Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
MARGOT
That evening Margot and Theo were in the front room of her flat, getting ready for the book club.
He’d come back in one piece; the demand from his brother hadn’t been a ruse at all.
He really had played for one of Hitler’s men in the café on the square.
Margot didn’t want to let him out of her sight now.
Margot had read to Isabelle from Esther’s copy of The Three Musketeers; she and Theo took it in turns.
Isabelle had eventually fallen asleep in her basket, her goose and her bear tucked one under each chubby arm.
Margot knelt down beside her to smile at the little girl and absorb every moment she could with her.
She’d be leaving so soon, and Margot still wasn’t used to the idea.
‘It must’ve been horrible having to be in the same room as that monster from Germany,’ Margot said, ‘let alone having to play the piano to entertain him.’
‘I feel as though my homeland has lost its mind,’ Theo said. ‘When I left, I thought things couldn’t get worse. I was wrong. And now they’re here too.’
‘I hate them,’ Margot said. She gently stroked the back of her fingers against Isabelle’s cheek.
‘If they’d stayed in Germany, then this little girl wouldn’t have lost her mum.
The vile, hateful things that man said to Esther because she’s— she was Jewish…
Do they all think like that in Germany now? ’
‘Not all, but…’ Theo shook his head. ‘We could see the way the wind was blowing a few years ago, when the Nazi thugs smashed up the Jewish businesses and burned the synagogues. And it was only last month that they did the same thing in Paris.’
‘It’s horrifying,’ Margot said. ‘Esther was distraught, and there was nothing I could—’
Outside in the street, she heard shouting: she froze. But then she realised it wasn’t in anger, it was just the shouts of men who’d drunk too much. German soldiers were carousing and music blared from a gramophone that sounded as if it was playing in the street.
Isabelle’s bottom lip puckered, and suddenly she was awake, crying, as the noise went on outside. Margot lifted her from the basket, trying to soothe her as she asked Theo, ‘What’s going on out there?’
‘SS brass and Goring, getting royally drunk,’ he murmured, peering out through the blackout curtains into the street below. ‘Spilling out of the bar like hooligans.’
‘They’re such a rabble,’ Margot complained. ‘I don’t know how they’ve managed to take over so much of Europe.’ She’d managed to calm Isabelle now, who had stopped crying, even though she was sniffling back her tears.
Theo closed the curtain, then crossed the room to join Margot and Isabelle.
‘We shall miss you, little one,’ he told the baby gently.
And there was so much danger before she was safe too; England seemed like another world, far across a mine-studded sea where U-boats prowled unseen.
‘But you’ll be with your daddy, and that’s how it should be. ’
‘They’ll have a lovely life over there,’ Margot said. ‘No jackboots marching down the street. No thugs throwing books onto bonfires.’
They went downstairs to the cellar, carrying Isabelle between them in her basket. Margot unlocked the door that led into the tunnels and listened carefully. She could just about hear the careful, soft footsteps of her friends over the relentless whisper of the sea.
They arrived, bringing with them more bags of supplies for Daniel’s escaped internees.
Henriette had brought some food that she’d been able to spare from the farm; Sylvie had found some shirts that she’d had in her stock; Brigitte spared some bandages and iodine; Aunt Sandrine brought a cosy, home-knitted jumper.
Colette had brought toiletries; small soaps and tiny bottles of shampoo that looked very much as if they’d come from one of the hotels in Clarenville.
Joséphine had brought some wine and food from the bar.
Margot balanced Isabelle on her hip as she looked through everything.
She was so proud of them for sparing all these things for people they didn’t even know.
Claudine arrived last and hurriedly closed the tunnel door behind her. Margot was about to ask her if she’d brought something for the internees when she saw that Claudine was pale and shaking.
‘There’s— there’s someone else in the tunnels,’ she whispered, her eyes wide as she scanned the faces of everyone in the room. ‘I could hear them. Footsteps. It’s not just one person, it sounded like loads of them – like an SS patrol.’
Margot tensed, holding tight to Isabelle. If it was a patrol coming through the tunnels, how could all the book club escape without being seen when the SS were carousing in the street outside? They were trapped.
No one in the cellar said a word, or even dared to breathe.
Margot glanced over at Theo. What would happen to them if— she couldn’t allow herself to think about it.
She closed her eyes, listening. She could hear them…
quiet, creeping footsteps. They were moving so softly that they barely left an echo, but there was no mistaking it.
There were people in the tunnel, lots of them, it seemed.
Had the SS decided to fool them all and party drunkenly in the street so that no one would expect an ambush through the tunnels?
They were coming nearer and nearer.
They were outside the door.
Everyone in the cellar backed away, but Margot stood there, rooted to the spot with fear. This was it. This was the end.