by Maureen Lang
Jan nodded and Edward left him. For a little while they traveled the same street in the same direction. At the ring road, Edward turned to the right, sparing a quick glance behind him. Jan had fallen behind, no doubt still feeling the weight of the books. He would have to switch methods or at least get rid of some of the legitimate books he carried.
The attention of a sentry who focused on Jan caught Edward’s eye. He stopped to watch, making himself an unexpected impediment in the stream of increased foot traffic. Another man bumped into him.
“Passen Sie auf!”
A German civilian, so Edward only bowed a silent pardon.
But the contact loosened the harness beneath Edward’s coat, and he knew he would have to right it quickly or risk leaving a trail of illegal newsprint in his wake. His nearest destination, a news shop, was nearly three blocks away. So he slipped inside the first café he passed, knowing all he needed was a place to stop and open the top of his coat, slipping one hand inside as if reaching for a wallet.
He ordered coffee he didn’t want and did just that.
Barely five minutes later he returned outside and glanced back in the direction he’d last seen Jan. There Edward froze. A commotion had erupted, Belgian Polizei blowing their whistles—crowd control being their most trusted duty—and a swarm of German sentries buzzing beneath a swirl of paper blowing on a breeze.
Just beyond the edge of the crowd were the remnants of a crate and a pile of books trampled beneath German boots.
Edward hastened in the other direction.
* * *
Isa locked the flat behind her, having completed her second run between home and this depot. Satisfaction was almost heady these days, with another issue complete. Working with Edward undoubtedly had something to do with the euphoria, but so did the importance of the job itself.
God had surely blessed her.
“Isa!”
She saw Edward at the base of the stairs and would have met him halfway but he was nearly at the top before she’d so much as turned his direction.
“What is it?”
“It’s Jan. He was arrested.” He looked around, behind her, above. “Come with me. Leave the key under the mat.”
She did as he asked, following him out to the street. “I went to Rosalie’s, and she’s going to wait until tomorrow to come here for the pickup. She’ll keep an eye on it between now and then. See? She’s in that café near the window, where she can watch.”
Isa looked in the direction he’d gazed, but not for long. He pulled her along faster than he’d ever allowed them to walk before.
“You have nothing on you right now, correct?” he asked as they walked.
“No. The last of the papers are upstairs, waiting for Rosalie and the others.”
“Fine. I don’t want you to go home directly. I won’t return there for a few days. It’s best if we wait and see, even if it means finding another printer for the next issue.”
Isa wanted to feel his caution, because he was so clearly concerned, but didn’t. “I know you want to be careful, Edward, and I’m sorry Jan’s been arrested, but he would never give us away. What can we do for him?”
“Get another issue out to prove they haven’t stopped us, that he’s just a courier and not worth serious punishment. But not on the press in your cellar. We won’t be using that again until we’re sure the Germans can’t trace anything back to you. I intend to see Father Clemenceau after I take you to a safe place.”
The safe place turned out to be another abandoned flat, registered to yet another fictitious name. Edward did little more than open the door and tell her to stay put until he came for her; then he fled.
Being alone allowed the fears Edward left with her to ferment. The flat was barely furnished, with a table and one chair. It was just one of many homes left empty since the Germans had crossed the border over two years ago.
She was tempted to go to the window, to roll up the blind and let the sun spill into the room. But she knew she couldn’t. All she could do was wait. And pray.
* * *
For the second time since Jan’s arrest that morning, Edward arrived at Isa’s home. The first time had been to take his mother to the home of Father Clemenceau’s niece, someone without connection to either Isa or Edward himself. But by midafternoon Father Clemenceau had sent her home, something Edward had protested. The priest had said Edward was being too cautious, but was there such a thing?
Edward never stepped beyond the alcove in the kitchen of Isa’s home. Caution had sent him to the back door, and now he was glad. Clara said Pierrette Guillamay had arrived over an hour ago and waited for Isa in the parlor with his mother.
He shook his head when Clara asked him if he would join them.
If their connection to Jan had been known, an arrest would have been immediate. But so far, nothing had changed. Rosalie seemed unaffected, too, and even the flat seemed safe. He’d taken the remaining illicit copies to the couriers himself, so now even if the flat were to come under suspicion, nothing would be found.
Which wasn’t true of Isa’s secret room in the cellar. If it were found, they might not discover any copies of La Libre Belgique, but there would certainly be enough other incriminating evidence, starting with the press itself. Block type of the paper’s heading, a block of artwork mimicking a failed German zeppelin attack, a ream of paper awaiting the next issue. Illegal, each and every item.
So much for taking extra precautions. He’d come to ask his mother to join Isa in hiding. Now not only couldn’t she go, but Isa would have to return.
* * *
“You should come home with me if you’re so worried about us,” Isa snapped as they walked away from the flat she’d been imprisoned in all day. She was tired, but more than that she was hungry. He’d left her in that barren flat the entire day, worry her only companion. “Meet Pierrette for yourself.”
“It’s best to give everything a few days more, and that would include not letting your friend know of any connection to me or to any priest.”
Edward stopped at the end of the street. She would have continued on, knowing he would stay behind, but he caught her wrist.
