CHAPTER 17   

Peter was amazed at Anja’s stamina. He was far more worried about Mikel, who was obviously struggling. Mikel had looped the longest section of the rope that Pierre had used to restrain him and taken it with him when he and Peter made their escape. Now Peter began to see a purpose for that rope.

“Let’s take a break,” he said when they came to a piedmont area that they would need to cross to continue following the ridge. Daylight was just beginning to streak the eastern sky. He set Daniel down. He’d been carrying the boy for some time, and although the kid was waif thin, it was still a relief to be without the extra weight. The fact that for once neither Mikel nor Anja objected to his suggestion told him that they had been thinking along similar lines but were determined to keep pushing forward in a race against the coming dawn and the need to reach and cross the river. Not that they would be home free once they accomplished that. The Spaniards might not be officially in this war, but their government definitely tended to side with Hitler. And there was money to be made for capturing and turning people like them over to the Germans. Mikel had said that some locals would gladly trade any one of them for an extra loaf of bread.

Peter leaned against a boulder and took a long swallow of the water that was almost gone from the goatskin. “Let me see that rope,” he said.

Mikel gave him a look that as usual questioned whatever he might be thinking.

“Come on. Hand it over.”

Reluctantly, Mikel did as he asked. Peter handed him the goatskin in exchange. Mikel drank and passed it to Anja, who took no more than a sip before offering it to her son.

“Daniel, why don’t you refill that with water from that little brook over there,” he suggested as he uncoiled the rope, mentally measuring the length. It would do for his purposes. He tied one end into a loop and waited for Daniel to return with the filled goatskin, which he proudly presented to his mother. Peter slipped the rope over Daniel’s head and then tightened it around the boy’s waist. “Now you,” he said to Anja as he formed a second loop.

“You will get us all killed,” Mikel scoffed as he watched Peter fasten the rope around Anja’s waist, leaving a length between her and Daniel and another length before he formed the third loop that he offered Mikel. “I am not doing this,” Mikel protested. “Besides, you were to carry the boy through the most difficult parts.”

“And I will do that. That’s why he is on the end, so I can release him and carry him.”

“And where will you be?”

“I’ll take the lead.”

Mikel bristled, and then he laughed. “You? You have no idea where you are going.”

“That’s why you are going to be next to me so you can tell me.” He held up the third loop.

Mikel scowled at him, but at last, with obvious pain that he was having more and more trouble concealing, he stood and slipped it over his head, tightening it with a firm jerk at his waist. “Now what?”

Peter quickly formed the last loop and secured it around his waist. “Now we go.” He looked up to where the clouds hung low over the highest peaks. “Daniel, do you think you can make it to those clouds?”

Daniel hesitated. The clouds must have seemed miles away to the boy. “I can do it,” he replied firmly.

“You don’t have to,” Anja said. “I can carry you, and then—”

“I can do it, Mama.”

“Then let’s go,” Peter said and started up the trail that wound its way around boulders and across valleys, following the ridge. He could feel the drag of the others tugging at his waist as he walked on slowly but steadily. He couldn’t help thinking about his fellow crew members and Ian and Colin. He suspected that at least one of them had stayed behind to face the soldiers and give the rest a chance to make it to the woods. He also suspected that the person who had stayed had been Sam Levine.

After all, he was the one who had found the pistol, and he was also the one who had seemed the most affected and depressed by the experiences he’d suffered in the prison camp. When they were talking while eating the breakfast Pierre had prepared for them, Ian and Colin had spoken openly about how they were certain the invasion was coming soon and after that the war would be over in a matter of months if not weeks. But Sam had smirked at such idealistic chatter.

Peter thought about the shot he’d heard and realized that it had been a single gunshot followed by the sound of shots from a machine gun. Peter remembered how Eddie had joked in training that machine gun fire sounded like a woodpecker. How they had laughed at that image. In those days, they had been told that the men around them, going through training with them, were now their families. And if all the men in the unit were his family, then for sure the men on that plane with him had been his brothers. He would miss his crew—he already did.

“Peter!”

