Escape From Paris (6 page)

The worker tried weakly to pull away. The pain in his arm increased. Dimly he heard Krause, “Stand up, Robards. Stand very still and listen to me. I am going to ask you some more questions and this time, this time, I want you to answer them very, very quickly. If you do not . . .” He paused and waited until Robards' quivering face looked at him, “If you do not, Hans and I will take you upstairs to the interrogation room.”

It was very quiet in the office now, the only sounds were Robards thin high breaths and the tick of the Dresden clock on the marble mantel and the faraway clatter of a typewriter in an outer office.

“Now,” Krause's voice was reasonable, a schoolmaster pointing out the logic of inevitability, “it would be better for you if you do not have to go upstairs. Here,” and his eyes once again swept the beautiful room, the Empire breakfront, the long low table with Moorish lines, the Flemish tapestry with a dusty king on horseback, “we can discuss things, talk quietly. Upstairs would not be so pleasant.”

Hans loosed his grip and Robards stood on his own, swaying, breathing unevenly. Hans stepped back a pace until once again he stood just behind and a little to the left of the prisoner. Robards half turned to look behind him.

“
Achtung
!” Krause shouted.

Robards jerked forward.

“You are to look at me.” Krause commanded. “Only at me.”

Robards faced forward, but his whole body trembled.

“Now,” once again Krause's voice was smooth, agreeable, unhurried, “where were we? Oh yes, we were talking about your work. Very fascinating work it must be, Robards. Very important work.” Krause's face hardened. “Very important work to the Fuehrer, Robards. Nothing must be permitted to interfere with train shipments. Nothing.”

Again the blow was totally unexpected, a vicious punch into the same kidney. Robards' scream was a shriek of agony.

This time as Hans hauled him to his feet, he writhed in pain and sobbed, “I will tell you, let me tell you, don't hit me again, I will tell you . . .”

Krause looked at him with a quiver of distaste. What a sniveling weak degenerate. No wonder the French were defeated. There was no room for them in the New World that Germany was building. They were only fit to be slaves.

“. . . not a gang. Nothing like that. I was drinking wine, one night after work, and we all got to talking and everybody said how easy it would be to sabotage things, in the yard, and I said, sure, it would be easy, I could do it like a shot. Later, I thought about it some more. Last week I filed the brakes on one of the goods trains going to Berlin. That's all I did. But I did it on my own.” He was breathing more easily now, his face still streaked with tears, his mouth trembling, but his voice stronger. “Nobody else was involved. Just me.”

Krause stared at him for a long moment, his eyes as clear and cold and green as an ice-locked stream high in the Alps. “All on your own. But you talked about sabotage with the other men.”

Robards gave a shrug. “It was just talk over a glass of wine.”

“Where do you drink your wine?”

Robards looked puzzled but answered willingly enough. “The Coq d'Or. It's a block from the yards. It's a railroad workers' bar.”

“The Coq d'Or.” Krause nodded. “Good. Sergeant, this evening we will take M. Robards with us and pay a visit to the Coq d'Or.”

“But why?” Robards asked.

“Why? To arrest some Frenchmen, M. Robards. At least twenty men. Anyone who seems to recognize you.”

“But why? I told you,” his voice rose higher and higher. “I filed the brakes. I, alone am responsible. No one helped me.”

Krause's green eyes, cold as death, turned toward him. “The goods train was to slow near Dusseldorf to let a troop train pass. The brakes failed.”

It was so quiet in the elegant room.

“Seven German soldiers died. So now, Robards, you will die and for every dead German there will be at least two dead Frenchmen.”

“He can't stay here!”

Linda looked at her sister in shocked dismay. She had been uncertain, that was true, of Eleanor's reaction. But she would never have expected this. Never.

Eleanor whirled away, almost running to the windows that overlooked the street. She stood, half hidden by the long green drapes, staring down into the narrow street. Without turning, she asked sharply, “You came here directly from the hospital?”

Linda couldn't answer. She couldn't bear to look at Michael, to see the flush rising up his thin face, and to hear his stuttered, “I'm so sorry, I didn't think. Of course, it is insupportable. I see that now. I'll leave immediately, of course.”

