Simple Faith (40 page)

“But, Mama,” he whispered, pointing to her wanted poster, “our name is there. He already knows.”

“I do indeed, and I’m afraid there are others who know as well. An agent of the secret state police of the Third Reich visited the ambassador earlier this week. It was he who left the papers you now hold. His men have distributed them widely throughout the area.”

“His name?” Anja whispered.

“Schwarz—Agent Gustav Schwarz.”

Lisbeth clutched Josef’s arm, and Anja pulled Daniel close to her side.

“Can you help us?” Peter asked. “Will you?”

Formby appeared to ignore the question. “We have been expecting you for some time now—well, you, Second Lieutenant Trent. We felt certain that the rest of you would be along eventually, but we hardly expected you to arrive all at the same time. I am afraid that this has presented us with a bit of a problem.”

“But you can protect us?” Peter pressed the point.

“We will do our best. In the meantime, the ambassador apologizes for his absence. He is on a call with Prime Minister Churchill. He has asked that you take the time you need to refresh yourself and rest.” He nodded to the officer in charge, who gave an order, and the guards surrounding them turned and left the building. “And I will call the ambassador’s doctor to check on your wife, sir.” This he directed to Josef. “Although you are a physician as well, are you not?”

“I am, but we would welcome any help you can offer. Thank you, sir.”

A member of the office staff who had been waiting at the foot of the stairs now indicated that they should all follow him. Lisbeth took three steps up the impressive stairway and collapsed into Josef’s arms. The man might have been trained as a physician, but in that moment Peter saw that he was only a husband whose fear for his wife and child was all he could think about.

“Call that doctor,” Peter ordered the staffer as he swept Lisbeth up from the stairs and carried her. Anja, Daniel, and Josef followed him up the steps, and Josef ran ahead, opening doors until he found a bedroom. “In here.”

As soon as Peter had placed Lisbeth on the bed, Anja nodded toward where Daniel was standing in the doorway, his eyes wide with fear while Lisbeth cried out in the agony of labor. “Take him back downstairs and stay with him, Peter,” she pleaded. “He does not need to see this.”

Reluctantly, Peter and Daniel edged back out into the hallway, and Anja shut the door, muffling Lisbeth’s cries. On their way down the stairs, a man carrying the familiar black bag of a doctor passed them. “Third door on the right,” Peter told him.

Downstairs Peter made a survey of his surroundings. In the offices just off the stairway, he could see the vice consul speaking to another man. The second man sat behind an ornate desk, and Peter assumed that this was the ambassador. He was tempted to barge straight into the man’s office and demand to be a part of any plans that might be in the works, but Daniel was tugging on his hand.

“Peter? Will Lisbeth die?”

“No pal. She’s going to be fine.”

“Am I going to die?”

In that moment, Peter realized that he had a much more important task to attend to than arguing with the ambassador and vice consul. He lifted Daniel high off the ground and carried him into the large reception room they’d seen when they first arrived. The room was furnished with comfortable-looking chairs and sofas, and one entire wall was french doors that looked out onto a garden in full bloom.

“No one you know is going to die today, Daniel. How about we go out to that garden and pick some of those flowers to give to your mom and Lisbeth?”

Daniel smiled. “Mama loves flowers,” he confided. “When I was little, she always had flowers on the table—even when it was cold and snowing.”

Peter suspected that the boy’s father had made sure of that. He knew that if they were blessed enough to get out of this war alive and if he could persuade Anja to marry him, she would never ever be without a vase filled with fresh flowers again.

It had been months since Anja had assisted in the delivery of a baby, but as she worked alongside Dr. Alonzo, it all came back to her as if she had done it just the day before. The anxious moments followed by the sheer joy of a new life coming into the world. But what kind of world would this child—a girl—face?

She cleaned up the infant and wrapped her in a large soft towel that the embassy staffer had brought. “Lisbeth, Josef, may I present your daughter?” She laid the child in Lisbeth’s arms and then conferred with Dr. Alonzo regarding Lisbeth’s postnatal care. But uppermost in her mind was a single question: now what would they do? It had been difficult enough moving across countries and mountains and past border patrols with Daniel. But with a new baby and a recovering mother?

“I’ll come back to check on her later today,” Dr. Alonzo was saying. He prepared to leave the room and then turned back and lowered his voice. “In the matter that has brought all of you here, may I suggest that you seriously consider going your separate ways or at the very least dividing into smaller
packages
? Your possibility for success will be much greater.”

“But …”

“Just think on it, my dear.”

Shortly after he left, the woman from the embassy office knocked on the door. “Dr. Alonzo asked me to sit with the parents and their child while you refresh yourself and rest,” she said. “There is a room across the hall there.”

“Thank you.”

But as soon as the door closed behind her, Anja ignored the room across the hall and ran down the stairs in search of Peter. She slipped past the door where she could see secretaries typing and filing and going about the business of the embassy. Beyond them she caught a glimpse of an ornately carved door that she assumed led to the offices of the ambassador. Down the hall, she came to the large reception salon they had noticed when they first arrived. She tapped at the partially open door and then peeked around it.

No one.

But outside the french doors across the room, she caught a movement and saw Daniel running along a path, his face wreathed in the smile of laughter. He was holding a fistful of flowers and pointing to more. Then Peter came up behind him. He looked a little worried and was shaking his head.

Anja opened the door. “Daniel, what are you doing?”

“Mama, I picked you flowers,” he cried as he ran to hand her the bouquet that bore the marks of having been tightly squeezed. “I wanted one of those, but Peter said that we had enough.”

“They are beautiful, Daniel. It’s been a long time since …” She burst into tears.

