21.
JOHANNA HEARD THE DRUM of his boots on the wooden stairs at just after five a.m. and got out of bed. With the front door closing and tyres crunching the gravel on the driveway, she felt light and almost giddy with relief. He would be out until late, as always. She dressed in trousers and a jumper and walking boots that were more comfortable than the shoes and evening dress she’d been wearing last night. Her head buzzed with so many unanswered questions, and she felt vibrant as she recalled her contribution to the rescue of the prisoner.
Rescued a prisoner.
She went to the kitchen to start up the stove and make a pot of coffee, stopping at the living room window to look out across the yard. The cottage was shrouded in darkness. Was the woman still alive? Doubt raised its ugly head, and she oscillated between elation and fear as she re-considered her actions and the potential consequences for both her and for Astrid if something had gone wrong.
The only thing she could liken the feeling to was her first performance for the orchestra at the Berlin Opera House in 1924 in front of senior members of the government and the then ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II and his eldest son. Knowing she was one of the best young pianists in the country at that time had done little to quell the nerves of facing such a grand audience in such a prestigious venue. After playing a few bars, those nerves had settled and she’d ridden the waves of pure pleasure through to the end of the performance. The trick, she’d learned, was to not think about what might go wrong and stay with the moment.
Taking the woman to the cottage, and seeing Fabienne who had nothing giving everything she could to save a stranger, had helped Johanna decide that she had to be a part of it. She had to do something good to make up for the evil. It wasn’t her decision to aid the Resistance that had caused her to sleep fitfully; it was that she had desperately wanted Fabienne to kiss her.
The kettle came to boil, and she made the coffee. Astrid wouldn’t be up until Nanny woke her at seven, and Nanny wouldn’t be up before six, and even then, she wouldn’t come looking for Johanna. She took the pot and crossed the yard. She knocked on the kitchen door and entered. There was no one in the room. She put the coffee on the stove, which was still warm though there was no wood left in the basket, and walked through to the living room. It too was empty. The woman must have died in the night. She was struck by sadness, and then felt stupid and na?ve that she’d assumed they would pick up where they’d left off the previous evening, with Johanna helping.
A rustling sound caught her off-guard and the kitchen door opened.
She shouldn’t have just walked into their home uninvited. Her heart thundered. There was a thud on the kitchen table, then Fabienne appeared in the doorway to the living room. She was still wearing the brown shirt and trousers from the previous evening. Her hair looked dishevelled and her eyes heavy with tiredness.
“What are you doing here?”
Johanna walked towards her, intending to go past her and out the kitchen door back to her house. She should be in her place not theirs, where she belonged. She’d been a fool to think she was a part of their world.
Fabienne put her arm across the doorway, stopped her from passing.
“The back door was open,” Johanna stuttered. She wanted to wrap herself in the fold of Fabienne’s arm, be held by her, kiss her.
Fabienne dropped her arm. “Yes. I just went to find some wood.”
“I brought coffee.” Johanna held her gaze, saw the desire that reflected her own. Her mouth was dry, her heart racing.
Fabienne’s lips curled upwards a fraction. “It’s very tempting.”
Johanna’s stomach fizzed. What was tempting?
“Coffee is more than a luxury these days,” Fabienne said.
Johanna deflated. She’d hoped Fabienne was tempted by her. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come here.”
Fabienne went into the kitchen and put a couple of pieces of wood in the stove. They looked as though they’d come from a fence or furniture. “No, you shouldn’t.” She took two cups from the cupboard and poured them a coffee. “But since you are here, perhaps you will join me.” She smiled.
“Did the woman…” Johanna couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
“No, she didn’t die.”
Johanna sighed. Her hands trembled around the cup. “Thank God.”
“Her name is Esther Rosenblatt. She is in bed, asleep. She ate a little soup, but she is still very sick. She came from Tours. They have rounded up all the Jews and keep them in the stadium there for days before loading them onto the trains.”
The thought turned Johanna’s stomach. “God, that’s awful.”
Fabienne sipped the coffee. “This is good.”
The lightness Johanna had felt earlier returned, made her giddy all over again. She sipped her drink. “So, what happens next?”
Fabienne lit a cigarette and handed it to Johanna, then lit one for herself. She drew down, lifted her head, exhaled slowly, as if she was pondering the question intently. Johanna felt undone, she wanted to help, and she craved being closer to Fabienne, and Fabienne was giving her neither.
“We need more wood,” Fabienne said.
“I can get that,” Johanna said.
“And food. Things we can store for a while.” Fabienne turned her back to Johanna, filled her cup and drank.
Johanna felt rejected, as if their connection had been cut off without reason. “I’ll get what I can.”
“And store it in the cellar. Things that will last.” Fabienne turned around but avoided making eye contact.
“Yes, of course.”
Johanna finished her cigarette in the tense silence, confused by the shift in Fabienne’s demeanour. It was as though she was keeping something from her, which Johanna supposed was always going to be the way until Fabienne determined it was safe for Johanna to know. Johanna had hoped for more, needed it, but if this was all that was on offer, she would take it and she would prove herself. “I’d better get back,” she said.
Fabienne nodded. “Can I bring the pot back later?”
Johanna smiled through her flat feeling. “Of course.” She slipped out the kitchen door and made her way across the yard, the weight of disappointment dragging her heels.
***
“Bonjour, chérie,” Mamie said, entering the kitchen. “Is that real coffee I smell.”
