47. Angelique
April 1944
France
The storm cloudsoutside the flat window loom over Poitiers in a thick blanket. Anna is asleep in her cradle, her tummy full. Her tiny fist is pressed to her mouth. She looks so sweet and content.
I smile at the sleeping four-week-old, but inside I’m far from joyful. She’s not growing as she should. Soon, she will wake up hungry again, and my body won’t be able to meet her demands.
My stomach tightens into a knot, demanding to be fed. Lise has gone to find food, but I can’t imagine she’ll have much luck.
A persistent cough comes from the flat below ours. It belongs to the elderly woman who lost her husband to an illness last year. I’ve gone down a few times to check on her, but I’m at a loss as to how to help her. Without food and medicine, there is little I can do.
It doesn’t help the Germans are making things worse with their retaliation for what the resistance and the Allies are doing in preparation for the upcoming attack. More prisoners are being murdered as part of Hitler’s revenge. Morale could easily flicker out under these conditions.
But it hasn’t.
An increasing number of French citizens are resisting the Germans. They sense freedom from the occupation is coming, and they’re doing their part to defy the enemy. To bring this war to an end.
I only hope it ends soon enough for the elderly woman in the apartment beneath this one and for my baby.
The flat door opens, and Lise hurries into our residence like a gale force wind. Her breath is coming in fast as though she sprinted to our building from several streets away, and there is a sadness about her that grips my heart in an icy fist.
Alarms blare through my body, and my muscles tense, ready to react, ready to fight. Did she get word the Milice or Gestapo are looking for me? For us?
“Is something wrong?” My words come out in a rush.
“There was an explosion on a railway track about one hundred miles south of here. It was the work of a group of maquis, but some of the raiding party weren’t able to get away in time. The Nazis gunned them down.” She closes her eyes for a second. “I’m sorry, éve. Johann is dead.”
It takes two rapid heartbeats for her words to soak in, and then it’s as if the floor crumples away and I’m falling, falling, falling down a cold, black pit. I shake my head, scrambling to make purchase on the slippery walls.
Lise is wrong.
He cannot be dead.
After everything we’ve been through, my love cannot be dead.
“No.” My voice is nothing more than a croaked whisper, the air in my lungs failing me. “It wasn’t him. Whoever told you that was wrong. It was someone else. Johann is farther south. It wasn’t him.” It’s not him. It’s not him. It’s not him.
Cracks inside me begin to form, splintering through my body and carving out my flesh.
Lise sniffs. “It was him. Gaston was with him. They were both shot. They both died.”
A harsh sob rips through me, tearing me to pieces. I’m vaguely aware of Lise embracing me in her arms, of me crying on her shoulder.
“He cannot be dead. Please, God. Please let them be wrong. Please let them be wrong.” The words aren’t for her. They’re a prayer to a God I don’t believe in—not after everything that has happened. I pray the man I love was nowhere near the explosion. That he escaped. Defied the Nazis.
Lise guides me to the settee and sits me down. She doesn’t say anything. No false words of comfort. No promises that Anna and I will be all right. That we will get through this.
She holds me until I have no more tears to spare. Holds me until I slip into a void filled with nothing but nightmares and an aching loss.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping when a small cry breaks through my new round of bad dreams. I slowly pry my swollen eyelids open, and my new reality rushes in with a tidal wave. I’m drowning again in a grief so strong, I don’t have the strength in me to swim to the surface no matter how hard I try.
Lise cradles a crying Anna in her arms, rocking her, doing everything in her power to soothe the hungry baby. She sings softly to her, the lullaby an English song, and for that I am grateful. I wouldn’t be able to handle it if she sang one in French. Her words are quiet so no one outside the flat door can hear them.
Fatigue drains every part of me—every emotion, every cell. But I still find a tiny reservoir of strength deep inside and reach out and take my daughter. Anna and my sister are all I have left in this world.
Memories of Hazel during our childhood trickle in. She used to tell me stories about fairies when we were younger and I was feeling sad. They had a way of making me feel better.
They gave me hope.
I attempt to come up with one to tell Anna, but nothing jumps to mind. I wordlessly nurse her and stare at her sweet infant features. Features that will one day morph into a combination of mine and the man I love.
As I always do while feeding her, I fiddle with the heart pendant Johann gave me, rubbing it between my fingers. Silent tears trickle down my face and land on Anna’s soft skin.
I don’t know how to go on without him, but at the same time I know I have to be strong for myself and for Anna. His death doesn’t change the world we’re living in. It doesn’t end the war and the sense of loss everyone is feeling. Anna isn’t the only child who lost a father after the maquis set off that explosion. She is not the only child who has been made fatherless because of the war.
