Escape From Paris (13 page)

If they were looking for the man in front of her, they would be looking for a man alone. She stepped close to him, slipping her arms up around his neck, and buried her face in his neck, her lips next to his ear, “Don't look behind, don't. Two men. Gestapo,” then lifting her face she smiled, saying loudly, “Oh Cherie, how wonderful. You are so marvelous to have found us an apartment. It isn't everyone who has such a wonderful husband.”

The two men, with their cold searching eyes, were even with them now, and she stood on tiptoe to kiss the stranger's cheek, hiding his face from their view. Then the men were past. She chattered on for a moment more, but let her voice fall lower.

“They're gone now,” he said finally.

She closed her eyes and realized she was trembling.

The stranger was trembling, too.

For a moment, they clasped hands, leaned together.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

They both got off at the Louvre station, she to transfer, he after a tense searching look, to hurry up the stairs. She looked after him. “Good luck,” she whispered. Luck to everyone tricking the Germans. Luck to all of us.

She carried the memory of his face for the rest of her journey. A nice face but remarkable only for its look of strain and tension and fear, a not uncommon look in Paris now. She wondered as she came up into the sunshine and turned toward the Cluny Museum whether her own face had that look. Deliberately, she forced a half smile and swung her arms as she walked. Though if she were stopped now, all she had to do was show them her green identity card. She had nothing to fear. Not right now. But she carried fear with her. My God, what a long way for Robert and Michael to ride. How could they possibly make it without attracting some notice? If they were stopped, surely Michael would pretend he didn't know Robert. But Robert was so young. If he saw Michael stopped, questioned, would he protect himself, realizing that his capture wouldn't help Michael? Or would he give himself away trying to help the Englishman?

Linda paced up and down in the apartment, up and down, up and down. When they finally came, noisily, lugging the bicycles up four flights because they would be a sure loss if left on the street, Linda embarrassed Robert with her hard quick thankful hug.

“My gosh, Aunt Linda, it wasn't anything at all. Nobody even looked at us.”

Michael saw clearer than Robert. “Miss . . .”

“Linda.”

“Linda. I've put all of you in danger. Haven't I?” His face had that look, too, now. Haunted and drawn and weary. His face and that of the young man on the Metro. Hurt frightened faces. Other faces moved in her mind. Krause's, the captain's at the Arc de Triomphe, those two hard dangerous faces in the Metro. Anger, touched with fear but stronger than fear, stirred within Linda.

“It doesn't matter.”

Michael pushed his hand through his thin fair hair. “Look, why don't you go, both of you, and don't come back. Stay away from me. I'll rest up then see what I can do.”

Linda smiled. “Don't worry, Michael. We've done all right so far. Haven't we?”

He nodded. “But . . .”

“Trust us a little longer. We don't know what we are going to do with you, but we'll find a way. I know we will. Eleanor's going to Senlis tomorrow. That will probably solve everything.”

His face didn't change. That was what was so damnable. It didn't change at all, looking as bland and self-possessed and unmoved as when she had first begun to talk. He was, in a way, so like Andre, intense dark eyes and angular thoughtful face. His fingers lifted occasionally to touch a smooth silky mustache. But Andre's eyes crackled with humor and care and his mouth was broad with deep laugh lines bracketing the corners, not thin and pursed like Raphael's. Raphael didn't like her. Eleanor thought about it without surprise. She had always sensed it, ever since she had come to France as Andre's wife. She remembered her first meeting with Raphael. He hadn't come to the train station to welcome the bridal couple home. It was late afternoon before he arrived at Andre's apartment. Even now, sixteen years later, she remembered the cool dry impersonal touch of his hand, the slight incline of his head. He had said the appropriate thing, welcoming her as a brother-in-law, but his eyes were cold and aloof. His eyes were cold and aloof now as he gazed at the dusty tapestry on his office wall, not at her.

“Raphael.” Her voice was louder than she had intended.

“I am listening, Eleanor.”

“You haven't answered.”

“I don't know what to say.” He pressed his fingertips together, then turned his hands palms up. “Even for a woman and a foreigner, I find your behavior surprising.”

Eleanor sat very still. A woman and a foreigner. “I am a resident of France. A French wife.”

“Then you should obey the law.”

She stared at him for a long moment, at his narrow intelligent face, immobile now, empty of all expression.

“Oh, Raphael,” she sighed finally.

A tic pulled at the corner of his mouth and a tiny flush of red tinged his cheeks. “The war is over, Eleanor. The Armistice was signed on June 21. France and Germany are no longer at war.”

She said nothing.

He said tartly, “The Germans, of course, have every right to demand that the French people surrender to them all English soldiers. Germany and England are still at war.”

Eleanor nodded. “The English have continued to fight.” She emphasized “English” ever so little.

His fist slammed onto his desk. “The French were betrayed. The English led us into this war, then, once we were committed, they abandoned us.”

“Betrayed? Oh yes, Raphael, the French people were betrayed.” She stood up angrily. “But not by the English. The fat generals betrayed the people and the rich industrialists who didn't want the war to destroy too much property and the corrupt politicians, oh yes, Raphael, the French people were betrayed all right.” She was trembling with anger now. “But let me tell you something, Raphael, this war isn't over. I heard that French general speak on BBC, that young general, De Gaulle, and he and other Frenchmen who escaped to England, they with the English are going to keep on fighting. And I know that Andre,” tears burned in her eyes, “Andre wouldn't give up. I don't know where he is, he may be dead, but if he isn't dead, if the Germans have him in a prison, then every British soldier that makes it out of France is one more to fight the Germans and help free Andre someday.”

