Whisper on the Wind

by Maureen Lang

  She stood, the pace of her heartbeat multiplying. “I’m all grown up now, Edward.”

  She thought his gaze slipped—or wanted to, for the slightest moment. His smile dimmed. “I can see that.”

  “Can you? And yet you’ve done nothing but treat me as a child since I’ve returned.”

  “I wish you still were. Children are less likely to attract trouble from the Germans.”

  “Edward, why did you follow me to the closet earlier? when the Hauptmann tried to kiss me?”

  “Aren’t you glad I did?”

  “Of course! I just want to know why you followed.”

  “Because I saw the Major watching that Hauptmann with what I took to be mistrust, all the while the Hauptmann was watching you.”

  She smiled again. “Because I’m no longer a child?”

  He ran both hands through his hair now and shrugged away from the wall, looking at the press again. “Yes. Well. I should be going; it’s late, and I won’t want to take advantage of using my passes after curfew too often.” He neared the door. “Why don’t you go up first, just to make sure Clara hasn’t returned unexpectedly? I’ll go out if the coast is clear.”

  Isa stared at him a moment, wondering what he would do if she simply kissed him. Would he slap her, the way she’d slapped the Hauptmann? Kissing was certainly a personal thing, and one ought not do that without an invitation. Having just suffered such an assault, she should be the last one to consider doing something like that now.

  And yet she wanted to, if only to forever erase the feel of the Hauptmann’s lips violating hers.

  But she couldn’t. Instead, she passed him and went up the stairs to make sure no one would see him leave.

  * * *

  Edward let out a breath the moment Isa was gone. What was he thinking? He’d very nearly taken her into his arms just now—in an embrace that would in no way resemble any number of hugs they’d shared in the past.

  And what had she been thinking? Reminding him like a little coquette that she was all grown up now? Any idiot could see that. Certainly the Hauptmann had.

  It reminded him of that day the horses in the street had made him throw her to the side; he had reacted in the way any man would, holding someone so lovely. He’d written it off as a by-product of feeling strong and protective of her at a point of danger.

  But now this. It wasn’t as if he liked her. Even if there were no war, he couldn’t possibly entertain the notion of loving Isa. Her family was not to be tolerated, particularly that arrogant older brother of hers. He was no doubt having as much fun as ever, safe and free and far from any hint of war, sacrifice, or danger. Very likely never gave the war a thought.

  And yet the truth was too obvious. Isa wasn’t at all like her brother. She’d returned here because of Edward’s mother. She’d sacrificed her freedom, whatever money she could smuggle in, her old way of life.

  He doused the light, letting himself out of the room when he heard her quiet call from the top of the stairs. Now was most definitely not the time to become involved with anyone. He’d meant it when he said the same to Rosalie.

  He certainly didn’t need the distraction of one Isa Lassone. All grown up.

  22

  It is easy to laugh when one sees a German advocate employing what he calls “diplomatic dexterity.”

  La Libre Belgique

  * * *

  Isa tried to open her eyes, but only one obeyed while the other remained stubbornly stuck. She listened for a moment, thinking she might have imagined the pounding. It was, she could tell from her window, still dark. Who would be calling at this hour? It was far too hard to leave the warmth of her covers just to check on a sound. She rolled over.

  But the sound increased. A shot of energy tingled through her veins, and her heart drummed with the pounding.

  The press!

  Isa threw the covers off and reached for her robe, forgetting her slippers in her haste.

  How could she, even in sleep, forget that in this very house was an illegal press and she was responsible for it?

  She ran from her room and passed the Major’s closed door, hearing an angry grumble from within.

  “What is that racket at this hour?”

  Isa flew down the stairs. There she met Clara, disheveled and appearing every bit as stupefied as Isa felt.

  “Oh, mademoiselle, I am afraid to answer! It is before curfew, and they say only bad news comes to the door before curfew lifts.”

  In the dark, Isa saw nothing on the other side of the glass door. She knew she had only one real option, and that was to open the door before it was broken down.

  “Isa! No!”

  It was too late to heed Genny’s warning from the top of the stairs. Three soldiers loomed before her, guns held at their chests, helmeted and gloved as if for battle.

  “Isabelle Lassone!”

  Neither a greeting nor an inquiry, rather it was a demand.

  “I am Isabelle Lassone.” She’d meant to sound brave but failed.

  “You will come with us.”

  Isa, too stunned to obey, did not move. Her feet felt bolted to the cold tile floor.

  How easily those feet left the floor when the soldiers lifted and propelled her out of her house.

  They let go at the curb, and the cobblestones felt colder than the tile beneath her bare feet, though not for long. They shoved her into the back of a wagon. She wanted to cry out, at least be allowed to get her slippers, but then she saw Genny, held back by the Major. The terror on Genny’s face was a beacon through the fog of Isa’s confusion, igniting the same terror in Isa—for herself.

  * * *

  “What’s wrong with it?” Edward asked. “Is the theology sound?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is the opposing argument unclear?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  Father Clemenceau placed the paper Edward had written on the desk before him and removed the spectacles from the bridge of his nose to analyze Edward. “It’s not the content, Edward. It’s honorable, true to the faith, in every aspect intelligently written. And I believe each word. But no pastor would dare read it from his pulpit.”

