CHAPTER 8   

One of the men handed Anja and Peter glasses of champagne and lifted his own glass in the gesture of a toast. Anja took a sip of the sparkling wine, which tasted like dishwater, and forced a smile. She wondered if Peter found it unusual that no one offered introductions but hoped he would remember what she had told him—the less he knew, the better. That way he had no names to offer should he be captured. To her relief, he simply raised his glass to the others and took a long swallow.

“What’s next, Mom?” he asked the woman in black as he set the glass on a side table.

Everyone except the woman laughed. Anja knew who this was—who it had to be. She had heard of a woman working for the line who moved between Paris and Madrid playing various roles. She was an actress by trade and a fairly well-known one at that. Her name was Gisele St. Germaine, and she was as renowned for her beauty as she was for her courage. While Anja felt like a tramp, having spent the last several hours closed up in a coffin, Gisele looked as if she had just stepped off the pages of the fashion magazines.

Peter certainly had taken notice. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the French woman, who appeared to be studying him with an equal amount of interest and curiosity. Anja felt the flare of pure, unadulterated jealousy. This is hardly the time for such triviality, she thought and stepped to the center of the room. She spoke calmly and softly in German, knowing Peter understood German but not French and assuming the others spoke both. Everyone gathered closer to hear what she had to say. Gisele might be beautiful, but Anja was going to get one thing straight—she was in charge.

“They will return—of that you can be sure. The officer has made an emotional connection to what he thinks is the situation. He will want to see that there is in fact a proper funeral and a burial. This has become a matter of personal pride for him. I for one do not intend to return to that box, so we need to find a body—preferably male and preferably dressed in the uniform of the German Army.”

“Done,” one of the three men replied.

“My friend and I need safe houses for at least tonight.”

“The weather prediction is for a blizzard,” the railway worker said. “The railroads have been ordered to move only essential materials and troops—no passengers—so it could be several days and nights before you can move on to Bordeaux.”

“Will you not both stay here?” Gisele asked.

“No. It’s better if we split up.”

Gisele arched one penciled eyebrow and smiled. “You have just spent hours lying with this man in that coffin,” she pointed out, “and now you would balk at being in the same house with him?” She glanced at the men and murmured the French word for prude. The men all chuckled. Peter looked from them to her. He was clearly confused by this conversation.

“I thought the plan was for us to travel as man and wife,” he reminded her.

“That plan has changed,” she said firmly and turned her attention back to Gisele. “We will need separate safe houses.” If Peter and Gisele were so taken with each other, then who was she to stand in the way? She would give them their privacy.

Gisele lifted one thin shoulder in a gesture of complete indifference and took a cigarette from a silver box on a side table. The railway worker picked up the silver lighter that matched the box and waited for her to anchor the cigarette in an ivory holder.

“What if we are delayed for several days?” Peter asked.

“The weather can work for us as well as against us. There are less likely to be searches during a blizzard. On the other hand, every day we stay here—”

“It is Paris,” Gisele said. “You could be detained in far worse places.” She blew out a long stream of smoke and walked closer to Peter. She studied him. “You are quite tall,” she commented. “A beret, I think, and perhaps a fisherman’s sweater with dark corduroy trousers and some kind of a jacket. Do not shave,” she instructed, then turned her fashion eye to Anja.

“And you …” She walked around Anja, drawing on her cigarette so that Anja’s head was wreathed in smoke. “Makeup, a French twist for the hair, and my Schiaparelli suit for the funeral.” She fingered Anja’s hair. “On the other hand, if we cut this into a boyish style …”

Anja coughed and waved the smoke away. “The clothes I am wearing will be fine, and I happen to like my hair.”

Gisele gave a hoot of laughter and turned back to Peter as if he—not Anja—had objected to her choice of clothing for him. “I have another thought. The beret yes, but the fisherman’s sweater, no. I think you must look more artistic—mysterious even. An ascot with a fine silk shirt in blue to bring out your eyes.”

