to the cooler air of the cellar. Despite the button she pressed to illuminate the room, it was like a cave. The temperature varied little through the year, with its depth and massive brick walls.
She was glad the electricity worked today, although there were oil lamps nearby just in case. She saw instantly that the cement floor was dustier than it had ever been when there was a reason to come down here, when bottles filled the empty latticework or when the shelves were crowded with barrels of cooking material. Her mother had always ordered enough provisions to host a generous party at a moment’s notice.
She stopped to let the others appreciate just how safe her room was. “Look around you. See if any of you could find the entry to the room I’m offering.”
They all took the challenge, spreading out to various walls. She watched Edward poke and prod, Rosalie tap, Jan bend and stretch in search of some handle or crack that might lead to another room.
Edward faced her. “Very well, Isa. You’ve convinced us it isn’t easy to detect. That doesn’t mean a German search party with picks and sledgehammers won’t find it in a few moments if someone tips them off.”
If Edward was amused, he gave no indication. “So where is it?”
Isa had his attention and wasn’t eager to lose it but moved toward the hidden door. “I don’t know the entire history of this room. I’m sure Henri knows. And my father knew about it.” She knelt, reaching beneath the lowest shelf, ignoring spiderwebs that might have given her pause had she not had such an important audience. She withdrew a long, sturdy rod that was undetectable without reaching under, then upward. “There were tools left behind that my father told me were diamond-cutting equipment. Evidently the former owner of this home was doing something he didn’t want anyone else to know about.”
Holding the rod steady, she stuck it through the latticework, scraping the brick at the back until finding the small hole into which the rod perfectly fit. Tilting it upward, she pushed until the barrier on the other side fell from its holding place. Then, after returning the rod to its hiding place, she pulled on the end of the shelf that served as a handle.
Even when Henri had first shown her and Charles the room—he’d decorated it to resemble an American West battle fort to surprise the children—she’d been able to push open this door once the iron bar was unlatched. She’d always thought it something of a miracle until Henri had shown her the latches and how they were counterbalanced.
The air was just as cool inside the room, and Isa found the switch plate to reveal its size. It wasn’t especially large but was perfectly square, with sturdy cardboard painted like the logs of a fort still tacked to one wall. Equipment left by the former owner was pushed off to the side—a tall, sturdy table held small hammers and Indian ink brushes and oil, dops and cast-iron disks. In another corner were the things her parents had given her and Charles when this was their hideaway. A tea set, a miniature boat Charles had built inside a bottle, a chair for reading when Isa grew older and Charles had abandoned the solitude of the room.
The interior walls were brick, even the back side of the door. She’d felt safe in here, where no one could hear her, where only books and games awaited. Unlike Charles, she’d always welcomed being alone.
Jan stepped off the room’s measurements, then reached for the ceiling to judge its height. He even knelt on the floor as if to judge the flatness. It was concrete and smooth.
“A press will fit,” he announced. “We don’t even have to prepare a foundation; this floor will serve. We won’t have to remove anything if we take the legs off that table and lean it up against the wall.” He looked squarely at Isa then, brows still level but excitement in his eyes. “I know you realize the risk, but I wonder if you realize how important this is to us. You probably haven’t any clue the trouble we’ve had finding printer after printer. This will save the paper.”
“I want to help,” Isa told him but was unable to keep her gaze from Edward for long.
If Jan was excited, Edward looked somber in the opposite extreme. Rosalie stood quietly by, saying nothing. Isa wanted to be exhilarated at the prospect of being involved in the same cause, but her heart was too heavy in light of Edward’s obvious disappointment.
She wanted to assure him this was the right thing to do. It was a matter of trust, and not only for her to trust the same people Edward himself trusted. It was, perhaps above all, a matter of trust in God. And it might be the best way for Edward to rediscover the trust he once had too.
“You realize, Jan, if a press is found here, it’s a death sentence for Isa?”
“Edward . . .”
Isa’s protest was overrun by Jan. “You see how secure this room is.”
“Is it? With a German Major upstairs?” Now Edward turned to Isa. “Is it soundproof? Even if it is, what about the odor of a gas-run press? or the scent of ink? or the supplies we’ll have to traipse in and out of here?”
Rosalie stood at Edward’s back. “You’ve said over and over that all we need is a press of our own. Now you have it and won’t take it. I don’t understand.”
He gave her only his profile. “How would we even get a press down here? Even in pieces, the casting would weigh hundreds of pounds. What do we do, just carry it in and expect no one to notice? And where do you suppose we can get such a press anyway? They’re not exactly an item the Germans allow to be traded these days.”