  Edward spewed a sigh.

  Father Clemenceau raised a supplicating hand. “Priests have been singled out by this occupying army as it is. Enough of us have been imprisoned for reading Cardinal Mercier’s letters—our own church leader, written to his own flock—because he had the gall, so the Germans say, to encourage his flock to long for justice. But this . . . this is outright thumbing one’s nose at the Germans. It all but calls them heathens!”

  “The ones I know are exactly that.”

  “I don’t doubt some are. But think, Edward. If any of my brethren were to read this from the pulpit, they’d be jailed. And will they take the risk for an anonymous author? I cannot ask them to risk their freedom—what they have left of such a notion—for this. I’m sorry; I cannot do it.”

  Edward shook his head, closing his eyes. He’d stayed up all night writing the piece, knowing the church was his only avenue to expose the current mode of popular German thinking. He couldn’t publish it in La Libre Belgique. His connection to it might be exposed if he expressed the exact philosophy he’d heard at the dinner party.

  He supposed he shouldn’t expect anyone else to take a risk. Even if it was all true, even if it would stir the hearts of believers to know without doubt that the message on the belt buckle worn by every German soldier wasn’t true—God wasn’t with all those who’d issued those buckles. They’d thrown Him out.

  “I will pass this around to some of my fellow priests,” Father Clemenceau said. “It explains much, and perhaps it’ll help us to remember that God will prevail in the end. But of course it’s also true that others on our side have abandoned God. Some of our own neighbors. Each of us handles grief in our own way.”

  Edward stood. He didn’t want to think about that; far less did he want to discuss why some had abandoned God.<
br />
  But he wasn’t sorry he’d written the sermon, even if it would be read only by the close, trusted friends of Father Clemenceau. Edward wasn’t sure why he’d written it, except the words had poured from his pencil and couldn’t be stopped. It wasn’t a reaffirmation of his old faith; rather it was a concise explanation of how some justified what they did. By making man a machine, not a creation.

  Edward left Father Clemenceau’s office, glancing at his wristwatch. Ten thirty in the morning. He would go to Isa’s to finish reassembling the press. The risk was already taken, so they may as well use it to the fullest.

  * * *

  Isa sat on the cot, bare feet beneath her, holding closed the lapels of her robe. When they’d brought her through the prisoners’ entrance to the Town Hall in the heart of the old city, she wasn’t sure which she’d felt more acutely: fear or humiliation. Fear of the unknown; humiliation that she had been taken in her nightclothes and bare feet.

  Thankfully, because of the early hour, there was not the usual long line winding around the Kommandantur and filling the nearby narrow street leading to the Grand Place. Petitioners would show up later to pay fines, request passes to be out after curfew, or acquire permission for travel from one province to another. At least she hadn’t been required to withstand many stares.

  Confined in the lowest level of the fifteenth-century building, Isa felt the tower itself—so huge, so magnificent with its turrets and spires—weigh down upon her.

  She wondered if the sun had yet risen. Surely it must have by now; it felt as though she’d been here hours already as she waited on her cot, eyes closed in a mixture of dread and prayer. She was one of many prisoners held in various cells in this large, dark basement, obviously not originally intended as a prison. Bars had been installed around a series of cots, and each appeared full. She had seen no other women.

  “Vorwärts!”

  Isa opened her eyes to see a guard marching two of her fellow inmates up the improvised corridor to the stairs, which she could barely see from her cell. Just at that moment she saw a familiar figure descending.

  “Guten Morgen,” Hauptmann von Eckhart greeted her.

  Isa did not move from her cot.

  “I see you’ve joined us at the Kommandantur.” He clucked his tongue at her. “You know, all of this could have been avoided had you shown a bit more cordiality last night.”

  She turned her back on him. She cared neither to look at him nor to have him see her dressed as she was.

  He laughed. “No harm intended.” The whispered words might have been an endearment on another’s lips.

  She faced him. “No harm intended? You have me plucked from my bed to be arrested, and there was no harm intended?”

  He laughed again, then offered what she could only call a pout. “You hurt my feelings, Liebchen. How else to show you the depth of my . . . interest?”

  “I do not welcome your interest.”

  “There now, you’ve hurt my feelings yet again.” He placed a hand on the bars that separated them. “I would think a person in your position might show more respect. Come here, mein Herz.”

  She must obey; she had no choice. Isa swallowed her humiliation at having him see her uncovered feet. As she slowly approached him, myriad thoughts crossed her mind. The Bible Isa loved said to bless one’s enemy. Genny said hatred hurt the hater. And yet it grew in Isa anyway, in a new way. Not against an army, an evil, an idea. This hatred was personal.

  “There is a way to end this. Last night you rejected my protection. What do you say now that you obviously have need of it? of me?”

  She raised her gaze to him. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

  She saw a muscle twitch at his jaw before he turned on his heel and left.

  * * *

  Edward took the steps up Isa’s porch two at a time. The bell rang with its familiar stridence, but before the sound faded, his mother stood before him, a look on her face he’d seen before and hoped never to see again.

