Violins of Autumn (17 page)

I cross my arms over the front of my blouse.

Denise’s eyes narrow at the back of Ludwig’s head as he saunters away. She rubs the back of her hand on her skirt.

“What’s the big idea, dragging me into this?” I say. “I have a fifty-kilometer ride to a dead drop ahead of me tomorrow. You can’t seriously be thinking of meeting him.”

“You know what they say. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

Denise calls on me at Estelle’s at seven o’clock. With her last transmission for the day completed she hid her radio and eagerly raced out for a night on the town.

Transmitting radio messages from within the city carries enormous risks. The Gestapo combs the streets in vans equipped to detect radio signals. Whenever I see those vans coming, I wonder if some poor radio operator’s goose is about to be cooked. Another detection method involves shutting down electricity. Like dominoes falling, the power goes out from house to house, apartment to apartment, to narrow the search. If the transmissions stop, a swarm of men in trench coats descend on the area with precision, leaving little chance for escape.

Limiting transmissions to five minutes is nearly impossible, even for Denise, a skilled and quiet transmitter. She pushes her luck to the brink. The way she sees it, the longer she goes without getting caught, the less likely it is to happen, which is the opposite of how I see it. Eventually, she might start believing capture isn’t even a possibility for her anymore and get sloppy.

“Denise, you’re done up like the dog’s dinner,” I say, borrowing one of my aunt’s favorite phrases. It doesn’t sound all that complimentary to me. I learned not to question those things while in Britain.

“Thank you.” Denise holds up a handbag, wincing as if she expects me to hit her. “I had to have it. It’s a wee little thing. And it didn’t cost much. Do you like it?”

“Everything I know about handbags wouldn’t fill that little handbag.”

She gives my simple black skirt and blouse the once-over. “And yet, there would still be room in it for everything you know about fashion. Never heard of an iron?”

She unclasps the purse, reaches inside, and launches a surprise attack, wielding a tube of lipstick.

“Please don’t make me look like a circus clown.”

“Then you’d better stop fussing.” She presses the makeup onto my bottom lip with feathered strokes. “You have nice lips. You should wear lipstick more often.”

“I’ve never worn lipstick a day in my life.”

Denise recoils in horror. “Sincerely? I will not leave this country without rectifying that.” She licks her lips, mashes them together, and pops them apart. “Do that.”

I try to follow her instructions, but my lips won’t cooperate. And the lipstick is messy. I scrub my teeth clean with my finger.

“When I was a girl, I loved watching my mother apply her makeup. Putting on her face, she called it.” Denise chuckles. “She’s a character, my mum. I hope she’s doing well back home. I’m sure she is. She’s a tough old bird.” She returns the metal tube to her handbag. “Are you going to do something with that mop you call hair?”

“I did. Thank you.” There is nothing moplike about my best feature.

Denise takes it upon herself to make me more presentable, combing and tugging and molding my hair with pins until I feel like smacking her. Hair isn’t worth as much effort as she’s putting into it, especially when that hair belongs to
my
head.

“What about that pretty bracelet of yours?” Denise says. “Why aren’t you wearing it for our special night out?”

“I don’t wear jewelry.”

“You’d rather it rot in your pocket?”

I had a hunch her curiosity would get the better of her, and she’d bring up my bracelet sooner or later. I draw it from the pocket of my skirt.

“After boarding school, I lived with my aunt and uncle in London. When I left for this mission, literally as I walked out the door, my aunt gave me this bracelet.” I go through the tiny charms one by one. “This hedgehog represents my cousin Paul. He collects ceramic hedgehogs and has a pet one named Roly-Poly. The Yorkie dog is my cousin Philip. He and his dog, Biscuit, are inseparable. For reasons you can probably guess, the beer stein is my uncle Edward. Also for obvious reasons, my aunt Lib is the teapot.”

I drop the bracelet into my pocket.

“What a thoughtful gift to remember them by.” Denise runs through a cordoned-off section of my hair several times with her comb. “You’re from the United States. Rather than return home, you went to live with your aunt?”

“My father remarried after my mother passed away. He was going to send for me when I left school, but the war changed his plans. And besides, he and his wife have a new baby. A little boy.
It ended up being for the best that I moved to London. I would have just gotten in the way.”