She was at the door.

“Eleanor, wait a moment.”

She stood stiffly at the door, her hand on the ornate metal knob.

Raphael came around his desk and reached out to take her arm. “Please, Eleanor, wait a moment. Don't leave looking angry and upset. You mustn't attract attention. Not now. Not after what you've told me. It could be dangerous, Eleanor.”

She managed to speak, though it was hard. “It is good of you to care.”

“You are Andre's wife.” His hand fell away from her arm. “Have you heard nothing about him? I hoped, when you came, I hoped that you knew something of Andre.”

She faced him and recognized the anguish in his eyes. He did love his younger brother. In his own stiff and formal and rigid fashion, he loved Andre, too.

“Nothing,” she said somberly. “Nothing. Last week I spent two days on the Avenue de l'Opera, reading the lists of prisoners. But the names aren't in any kind of order. I didn't find his name.”

“He might be among those who escaped to England.”

“He might.” She didn't think so. He might, but she didn't think Andre would have fled, leaving them behind. She didn't think so. She wished she could believe it, hold to it. But she didn't think so.

“If you do hear . . .”

“I will let you know immediately.”

“I wish you would join me for lunch before you return to Paris.”

She tried to smile.

“Please. The café across from the bank still has some food and I've quite a few stamps saved up. Please, Eleanor. You can tell me what it's like in Paris and how Robert is getting along. It has been such a long time since I've seen Robert.”

They had watery potato soup and black bread without butter and a leek salad and Raphael tried, not so much to explain, as to share his reasoning.

“. . . the Marshal must be given a chance to mold a new France. And, of course, a government cannot survive if its laws are flouted. You see that, Eleanor?”

She nodded. Raphael had spent his adult life practicing law in Senlis, following the rules, accepting his government's dictates. So she nodded.

He even walked to the station to see her off. When the train was pulling in, the wheels rumbling, the black thick dusting of coal smoke sweeping ahead, he caught her once again by the arm. “Eleanor, the chief of police here told me something, I don't know if it is true. But I feel I must warn you.”

The travelers were beginning to surge toward the train, but Raphael held tightly to her arm. “He said that if an English soldier is captured in civilian dress, the Germans shoot him as a spy.”

“Oh, no.” She gasped. “Surely not.”

Passengers squeezed by them, carrying parcels and bags and suitcases tied with twine.

“Anyone who helps an Englishman will go to prison.”

She was moving away from him now, caught up in the crush of travelers. She twisted around.

He looked out of place standing so formally on the dusty littered platform, his suit carefully pressed, his shoes shiny with polish. His mouth, that thin pursed mouth, moved to form the words, “Be careful, Eleanor. Be careful.”

The train was jammed. She stood in the corridor all the way back to Paris, staring sightlessly out the speckled window. The wheels clacked in that unmistakable rhythm of a train. A phrase rang over and over in her mind, “Shoot him as a spy . . . shoot him as a spy . . . shoot him as a spy . . .”

The sun was already hidden behind the tall trees but fiery swaths of orange lighted the high branches though the trunks were hidden in deep shadows. Jonathan held onto the bridge and looked somberly up and down the empty road. The blaze of orange on the horizon was the last brilliant flare of the August sunset. Almost dark now. Another night beginning.

Jonathan rubbed his bristly cheek. Friday night. He had crashed Wednesday. Maurice had slipped beneath the bridge Wednesday night, bringing food and salve and hope. But he had not returned.

Wednesday night. Thursday night. Now it was Friday night. You'd better face up to it, old man. He's not coming back. You're on your own, Jonathan. It's up to you.

The bread and cheese were gone. And the water. He still had a quarter bottle of the apple brandy, but its thick sweetness only made him thirstier. He stood by the bridge as he had that very first morning, holding on, taking all his weight on his good leg.

He couldn't take the bloody bridge with him. Slowly, he let go of the bridge and tried to stand on his right leg. He gasped finally and reached out to catch hold of the uneven wooden edge before he fell. Tears of pain and frustration burned behind his eyes.

He had to walk. He had to walk unless he wanted to rot beneath that bridge, lay there until he was too weak even to crawl.

The shadows of the trees, long and straight as bars, fell across the road now, reached even to the bridge in the center of the clearing. How many minutes of daylight left? Ten minutes. Perhaps fifteen.

Jonathan twisted to look behind him. The dry rocky creek bed curved to the north, then disappeared into the wood. It looked like a fairly wild wood, tangled with undergrowth and thick with broken limbs and fallen branches. If he could find something to fashion into a crutch or cane, maybe then he could manage. He would have to find something. He couldn't walk unaided. And he had to walk.

Darkness came swiftly. Jonathan swung back beneath the bridge. He didn't try to settle into sleep. Not for a long time. He tried to think. He was hungry and a little feverish and very thirsty, but he had to think. First, a crutch. As soon as it was light, he would crawl to the wood, find a broken branch, shape it with his knife.