He couldn't leave. It was almost dusk. Curfew wasn't until ten p.m., but it wasn't safe for a lone young man to wander about Paris. In the beginning, curfew had been at eight p.m. Since July 5, the Germans, in their kindness, had permitted Parisians to be on the streets until ten. But it wasn't at all safe. Michael still wore what was so obviously, ragtag or not, a British uniform. He didn't speak French. He wouldn't have a chance, Linda thought, not a chance in a million. Surely Eleanor wouldn't turn him out tonight. Early tomorrow, Linda would take him away, find some place for him, but surely Eleanor would let him stay the night.

Eleanor swung around. “Did you come straight—” She looked from Linda to Michael, then back to Linda. “Oh my dear,” and she hurried across the room, slipped her arms around her sister, “I didn't mean we weren't going to help Michael. I only meant we must get him out of here before the Gestapo comes.”

“The Gestapo?” Linda repeated. “Why on earth . . .”

Eleanor was impatient with them. “Don't you see, children,” and Linda realized oddly that she and Michael, of an age, still seemed like children to her older sister, “when they find Michael gone, and he may be missed by the evening meal,” he nodded unhappily, “they will send out search parties. They have dogs. It won't take them long when they realize they can't pick up Michael's scent anywhere around the wall to decide he probably didn't leave that way. They'll try to figure how he could possibly have gotten away. They keep records of visitors.” Eleanor's plump dark face was not the least chiding. She smiled reassuringly, “We should at the least have a few hours. We'll . . .”

“My Lord, I never thought!” Michael cried. “Mme. Masson, I'm so sorry. I wouldn't put you and Linda in danger for anything. I just wanted so badly to escape. All I could think of was getting away and, when I saw the car, I knew I could get away in the trunk, but I never thought about their coming after Linda. I'll leave now. If they don't find me here, I mean, it's better that they find me somewhere else.”

“They aren't going to find you.” It was a statement, final, absolute. Eleanor reached for the huge telephone directory. “First, we'll call . . .” Her words broke off in mid-sentence. She lifted her head to listen. Linda, too, looked toward the door.

Michael looked desperately around, then flung himself the six or seven feet across the room to press against the wall where he would be hidden by the opening door. He grabbed up a knobbed cane from the ceramic umbrella holder.

The door burst open and Robert rocketed into the room.

Linda was so relieved that she didn't even hear his first words, but she heard the last.

“. . . and I'm sure it's the Gestapo! It's a gray-green Citroen. The driver's in uniform, a corporal, but one of the men in the back seat has on a dark-gray suit and black hat and everybody says that's how you know the Gestapo, a man in civilian clothes in a German Army car. The car's stopped at the end of our block. Do you suppose they are hunting for the Mayers? M. Caborn told me . . .”

“Robert,” his mother said sharply, “are they downstairs here? Outside our building?”

“Yes, and I saw a lorry of troops, at the other end of the block and they are dropping men off.”

Eleanor paled. Linda took a deep breath. That was how the Germans searched for hidden soldiers. They surrounded a block and then went into every flat, every room, every closet, the roofs and the cellars.

Michael stepped forward, “I'll go down the back way.” He looked at Linda, “Is the garage to the right? I'll try to get back as near the car as I can and, when they . . . if they catch me, I'll say I hid myself in the trunk and had just worked it open. And that you didn't know I was there. I will swear it.”

Robert had turned, startled to see him, but he understood at once. “Oh,” he said quickly, “Oh, Mama, I see.”

So quick, Linda thought, to understand. Thirteen years old and he recognized without any real shock that his mother might help an escaping soldier hide.

Downstairs the entry door slammed. A loud knocking reverberated up the stairwell from the concierge's door.

Skinny, long-legged Robert, all elbows and knees and uneven voice, grabbed Michael's arm. “Quick. I can hide you. Quick.”

Michael looked swiftly at Eleanor. Her face ashen, she nodded. Then they were gone, the door closing quietly behind them. Oh, Robert learned quickly.