After some hesitation, Denise says, “Oh, I see.” She switches to her brush to tug out a tangle. “Robbie wasn’t too pleased that you’re going to the Commodore this evening.”

My head jerks to glance over my shoulder. The large chunk of hair clutched within Denise’s hand stays put.

I rub the sore spot on my head. “You talked to Robbie? What did he say?”

“It wasn’t so much what he said. His mood took an abrupt downturn, even though I’d brought him some beans and canned fish from the black market.” Denise wheedles a pin into my upswept hairdo. “You know, he likes you, Adele. Have you not noticed the lovesick goo-goo eyes he’s given you since that day we rescued him?”

“We’re just friends.” My heart pounds as if I’ve been cornered with nowhere to run. “We’re supposed to take care of him until he’s sent back to Britain. That’s what we signed up for.” Through the window next to the sofa, I watch a pigeon waddle along the stone ledge. “I don’t want him to be lonely while he’s here, that’s all. We owe it to his family to keep him safe.”

“That’s admirable. But he isn’t like me, and he’s not like you. He’s soft, like a turtle without a shell. There’s a war going on. War is dangerous. It’s terrifying. Protect him too much and he might not last a minute out there. He has to reach England a man. Not a boy.”

I rest my chin on the back of the sofa to hide the tears welling up in my eyes.

“Where is Marie?” Denise asks. “She should join us.”

In the evenings, Marie sings her tone-deaf heart out in the
hallway to drown out the radio. Only one neighbor complained. She should be thankful for Marie’s singing and use it to muffle the sounds of her own radio. Madame Richelieu, a sourpuss with a mean clenched mouth, is a neighbor to keep an eye on.

“Where will I be joining you?” Marie asks, entering the apartment.

“Speak of the devil,” Denise says. “Were you eavesdropping outside the door by any chance, Marie?”

“If I say yes, will you be angry?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then yes.”

Like a butterfly setting down on a flower petal, she takes up the sofa opposite me and wraps her coltish legs within her skirt.

“We are going to the Commodore Bar tonight, Marie. Would you like to come?”

“What Denise means to say is we’re going to a bar to fraternize with the enemy.”

Skirt twirling, she runs to the door undeterred. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I will get ready. You won’t tell Grand-mère, will you?”

“No, we won’t,” Denise says. “Right, Adele?”

I shrug. As if I have any say in the matter.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I say, after Marie skips home on cloud nine.

“You look divine. And that lipstick is hard to come by. Don’t let it go to waste. We’ll get tipsy on free champagne and laugh as men fall all over themselves to talk to us.”

I bite my lip, seriously contemplating coming clean about my age. Denise is my closest friend. She’ll understand. I’ve never gone out for a night on the town. My work shifts at the London
pub ended in time for supper. The Commodore is a place for social butterflies, not caterpillars like me. I’ll be the only inexperienced, socially inept person there.

“Marie’s too young,” I say.

“She will be fine.”

Denise can’t go to the bar without me, and I know it. Either we both go or neither of us does. I have an obligation to headquarters to keep us alive and out of trouble. They can’t risk losing their link with France now, with the Allied attack possibly right around the corner, all over some free champagne.

“Just tell me this,” I say, “why did you accept Ludwig’s invitation?”

“Adele, the Germans don’t have to play by the same rules.” She grins. “And I am desperate for a cigarette.”

Piano music and cigarette smoke invite me inside the Commodore, where gorgeous women hang on the every word of officers attired in smart white dinner jackets, caps, and gloves. The distinguished atmosphere explains why Ludwig and his three friends greeted us in their finest uniforms.

Denise, smoking already and we haven’t even found a table, taps me on the shoulder. I turn face-first into a swirling current of smoke.

“Your eyes are giving you away—you’re thankful to be wearing lipstick, aren’t you?” she says in her mile-a-minute French. “Can you imagine if we had left your hair down? Whatever would you do without me? Frump around like a man, that’s what.”

I crack a nervous smile. “You couldn’t pay me to doll myself up like these women.”

“Too late, my dolled-up friend.”

