by Lou Cadle
That’s when she understood she shouldn’t stay in the shop the next few days. If Leonce was made to talk, they would come here. Mierda and damnation. She hoped there was another place for her. She remembered the barn where she had been. It would be safer to go there, would it not? She could slip out just before dawn, leave a message for Claude at the drop, and tell him where she’d be until further notice. He could decide whether or not a new safe house was needed. The message would have to be vague, so that if anyone else saw it, they wouldn’t know a thing.
She knew before she reached the back door that she would wake the old woman now and tell her about a circuit member being captured. She had to be warned.
As she closed the back door to the shop after herself, she felt a cold rush of relief. She’d made it. She had scooted out of the Germans’ grasp just in time. And she still had the radio. It could have been worse. So much worse. She had even sent off the message to London, only missing the very last of the second sending.
But then she thought again of Leonce, in the hands of the enemy. It could also have gone much better.
Not turning on a light, she tucked her radio into the cold oven and made her way up to her attic room and lit the lamp there, turning it down low. She packed her few things, staying in her trousers and jacket, deciding it was better that she be able to run if necessary than to look like the secretary her documents said she was. The blanket and sheet she had been given she folded and tucked into the trunk for now, along with the pitcher and vase du nuit. If Madame Charlevoix wanted to launder them, she’d bring them down to her hostess before she left.
Carrying the dimmed lamp around the room, she checked to make sure she had left no signs of herself here. Not a scrap of half-burned silk. Not a practice message. Just the romantic novel and the Bible, which she temporarily stowed in the trunk as well. Now, should the Germans come up here, they’d see nothing that would say there had been someone living here. Anyone might have a blanket and a few books in an old trunk.
She carried down her valise and left it by the back door. Then she made her way up the stairs one last time and knocked on Madame’s chamber door.
“What?” the old voice said sleepily.
Hearing it made Antonia feel a stab of regret. She’d miss the woman. If life were fair, Madame would not suffer for what happened tonight, but Antonia had given up long ago on the notion of life being fair. “It is Beatriz. I need to leave. Can we speak?”
“Leave? For good, you mean?”
“I fear so.”
“One moment,” the voice came, stronger now, alert. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
Antonia went down the stairs. She stopped in the back room, the one between the sales shop and the kitchen, and rooted around for a bit of paper and a pencil. While she waited for Madame in the kitchen, she composed her false lovers’ message to Claude.
“I must have missed you, my darling. Our friend L went off with some other friends, alas. But you can find me tonight where we spent our first night together. Until I see you again, - B.”
The message was clear enough for Claude, and it would not be seen as the work of the Résistance should it fall into other hands. Claude might not get it until the morning after tomorrow, which was when he said he’d be back to hear the return message from England. There might be suspicions before that, when Leonce did not show up to wherever he was expected. He might send Genevieve to the boulangerie to see if she was there. But to be certain, she would leave the message at the drop. That way, she would not have to tell Madame where she was.
When Madame Charlevoix appeared, dressed in an older dress and shawl, Antonia said that first. “If someone comes for me tomorrow, and you are awake, tell them to tell Claude I have left a message for him in the place he showed me.”
Instead of responding, the old woman went to her flour bin and scooped up a large pile of flour. “I usually weigh this, but a guess will have to serve.”
“Did you hear me? I’m leaving.”
“I heard you. Sit down. I’m making you some bread to take. It will have to be a quick bread, of course, and I don’t have much bicarbonate.”
“You needn’t trouble yourself.” Antonia wanted to arrive at the barn well before dawn.
“You will need food,” she said, tossing a stern glance at Antonia. “Sit. It will be ready in less than half an hour.”
Antonia did not argue. There was time. And it might be better to let the search for the radio signal die down for another hour. “I can talk with you one last time then. I will miss our talks. And you, very much.”
“At least you are leaving on your feet and not the way the last girl did.”
“She didn’t betray you.” Antonia hoped were she caught she could manage not to.
“You won’t either,” she said, as she threw a handful of salt over the flour, mixing it with her other hand.
“Someone else might. I hope not, but the Germans have someone in our group to ask questions of now.”
“Say no more. I understand.”
“I cleaned the attic. The sheet and blanket are folded in the trunk. If the place is searched today, there should be no sign of me. Do you want me to get the lamp from there as well and bring it down?”
“No need.”
“I will worry about you.”
“Worry about keeping yourself safe,” she said, and she pulled down a druggist’s packet and upended it over the flour. “Bicarbonate,” she said. “Easier to get at the druggist than the market.” She sounded calm, as if it were a pleasant afternoon before the war had come here. “I wish I had fermented milk. But all I have is a bit of powdered.”
“Anything will be kind of you to share.”
“I will leave a window unlocked for you, That one,” she said, pointing. “If you ever need to come back here, even if I am not at home, use it.”
“That’s very generous,” Antonia said.
“Have you ever thought how politics comes to the personal, in the end? If you know me, you cannot hate me. Cannot use me, or jail me, or kill me, not without it hurting yourself as well.” She turned and met Antonia’s eyes, putting her hand over her heart. “I am with you.”
