Whisper on the Wind (35 page)

How silly it all seemed now; how foolish that her motives hadn’t been clearer, her assurance more firm. Had she ever been certain she’d been following God’s will? If she had, she might better trust His protection now.

She heard Genny’s soft voice next to her.

“‘We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, the only begotten, from the essence of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God. . . .’”

Before long Isa joined in the creed that stated so clearly their faith, finding comfort amid her fear.

* * *

“It would be suicide for you to try anything before then,” Father Clemenceau said.

Edward rubbed one palm absently over the back of the other hand. “January 27.” He said the date as if somehow by hearing it aloud, it would sound better. Less than two weeks—but a lifetime—to somehow free Isa and then wait for the day of escape from Belgium.

The priest folded his arms. Sounds around them drowned their discussion, the noise of soldiers in the distance, civilians around them in the lines for bread. It was the only place in the city to hide in a crowd. They were dressed in the common fashion of the day: poverty. Tattered clothes, old shoes. Clemenceau disguised as a civilian, Edward no longer disguised as a priest. “If you are successful—and that, my friend, is a huge
if
—then you can depart on the boat we’ve already set up for my people. They’ve been busy over at Rue de Berlaimont with one arrest after another. Others are eager to flee because of the deportations. Rumor says the Germans still plan to deport men from Brussels, and every healthy young man in the city would rather risk flight than be rounded up for a work camp. The day we’ve chosen is important—festivities in honor of his Imperial Majesty’s birthday will serve us.”

“Yes, and the city will overflow with soldiers.”

“It already does! You once told me yourself, Edward, the best place to hide is under the nose of a
Polizei
. You get them to the tug docked two kilometers south of the guard station on the Senne outside of Brussels, and my friends will get them—and the rest of you—to Holland.”

Edward tried again but came up with no alternative. Nothing.

Get them outside of Brussels.

As easy as that.

His only choice was to succeed. Somehow. “All right.”

Edward turned. He had much to do and not much time in which to do it. But first he must get back to work for
La Libre Belgique
and pray the others working for the paper had found another printer. The sooner they produced the next issue, the better for Isa and his mother. If the Germans thought for a moment they’d truly gotten the heart of the paper when they found the press in her cellar—the “automobile cellar,” as they’d once named their imaginary headquarters—then the women he loved were doomed.

35

Was it not Shakespeare who said:

And on your head

Turning the widows’ tears, the orphans’ cries,

The dead men’s blood, the pining maidens’ groans,

For husbands, fathers and betrothed lovers,

That shall be swallow’d in this controversy.

La Libre Belgique

The guards woke them early, surely before dawn. Isa guessed the time by her own fatigue, without a clock, wristwatch, or even a window to gauge anything by the sun.

She and Genny had clung together in the corner through the night. From their cell she could see no others but guessed only women were nearby. They’d heard voices last night, and other than the guards’, all of them were female. A few had talked freely as if they’d been there some time and grown used to the surroundings.

But how? How could anyone adapt to the dark, the filth, the dampness, the hopelessness?

A nun came through once, speaking in German, telling the prisoners not to worry, that God was surely there. But somehow, hearing the comforting words in German brought no comfort at all.

The guards, instead of delivering the kind of tasteless food Isa remembered from the Kommadantur, thrust canvases through the bars, with a roll of thread and needles for each cellmate.

“You will sew the rest of these as the example on top shows,” the guard announced to Isa, then went on to deliver the same bundles to others.

“These are for sandbags,” Isa said to Genny.

“We cannot refuse—”

“They can’t force prisoners of war to do war work. It’s against international law.”

Someone gasped. Isa hadn’t meant to be heard outside of their cell; she wasn’t even sure of the source of her boldness to have said anything at all, even just to Genny. Except she recalled Edward once saying the Germans had enough reason to shoot him, so one more reason hardly mattered. How fitting were such words for her.

Another prisoner spoke up. “There is a law saying we don’t have to do this?”