He looked back at Anja’s hissed call and saw that Mikel was gasping for air. He found a level space sheltered by an outcropping of rocks and pulled each of the others up to it. While Peter helped Mikel to a sitting position Anja gathered a handful of snow from a ledge. “Here, take this and let it melt slowly in your mouth.”

“There … is … a … monastery,” Mikel gasped. “Not far … Leave …”

“I’ll go,” Peter said, pulling out the rough map that Mikel had surrendered to him when he insisted on taking the lead. “Point me in the right direction.”

Mikel placed his forefinger on a spot and then indicated that this marked where they were. Then he ran his finger across about an inch of the paper and tapped it.

“Got it,” Peter said as he memorized the path and then folded the map and tucked it back inside Mikel’s jacket. “You stay here and rest and keep drinking that snow.”

“I can fill the goatskin again,” Daniel volunteered. But his face fell as he realized this time there was no stream conveniently nearby. Then he brightened. “I can fill it with snow. It will take some time, but I can do it.”

“Just stay here with your Mom and Mikel, okay, pal?” Peter gripped the boy’s shoulder then touched Anja’s arm. “I won’t be long,” he promised.

“Go. We’ll be all right.”

Knowing that the conversion of an inch on the map to miles on the actual path was guesswork at best and that the ground to be covered was not flat as it appeared on the paper, Peter set out to find the monastery. Along the way, he fortified himself by taking a handful of snow and stuffing it in his mouth. In spite of Anja’s constant reminders for them to drink water, he suspected that all of them were seriously dehydrated, and the high altitude wasn’t helping. So when he looked up as he edged his way past a bulging boulder along a narrow path that dropped off into a valley several hundred feet below, he was sure that he had begun to hallucinate.

Standing just beyond the huge rock was a figure in a long monk’s robe that was tied at the waist with a hemp rope. The person’s face was totally obscured by a hood, and he was wearing sandals. But when the man held out his hand to Peter, it looked real enough, and Peter took it gratefully.

He started to explain about Mikel and the others. The monk did not speak but nodded and in silence showed Peter another, easier way to retrace his steps back to where he’d left them. When they arrived, Mikel looked a lot worse than he had when Peter left them, but he smiled at the monk.

“Brother Francisco,” he murmured and then turned on his side and retched.

“He’s been vomiting up the water,” Anja explained.

Without a word, the monk, who was short and stocky but obviously every bit as strong as Mikel in his prime, lifted Mikel in his arms and motioned for Peter, Anja, and Daniel to follow him. Peter lifted Daniel as they followed the man without question. In silence but with the surefootedness of a mountain goat, he made his way over the rocky terrain and around a bend until they saw a rundown stone structure built into the side of the mountain. To reach it they had to cross an open area where hundreds of sheep were grazing on yellow broom grass and other spring flowers.

“It’s like a picture in that book you read me, Mama,” Peter whispered. “But it’s real.”

“Yes, it is, and isn’t it beautiful?”

“It’s just like the nuns used to describe heaven,” Daniel continued. “Except there is no lion.”

“Why would there be a lion, Daniel?” Anja asked.

“Because the nuns said that in heaven the lion would lie down with the lambs and everybody would get along and there would be no more fighting.”

Peter saw Anja’s eyes fill with tears, and he wrapped his free arm around her. “Out of the mouths of babes …”

Inside the monastery, the monk carried Mikel to a cell-like but pristine room and laid him gently on a narrow cot then left the room without a word. But a moment later, he reappeared, this time with another monk carrying several pillows, which the two of them placed behind Mikel’s head and back, leaving him in a half-sitting position.

“Yes,” Anja said. “Better for his breathing. Thank you.”

The two monks folded their hands in front of them and stood by the door as if waiting for direction. Anja seemed to understand the situation a lot better than Peter did. “If it would not be too much trouble,” she said, “could we have some hot water and perhaps an extra blanket or two?”

