Escape From Paris (33 page)

She could hear them on the stairs now, coming up to their floor.

The shade, Eleanor, you fool, the shade. Hurry, hurry now, before they were here. The second window, that was the one. She moved to her right, reached up and pulled down the lighter shade she had installed over the darker one. She pulled it down. Now, if Linda and Robert came home tomorrow, and if they looked up, please God, make them look up, they would see the second shade, so much lighter, clear, distinct, blazoning a warning, please God, make them look up.

They were pounding on the door now, a heavy reverberating knocking. She lunged away from the windows. She mustn't draw attention to the windows. Was there anything incriminating? Nothing written down, of course, nothing. That had been the rule from the very first.

The money. Twenty-five thousand francs.

Eleanor stood in the middle of the floor. The knocks were thunderous, obscene in the still of the sleeping apartment house. Her neighbors would all be awake now, huddling fearfully in their cold apartments, wondering if their door would be battered next.

Eleanor scooped up her purse, pulled out the packet of bills and ran toward the kitchen. She hadn't examined it earlier. Surely to God, Mme. Leclerc hadn't left any identifying mark inside. Eleanor turned on the kitchen light, tore open the packet. Money, just money. Frantically, she opened the mesh bag full of potatoes. She drew the cord tight again and plumped the bag back in the pantry. Turning off the kitchen light, she hurried toward the door.

“I'm coming, I'm coming,” she called out. “Wait. What is the matter? What is it?”

She undid the chain and opened the door to peer sleepily into the hall. “What's wrong? Who are you? What do you want?”

“One side.” They brushed past her. As the second man came in, he shut the door behind him. Eleanor had time to see Mme. Bizien, her pale yellow hair in tight sausage curlers, peering avidly up the stairs.

Bitch.

She drew herself up, stood as tall as she could. “I demand to know by what right you are invading my home?”

The first man turned on the living room light, reached into his coat pocket to pull out a badge. “German Secret Police.” His eyes darted around the living room. He reminded Eleanor unpleasantly of a ferret with a sharp-featured face and slick brown hair that lay close to his skull. Heavy lidded eyes gave him a malevolent sleepy look. “Where are the others, Mme. Masson?”

It shouldn't have shocked her, hearing her name in his thick German accent. But it was one more unmistakable signal that this was no accident, that it was she they wanted. “Others?”

“The others who live here. Your son.” He looked down at a sheet of paper in his hand. “Your sister.”

“They've gone to Rouen. On a visit.”

“When did they go?”

“They left yesterday.”

He pulled a pen out of his pocket and a small notebook and slipped it open and began to write.

Rouen, Eleanor thought frantically, where can I say they are? What's the name of that hotel where Andre and I stayed that weekend? Le Royal, that was it.

“Give me their names, Madame, and the address where they are staying.”

“What business is it of yours?”

He looked up at her, the thick lids dropping over his black eyes. Inwardly she flinched. His eyes were sickening, she thought, sickening and evil.

“Their names and the address, Madame.”

“Robert Masson. Linda Rossiter. Le Royal Hotel.”

“What was the purpose of their trip, Madame?”

“To visit military hospitals on behalf of the Foyer du Soldat.”

It was so quiet she heard the scratch of his pencil as he wrote. When he finished, he slapped the little notebook shut and returned it to his pocket. “We will give you time to dress.” He turned to his subordinate. “You may begin the search.”

“Search?”

He looked at her again and the same sickening sensation swept her. “You have very little time, Madame. If you waste it talking, you will have to come along dressed as you are.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“To our office, Madame. For questioning.”

“Questioning about what? I haven't done—”

He looked at his watch. “You have three minutes, Madame.”

Eleanor averted her eyes and hurried toward the bedroom. She dropped her fur coat on the floor and shut the door behind her. For an instant, she hesitated, then slipped off her flannel gown and pulled on the skirt and the sweater she had worn that day. The window? No, it gave onto a narrow ledge, too narrow.

A heavy knock on the bedroom door.

“I'm almost ready,” she called irritably. She was pulling on woolen socks now and heavy walking shoes.

The door opened.

So there had been no time to try an escape. And that would be a confession, wouldn't it? If she had tried to escape, they would be certain that she had some guilty knowledge. It would make her that much more vulnerable. Now, she could continue to proclaim her innocence. She picked up her fur coat and slipped into it.

As they walked through the living room, she risked one quick glance around. Yes, the shades were just as she had left them. All four were pulled down and one was a distinctly lighter shade. It would be meaningless to anyone else.

She didn't look back at the apartment as the car pulled away. The second Gestapo man stayed behind. When they left, he was sitting at the roll-top desk, methodically emptying every drawer, looking at its contents. He would have no reason to raise the shades.

Please God, don't let him raise the shades.

They rode in silence. When the car began to slow, Eleanor looked ahead curiously. She saw sentries standing beside a gate and beyond the gate, a graceful, dignified building, another elegant private residence converted to an office by the Germans.

The first floor was almost dark, only an occasional dim wall sconce breaking the gloom. Wooden doors were closed on either side. Her escort took her elbow and pushed her toward the stairs.

“Where are we going?”

He ignored her.

When they reached the third floor, he guided her down a narrow corridor to the third door on the right. He took a ring of keys from his pocket, opened the door and stepped back for her to enter. “You will wait here.”

“Wait for what? Why am I being held? I demand—”

The door slammed shut.

Slowly she turned and looked around. A single bright bulb, covered with a guard, dangled from the ceiling. Its glare illuminated every corner. The room wasn't large, perhaps ten by fourteen feet. There was one window, boarded over. A straight chair sat against one wall. A huge Paris telephone directory, its cover splayed and ripped, lay in the middle of the floor.

