Tangled Ashes (32 page)

J
OJO SEEMED
to feel threatened by the stark white walls and bustling noises of the small hospital. Becker led the way down the hall, eyeing the number plates next to each door.

“Care to explain why you hopped in the cab with us?” he asked Jade under his breath, conscious of Jojo trailing just a handful of steps behind.

She shrugged. “Mr. Fallon told me about Jojo visiting Thérèse, and . . .” She drew her eyebrows together in thought. “I like them,” she finally said. “I like them both. And if I can help them to—I don’t know—communicate . . . I just want to be here, that’s all.”

Becker paused outside the door marked 244. He turned to Jojo with what he hoped was an encouraging smile. “You ready?”

Becker saw the old man swallow convulsively, then raise his chin in defiance of his own fear. “I’m ready,” Jojo said, his words slow and a little rough around the edges.

Jade knocked softly on the door and pushed it open.

Thérèse was propped up in bed, her body drowned in the folds of a white hospital gown. Her head, wrapped in a bandage, was turned toward the window, and it wasn’t until Jade cleared her throat that she realized she had visitors. Thérèse’s hand immediately went to her hair, patting here and there in an attempt to make herself presentable, but the thin gray tendrils were mostly covered in gauze and bandages. Her eyes darted from Jade to Becker. Then they fell on Jojo and held. He stood near the door to the bedroom as if he were poised for a quick escape.

Becker saw a look of panic pass over Thérèse’s face, quickly followed by a desperate sort of curiosity that trumped her fear.

Jade stepped back to where Jojo stood, stooped and so tense that he appeared brittle. “Come on in, Jojo,” she said, gently guiding him farther into the room. “I hope you don’t mind us coming unannounced, Thérèse,” she said to the woman whose eyes had not left Jojo. “Jojo wanted to see you, and . . . well, Beck and I did too. So here we all are.”

She’d drawn Jojo to the edge of the bed as she spoke. Beck pulled up a chair from the corner by the window, and the old man sat in it without protest. There was a tightness to his jaw that Becker hadn’t seen before, and though he’d watched him single-handedly subdue a frantic stallion, he was fairly sure that Jojo had never been more challenged than at this moment.

“Are you doing okay, Thérèse?” Jade asked, filling the vaguely hostile silence. “The Fallons said you might be going home in a couple of days.”

Thérèse looked at Jade and blinked, the world seeming to come back into focus as she did. “Silly doctors,” she said, her voice raspy. “A woman gets a bit burned and inhales a little smoke, and they strap her to a hospital bed for days.”

Beck smirked. “You’re not exactly strapped down.”

“That’s only because their shrink didn’t get his way. That old owl seems convinced that my adventure in the stables was an attempt to take my own life.” She raised her eyebrows and pinched her lips. “Take my own life? If I were going to do that, I’d find a less unpleasant method than smoke and fire!”

No one quite knew what to say for a few moments. Becker looked away, hoping that someone else would find a lighthearted means of moving the conversation away from Thérèse’s near-death experience, but the silence stretched uninterrupted until Jojo drew himself up in his chair, his back as straight as his scoliosis would allow, and, in a voice laced with courage and relief, said, “My name is Karl-Joseph.”

All eyes converged on him, and Thérèse’s hand fluttered toward her mouth to press a handkerchief to her lips.

Jojo looked directly at the woman lying in the bed, a flush of red in her cheeks, and added, “I . . . believe . . .” He faltered. “I believe I am your father.”

Thérèse remained remarkably calm. Alarmingly so. She shook her head. “How can I believe you? I’ve been looking for you for . . .” Thérèse was engaged in a mighty battle between relief and recrimination, but it looked as if her need for answers was going to win this round. “Where were you?” she begged, eyes wide and disbelieving. “Where were you all these years?”

“Ich war hier,”
Jojo said in tremulous German. “I was here—and I’ve been waiting . . . waiting for Marie to find me.”

Jade sat on the edge of the bed and patted Thérèse’s arm as Beck drew up another chair and sat just a couple feet from her.

Thérèse turned imploring eyes to Jojo. “Please,” she said from behind the handkerchief. “Please—tell me what happened.”