The simple words closed Antonia’s throat with emotion. When she could speak again, she said, “And I am with you.”
Chapter 13
The streets were not yet alive with people. The moon had set now, but there was a strange glow to the scene. A fleeting urge to paint the scene struck her, followed by a painful stab when she realized she’d likely never paint or draw again. The map sketch she’d destroyed might well be her last attempt at art.
The bread in the shop bag smelled heavenly, but she needed to ration the rolls. At Madame Cherlevoix’s insistence, she had eaten one before she took her leave of the old lady. She might not see her again either.
Loss after loss. Leading up to the ultimate loss of them all.
But the final loss would not come to Antonia today. Today she’d live, and she’d listen for England’s signal tonight, and she would tell Claude whatever she needed to tell him. The message drop by the cathedral was just ahead. Glancing all around herself, she made certain no one was in sight. She took the grate Claude had indicated, twisted it and pulled, and it popped out. She tucked the folded paper inside and replaced the grate. The gritty dust she wiped on her trousers.
Then she reversed directions and headed to the road that led from town.
The sky grew gray with light. She shouldn’t have indulged herself in a long goodbye to Madame Charlevoix. Antonia was well out of town now, over halfway to her destination, but one car and two bicycles had already passed her, driving through the dark into town. Neither bicyclist wore a German uniform, but she tensed as they passed her. The car, she had been able to avoid, but the bicyclists had come up on her too quietly.
What was a woman doing, dressed in a mannish jacket, carrying two suitcases down the road? Surely the question had come into their minds. She could only hope neit
her was a collaborator. Though even a person without politics might gossip. The thought made her move to the side of the road, ready to jump behind bushes or trees the next time anyone approached.
Another car engine, from ahead. There wasn’t anything to hide behind on this side, but there were some birches on the other side of the road, better than nothing. She ran to them.
The ground was boggy. So be it. She skirted the trees, squelching through mud, until she was behind a stand of them. She froze. The car was approaching.
Through the trees, she caught a glimpse of a German staff car, the Nazi flag fluttering as it sped along. She couldn’t make out the faces of the occupants, but there seemed to be only one figure in back. And the driver. Neither looked her way and soon the car was out of sight.
Antonia waited until she could hear it no more, and then crept back to the road. Her shoes were a muddy mess. She tilted her foot this way and that, scraping her shoes in the grass to wipe off the worst of it, and then she marched on.
One more bicycle came upon her, ridden by an old man headed to town, a big fellow, sitting up straight. He was dressed in a suit and called out a greeting to her. She nodded and echoed his words. She thought she was safe, but then she heard him stop. Not daring to look back, she continued her walk.
Then the sound of his tires approached again. “Madame,” he said. “Excuse me, but do you need any help?”
“No, thank you,” she said.
“You look lost.”
“No. I am on my way to my cousin’s. I know where it is.”
“Oh, I see. A visit?”
“My husband beat me,” she said, though that had certainly never been true in her real life, and she had no idea where the words had come from. “I’m leaving the bastard for good.” She saw him flinch at the bad word and added to it, “He can rot in hell, in fact.”
“Oh, well, then,” he said, stammering. “Good day.”
She didn’t answer that one and he pedaled off. The sound of his wheels on the road faded until he was gone. But she sped up a bit more to get off this road before he might think to come back. Or to send the gendarme to find her if he suspected her of anything other than being an angry woman who did not understand the rules of ladylike language.
She rather liked that persona she’d invented. It suited her better than the meek secretary she had assumed her cover identity to be.
There were no more encounters before she came to the farm, but the sun was rising, the sky streaked with pink and orange. She was happy to skirt around the barn and remove herself from the sight of anyone on the road.
But then she heard a voice from inside the barn. An old woman, talking in a high, happy voice. “Cocotte, Nana, where are your eggs?”
Antonia stayed around the corner of the barn from the door. Claude’s relative, of course. At least once the woman was done with the eggs, Antonia would likely have the barn to herself. Still, she should plan to hide herself the best she could in the farthest place from the door, like a dark corner where the old woman wouldn’t glimpse her if she were to return.
The woman continued talking to her hens. It was sweet, really, how she spoke to them, as if they were naughty but beloved children.
How nice to hear something sweet in this world. Sometimes it seemed that everything good had been leeched from it. But then, something like this would happen, something simple and pure, and it stirred hope in her. Not hope for herself, for she didn’t dare hope for much, but hope for the world, that it would heal and return to normal. A place where there were no fascists, no Nazis, where average people could tend their hens and kiss their husbands goodbye without it being for the last time, where children didn’t know what an air-raid siren meant, where men with guns weren’t on every corner making peaceful and decent people flinch away.
“You would make a perfect queen, my sweet,” said the old woman. “You are haughty enough to be one!” She snorted her amusement and then the barn door opened. Antonia kept herself hidden. The woman was humming as she walked back to the house.
