Waiting for the Violins (26 page)

“He wasn’t patrolling,” Celine said, watching, amused, as her dog sniffed the corpse. “I recognize him. It’s Heinz Büttner, and he was here on his own, spying on Sandrine.”

“Well, here is where he’ll stay,” Gaston muttered as he plunged his shovel into the ground. “This is as good a place as any to bury him. It’s off the path.”

“Do you think anyone will come looking for him?” Mathilde asked.

“Only if he told people where he was going,” Antonia responded, shoveling out more of the moist dirt. “He seemed to have a personal grudge, so it’s possible he didn’t. In any case, we have to warn Sandrine, as soon as she reaches a place where we can call her.”

“But even if they do suspect Sandrine, how will they know where she is?” Celine idly nudged the dead man’s boot with her foot.

“I suppose they won’t,” Antonia replied, grunting with the effort of lifting the damp soil. “But they’ll be on the lookout for her, both here and at Belgian border crossings. We have to warn her.” She plunged the shovel back into the ground, pressing it deeper with her foot.

Conversation stopped for a moment as they dug a hole of a suitable size. Finally Gaston stopped and righted himself, rubbing his back. “That seems enough.”

“The gun.” Antonia pointed down at the holster still at the side of the cadaver. “We can always use another gun.”

“Boots, too, come to think of it. In these hard times.” Gaston knelt and yanked them off, one by one. By the light of the dead man’s own torch, they slid him shoeless into his grave and shoveled loose soil over it. They tamped it down with their feet and scattered leaves and branches over the mound.

“Let’s go back now. I’ll telephone our people at the first way station and warn Sandrine that someone may be looking for her,” Antonia said. “Unfortunately, she won’t get the message until she’s already over the border and in France.”

“This could all blow over if Büttner is simply listed as missing,” Gaston said hopefully. “But if he’s traced here, anything could happen, to her and to us. I think we all have to be ready to run.”

Antonia looked down at the camouflaged grave at their feet. “Bastard. All because he thought it was okay to shoot a dog.”

They started back, the two elkhounds bounding ahead of them, but Celine held back for a moment. “Wait,” she called out. “One last thing.” She lifted her dog from the ground and set her in the midst of the camouflaged grave. “Make poo poo, Suzi,” she cooed.

Antonia waited a few moments in bemused silence, as the dachshund looked up, confused. Then she scratched a few times in the freshly turned dirt and obliged.

Celine patted her on the head. “Good dog.”

Chapter Twenty-six

February 1943

Sandrine stood at the end of a long line at the Spanish border, crossing into France. She was exhausted, but it was the comforting fatigue of another completed delivery. Four more good men were on their way to freedom. And one of them even reminded her of Laurent.

Antonia had told her at the beginning of the trip about the discovery of Büttner’s spying and warned her that she might be under scrutiny, but she hadn’t seen any sign of it along the way. Her luck was holding up.

The recent BBC news, which she’d heard the day before at Jaime and Colombina’s farmhouse, was also uplifting. Not only had the German advance stalled in Russia, but Rommel was being driven back out of Tunisia.

Strange, to personally know the man in the news, who stood for Germany’s military might in Africa. She rejoiced at his every defeat but couldn’t help but feel a twinge for the cultured man she’d shared a concert with. Strange, too, that a person could play a violin one year and kill another country’s soldiers the next. Though that was more or less what Laurent had done too. Did Frau Rommel also keep his violin on the mantelpiece?

She leapt by free association to her own mantelpiece and Antonia standing by it admiring her photos. Unfortunate that she’d had to leave before the tension of their late-night confrontation had dissipated. It was unfinished business that she didn’t know how to finish, and the weeklong trip down the line had merely postponed doing so.

Antonia. The lovely name that was a gift. So much richer than Sophie. She couldn’t remember ever caring for someone so much. But she could sense Antonia’s desire radiating from her, and it terrified her, like having a tiger in the house that she wanted to caress but dared not for fear of being devoured.

Leaning to the side, she counted off the remaining people. Philippe was already safely through. Good. Only four others remained. She did a mental inventory of the contents of her rucksack, in the event of a search. Antonia’s rucksack. So much more efficient than her own, with zippered compartments. It even smelled like her a bit.

