4. Angelique
October 1943
France
“We knowyou are in there, Angelique D’Aboville! Or should I call you Carmen?” The Gestapo agent’s words through the closed farmhouse door aren’t in French. They’re in English.
Oh, God.
They know.
My heart doesn’t just pound hard and fast in my chest. It hammers against my ribs, desperate to escape.
The Gestapo have figured out the widowed daughter living with Jacques Gauthier is an English spy.
But how? How do they know? Most people either know me as Angelique or Carmen, but very few people know I am English.
I glance at Jacques sitting at the kitchen table. Only a few moments ago I was busy cleaning the stove, the late morning sunlight a pale strip across the wooden floor.
Jacques knows I am English, but surely he didn’t say anything about it to anyone. He has rarely left the vineyard since his son, Yvon, was captured by the Germans. And the number of non-German visitors who drop by diminished once Johann moved into the farmhouse.
The look of shock in Jacques’s eyes confirms I am correct. He’s not the one who turned me in. But who did? No one else from the area knows I am English, other than Désirée. Not even the members of the parachute reception parties know the truth. They all believe my instructions come from someone else in the network who is linked to London and Baker Street. I am only the worker bee.
Jacques’s weathered face is pale, his eyes wild. Are the Gestapo planning to take him too, or is it just me they are after?
ThinkThinkThink.
I glance around the hallway, up the wooden staircase across from me, and then my gaze slides towards the doorways on either side of the hallway, leading to the kitchen and the drawing room. “Go to the drawing room,” I whisper to him in French. “Pretend you’re reading one of your winery journals.”
Doubt stares back at me in his worried eyes. He’s right. That won’t make a difference, but it’s better if he does not attempt to hide should they search the house. They’ll find him, and hiding will only make things worse for him.
Jacques walks to the drawing room, and I take a deep breath. Perhaps I can talk our way out of the situation.
The knocking on the door becomes more insistent. The heavy banging vibrates through the house, settles in my chest, rattles my bones.
“Mon Dieu,” I say loud enough to be heard on the other side of the door. “I am coming.” The words are in French, the only language I plan to speak for the entire conversation with the Gestapo.
I open the door. “Sorry. I was upstairs. I didn’t hear you. What can I do for you?” I take a moment to study the man in the grey Gestapo uniform. He appears to be in his late thirties and is sharp-eyed. The cold blue depths of his eyes reveals the lack of a soul.
“You’re under arrest, Madame D’Aboville. Or whatever your legal name is.” Like a moment ago, he speaks solely in English.
“Excuse me. I don’t understand what you are saying. Do you speak French?”
Another man dressed in the Gestapo uniform approaches the door from the second of the two black cars parked on the gravel driveway. He’s stockier than the other agent and close enough to hear me. “Do you speak French?” I ask him in the tone of a tourist inquiring if the person she’s talking to speaks her native tongue.
The curl of his mouth is as soulless as the agent standing before me. “Yes, Madame D’Aboville, I do.” His words are heavy with the guttural German accent, but it’s clear he can speak some French.
“Good. Can you please translate for me?” I shift my gaze to the taller agent and pray I can convince them I am not an English spy. I will be as good as dead if I cannot do that. “Is he asking for my carte d’identité?”
I fight the urge to place my hand on my stomach, to protect my unborn child from our harsh reality. I don’t wish to alert these men to my pregnant status. They will not go any easier on me if they know the truth. If anything, things will be worse for my baby and me if they find out.
“Yes, let us see your carte d’identité,” the stocky Gestapo agent replies.
“It’s in my handbag on the hall table.” I make a move to turn to reach for it, but the stocky agent pushes past me and snatches up the bag.
“You’re under arrest, Frau D’Aboville, for treason.” The words are spoken by the taller agent, and this time they are spoken in French.
“I don’t know what you are talking about?” I rush to say, my voice infused with soft-spoken innocence. “I haven’t done anything traitorous.”
He grabs my arm, roughly yanks it behind me, and snaps on the handcuffs. He does the same with my other arm. Fight. Fight for your life because you’re about to lose it.
The more rational part of my brain warns me I won’t survive if I attempt to fight my way to freedom. I’ll be shot before I step out the door. If I can convince them I am not who they think I am, I’ll be safe. They have no proof that I am indeed Carmen.
He shoves me out of the farmhouse and towards the first black car. He opens the rear passenger door and pushes me into the vehicle. I duck and narrowly miss hitting my head on the frame.
I sit on the hard seat, the cold black surface biting my legs through my dress. I swivel around as much as possible to look over my shoulder at the house. The movement is awkward and uncomfortable with my hands cuffed behind me.
One of the Gestapo agents—with a small scar on his chin—slides in next to me.
Two others lead Jacques from his house, and my insides clench. OhGodOhGodOhGod, what are they going to do to him? All they have to do is find proof I am not his daughter, and they will kill him for aiding an English agent.
Tears slide down my face. “Please don’t hurt my papa,” I whisper, my voice strained. “He did nothing wrong.”
I don’t turn to face the front. I stare at the car with Jacques in it, repeating the words until my voice is hoarse. Silently willing them to let him go. I’ll never forgive myself if something should happen to him.
