Escape From Paris (30 page)

She and Eleanor met at the top of the Metro steps

Margot, her scarf wound round her head, obscuring much of her face, moved up behind them. She strained to hear but they spoke softly, quickly. Margot saw the younger woman take a soft leather pouch, slip it into her purse.

Mme. Leclerc smiled tremulously and pointed toward the Arc. Her companion nodded somberly, quickly embraced the older woman.

Margot pushed her way closer, closer, keeping her head averted.

“Take care, Eleanor. I'll bring the rest of the money here next week.”

“Thank you, Jacqueline.” Eleanor hesitated, then suggested. “Let's meet down on the platform next week. Oh no, no, what am I thinking. You can't manage the steps with your canes. We will meet here again. God bless you, Jacqueline,” and she turned and moved off into the crowd.

Margot was caught by surprise. The woman moved so swiftly. And Madame was turning this way. Margot didn't dare push after the woman, not until Madame was past. Oh move, you old fool, move!

The old woman stumped along, moving jerkily, tiredly, then, once again, she paused to look back toward the Arc and the dark mass of people surging slowly, quietly, determinedly toward the Tomb, flowers in their hands.

Margot veered to her left, her back to Mme. Leclerc. She forced her way through the crowd, trying to keep Eleanor's brown fur coat in sight. Soon Margot was panting. She never moved quickly in her kitchen. She had not walked this fast in years. She drew a deep breath. Fifty thousand francs. She forced herself to move faster. There she was. Not too far ahead now. If she could just keep her in sight . . . Damn the woman, she was plunging deeper and deeper into the crowd. Was she trying to go up to the Tomb, too?

“Break it up there. Move along.” A German MP plowed his horse into the crowd, shouting at the people to leave. “We're closing the Avenue now. Disperse. All of you.”

“Who are you to close the Champs-Elysees?” shouted a voice from behind him.

The German twisted on his horse. “Who said that?”

Another young man, off to the side, yelled, “Guess who, Fritz? Guess who?”

The crowd began to shove. Margot was pushed hard from behind. She stumbled, and in a swell of panic, turned and struggled toward the sidewalk, trying to move against the flow of the crowd. By the time she broke free onto the sidewalk and turned to look frantically about, the brown fur coat was nowhere to be seen.

Jonathan held a finger to her lips. “Franz just fell asleep.”

“How is he?” Linda asked.

“He's very subdued. He doesn't say much. I'm glad he finally got to sleep.”

She started to take off her coat.

“Wait. Let's go up on the roof. So we can talk.”

“Do you think that's safe?”

He nodded. “Robert went up every night for a week. He never met anyone going up or coming down. And God, it's great to be outside, even if it's only on a roof.”

Linda felt a surge of sympathy. How long had Jonathan been cooped up in the apartment? Seven, eight, no, it was nine weeks ago that they had carried him, unconscious, into the apartment.

“All right,” she said quickly, though she was still cold from the long walk from the Metro. “Let's go up.”

He led the way, walking softly up the steep narrow stairs that led to a trapdoor. He pushed it up, stepped out onto the roof then turned to help Linda up the last steep step. They picked their way among the chimney pots to the far edge of the roof.

“There's a clear space here. I walk up and down, about fifty times each night. It's getting my legs back in shape.”

“Oh, Jonathan.” She spoke his name in a half cry.

“What's wrong, Linda?”

“Could you wait a little longer to leave? It will be so dangerous in the mountains now.”

He slipped his arm around her and they began to walk up and down the roof. He didn't answer until they had made the length and back again.

“You see how well I'm walking now?”

“Oh yes,” she said happily. “You are so much better. You almost don't have a limp.”

“Yes. That means I've stayed too long already. It's my job to get back as soon as possible. I've been able to travel for several weeks now. But so much has been happening. The scare when the Duquets were picked up. But somehow they managed not to reveal anything about Fr. Laurent. And now Franz. I wish I could stay and help you and Eleanor. But I have to go soon, Linda.”

“I know.” He was right. He had to go. It was time.

They turned around and began the long walk back along the side of the building. The feeling of his arm across her shoulders was reassuring, strengthening. So much like Jonathan. They had come to depend upon him in so many ways. Ever since he had started to mend, he had taken charge of the incoming soldiers at the apartment, smoothing over the anxieties and tension that developed among frightened men cooped up together. Just meeting him there calmed many of their escapees.

When he left things would be harder.

“Have you picked up your ausweis yet?”

“I get it Wednesday.”

He heard the noncommittal tone in her voice. “Linda?”

“Yes.”

“You will go home. Won't you?”

She wanted to go home. She wanted so much to go home. But how could she leave Eleanor and Robert alone to run the escape route? “I don't know,” she answered slowly.

“Eleanor will manage.”

He reads my mind, she thought without surprise. And he was right. Eleanor would manage. Eleanor was a remarkable woman.

“Did I tell you that she's found funding to help run the line?”

“You said she had hopes. It is working out?'

They reached the end of the roof, turned again, and the icy air rushed into them. Linda shivered and his arm tightened around her.

She had thought, growing up, many times, of what it would be like to fall in love. There had always been the soft rustle of surf in those dreams and palms dark against a moonlit sky and the scent of jasmine floating on balmy air.