The men left the room and returned moments later with a cart set with cups, spoons, a pot of hot water, and another of hot broth. They also brought a stack of blankets and covered Mikel with two of them then wrapped one around Anja’s thin shoulders. Somewhere from the depths of the thick-walled building a bell tolled. The monks opened the door and gestured for Peter and Daniel to come with them.

Daniel glanced at his mother, who nodded before he agreed to follow the monks. Peter was more reluctant to leave her.

“Go,” she said. “They want you and Daniel to join them for their midday meal. And Daniel? It is like our meeting for worship—you must not talk.”

The boy grinned and made the gesture of locking his lips and tossing her the key then followed the monks down the narrow corridor.

“That goes for you as well, Peter Trent,” she added and gave him a weary smile before turning her attention back to Mikel.

“Take some of that broth for yourself,” he told her. “We’ve come this far, and I do not intend for us to fail to make it the rest of the way.”

“Stop giving orders and go eat,” she murmured, but he could see that she was smiling and that the reprieve of being in the monastery had already done wonders to smooth out the worried lines that had etched her mouth and forehead ever since they escaped from the farmhouse.

“We won’t be long,” he promised and hurried to catch up to Daniel and the monks.

Anja felt as if one of the large rocks they had scaled had been lifted from her chest when they reached the shelter of the monastery. Mikel had told her about this order of monks who lived their lives in total silence except for the chanting of prayers several times a day when they gathered for worship. She had immediately seen the similarities between their form of worship and the silence maintained by Quakers in worship. That had made her remember something that her late husband, Benjamin, had once told her as the Nazis continued to escalate their persecution of the Jews: Governments are always starting wars in the name of politics, but the foundation of their disagreement always lies in what and how to believe. “Our way is right and yours is wrong. Believe as I do or pay the consequences.” Yet at the root of every major religion is the idea of one God—omnipotent and singular. The debate arises out of how one communicates with God.

She thought about the political cartoons she had seen portraying Jews with horns as if they were the devil. And she thought about something she had once heard Lisbeth tell Josef when he had objected to her endangering herself in order to help Anja and Benjamin and the children reach safety. “We are all God’s children,” she had said. Reverend Mother had said the same thing.

Outside the thick wooden door, she heard the sound of footsteps, and a moment later Daniel, Peter, and one of the monks entered the room. Daniel presented her with a bowl of boiled grain that looked like oatmeal.

“Why thank—”

He frowned and touched her arm and shook his head. Apparently he had decided to take the vow of silence and expected them all to follow suit. She placed her finger to her lips to show that she understood and took a bite. She made an expression of delight, and Daniel grinned. And she thought how wonderful it was to see that mischievous twinkle that had been dulled by fear and exhaustion come back to her son’s dark eyes.

All through the rest of the day, she sat with Mikel, watching over him as he slept and trying to get him to eat some of the warm soup when he roused. Peter sat with Daniel on the floor of the small room. Peter had asked if by any chance the monks might have a bar of soap, and minutes later one of them returned with a large bar of laundry soap. Peter started showing Daniel how to carve an animal—a mountain goat as Daniel had requested. She saw how careful Peter was to make sure that he saved all of the shavings so that they could be pressed into a ball and not wasted.

As the sun waned, one of the monks came to the room, knocked, and entered with a tray filled with hot broth and tea for Mikel and food for Anja. Then Daniel and Peter left with him, presumably to share another silent meal. And so the day passed.

As darkness set in, a monk arrived with bedding that he spread on the floor and a lighted candle that he set on the ledge of the narrow window. Then he stood at the door for a long moment, his hands folded and his head bowed, and Anja realized that he was praying for them. That simple gesture gave her such a sense of peace. After he left, Peter touched her lightly on the shoulder.

“Spend some time with Daniel before he goes to sleep,” he said. “I’ll sit with Mikel.”

Gratefully she went to sit next to her son. “Did you finish your mountain goat?” she asked him, knowing that he was so very proud of the little sculpture.

“Isn’t it almost like real?” he asked, holding the soap animal up to the candlelight, having evidently decided to break his vow of silence. “Peter did most of it, but I helped some, and he said that in time I would get the hang of it. Does that mean that with practice I will be as good at carving as Peter is?”