“Face forward,” the Gestapo agent sitting next to me says in French. His tone is harsh, his unspoken warning clear in each syllable. Ignoring him won’t help me. He’ll roughen me up if it suits him.
I do as I am told. The agent who accused me of treason is sitting in the driver’s seat. The stocky agent sits next to him.
How could they have figured out I am an English spy? The question keeps pounding in my head like a drum and forms into a headache. Was it Johann? It couldn’t have been. Not after all we have shared…
But the more time that passes, the more doubt lurks in the recesses of my mind. If not him, then who?
There’s simply no one else—no one else who knows.
How could he do this to me?
I’d been a fool to trust him? He must have informed on me. I’d thought he was different. I’d thought he was nothing like the Nazis, that he had a heart.
I was wrong. So very wrong.
A sharp pain slices through my heart at how he betrayed me.
My thoughts shift to Oskar, Margrit, and Sonja, and the pain in my heart lessens a tiny amount. Sonja’s brave smile squeezes my insides like a precious hug. Oskar’s words fill me with warmth: “Johann is a good man. He is not like the rest of them.”
How would Johann have even known that Carmen is my code name? I was careful and would know if someone had broken into my hiding spots in the farmhouse. My security measures have never been disturbed. And if he had gained access to them, there was nothing in them to link me to the name.
No, it could not have been Johann who told the Gestapo. At most, he would have guessed I was a member of the maquis or the local resistance.
Was the traitor someone from within those organizations?
But how would they know the name Angelique D’Aboville, the name I use as my cover? They would only know my code name.
Except…that isn’t completely true. Some people, the people I thought I could trust, know both, but they don’t know I work directly for the SOE. They believed I was recruited into the Cashmere network like they were. They have no idea I am English.
The only exception is Allaire. He too is English. But why would he betray the SOE and our mission? Or was it his wife, élise? She is French, not English. But that means she betrayed her husband, the man who I know she deeply loves.
Or…or was it Pierre? The SS tortured him before they hung him in the village square. In a moment of weakness, when he hoped the truth would be enough to save him, he might have told them his suspicions that I am English.
It’s feasible, but I don’t believe that is what happened. Not unless they found another way to torture him. They might have given him a choice: tell them the truth or be forced to watch them torture someone he loved. That would be enough to make most people crumple.
But his capture occurred three months ago. Surely they would not have waited so long to arrest me. None of it makes sense.
In the end, it doesn’t matter who betrayed me. The Gestapo knows the truth, and I will pay dearly for it.
The car I’m in pulls away from the farmhouse. The autumn colours of the vineyards stretch in all directions outside the car windows. It’s the middle of harvest season, and Jacques is behind schedule because of the lack of workers to help him. A heavy percentage of the wine will be taken by the Germans without compensation, leaving only a tiny fraction for the French.
It’s the same with much of the food produced in France. The Germans take it all and leave only a few scraps for the French citizens. Yet so many farmers who live here are doing nothing to fight back. They’re hiding in the shadows, hoping the Germans will go away.
And there I was, fighting for our survival—and look where it’s gotten me now.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask no one in particular, my voice lacking its usual bravado. Bravado could get me killed—or worse.
“How long do you think it will take Captain Krüger to break her?” the agent in the front passenger seat says in German.
The other two men in the car laugh and voice their opinions. Neither has high expectations I will last long.
“The last man he interrogated squealed like a pig in less than five minutes,” the agent next to me replies. His clothes reek of stale cigarette smoke.
I work hard to keep the growing fear off my face. The less they know about my language abilities, the better. If they realise I understood everything I overheard at the grand ball for von der Osten, I’ll never survive the torture they’ll inflict to extract more information.
We pass a woman with a slight limp, as if her feet are blistered, walking in the ditch on the side of the road. Her clothes are dingy and threadbare, and I imagine the soles of her shoes are worn to the point of having holes in them.
“Too bad she’s in the ditch,” the agent who is driving says. “I bet I could knock her a far distance if I hit her.”
The other two monsters laugh.
The woman’s hair is long and blond like my sister’s, and I let my thoughts drift to Hazel and what she’s doing right now, instead of thinking about how I might never see her again.
It must be nearly nine o’clock in England. And it’s Monday. So, unless things have changed since the last time I saw her, she will be at work. I close my eyes and see her at her typewriter, typing whatever report her boss asked of her. Hazel isn’t the one with a sense of adventure. She isn’t the one who loves exploring new places. She loves her routine. But she also loves hanging out with the women in her sewing club on Monday afternoons. And she loves to volunteer at the library on Fridays. Has her routine changed due to the war?
The car drives through Dijon, down the wide streets flanked by tall stone buildings with arched windows and decorative wrought-iron railings. We keep travelling until we arrive at what was once an elegant hotel. I suspect it is no longer used for that purpose, its purpose now far more ominous.
The car pulls in front of the building, and the driver climbs out. He opens the door and roughly drags my trembling body from the car. I land on my shaky feet, my knees almost buckling under me. And as the driver tugs me towards the doors, the afternoon sun slants its golden rays across the street.
My stomach lurches.
Is this the last time I will ever see sunlight?