Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
URDOS, FRANCE
Zelie gasped when Henri opened the mailbag, sucking in a full lungful of air for the first time in three hours—only three.
This return trip had still been painful, but not nearly as excruciating.
He helped her from the bag, handed her the clothes he’d already dug out of his suitcase for her, and had a blanket ready too.
Though she was shivering, it only took a few minutes to recover this time, to dress herself, and to slide into the passenger’s seat.
“I still think returning to Marseille is a horrible risk.” Though he grumbled, he got out the map and reviewed the course they’d need to get there.
Zelie wrapped the blanket around her. “There is no way Emile is still there. He’d have vanished—either so that everyone would assume he’d been arrested as well, or because someone confronted him. He’ll be gone.”
“But his father-in-law won’t be. They’ll have circulated photographs, Zelie.”
She waved that off. “We’ll find a place on the other side of Marseille this time, so I’ll be visiting different small towns. They won’t know me.”
The look he sent her could have cut her to ribbons, were it a blade. “It isn’t the everyday moving about a small town I’m concerned about. If you continue to meet with Marcel in the city, continue to play and sing at every bistro, you think you’ll escape notice?”
He knew about that? She swallowed, trying to remember if she’d mentioned it. She didn’t think so . . . but either someone else had, or he’d seen them one night.
Either way, his point was valid. And confirmed the decision she’d already made. “You’re right. That will have to stop.”
He sighed. Zelie wondered what had been in her voice beyond the words. “One day,” he said, “you will be able to sing freely again, to play. One day, you’ll be able to think about nothing but romance.”
“Maybe someday, for the music. But no romance.” She turned her face toward the window. Snow fell here in the mountains, but it would be warmer along the coast. Were Blaise and Elise still in Cannes?
He shot her a dubious look but didn’t argue. Just refolded the map and put the car back in gear. “We can get about halfway to Marseille today, I think. Then finish the trip tomorrow. With all the gifts we’re bringing for everyone, I daresay we’ll have quite a New Year’s Eve celebration.”
Everyone who was left, he meant. Zelie nodded. Then, when a thought struck, she glanced at her watch and turned toward the radio Jacques had installed for her—the last birthday gift he’d ever given her. She’d been so surprised by it she’d barely been able to stutter out a thank you.
“What are you doing?” Henri turned onto a larger road, heading east.
“Radio Paris should be rebroadcasting Marcel’s show in a few minutes.”
He snorted. “But she isn’t thinking about romance.”
Zelie sent him a glower. “His plan was to do a live introduction to recorded shows over Christmas. If he did, that means he’s alive and free and still in Marseille. And if so, he may try to get information to us through it.”
Henri frowned. “You had codes set up for such an event?”
“No.”
“Then how would you even know what it means, if he says something?”
Because he knew her. Because she knew him. Because they spoke the same language, because he saw through her every bluster, and she had to think she’d be able to do the same.
None of which would help her no romance point. “Maybe I won’t, but it will at least tell us if he’s there. And he could always repurpose some of our existing codes or the ones the BBC broadcasters use to let us know they’ve received our intelligence about art moving.”
“Wait.” He glanced over at her, then back to the road. “What do you mean?”
She grinned and fiddled with the tuner, turning the volume down when static greeted her.
“Whenever classic paintings are moved, one of Marcel’s operatives gets us word.
We share it with the Maquis and other Resistance groups who sabotage railways so they know not to hit those lines at certain times, as well as the English, so that their bombers know to avoid the new location.
When they receive our message, they have one of their BBC broadcasters say, The Mona Lisa is smiling. ”
“Clever.”
“Ah, here we go. Radio Paris.” They were still a few minutes early, so she kept the volume low while the current program wrapped up, then raised it when a little ditty signaling the end of that show met her ears.
Lord God . . .
Hope, fear, dread, and anticipation all tangled up inside and lodged in her throat. What if it was a recording, even the introduction? What would she do?
His voice filled the airwaves, its familiar tone taking hold of her heart even before she processed his words.
