Simple Faith (39 page)

“But?”

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her with all the pent-up passion that he had suppressed for weeks now. “No
buts
,” he whispered when they were finally forced to take a breath. “When this is all finally over, I want to spend the rest of my life with you and Daniel. I want to live wherever you choose—with your grandparents or in the same place as Lisbeth and Josef. Wherever you say. I want to have children with you—brothers and sisters for Daniel. I want to do wonderful things with you—change the world with you….” The stuff of his dreams came pouring out.

She laid her finger on his lips. “Yes,” she whispered and then kissed him gently.

The car engine backfired in the distance. Peter shifted to his knees so that he could watch it pass. It was covered in mud and dirt and was moving faster than it had been before.

“Are they inside?” Anja asked, her voice tense with worry.

“They are,” Peter reported and started to get up. He was sure that he had seen the silhouettes of three passengers.

She grasped his forearm. “All of them?”

He knew she meant Daniel. “Yes. I think that he was on his knees looking out the rear window—I think he waved.” It was a white lie, but it was important to give her that image.

They were on their feet then, holding hands and running to retrieve their bikes. If all continued to go well for them, in only a few hours they would reach Bilbao and the consulate there. Before this day was over, they would be under the protection of the British government. He would not allow himself to consider what they would do if the consulate refused them entry.

To Anja’s surprise and relief, when she and Peter arrived at the consulate in Bilbao, it appeared that they were expected. As soon as they rode up to the consulate, a woman came out and ushered them inside, indicating to a young man lounging against the building that he should take care of the bicycles.

“We were worried. We thought perhaps something had happened. Come in. Your friends are already upstairs.” She was a thin, nervous woman who spoke in short sentences as she bustled around, herding them inside and up the stairs. “The car to Madrid will be here at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. The trip will take at least four hours. The boy will need to sit on someone’s lap, I’m afraid.” She frowned as if this were a matter of major inconvenience.

“Thank you for your kindness,” Anja said. “We will manage just fine.”

Lisbeth met them at the top of the stairs. “You’re here at last,” she said hugging each of them. “Anja, you are in here with Daniel and me. Peter, you’ll be in with Josef. It seemed best, although our hostess seems to have little concern about our identities. Somehow she seems to have been expecting all of us. She was quite upset that we did not arrive together.”

“Is Daniel asleep?”

Lisbeth smiled. “His head barely hit the pillow before he was out—poor dear thing.” She studied the two of them in the dim light. “Everything is all right, isn’t it? I mean with the two of you?”

“Of course,” Anja said. “Why wouldn’t it be?” She was glad for the shadows because she knew she was blushing. And Peter was no help at all. He just stood there grinning down at her as if they shared some delicious secret.

“Well, I expect you’ll want to say your good nights then,” Lisbeth said as she edged through a partially open door. “Sleep well, Peter.”

“Good night, Lisbeth.”

The door closed with a soft click, and Peter took a step closer to Anja and wrapped his arms around her. “Tomorrow,” he whispered as if the very word were a promise. “Good night, my love,” he murmured as he kissed her forehead. He stepped away then and went into the room across the hall. A single lamp burned until he closed the door, leaving Anja standing in the dimly lit hallway, her heart so filled with hope and sheer joy that she thought she would never be able to sleep.
Tomorrow … and the day after that … and all the days after that …

   CHAPTER 20   

T
heir problems began as soon as the diplomatic car arrived the following morning.

“My orders are for one American airman,” the driver insisted. “I will deliver this man and no one else.” He pointed to Josef whose papers had identified him as Second Lieutenant Peter Trent of the United States Army Air Forces.

“And this woman who is also American,” the woman from the consulate insisted, though clearly she had no authority to do so. “She has been detained—she has even been imprisoned by the Nazis without cause, and she deserves to go as well. As you can see, she is with child and—”

“Very well. The airman and the American woman but not the others.”

Peter glanced at Anja, who was looking at Daniel, her mind obviously racing with thoughts of how she might get the man to take him as well. While the woman and the driver continued to negotiate and argue, Peter caught Anja’s attention and nodded toward the open trunk of the car. Apparently the driver had expected that they would have luggage in need of storing.

Anja bent down and whispered instructions to Daniel, who frowned but then nodded. She walked closer to the open trunk with him, and Peter took his position between her and the driver, blocking the man’s view. “Both of you,” Peter murmured as he passed by Anja. “No argument.”

To his relief, she did not protest or ask questions but helped Daniel into the trunk and then crawled in herself. As if making a point, Peter closed the lid. “We are wasting time,” he said as he opened the back door for Lisbeth. “You need to leave now.”

“And just who are you, sir?”