Ludwig watches us with bewildered amusement. Why, the
evening promises to be a downright gabfest, what with everyone unable to understand one another. I, for one, can scarcely contain my excitement.

“Remember, we’re here for the free champagne,” I say to Denise, out of the corner of my mouth. “After a few drinks, we’re leaving.”

The last train of the day departs at eleven o’clock. Taking travel time into account, we need to leave the bar at ten thirty. And, really, how much mischief could Denise and I possibly get into in only an hour and a half?

I had too much to drink only once in my life, the night of my aunt’s last Christmas party. I smashed two tiles in the parlor’s Art Deco fireplace, nearly set a curtain ablaze after a brief reintroduction to cigarettes, and let a sweet Canadian soldier, who showed up on my aunt’s doorstep wistful for Christmas, kiss my cheek beneath the mistletoe. But none of that bad behavior was my fault. My aunt’s neighbor thought spiking my eggnog was a clever way to liven up the party. He changed his mind about that when I got sick on his shoes. I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol since.

The waiter sets a glass of champagne in front of each of us.

Marie lifts her glass to peer through it. “I like the bubbles. They look so pretty.”

“And expensive,” Denise says.

Ludwig’s friend, a blond boy named Karl, raises his glass. The other boys do the same. “
Zum Wohl!
” they cheer.

We join them in the toast, and I have a sip. Before I know it, my glass is empty. And then, before I know it again, another glass of champagne magically materializes on the table in front of me.
It’s not long before my attention drifts away from intimidating surroundings to be swept up in the witty stories of charismatic Karl. When he offers me a third glass of champagne, I say yes. Just to be polite.

Denise leans into me from her neighboring chair. “For a girl who doesn’t smoke, you look awfully cozy with that cigarette.”

Smoke rakes burned nails down the back of my throat. A rasping cough all but shatters my Kate Hepburn–like air of sophistication. “I don’t smoke.
Anise
does.”

I giggle along with Denise, but then clarity splits my champagne haze. For a few seconds of fun over a private joke, I spilled a truth about my identity in a none-too-private place. No one appears to have heard me, but the time has come and gone to shape up. What’s happening to me? My sense of duty has shriveled like a grape in the sun.

When I close my eyes, the room rocks this way and that, tipping and swirling like a carnival ride. Opening them, I visually grab hold of objects to steady myself. The night is turning into my aunt’s party all over again. If I don’t get off this wild ride, I might end up kissing Karl in the coat-check room.

“Denise, I think it’s time for us to leave.”

She gulps her champagne. Taps the bottom of her glass to catch every last drop.

“
Pourquoi?
” She checks her watch. “We have more than twenty minutes. Do you know how many glasses of champagne I can drink in twenty minutes?”

Across the sea of heads and caps, I notice a couple entering the bar. The woman, draped in a fur stole, wears a smile that can be seen clear across the room. And that’s why I don’t recognize her at first.

An officer seated at a table near the piano raises his arm to attract their attention. Recognition comes into their faces, and Dr. Devereux’s wife, whose hand-me-down clothes I’m wearing at this very moment, gives him a friendly wave in return.

She hangs off the arm of her officer, beaming with pride, as if he’s a trophy she won. When the soldiers in the bar salute him she gazes at his face in adoration.

I watch their every gesture as they join the party at the table. So, too, did the
Blitzweiben
, or “little gray mice,” as they’re called; the women of the German Auxiliary. They scowl their disapproval, but if François’s wife notices, she doesn’t let on. She is having a marvelously scandalous time and she doesn’t care who knows it.

The lover of a German officer would have no qualms about informing. I’m willing to bet she visits the Avenue Foch whenever she can, chomping at the bit to give up neighbors she’s known for years. What would stop her from turning in a mangy young stranger who showed up on her doorstep, an obvious outsider looking for help?

In Denise’s ear, I say, “Honestly, we should go.”

“Yes, you said that a moment ago. We are not leaving until that champagne flute of yours is empty.”

I pick up my glass, swirling the pretty, expensive bubbles, and try to relax. I guess a few more minutes of fun can’t hurt. Besides, I’m sitting quietly on the opposite side of the crowded bar, not dancing on tables and singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Madame Devereux will never recognize me from the back of my head.