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I DIDN’T COME OUT OF sleep slowly by drifting into consciousness. I bolted straight up with a start and completely disoriented. A frisson of fear shot through my body as I searched for familiarity. Beneath me lay a pallet covered with muslin ticking. Rough bricks covered the floor, and a damp, earthy smell led me to believe I was below-ground in a cellar. Except for my necklace, I was naked beneath the blanket. A little coal stove gave off enough warmth to comfortably heat the chamber. Further investigation revealed my coat hanging on a nail above the heater and my other clothes scattered across a drying line strung the length of the narrow room. The coat was almost dry, only damp in a few places. My nylon underthings were dry to the touch, and I put them on. The dress dripped wetly on the bricks below, not just at the bottom but all over. I had a feeling my hosts had taken it upon themselves to clean the miserable thing.
I shook my hair. The braids had been released and it curled damply around my ears. Holding my hands in front of the brazier, I turned them back and forth, revealing pink skin, a little raw, but cleansed of the sand and grime. The angry blisters, still painful to the touch, glistened with some sort of greasy balm.
How long have I been here?
My question was soon answered as the door opened and footsteps clunked down the stairs. I scrambled to pull the blanket back around my shoulders.
The head remained bent, watching every step, holding the rickety handrail in one hand and an oil lantern in the other. It didn’t look up until reaching the bottom. When the stooped figure beheld me, it drew to a halt.
The word crone came to mind—hands gnarled and swollen with arthritis that came from age and hard work. The wrinkled face peering at me, protruding between hunched shoulders like a turtle out of its shell, decried her many years on this earth.
“You are awake,” she stated in a wheezy voice. Her French accent was of a country dialect and I had difficulty understanding it.
“Oui. Where am I?”
“Not far from Drusenheim. Who are you?”
“I am searching for my sister. She was a teacher in Alsace.” I pulled the blanket tighter to my shoulders.
Her sunken black eyes stared, giving little away. “Come, child, let us not mince words. You washed up on my doorstep soaking, exhausted, without papers, and carrying nothing except this gun in your coat pocket.” She held the weapon with two fingers, by the grip, upside down.
Nothing? My eyes searched the tiny room for the rucksack, my lifeline throughout this ordeal. It wasn’t to be found. Did she take it? Where did I see it last? I’d removed it to row that dreadful leaking boat across the river. But I slung it on my back when I set off into the woods. Didn’t I? DIDN’T I? I had no recollection of its weight pulling on my shoulders as I staggered through the night, and I could picture it sitting across from me on the short bench spanning the craft’s stern.
There were no identifying papers and the purse generic enough. The rucksack, a simple brown leather affair, its only identifying mark the initials H.H., held nothing that would tie me to it. Still, the boat was bound to be found, and leaving the materials behind was ill-done. I must have been out of my head last night to have allowed it to happen. Thank heavens the gun was in my pocket.
“This is not a German weapon. Who are you? A remnant from the Résistance? Perhaps a Jew? You needn’t be afraid. I am no friend of the Nazis.”
Still, I hesitated to come clean with this woman. She looked harmless enough, and my own experiences showed a majority of the French were anti-Nazi; however, there were some who’d accepted German occupation, even going so far as to turn on friends and neighbors to curry favor with the new regime and save their own skin, especially in this region. Hitler had annexed it first, conscripting Alsatian boys and men into the German army, and the Gestapo had tentacles everywhere.
“Are the Germans still here?”
“So far. The British and Americans have been moving from the north and west, French army from the south, but you are sitting in a pocket that the Germans have yet to surrender.”
I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth in frustration. If only I’d floated farther upriver, I might have landed in the arms of the American army. Or if I’d crossed farther south, I could be celebrating with the French, perhaps enjoying a bottle of wine with one of my Résistance pals. Instead, bad luck had me washing ashore right in the middle of what was left of German-occupied France.
“Where were you going? Perhaps I can help.”
“To find my sister.”
The wrinkled face wrinkled even more as she made a moue of distaste. “Get dressed.” She tossed the gun onto the sleeping pallet, then slowly retreated up the stairs. I waited until the door clicked shut, then made a beeline for the weapon. The chambers remained fully loaded.
Next to the mattress lay a pile of neatly folded clothes consisting of a black sweater with a few moth-eaten holes around the neckline, a pair of black knee socks, and a brown skirt that fell to my calf. The photo of David’s sweetheart lay on top of the stack. My leather boots had been left sitting at the end of the bed, next to the stove, and though they were still damp on the inside, I pulled them on and laced them over the knit socks. A quick check of the secret pocket inside my coat revealed the remaining Reichsmark and David’s dog tag.
With a sense of dread, I slid the heel of the boot aside and found the cavity damp but not full of water as I had expected. The film cartridge fell into my hand, and I shook it, listening for the slosh of liquid. Nothing. Perhaps the film was not ruined after all. My heart lightened. The possibility that the intelligence could be salvaged provided me the incentive I needed to keep moving forward with my plan. Gently, I placed the dog tag on top of the film and slid the sole back in place. The rest of the pockets were empty, the mittens nowhere to be found, probably left behind with the rucksack. I shrugged on the coat and returned the gun to its original location before climbing the steps.
The door opened to reveal a dark entryway of stone floor and what must have been the doorway where the old woman had found me. To my left and right were unlit passageways—the glow of the cellar brazier didn’t reach past the top of the steps—and I hesitated, squinting into the darkness, trying to decide which way to go. A soft shuffling sound on my right had the hair on the back of my neck standing on end, and I stepped quickly in the opposite direction.
