Clash by Night (40 page)

“But the invasion is the beginning of the end, you agree,” Brigitte persisted.
 

Laura relented. “I agree,” she said, putting her arm around Brigitte’s shoulders.

“Alain would be so happy,” Brigitte whispered.

“And my husband,” Laura murmured.

“Do you think they know?” Brigitte asked.

“They know,” Laura answered, her eyes filling. “Wherever they are they’re together and they know.”
 

Brigitte hugged her back briefly and left the room, lost in her own thoughts.

Laura looked after her for a moment. Then she wiped her eyes quickly and turned back to the table to clear away the last of the dinner dishes.

* * *

Becker was pacing in his sitting room, smoking a cigarette and watching the clock. Lysette was ten minutes late and on such occasions he always found it difficult to control himself and wait patiently. He knew that sometimes Hesse found it necessary to change routes or delay her arrival in order to insure that she remain unseen, but Becker still found these experiences unsettling. Any threat to her safety drove him wild with anxiety.

He was lighting a second cigarette from the stub of the first one when Hesse rapped on the door. Lysette entered, the light from the hall haloing her hair. Becker put down his cigarette and took her hand, trying to gauge from her expression how much she knew.
 

It was clear that she knew enough. As the door closed behind Hesse Becker led her to his armchair and sat her in it. He turned to prop one arm against the fireplace mantel casually, watching her face.

“You have heard about the invasion?” he asked calmly.

“Everyone has heard by now,” she replied dully.

“Don’t rely too much on word of mouth,” he said reassuringly. “It’s always exaggerated.”

She was not fooled. She raised her eyes to his and said, “Then tell me what you know.”

“The Allies have landed on the coast of Normandy,” he said.

“Oh? Is that all? How many Allies?”

He was silent.

“Hundreds of thousands, isn’t that right?” she asked.

“We are not sure of the figures.”
 

“And how many guns and trucks and tanks?” she went on. “And how long before all of that gets here?”
 

“It’s impossible to say, Lysette,” he responded.

“But not impossible to say that you will be pulling out soon,” she said. “Isn’t that so, Anton?”

He moved to kneel before her on the floor, to take her hands. She snatched them from his grasp.

“Listen to me,” he began.

“Don’t use that reasonable tone,” she hissed. “You always talk that way when you’re going to tell me something horrible. I hate it.” Then she leaned forward and threw her arms around his neck. “Take me with you when you go,” she begged.

He gently disengaged her arms and held her off to look at her. “Lysette, you know I cannot do that.”

“I have no life without you.”

“You will learn to find a new one. Everyone in your country must do the same.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand. You never have. I don’t
want
to live without you.”

“You say that now, but in time...” he began, stroking her hair, and she struck his hand away.

“Oh, shut up!” she sobbed. “Do you think I don’t know what is happening here? You couch it all in fancy words but the basic truth remains. This same scene is being played out all over France right now. You have never loved me. The German officer no longer has need of his French whore so he’s returning to the Fatherland and leaving her behind.”

Becker slapped her so hard that she reeled from the blow, almost tumbling over backward in the chair. He stared at her, horrified, as the skin of her cheek turned white, then red, the imprint of his fingers clearly visible.
 

Becker had never struck a woman in his life, had been taught from childhood that it was the most abject cowardice to do so. Lysette should have known that it was an indication of the strength of his emotions that they could so suddenly overcome such deeply ingrained early training. But as it was the image of her brutalizing husband came back to haunt her. She shrank from Becker, who had never before touched her with anything but love.

He put his head in her lap, defeated, and clutched wordlessly at her skirt. He was such a portrait of complete misery that after a moment she took pity on him and smoothed his hair with her hand.

He looked up, reprieved by her touch.

“My darling, forgive me,” he said brokenly. “I cannot bear to hear you say such things. Please, let’s not hurt each other.”
 

She gazed at him, unable to frame a reply.

“You can’t believe that I think of you as some sort of amusement to be discarded at my convenience,” he said despairingly.

“I spoke hastily,” she whispered, seeing his pain. “I’m sorry.”

He seized her hands and kissed them. “You must stay here when I leave, for your own safety,” he said, holding her palm to his cheek.

“Do you think I care what happens to me if I’m not with you?” she asked him incredulously, drawing back.

“I care,” he said firmly, and rose, walking across the room to stand next to the window, which was open to the warm spring night. “If you stay here you’ll be safe. You’ll be a liberated citizen of an occupied country. The Americans will treat you very well.” He smiled slightly. “They like to think of themselves as benevolent in victory, like the Greeks.”

“And if I say I don’t want to be safe, that I’d rather take my chances with you?”

He whirled to face her. “You don’t know what it would be like,” he said grimly.

“Do you?” she demanded.

“I have an idea, from the stories my father told about the last war. I will be a soldier in a defeated army, and not only that, a disgraced one. It won’t be long before the world will know what the Nazis have done and revenge will be taken.”

“On you?” she said. “You were never even a member of the party!”

“Who will know that? They’ll see a German, a German officer. We will be in retreat, surrounded by the advancing Allied army. If I were captured and you were with me...” He spread his hands.

“What do I have to say to make you understand that the risk doesn’t matter to me?” Lysette replied wearily. She got up and stood beside him, putting her hand on his arm.

“I cannot allow you to take it.”

“Oh, stop treating me as if I were a child!” she burst out in frustration. “I’m a grown woman and I can make my own decisions.”