“That’s right,” Isa answered.

“She is correct.” Another unseen voice echoed in the damp stone corridor. “One even the Germans must obey. They signed the Convention of the Hague too.”

“You will be silent as you work,
Frauen
and
Fräuleins
.” The guard’s voice drowned out the women’s chatter.

“Resist!” another voice farther down shouted.

“You will work!” the guard returned.

“We shall not do it anymore,” someone called. “We shall not work for the Germans against our own sons at the front.”

“Silence! I will have silence.” The soldier marched the corridor, stopping at Isa’s cell. “This is not against the law. As none of you are prisoners of war, it is perfectly legal to have you do this.”

His face was so cold, his gun so near, Isa took a step back.

“Not prisoners of war!” one of the women demanded. “Then what are we?”

He never took his eyes from Isa, despite her silence. “You are criminals. Now get to work.”

Isa didn’t move but the standoff wasn’t from courage. Fear made her immobile.

The objections stopped, the calls ceased, but based on the silence, no one had taken up the work, either. The guard took another step toward Isa’s cell. “You are the one who started this,
Fräulein
. It is you who will set the example for the others, even if I have to
inspire
you.”

His calm tone did nothing to lessen her fear. “If you beat me,” she said, “I shall be of no use at all.”

“True enough. I’ll not beat you. I’ll beat
her
.” He pointed his nose Genny’s way.

Bile rose in Isa’s throat. Bruises inflicted on her the day before reminded her how mercilessly efficient the Germans could be with their punishment, even upon women.

Isa sat on the cot, taking up the first piece of canvas and the needle.

“She is a wise woman to put herself to work. Work will help you to pass the hours of your confinement. It is for your own good. I suggest the rest of you do the same.”

The soft rustle of canvas, the gentle noise of quiet work began. After a while the guard stopped marching the corridor. And so Isa worked. She had never been good at sewing and took some comfort in finding no reason to improve.

Before long someone down the way began humming. A single voice soon joined in. Isa looked at Genny. They both knew the tune and added their voices.

“The Lion of Flanders,” a song Isa had learned as a child.

The German returned and shouted his threats again, reminding them it was illegal to sing, whistle, or even hum songs that used to represent Belgium. He banged his rifle against the bars and one by one the voices fell off.

But not before Isa winced under her first smile of the day.

* * *

Edward stared at the carpet, holding his head in his palms, elbows on his knees. How long had he waited while men paraded in and out of the American Legation? All looking as desperate as Edward felt, hoping to obtain cards freeing them from the German deportations.

But they weren’t as desperate as Edward; they couldn’t possibly be. He was losing his hold on time, losing his mind. He hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours in the past two days; exhaustion muddled him. And yet he’d had to come again, to see if Brand Whitlock had found any hope of freeing Isa and his mother through legal means.

Whitlock had all the sympathy Edward could hope for from someone so important and had taken the responsibility to contact Isa’s parents, without telling the Germans that he’d done so. He’d told Edward that although communication was limited and for the most part monitored, he hadn’t yet heard from Isa’s parents, but they would no doubt immediately petition Washington for additional help. Unfortunately, so far, they were all apparently powerless.

“Relations between America and Germany have been deteriorating for some time now,” Whitlock said gently. “Even if I had all the time in the world—which as you can see from the state of things around here, I don’t—the Germans wouldn’t listen to me.” He leaned back and suddenly looked old, tired, sorrowful. “I’m sorry. For Isa.”

Then he stood, and Edward did too. He followed Whitlock to the legation door. “Tell Mr. Painlevé I am at his disposal if there is anything he thinks I can do. As long as I am in Belgium, I will do what I can.”

Edward nodded, thanked him in a low voice, then left the building. He put his hands in his pockets. The air was cold, colder than he could ever remember, as the biting wind stung his cheeks. He let the weather dictate his pace, as even the soldiers did lately.