“I thought the idea was not to be noticed,” Peter said.

“Dressing well is the only way not to be noticed in Paris, my handsome friend. Even in the middle of a war, people take pride in looking their best. It is sometimes our only defense against total despair.”

“No ascot,” Peter mumbled.

“Of course, you are so right, cheri. A suit with a vest, I should think—rumpled and with a neckerchief tied around your throat. Suspenders for when the jacket is off and the vest unbuttoned. White shirt frayed at cuffs and collar and the beret—with that luxurious head of hair you must have the beret.” She actually ran her fingers through Peter’s thick hair, and the man stood there, grinning like a love-struck teenager.

Anja was beside herself. “Could we get on with this?”

“I thought we were,” Gisele replied, and she actually winked at Peter as if the two of them were sharing some private joke at Anja’s expense.

“Once we have the safe houses and disguises in place, then we’ll need train tickets to Bordeaux for each of us.”

“Got that covered,” the railway man said. “Everything is in order, mademoiselle. This is not the first time we have done this.”

“I know, and I apologize.” She managed a weak smile. “You see, this is the first time I have been on this side of things since we started the line. Usually I am standing where you are. Tonight I am one of the people who must trust you with my life.”

One of the other men stepped forward. “And you—and the airman here—could not be in safer hands. Now suppose we get you to your safe houses where you can have some food and a wash-up and get some rest.”

It was exactly what Anja would have said if she’d been the one dealing with a new evader. “Yes,” she agreed. “We are both so very tired.”

But when she and the man assigned as her contact reached the Paris apartment where she was to stay, they found the Gestapo there ahead of them. From the shadows of a shop doorway across the street, they watched as a woman was taken into custody, placed in a car, and taken away.

“What now?” Anja murmured more to herself than to her companion.

“We return to Gisele’s,” he said, already starting down a nearby alley. “We are already short of safe houses, so for tonight at least I think you must stay with the American. It is the only way.”

When they got to Gisele’s apartment, Anja was led to the actress’s bedroom and on into a closet the size of the bedroom she and her son shared at the farmhouse. The closet was filled with clothes and shoes and handbags and hatboxes. It did not appear as if one more item of clothing could possibly fit. Her guide went directly to a rack holding dozens of evening dresses and pushed them apart. Then he tapped out a code on the wall, waited for a reply, and slid a small section of the wall to one side.

Behind the wall was a tiny room—only a quarter the size of the closet. Two mats lay on the floor and a single lightbulb hung from the ceiling. Peter was sitting cross-legged on one of the mats. He motioned to the other one. “Home sweet home. Giselle said we should make ourselves comfortable and she will see us in the morning.”

He lay down on the mat closest to the wall. Anja’s guide indicated that she should take her place on the other mat. When she did, he closed the partition, and she heard him move the hangers laden with Gisele’s clothes back into place. She felt like she was back in the coffin.

The snow, whipped by howling winds, continued through the night and all of the following day. The city was virtually paralyzed. Awnings over shops sagged and finally collapsed under the weight of the snow. Streetcar service had to be stopped when a couple of streetcars jumped their tracks because of a buildup of ice. And as the snow continued to fall, a silence settled over the city that had people anxiously peering out their windows as if they expected any minute to have the silence broken by some huge disaster.

The disaster, of course, was the storm itself. With piles of snow clogging the streets and sidewalks of the city, it felt as if someone had declared a moratorium on the war. Peter soon learned that although nothing and no one appeared to be moving, in fact by dawn of the second day people began to venture out—children to play in the snow, adults to try and clear a path in front of their homes or businesses, and young people to take advantage of this rare opportunity to walk hand in hand down the middle of what any other time was a street clogged with traffic.

At Gisele’s flat, people came and went through the day as plans came together for the funeral. There was almost an aura of festivity to the preparations. That evening Gisele hosted a dinner party attended by her friends from the theater. The supper was what Peter’s mother would have labeled a potluck, with everyone arriving with some dish or at the very least a bottle of beer or wine. After they had laid out all the food and everyone had filled one of Gisele’s fine china plates, they sat on chairs or the floor near the fire, telling stories, laughing over adventures they had all experienced in the theater, and bemoaning the fact that with the war, opportunities to ply their craft were limited.