“Is that you, young one?” The old woman’s voice carried hollowly down the passage, and even when she came around a corner and her lantern shed light, my heart remained tippy-tapping in my chest. Her disturbing witch-like looks were not made to set one at ease. “Follow me.”
I followed the shuffling figure down a narrow hallway. This was the strangest house I’d ever seen, consisting of long halls covered with timbered walls, some showing blackened scorch marks, and no doorways leading into other rooms as expected. Finally, the woman drew aside a heavy curtain to reveal a room, not much bigger than the cellar I’d just come from. In it sat a wooden table with two long benches on either side. Another brazier, similar to the one in the basement, sat in a corner, and an old iron stove took up the center of the room. A copper teakettle and blackened pot each sat on a burner. There were no visible windows and the walls were made of packed dirt.
My heart no longer pounded—it had stopped completely—and I’m fairly certain all of the blood drained out of my head, for, at the table, drinking from a brown earthenware mug, sat a young German Feldwebel, sergeant first class, from a Panzer division if my eyes didn’t deceive me. And sitting at his elbow was a weapon I knew well, the Mauser K98k.
“Meet my grandson, Masselin. He is going to help you ... find your sister.” The lips pulled back to reveal an unpleasant gap-toothed smile.
Swell.
“Have a seat.” He indicated the bench across from him. “Mamè, get our guest something to eat. She looks ... peaked. Grand-mère tells me you are searching for your sister. What is her name?” He laid the cup down and rested his hand on the butt of the gun.
His weapon lay too close for comfort. If I made a move, it would turn into an old western-style quick-draw shootout, and though I had been trained with handguns, I had not done so with this exact model; I wasn’t so sure I’d win. Additionally, I had no idea if Masselin had friends nearby, in this strange house, to back him up. I decided it would be prudent to get a better lay of the land before making my next move.
The old woman shuffled over to the stove, but my gaze remained on the man across the table as I lowered myself onto the hard bench.
“H...h...” I cleared my parched throat and tried again. “H-helga. Helga Gersbach.” Gersbach was the surname I recalled from the documents taped to the painting at the colonel’s house. Helga came out of thin air. I committed both to memory instantly. This lie was now my cover and I would need to remain steadfast to it.
“Show him the picture.” The gnarled fingers plunked a steaming bowl of soup in front of me.
Reluctantly, I pulled the photo from my pocket and slid it across the table.
He studied the photo. “Very pretty. Très belle. And you are ...?”
“Ilse ... Ilse Gersbach.”
“I don’t recall a girl by the name of Gersbach working as a ... what was it you said?” the sergeant quizzed.
“Teacher,” I said between clenched teeth.
“Teacher.” He tapped a long, narrow finger against his chin. “What about you, Mamè, do you recall anyone named Gersbach teaching around here?”
“Non,” the old crone replied.
“She worked farther south, closer to Strasbourg.”
“Well, I’m sorry to tell you, Ilse, but that area has been captured by the French army. If indeed your sister was there, she is likely in their hands now. Who knows what has happened to her. Perhaps she is providing comfort to the enemy. Such a pretty girl...” He shrugged.
I didn’t reply to his insinuations, but I couldn’t help allowing my eyes to slide away from his obsidian gaze. He’d gotten his dark eyes from his wretched grandmother, if indeed she was his grandmother. We were playing a game of cat-and-mouse, and we both knew I was the mouse.
“Please, eat your soup.” He indicated the pottery dish at my elbow. “Never turn away a meal, I say. Not in such uncertain times.” He shifted, and the play of the light softened his sharp, hawk-like features, almost making them look pleasant, maybe even handsome.
I didn’t argue. He was correct. If I had any chance of getting away from him, I would need my strength and my wits about me. The soup tasted well-salted, with grains of rice, indeterminate vegetables, and a piece of gray meat bobbing around. It was the most difficult meal I’ve ever had to force down my gullet. He examined me, sipping from his mug, as I chewed the tasteless meat, swallowing with a painful gulp. It burned a path to my stomach, but I didn’t stop until only a thin layer of broth lay at the bottom of the bowl. My tablemate didn’t speak as I ate. At some point, I heard the old woman shuffle through the curtain, leaving me alone with her grandson, who, finishing his beverage, pushed away the mug and, removing his hand from the weapon, folded his arms in front of him.
It was the perfect opportunity to extricate myself. Maybe I wouldn’t even need to shoot him. Perhaps I could simply brandish it ... use it to threaten his poor grandmother’s life. My hand slid off the table into my lap.
“Your French is very good ... für eine Deutsche.”
I shrugged, replying nonchalantly, “Meine Großenltern waren Schweizer.” My grandparents were Swiss. “We visited often and learned the language.” The indifference was forced. I’d made a tactical error speaking the French of France to the old woman and continuing with this soldier. I should have adopted a German-accented French. As a native, Masselin would eventually realize this.
“Finished?” The woman had returned on silent feet and spoke at my shoulder, startling me enough that I jerked.
The soldier’s question had thrown me off, and his hand again rested on the weapon. I’d missed my moment to escape. “Oui, thank you it was ... filling.”
She removed the bowl. “Can you help our guest, Masselin? Surely there is something you can do? Someone you can speak with?”
“Oui, Mamè, do not worry, I will help your beautiful little guest find her sister. Come.” He rose and held out a hand to help me. “It is time we went.”
Those long fingers were not ice cold, as I expected, but quite warm; however, their strength was undeniable as they clamped around mine and pulled me upright.