“I know of one,” Rosalie said. “De Salle’s. He refused to print any more issues, but he hinted he would sell the press. He hardly uses it anyway with the Germans constantly raiding his shop.”
Edward looked as though he would stalk from the room, but he took only two steps away before turning back to Isa. “Think this through. If a printer is caught producing something illegal in his shop, he can at least say he did it for the money, that it was simply another job to him. But if the Germans find a press where one ought not be, a press whose type is cast and whose blocks represent none other than the newspaper they most want to destroy, they’ll know they have the heart of the organization. There would be no defense, none whatsoever. And that would mean the firing squad to anyone responsible for it. This is your house, Isa. That would mean you.”
She couldn’t let her gaze waver, even if the surety behind his words cracked her resolve. What if it did mean her life, after all? Others had been caught. She might want to think of the Germans as bumbling when it came to detective work, but of course they weren’t. Even in recent days, rumors had gone around of more arrests. What if she were found out? Was this press worth it? Or was it just “a scrap of paper,” like the treaty the Germans had broken between their country and Belgium?
No. And that was where the Germans were bumbling. They thought that words could be meaningless, that they had the power to decide which were important.
“I know what it means, Edward. And it’s worth it to me.”
Edward stepped back, looked once more at the room, at Isa, at the others. “Very well.”
He went to the door, holding on to the edge and waving them all out. “We cannot stay to discuss the details here. It’s close to midday, and the Major may leave his room soon if he hasn’t already. You’ll have to go upstairs to check before the rest of us go out the back.”
She nodded, then went up the stairs, all the while her heart spinning in her breast.
She’d won.
And Edward couldn’t call her a child anymore, not after she’d made a decision of this importance.
18
Take heart, beloved Belgians. Though the firepower to the south and the west constantly reminds us of those laying down their lives, it is a fight for right, for justice, for freedom. One we will surely not lose.
La Libre Belgique
* * *
Isa closed her eyes, allowing every thought, every emotion, every memory of the past or concern for the future to dissolve into notes floating up to heaven. Her mind sang the words of the Lord’s Prayer in silent accompaniment to the music emerging from the flute at her fingertips. “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done . . .”
Between the words of her prayer, Edward’s warnings replayed in her mind—and those from Genny, too. How dangerous it would be to house a press in one’s own cellar, how the Germans wouldn’t make allowances for her age or sex, how she would be as liable to stand before a firing squad as any other person found with such damning evidence beneath their roof.
If found, she’d argued that morning against all of Genny’s pleas. She trusted the room’s secrecy. Moreover, she trusted God.
How easily she’d claimed her faith. But was it faith that made her so sure this was the right decision? Or was housing the press merely the means by which to gain Edward’s attention and trust, to work with him shoulder to shoulder, united against a common enemy? to have him see her as a peer rather than a child? Because, truly, she wanted all of that every bit as much as she wanted to be part of that paper. A noble paper, a worthy tool against German oppressi
on. Worthy of . . . one’s life.
She played a lilting melody despite the growing weight in the pit of her stomach.
Thy will be done, Lord, in my life. But was it His will? How could she know? The words echoed from her soul even as the notes from her flute eventually faded—until a voice nearby broke that line to heaven.
“That was excellently played.”
Isa opened her eyes. She’d forgotten even Genny was there and hadn’t noticed the Major join them at the parlor’s threshold.
“Thank you.” Curt words, accompanied immediately by a stab to her conscience. Scarcely a new breath taken between prayer and sin. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. . . .
“I heard you playing and came down to hear better. I hope I’m not intruding?”
Genny stood, offering him her chair. “Of course not. Please, sit.”
But Isa began to dismantle the instrument.
“Finished already? I came too late, then.”
From behind the Major, Genny shook her head, something near a scowl on her brow.
Must she entertain a German soldier? “I can play another.”
“Might I make a suggestion?”
Isa waited, still unable to spare him a glance.
“I heard you play ‘O Day of Rest and Gladness’ not so very long ago. I wonder if you might play that again?”
She played and the words of the hymn filled her mind in a silent serenade to the Lord, taking her away from the Major’s presence, away from Brussels, away from Belgium and all its mighty troubles. Away, especially, from the fear that had begun to take shape inside. Instead she stood at the threshold of heaven, lost in the gift of music. If she was to trust God at all, especially now, she needed never to forget what prayer could do.
“Thank you,” the Major whispered, and Isa looked at him at last. She did not smile, but neither could she look away—until he smiled and she thought she should offer a polite one in response. Instead she took apart her flute.