Chapter Twenty-Five #2
Vianne slipped into the boots by the door. As soon as the soldiers were out of sight, she hurried up the hill toward the barn. In her haste, she slipped twice in the wet grass and nearly fell. Righting herself at the last minute, she took a deep breath and opened the barn door all the way.
She noticed right away that the car had been moved.
“I’m coming, Rachel!” she said. She put the car in neutral and rolled it forward until the cellar door was revealed. Squatting down, she felt for the flat metal handle and lifted the hatch door. When it was high, she let it bang against the car fender.
She got a lantern, lit it, and peered down into the dark cellar. “Rach?”
“Go away, Vianne. NOW.”
“Isabelle?” Vianne descended the ladder, saying, “Isabelle, what are—” She dropped to the ground and turned, the lantern in her hand swinging light.
Her smile faded. Isabelle’s dress was covered in blood, her blond hair was a mess—full of leaves and twigs—and her face was so scratched it looked like she’d gone running in a blackberry patch.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
“The pilot,” Vianne whispered, staring at the man lying on the misshapen mattress. It scared her so much she backed into the shelving. Something clanged to the ground and rolled. “The one they’re looking for.”
“You shouldn’t have come down here.”
“I am the one who shouldn’t be here? You fool. Do you know what they’ll do to us if they find him here? How could you bring this danger to my house?”
“I’m sorry. Just close the cellar door and put the car back in place. Tomorrow when you wake up, we’ll be gone.”
“You’re sorry,” Vianne said. Anger swept through her.
How dare her sister do this thing, put Sophie and her at risk?
And now there was Ari here, who still didn’t understand that he needed to be Daniel.
“You’ll get us all killed.” Vianne backed away, reached for the ladder.
She had to put as much distance as she could between herself and this airman …
and her reckless, selfish sister. “Be gone by tomorrow morning, Isabelle. And don’t come back. ”
Isabelle had the nerve to look wounded. “But—”
“Don’t,” Vianne snapped. “I’m done making excuses for you.
I was mean to you as a girl, Maman died, Papa is a drunk, Madame Dumas treated you badly.
All of it is the truth, and I have longed to be a better sister to you, but that stops here.
You are as thoughtless and reckless as always, only now you will get people killed.
I can’t let you endanger Sophie. Do not come back.
You are not welcome here. If you return, I will turn you in myself.
” On that, Vianne clambered up the ladder and slammed the cellar door shut behind her.
* * *
Vianne had to keep busy or she would fall into a full-blown panic. She woke the children and fed them a light breakfast and got started on her chores.
After harvesting the last of the autumn’s vegetables, she pickled cucumbers and zucchini and canned some pumpkin puree. All the while, she was thinking about Isabelle and the airman in the barn.
What should be done? The question haunted her all day, reasserting itself constantly. Every choice was dangerous. Obviously she should just keep quiet about the airman in the barn. Silence was always safest.
But what if Beck and the Gestapo and the SS and their dogs went into the barn on their own? If Beck found the airman in a barn on the property where he was billeted, the Kommandant would not be pleased. Beck would be humiliated.
The Kommandant is blaming me for this failure to find the airman.
Humiliated men could be dangerous.
Maybe she should tell Beck. He was a good man. He had tried to save Rachel. He had gotten Ari papers. He mailed Vianne’s care packages to her husband.
Perhaps Beck could be convinced to take the airman and leave Isabelle out of it. The airman would be sent to a prisoner of war camp; that was not so bad.
She was still grappling with these questions long after supper had ended and she’d put the children to bed.
She didn’t even try to go to sleep. How could she sleep with her family at such risk?
The thought of that made her anger with Isabelle swell again.
At ten o’clock, she heard footsteps out front and a sharp rap-rap on the door.
She put down her darning and got to her feet. Smoothing the hair back from her face, she went to the door and opened it. Her hands were trembling so badly she fisted them at her sides. “Herr Captain,” she said. “You are late. Shall I make you something to eat?”
He muttered, “No, thank you,” and pushed past her, rougher than he’d ever been before. He went into his room and came back with a bottle of brandy. Pouring himself a huge draught in a chipped café glass, he downed the liquid and poured himself another.
“Herr Captain?”
“We didn’t find the pilot,” he said, downing the second drink, pouring a third.
“Oh.”
“These Gestapo.” He looked at her. “They’ll kill me,” he said quietly.
“No, surely.”