“He is the American equivalent of the consul-general,” the woman interjected before Peter could come up with a plausible answer. “With apologies, sir,” she continued directing her comment to him, “I will have to send for a second car to take you to Madrid. This man is obviously new and …”

Josef had followed Lisbeth into the backseat, and both were watching the drama on the steps of the consulate play out from open windows.

Peter shrugged.

“I can only imagine what this young man’s superiors will say when he returns without you,” she continued, lowering her voice to add, “They are going to be enormously upset with him.”

“All right. Get in,” the driver said with a jerk of his head toward the front seat. He strode to the driver’s side and opened the door. “If this is a trick,” he mumbled, glaring at the woman.

“And if that is a threat, sir, perhaps it would be best if you report me now to my superiors.”

Peter swallowed a smile. This tiny, gray-haired, bespectacled lady who had seemed so nervous the night before was a warrior standing her ground.

“I would suggest that we get on our way,” Peter said.

They rode with the windows open, enjoying the warm southern breezes and the blooming landscape as the driver sped toward Madrid. Peter heard Josef whispering to Lisbeth and hoped he was reassuring her that indeed they were all on board making the journey. At the same time, he worried about Anja and Daniel. The trunk had been roomy, but they would be confined there for hours yet and through the warmest part of the day.

They had been on the road for at least a couple of hours when Lisbeth tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” she said. “I hate to be a bother, but I need to … that is, when one is pregnant, there is a greater need for …”

The driver’s face went scarlet, and he whipped the car onto a side road and into a grove of trees near a creek. “This is the best I can offer, ma’am.”

“We should probably all take advantage of this stop,” Peter said.

“You cannot leave the car,” the driver told Josef, thinking he was the American airman he had been sent to rescue. “You are in danger, and if there is a patrol, I can’t protect you outside the car.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Josef replied. “I’ll go right here by the car with the door open so if someone comes …”

The driver handed him a clean jar with a cover. “You could use this and stay inside the car,” he argued.

“Please,” Lisbeth pleaded. “I have to go—I think I may be sick.” She bolted from the car, and the driver ran after her.

Leaving it to Lisbeth to deal with the driver, Josef ran to the creek and washed out the jar, then filled it with water. Meanwhile Peter found the release for the trunk and opened it. Anja blinked up at him in the sudden light, but she was smiling. He thought that if he spent the next fifty years with this woman, she would never cease to surprise him.

“Are we there?” Daniel asked.

“Not yet, pal,” Peter told him as Josef returned with the jar of water and offered it to them. “Small sips,” Peter instructed while Josef kept watch for the return of Lisbeth and the driver.

“Mama, I have to use …”

Peter lifted the boy from the trunk and walked around to the side so that they would be screened from the driver if he suddenly showed up. He helped Daniel open his fly so he could urinate onto the dirt road. He had a sudden image of Daniel as his son—of himself as a father.

“All done,” Daniel announced.

Peter helped him readjust his clothing and then lifted him back inside the trunk, where he settled contentedly against Anja’s side as if this were a perfectly normal way to travel.

“They’re coming,” Josef warned.

Peter blew Anja a kiss and gently closed the trunk lid, being careful not to slam it and alert the driver that it had been opened. He glanced up and saw Lisbeth and the driver emerge from the cluster of trees. Lisbeth was leaning heavily on the driver’s arm, but the way she kept casting sidelong glances toward Josef and the trunk, Peter knew that she was just doing what she could to buy them the time they had needed to care for Anja and Daniel.

“We need to get going,” Josef announced. “It’s far too quiet here.”

The driver helped Lisbeth into the backseat and then scowled at Josef and muttered something about Americans giving orders.

They arrived in Madrid on schedule late that afternoon. It was no surprise that once the driver delivered them to the embassy and Peter had surprised the young man by asking him to open the trunk and then helped Anja and Daniel out that all five of them were surrounded by embassy security and ushered inside.

“Wait here,” a man in uniform ordered. No one offered to have them sit in the lavishly furnished reception hall that Peter could see through a partially open door. Instead, they were left standing and still under guard.

After a lengthy delay, the man in uniform reemerged, followed by another man in civilian clothes—suit with vest, pristine white shirt, and a tie. He looked directly at each of them and then down at some papers he was holding. “Well, well, well,” he said. He began handing out the papers—one to each of them except for Daniel.

Peter heard Lisbeth gasp and immediately knew why. He was holding a wanted poster with his picture on it—as were Josef, Lisbeth, and Anja.

The official offered Daniel a handshake. “It would appear, young man, that you are the only innocent in this group. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Vice Consul Formby. I serve at our British consulate in Seville. And you are?”

“Daniel Steinberg. I am from Germany.”

Peter saw Anja flinch. She had worked so hard at training Daniel to say his home was Denmark and to use her family name, not the name of his father.