Simple Faith (17 page)

When someone sat down at the grand piano that dominated one corner of the sitting room, Gisele and several others abandoned their plates but carried their wine glasses with them as they gathered around the pianist. Throughout the evening, Anja and Peter sat at the top of the stairs—like children spying on their mother and her glamorous friends. Gisele had explained that it was too dangerous for them to attend the party, but she made sure they had ample food and wine. Peter noticed that by the second song Anja was tapping her toe on the carpeted stair and mouthing the words to the song. He thought it was the first time he had ever seen her simply enjoying herself.

Finally, when the last guest ventured out into the snow, Gisele glanced up the stairs, calling out to them. “Come down now and warm yourselves. You must be freezing,” she said. “And they left us some cake.” Peter and Anja hurried down the stairs and sat on the floor near the fire—the one truly warm place in the whole apartment—and stuffed their faces with cake frosted with a thick, creamy icing. Clearly no one on earth knew how to take full advantage of nature’s reprieve better than the French.

During that night, the snow let up and the winds calmed. By morning they could hear the scrape of shovels on sidewalks filtering in through the tall windows of Gisele’s apartment. Peter and the other men who had been present the night he and Anja arrived went out to clear a path to the side entrance so that a horse-drawn wagon could pull up to collect the coffin and carry it to the church two blocks away. With the path cleared, they dressed in the disguises Gisele had devised for them, added coats, gloves, and boots, and walked to the neighborhood church behind the horse and cart that carried the flag-draped coffin. Presumably at some point—perhaps while Gisele and her guests were partying—someone had placed a body appropriately dressed in uniform inside the coffin and draped the Vichy flag over it.

As the procession made its way down a side street, Peter saw a man in an overcoat and slouch-brimmed hat watching from a café window with more than a passing interest. He was glad the occasion called for the women to wear heavy black veils that obscured their features. At least Anja was somewhat protected in that she looked like all the other faceless women. For his part, he slumped a bit and limped more than he needed to in hopes he would appear older—and shorter—than he was. He noticed that the other male mourners clustered around him, forcing him to the center of the group and thus further disguising him.

Inside the church, Peter was surprised to see a fairly large gathering.

“The boy’s real family,” Gisele whispered, apparently reading his confusion.

“He was truly a soldier then? Loyal to Hitler?”

“He was a soldier for freedom—one of us—as is the priest and almost everyone here,” Anja murmured. “But take care. There are always infiltrators.”

“Did you notice the man watching us from the café?”

Anja and Gisele both nodded. “I’ve seen him before. He was the one who came to the café that night—I saw him look out the window,” Anja whispered. “If he has come to Paris, there can be only one reason.”

Gisele linked her arm through Anja’s. “Do not predict trouble. We do not presume to guess what people will do. We must simply prepare for the worst and pray for the best.”

Peter followed the two women down the long center aisle and slid into a pew next to Anja. She sat stone still, and he understood that she was following the traditions of her Quaker faith in worship while he struggled to follow along with the service as best he could given it was all in Latin. As the service came to an end, he realized that Anja was crying. Periodically she would slip her gloved hand beneath the veil that came nearly to her waist and wipe her eyes. Once she released a shudder of emotion and a heartbreaking sigh. She must have known the boy, Peter decided. Perhaps they had even worked together. He took hold of her free hand, and when she did not resist, he held on until the service was over.

A small reception followed the service in a room just off the sanctuary. Gisele had to be there in her role as the grieving mother. As Anja had predicted, the officer from the train had attended the service. But it was far too dangerous for Anja and Peter to attend such a social gathering, so as soon as the service ended, they were pulled aside and led to another side entrance to the church.

“Go,” their guide urged them. “Gisele will meet you at home.” The woman handed Anja a fur hat to replace the veil she took from her. “Go,” she repeated in French.

Outside, the streets were almost completely deserted. Because the wind had whipped the snow into drifts, no traffic moved, and they saw only a half dozen pedestrians—all of them hurrying to some destination where it was presumably a good deal warmer. But Peter found the sharp, cold air exhilarating, and the snow-packed streets reminded him of home.

“Where I live in America, it hardly ever snows, so when it does, the towns are not really prepared to deal with it,” he said as he and Anja walked along, picking their way through drifts and over ice patches. “Schools and businesses can close down if there are only a couple of inches of snow on the ground. The whole town is as deserted as this street is. I can’t imagine what would happen if we ever had this much snow at one time.”

“Is it very nice where you live? Very different from here?”

“Not so different really.”

“There is no war there,” she reminded him.

“There’s a different kind of war—shortages, though not as severe as you have suffered. But there is the unknown that is the same as here. Loved ones in danger and no way to know if they are safe or will be coming home.”

“Your family must be very frightened for you.”

“I don’t like thinking about what they must be going through. The imagination can sometimes be far worse than the reality.” He stopped and turned to face her. He touched the collar of her coat—Gisele’s coat. “I wish I could tell them that I’m in Paris and that I’ve met this woman who has changed my life forever.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek. “I want to thank you, Anja.”

To his shock, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard on the lips. “Stay like this,” she murmured as she continued to feather kisses along his jawline.

He held her close, savoring the warmth of her lips on his skin. And then he heard the sound of a car moving slowly past them. He could feel the tension in Anja’s thin body as she stiffened but did not break her hold on him.

The car rolled to a stop. “
Pardon!
”

A light snow had started again and had already covered Peter’s shoulders and the beret. He sheltered Anja as he turned to look over his shoulder at the woman who had called out to them.

