Echoes (35 page)

Serge and Jean-Yves had talked about blowing up a nearby German munitions dump in the next few weeks. Jean-Yves had insisted that he didn't want Amadea on the mission with him. Serge thought it should be up to her, but he understood what motivated Jean-Yves's concern. He was in love with her. The fact was, they needed her help, and she was good, and quick, from what he heard. Serge trusted her almost more than anyone else in Melun, with the exception of Jean-Yves.

They were still debating the matter hotly when Serge left, and Amadea agreed with Serge. She wanted to go on the mission with Jean-Yves. The war was starting to turn around. The Germans had surrendered at Stalingrad in February, in the first defeat of Hitler's army. They had to do everything they could now in France to defeat him here, too. And there was no question, blowing up their arsenal of weapons would be a major blow to them.

They planned the mission carefully over the next several weeks, and Amadea finally convinced him. It went against all his protective instincts, but Jean-Yves agreed to let her come. The final decision was his, as the leader of the cell. The fact was that they were short of men. Two of his best men were sick.

Jean-Yves, Amadea, two women, Georges, and another man set out for the munitions dump late one night. They took two trucks and an arsenal of explosives hidden in the back. Amadea was in the same truck as Jean-Yves. Two of the men got out and cut the sentries' throats. This was the most dangerous mission they had ever done. They set the explosives carefully around the munitions dump, and then as they had planned, all but Jean-Yves and Georges ran back to the trucks. They knew they only had minutes to light the fuses and get out. The explosives they were using were crude, but they were the best they could get. And before they even got back to the trucks, Amadea heard a tremendous explosion, and what looked like the biggest fireworks display she had ever seen lit up the night sky. She and the others looked at each other, as they started the trucks, and there was no sign of Georges or Jean-Yves.

“Go!… Go!” the man in the truck with her said, but they couldn't leave Georges and Jean-Yves. All of the local military forces would be arriving any minute, and if they found the other two, they'd be shot. The other two women were waiting in the second truck for Georges. Amadea was at the wheel of hers.

“I'm not leaving,” she said through her teeth, but as she looked behind her, she saw an enormous ball of fire, and the second truck shifted into gear and took off.

“We can't wait,” the man next to her begged her. They were going to get caught, and Amadea knew it too.

“We have to,” she said, as a series of explosions erupted behind her and the truck shook. The fire was spreading as sirens went off, and without hesitating, she stepped on the gas and took off too. They bounced over the fields in the two trucks, and she was shaking from head to foot as they pulled into the barn where the trucks were stored. It was a miracle they hadn't gotten caught, and she knew they had waited too long. She had nearly jeopardized all the others for the sake of the man she loved. They stood silently in the barn in the darkness, listening to the explosions and crying softly. All they could do now was pray that Jean-Yves and Georges had gotten out, but Amadea couldn't see how they could have. The explosives had gone off much faster than they'd expected, and it seemed more than likely now that the two men had either been badly wounded or killed on the spot.

“I'm sorry,” she said to the others, with a shaking voice. “We should have left sooner.” They all nodded, they knew it was true, but they hadn't wanted to abandon the two men either. She had very nearly cost all their lives by waiting too long. They had just managed to get out.

She walked back to her own farm that night, listening to the explosions and looking up at the brightly lit sky. And she lay in bed for hours praying for him. The news was everywhere the next morning. The army was all over the countryside looking for evidence. But there was none. People on the farms were quietly going about their work. The Germans had found two men dead, burned beyond recognition, even their papers had turned to ashes. And not knowing what else to do, they took four boys off a neighboring farm and shot them, as a warning to the rest. Amadea sat in her room all that day, sick with grief and shock. Not only had Jean-Yves died, but four young boys had been killed as the result of what they'd done. It was a high price to pay for freedom, and for destroying the weapons the Germans would have used to kill so many others. But the man she loved was dead, and she had been responsible for the deaths of eight people, Georges and Jean-Yves, four young farm boys, and even the two German sentries whose throats had been cut. It was a lot to have on her conscience, for a woman who had once wanted to be the bride of God. And for the first time, as she mourned the only man she had ever loved, she knew that when it was all over, she had to go back. It would take her the rest of her life as a Carmelite to atone for her sins.