Her eyes moved, stopped.

It was such a homely sight to be so frightful. A white porcelain claw-footed bathtub. That was all. Slowly, unwillingly, Eleanor walked across the room toward it until she saw the streaks of blood that had dried along the bottom.

Quickly, she turned and walked away. That was probably why she had been put in this room, to frighten her. Her heart thudded and her breath came in gasps. She made herself breathe deeply, quietly.

How long would it be before someone came?

She walked up and down, near the door. Finally, achingly tired, she went to the straight chair and sat down. A half hour passed. An hour. An occasional noise sounded in the hallway. Each time her head would snap up and she would wait.

No one came.

It was almost three in the morning and she had dozed into a half sleep, awkwardly bunched into the chair, when she heard movement in the hall, footsteps, voices.

She sat up, brushed her hair with her hands and looked toward the door.

The door opened to the room next to her. The door slammed. There was a long moment of indeterminate noises, a scrape and a shuffle, a dull thumping noise.

The scream started high and rose higher, thin, shrill, piercing.

Eleanor bolted to her feet and stared at the blank wall.

The scream broke off. “Non, non, non, non, non . . .” Over and over again, the noises, the scrape and the shuffle and a dull thump and another scream, sobbing, racking, laced with agony.

As she heard the high piteous screams of agony, Eleanor sank to her knees on the cold linoleum floor and buried her face against her legs and wrapped her arms around her head and rocked back and forth. Oh God, she couldn't bear to hear it, not any longer. Please, God, make them stop it, make them stop!

Linda hurried, her face red with exertion as she struggled for breath against icy wind. It got colder every day. Never had the three blocks from the Metro to the Masson apartment seemed so long. She would put on another sweater before she started back. She came around the corner. Only a half block more. Eleanor would be surprised to see her. But Franz had to have a pair of gloves. How had they overlooked them? It was hard to remember everything and there had been so much to do, getting the right kind of papers for Franz. That posed a problem but Father Laurent, as always, had a friend.

The wind wasn't quite so bad after she made the turn so she walked a little faster. The sooner she picked up the gloves, the sooner she could get it back to the Latin Quarter apartment. Jonathan had still been asleep when she left. She had paused and looked down at him. He slept on his back, his arms flung wide. She wanted, so terribly, to touch him, just to touch him. But Robert had been behind her, ready to leave for school, so she only looked. She hoped he was still asleep, perhaps in a dream of a canoe gliding over still green water. He needed sleep, he and the soldiers and Franz. They needed all the rest they could get today. She looked down at her watch. Seven-thirty. In less than ten hours, they would leave.

Tomorrow, Jonathan wouldn't be there. But it wouldn't be too long before she could leave. December 13. Less than a month now. She was going to try to go to England. She and Jonathan had planned it. She hadn't told Eleanor yet. But she must guess. Perhaps she would tell Eleanor this morning. No, it would take longer and she wanted to hurry.

Linda looked up. No light in the front room, at least the shades had no glow this dark and gray . . .

Linda stumbled, almost stopped.

Lighter. The second shade was lighter. The second shade!

The sidewalk stretched away empty. A man slammed a door a few feet from her and walked briskly out into the cold. Nothing else moved the length of the street, the iron spike fence dark and gray, the uneven pavement dark and gray.

Linda started up uncertainly. The second shade was light, the signal they had planned. Only Eleanor had been home. Eleanor wouldn't have pulled the lighter shade down by mistake. But anyone can make a mistake. Linda fearfully looked up and down both sides of the street as she continued to walk forward.

A man stood up at the top of the stairs of the building across the street, shielding himself from the wind and the cold in the entryway to the building.

The man stood, made no move to go down the steps.

Linda walked on. Her legs felt leaden and old. Her heart thudded with a sickening unevenness. I'm going to faint, Linda thought, with horror, I'm going to fall down and then they'll know. Somehow she kept on walking, not looking at the Masson apartment house as she passed, not looking again across the street. Shrinking within her coat, her shoulders drawn tight, her head ducked forward, she waited to hear a shouted command to stop. The street seemed so long now. How far to the end of the block, then she would turn to right. Thirty feet, twenty, fifteen. Had the man waiting in the entryway seen her look up toward the Masson apartment, seen her stumble and almost stop?

Ten feet, five. She plunged around the corner, then, still fearful, walked faster and faster but didn't dare to run. One block. Two. Three. No one paid attention to her. The streets were beginning to be populated now as people started to work, pedestrians, occasional bicycles, a few rattly cars running on charcoal. A small café on the next corner was opening for business. There would be a telephone.

She ordered coffee and a brioche and asked to use the telephone. As she dialed the number, her hands began to shake. In a moment, Eleanor would answer and it would all turn out to be a mistake and they would laugh about it, how Linda had crept by the apartment house and walked so fast to get away..

“
Allo. Allo
.”

Linda closed her eyes. My sister. Oh, Eleanor, my sister.

“
Allo. Allo
. Who is calling?”

Linda pressed down the cradle bar, cutting off that harshly accented stranger's voice. Blindly, she turned away from the telephone, moved toward the door, not even hearing the proprietor's voice. “Mademoiselle, don't you want your coffee and sweet roll?”

She stopped on the sidewalk. Father Laurent, she must tell him. Perhaps he could do something. Robert. Oh my God, how was she going to tell Robert? Robert! What if the Gestapo was looking for him? They would come for him. They would be searching for Robert and for her. If they asked the neighbors most of them wouldn't know anything about them, some who did would pretend ignorance, but the Biziens knew where Robert went to school.