“You can’t make this decision,” he replied flatly. “It is mine and I have made it.”

She turned her back on him and he gripped her shoulders, holding her fast. She struggled for a moment and then relaxed against him as he murmured into her ear, “We have this night, at least. Let’s not waste it quarreling.”
 

Lysette turned into his arms and met his mouth with hers. But he could not know that in her mind the question was far from settled, the outcome still very much in her hands.

* * *

Brigitte opened the back door of the Duclos house to admit Kurt Hesse. He stepped inside and embraced her quickly, saying, “Where is your father?”

“Upstairs. You’re late. I was worried. What happened to you?”

“I had to run an errand for Becker and got delayed. Is Laura here in the house?”

“No. She wont’ be back for a while. Where did you leave the car?”

“Don’t worry. I hid it in the trees. It can’t even be seen from the road.” He put a parcel on the table and unbuttoned his tunic.
 

Brigitte unwrapped the paper and crowed with delight.

“Poppy seed cake! Where did you get it?”

“Left over from the officers’ mess,” he replied. “Enjoy it; that’s the last. The shipment of flour and perishables from Berlin has been cut off.”

“Does that mean you’ll be getting orders to move?” she asked.

“Who knows? It means something is changing, that’s for sure.”

“How long?” she asked, looking away from him. “How long before you go?”

“Becker says a month or two. It depends on how fast the Allies advance.”

“And then you’ll be gone?” she said worriedly. As much as she wanted the Germans to leave she had to remember that Kurt was one of them, and would be going too.

Kurt pulled her into his arms. “It won’t change our plans. I’ve told you that before, Bree. I’ll leave with the army and then come back for you on my own once this is over. Or you’ll come to me. We’ll work it out. Don’t worry about it.”

“But what if it takes a long time?” Brigitte asked in a small voice.

“I don’t care how long it takes. Do you think that would change anything?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered against his shoulder, suddenly afraid. “I don’t know. Thierry left and I never saw him again.” She wrapped her arms around his waist tightly. “I don’t want you to leave.”
 

“What?” Kurt asked, laughing softly. “Is this the Jeanne d’Arc who vowed to work night and day to drive the Huns out of her beloved France? I thought you would be glad to see me go.”

“Don’t tease me,” she murmured, near tears. “I can’t stand the thought of not being able to see you.”

He stepped away from her and looked down into her face. “And to think that you wouldn’t even talk to me when I first came here.”

“You chased me until I did, “she replied tartly.

“You were very snooty,” he said, smiling.

“And you were very...persistent.”

“My most charming quality.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I was taken with you right from the first. You looked awfully cute in that little student’s uniform.”

Brigitte made a face. “That apron made us all look like butchers.”

“You were a very pretty butcher.” He sifted a tendril of her hair through his fingers, then bent to kiss her lightly on the lips. When he straightened to draw back she clung to him, opening her mouth under his and moving against him until he was panting.

“Make love to me,” she whispered. “Make love to me now.”

He opened his eyes to stare at her. When he had pressed her in the past she had always refused.

“I’m not sure what’s going to happen,” she said. “I have you with me now and that’s all I want to know.”

When he hesitated, unprepared, she misinterpreted the pause and said, “Don’t you want to?”

“Oh, Brigitte,” he groaned, crushing her to him with such force that she was almost lifted off her feet. His mouth moved hungrily inside the collar of her blouse and his hands dropped to her hips, molding her lower body to his thighs. She gasped and murmured, “Let’s go upstairs. But I want to check first to make sure Henri is in his room. All right?”

He let her go, and followed to watch, dazed, as she ran lightly through the hall and up the flight of steps to the second floor. His heart was pounding and his palms were damp. She had sprung this on him so suddenly that he had only a short time to be nervous, but it was enough.

He knew Brigitte was a virgin and his own experience could hardly be called vast. Beyond the usual teenage fumbling, he’d only had a couple of nights with village girls back home that left him feeling cheated and unfulfilled. There had to be more to it; he hoped Brigitte would not be disappointed in him.

She crept down the stairs, her finger to her lips, and took his hand. He allowed her to lead him up the narrow flight of worn cedar steps to a dim, low ceilinged hallway at the top. One room led off to the right, and a sort of loft had been divided into several cribs on the left. Brigitte indicated one of these, and pulled open a door to reveal a narrow cell hemmed in by eaves. The single bed was covered by a flowered cotton quilt. There was a desk jammed under the window, with some nursing texts standing upright on it, and a closet created by hanging a curtain across an uneven corner of the attic. Kurt bent to enter the room and then straightened in its center, the only place where he could stand fully upright. Brigitte snapped on a bedside lamp with a frilled shade and then shut the door.

“We have electricity only on this side of the second floor,” she whispered. “Thierry was wiring it when he went into the army and he never finished the job.”
 

“Are you sure we won’t wake your father?” he asked nervously.

“No, he sleeps through almost everything. How loud do you plan to be?” she asked mischievously, smiling at him.
 

Kurt could feel himself turning red. She had somehow gained the advantage and was more relaxed than he despite her inexperience, possibly because she was on home ground.

Brigitte folded back the spread to reveal muslin sheets and then turned to find Kurt watching her uneasily, twisting his cap in his hands.

She took it from him and set it on the night table.

“Are you certain this is what you want, Brigitte?” he asked softly, his pale eyes glinting silver in the feeble light. His hair looked the color and consistency of corn silk.

Brigitte went to him and slipped her arms around his neck.