21

S
ERGE WAITED FOR THREE WEEKS BEFORE HE CAME DOWN
from Paris to Melun. He had heard the news in Paris, and he was pleased at the result of the mission. The Germans had been severely hampered by the damage they'd done. But he was devastated by the news of Jean-Yves's death. He had been one of their best men. And he wanted to talk to Amadea as soon as he could.

He found her grief-stricken and silent in her room at the farmhouse. The British had still been parachuting men and supplies in, but she hadn't been on a single mission since.

He sat and talked to her about it, and told her they were too short-handed now to bring the men and supplies in safely. She looked at him with agonized eyes, and shook her head. “I can't.”

“Yes, you can. He would still be out there if it had been you. You have to do it for him. And for France.”

“I don't care. I have too much blood on my hands.”

“It's not on your hands, it's on theirs. And if you don't continue the work you've been doing, it will be our blood.”

“They killed four young boys,” she said, looking sick. She was as tortured over them as she was devastated over the death of Jean-Yves.

“They'll kill more if we don't stop them. And this is all we've got. We have no other way. The British are counting on us. There's another big mission coming up soon. We don't have time to train more men. And I need you for something else right now anyway.”

“What?” she asked. As he looked at her, she looked gray. He was putting pressure on her because he knew she had to get back out there. She was too good at it to give up. And he was afraid she would fall apart completely from losing Jean-Yves. She was ravaged by grief.

“I need you to get a Jewish boy and his sister to Dordogne. We have a safe house for them there.”

“How old are they?” she asked without much interest.

“Four and six.”

“What are they still doing here?” She sounded surprised. Most of the Jewish children, if not all of them, had been deported out of France in the past year. The rest were being hidden.

“Their grandmother was hiding them. She died last week. We have to get them out. They'll be safe in Dordogne.”

“And how am I supposed to get there?” She felt hopeless and looked tired.

“We have papers for them. They look like you. They're both blue-eyed blondes. Only their mother was Jewish. They deported her, and the father was killed.” Like so many others, they had no family left at all.

She started to tell him she couldn't do it, and then as she looked at him, she remembered her vows, and thought of her mother and Daphne, and Jean-Yves. And she suddenly felt she owed it to them, maybe in reparation for the lives she had cost. She felt like a nun again. Jean-Yves had taken the woman she had been with him. She knew she would never be that person again. But Sister Teresa of Carmel would not have refused to do the mission. Slowly, she nodded. She had no other choice. “I'll do it,” she said, looking at Serge and he was pleased. He had taken on this particular mission as much for her as for them. He didn't like the way she looked since Jean-Yves's death, and Jean-Yves wouldn't have either. In a way, Serge was doing this for him, as much as for her, and the two Jewish children were orphans, Serge explained.

“We'll bring them here tomorrow night, with their papers and yours. You'll have to hide your other papers in the lining of your valise. Your papers will show that you're their mother, and you're going down to visit family in Besse.” It was in the heart of the Dordogne, where her father was from. She had never been there, and had always wanted to go. She wondered if she would see his château on the way, although she had more important things to do. “You'll have to borrow the car from the farm.” He knew that would be no problem.

She spent the rest of the day in prayer in her room, after she did her chores. She had hardly eaten in the last few weeks, and it showed. The next day she sewed her papers as Amélie Dumas into her suitcase. She knew she'd have the others by that night.

After dinner, they arrived. One of the women from the Paris cell had driven them down. They were beautiful children, and they looked terrified. They had been hidden in a basement for two years, and the only relative they had in the world had died. Serge was right. They were adorable, and they looked like her. They made her wonder what their children would have looked like if she and Jean-Yves had had babies. But there was no point thinking of that now. She sat down and talked to the children for a little while. They fed them dinner, and she tucked them into her own bed that night, and slept on the floor next to them. The little boy held his sister's hand all night. And they both understood what they had to do. They had to pretend she was their mother, and call her “Maman.” Even if scary soldiers questioned them. She promised them that she wouldn't let anything bad happen to them, and prayed she was right.