When someone sat down at the grand piano that dominated one corner of the sitting room, Gisele and several others abandoned their plates but carried their wine glasses with them as they gathered around the pianist. Throughout the evening, Anja and Peter sat at the top of the stairs—like children spying on their mother and her glamorous friends. Gisele had explained that it was too dangerous for them to attend the party, but she made sure they had ample food and wine. Peter noticed that by the second song Anja was tapping her toe on the carpeted stair and mouthing the words to the song. He thought it was the first time he had ever seen her simply enjoying herself.

Finally, when the last guest ventured out into the snow, Gisele glanced up the stairs, calling out to them. “Come down now and warm yourselves. You must be freezing,” she said. “And they left us some cake.” Peter and Anja hurried down the stairs and sat on the floor near the fire—the one truly warm place in the whole apartment—and stuffed their faces with cake frosted with a thick, creamy icing. Clearly no one on earth knew how to take full advantage of nature’s reprieve better than the French.

During that night, the snow let up and the winds calmed. By morning they could hear the scrape of shovels on sidewalks filtering in through the tall windows of Gisele’s apartment. Peter and the other men who had been present the night he and Anja arrived went out to clear a path to the side entrance so that a horse-drawn wagon could pull up to collect the coffin and carry it to the church two blocks away. With the path cleared, they dressed in the disguises Gisele had devised for them, added coats, gloves, and boots, and walked to the neighborhood church behind the horse and cart that carried the flag-draped coffin. Presumably at some point—perhaps while Gisele and her guests were partying—someone had placed a body appropriately dressed in uniform inside the coffin and draped the Vichy flag over it.

As the procession made its way down a side street, Peter saw a man in an overcoat and slouch-brimmed hat watching from a café window with more than a passing interest. He was glad the occasion called for the women to wear heavy black veils that obscured their features. At least Anja was somewhat protected in that she looked like all the other faceless women. For his part, he slumped a bit and limped more than he needed to in hopes he would appear older—and shorter—than he was. He noticed that the other male mourners clustered around him, forcing him to the center of the group and thus further disguising him.

Inside the church, Peter was surprised to see a fairly large gathering.

“The boy’s real family,” Gisele whispered, apparently reading his confusion.

“He was truly a soldier then? Loyal to Hitler?”

“He was a soldier for freedom—one of us—as is the priest and almost everyone here,” Anja murmured. “But take care. There are always infiltrators.”

“Did you notice the man watching us from the café?”

Anja and Gisele both nodded. “I’ve seen him before. He was the one who came to the café that night—I saw him look out the window,” Anja whispered. “If he has come to Paris, there can be only one reason.”

Gisele linked her arm through Anja’s. “Do not predict trouble. We do not presume to guess what people will do. We must simply prepare for the worst and pray for the best.”

Peter followed the two women down the long center aisle and slid into a pew next to Anja. She sat stone still, and he understood that she was following the traditions of her Quaker faith in worship while he struggled to follow along with the service as best he could given it was all in Latin. As the service came to an end, he realized that Anja was crying. Periodically she would slip her gloved hand beneath the veil that came nearly to her waist and wipe her eyes. Once she released a shudder of emotion and a heartbreaking sigh. She must have known the boy, Peter decided. Perhaps they had even worked together. He took hold of her free hand, and when she did not resist, he held on until the service was over.

A small reception followed the service in a room just off the sanctuary. Gisele had to be there in her role as the grieving mother. As Anja had predicted, the officer from the train had attended the service. But it was far too dangerous for Anja and Peter to attend such a social gathering, so as soon as the service ended, they were pulled aside and led to another side entrance to the church.

“Go,” their guide urged them. “Gisele will meet you at home.” The woman handed Anja a fur hat to replace the veil she took from her. “Go,” she repeated in French.