“Happy Christmas from the youth orchestra. This is conductor Marcel Laurent, praying that your celebrations of this joyous season are filled with family and, especially, reflections upon the Savior who deigned to join humanity.”
Him—it was really him, not something he’d recorded earlier. Well, this would have been on Thursday, Christmas Day, like he’d planned.
He was free.
When he said he had messages for the families of some of his musicians, she perked up. This would give him the perfect opportunity to say something meant for her.
“And to my own special someone, I’ll share the same message as last week, since I’m not certain if you had a chance yet to listen in.
As I was visiting my mother the other day, I thought of our favorite quote from Pascal: If one does not love too much, one does not love enough. Happy Christmas, mon amour.”
A cry escaped her lips, despite pressing a hand to her mouth to try to hold it in. He had them—he had Blaise and Elise and had taken them to his mother’s. Lord God . . . This time, more words came. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
“Ah.” Henri sent her a bemused look. “Is that a happy squeak or an unhappy squeak?”
Her laughter no doubt told him. “My children are at his mother’s.”
Henri squinted at her. “I suppose he mentioned his mother, but . . .”
“Blaise Pascal, you idiot. At his mother’s.
” She leaned back against the seat, pressing a hand to her heart.
They were all right. Maman must still be in jail—or else hadn’t known where to find them—but her children were safe.
Marcel’s parents would have gone to great lengths to make them feel welcome.
And she had no doubt Marcel was there as much as he could be too, to provide a familiar face.
Henri’s expression cleared. “Good. Though before you try to suggest it, we’re not driving through the night. You’re in no condition to help, and I’m too tired.”
She had been about to suggest it, but she couldn’t in good conscience ask him to push himself beyond his limits when he’d already done so much for her. And besides, if she pounded on the Laurent door in the middle of the night, it would draw undue attention.
So she leaned her head against the window and listened to the program, letting her mind wander in time to the music. Letting her gratitude wing its way up to heaven over and again, searching her soul for more words to offer God.
Why not start with those she knew best? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
She paused as the orchestra’s music rose higher.
“Holy,” that was what hallowed meant. Not just the Creator, some Unmoved Mover like the ancients had posited, like Jacques had thought of him.
Something more. Higher. The definer of all goodness.
Thy kingdom come. A sentiment that meant something special with Christmas music playing, didn’t it? Christ came for that purpose, to bring the Father’s kingdom to earth. Thy will be done.
Her throat closed off. She remembered a day in school, when Sister Ursule was talking about doing God’s will—how it meant giving up their own. Truly relinquishing it. Zelie had leaned over to Marguerite and whispered, “He can keep his will to himself, thank you. I’d rather have my own.”
Now, she turned her face to the window so Henri wouldn’t see the tears streaming down her cheeks.
She’d followed her own will all her life, and where had it led her?
To a hasty marriage with a man who’d come to despise her.
To a position that had gotten some of her dearest friends killed or imprisoned.
To where she sat now, listening to the music of a man she could so easily love .
. . but whose love she couldn’t have. What had all her life taught her, if not that?
She couldn’t have everything—not love and adventure, not music and romance, not being la patronne and anyone’s l’amour.
And maybe that was why. Because she always sought her own desires above God’s. Her own will above his. Maybe, until she gave that up, she’d keep failing.
But what if God asked her to give up everything—Alliance, not just Marcel? Her children? Her own future? Would she? Could she?
Could she not? Could she go on like this, so alone, trying to hold together the shattered pieces of Navarre’s dream? No. Lord, I can’t do it anymore. I can’t just chase my will. I do want yours. Your will, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
Again she paused, thinking of the treats in the boot of the car, food she never would have thought to treasure until this blasted war.
Daily bread was precious indeed. But it wasn’t just that, was it?
She remembered the sisters teaching there was a hidden meaning.
Not just the baguette beside their plates, but the Bread of Life.
Christ, in the Eucharist. Christ, ready to become part of her, to make her more like him, if she would but let him.