They left right after breakfast the next morning, in Jean-Yves's uncle's car. She knew she could make the trip in six or seven hours. She brought food with them so they didn't have to stop anywhere. They passed one checkpoint, and she handed the soldiers her papers. They looked at her, glanced at the children, handed the papers back, and waved them on. It was the easiest mission she'd been on so far, and the children slept in the car, which gave her time to think. She felt better than she had in a while, and she was glad she had agreed to do it. They were sweet children, and she felt sorry for them. She was taking them to meet a member of a cell in Dordogne, and he was going to deliver them to the safe house that had been provided. He had said Amadea could spend the night there before she went back. It was a long trip.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived in the rolling countryside that seemed not to know there was a war on. It looked lush and green and luxuriant. She drove to the address she'd been given, and found it easily. There was a young man waiting for her, who was as blond and blue-eyed as she and the children. He looked as though he could have been their father as easily as she could have been their mother. He thanked her for bringing them down.

“Do you want to come with me, or stay here?” he asked. The children looked panicked at the thought of leaving her. She was the only person there they knew, although they hadn't known her for long. But she had been nice to them. She tried to reassure them, but they both started crying, and she looked at the man she knew only as Armand.

“I'll come.” He got into her car with the three of them, and told her where to go. Five minutes later, they were driving past an imposing château, and he told her to turn into the courtyard. “Here?” She looked surprised. “This is your safe house?” It was a beautiful old house, with many outbuildings, stables, and an enormous courtyard. “Whose house is this?” she asked, suddenly curious. They were not far from her father's boyhood home, although she wasn't exactly sure where it was either.

“Mine,” he said, and she stared at him, as he laughed. “One day. In the meantime, it's my father's.” She smiled in open admiration as she looked around and they got out. The children were staring up at the château in wonder. After two years in a basement on the outskirts of Paris, this was like going to Heaven. She knew they had papers for them that attested to their aristocratic birth. They were allegedly distant relations of the châtelain.

An old housekeeper led them away to get them dinner, as an older gentleman came down the steps of the château. Amadea assumed he was Armand's father. The distinguished-looking man shook her hand and was very pleasant to her, as Armand introduced them. All he knew of her was the name on her most recent set of papers. Philippine de Villiers. Which was how he introduced her to his father, whom he then introduced to Amadea. “May I introduce my father,” he said politely, “Comte Nicolas de Vallerand.” Amadea stood staring at him, and as she did, she saw the resemblance, although he was older than her father had been the last time she saw him. Her father was forty-four when he died, and would have been sixty now. As she looked from Armand to his father, she looked shocked, but said nothing. Armand could see that something had disturbed her severely, as the count invited her inside. They had prepared a meal for her, and served it elegantly in the dining room, as the two men joined her. She was quiet as she looked around, and the count noticed her pained silence but didn't comment.

“It's a beautiful old house. It was originally built in the sixteenth century. And rebuilt about two hundred years later. I'm afraid it's badly in need of repair these days. There will be no one to do it until the war is over. The roof leaks like a sieve.” He smiled. He was looking at her as though there was something familiar about her too. She knew what it was, she was the image of her father. She wondered what would happen if she told him the truth. But things must have changed, if he was hiding Jewish children. It seemed the ultimate irony now, since her father had been banished and never seen again by any of them because he had a Jewish wife.

They finished dinner, and the count invited her to walk in the gardens. He said they had been done by the same architect who had designed the gardens at Versailles. It was a strange feeling walking through the same halls and rooms and places where her father had lived as a boy, and as she walked outside, the thought of it brought tears to her eyes. These same rooms had been filled with the sounds of his voice and laughter as a child and as a young man. They were the echoes of her past, which she shared with these two men, although they didn't know it.