Outside, the streets were almost completely deserted. Because the wind had whipped the snow into drifts, no traffic moved, and they saw only a half dozen pedestrians—all of them hurrying to some destination where it was presumably a good deal warmer. But Peter found the sharp, cold air exhilarating, and the snow-packed streets reminded him of home.

“Where I live in America, it hardly ever snows, so when it does, the towns are not really prepared to deal with it,” he said as he and Anja walked along, picking their way through drifts and over ice patches. “Schools and businesses can close down if there are only a couple of inches of snow on the ground. The whole town is as deserted as this street is. I can’t imagine what would happen if we ever had this much snow at one time.”

“Is it very nice where you live? Very different from here?”

“Not so different really.”

“There is no war there,” she reminded him.

“There’s a different kind of war—shortages, though not as severe as you have suffered. But there is the unknown that is the same as here. Loved ones in danger and no way to know if they are safe or will be coming home.”

“Your family must be very frightened for you.”

“I don’t like thinking about what they must be going through. The imagination can sometimes be far worse than the reality.” He stopped and turned to face her. He touched the collar of her coat—Gisele’s coat. “I wish I could tell them that I’m in Paris and that I’ve met this woman who has changed my life forever.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek. “I want to thank you, Anja.”

To his shock, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard on the lips. “Stay like this,” she murmured as she continued to feather kisses along his jawline.

He held her close, savoring the warmth of her lips on his skin. And then he heard the sound of a car moving slowly past them. He could feel the tension in Anja’s thin body as she stiffened but did not break her hold on him.

The car rolled to a stop. “Pardon!”

A light snow had started again and had already covered Peter’s shoulders and the beret. He sheltered Anja as he turned to look over his shoulder at the woman who had called out to them.

It was Gisele. She was sitting in the back of a sleek black car, a uniformed driver at the wheel, the windshield wipers struggling to keep up with the accumulation of snow. “Do you need a ride?” She smiled and blew out a long stream of cigarette smoke.

“No,” Peter replied, keeping his arm firmly around Anja’s waist. “We’ll enjoy the walk while we can.”

Gisele frowned, rolled up the window, and signaled the driver to move on. Peter was well aware that Gisele was the kind of woman used to men falling for her on sight, but she was not his type. He found her charming and obviously very beautiful, but she was not like Anja.

No woman he’d ever met was like Anja.

For one magical moment when she was kissing Peter, Anja dared to imagine the possibility that someday her world could be normal again, complete with all the dreams she’d had for Daniel and herself—dreams she had once shared with Benjamin and that had included their daughter, Rachel. Dreams she had begun to think might find a home with someone new—someone like Peter. But that wasn’t reality. And neither was Paris—at least not this Paris.

“Quick thinking—kissing me that way,” he said, fighting a grin.

“I learned it from someone,” she countered.

Peter laughed, and the sound of it on the cold winter air was like music. “Let’s stop at that café. Perhaps they have hot chocolate,” he said as they watched Gisele’s car drive away. “Let’s pretend life is normal again just for today.”

Anja glanced around. Could they risk it? Should they? How many times had she heard of situations where evaders just wanting a bit of normalcy set themselves up for capture? The café was mostly empty. She was tempted. It would be so nice.

“No. It’s not safe. But we could walk in the gardens.”

He offered her his arm. “A stroll in the gardens then.”

They walked along for several yards before either of them spoke. The snow was clinging to the bare branches of the trees, and the entire park looked like a fairy wonderland. Anja thought about how Rachel would have squealed with delight at the sight, and that brought thoughts of Daniel. She wondered if it had also snowed in Brussels and whether the nuns would give the children a break from their schoolwork to play in the snow.

“Tell me why you were crying during the service. Was the man in the casket someone you knew?”

“No—yes. I did not know him personally, but we are all of us part of a cause, and because of that I know him. And there was—there is always something more personal at such times,” she admitted.

