Escape From Paris (20 page)

His face was turned toward her on the pillow and he looked defenseless as do all sleeping creatures. His blond hair was thick and curly. Longer now, she would guess than was his custom. The stubble on his face had a reddish cast. He would probably, Linda judged, have blue eyes. His face was thin and drawn but had once been heavier, a full stubborn chin, broad cheeks. A nice mouth, wide, full-lipped.

He opened his eyes suddenly, looked directly at her. Not blue eyes at all. Brown. Rich dark brown, almost black. He stared at her, his mouth moved, but there was not even a whisper of sound. He stared and tried to raise up his head then, as quickly as a light dims, his face was empty, his head fell back, his eyes shut.

For an instant, Linda was rigid with horror then, with a rush of relief, she saw the slow rise of the bedclothes over his chest and heard again that stertorous breathing.

Linda picked up the candle holder and returned to the rocking chair. The flickering of the candle threw her shadow against the wall. Eleanor had been gone more than an hour now. Of course, the doctor might have been out, seeing another patient. Perhaps she hadn't found him yet.

Dr. Gailland. Linda had never met him. She did recall Eleanor mentioning an appointment with him, oh, it must have been March or April. Eleanor had an earache. She had come home and talked inconsequentially with Andre about the visit, the waiting room had been full, Dr. Gailland's sister had joined him in his practice, her specialty was pediatrics, Dr. Gailland and his wife were planning a trip to Nice in May.

Now Eleanor was hurrying to put their lives in his hands. It would be easy for him to turn them in. So many Frenchmen accepted Petain, supported him, considered the English their betrayers.

How could Eleanor be sure?

Linda rocked, back and forth, back and forth, then she stopped and put her hands against her mouth. She was going to be sick.

The tapping was so soft, Linda scarcely heard it. She sat up straight, bent her head forward. Through the open bedroom door, she heard three quick taps, three slow taps on the apartment door. Numbly, her lips pressed tightly together, Linda rose and walked to the door. She listened once again.

Tap, tap, tap. Tap…tap…tap.

She opened the door a scant inch and wished she had blown out the candle. “
Oui
?”

“Mlle. Rossiter?” It was a woman's voice, soft and clear.

Linda hesitated.

“Mlle. Rossiter, your sister, Eleanor, has sent me. I am Dr. Gailland. Marie Gailland.”

Dr. Gailland's sister. Well, surely it was all right, but still Linda stood stiffly at the door.

“Your sister told me to tell you that she was born in Santa Barbara. And you were born in Pasadena.”

Linda held the door open.

A small slight woman stepped inside. She carried a black leather satchel.

Linda picked up the candle holder and led the way to the bedroom. Linda waited at the foot of the bed as the doctor made her examination.

In better days, Marie Gailland's face had a tendency toward laughter. Curved lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes testified to good humor. Now fatigue had slackened the muscles in her face, made pouches beneath her dark intelligent eyes. She took Jonathan's pulse. Quickly, efficiently, cut away the coveralls over the improvised bunched bandage. Her eyebrows drew together. “Would you get me a basin of some sort? And some hot water?”

Linda brought a steaming tea kettle and a small blue enamel basin. Linda very carefully didn't watch but she knew when the wound was opened. An indescribably vile odor swept the room. He stirred and moaned once, a deep weary unconscious sigh of pain. His head twisted on the pillow. His face was young and defenseless and still as the cold marble on a crypt.

Dr. Gailland cleaned the wound. “Mlle. Rossiter. I have drained some of the infection. Every four hours you must take a fresh swab and insert it, thus,” Linda watched in horror as the doctor thrust the white-tipped cotton into the wound and gently pressed forward and backward and a yellowish thick liquid oozed from the opening. “Here.” She handed Linda a fresh swab. “Let me see you do it.”

Linda held the swab in a hand that trembled violently.

“Don't be nervous. It isn't difficult.” Dr. Gailland placed a firm brown hand over Linda's and gently guided her hand forward. Linda resisted as the swab was next to the wound. “It's all right,” the doctor said, “you won't hurt him. The nerve ends have been cut. There won't be any pain. Besides, he is unconscious.”

The swab slipped into the wound, moved back and forth, pushing out more of the pus.

“Very good. Each time, after you finish swabbing, reinsert the tubing so that the wound will continue to drain.” She looked down, frowning. “I hope you understand, Mlle. Rossiter, he is very ill. It would have been better if I had seen him sooner.”

Linda looked up, shocked. “But he'll be all right, won't he?”