Hoping the darkness concealed it, she reached up to wipe the tears from her cheeks. And yearned, for the first time in her life, for the taste of that wafer. The promise of God with her, God made flesh.
The next words in the Our Father at once crowded but shifted. Came to her in a familiar-but-not voice. I forgive you your trespasses . . . as you forgive those who trespass against you.
Jacques, who had told her she was never enough. Navarre, who had ignored her advice and gotten himself killed for it. Emile, who had betrayed them. Could she forgive them, and the countless others who had hurt her over the years? Did she want to? Was God’s forgiveness worth it?
As soon as she thought the question, the night closed in.
It was like the mailbag, trapping her, trying to suffocate her.
That had been the very thing that had inspired her to cry out to him, the place where she’d sensed him.
Why would she return there, spiritually?
Return without the intention of reaching for him?
No. No, life was dark enough in this world without grasping hold of the shadows eternally. She didn’t simply want those glimpses of light, she needed them with every fiber of her being. If that meant giving up herself, her work, her ideas, her hurts, her bitterness, her pain . . . so be it.
Lead me not into temptation, she directed toward the light.
A blanket of peace fell upon her, warm as the summer sun. Comforting as her mother’s embrace. Steady as the starlight. Keep your hand in mine, daughter, that voice seemed to say. And I will deliver you from evil.
She must have slept, though she could have sworn she still heard the engine, felt the bumps in the road, smelled the cigarette that Henri lit up.
But she dreamed. That same nightmare that had been plaguing her since the raid.
She was running toward the villa, light blazing from its windows.
People were shouting. Friends were running. Things were flying out of windows.
Sometimes the whole place went up in flames. Sometimes she found herself running beside one of her operatives. Sometimes Blanchet caught her again, stopped her, like he’d done in reality. An ally who had undoubtedly saved her life.
This time, she could see each of her agents, captured and uncaptured, those who had been there and those who hadn’t. Each face she’d looked into, each name she’d memorized, each designation she’d given them but hadn’t used enough.
She saw each of them, all of them running, and somehow the night brightened to day, light catching each one.
Catching the Nazis thundering after them in tanks, in jeeps, on horseback, in the vans that housed their detection devices.
Try as she might to scream warnings to her friends, she couldn’t. She pounded at the glass somehow separating them, but they couldn’t hear her. Couldn’t heed her warnings.
Please, Lord. So simple a prayer, yet one she hadn’t prayed that night.
Sister Ursule’s voice filled her mind. Oh, that I had wings like a dove; then I would fly away and rest! I would fly far away to the quiet of the wilderness.
Then the voice deepened, echoed. I know every bird on the mountains, and all the animals of the field are mine.
Zelie stilled, watched as her fleeing friends changed.
One into a leopard, one into a fox. One into a gray horse, one into a dog.
Henri became a snake, slithering into the underbrush and out of sight.
Raoul shifted into a falcon and soared up, away from the Nazis.
Marcel took to wing like his brother, but he didn’t soar away.
His wings were the same green as his eyes, and when he opened his beak, song spilled out.
She held out a finger, and he flew right through the glass to land on it.
“Zelie? I think this is a good place to stop for the night.”
She jerked awake, rubbed a hand over her face. But the dream hovered there, behind her eyes. And she smiled.
She knew what they had to do to protect their identities.
No more randomly assigned letters and numbers too cumbersome to remember, that meant nothing.
No. This would work much better. It would be easy enough to use in every correspondence, even in person for people who weren’t already acquainted, in lieu of real names, and much easier for everyone to recall.
Henri could be Asp Viper—a snake common to both France and Spain, with a wide range of colors and patterns. Marcel could be Greenfinch—a songbird that could be found all through the country.
And she . . . she would be Honey Badger. Unassuming, by all appearances, much like a woman in a man’s world.
But even the lions of the savanna knew to respect them . . . especially when their young were threatened.
Zelie got out of the car and squared her shoulders. The German lions had tangled with the wrong mother.