She might have lost her father and I’ve lost the man I love, but we have each other.
“It will be alright, ma petite,” I coo to her, trying to desperately patch up those cracks inside me with whatever hope I can find. “We will be okay.”
I keep repeating the words over and over and over until they’re ingrained in my thoughts, ingrained in my soul. I will always feel that burning loss for the man I love, but I cannot let it drown me. Not now. Not when Anna’s life and my life are constantly at risk.
Once Anna has finished nursing, I push to my feet. My legs tremble as does the rest of my body, but it has nothing to do with the lack of food. We’ll be okay. I just need to keep breathing. That is all. I swallow the pain and emptiness that threatens to consume me again.
Just one breath at a time, and one day I won’t have to keep reminding myself of that.
* * *
Two weeksafter the news that still leaves me gasping for air when I least expect it, I push Anna in her pram along the street to the park. The day is sunny, the weather warm, and she’s gazing up at the cloudless blue sky.
She makes a sweet cooing sound. I smile at her, my heart squeezing in my chest. I focus on Anna, my beautiful, beautiful daughter. The only bright star in this world of darkness. The reason I’m outside and not curled in a ball of grief in the flat.
Under the mattress of her pram, near her feet, a stash of leaflets lies hidden. A week after I received the news about Johann, I begged Henri through Lise to let me do something again to help the resistance movement. My heart isn’t in it like it once was. There is only so much passion I can drum up when the man who inspired me is dead. But helping the network is the right thing to do to help bring an end to this war. To make the world a better place for Johann’s and my daughter.
Besides, it gives me something to occupy my mind, to distract me while I wait for news of my return to England.
Now that Anna is more active—as active as she can be given her less than ideal body weight and energy levels—it’s obvious I have a real baby in the pram and not something the Nazis would frown over.
That’s not entirely true. They wouldn’t be impressed that the sweet baby in the carriage is a mix of Austrian and English blood.
“Should we visit the blossoms at the park, ma petite?” My voice is cheerful even though my body is on high alert. I might have the perfect cover for what I’m about to do, but that doesn’t mean vigilance is no longer my top priority. Our safety and the success of the mission depend on it.
I steer the pram onto the path leading into the park. Everything around us—the trees, the shrubs, the flowers—are fresh with dew and hope. Hope that the upcoming Allied attack is the beginning of the end of the war. Hope that someday soon, this long nightmare will finally come to an end.
I casually survey the area, doing my best to not draw attention. The place is free of German soldiers and anyone else in uniform. I release a long breath, ever conscious that not all danger is obvious.
A woman not much older than me walks past. She’s holding the hands of two small girls, their blond plaits gleaming in the bright afternoon sun. They walk to a nearby flowerbed, the colourful petals an assortment of pink, yellow, and violet.
I push the pram to an empty bench several yards from where they’re standing, gently pick up Anna, and sit. Smiling at her, I kiss her tiny fist. “Who’s my precious sweetheart?” She watches me with her beautiful blue eyes. So far, I have not recognized any signs of her aunt’s deafness in her.
I chew on my lower lip, the skin cracked and dry. Anna will probably never get to meet her Austrian aunt or grandmother. Even if they survived, it will be challenging for a while to find them once the war is over. Their home might have been destroyed by then, and I have no idea where they went. The world will be in chaos as everyone tries to find their loved ones. Anna may never have the opportunity to know any of her grandparents. But perhaps she will eventually get to meet her Aunt Hazel, Uncle Charles, and all her cousins. She won’t be completely without family.
A young man approaches the park bench, his noticeable limp slowing his pace. But if the Gestapo were to descend on the area and he felt the need to run, I have no doubt the limp would be miraculously healed.
“What an adorable baby,” he says. “Does she enjoy monkeys swinging from the lampposts?”
“Only when crocodiles sing a lullaby.”
“I’m happy to hear that. I have something for you.” From his pocket, he pulls out a wooden clown with a white face, black painted hair, and a red hat. “Henri sends his regards.” He lowers the toy rattle into the carriage, stealthily removes the bundle of leaflets from under the mattress, and slips them inside his jacket. “I hope you and your little angel have a pleasant day.” He nods at me and quickly moves on.
I nonchalantly scan the area, as if looking to see what other interests the park holds for me and my infant daughter, but no one seems to have paid attention to the cut-out’s and my interaction.
Anna and I stay in the park a little longer. I’m not ready to be hidden away in the flat just yet. I scan the area once more, searching for signs of something other than heartbreak and pain. An unexpected wave of grief washes over me again, and a small sob escapes.
I push aside the need to touch the heart pendant Johann gave me. Caressing the delicate leaves etched in the gold sometimes helps with the never-ending ache, but I don’t dare to do that here in case someone sees the pendant and tries to steal it.