“That’s exactly what it means,” she assured him. She took the carving and placed it carefully on the small table where the monk had left the tray. “And now you must sleep.”

Daniel yawned and pulled the blanket higher around his shoulders. “Mama, could we not stay here?”

“No, this is not our home, Daniel. We are only visiting.”

He was asleep almost before she had finished the sentence. She stroked his hair and studied his innocence reflected in the flickering light. She wished they could stay here as well. It had been a very long time since she had felt so free of fear and the constant need to be on her guard.

“Anja? We need to talk about tomorrow.”

She turned to face Peter. His face was in shadow while hers was illuminated by the candle’s glow.

“I know.” But she did not want to talk about tomorrow. Could they not just have this one day—this one night—of peace and serenity?

“I must continue on tomorrow,” Peter continued. “I have spoken with Brother Francisco—well, that is, I spoke and he nodded. I asked that the monks care for Mikel and you and Daniel until Mikel is well enough to travel again.”

“And then?”

“Then you must decide. I don’t know when the invasion will come, Anja, only that it will. And when it does, everything will change. The war may go on for months, but it will be a very different war.”

“You can’t know that. You have no idea what the Nazis are capable of doing.”

“No, and I hate it that you know better than I ever will, but you are the one who told me that in the end, good will triumph over evil.”

“Why must you go on alone when you don’t know the way and will have no guide?”

“Because that is my duty. I have an obligation to do everything possible to get back to my unit.” He eased himself onto the floor so that his back was against the cot and his knees were nearly touching hers. “Mikel loves you, Anja. More to the point, you and he understand each other—you have shared many of the same experiences in this war. He will make a good father for Daniel. The boy adores him.”

“But Daniel loves you.” I love you.

He reached for her hand and pressed it between both of his. “And I love him almost as much as I love his mother. That’s why I have to do this, even though it will be the hardest thing I have ever done and I know that I will regret it for the rest of my life.”

“Then why do it?”

“Because you have shown me that when you love someone, you do what is best for that person. Think of it, Anja. If you and Daniel went with me, what are you doing? I have to make it to Gibraltar and then back to England and eventually back to America. You would be walking away from everything and everyone you know—your grandparents, Josef, Lisbeth … and Mikel. You might never know what has happened to them. Could you live with that? Could you find happiness?”

“Nacht und Nebel,” she murmured, knowing he was right.

He tugged at her, shifting her position so that he could hold her. He kissed her temple. “Know this, Anja: you are the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life, and whatever happens to us as we go our separate ways—something we have both always known to be inevitable—I will always love you.”

She lifted her face to his, and he kissed her, a kiss that spoke of many things: his love for her and hers for him, and the certain knowledge that he was right and this was farewell.

Mikel had spent much of the day drifting in and out of consciousness. So when he heard the low murmur of voices right next to his bed, he was sure that he must be sleeping and dreaming. The monastery was home to an order of monks who had all taken a vow of silence. Once earlier in the day when he had opened his eyes, he’d seen Daniel admonishing Anja to be quiet as he and Peter left the room. She had stuck to that promise—feeding him spoonfuls of a clear broth whenever he woke, smiling but not speaking. So anyone talking now—in the darkness—must be imaginary.

“I must continue on tomorrow,” a man said. More words were exchanged—muffled. Then he heard what was unmistakably Anja’s voice.

“Why must you go on alone when you don’t know the way and will have no guide?”

Suddenly he was wide awake and eavesdropping on a conversation between the American and Anja. Everything in her voice told Mikel that she did not want the airman to go. He strained to hear more. “Mikel loves you, Anja,” Peter told her. More muffled words and then, “He will make a good father for Daniel. The boy adores him.”

“But Daniel loves you.”

It was true. Daniel talked of no one the way he spoke of the American.

Did you know, Mikel, that back in America Peter has his own horse?

Did you know, Mikel, that Peter is going to teach me how to play baseball? He says that baseball is the favorite sport in America, and he believes that I would be very good at it.

