Chapter Nine Chloe
Chapter Nine
Chloe
Chloe rose from her bed and walked down the hall in her nightgown.
She’d intended on staying awake to wait for Claude to get home, but she must have fallen asleep.
She’d woken with her novel fallen on her chest, and a quick glance at the clock had told her that it was late.
It was a testament to how tired she was that she couldn’t keep her eyes open to read.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier was one of her favourite books that she often re-read, and one she’d hoped to emulate in her own writing.
She tiptoed past her younger brother’s room, glancing in to make sure he was still covered up, and then paused outside Claude’s bedroom.
Her heart sank when she saw that he wasn’t there.
His door was still wide open, his bed still perfectly made as it had been all day; as it had been for two entire days now.
Chloe sat on the edge, wishing there was some way to contact him, to make certain that he was all right.
She’d hidden Claude’s absence from their father, but there was only so long that she could cover for him.
Chloe decided to wait for him there, her eyes closing of their own accord, still so tired from waiting up for him two nights in a row.
If he arrived home, he’d find her there and have no choice but to wake her, and as she snuggled down beneath his duvet, she squeezed her eyes shut tight as the faint smell of his cologne wafted up to her from his pillow.
She could have sat up with her notebook full of poems that she’d penned before her mother’s death, and tried to write something new, but the words just wouldn’t come to her anymore, and she’d mostly given up trying.
It all seemed like a dream from the past now, imagining that she might one day be a published writer.
Come home, Claude. Please, just come home.
It was in the early hours when Claude finally appeared, and Chloe woke with a start, bleary-eyed and half furious, half relieved to see him. She got out of bed and gave her brother a shove, followed by a hard hug, wondering if she might never let him go.
‘I’ve been so worried about you,’ she said, not wanting to wake anyone else up as she pressed a kiss to his temple. ‘You couldn’t have sent word that you were all right?’
Chloe could tell from the brightness of his eyes, the way they were shining, that she’d regret asking where he’d been. But she was his sister, and she needed to know what kind of trouble he was in.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked, softly, hoping that if he didn’t think she was angry he might answer.
He grinned. ‘Do you really want to know?’
She sighed. ‘Yes, Claude, I really want to know.’ She pulled him down to sit on the bed beside her.
‘You remember I told you about the resistance group, about what they had planned?’
As if I’d forget that. But she simply nodded. ‘I remember.’
‘We have to do everything we can to hinder the Nazis,’ he said. ‘We have to disrupt their supply chain, their ability to move easily in our country. We have to stop them when they least expect it, or they’ll never leave.’
Chloe swallowed. ‘What have you done, Claude?’ she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
‘I was part of a network tasked with blowing up a section of road,’ he said, as proudly as if he were a boy announcing an excellent school grade.
‘You—’ Her voice faded away as he kept talking, her stomach twisting in knots.
‘You should have seen us, Chloe!’ he said, his eyes wide as he grabbed hold of her hand. ‘It was like nothing you’ve ever seen before. We set the explosives, lay in wait, and then, boom!’
She closed her eyes as a shudder ran through her, imagining how many men might have been killed. ‘Claude . . .’
‘Before you say anything, if I don’t do this, then who does? We all need to step up, Chloe. We need to do what we can, to get our country back. It’s our duty to fight in any way we can.’
She nodded and reached for his hand again when he pulled it away, holding it tight. ‘It’s not that I don’t understand, it’s that I’m fearful of the implications. For our family.’
He shook his head and tried to pull his hand away again, but she held firm.
‘I made a promise when our mother died, that I would take care of this family,’ she said, meeting his gaze, knowing that he was full of bravado now, but that eventually her words would reach him.
‘I held her hand just like I’m holding yours now, and I promised her, Claude.
I promised her that I would do everything I could to keep you safe.
Can you not see what I’ve sacrificed? The dreams that disappeared for me overnight? ’
‘I’m not going to stop just because—’
‘I’m not asking you to stop,’ she said. ‘I’m reminding you to be careful.