“Your papers, madam.” A man’s voice startled her, and it took a moment for her to recognize the danger she was in. It was not a customs officer but a French Milice.

She smiled as amiably as possible without appearing to flirt and handed over her counterfeit identification. He peered at it, examined her other papers, peered at it again, scratching at the glue that held the photo on it. It was a new product, but a well-made one, on an authentic form. She had even carefully smudged it to make it look worn. But the glue behind the photo was new.

“Open your bag, madam,” he ordered her, and she obeyed, holding the smile. He fished out all its contents, including her underwear, and laid them out on his table. Nothing that could have aroused suspicion.

“Why were you in Spain?”

“I was visiting a friend.”

He scrutinized her entry stamp. “For just one day?” Your address is in Belgium, and you came all the way in winter to Spain for one day?”

“Yes. That’s all the time I could spare. I have a family to care for.”

“Who did you visit?” His eyes bored into hers.

“An old friend.” She made up a name.

“In what city?”

“Bilbao,” she answered immediately. “On the Ronda Kalea, in case you care.”

He continued to stare, as if he could read her deepest thoughts. “I don’t care.” He turned to the Milice standing beside him. “Take her for interrogation. I don’t like this woman.”

*

Antonia tacked up the antenna around two sides of the attic cubicle. Her chagrin after the late-night scene with Sandrine had ebbed over the following week as she occupied herself with daily hardships and tasks. She even felt a certain relief after Sandrine had departed, for no other reason than that her absence meant Alexander von Falkenhausen would have no access to her. The Büttner incident seemed to have no consequences, and now she was carrying out the most pleasant of her duties, teaching Celine Collin how to be a radio operator.

She had grown very fond of the girl. Celine had the strong character of her sister Laura but was uncompromised by the demands of marriage and a business. In peacetime, she might have been called a “handful,” but in the Resistance, that rebelliousness manifested as courage. Unfortunately, she inclined toward recklessness, and Antonia felt protective of her.

They sat together in front of the transmitter and she handed over the earphones “You’ve already shown me how adept you are at handling all the dials and switches, so I’m going to let you start it up today and then sit in on a real transmission.”

Celine executed the required tasks with aplomb. When the signal light glowed with satisfying brightness, she handed back the earphones. “I know all this by heart. And I’ve memorized the SOE code you use too. That is, if I have the poem, I can do the encryption.”

“We’ll find out how good you are today. You’re going to sit here next to me and listen with one earphone while I use the other. I have to send a few coded lines to my supervisor. I’d like you to follow the Morse and then transcribe it as you hear it.”

“Great challenge. Let me just get some paper ready.” Celine took a comfortable position with pencil in one hand and the single earphone in the other. “Okay, let’s go.”

Antonia held the one earphone up to her ear and, with her free hand, tuned to the appropriate frequency and began to tap. The message was encrypted, but her mind registered each coded word in its original meaning.

Pilots adrian briggs stp allen meriweather stp dick wheatley waiting for clearance stp please provide schools and commanders names for interrogation stp note am training new operator for future communications code name angel end.

She gave her personal code reference and terminated the transmission.

“How’d you do?”

Celine laid down her pencil. “I got it, but I think I spelled some of the men’s names wrong.” She slid the paper over for Antonia’s perusal.

“Actually, it’s quite good. You got everything but Wheatley and Meriweather, and they’re close enough. I’m very pleased. The next time the SOE transmits, you can listen in directly and see if you get the same message I do.”

“I wish you’d let me transmit something. Maybe a—”

A rap at the door of their cubicle interrupted them, and Mathilde came in without waiting for a reply. Even in the dim light Antonia could see she was shaken.

“What is it?”

“Philippe Ledoux called from Bayonne. The Gestapo has arrested Madame Toussaint.”

Antonia grew cold. “What happened?”

“On the return. She delivered the men, but Milice stopped her at the border crossing.” Mathilde spoke calmly but clutched her apron. “You have to leave. Both of you. The police will find out who she is, if they don’t know already, and they’ll come back here.”