It was Gisele. She was sitting in the back of a sleek black car, a uniformed driver at the wheel, the windshield wipers struggling to keep up with the accumulation of snow. “Do you need a ride?” She smiled and blew out a long stream of cigarette smoke.

“No,” Peter replied, keeping his arm firmly around Anja’s waist. “We’ll enjoy the walk while we can.”

Gisele frowned, rolled up the window, and signaled the driver to move on. Peter was well aware that Gisele was the kind of woman used to men falling for her on sight, but she was not his type. He found her charming and obviously very beautiful, but she was not like Anja.

No woman he’d ever met was like Anja.

For one magical moment when she was kissing Peter, Anja dared to imagine the possibility that someday her world could be normal again, complete with all the dreams she’d had for Daniel and herself—dreams she had once shared with Benjamin and that had included their daughter, Rachel. Dreams she had begun to think might find a home with someone new—someone like Peter. But that wasn’t reality. And neither was Paris—at least not this Paris.

“Quick thinking—kissing me that way,” he said, fighting a grin.

“I learned it from someone,” she countered.

Peter laughed, and the sound of it on the cold winter air was like music. “Let’s stop at that café. Perhaps they have hot chocolate,” he said as they watched Gisele’s car drive away. “Let’s pretend life is normal again just for today.”

Anja glanced around. Could they risk it? Should they? How many times had she heard of situations where evaders just wanting a bit of normalcy set themselves up for capture? The café was mostly empty. She was tempted. It would be so nice.

“No. It’s not safe. But we could walk in the gardens.”

He offered her his arm. “A stroll in the gardens then.”

They walked along for several yards before either of them spoke. The snow was clinging to the bare branches of the trees, and the entire park looked like a fairy wonderland. Anja thought about how Rachel would have squealed with delight at the sight, and that brought thoughts of Daniel. She wondered if it had also snowed in Brussels and whether the nuns would give the children a break from their schoolwork to play in the snow.

“Tell me why you were crying during the service. Was the man in the casket someone you knew?”

“No—yes. I did not know him personally, but we are all of us part of a cause, and because of that I know him. And there was—there is always something more personal at such times,” she admitted.

“Tell me.”

“I had no chance to say good-bye to my husband and daughter, and today I was thinking of my grandparents as well and wondering where they are—how they are. I do not want them to suffer because of me.”

He wrapped his arms around her and rocked her from side to side. “They chose to be part of this—to do what they could. Your grandfather could have refused to come to that field that night. I certainly would not have blamed him if he had chosen to protect his family over rescuing me.”

She pulled away just enough to look up at him. “You would have done the same,” she said as she stroked his hair.

He chuckled. “You give me too much credit. Now, I thought we were going to enjoy our time here in Paris. So if we can’t be warm inside a café, then let’s make the best of the cold and build a snowman.” He turned away from her and began rolling a small pile of snow into a large ball. “Well, come on. I could use a little help here.” He tossed a handful of snow in her direction. Some of it caught on her nose, and she laughed.

He helped her stack a medium-sized snowball on top of his larger one. “Now for the head.”

“We’ll need arms.” She began looking around for a pair of sticks that might be perfect.

“I’ve got just the thing for a nose.” He held up a tightly closed, slender pinecone and stuck it in the middle of the snowman’s face. “Eyes? A mouth?”

Anja handed him the sticks to place on either side of the snowman and then gathered a handful of red berries she had seen a few feet back on their walk. “The mouth,” she announced as she jabbed them one by one in a semicircular smile. “Just the eyes now … and a scarf.”

“Times are hard. We are not giving up our scarves.” Peter found two chestnuts and placed them on the head for eyes. “I like him,” he declared, cocking his head to one side to study their creation. “He has the look of a happy man.”

She moved closer to adjust one of the berries that threatened to fall out, and Peter wrapped his arms around her, holding her close—her back to his chest. “And I, too, am for the moment a happy man, thanks to you, Anja.” He turned her so that they were face-to-face, and he kissed her. A real kiss—not one necessary because someone was coming. “Ah, Anja,” he whispered and deepened the kiss.

“We can’t,” she said sadly even as she stood on tiptoe and kissed him back.

He cupped her face with both hands. “We can. It may not be forever, but if there’s one lesson we’ve both learned from this war, it’s that you take your moments as they come. You cannot count on second chances. We have this moment, Anja. This single moment.”

She understood what he was telling her. They had no future together even if things went well for them both. He would return to America and she to Brussels. If they both managed to stay alive, they might see each other at some war reunion decades from now. He would no doubt marry. She would devote her life to Daniel. This unique moment might indeed be all they would have. But did it do any good at all for them to pretend?

To distract him, she snatched his beret from his head and giggled as she spun away from him and placed the hat on the snowman. Then she took hold of one of the stick arms and one of Peter’s hands, gesturing with her head that he should complete the circle by taking hold of the snowman’s other stick arm. When he did, she began dancing in place as she sang a French nursery song—”Frère Jacques.” To her delight, he joined in, and they danced in place with the snowman while all around them the snow continued to blanket the gardens.

After Peter had retrieved his beret, they walked along the Seine back to the street where Gisele lived. Along the way, they bought a bag of roasted chestnuts from the lone street vendor open in the snowstorm. Anja recognized the vendor as a man who had come once to Brussels to guide some airmen to Paris. Knowing he was there just a block away from Gisele’s gave her a sense of security. Rather than being alone, they were surrounded by unnamed friends who would do everything in their power to see them to safety.