“They do not like to be disappointed.” He drank the third glass of brandy and slammed the glass down on the table, almost breaking it.
“I have looked everywhere,” he said. “Every nook and cranny of this godforsaken town. I’ve looked in cellars and basements and chicken pens. In thickets of thorns and under piles of garbage. And what do I have to show for my efforts? A parachute with blood on it and no pilot.”
“S-surely you haven’t looked everywhere,” she said to console him. “Shall I get you something to eat? I saved you some supper.”
He stopped suddenly. She saw his gaze narrow, heard him say, “It is not possible, but…” He grabbed a torchlight and strode to the closet in the kitchen and yanked the door open.
“What are you d-doing?”
“I am searching your house.”
“Surely you don’t think…”
She stood there, her heart thumping as he searched from room to room and yanked the coats out of the closet and pulled the divan away from the wall.
“Are you satisfied?”
“Satisfied, Madame? We lost fourteen pilots this week, and God knows how many aeroplane crew. A Mercedes-Benz factory was blown up two days ago and all the workers were killed. My uncle works in that building. Worked, I suppose.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Vianne drew in a deep breath, thinking it was over, and then she saw that he was going outside.
Did she make a sound? She was afraid that she did. She surged after him, wanting to grab his sleeve, but she was too late. He was outside now, following the beam of his torchlight, the kitchen door standing open behind him.
She ran after him.
He was at the dovecote, yanking the door open.
“Herr Captain.” She slowed, tried to calm her breathing as she rubbed her damp palms down her pant legs. “You will not find anything or anyone here, Herr Captain. You must know that.”
“Are you a liar, Madame?” He was not angry. He was afraid.
“No. You know I am not. Wolfgang,” she said, using his Christian name for the first time. “Surely your superiors will not blame you.”
“This is the problem with you French,” he said. “You fail to see the truth when it sits down beside you.” He pushed past her and walked up the hill, toward the barn.
He would find Isabelle and the airman …
And if he did?
Prison for all of them. Maybe worse.
He would never believe that she didn’t know about it. She had already shown too much to go back to innocence. And it was too late now to rely on his honor in saving Isabelle. Vianne had lied to him.
He opened the barn door and stood there, his hands on his hips, looking around. He put down his torchlight and lit an oil lamp. Setting it down, he checked every inch of the barn, each stall and the hayloft.
“Y-you see?” Vianne said. “Now come back to the house. Perhaps you’d like another brandy.”
He looked down. There were faint tire tracks in the dust. “You said once that Madame de Champlain hid in a cellar.”
No. Vianne meant to say something, but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out.
He opened the Renault’s door, put the car in neutral, and pushed it forward, rolling it far enough to reveal the cellar door.
“Captain, please…”
He bent down in front of her. His fingers moved along the floor, searching the creases for the edges of the hatch.
If he opened that door, it was over. He would shoot Isabelle, or take her into custody and send her to prison. And Vianne and the children would be arrested. There would be no talking to him, no convincing him.
Beck unholstered his gun, cocked it.
Vianne looked desperately for a weapon, saw a shovel leaned against the wall.
He lifted the hatch and yelled something.
As the door banged open, he stood up, taking aim.
Vianne grabbed the shovel and swung it at him with all of her strength.
The metal scoop made a sickening thunk as it hit him in the back of the head and sliced deeply into his skull.
Blood spurted down the back of his uniform.
At the same time, two shots rang out; one from Beck’s gun and one from the cellar.
Beck staggered sideways and turned. There was a hole the size of an onion in his chest, spurting blood. A flap of hair and scalp hung over one eye. “Madame,” he said, crumpling to his knees. His pistol clattered to the floor. The torchlight rolled across the uneven boards, clattering.
Vianne threw the shovel aside and knelt down beside Beck, who lay sprawled face-first in a pool of his blood. Using all of her weight, she rolled him over. He was pale already, chalkily so. Blood clotted his hair, streaked from his nostrils, bubbled at every breath he took.
“I’m sorry,” Vianne said.
Beck’s eyes fluttered open.
Vianne tried to wipe the blood off his face, but it just made more of a mess. Her hands were red with it now. “I had to stop you,” she said quietly.
“Tell my family…”
Vianne saw the life leave his body, saw his chest stop rising, his heart stop beating.
Behind her, she heard her sister climbing up the ladder. “Vianne!”
Vianne couldn’t move.