Jojo pinched his lips together for a moment, then let his eyes drift up toward the only window in the room. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “I met your mother on June 16, 1943,” he began, darting a glance at Thérèse, then looking back toward the window. “She was . . .” He paused, his face growing softer with the memories. “She was—captivating.”

Becker wasn’t sure how much of the story Thérèse already knew, but she didn’t interrupt or press Jojo as he recounted his first meeting with the woman in the yellow dress who would irrevocably mark the remainder of his life. It was doubtful that the old man had ever spoken so many words in one sitting, but the pent-up story that had haunted him for nearly sixty years had finally found its audience, and he left nothing out, though he often stumbled and searched for words to describe the events. Thérèse nodded as he spoke, occasionally dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief or gripping Jade’s hand. Her gaze never left the elderly survivor who had spent the better part of his adulthood wandering the castle grounds at night, waiting for this moment—or one like it—to make sense of his life.

Becker sat, fascinated, as Jojo told of the tragic night of Thérèse’s birth and her mother’s death, of the arguments Marie had used to convince him to relinquish the child, and of the day when their plan had been accelerated by the imminent arrival of the Allies in Lamorlaye.

“We’d planned on Friday,” he said, taking a sip from the glass of water Jade had handed to him several minutes into his account. He spoke slowly, deliberately, his accent evident and his French rusty. “Marie knew the farmer who delivered vegetables and eggs. She was to escape with him. But . . . something was happening on Thursday. The Kommandant spent the day speaking with his highest-ranking officers or on the radio. To the Wehrmacht headquarters. In Germany. The order came that evening. ‘Prepare for immediate evacuation.’ We were told to collect anything of value and load it into the trucks. The rest was to be burned. The bonfire behind the castle lasted all night.”

“Where were you headed?” Thérèse asked in a small voice.

“Paris. Our commanders still believed they could defend the city.”

There were so many small details that were beginning to make sense to Becker. He heard it now—the German intonation of Jojo’s speech. The guttural
r
’s and the clipped consonants hadn’t been obvious giveaways before, as Jojo hadn’t ever spoken much. But now that he was speaking steadily, the accent was easily recognizable. There were other clues, too. Evidence that he spoke the truth. His nose had the same regal slant as Thérèse’s, and his cheekbones were high and defined, like hers.

Becker felt himself drawn into the narrative, and he could see that Jade was too. Her hand never ceased its comforting motions, patting Thérèse’s or holding it when Jojo’s story got difficult to hear. Jade listened with rapt attention, her eyes sometimes welling with tears, her gaze often darting to Becker and holding his for a moment before moving back to Jojo.

“What happened?” Thérèse whispered. “On the night I escaped from the castle—what happened?”

Jojo let his eyes drift shut and leaned almost imperceptibly back in his chair. He took a calming breath and said, “Marie was . . . the most courageous person I’ve ever met.”

AUGUST 1944

M
ARIE HAD NO DOUBT
something big was afoot. Though she’d been confined to the nursery for the past three days, mostly because she’d convinced Frau Heinz that she needed her assistance, she couldn’t help but notice the ceaseless activity of the Germans as they packed the castle’s contents into boxes and crates, then loaded them into trucks and onto horse-drawn carts. She found Karl in the carriage house behind the stables, sorting through piles of saddles, bridles, and horseshoes.

“What are you doing here?” Karl hissed.

“What’s happening?” she whispered back. “Why is everyone packing up?”

“I don’t know! I think . . .” He paused, looking out into the late-day sun to make sure no one was within earshot. “I think we’re moving out—tonight. The Kommandant hasn’t given the order yet, but—”

“Tonight?” Marie felt the quickening of her pulse. Panic constricted her chest.

“I think so. What have you heard from the radio?”

“Nothing!” Marie said, throwing up her hands in exasperation. “I don’t ever get into town anymore to ask! With Frau Heinz ordering me around and your baby needing to be fed every couple of hours . . .”

Karl stopped what he was doing and looked at Marie. “Is she all right?”

“She’s fine.”

He nodded and got back to work packing bridles into a wooden crate.