“Mama?” Daniel’s voice wavered, and she saw the shadow of fear darken his eyes.

“Don’t be afraid, Daniel. Nothing is wrong. These are tears of joy. I came to tell you that Lisbeth and Josef have a baby girl.”

“Can I see her? Does she look like my sister, Rachel, did when she was a baby? Should I take some flowers?” He glanced around, already choosing the bouquet.

“Here, take these,” Anja told him as she pulled a bright yellow flower from the cluster. “I only need this one flower, and Lisbeth will be so happy when you bring the baby the rest. Let’s ask if perhaps the people in the office have a small vase or container we can put them in.”

The three of them returned to the embassy’s offices, where a young woman was more than happy to help Daniel find something for the flowers. “I can take him upstairs to see the baby if you like,” she offered and blushed. “I just learned that I am pregnant,” she whispered to Anja. “It would be wonderful …”

“Yes, please. That would be lovely.” Anja wanted a moment alone with Peter so she could tell him what Dr. Alonzo had suggested about them making the next part of their journey separately. She watched Daniel pause near a large gilded mirror in the foyer to check his clothing and hair. He wet two fingers and smoothed back the cowlick that he had inherited from his father; then he smiled up at the secretary and took hold of her hand as they climbed the stairs together. It never failed to amaze Anja how after everything her son had witnessed and heard about he still had a child’s ability to trust.

“Is Lisbeth all right?” Peter asked when she led him back through the reception salon and on out to the gardens.

“She is fine—exhausted but fine. But there is something …” She told him what the doctor had suggested and was surprised that he did not immediately reject the idea. Indeed, he seemed to be considering it.

“We cannot be separated,” she said. “Lisbeth and the baby will need—”

“Let’s give our hosts a chance to offer their ideas, Anja. After all, they have been handling situations like ours for some time now. You go get Josef while I arrange for us to meet with the vice consul, the doctor, and the ambassador if he is available.”

The meeting took place in a small room away from the more public rooms of the embassy. The ambassador did not attend, and Anja suspected that this might be to protect him in the event that questions were raised by Franco’s government. Someone had to have noticed them arriving at the embassy, exiting the car, and going inside. Possibly the driver himself had raised an alarm. He had certainly been upset to realize how they had fooled him.

What she knew for certain was that there were spies everywhere—even inside the British embassy. And if Schwarz was in the city, she had no doubt he would do everything possible to capture Peter—and her. She stared at the doctor. He was Spanish, but that could mean anything. Spain was a country of divided loyalties, trying to walk a tightrope between the Axis and Allied powers fighting the war.

It was becoming harder to know who to trust, but the doctor was talking about taking Josef, Lisbeth, and their newborn to his summer house in Redondela on the coast of Spain. “My wife, Ramona, will be delighted to have an infant in the house,” he said. He turned to speak directly to Anja. “If you would agree, might I suggest that your son also travels with your friends?”

“And me?”

Dr. Alonzo glanced at the vice consul. “We have our reasons for suggesting that those in your party divide into smaller groups. The agent Schwarz is here in Madrid. He is making inquiries. You are in grave danger, Senora Steinberg. And as long as your son is with you—so is he.”

Peter reached over and took hold of her hand. “We are going to get through this—all of us.” He turned his attention to Dr. Alonzo. “Okay, so Daniel and the others go to your summer house. What then?”

“They will be safe there until Lisbeth is well enough to travel. Then we can get them to a British ship and on to England.”

“And Anja and me?”

The vice consul stepped forward. “We have a special friendship with the Norwegian consulate in Seville. We can smuggle the two of you onto a Norwegian merchant ship that will carry you to Gibraltar and from there on to England.”

“Smuggle?” Anja asked.

“We have our ways. The question before you is do you agree to let us handle the matter in our own way?”

Josef’s head bobbed up and down immediately. Anja suspected that he would agree to any plan that would get his wife and child to safety. She looked at Peter, who at least seemed to be having some doubts. But then he nodded as well. Was he really going to place his life—all their lives—in the hands of these men they had met only hours earlier?

She got up and headed for the door.

“Anja?” Peter stopped her. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing …”

Dr. Alonzo stepped forward. “I wonder, Mrs. Steinberg, if we might have a word in private.”

The thing was—she liked this man. She had seen how kind and competent he had been while delivering Lisbeth’s baby. She had smiled at his humor designed to help Josef relax. She had been impressed with his inventiveness in handling a delivery that he could not have imagined would be part of his day. Yes, she respected this man, and that was part of the problem.

“Please, Senora Steinberg, allow me to set your fears to rest.”

Anja retraced her steps and sat down in one of the chairs arranged around a desk. Behind her she heard the door open and then after a moment close again. Dr. Alonzo filled a glass with water and offered it to her. When she took it, he filled another glass, sat down in the chair next to her, and stared out the window.

“These are terrible times we are living in, senora,” he said softly.

“Please call me Anja.”

“There is no proof that I can offer you related to why you should trust me with your beloved son, Anja.”

“Daniel is my life.” She tensed.

“I imagine that he is. Your husband and daughter were murdered by the Nazis, were they not?”

“They were.”

“And you and your friends upstairs were prisoners in a Nazi death camp, and then you became a leader in an escape line that ran from Brussels. You have been hunted and harassed for some time now. Do you not long to be free of that?”

He knew her story. She had to wonder how. “You are not reassuring me, Dr. Alonzo. What is your point?”

“My point, Anja, is that perhaps it is time for you to stop running, stop living in the shadows, and instead operate from a place where your son can live in relative peace and you can continue to save lives.”

“How?”

He smiled and then shrugged. “That is for the authorities in England to decide, but I assure you that they will be most pleased to have you working with them.”