Mastering her own panic and despair, Antonia did a rundown of dangers, strategies. “The new-pilot rescues should stay at the fish market, and Celine can go back to Laura. But what will happen to you and Gaston?”

“We’ll stay with the house. We can pretend to be stupid servants, who knew nothing. And even if they arrest us, they have no proof we were ever involved, not if you take the radio. But they’ll probably confiscate the house,” she added sorrowfully.

“What about the dogs?”

“I don’t think they’ll hurt them. Even the Gestapo likes dogs. But Philippe Ledoux will also come looking for them. Don’t worry about us. Just go and save yourself. Belgium needs you both.”

“Yes, you’re right.” She hurriedly disconnected the antenna and stowed all the components in the radio valise. “Celine, go on back to Laura’s. You should be safe there until we can decide on the next step.”

“Where will you go?” Celine asked.

“Back to where I was before, at Christine’s. Come on, we have to pack up everything here so the Gestapo doesn’t find anything.”

Mathilde disconnected the lamp and removed paper, pencils, maps. “I’ll send Gaston up here to make the place look like storage again. Just be on the alert yourself now.”

They descended together, Celine to her bicycle, Mathilde to locate Gaston, and Antonia to her room. Sandrine had her good rucksack, so she took an old one, and in a matter of minutes, she’d packed a change of clothes, counterfeit identity papers, money, and pistol. She was in the doorway when she had a second thought and returned to the wardrobe. Still clean and ironed, Laurent’s blue shirt hung innocently, waiting to be worn. She snatched it from its hanger, rolled it up, and stuffed it into her rucksack.

Then she was at the entryway before the house, where Gaston held her bicycle. “Where can we reach you if we have to?” he asked, then shook his head. “No, it’s better we don’t know. I’m an old man. I don’t know how strong I can be.”

“Thank you for everything, Gaston, Mathilde,” Antonia blurted out, and embraced them both. “You’ve been like family.” She strapped her two bundles to the back of her bicycle. “I’ll see you after the war,” she called out over her shoulder, and started for the woods.

Heavily encumbered, she pedaled awkwardly for a few hundred meters along the path before she stopped. From the shelter of the trees, she gazed back at the Château Malou and felt a pang of longing. Huge and empty as it was, it was the closest thing to a home she’d known in many years. And it belonged to Sandrine.

While she watched, the long black limousine of the Gestapo drew up in front of the portal. It wasn’t the Baron von Falkenhausen this time, but four SS men.

The Milice had found out who their prisoner was.

*

She rode eastward, then northward, making a wide circle back toward central Brussels. It was after curfew now, and patrols were on the lookout. With her rucksack and valise, she would immediately attract attention. Her nerves were on edge and her mind raced, trying to sort out the next few steps. She suppressed the sorrow and sickening dread of Sandrine’s arrest. First, she had to get to safety.

But was the Gestapo looking for her anyhow? Only if Sandrine had talked, and surely she wouldn’t have. Not yet, at least. They would torture her and…Antonia brushed the awful image from her mind. She had to keep her head clear.

The attic room on the Rue Marché au Charbon was almost certainly empty. And with a little luck, she could make contact with Moishe again. Christine would hide her, and she would be within walking distance of the café.

It was dark now, and that made it easier for her to stay in the shadows. She circumvented Marie-Louise Square, avoided the larger streets, and ducked into dark corners at the sight of automobile headlights, all of which, at that hour, would be German.

Crossing the Rue de Vallon, she heard laughter and threw herself into an alley, just as a two-man patrol rounded a corner and marched past her. She waited until she could no longer hear them, then continued, taking detours whenever the streets were too wide or too bright. She passed through the district of the central railroad station, where it was impossible to remain out of sight, but made it to the darkness of the Grasmarkt. She was almost there.

The Rue Marché au Charbon was just ahead and…an electric torch shone suddenly in her face. She froze. Behind the light she could just make out the silhouette of a man.

“Stop! Show your papers.” Belgian gendarmes.

She halted, straddling her bicycle, forcing herself to relax, to take on the demeanor of the person she was on her identification papers. Sophie Lejeune, nurse’s aid, rushing to a patient. She handed over her papers with one hand, shielding her eyes against the torch’s glare with the other.