I just need you to look me in the eye and tell me again that you’ll make sure none of this comes home with you.
We need to protect Adrian, and if you’re caught .
. .’ She paused. ‘You need to cover your tracks, Claude. You need to promise me that you’ll be vigilant about keeping this from our door, that you’ll do whatever it takes to put distance between our home and the work you’re doing.
Not because I don’t believe in you or the work you’re doing, but because we need to shield Adrian from it. ’
His eyes softened, as if he’d remembered the promise he made when he told her that he was joining the Free French.
‘Could you live with yourself if anything happened to him? Because I know that I couldn’t.’ Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. ‘Just promise me that you’ll be careful.’
‘I promise.’
Chloe sighed in relief and patted his hand. ‘Good, now let’s go and have some coffee. You must be exhausted.’
He reminded her of a much younger boy then, the way he hurried along beside her and started to whisper all about what they’d done, about what it had been like seeing the explosion tear through the air around them, the truck they’d targeted flipping upside down and being engulfed in flames.
But when she sat down beside him, she wished that she could just be his sister.
She wished that her father would step up and be the parent in their family, that it was he who sat up late at night worrying instead of leaving everything to her.
Because it was exhausting, and even though she trusted Claude, he was only a teenager.
No matter what he said, what he was doing wasn’t safe.
She trudged back to her bedroom, exhausted but relieved he was home.
Only this time she did reach for one of her notebooks.
She couldn’t bring herself to open it, but she tucked it beneath her pillow and tried to remember what it had felt like to be a young woman with no responsibilities.
A young woman who’d felt like the world was at her feet, with her whole life stretching ahead of her.
Chloe had just started to feel as if some sense of normality had returned to her life, albeit one with the enemy making themselves at home in the city she loved.
Adrian was going to school without complaint, Claude hadn’t run off on any more adventures as yet, and her father had even thanked her for dinner the night before and asked her about her day.
They were small victories, but ones she was happy to claim – these days, she didn’t take anything for granted.
As she was about to set the table for dinner, only four nights after Claude had returned home, she heard loud voices and boots shuffling on the other side of their apartment door.
Adrian started to complain about his homework, but she silenced him with a finger to her lips and a shake of her head as she strained to listen.
‘Go and get Father,’ she whispered. ‘And tell Claude to stay in his room.’
Her heart began to thunder in her chest, and that was when a loud knock echoed out on their door.
‘?ffne die Tür!’ came a shout. Followed by an even louder ‘Open the door!’ in heavily accented German.
Fear brushed every inch of Chloe’s body as she glanced over her shoulder, seeing that her father was coming down the hall towards her.
But his face was blank, not telling her what to do, not giving her any answers.
And so she made the decision for herself, knowing that the longer she waited, the more chance they had of their front door being kicked in.
She would have called back that she was coming, only her voice had stuck in her throat. Her hands shook so much that she had to hold on to her right wrist with her left just to steady it enough to unlock the door and turn the handle.
‘Bonjour,’ she said, forcing herself to smile at the two men standing there, even though her legs trembled so violently she had to grasp the door frame just to stay upright. ‘Can I help you?’
She knew who they were – she imagined everyone in Europe knew who these men were – that they wore the uniform of the SS and were feared for their cruelty.
The man closest to her stepped forward, and when she glanced down, she saw that he’d intentionally placed his foot over the threshold.
She couldn’t have slammed the door on him even if she’d wanted to and she found it almost impossible to look up from his perfectly polished leather boot.
Chloe quickly glanced behind her, her stomach dropping when she saw Claude standing beside Adrian, his hand on their little brother’s shoulder.
Why couldn’t you have listened to me, just this once?
But she turned back just as fast, fixing her smile again.
Perhaps it wasn’t Claude’s fault; perhaps this was nothing more than a coincidence.
‘Who lives in this apartment?’ the closest man asked.
Chloe swallowed. ‘Myself, my father and my two brothers,’ she said, fighting to keep her voice even. ‘They’re standing right behind me. It is only us here.’