Simple Faith (26 page)

But Peter didn’t trust the German officer despite the man’s insistence that he wanted to learn to speak American English so that he could escape Germany under a new identity and find haven in the United States after the war. His loyalty to the Reich had not wavered in spite of his obvious belief that the war was lost. He did not blame Hitler or the other leaders. On the contrary, he still held them up as heroes and often told Peter during their language lessons that one day the world would recognize what had been lost if Hitler was defeated. Although the officer had kept his end of their bargain and gotten Roger to some semblance of medical help, Peter understood that he did this only because he saw the possibility for gaining information that would get him noticed by his superiors. This wasn’t about getting to America and setting up a new life. This man wanted a promotion.

So after a week when the officer called Peter to his office and announced that he had decided to allow the men to visit Roger at the convent, Peter was not fooled. “What’s in it for you?” he asked, noting that a page on the large wall calendar had been ripped off and now showed the month of March.

The officer smiled. “Can I not be magnanimous in the treatment of my prisoners?”

“You could be, but you really aren’t that sort of guy, are you?”

The officer laughed. “Peter, my friend,” he replied in English, taking to heart Peter’s instruction that once introduced, Americans often called each other by their given names, “you know me too well. Yes, I have my reasons, but of course you can refuse and never know what becomes of your friend Roger.” He studied his fingernails as if they contained some fascinating information. “Perhaps his health has improved in these days since we delivered him to the sisters. Or perhaps he has taken a turn for the worse.” He shrugged.

“All right. I’ll speak with the others and get back to you.”

“No. You will decide now or not at all.”

Something had happened. Peter was sure of that. Whether Roger had taken a turn for the worse or had perhaps gotten better, he could not tell from the officer’s actions and tone, but something was up. “How do I know my friend is even alive? Perhaps your superiors have lost interest in us, for surely—even with the rain—they would have been here by now.”

As he had expected, the German bristled at the very idea that he might not have something of value that the Gestapo would want. “They have given me certain leeway and will arrive as soon as I have given the word.”

“Really?” The idea that the Gestapo would take orders from this little Napoleon was ludicrous, and Peter had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing.

“Yes, really. Now do you wish to see your friend or not?”

“All right, yes.”

“Excellent.” He pressed a buzzer, and the soldier on duty outside the office stepped inside. In German the officer ordered the man to take Peter immediately to the convent and to stay there until Peter was ready to return.

Peter watched both men, carefully alert for any hidden order that might have passed between them with a look, a nod, a hand signal. He saw nothing. “I’ll just go get my—”

“You will go now or not at all,” the officer said coldly.

Peter had wanted the opportunity to let the others know about this sudden turn of events, but clearly that was not possible. “Now is good,” he said and followed the soldier outside. To his surprise, the soldier opened the passenger door for him, indicating that he should ride up front and not in the rear of the truck as he always had before. When he glanced back at the officer, he realized that this was part of the plan. No doubt he would be driven past the barracks where either Colin or Ian was always at the window or standing in a doorway killing time. The idea was for them to see him riding up front like an equal with the soldier. The idea was for them to think that he had made some bargain for himself that did not include them.

Divide and conquer was one of the oldest rules of war on the books.

Anja thought the war might indeed be over before the Germans got information from the British airman. The man drifted in and out of a fever-induced sleep, and when he did say something, it made little sense. At one point, he recited a nursery rhyme over and over in a singsong voice. After several days and nights of tossing and turning and moaning in misery, he finally settled into a deep and peaceful sleep. His breathing was still labored, but it was steadier than it had been and a sign that he might be improving. If she and the nuns could control his blood pressure and keep his lungs as clear as possible, he might just make it.

As ordered, she slept and took her meals from her position next to his bed. The other men on the ward would call out to her, but one of the nuns would explain that she was only following orders as they had done on the battlefield. And although Daniel was only down the hall from where she was stationed, they could not risk having him come to the ward, so they devised a correspondence of letters and drawings that Mikel—posing as a deliveryman—or one of the nuns carried back and forth for them. Sister Marie assured Anja that Daniel’s health had improved so much that he was no longer confined to bed, and Reverend Mother had suggested that he be schooled in the subjects he would have studied had his life been normal.

Normal
. It was a word that Anja could no longer define. It had been so long since anything about her life or Daniel’s had been routine. Oh, how she longed for the simple pleasures of an ordinary existence. How her husband had teased her about her silly worries in those years when they were first married. She would change clothes two or three times, fretting that she looked like a girl rather than a grown woman with two children. She would study her face and figure in the mirror, wondering what Benjamin saw to love in her when there were so many beautiful women. She worried that he would one day regret marrying outside his Jewish faith.

She had been so stupid to use valuable time for such absurdity. Given the chance, she would not make that mistake again. And to that end, she had begun to consider how she and Mikel and Daniel might build a life together. The only problem was that when she permitted herself such thoughts, it was Peter, not Mikel that she saw in the role of husband and father.