The doctor shrugged, an infinitely French shrug. “He is suffering from blood poisoning, Mademoiselle. Do you see the reddish streaks here, on his leg, above and below the wound. If I could take him to a hospital, perhaps he would get well. But we can only try.”

“You think he's going to die.”

Slowly Dr. Gailland began to gather up her equipment. She opened her bag, stared down into it for a moment, then turned to Linda. “I have something new here. I've not tried it on any of my patients so I can't be sure of it's worth. But I may as well use it.” She opened the container, lifted out a vial and a syringe. “They say it's a miracle drug. He needs a miracle.” She upended the vial, pulled down the plunger to draw the liquid into the syringe. “It's a sulfanilamide,” Dr. Gailland added almost absently.

When the doctor closed her valise, she gave a tired sigh.

“Would you care for a glass of wine?” Linda asked tentatively. “If it won't run you too late?”

The doctor smiled and looked, suddenly, years younger. “Oh, I have a special permit. I don't have to worry about the curfew. I'm even allowed to keep my car and receive ten gallons of gasoline a week. It isn't enough but it's better than nothing.” She glanced down at her watch. “If it won't keep you up too late, Mademoiselle, I would very much enjoy a glass of wine.”

Linda led her guest into the tiny kitchen and closed the door, explaining softly, “There are others, asleep in the living room.”

Dr. Gailland nodded. “Of course. Things are irregular in many homes these days.”

When the wine was poured and they each had lit a cigarette, Linda raised her glass. “You are very good to come, doctor.”

“It is my job.” She drew deeply on her cigarette. “I don't know how long I can manage all of it, my brother's practice, my own. And those like you, who need me in the night.”

“You're working alone? I thought you and your brother were in practice together.”

“Claude and Annette were in Nice when the Blitzkrieg began. I have not heard from them since Paris fell. My brother called, a few days before the Germans reached Paris, to tell me they would not be coming back.” She took a sip of wine. “So I am trying to take care of all of his patients who are still in Paris. Today I had no time for lunch. A bowl of soup for dinner.”

Linda popped up, began to open the cupboards. “Here are some biscuits. I'm sorry I don't have more.”

The doctor tried to refuse, but Linda insisted and she saw, finally, how quickly and hungrily her guest ate.

“Did your brother expect you to manage all of his patients, too?”

Dr. Gailland shot her a quick perceptive look. “You think he did not much value his patients?”

Linda tried to protest but Dr. Gailland rushed on. “He is the kind of doctor, Mademoiselle, who did not bill his poor patients, who stayed through the night with a sick child. Oh, yes, he cared. He cried that day when he called to say they were staying in Nice.” She tipped up her glass, finished the wine. “My sister-in-law, Annette, has never been strong. They have no children. I know that is a grief to them. Annette is about your size, and blond, as you, but she has dark eyes. She is very beautiful and very kind, a gentle creature. And Jewish.”

Long after the slender dark-eyed doctor had left, Linda rocked sleepless in the chair, rocked and smoked. When it was time, wearily, her face drawn, she walked to the bedroom, carrying the clean basin with tepid water. She gave him a sponge bath to try and lessen the fever. When he was clean and cooler to touch, Linda gently loosened the bandage, slipped free the tubing and reached for a clean swab.

“Uncle Erich.” The young voice was eager and happy.

“Fritz.” Erich Krause pushed up from his chair and rushed around his desk to grab up his nephew in a warm embrace. Then he stepped back to look at Fritz. The first thing he saw was the eagle above the right breast pocket of the blue-gray gabardine uniform. “The Luftwaffe. Fritz, I didn't know. When did this happen?”

Fritz smiled proudly. “I didn't let Mother write you until I was sure I had made it. I transferred from the infantry to the Luftwaffe in July. They needed more pilots.”

“July?” Erich Krause frowned. “And you already have your wings?”

“It's a new accelerated program, Uncle Erich. There's a great need for more pilots.”

For an instant, it was silent in the shining elegant office, then Fritz said quickly, “Of course, the air war's going splendidly. They say the RAF is barely operational. I expect I'll just be part of the mop-up before the invasion. I wish I could have made it here sooner.”

The Paris newspapers daily carried estimates of RAF planes downed in the previous day's raids by the Luftwaffe, but there was no corresponding list of Luftwaffe losses. Every evening the BBC broadcast the estimate of losses for both sides. Paris drew its shades and clandestinely listened.

“How long will you have in Paris?”

“Until morning. I'm sorry I couldn't let you know I was coming, but my travel plans weren't definite until yesterday,”

“It doesn't matter. God, it's so good to see you, Fritz. How long has it been now?”