What did he have to offer the boy? Or Anja, for that matter? Even once the war came to an end, they faced a life of struggle and hardship. Even if he recovered from the injuries he’d suffered, he was a nomad with no home or job he could offer her. The truth was he was pretty certain that he would not survive. There was a lot more going on with him besides a couple of broken ribs. That understanding made him even more determined to make sure that Anja and Daniel were safe. He closed his eyes when he heard the movement next to him and saw their two heads move closer to each other. He turned his face to the wall, unable to bear witnessing their kiss.

After a moment, Anja moved back to the corner where Daniel was sleeping and curled her body protectively around him. Peter stood up, stretched, and then blew out the candle on the window ledge, casting the room into complete darkness. Mikel listened until he realized that Peter was now sitting on the floor facing the cot, his arms wrapped around his knees, and his head resting on them.

He waited for the sounds of even breathing from Anja and the airman. It was not long at all before he could distinguish that she was sleeping but Peter was not.

“Trent?”

Peter was instantly alert. “You need something?” he whispered.

He fought for the breath he needed while Peter stood and reached for the cup of water on the tray. “Just be still and listen, all right?” For once in your arrogant life, don’t have to be in control of everything.

To his surprise, Peter sat on the edge of the cot.

“Tomorrow … do not go without her. Wait until I can speak with her.”

“She won’t leave Daniel,” Peter whispered.

“Yes she will. You are going to have to trust me.”

“I do.” Peter seemed surprised that Mikel would ever question that.

Mikel felt the now-familiar viselike tightening in his chest. “Water,” he murmured, and Peter expertly found the cup in the dark and tipped it to Mikel’s lips. When he’d had enough, he gripped Peter’s hand. “If you allow anything to happen to her,” he growled, “I will find you…. I will kill you.”

To his surprise, the American chuckled. “Anja would not approve of violence,” he reminded him.

Mikel collapsed back onto the pillows. Was everything a joke to these Americans?

Peter gently used the edge of the cover to wipe Mikel’s mouth. “Get some sleep, my friend.”

Daylight seemed to come mere minutes after they had both settled into their places for the night. Mikel opened his eyes to see Anja busy stirring something into his cup. As if she sensed his wakefulness, she turned and smiled at him. “Your fever is down, and Brother Francisco brought me some honey for your tea. Oh, and the sun is shining.”

Mikel coughed to clear the overnight buildup of phlegm from his lungs—with every cough a pain ripped through his injured ribs. He pushed himself to a half-sitting position, and the room spun. “A good day for traveling,” he managed.

Anja gave him a strange look and handed him the tea. “I suppose,” she said, her eyes narrowing with caution.

“You and the American,” Mikel added, as he drank the tea and savored the warmth and thick sweet honey that coated his throat.

“You heard?”

He nodded.

“Then you know that it is Peter who is going. Alone.”

“And how far do you think he will get before he is either hopelessly lost or falls into the hands of a German patrol or some French gang loyal to the Vichy government?”

“You are the guide. You can show him the way—make him a map.”

“You are also a guide,” he reminded her.

She laughed. “Mikel, I have been all the way to the river only twice before, and that was months ago, and furthermore I was not on this route.”

Mikel shrugged and finished the tea then eased back down onto the stack of pillows and closed his eyes. “I can draw him the map—or rather tell you what to draw—and perhaps that will be enough. But we both know that there is much more to this than simply following some unmarked route. He has to sense unseen danger and know how to avoid it. He may have to change his path if, for example, the river is impassable. He—”

“I cannot leave you, and I will not leave Daniel.” She fussed with the task of straightening his covers. “You are not as … It will take some time before you will be well enough to travel.”

So she knew or suspected. Then she also knew that there was nothing she could do for him. He clasped her hand, forcing her to give him her attention. “Daniel can stay here with me. The monks will see that we are both safe and properly cared for, and by the time you return, we will be ready to go.”

“Go where, Mikel?”

He told her what he thought she wanted to hear. “Back to Brussels. Back to Denmark. Is that not what you want?”