Peter
. She told herself that it was the uncertainty of his fate that kept him popping into her thoughts and dreams. If she knew that he had made it safely over the mountains and on to the British embassy in Madrid, if she knew that he was even now on a ship headed for England, then perhaps she could turn her thoughts to the reality of a future with Mikel.

The English patient muttered something. As Anja leaned closer to catch the words, she saw that his eyes were open and darting around as if trying to make sense of his surroundings. Her instinct was to reassure him in his own language, but she remembered that her job was to appear not to understand English so that he might reveal something to one of the other captured airmen that the German officer planned to start bringing for visits as soon as Anja sent word that the patient had improved.

She soaked a cloth in cold water and leaned in to wipe his forehead. “Hospital. Convent. Limoges. France.” She spoke in French and used single words designed to relieve his confusion.

“How long have I been here?” he asked in English. His voice was barely a croak, and she handed him a glass of water and pretended not to understand his question. He tried again—this time in a schoolboy’s rudimentary French. The guard straightened in his chair and listened intently.

“Five days,” she replied, holding up her hand to show him. She nodded to the soldier signaling him that he should report to his superior at once as they had been ordered to do. The minute he left the ward, she leaned in close on the pretense of straightening the Englishman’s pillows and spoke in English. “Close your eyes, pretend sleep, and listen carefully.”

He did as she instructed.

“My name is Anja. I am with the escape line, but I am also trying to escape with my son. You are too weak to travel yet, but you are in no danger for now.” She told him why she could not openly converse with him in English and warned him to be very careful about what he said to the other airmen who would come to visit. “But you must give the Germans something so that they believe you and the others are useful to them.”

He rolled to his side, pretending to sink deeper into sleep, and murmured, “I understand.”

She so wanted to ask him if he had heard any news of Peter—if the name Peter Trent even meant anything to him. But the guard was returning, and she couldn’t risk it.

“Your sweetheart is outside in the courtyard,” he told her with a broad smile. “Why don’t you go see him? Our prisoner is sleeping, and soon the others will come.”

“What sweetheart?”

The soldier grinned. He really was no more than a lad, and in the days Anja had spent with him on duty, she had gotten to know him—how his girlfriend had abandoned him for his best friend, how his parents had taken such pride in his service to the Reich, how he longed for the war to end so he could pursue his true passion—a career in music. While the soldier who took the night duty was sullen and suspicious of every move she made, this boy had confided in her as if she were his older sister. He had even looked the other way when Mikel passed her a note or drawing from Daniel. She realized now that he had assumed those were love letters from Mikel.

“Go,” he urged.

In the courtyard Mikel was unloading supplies for the convent. He glanced up, and because he was surprised, his smile came without warning. He was always so serious. Of course that was to be expected for his life had been hard well before the war came. She watched as he continued unloading the truck. He had rolled back his sleeves, and she realized that there was a hint of spring in the breeze that came from the south. His forearms were roped with the strength of his muscles. He was so solidly built.

By contrast Peter was tall and angular in build. And of course, where Mikel’s skin and features were dark, his eyes hooded beneath the cliff of his brow, Peter had the fairer skin, blue eyes, and dark sandy hair so common among Americans. His smile came readily, usually accompanied by a mischievous gleam in those sea-blue eyes. And while during the short time she had known him she had been the one protecting him, she realized now that she had always felt safe in his company. There was a confidence about him that inspired trust. There was an easiness about him that made her believe that one day she and Daniel would find happiness.

But it was Mikel, not Peter, who was walking across the courtyard now. In his hand, he clutched a fistful of early spring flowers he’d apparently gathered from the woods surrounding the convent. It was Mikel who was here, who would always be where she and Daniel needed him to be. She smiled and went to meet him, her mind still full of thoughts of what the future might bring. But such thoughts were blown away like the dust in the courtyard when a military vehicle she recognized as the one used by the German officer raced through the gates one of the nuns had opened and came to a sudden stop at the entrance to the hospital ward.

Anja and Mikel stood watching as a soldier—the surly one usually on night duty in the ward—got out from the driver’s side and the last person either of them had expected to see stepped down from the passenger’s seat.

“Peter,” Anja whispered, and she knew by the way Mikel dropped the field flowers and returned to his work that she had revealed far too much of her feelings in that single word.

Peter’s mind had raced along with the vehicle over the rutted and half-destroyed roads from the village to the convent. He’d considered all possibilities—focusing on the always-present possibility that he had outlived his usefulness and at some point the driver would stop, order him out, and then shoot him. So when the soldier swerved onto a narrow dirt lane that led through a wooded area and on to an iron gate in the distance, Peter dared hope that the German had kept his word and Peter would see for himself how Roger was faring.

A nun approached the gate. She moved with a slow stateliness that seemed only to irritate the driver. When he chastised her, she smiled and went on with her duty—opening and closing the gate. The soldier gunned the motor, leaving a trail of dust behind that surely had to have coated the nun’s habit. It was all Peter could do to keep silent.