Camille
Two months later, and after several successful deliveries of food to Rachel and her mother, Camille still waited for Vivian to pull together the Bermans’ escape plan. Each time she visited Rachel, she had few details to share. She saw the grief in her friend and knew it would be hard to leave Paris, but it was the best way to start a new life where the Nazis couldn’t hurt her.
That place would not be in Europe. Wireless broadcasts reported German victories daily. America’s entry in the war had not slowed them down. But Hitler was so caught up in winning the war on the continent, while pushing toward Russia, that he had not put troops on American soil.
In that, Camille found hope for Rachel and her mother. They would be safe on the other side of the Atlantic. Vivian claimed she was working on the details, but her assertions that “these things take time” and “many details must fall into place” brought Camille great concern.
She entered the kitchen still pondering the delays that kept cropping up and set her mind on tonight’s task. Von Bauer was hosting an intimate dinner party for four. Vivian would be the only woman at the table. He’d given Camille precise instructions, as was his habit, before exiting the house this morning.
The menu was to include vichyssoise as the first course, a fruit salad with strawberries and bananas, followed by sea bass and asparagus for the main dish. She was to end the night with individual chocolate soufflés that must rival any Michelin three-star restaurant in Paris. He also expected fine wines and a minimum of three centerpieces of fresh-cut flowers arranged in crystal vases. Camille had searched the house for the elusive vases. Vivian suggested she try the basement, which brought no small amount of dread. Camille had avoided that area of the house, for personal reasons, and it had never been a problem. Until today.
Having put off the task long enough, she opened the door and stood perfectly still as memories from another time, in another basement, assaulted her. Even now, seven years after that horrible day, she could hear Jacqueline’s screams in her head. The smells were in her nose as well. The scent of gunpowder, her father’s blood, mixed with death. No, she couldn’t go down into the basement.
She had to do it.
Von Bauer would know she’d avoided this trip into the dark recesses of the house. There was no choice. She took her first tentative step, bracing for the images she kept hidden in her mind. They came quickly and followed her to the bottom of the stairs. The smell was nearly unbearable, a nausea-inducing mix of mold and wet wool and something that came from a dead animal. Some sort of rodent, she guessed. A rat.
Would she never be free of the monstrous little creatures?
Camille found a lone light bulb hanging by a single wire and pulled on the string. The scurrying of claws over concrete, the flash of black fur, a pink tail, and then she was blissfully alone with only the terrible stench.
Dust bunnies scattered under her foot, warning she was the first in a long time to venture this deep into the bowels of the house. That should have comforted her. But spiders stared at her from their sticky webs suspended in the corners. She looked away and focused on the racks full of forgotten canned goods. Sacks of flour and sugar, butter and coffee filled another. Nearly every item was neatly aligned side by side and in bulk.
Had that been von Bauer’s doing? Vivian’s? Or perhaps, the previous occupants had anticipated shortages and prepared accordingly. That would explain the layers of dust. Camille thought back and remembered that Vivian’s suggestion to look for the vases in the basement had been a passing remark, not a definitive solution.
She found several vases on one of the shelves and breathed a sigh of relief as she clutched three of them to her. Deed done, she worked her way back to the stairwell, her pace fast and nimble. Then something cold snaking around her ankles made her scream. She nearly shot up the steps but took an instant to look down and saw it was only a draft. Coming from where?
A quick scan revealed the windows were shuttered from the inside.
Something nagged at her, a memory she couldn’t quite catch. There, then gone. Head cocked, she moved closer to the shelves with the canned fruit and, aha, she felt the draft again, coming from beneath the rack itself. Perhaps there was a hole in the wall.
That would explain the rodents.
Setting the vases on the floor, she peeked beneath the rack. There was a thin gap running parallel to the floor. That vague memory nagged at her again, and she stood, the key ring slapping against her hip bone as she wiped her hands on the apron. The memory tugged harder, bringing images slowly, eventually, into focus.
Another room. A large piece of furniture.
Vivian’s furs, hidden away. Of course. Of course. Camille moved the rack aside, which required a lot of pulling and pushing and moving from one side to the other. And yes. There it was. The outline of a small door. There was no handle, only a padlock. After several misfires, Camille found the key. The door swung inward, and a whoosh of stale air swept over her. Well, well. She’d found a secret tunnel. Where did it go?
She checked her watch. There were hours before von Bauer’s return. She needed only a few minutes. Hurrying now, she retrieved a flashlight from the kitchen and, steeling herself against her awful, awful memories, she made the descent back into the basement.
A sound had her stopping midway down. She held her breath, waited. Listened. Nothing. Just an old house with old bones settling into itself. Blowing out a breath, she continued. At the edge of the tunnel, sweat broke out on her forehead, and her stomach tried to jump to her throat as she stared at the nothingness in front of her. She flicked on the light and, yes. It was indeed a tunnel, cut into soil and rocks.
Again, she tried to work out where it led, knowing there was only one way to find out.
She took a tentative step, swept the light left to right, up and down. Another step. Another sweep. She continued in this manner. Step, sweep. Step, sweep. The narrow passageway was supported by wooden joints and beams that required Camille to bend low or risk hitting her head.
An uneasy feeling grabbed her. A sense that this was not a place where happiness had lived. The previous owners of the house came to her. A family of Jews, targeted by Nazis.
She did not like the conclusions that filled her mind. She called out, “Hello?”
An echo was her only response.
Suddenly afraid of what she would find, she thought to turn back, but the smell of death was absent, and some inner need urged her forward, a sense that she must—must—find out what lay at the other end of this tunnel. Each step required courage she hadn’t tapped into since coming upon her father in their basement. Time seemed to bend and shift, taking Camille back to that moment of dark discovery. She nearly turned back, but no.
You can do this.
The tunnel got smaller and then, suddenly, opened into a larger space, no longer made from dirt and rocks supported by wood beams but a room made of concrete. Not a room, a bunker, sturdy but hastily constructed, as evidenced by the cracks in the floor.
Camille passed the light through the space. The beam landed on a small cot with a blanket and pillow. A woman’s hairbrush lay discarded on the milk crate beside it, along with a small stockpile of candles, matches. To her right stood another cot, and still another. The third one was half the size as the other two. For a child, no doubt, and that made Camille’s heart twist in her chest. She found a tattered stuffed bear and a picture book for toddlers, the pages worn from constant use.
Something thin and shiny caught her eye from one of the cracks. Camille wiggled it free, and a long gilt chain unspooled in her hand. At the end hung a six-point star. The Star of David.
A Jewish family had lived here. Probably the owners of the house. They were gone now. And by all accounts, had left in a hurry. Or had they been dragged out? No, Camille would have seen evidence of a struggle. She would have also seen signs that von Bauer knew about this bunker.
This bunker had kept the family hidden—and alive. The thought brought Camille a level of peace, and she immediately thought of Rachel. If Vivian failed to come through with an escape plan, Rachel and her mother could hide in here, at least temporarily, right under von Bauer’s nose. A desperate last resort, but it was a better plan than none at all.