The streets were nearly empty, between the cold and the deportation cards that had been sent out recently to every unemployed man in Brussels. Edward did not see a single sentry all the way to Painlevé’s office.

Painlevé shoved a piece of paper across the desk. “These are the names, as close as I can gather, of those I might be asked to represent. Isa and your mother are on the list.”

Edward sank to a chair, knees weak.

Painlevé sighed deeply. “I suppose I should not even ask, but is this the end of
La Libre Belgique
, then? Have they gotten them all?”

Edward would have liked to grin but couldn’t muster it. “The next issue is being printed as we speak.”

The barrister could still laugh. “The German celebration dinner shall be rained upon for certain.”

Edward had visited his contact early that morning. They knew about the celebration feast being planned for that evening: a banquet honoring those who had worked so hard to arrest the resistors producing
La Libre Belgique
.

One of the first issues off another illegal press was to be delivered to that very celebration, and another folded neatly into an envelope for General von Bissing himself—delivered to what everyone hoped was a deathbed since rumor had it he was ill.

“This is good,” Painlevé said. “At least I will be able to show a copy to the judge-advocate tomorrow. They will know they have yet to capture the heart of the organization.”

Edward’s heart thumped. “The trial is tomorrow, then?”

“Which is unfortunate.”

Edward sat forward. He already knew one reason to wish Isa’s trial postponed—at least until he could smuggle her out of Belgium. She may be uncomfortable in a German prison, but at least they would have to keep her alive until tried. “Why unfortunate?”

The barrister’s brows drew together. “Do you remember me saying so many sentences depend on the whim of the court?”

Edward nodded.

“Doktor Stuber is presiding tomorrow. His whims are never good.”

Edward swallowed, afraid to ask the obvious. “Who is Doktor Stuber?”

Painlevé cleared his throat as if stalling to let Edward have one last moment of peaceful ignorance. “Doktor Stuber is a judge-advocate known for demanding the death penalty . . . upon men, upon women, even upon boys too young to be called men.”

The last time Edward had been filled with this kind of desolation, he’d been standing over the rubble of his family’s hotel and home. Maybe it was a leftover habit, maybe it was a faint memory of his father’s wishes, but Edward was reminded to pray. He hadn’t known what difference it would make and didn’t now, either. All he knew was that day he’d refused.

This time, he didn’t.

36

La Libre Belgique, Special Edition, January 20, 1917

The immense Palais de Justice sits on a hill above the city, the most prominent of buildings in the most prominent of places, as if to say that justice watches over all. This building that once offered Belgian justice now flies the black, white, and red, flag of an occupying army. Lined around its walls are sandbags, and at each corner near the statues of Justice, Law, Force, and Royal Clemency now sits the black orifice of a great cannon, aimed at the very city the building itself was once dedicated to protect.

Inside the Senate chamber today began another mass trial of those suspected of involvement with none other than this paper,
La Libre Belgique
. Sculptures of great Belgian history tucked within carved mahogany panels overlooked the accused. They sat upon benches fashioned into semicircles, with bayonet-bedecked sentries at each end. Nearby, four Belgian barristers frantically conferred among themselves, having only just been given their cases.

Facing them all were the German judges in field gray, medals shining in the light. The bench at which they sat was covered in green baize, where rested their dark leather gloves and silver spiked helmets. The president of this tribunal sat in the center: Doktor Stuber. For those
La Libre Belgique
readers who have not had the displeasure of meeting him, Doktor Stuber has a look of cruelty about his grim-visaged face.
La Libre Belgique
has it on solid authority that he is stern in public and demanding in private, critical of those around him, insensitive toward others while secretly thin-skinned. To him, everyone is either a superior or an inferior—there exist none equal to him. Belgians are the latter of the two.

Prosecutors were to present their strongest cases first, no doubt in a wish to begin with the harshest of sentences. To incite the others to either tell the truth or face consequences of their lies? Or simply for the iniquitous Doktor to watch the faces of those who must follow sentences of severest magnitude?