“Yes, but—”

“Last night I heard you ask the American why he had to go. He told you that he had a duty. Well, so do we. We dedicated ourselves to saving as many of these Allied airmen as possible because we all know that they and their armies are our final hope for ever knowing a life lived in freedom. Get Peter to San Sebastian—to the consulate there. The Brits will take it from there. You can come back here, and we will decide what our next move will be. You can do this. You must do this.”

He could see that his decision to appeal to her sense of duty had been the right choice. If he had talked about Peter’s love for her—and hers for him—she would have denied it.

“And if we are captured?”

“I will come and find you,” he promised.

She touched his cheek, her eyes glistening with tears that he knew she would not permit to fall. “Mikel, if I do this and if something happens to me, promise me that you … that Daniel …”

“I have already thought of that,” he told her. “But it will not happen. You and Daniel …”

“And you …”

From the hallway, they heard her son’s footsteps skipping down the stone corridor. A knock and then the door opened. Daniel entered the room followed by Peter and Brother Francisco. He saw Peter look first at him and then at Anja.

“Daniel,” she said, gently guiding her son back through the open door, “let’s take a walk. I have something we need to discuss.”

Peter spent the rest of the day with Mikel and Brother Francisco going over maps of the region while Anja spent the day with Daniel. Occasionally he noticed how Mikel pulled the monk close and whispered to him. Brother Francisco nodded and sometimes left the room for a time and then returned. Mikel had calculated that they should leave around four so that by the time they reached the river it would be close to dark—the best time for crossing a waterway swollen with melting snow and treacherous even under the best of conditions.

“If you can’t find a calmer place, there’s a suspension bridge here,” the Basque had told him, pointing to a place on the map.

“What about other bridges? I mean you said the workers move back and forth between Spain and France.” He fingered the blue coveralls they both still wore. “That was the reason for these, right?”

“The workers move back and forth, but they also pass through checkpoints and are subject to searches. The danger is …”

“Okay. I get it. So the suspension bridge it is.”

“That way is also risky because of the age and condition of the bridge—the ropes are frayed, and many of the slats are broken or missing altogether. Also the area is heavily patrolled by Spanish border guards. Normally we would plan to make the crossing just before dawn. You may not have that option. Anja will be the one who decides.”

Peter understood that this last statement was a reminder that Anja was in charge and her decisions were not to be questioned. “Got it,” he said, folding the map and slipping it into the pouch that would protect it from rain and water damage. “We should get going.” He shook hands with Mikel, gave Brother Francisco a slight bow, and then went to find Anja.

“Ready?” she asked, and he heard in her voice that she was not—that leaving her son again was going to be more painful than he could imagine.

He nodded and tried to swallow around the lump that suddenly blocked his throat as he watched her say good-bye to Daniel. The boy fought his tears and hugged her hard, but he did not cling. He had had to grow up fast in the world he’d been given, and Peter had nothing but admiration for him—and for Anja.

She had walked backward away from the monastery, waving to Daniel, who stood with Brother Francisco at the gate. When they reached a patch of forest and she knew that Daniel could no longer see them, she turned and started up a narrow path that the sheep had etched into the ground. “This way,” she said. “And no more talking.”

They hiked in silence through a steady drizzle with much of the way shrouded in fog as dusk set in. Suddenly, after what Peter estimated to be more than an hour, they topped yet another in what seemed to Peter to be an unending series of rises, and Anja stopped. She turned her head this way and that as if sniffing the air or listening for something. Then she motioned for him to follow her down the steepest part of the trail, their feet sliding on loose rocks as they picked up speed. In the distance, he heard what she had been listening for—the rushing waters of the Bidassoa River. They were within sight of the border between France and Spain.

As they skidded to a halt at the base of the path, the fog cleared and there was just enough daylight left for him to consider their surroundings. His breath caught when he saw the river. It was wide, it was swollen, and it was raging as it clawed at the shore, staking its claim to land beyond its normal banks. How on earth were they going to get across this beast?

“We will need to wait until just before dawn,” Anja said as if reading his mind.