“I’m sorry, Isa.” He stroked her hand with his thumb. “For this whole, awful day.”
His considerate tone brought the first light moment since that morning. “You’re only being careful. I know that.”
“But you’re hungry and cross and it’s my fault. It’s only that I want you safe. You know that, don’t you?”
She would have leaned into him, forced an embrace the way she’d always done her whole life around him, but knew she couldn’t. Not out here in the late afternoon sun, and he in priestly vestments.
So she nodded and squeezed his hand before letting him go. Already her frustration was dissipating.
But not her hunger.
Isa made her way inside her home, seeing Pierrette with Genny on the two Queen Anne chairs, a teapot between them with only water in the cups. Genny welcomed Isa with the shortest glance, but even that was enough to reveal an extra shadow of worry in her eyes.
“Oh, Isa!” Pierrette sprang to her feet. “I hoped you would be home soon, and here you are. Where have you been all day?”
Isa received Pierrette’s embrace even as she planned as vague an answer as ever to Pierrette’s inquiry. “I’m glad to be back, actually. My friend was especially lonely today and bade me stay too long, only she hadn’t much to offer. And I see we’re out of tea, too.”
Pierrette scurried back to her chair, where she’d left a little purse. “I have something to share. Look! It’s a tin of meat. One of the soldiers gave three of them to my dear Jean-Luc, and he said to make sure to bring one here today. Isn’t that sweet?”
Abandoning any disappointment over having to entertain Pierrette despite her lingering suspicions, Isa received the can and led the way to the kitchen. Since Clara was not to be found and Isa hadn’t paid attention on the rare occasion they’d had canned food
to know how one accessed the inside, she let Genny do it for her. Isa retrieved three plates, hoping there was enough to leave some for Edward, Clara, and Henri but knowing such a hope was futile. Oh, to have a bottomless supply, one she could send over to Jonah as well . . .
Between the meat and a small slice of tasteless dark bread, Isa chased away the worst of her hunger. Finishing with a long drink of water gave her a false sense of satisfaction, at least for a time.
Pierrette chatted on as always, even refused to take any of the meat. Yet when she asked for the second time where Isa had spent the day, Isa’s misgivings resurfaced.
“I was with the wife of an old friend of my mother’s,” she said, thinking it best not to give a name, even a false one.
“It’s only that you said this friend hadn’t much to offer, and I wondered if there might be something we could do for her? Pool our food tickets? Perhaps Jean-Luc can get more tins. To help, yes?”
“That’s very kind of you,” Genny said, exchanging a glance with Isa.
“I’m surprised she hasn’t enough if she lives around here,” Pierrette continued. “Usually Upper Town finds a way to more food. Is she from around here, then?”
“No—not really very close at all.”
“But you said she was a friend of your mother’s?”
Isa nodded, wishing she were a better liar. “Yes, but through the diplomatic corps.”
“Tell us about how Jean-Luc received the tins, Pierrette,” Genny said. “Has he found a German with a heart for us, then?”
“Yes, oh yes, he made a friend in a guard from when he was in their custody. They are not all so bad, you know. But most of the Germans are terrible. Most would be only so happy to give you the peel, should they have a banana. Ah! How I hate them.”
As Pierrette bubbled on, Isa glanced gratefully at Genny, glad to have had her help in diverting the conversation from Isa’s supposed circle of friends. These days, that only extended as far as those within the circle of La Libre Belgique, and Isa sensed they both knew Pierrette couldn’t be trusted with that.
By the time Isa and Genny walked Pierrette to the door, the frustrations of Isa’s day had begun to subside. She stood arm in arm with Genny and waved at Pierrette from the threshold.
“What a day,” Genny said.
“It’s all over now. Tomorrow we can do as we please.”
32
Immanuel Kant once said that war makes more bad people than it takes away. German Field Marshal Moltke has been quoted to say that war develops the noblest virtues of man. Certainly both cannot be right.
Germany has been forced to adopt Moltke’s “truth” so that their young, sacrificed on the altar of war, may be said to have died in glory for the Fatherland.
La Libre Belgique
* * *
Isa awakened to pounding feet on the floor below. The sound echoed from the front to the back of the house. The parlor . . . the kitchen . . . the pantry . . . the cellar . . .
The cellar.
Clara burst in at Isa’s bedroom door, clutching the collar of her nightdress to her throat. “Mademoiselle, they broke the door! Glass is shattered everywhere!”
Isa sat up. Clara’s words, the sounds—a nightmare. Surely only that? A reenactment of the day she had been arrested, but not real, not anything that could harm her. Not really.
If they had broken the door, Isa would have heard them.
But that stomping—that was real. Too real to call a dream.
She pushed away covers that suddenly seemed heavy and all too warm. Other than that heat, she felt nothing, knowing if she faced a single emotion she would cave in to them all.
“Soldiers?” How calm was that word. She slipped out of her nightgown, thrust a dress over her head, and put on her shoes. She’d learned her lesson the last time.
Genny was already in the hall, still in her nightclothes. Her face ashen, eyes wide.