An officer came trotting up to the carriage house, and Marie crouched down and pressed against the wall, only partially shielded by a stack of old tires. “We’re leaving at dawn!” he barked, pointing at the crates that littered the floor. “Get those finished and bring them around to the front of the castle for loading.” He left as briskly as he had arrived.

Marie straightened, a look of horror on her face. “Tomorrow!” she said, incredulous. “Tomorrow? How am I supposed to get the baby out of here before then? There are guards at the gate and along the entire perimeter of the grounds. What am I going to . . . ?” She swallowed panic and stepped forward to grasp Karl’s arm. “You have to help me, Karl. You’ve got to help me get her away from here—it’s what Elise wanted, and if you ever . . . if you ever cared about her at all . . .”

Karl’s eyes were on the floor of the carriage house as he took several deep breaths, a muscle working in his jaw. “I’ll do what I can.”

It wasn’t much, as commitments went, but Marie had no choice but to take him at his word. “How can we do this?” she asked, a little breathless with fear. “How can I get the baby to safety with all the guards and the commotion? What is the best—”

Karl turned on her and held up his arms in frustration. “I don’t know!” he said so loudly that Marie feared someone might have heard him. “I don’t know,” he said again, a bit more quietly. “There’s no time. Too many guards on duty. Maybe you should wait until we get to Paris. . . .”

Marie shook her head, appalled by his cowardice. “I’m not going to Paris. If we’re going to save your baby, it’s got to be tonight,” she said. “What if I try to get away with her before everyone leaves in the morning? I can take the night shift in the nursery and maybe . . . maybe . . .”

Karl was back at work, throwing saddles around with more vigor than was necessary. “How?” he asked. “You’re going to march up to the guards at the gate and say you’re taking the baby for a walk in the middle of the night?”

“I could hide her in a bag, or . . . or something.”

“Why would you be going anywhere in the middle of the night? With or without a bag? They’ll know.”

“I could try climbing over the fence in the back woods. . . .”

“The guards are watching every square meter of the property.”

“Maybe we could hide somewhere until everyone is gone. . . .” She racked her mind for a viable option. “In the cellar under the ballroom. Or—or . . . in the storage room above the stables!”

Karl’s face contorted into a sneer. “Or I could just lower you both down the well. That’s as safe a place as any.” There were tears in Marie’s eyes when Karl finally looked at her, tossing one last saddle onto a stack against the wall. “What?” he asked.

“What is wrong with you?” she pleaded, shaking her head at the young man’s ridicule of her. She swiped a hand across her eyes and stepped right up to him, planting her fists on her hips. “One of us promised Elise the baby would be safe, and I’m not going to break that promise!”

Karl was stunned into immobility by her outburst. He dropped his chin and stared at the ground for a moment, offering neither apology nor strategy.

“Help me, Karl. Think. There’s got to be a way of getting out of here without being seen.”

Karl stalked to the other side of the carriage house, deep in thought. He paced back and forth several times while Marie watched the sun dip out of sight and prayed the night would be long enough and dark enough to permit an escape.

“The river,” Karl said.

“The river?”

“They’ll be watching the land—the woods, the islands, the bridges. But they might not be watching the water. If you can follow the river through the woods and past the wooden bridge, the embankments on either side are tall enough that maybe . . .” He looked up at Marie. “Maybe you can make it out.”

“What if the baby cries? What if she starts to cry while I’m in the river?”

“Can you give her something to make her sleep?”

Marie looked at him in disbelief. “She’s three days old, Karl!”

“Well, how am I supposed to know?”

“Maybe if I time it to leave right after one of her feedings. She seems to be in a deeper sleep then. . . .”

“The guards work in four-hour shifts. They’re usually less attentive toward the end of the four hours, so if you plan on leaving around three, you’ll be hitting the end of the midnight shift and still beating the dawn.”

Marie’s eyebrows drew together. “Is this really happening?” she asked. “Am I really trying to escape with a newborn by wading into a river in the middle of the night?”

“Looks like it,” Karl said, back at work sorting through the boxes surrounding him.

Marie tried one more time. “You’re sure you don’t want to come with us?”

He shook his head with conviction. “I’m a soldier of the Third Reich,” he said, his voice firm but his hands unsteady. “My place is with my comrades.”

Marie stared at him for a moment longer before turning on her heels and walking away.