Fabienne poured her a cup. “Johanna brought it over.” She watched Mamie’s eyebrows lift, her eyes widen, a slow nod of agreement to not question Fabienne any further.
“Remember, she is still German.”
Fabienne didn’t need reminding of her bad luck; falling for the enemy was never a good idea.
“And the woman?”
“In the spare bedroom, sleeping. She was carrying her papers. Her name is Esther.”
Mamie nodded. “I hope this miracle isn’t going to be our downfall.”
Fabienne didn’t want to think about extricating a pregnant woman, who might still die yet. The coded message she’d deciphered the previous evening while watching over her was of greater importance. “Johanna wants to help us, Mamie.”
Mamie drank the coffee. “She is going to get us killed.”
Fabienne shook her head. “Maybe that will happen anyway. But we have new instructions, and we are going to need all the support we can get.”
“That look in your eyes is scaring me, Fabienne, and I am already living with too much fear. I am nervous going to work at the house. I am anxious sending Nancy to school every day. I pray every time you go out to collect rations, and when you come back with nothing, I worry how we will get through another week.”
Fabienne held her tightly, the fragility evident in the narrowness of her grandmother’s frame and the slenderness in her wiry arms that were once muscular. She’d been strong before, in mind and body, and Fabienne hadn’t noticed the depth of decline that had taken place since the Neumanns had arrived. “We will not give in, Mamie,” she whispered.
Mamie eased back and cupped Fabienne’s cheek with her trembling hands. Her eyes glistened and she forced a smile.
It didn’t take much for Fabienne to read her thoughts. The same words often taunted her, and she refused to concede to them. You will be next. “I will be careful,” she said. “We have important work to do, and I will not stop until it is done.”
Mamie sighed. “You are as stubborn as your mother. It is nice to be reminded of her.” She patted Fabienne’s cheek gently. “What is this mission?”
“We have to move a group of sixteen children.”
Mamie’s eyes widened. “Through the tunnels?”
“Yes.”
They didn’t need to discuss the challenge the task presented. It was going to be impossible to move them all in one go. Fabienne had moved two people at a time, a maximum of three if they were small enough, in the hidden space in the milk-van. Moving people over time meant they needed somewhere to hold them. They would be exposed using the barns, though if that was the only option then Fabienne would have to consider it. Her idea, to use the wine cellar below the house, was insane. But, with Johanna’s help, it might just work.
“When?” Mamie cut a thin slice from the loaf she’d made over a week ago and ate it.
“The twenty-seventh of May.”
“It’s impossible to move that many people, Fabienne. Where will we keep them? The barns? Feed them with what?” Mamie shook her head.
Fabienne had had a lot of time to think during the night. The rendezvous was almost two months away and the Germans would have stopped their searches for the missing Jews by then and everything would have calmed down. “I think we need to use the cellar in the house.”
Mamie rinsed her cup and put it on the draining board to dry. “Right under the kommandant’s nose. Have you lost your mind?”
Fabienne smiled. “Possibly.” She kissed Mamie’s cheek. “But think about it. There will be less movement out in the open. The space is big enough, dry, and no one is going to be looking for them there. We will have time to get them to safety. And with Johanna’s help, it would be easier.”
“Does she know about this plan?”
Fabienne was working on Johanna without her knowing it, by getting her to store food in the cellar. “One step at a time.”
“And what about our current guest?” Mamie asked.
Fabienne sighed and shook her head. “She can’t be moved yet.”
“And if they come and search the cottage?” Mamie pointed in the direction of the living room, beyond it the yard and the kommandant’s house.
“I will ask for new papers for her. We will say she’s a cousin’s wife from Reims. Her husband is dead, and her house was destroyed. She had no one else to turn to.” Assigning the woman a new identity was possible; getting decently forged documents that would pass scrutiny wasn’t guaranteed. She hoped they would not need to use them.
“And what do we tell Nancy?”
Fabienne saw the fear in Mamie’s tired eyes. She didn’t want Nancy to think she had another relation she’d never met and ask questions they didn’t have answers to. But she couldn’t tell her the truth. “The same. I will go and talk to her now.” Fabienne was risking all their lives for this woman and her unborn baby. But, as Johanna had rightly said, she couldn’t let her die. She had a small wheel of cheese and a pad of butter to bargain with, and she would get what she needed. “I will make the arrangements when I go for our rations.”
“I must go to work,” Mamie said.
Fabienne waited until the back door closed before digging her hands through her hair. If she didn’t involve Johanna, she couldn’t see how to rescue the children. As for Esther Rosenblatt, all she could do was hope that their proximity to, and employment with, the Neumanns would keep them under the radar of German scrutiny for long enough. She didn’t like the growing uncertainty that stirred in her stomach, but it wasn’t an entirely new feeling. She had to carry on as if nothing had changed. She touched her arm where the tenderness reminded her of Johanna’s attentiveness, the kiss, and the gift of real coffee.
Everything had changed.
Her world had tilted and now spun on a new axis, and the future looked very different than she had imagined possible even before the war. There had never been a woman who had turned her head and her heart so completely. The longing simmered inside her, increased her appetite. And therein lay the danger. Looking too far ahead, dreaming of a different life with a woman she loved. It affected her thinking, her judgement, her decision-making. And that might be all it would take to get them killed.
She went upstairs to wake Nancy and tell her about the distant relative who had arrived.