Chapter 28
CHAPTER 28
H annah turned into Avenue Kléber on the way to work, lost in thought, as she pushed hard on the pedals of the old bicycle. Lizzie had looked at her like she was out of her mind when she said she was going in as usual that morning. Lizzie wasn’t wrong. She probably was out of her mind, but this was the only way she knew to fight the evil that had wrapped its vicious tentacles around every breathing sinew of her life.
They’d made up their beds in the basement last night, and neither of them slept much. Hannah was constantly on alert for a bang on the door and the Gestapo sweeping through the house, hunting for them. There was a reasonable chance they wouldn’t find them in the camouflaged basement she had spent weeks concealing when she first moved into the deserted farmhouse.
When Hannah finally drifted off into a deep sleep in the early hours, she woke with a start when she realised she would be late for work if she didn’t leave soon.
‘You’re not really going into work,’ Lizzie said, her sleepy eyes showing her incredulity .
‘I intend to do just that,’ she said, clutching her cardigan around her in an attempt to keep out the gnawing damp of the basement. ‘If the Germans don’t get us first, we’re going to die of pneumonia sleeping down here. Thank goodness we got the Sterns out.’
‘Yes, it’s no luxury hotel, that’s for sure,’ Lizzie said, yawning and rubbing her chilly arms.
Hannah had a lot of respect for Lizzie. Despite Jack ordering her to abandon the farmhouse and find somewhere else to stay for the night, she had elected to stay.
Lizzie had argued, ‘I don’t see the point of leaving when we can hide in the basement. If they’re onto us, we’re just as likely to be spotted if we make a run for it now, don’t you think? It’s so late, we’ll stand out like sore thumbs in the city at this hour.’
‘You have a point. There’s no feasible route through the forest. We’d have to take our chances and avoid checkpoints and sentries as best we can.’
‘I vote I stay here for the night. That way, I’m not endangering you in some risky dash across Paris at night.’
Hannah had thought for a few minutes and then said, ‘Well, it’s your call. If you want to go, I’m happy to show you the way. If you want to stay here, sleeping in the basement is a good plan, so I’ll do that even if you leave. There’s no point making it easy for them to catch me, is there?’
Lizzie replied, ‘No, I’m staying with you. Going now makes no sense at all.’
Lizzie’s concern for her touched Hannah. ‘I hope the SOE knows how dedicated you are.’
‘They might not agree with you when Jack learns I didn’t follow his orders.’
‘True, although he doesn’t have to! You don’t have to tell him everything, you know.’
Now, as Hannah approached German High Command, she inhaled the fresh chilled air before turning off the road and weaving around to the back of the building where she parked her bicycle. Nobody had bothered them in the night, so Francois clearly hadn’t told them about her. Yet.
Poor dear Francois. She suspected he wouldn’t break even if they tortured him. He’d suffered too much already at the hands of those brutes. If she had to put money on it, she’d bet he wouldn’t crack. The thought of him being tortured by the Gestapo made her shudder more than the harsh January winds.
Hannah straightened her beret, which was askew from her mad dash across the countryside and into the city. Her heart pounded as she reached the threshold of the building.
This was truth time.
‘ Guten Morgen, ’ Hannah said, her tone friendly as an ordinary French woman arriving at work with nothing to hide, not the Berlin born Jewish leader of the Liberty Network which only two nights previously had failed in its mission to blow up a train transporting German troops and weapons.
When she entered the outer office, the cleaner, Celine, was just finishing her morning rounds. ‘He’s in early today,’ she mouthed, pointing to the closed door. ‘Something must be up. He’s not usually in this early,’ she whispered.
Hannah hadn’t risked probing the cleaner on her allegiances, but she didn’t seem like a Nazi sympathiser. She always had a kind word for Hannah, who thought she could even be a friend of the Resistance. It was impossible to recognise friend or foe because the network functioned in such a way that each member developed sympathetic contacts, but they were often known only to the member themselves.
‘Thank you for warning me. I’ll make his coffee. Would you like one?’ Hannah said, her voice low to match the friendly cleaner’s .
‘No, I’d better not. I’m covering for a friend today who was too sick to come in for her shift, poor love.’