I tighten my hold on Anna. She doesn’t cry. She just watches me with that calm expression of hers. I tell myself the same thing I do every day when I first open my eyes each morning: one breath at a time, and one day I won’t have to keep reminding myself of that.
“Are you okay, Madame?” The strong German accent kicks my body into fight-or-flight mode.
I look up.
A blond Wehrmacht soldier is standing next to Anna’s pram. The tension in my muscles lessen slightly; he isn’t SS or Gestapo. A gaping hole spreads in my chest, formed from too many memories of Johann once wearing the same uniform.
The soldier eyes me with a mix of concern and curiosity, a small frown crinkling his brow. “Is there something I can help you with?” he asks.
I want to scream at him, tell him to go back to Germany. End this war. Fall in love with a sweet woman and never leave her. I want to tell him to stop risking his life for Hitler and the cold-hearted bastards who have stolen so much from all of us.
But as much as I want to say all those things and more, I cannot. I cannot risk being arrested. Cannot risk Anna being taken from me. Cannot risk her losing both of her parents.
“Not unless you can bring the man I love back to life.” There’s a sharp edge to my words, the slap of heartbreak and pain in my tone that I regret the moment the words are out. Now is not the time to provoke the enemy.
His gaze drops to Anna in my arms, and I can see my pain mirrored in his expression. He has also lost someone he cares about.
He shakes his head, the movement slow, rusty with remorse and sadness. “I wish I knew how to do that.”
I nod, not knowing how to respond.
“She’s a beautiful baby.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, the sound choked with a new round of tears.
He responds like most men do when they see a woman cry. He grows uncomfortable, shifting on his feet, clearly uncertain what else to say or do. He wishes me a good day and hurries off.
And I am left at the crossroad, not knowing if I should giggle at his reaction or cry some more.
“We should return home,” I tell Anna, “before anyone else is silly enough to approach a grieving woman.”
I lower her into her pram and cover her with the blanket. The rattle rolls off the blanket and bangs lightly against the inside of the pram.
I pick up the rattle, shake it for Anna to see, and slip it into my handbag. Then I wheel the pram out of the park and along the street.
I don’t go directly to the flat. I take a few detours until I am positive no one is following me, appearing fully the part of a young mother taking her baby out for some fresh air.
At the apartment building, I push the pram through the front doors. It’s awkward at best.
“Collaborating whore,” a woman says, descending the staircase, making no attempt to assist me. Her words sting but they lack enough venom to maim.
I ignore her. She’s been calling me that from the moment she first learned I was pregnant. I scoop Anna out of the pram, retrieve my handbag, and walk up the steps to the flat. I unlock the door and step inside.
Lise is sitting on the settee, reading a book. She looks up. “How did it go?”
“It went well.” I don’t bother to tell her about my breakdown in the park and how it drew the attention of a German soldier. Ever since she brought me news of Johann’s death, Lise has carefully watched me, as though expecting me to shatter at the drop of a hat pin. I cannot say I blame her. There are still days when I feel that way too.
She takes Anna from my arms. “Is your maman training you to do our job?”
“I’m hoping the war will be over before it comes to that.”
She rocks Anna from side to side. “I could not agree with you more.”
I remove the rattle from my handbag and examine it.
“What’s that?”
“A rattle. The cut-out gave it to me from Henri.” I inspect the figure closer. A piece of paper sticks out from the hole through one of the beads that makes up the clown’s leg. I use my fingernail to draw it out and unroll the tiny piece of paper, revealing a coded message. “I think I understand now why he said the rattle was for me.”
I decipher it and write down the date and time and location, followed by:
Plane will be landing to drop off two agents. You and Anna will be on it when it leaves. That is an order.
The world stops spinning for a fraction of a second as the words sink in, and I suck in a sharp breath. We’re going home.
I crumple to the floor, relief, grief, and an endless exhaustion pulsating within me. A sob wracks my body, tears wetting my face, falling to the ground. As much as I want to stay and help the cause, my heart hurts too much from being in the country where Johann no longer exists. And I have a baby to take care of.
“What does it say?” Lise asks.
“Anna and I are going home. I’m being recalled.” I hand her the message, a whirlwind of emotions clashing and tumbling inside me. We’re going home. We’re really going home.
Prior to Johann’s death, I would have come up with any excuse for why I had to stay in France. But my reason for remaining is dead and buried, and the network doesn’t need me as much as my daughter does.
I am finally ready to go home. Ready to start the lengthy healing process, to create a new life for Anna and me.
Assuming the weather cooperates.
Assuming nothing goes wrong.