“Tell me.”

“I had no chance to say good-bye to my husband and daughter, and today I was thinking of my grandparents as well and wondering where they are—how they are. I do not want them to suffer because of me.”

He wrapped his arms around her and rocked her from side to side. “They chose to be part of this—to do what they could. Your grandfather could have refused to come to that field that night. I certainly would not have blamed him if he had chosen to protect his family over rescuing me.”

She pulled away just enough to look up at him. “You would have done the same,” she said as she stroked his hair.

He chuckled. “You give me too much credit. Now, I thought we were going to enjoy our time here in Paris. So if we can’t be warm inside a café, then let’s make the best of the cold and build a snowman.” He turned away from her and began rolling a small pile of snow into a large ball. “Well, come on. I could use a little help here.” He tossed a handful of snow in her direction. Some of it caught on her nose, and she laughed.

He helped her stack a medium-sized snowball on top of his larger one. “Now for the head.”

“We’ll need arms.” She began looking around for a pair of sticks that might be perfect.

“I’ve got just the thing for a nose.” He held up a tightly closed, slender pinecone and stuck it in the middle of the snowman’s face. “Eyes? A mouth?”

Anja handed him the sticks to place on either side of the snowman and then gathered a handful of red berries she had seen a few feet back on their walk. “The mouth,” she announced as she jabbed them one by one in a semicircular smile. “Just the eyes now … and a scarf.”

“Times are hard. We are not giving up our scarves.” Peter found two chestnuts and placed them on the head for eyes. “I like him,” he declared, cocking his head to one side to study their creation. “He has the look of a happy man.”

She moved closer to adjust one of the berries that threatened to fall out, and Peter wrapped his arms around her, holding her close—her back to his chest. “And I, too, am for the moment a happy man, thanks to you, Anja.” He turned her so that they were face-to-face, and he kissed her. A real kiss—not one necessary because someone was coming. “Ah, Anja,” he whispered and deepened the kiss.

“We can’t,” she said sadly even as she stood on tiptoe and kissed him back.

He cupped her face with both hands. “We can. It may not be forever, but if there’s one lesson we’ve both learned from this war, it’s that you take your moments as they come. You cannot count on second chances. We have this moment, Anja. This single moment.”

She understood what he was telling her. They had no future together even if things went well for them both. He would return to America and she to Brussels. If they both managed to stay alive, they might see each other at some war reunion decades from now. He would no doubt marry. She would devote her life to Daniel. This unique moment might indeed be all they would have. But did it do any good at all for them to pretend?

To distract him, she snatched his beret from his head and giggled as she spun away from him and placed the hat on the snowman. Then she took hold of one of the stick arms and one of Peter’s hands, gesturing with her head that he should complete the circle by taking hold of the snowman’s other stick arm. When he did, she began dancing in place as she sang a French nursery song—”Frère Jacques.” To her delight, he joined in, and they danced in place with the snowman while all around them the snow continued to blanket the gardens.

After Peter had retrieved his beret, they walked along the Seine back to the street where Gisele lived. Along the way, they bought a bag of roasted chestnuts from the lone street vendor open in the snowstorm. Anja recognized the vendor as a man who had come once to Brussels to guide some airmen to Paris. Knowing he was there just a block away from Gisele’s gave her a sense of security. Rather than being alone, they were surrounded by unnamed friends who would do everything in their power to see them to safety.

That evening they shared a supper of cold meat, potatoes, and surprisingly good bread with Gisele. The actress seemed subdued and kept glancing at Peter. “We will dye your hair, I think,” she announced as the three of them sipped strong coffee and enjoyed chocolate truffles—both of which Gisele announced had been the gifts of an admirer.

“When do we leave for Bordeaux?” Peter asked.

Gisele shrugged. Anja thought that she had never seen a gesture so filled with indifference and at the same time elegance. “The trains are still not running—at least for people like us.”

“There must be another way. Is this not the perfect time for us to keep moving?”

“Us?”