“Two years ago, after the Party Rally in Nuremburg, you came to Berlin to visit Mother and I was home on leave.”

“Have you seen your mother recently?”

Fritz nodded. “She told me to bring you all her love.”

Krause smiled thinly. His sister Marta was always ebullient, irrepressible. She had teased him, that last meeting, “All right, Erich, if we're going to have a policeman in the family, we might as well get some use out of it. I want Gertrude Friedrichs arrested. At once.” He had lounged back in the huge overstuffed chair, his shining black boots crossed. “Oh, and what has Frau Friedrichs done?” “She took my best torte recipe and gave it to everyone in her sewing club.” Everyone had laughed. The next Monday he had Gertrude Friedrichs arrested. He held her for two days. When his sister called, he had laughed. “I did you one better, Marta.” “Erich, I was only joking. I never meant for you to arrest her.” “I thought you might like to know that I can arrest anyone. Anyone at all.” “Yes,” Marta replied, “I see that you can,” and there had been no laughter in her voice.

Marta had always been so pietistic. He controlled the rush of anger. She always irritated him because she was unimpressed with his success in the Party, disdainful of the bully-brown shirts, as she called them. Well, of course, the Brown Shirts had had to go, but they had been useful in their time.

Krause looked at his nephew with approval. Marta had never deserved to have so fine a son as Fritz. He should have had such a son, clear blue eyes, stocky muscular build, hair as bright and shining as a golden helmet. None better in all of Germany. Krause forgot the anger that always stirred within him, moving dangerously close to the surface like the molten surge of lava pressing ever upward. Instead he enjoyed the moment as he rarely enjoyed time. To be with Fritz, that was enough for now. “When does your train leave?”

“At nine.”

“We have plenty of time. Come, I'll take you on a tour of Paris. You've not been here before, have you?”

“No, sir, but do you have time to spare? I didn't mean to break in on your day. I know you are very busy.”

Krause frowned at the piles of paper on his desk. “Nothing I do is as important as your task, Fritz. Though I do my part for you and the other fliers.”

“Oh?” Puzzled, Fritz asked uncertainly, “Are you associated with the Luftwaffe in some way?”

“Nothing direct. It's my job to round up these English soldiers who are hiding in the North and the RAF fliers who parachute into France. Every English pilot less, the better for you, right, Fritz?”

His nephew nodded vigorously. “That's true, but I shouldn't think you'd have too much difficulty finding them. Are there still soldiers hiding near Dunkirk?”

“Almost ten thousand. We pick them up every day in the northern woods. We use dogs, you know, and motorcycle units. But some of them still manage to escape us.” Krause's eyes narrowed. “The damned French. We've defeated them and we've treated them very gently. We have strict rules on the treatment of civilians, you know, unless they are involved in a crime against the Reich. Still, they don't honor their agreements. Sly. Just like the French. But we put out a new directive the first week in September—the death penalty for anyone who is hiding an Englishman and doesn't surrender him by October 20. It's time to stop treating these criminals so gently.” He reached for a stack of manila folders. “Look at these—you wouldn't believe the time and manpower it is taking to try and break up these subterranean rings of people who are smuggling Englishmen into the Unoccupied Zone.” He flipped open the first folder. “This is one of my successes. I'm putting some of my men out into the field who speak good English. They are my decoys. We've broken up two escape routes through them this last week. One in Bordeaux and one in Nantes. I'm getting a network of informers established. It's like a game, Fritz. A little bit of information here, a little there. You put it together and sometimes it makes a picture, a very interesting picture. People talk.” Krause smiled. “What the fools don't realize is that we are listening. Here's this report, for example, from a farm laborer. We picked him up at a control. His papers weren't quite right. Well, we told him that he could prove to us he could be trusted. All he had to do was tell us if he heard anything strange about anyone in town, a doctor calling at a house where no one was known to be sick, too much food being bought on the black market by a small family, an unusual amount of activity in a house. That kind of thing. He is to report to our office weekly.” Krause smiled again. “That puts pressure on him to tell us something every week. Much of it will be meaningless, but some of it will be helpful.” He skimmed the page, flipped to the second. “A parish priest, Father Peridot, has been buying quantities of work clothes. A druggist rumored willing to provide morphine without prescription. A man seen leaving the home of a widowed schoolteacher, Mme. Moreau, in the early morning hours.” He snapped the folder shut. “That's just one village, Fritz, Les Andelys. Soon we will have listeners in every village.” He put the folder down, looked again at his handsome nephew. “But that's enough about my dry old desk work. Tell me more about your posting.”