It was cold, so cold, but she would stay forever on the icy roof as long as Jonathan walked with her.

“An old friend is helping. Eleanor hasn't said who. They met yesterday and the woman gave her 25,000 francs. She will have another 25,000 next week.”

“25,000 francs?”

“I know, isn't that wonderful? Eleanor had the most exciting time making contact with her friend. Did Robert tell you what happened today at the Arc de Triomphe?”

“No, he spent all of his time with Franz. They drew routes on a national Geographic map across the Pyrenees.”

Oh God, Linda thought. Franz was so small and this was the worst winter in years and years. How could he keep up with grown men, make that tortuous secret dangerous crossing? He was too small for Robert's hiking boots. Eleanor was going to try and find some better shoes for him before his group left tomorrow night.

“What happened at the Arc?”

“Hundreds of people came. That's where France's Unknown Soldier from the Great War is buried, you know. Today is Armistice Day. Most of them were students, Eleanor said, and almost everyone carried a little bouquet. They piled the flowers on the grave until the flowers made a huge mound. It made the Germans mad, of course. Finally, they sent in troops to try and move the people away and there was some pushing and shoving and the Germans started to arrest people. Eleanor said she ducked into a side street when she saw the soldiers piling out of the trucks.”

“It's a good thing she didn't get picked up carrying that much money in cash. They would have thrown her to the Gestapo for sure.”

“Yes.” That was all Linda said.

“Linda.” He stopped and pulled her gently around to face him. “Please forgive me. Damn stupid thing to say.”

She shook her head and tried to smile but couldn't. “They're going to catch her. One day, Jonathan. One day they will.”

“No.” He said it heartily, wishing he believed it. He almost believed it. “Eleanor is careful. She isn't a daredevil. One day she will look around and weigh up the risks and decide it's time to get out. She's doing it for Andre. But one day she will decide she owes him the safety of his son.”

Linda looked up at him. “Do you think so, Jonathan? Do you really?”

“I'm sure of it. Eleanor isn't a fool.” If Linda believed Eleanor and Robert would follow her out of France, she could in good conscience leave. “She'll leave, Linda,” he repeated emphatically, “I know she will.”

Linda shivered.

“You're too cold. Let's go in now.”

“Not yet. I like it up here. With you.”

“Oh, it's a fine place. Come over here and I'll show you my favorite view.” He took her hand and led her between chimneys. “Watch out there. There's a skylight.”

“You certainly know your way.”

“I know it by heart. Here, around this chimney.”

They came out into a flat bare space on the northwest corner of the building. He pointed and in the faint thin moonlight she could see the dark immensity of Notre Dame and its thin unmistakable spire.

“It's lovely,” she said softly. “Even now.”

“The Germans can't ruin Notre Dame.”

“Just everything else.”

“Not everything.”

She looked up and wished she could see his face in the darkness.

“Linda.”

“Yes?”

“I don't want to frighten you, but I want to show you something.”

For an instant she had felt safe but the nightmare never ended. What did he want to show her, an apartment rented by the Gestapo?

“Come this way. See, you go around this chimney. Over there's the trapdoor. Do you see which way we are coming?”

“Yes.” She stumbled along with him, ready now to go downstairs. At least it would be warm. But she walked with him, his arm guiding her.

“See.” They stopped by the coping. “The corner building is only one floor lower than this building. I checked it out once in the daytime, too. You could jump—”

“Jump?”

“Like Franz. That's what gave me the idea. Robert told me how he did it. If the Gestapo came, you could come up here and stand just about here, see Linda, and jump. There's a clear smooth space down there, looks like the roof's been tarred at some time or other so it wouldn't be too slick, unless there was ice. If you could make it to that building, you'd have a chance to get to the street and get away.”

Linda clung to his arm. She looked where he pointed, at the opposite roof. She didn't look down into the crevice between the buildings.

“It isn't too far, is it?” she asked coolly and she was proud of her voice. It sounded as though she really didn't think it much of a distance at all. She had been frightened too many times with Jonathan. This once he was not going to know that the hand tucked through his arms sweated inside its glove, that she didn't look into the alleyway between the buildings because she couldn't bear heights, that it might as well be five hundred feet as five.

He was strikingly handsome. A thick black brush mustache, a bold nose, bolder eyes. He loved champagne and pretty girls, and most of all, he loved to fly. But tonight his face was grim, his full wide mouth compressed. He reached for a cigar, then lay it back on his rickety desk. He had no appetite for a good cigar now. No appetite at all.

In the mess tonight, his men had raised their glasses and laughed heartily, but their eyes were strained. It wasn't good form to notice the men who were gone, but tonight had been the worst night yet.

Seven pilots lost. Seven. And they had already filled places emptied in October and September and August. How many men were they going to lose?

Adolph Galland slammed his hand against his desk. Goering's directive was insane. Tying the ME109s as escorts to the slower bombers was like putting brakes on a sled. Often the bombers were late to the rendezvous, making the fighters use up too much of their fuel so that by the time they were over England, their reserves were down to nothing and they had ten minutes to fight then had to start back across the Channel or be forced to ditch midway because they had run out of fuel.