“Anja and me.”

Gisele’s eyebrows shot up. “In this matter, Anja is absolutely correct. You cannot seriously think that the two of you will continue to travel together.”

“I don’t see why not,” Peter said.

Gisele stood and stubbed out her cigarette. “There is much that you don’t seem to understand. I am tired. We can discuss the matter tomorrow. Now we should all go to bed.” She strode from the room and started up the winding stairway. “Be sure the fire is out,” she said.

Peter had been sitting on the sofa while Gisele lounged on a chaise and Anja sat in the remaining straight-backed chair. He patted the place beside him. “Come and watch the fire with me.”

“I cannot,” Anja replied. “Fires make me … sad.”

“Tell me why.”

She repeated the story that she knew Josef had once told him about the glow of the fires from the crematorium in Sobibor that they had had no choice but to watch every night they were imprisoned there. She wondered where the others who had escaped were tonight. How many had been captured and taken back? How many had been killed in the panic of the escape? How many had never even tried? After telling him about the death camp, she was so lost in her memories that she was barely aware that Peter had gotten up and banked the fire and turned out the single lamp. “Come,” he said, taking her hand. “No more bad memories tonight.”

Upstairs the door that separated Gisele’s bedroom from the luxurious sitting room and the closet was closed and no light came from beneath the frame. Feeling a bit shy after the afternoon they had shared, Anja stepped inside the large closet. “I’ll only be a minute,” she said and closed the door. She changed out of the elegant suit that Gisele had loaned her and into rougher clothing more suited for escape should they need to make a run for it. Peter would do the same. They would both sleep in their peasant clothing, ready to move at a second’s notice.

She glanced at the wall behind which was hidden the tiny cramped space where she and Peter had slept for the last two nights. Then they had been so exhausted and stressed after their perilous journey that she hadn’t given a thought to how their bodies had only inches of space between them. Now things between them had changed. What would Peter want? What would he expect?

A light tap at the closet door told her that he had changed and was seeking her permission to enter. She pulled the door open and then busied herself opening the hidden partition and straightening their sleeping pallets while he hung up the clothes he had worn to the funeral. He was dressed in the clothing of a laborer. Anja climbed onto the pallet closest to the wall and waited. Peter knelt next to the opening and leaned across to place a kiss on her forehead. “Sleep well,” he whispered.

Then he pulled his sleeping covers out into the closet and arranged them on the floor next to the partition. Anja sat up. “What are you doing?”

“I’ll sleep here tonight, and we’ll leave the partition open.”

“But if someone comes …”

“If someone comes, I will close the wall up and then wait to surrender while you will stay put until the coast is clear for you to escape.”

“But …”

“Go to sleep Anja, and tomorrow you and I need to talk about our next move. I am not letting Gisele make decisions without us.”

Mikel stood outside Gisele’s house and stared up at the dark windows. He did not like the fact that Anja was so linked to Peter. The Gestapo was determined to capture him, and that placed Anja in greater danger than usual. The agent Schwarz knew who she was—knew everything about her and Josef and Lisbeth. Right now they were of use to Schwarz in leading him to Peter and closing the case on the missing American. Beyond that the Gestapo wanted to turn them so that they were working for the Germans. It wouldn’t be that difficult, because Anja would give her life to protect Daniel, and Josef and Lisbeth had a child on the way. These were the kinds of impossible choices the Nazis were so good at putting before their victims.

Mikel also had no illusions about their fate once the agent had gotten what he wanted. It was not unusual for the Nazis to focus so intently on a single mission. Right now capturing the American was that singular mission, and as long as Anja was with him, the more her life hung in the balance. At first light he intended to go and get her out of that house. He’d seen one of Schwarz’s henchmen watching the house through the night. It would not be long before the Gestapo agent arrived in Paris himself and made his move. Knowing that Anja would refuse to leave the evader—at least this particular evader—Mikel had made sure that she would have no choice but to leave the American and come with him. He had the best reason of all. He had Daniel.