Antonia waited a moment, but when no other sound broke the morning quiet, she slipped around the corner again and through the barn door, opening it just enough to scoot inside.
Her eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light. The boards of the barn were weathered, shrinking away from one another, or whatever had caulked them had fallen out. Neglect was part of war. When outright destruction—bombs and bullets—did not make buildings fall down, the young men who might help the old woman keep up the farm were conscripted, or dead, and not around to fill the chinks in a barn wall. The old women were left alone and the young women lonely and bereft, with no sex and no romance. Why were there wars at all? Who did they benefit?
Well. She couldn’t solve the problems of the world this morning. She could find a place to hide herself to keep both her and the old woman safe.
There were the two stalls she had noted before, and a corner for the hens, with a rickety structure for them. Antonia peered inside. It wasn’t big enough for her to hide in, certainly, not even if the hens would allow it. There were two perches and straw and droppings on the floor. Two nesting boxes were attached to the wall, for the hens to lay in. One hen sat on top of hers, feathers puffed up for warmth.
Antonia hadn’t really noticed the cold, but it was cold in here. Colder now that she wasn’t walking.
She glanced around. There was also a loft, a hay loft along one wall. That would be the place to hide, right at the back of it. Putting her bags down, she started the hunt for the ladder that must be there somewhere. But it wasn’t there. It must have been moved or had fallen apart.
A bale of straw sat in a corner of the barn and, without large animals, the loft wouldn’t be needed to store more, certainly not in the next day or two. In a pinch, she could broadcast from up there too, but Claude had said not to, and she wouldn’t disobey unless she must. If Claude didn’t come today, at dusk she would go looking for the ideal place to listen for her signals, at least two miles from here, across fields if possible, so that trucks on the road wouldn’t be able to triangulate her position as easily.
But for now, how to get up to the loft and out of sight? Hunting in one of the stalls, she found a rope. Playing out the length, she saw it was long enough. It was old but well-made. A bit over the height of the loft floor, which was all she needed.
It took her three tries this time to get it to land right, but finally, it went as she had planned: she got the far end to slither around the support of the hayloft, and she soon had both ends of the rope in hand. She wrapped them around herself, taking up the slack, and leaned back, more and more, making sure the support and rope were not rotten. Yes, it would hold her.
They’d taught her two ways to climb a rope, and she was only halfway competent at one. She tied a series of knots, the first a kind of slip knot to secure the rope against that support up there. And then a number more, which would serve as steps or as places to grip overhead as she struggled up the rope. It wouldn’t be pretty, but she didn’t have an audience this time. Finally, she tied her cases to the very end of the rope so that once she was up, she could haul them up after herself.
It took her a number of minutes to scale her rope, but she did it without falling, and then she was able to haul up her cases.
There. She felt a moment of accomplishment and relief. And then the worry for Leonce returned. She’d been pushing it from her mind while she found safety, but now here it was again. Where was he and what were they doing to him? Was he giving up what he knew about the circuit? And if he talked, was Madame Charlevoix named? She’d hate herself if the woman were harmed. If Leonce talked, the whole circuit would be compromised, as Monk circuit had been. As the morning wore on, that thought stuck with her and grew. She imagined Claude not coming at all. It was far too easy to picture the Gestapo arriving and finding her last of all and because someone had, under torture, revealed the location of the barn.
When she found herself clenching he
r locket with the L-pill, she managed to break her circle of horrible thoughts. Don’t be melodramatic. She hadn’t killed herself when she’d been orphaned. And she hadn’t killed herself when the telegram arrived about Reg. She hadn’t killed herself when she had worked every possible connection she had to get an audience with the man who told her that while he couldn’t tell her details, it was almost certain her husband was dead. “Now don’t give up hope,” he had said, just after he had in other words told her to give up all hope. She had understood those final words were to make him feel better, not her.
No, she would not kill herself here, out of fear of what might come. Not until the very end, when there was no place left to run or climb or dive to, when there were Gestapo on every side of her and one last moment in which to choose. Only then would she reach for the locket in earnest, and only because she was afraid she would betray her comrades or Madame Charlevoix if she didn’t swallow the pill.
Until that moment, she would cling to life, for every hour of her life might mean something now. A chance to sabotage. A chance to warn a fellow circuit member. A chance to send to England the sad news of an agent’s capture so that the families would know one day. A chance to receive from England some bit of intelligence that would allow her circuit to strike at a crucial target. All of that was worth living for.
Fretting about what she couldn’t change was doing her no good.
She closed her eyes and tried to think of something pleasant. Her mind drifted back to a weekend at the coast. Before their betrothal, Reg had invited her to a friend’s soiree, and she had been given the guest room in a lovely cottage. The two of them had strolled on a windy Saturday morning in the spray from the ocean, and when they had walked off the busier beach and into a less populated stretch, he had reached for her hand. The memory made her ache with grief. For Reg, for a simpler time before the war, when she had been able to forget the fascism sweeping Europe for a brief time and attend to nothing more than learning the ways of a new country and falling in love.