“Get dressed, Genny.”
Isa went down the stairs. Her heart rate matched the beat of . . . something she could not place. Not boots on the floor or stairs anymore. It was the sound of something else, and it rattled the walls. The floor beneath her feet shook the nearer she came to the kitchen.
There, at the pantry door, was a German Feldwebel, spiked helmet atop his head, fully armed. So large and menacing she saw nothing but him.
Isa swallowed and pressed her shaking hands against her arms. “Is there some reason for all of this, sir?”
He said nothing, just turned his back and faced the door at the top of the cellar stairs.
She didn’t have to see the cluster of soldiers in her cellar to know they were there. Isa’s suspended heart plummeted. They’d been given away. She was flushed with more heat, primed for a quick sprint—a chance to escape, if she could slip out the back door. But through the window she saw guards posted in the yard. No doubt they came as a matching set, one for the front as well. Was the entire German Imperial Army on her father’s property?
The pounding in the cellar demanded the pounding in her head and heart to match. She would be arrested, but what of Edward? and Genny? Even Clara and Henri were at risk simply by living under this same roof.
What had she done?
Footsteps ascended the stairs. They were not the frantic kind as if propelled by a discovery—they were too slow for that. Isa listened as they spoke in German.
“Nothing, sir.”
“Nein! Do not tell me that, du Esel!”
She heard more footsteps, this time going down. She ventured a few steps closer, almost entering the pantry but daring no farther.
“Look, sir,” she heard from below, “there are nothing but brick walls on all sides. The wine racks hide only solid walls.”
“We’ll see about that,” the Feldwebel said, and then Isa heard more banging, hard and fierce, from one side, then another. Each strike shot hope and terror into her.
Low voices soon replaced the battering. She would have to step closer to hear better, but she couldn’t gather the courage to move. Instead, she stepped back into the kitchen and waited for the soldiers to reappear. But even as she did, she offered up a prayer of thanksgiving for the silence. Silence, no celebration. The secret room was solid. Thank the Lord! Surely they were saved!
The Feldwebel returned to the kitchen, and she saw sweat glisten at his temples. She remained where she was, standing in front of the sink.
“You are Isabelle Lassone?” His voice was near breathless, no doubt from overworking himself with a sledgehammer below.
She nodded.
“You are under arrest.”
Her heart did another somersault. But they’d found nothing!
“You will stay here until another officer comes for you with a cart. There are guards all around; do not attempt anything foolish.”
Then he left.
Isa sat on one of the kitchen chairs, her head so light she thought she might faint. But she was no longer shuddering and took courage from that. She must remain clearheaded. Undoubtedly they would be back, but they would find nothing more. The room had held!
She folded her arms and put her head on the table with a silent plea for guidance. But how could she guess what they knew or why they suspected something in the cellar? They would go away if all they had were suspicions and could not find the room, wouldn’t they? She and Edward could dismantle the press and take it away.
She shivered.
Genny came through the kitchen door, followed closely by Clara.
“What happened?”
Mindful of Clara’s blessed ignorance, Isa chose her words carefully. “They were in the cellar, but they left. They said I’m under arrest, that they would be back for me.”
Genny grabbed her arm and pulled her to the door. “Then you must go before they come back!”
Isa shook her head. “There are guards posted at the front and the back.”
Clara burst into tears. “Oh, mademoiselle! What shall we do?”
Is
a tried to smile. “I think they’re only coming for me, Clara. Please don’t worry.”
“But, mademoiselle, I do not want them to take you back to that awful place.”
Isa couldn’t help but tremble.
Genny stepped to the kitchen window, looking out before turning back to Isa. “If it’s just you they want, perhaps one of us could leave.” She headed for the little alcove by the back door, where her coat hung. “I will go to Edward at the church. He’ll know what to do.”
Isa’s heart raced. Yes, that way they would know if Edward had been implicated too. If Pierrette had betrayed them, she’d never met Edward. Surely that meant something? Nonetheless, it was too early to be out, even for someone not suspected of a crime. “I don’t know,” she called after Genny. “Curfew isn’t lifted yet.”
“I’ll try anyway,” Genny said.
Isa and Clara watched from the kitchen window as Genny opened the back door and stepped outside. The guard stood in her path, rifle poised across his chest. She produced identity papers, but he didn’t accept them. She talked, but if he listened, her words made no impression. In a moment Genny turned around and came back inside.
Isa slumped against the sink. “I’m going downstairs to assess the damage,” she said. She heard Genny and Clara step behind her but couldn’t tell if it was curiosity or fear of being left alone that made them move together as one.
The cellar was in shambles, splintered wood everywhere and chunks of white brick chipped off here and there. Thankfully not even the scent of the ink could be detected through the dust.
Her eye went to the brick-lined door that opened to the secret room. Without the cover of the wine rack she could barely make out the edge of the door. She knew where to look for the small hole through which the lever on the other side was let down, but unless one was looking for such things, the wall appeared as solid as the others. She breathed a bit easier, seeing there was little possibility of the room being at risk.
“Well, at least we’ll have some firewood,” Isa said.
Genny sent her a nod and a faint smile.