Eleanor said brusquely, “I will be in the kitchen, Linda. Pretend you have been . . . ” She glanced around the living room as she hurried toward the narrow hall that led to the kitchen. “Pretend you have been writing letters.”

Linda hurried to the roll-top desk, pushed up the curving front piece that had such a tendency to stick in wet weather. But, of course, there had been no wet weather. Hot and clear and lovely it had been, this August. She settled into the straight chair, swiftly pulled out a little stock of thick cream-colored stationary, lifted the wooden pen out of the inkwell.

“Dear Frank,” she scrawled quickly on the top of the page, “it was so good to hear from you and Betty. I certainly appreciate the work you've done in settling the estate and forwarding payments to Eleanor and me. She is without any other income now. There has been no word from Andre since May. His unit was in Belgium, near Bruges, but she has heard nothing since the Armistice. I am afraid . . .” She lifted her pen, held her head rigid, listening. She had written a letter yesterday to her brother, mailed it in the afternoon, but it was something to do now, words she could scrawl by rote, as she waited for that heavy knock on the door.

She stared at the pigeon holes, bills tucked in one, correspondence in another, Robert's school reports in a third. Why had she been such a fool to agree to help Michael? What would the Germans do to them if they found him? Put them in prison? And Robert—what would happen to Robert if they found him hiding an escaped English soldier?

Even the Germans wouldn't put children in prison. Would they?

She remembered the Petersons' description of their attempt to flee Paris just before the Germans reached the capital in mid-June. The roads South had been clogged, blocked by the thousands and thousands of refugees, families on foot pushing wheelbarrows or baby carriages, others riding in ramshackle trucks, old cars, school buses and farm carts, a few in limousines and hundreds on bicycles, anything and everything that could move and carry a few belongings. There was no food, no fuel. Stops along the way had been stripped of everything. If a car ran out of gas, it was shoved off the road and its owner joined the thousands on foot.

Patsy Peterson's voice had shaken when she told them, “It was just after dawn of the 14
th
that the Messerschmitts came roaring down along the road, machine gunning everything in their way.”

Screams and shouts rose and fell like a long wave across the countryside. People ran off the road, jumped into ditches, hid under trees and bridges. All except those who were dead, of course. That's how the Nazis cleared the road for troops to pass. Stolid-faced, bored-looking soldiers stared without much interest from the trucks that hurtled to the South, chasing the remnants of the French Army.

People who would machine-gun refugees just to clear the road of defeated people, what would they do to a boy, caught helping an enemy soldier?

Frank had demanded in his last letter that they come home to Pasadena, bringing Robert, of course, with them. “You damn fools, don't wait until it's too late and you are trapped.”

It had been two weeks before Christmas, 1939, that Frank and Betty put her and Eleanor aboard the Chief, in Pasadena, en route to Kansas City, the first leg of the long journey to France. Frank had been reluctant even then. “Dammit, Linda, there's a war on. Eleanor has a husband there, but you don't have to go.”

She was impatient. “No one really expects any fighting now. After all, war was declared September 3 and nothing's happened. Nothing.”

He had nodded, but he was still opposed. “Hell of a time to go, anyway. Why don't you spend Christmas here with us, you know the kids love having you, then think about a visit next summer if it's safe?”

But that was just what she didn't want to do and it was so difficult to explain to Frank. Frank, after all, was so much older. He and Eleanor had been almost grown when Linda was born. He was thirty-six and Eleanor thirty-four to her nineteen so both of them were in their college and early married years when she was a little girl. She had clear memories of them, Frank receiving his law degree, Eleanor walking down the aisle at her wedding, slim and dark-haired, smiling radiantly. But Linda didn't actually know either of them well. Frank and Eleanor hadn't grown up in the same way either, though they all had the same parents. Her mother and father had delighted in Linda, the late-come, last child. She had traveled almost everywhere with them. They were on their way to see Linda, to pick her up for a weekend from Mills, when their small plane, lost in fog, had crashed into the Tehachapi Mountains. The loss of their parents had been a grief, of course, to Frank and to Eleanor, but not the devastating loss it had been to Linda. When Eleanor, home for the funeral, urged Linda to come back to France with her, Linda accepted at once.