  Before he could ask, she grabbed his arm and spoke. “It’s Isa! She’s been arrested.”

  All at once every ounce of his blood drained away and his heart deflated for want of fuel.

  “Why? Not . . . ?” Dimly aware of the Major nearing them, Edward closed his mouth.

  “We don’t know. Not yet, at any rate.”

  “What happened?” Edward tried—and succeeded, he thought—to keep his hands and voice like the steady priest his vestments presented him to be.

  “Soldiers came early this morning,” his mother said. If he wasn’t shaking, she certainly was, even as she paced back and forth. “It was before dawn. Pounding, pounding at the door. I was so afraid! It was like that first night, at the beginning of the war, when they came to the hotel. I rushed to the stairs, but I was too late to tell her not to answer.” Tears fell down her cheeks, and she dabbed them with a handkerchief that already looked damp.

  “It would have made no difference, Frau Kirkland,” the Major said. “A closed door would not stop them.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “They—they took her. In her robe! In a wagon.” She gulped a ragged breath, but Edward could tell it did little to calm her. “The Major sent Clara with a note to the Kommandantur, but we could learn nothing. Except . . .”

  “Yes, go on.”

  The Major cleared his throat. “Mademoiselle Lassone’s arrest was arranged by Hauptmann von Eckhart. You witnessed, as did I, a rejection of his advances. Von Eckhart does not take well to rejection. We don’t know what charges he’s made. As far as I know, refusing the attentions of an officer isn’t illegal. Yet.”

  That the Major thought the notion just as ludicrous wasn’t lost on Edward, though he had no time or inclination to absorb what that meant. The Major was in obvious sympathy, and that was enough for the moment.

  “Where was she taken?” Edward asked.

  “The Kommandantur at the Town Hall.”

  Edward paced away. “All right.” He turned to the Major, knowing he must be bold. “If I find the means, can she be freed by bribery?”

  The Major’s light brows gathered skeptically. “In another prison, perhaps. But the Kommandantur . . .” He shook his head. “No, that would mean embarrassment and the harshest punishment for the guards. It’s the heart of our operations here.”

  “Can I get in to see her, at least? As her priest?”

  He looked no more hopeful. “They watch these cases most closely. Only German chaplains or German priests are allowed.”

  “A message, then? Can we get a message to her?”

  Now his brows rose. “Yes, I think I can manage that.”

  “And a dress,” Genny said as she went to a drawer in the table in the parlor. “They took her in her nightclothes!” From the drawer she withdrew a sheet of paper and a pencil and handed it to Edward, then hastened up the stairs.

  Edward barely hesitated as a flood of verses from the Bible came to mind, indelible from years of study and training. On the paper he wrote one he knew she would welcome, especially if it came from him:

  The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

  Signing Father Antoine, Edward folded the paper and handed it to the Major.

  “Blast this war,” the Major said as he turned away. “Not even a telephone to send someone over.”

  But a moment later the same ringer that had brought Edward the last hopeful sound he’d heard now rang again. Genny was just coming back down the stairs, clothing folded over her arm. She hurried to reach the door, and there stood a German sentry.

  “For Major von Bürkel.” He handed her an envelope.

  From behind her the Major spoke. “Just a moment, sentry.” He tucked another note in with Edward’s, sealing it in an envelope. He accepted the clothes Genny held out and folded everything together. “This is to be given to Herr Lutz only. Do you understand?”
r />   “Yes, Major.”

  Genny closed the door, and both she and Edward watched as the Major tore open the envelope the young man had just delivered. He scanned the page. It was full-size, but Edward could see the contents were bleakly short.

  “She has been charged with aiding and abetting an Allied soldier,” he said. “Her trial is set for December.”

  Genny gasped. “Two months!”

  Edward scratched his head, relieved the arrest wasn’t somehow linked to the press but at the same time confused. “Aiding an Allied soldier?”

  “Oh, my!” It was Clara’s voice, and all three turned to her at the same time. She looked stricken, nearly hidden in the shadows of the hallway nearby. “I knew that day would haunt us.”

  Edward approached her. “What day?”

  “Oh . . .”

  She sobbed again, and Edward’s impatience multiplied. “Speak, Clara!”

  She wiped the back of her hand against her nose. “There was a young man here not so long ago. I knew we should not answer the door. I warned her. Oui, oui, I did! I’ve heard of spies, so bold to come right up to the door and pretend to be a soldier looking for a way over the frontier. Surely he was a spy!”

  Genny put an arm around Clara’s shoulders, but she looked closer to joining her tears than able to offer much comfort.

  “What did Fräulein Lassone do for this young man who came to the door?” the Major asked.

  “I do not know! I left the room in search of Henri, to have the man put from the grounds. But I do know she gave him bread. I saw what remained on the table after he was gone.”

  “A misconstrued act of charity,” Genny whispered.

  Edward looked at the Major. “She couldn’t have helped him.”

  “It doesn’t matter. If he was indeed an impostor, feeding him was all von Eckhart needed. The Kommandantur has a file on many houses these days. Especially,” he added softly, “on the house of someone who reappeared as Fräulein Lassone did.”