The cleaner bustled about completing her duties, then said a harried goodbye to Hannah.
‘Have a good day, Celine,’ she called after her as she hurried out of the room.
Hannah steeled herself for whatever awaited her with the major general. She guessed she wouldn’t have made it past the lobby if he was onto her. His moods were unpredictable, and during recent weeks, he had grown steadily bolder in his flirtatious advances. She pretended she didn’t know what he was doing and so far, she’d fended him off with a mixture of innocence and ignorance. He’d even touched her leg last week when her skirt writhed up as she stretched for a file. She’d almost gagged with disgust and had to rein herself in not to slap him across the face. Another time, she would have wrestled him to the ground and broken his neck with one sharp snap. SOE agents weren’t the only ones who knew how to kill with their bare hands.
Hannah knocked on the major general’s door and he called for her to enter. She wished him good morning and placed his coffee in front of him like she did every day. He was not alone, which was odd at this hour. An officer of a similar age to Hans turned to greet her. ‘Good morning.’
‘Bring him a coffee too,’ Hans said, pointing to the man.
‘Thank you,’ said the visitor with an engaging smile and kind eyes.
They aren’t all bad, Hannah thought.
But they are doing bad things . When her resolve weakened, she reminded herself of this irrefutable fact. The Reich was not a force for good in any way, shape, or form. It was like a rotten apple, polluted to its core.
When she returned with the second coffee and placed it on the large desk, the two men were deep in conversation, and she realised they were discussing their parents. The visitor must be the major general’s brother, and they talked about their father’s health. Hannah noticed her boss wasn’t overly friendly to his brother. She tucked the information away in her mind in case it came in useful in the future.
Lizzie took a different route from Hannah when they reached the city, and they went their separate ways.
The last thing Hannah said to her before they left the farmhouse that morning was, ‘If I’m not at our meeting point by 7 p.m. it could mean he’s onto me. Then again, it could just be he makes me stay late. The pervert loves it when there’s no one else around.’
Lizzie’s stomach churned at the thought of what she had done. She didn’t want to lie to Jack, but she had been sure that making a run for it last night wasn’t the best course of action.
Lizzie hoped Hannah was right and if she made it out tonight, the topic of where she had slept would not come up when she was back in London. Jack always advised her to follow her gut, she reasoned, as she jumped off the bicycle and blended effortlessly into the busy throngs of Parisians. Parisians and Germans. There were soldiers everywhere in the city. Some were on duty, guarding the buildings that the Reich had commandeered, whilst others milled about the streets, shops, and restaurants as though they were enjoying a carefree holiday. Lizzie guessed some were on leave, but the sight of them acting as if they owned Paris infuriated her.
Lizzie mulled over what else she could do to pass the time apart from queue for food until she met Hannah later. It looked as though Francois hadn’t revealed their whereabouts. Lizzie guessed he must either be dead, or he was as stubborn as Hannah predicted. Just as she took her place in line at the boucherie , a menacing voice said over her shoulder, ‘Come with me, mademoiselle.’
Lizzie spun around and found herself face to face with a short, stocky German soldier with beady brown eyes and a machine gun slung over his shoulder. He signalled for her to exit and follow him.
She straightened her shoulders and stared at him. ‘Madame,’ she corrected him, her voice authoritative even as fear rushed through her.
‘Madame,’ he said, his voice tinged with sarcasm. Once she left the queue, he pushed her in the small of the back and she stumbled.
‘What do you want with me?’ she asked, her voice steady as she regained her footing.
The soldier steered her over to a group of soldiers, and she saw a cluster of civilians waiting nearby, looking scared.
‘Show me your papers,’ he commanded.
Lizzie knew there was no way out, so she scrambled through her bag and retrieved her forged identity papers.
The soldier snatched them and read aloud, his tone mocking. ‘Jacqueline Simon. What a pretty name for a pretty woman.’
‘I don’t understand what you want,’ Lizzie blustered, her heart pounding so fast it felt like the ground spun around her.
‘The question is, what is Jacqueline Simon doing in Paris?’
‘I’m visiting my sister,’ she said.
The soldier grabbed her arm. ‘You’re coming with me,’ he said, pushing her into the back of a big van.