Violins of Autumn (5 page)

Pierre observes the camp with obvious pride. How does he not see what I see?

Denise lands feet together on the dirt. “Will the men mind if we look around?”

“They won’t mind. Although, steer clear of that guy by the tents, the one whittling what he likes to call a ‘gouger.’ He’ll steal anything that’s not tied down.”

I gasp. “He’s a criminal?”

“Sometimes he is. Are you frightened?”

“No.”

Pierre smirks at me. “You should be.”

Denise fetches her suitcase. She lugs it the length of the cart, gripping the handle with both hands.

“Set up your radio at the desk. André will advise you of our requirements.” Pierre gestures to a long wooden board laid across the tops of two oil drums, where a man sits listening intently to a small radio through a pair of headphones. “There should be plenty of space for your aerial. You will need to use battery power, though. I know power for the radios is hard to come by, but we’ve been unable to hook into the main supply.”

“I’ll transmit quickly,” Denise says with a frown as she walks to the desk, the suitcase swinging like a heavy pendulum at her side.

I have only seconds to worry about being left alone with Pierre before he marches away with a sack of laundry thrown over his shoulder.

Everyone seems to have a job to do. I’m the odd person out and I’m not sure what to do about it. I watch my legs sway in slow circles. How is it possible to feel so alone surrounded by so many people?

As I sit within the Maquis camp it hardly seems real that only a few months ago I was working as a barmaid. Two British officers,
Charles and John, were among the pub’s regular customers, and one day John called me to their table. I could never have imagined that our conversation would fling open the door to a brand-new life.

“We were mulling over your age. Charles says twenty. I say twenty-two. Let me be right to win the pint, Betty. I’m a thirsty man.”

“I’m nineteen.”

Once the lie escaped my mouth there was nothing to do but stand behind it and hope I didn’t get caught. Switching my answer would have made me look awfully stupid.

“Nineteen?” John said. He looked to Charles, who nodded.

“That’s an odd American accent you have,” Charles said.

“Well, I’ve lived here a few years now. And I went to boarding school near Geneva.”

“You speak French?”

French was the main language spoken throughout the day at school. I was fluent.

“
Je parle français très bien
.” And then I offered my slightly rusty Swiss German. “
Ich spreche auch Deutsches
.”

John looked to Charles, who nodded more vigorously this time.

“Do you like adventure?” John asked.

He might as well have asked if I enjoyed breathing. “Sure. Who doesn’t?”

Charles swooped in close. He smelled waxy and fresh, and a tad spicy. “Go to 64 Baker Street. A captain will be waiting. They’re in need of girls just like you.” Noting my skepticism, he smiled and added, “Trust us, Betty. Give it a go.”

Well, I gave it a go, all right.

A man I recognize from last night’s reception team rides into the clearing on a bicycle.

“Pierre, I’ve come from my brother’s,” he calls, leaning the bike against a tree. When he reaches Pierre outside the doorway of a thatched hut, I listen in as he says, “The factory is producing military equipment for the Germans, but my brother doesn’t know what is being made there. Propellers for the Luftwaffe, perhaps? The factory is fenced and patrolled by guards. No one can get near it without arousing suspicion.”

I stare at my lap, straining to hear Pierre say, “Any disruption must look like an accident or else there will be reprisals against the townspeople. We’d need blueprints of the factory to locate the building’s access points. This might prove too difficult and time consuming to arrange. Perhaps we should scrap the whole thing.”

“I don’t think we should give up on this. What if we sent someone to scout out the factory first?” His voice grows louder and clearer. I don’t have to look up to know he’s facing me. “Someone like her?”

“Marcus, you’re crazy.”

“Think about it. It makes perfect sense.”

“Look at her. She’s a girl. And a small one at that.”

“Exactly,” Marcus says, drawing the word out to make his point. “No one would ever suspect her of spying on the factory. It’s perfect.”

“It’s dangerous is what it is. Too dangerous.”

“But it isn’t,” Marcus insists. “Who are the guards more likely to ignore? A girl like her? Or men like us?”

“Marcus, no. We’ll figure out another way to sabotage the factory. Besides, we don’t know how much time we have left. Could
be weeks, could be months. The girl has orders to report to Paris, and we may never see her again. We can’t rely on her for something this important. If we don’t take these matters seriously, we will fail. Let the girl ride away on her bicycle.”

I set my hands on the backboard of the cart. My teeth clench. I dare him to call me a girl. Just once more.

“Taking our country back is a job for men,” Pierre says. “Not for girls.”

I push off. My skirt flutters away from my legs as I drop and plant my feet firmly on the ground.

“I’ll do it.”

Marcus lets out a whoop. “Did you hear that, Pierre? She’ll spy on the factory.”

“I heard, yes.” To me, he says forcefully, “You have not received any details, and yet you have already agreed? You don’t know the risks involved. You don’t even know where the factory is located. Don’t you think you’re being a little hasty?”

Hasty? Yes, more than a little so. My mouth loves to get me into trouble.

“It doesn’t matter where the factory is,” I say. “I’ll do it.”

Pierre shakes his head and holds out his hand to Marcus. “Let me have the map.”

Marcus digs a crumpled square of silk from his pocket, grinning. I get the feeling things like this don’t often go his way.

Pierre stretches the map across the cart backboard. “The factory is here.” His finger jabs a patch of silk. “It is five kilometers south of that village.”

Those directions aren’t specific enough. I fish out the notebook and pencil the SOE supplied me with and eagerly flip to the first page. “Aren’t you going to give me the coordinates?”

He sighs but gives me the numbers, which I scribble down.

“Thank you,” I say. “Is there anything else I should know?”

“Take notes and report back to me.”

For such an important sabotage mission, those are suspiciously lean instructions.

“How often should I report back to you?”

He turns away, shrugging. “Oh, I don’t know. Whenever you’re able.”

I angrily cram the notebook into my pocket, knowing he only agreed to let me spy on the factory to shut me up. He doesn’t expect me to report back. He expects me to ride away on my bicycle, never to be heard from again.

I’ll show him. I’ll do a better job than any of his men ever could.

After we return to the farm, Denise and I polish off a breakfast of hot porridge and warm milk straight from the cow.

Madame LaRoche sets two cups of steaming coffee on the table, one for me and the other for Denise.

“Fantastic,” Denise says, and she greedily fills her mouth. Her cheeks bulge. Widening eyes send me a frantic plea for help.

“I should have warned you—” Madame LaRoche begins.

Denise plugs her nose and forces the liquid down her throat, the way my cousins swallow foul medicine. With a shiver, she says, “Good Lord!”

Madame LaRoche quickly crosses herself.

“I’m sorry,” Denise tells her. “I assumed this was coffee.”

“That, Denise, is
ersatz
coffee, a fake substitute made from chicory. It is as close as you will come to real coffee for the remainder of your stay in France. Now you know what to expect. Imagine if you had reacted that way in a crowded bistro?”

Denise blushes. “I suppose you’re right about that.”

“You would be surprised by what you can grow accustomed to over time. Eventually you might well enjoy chicory coffee.”

“I’ll drink the stuff if Adele will.”

The dare leaves me no choice but to drink the coffee to the last drop. Near the end I run short of breath, but I pull through. Fake coffee isn’t as unappetizing as Denise made it out to be, but for all I know it tastes like the real stuff. My aunt and I are tea drinkers.

“Wonderful. Adele likes ersatz coffee already,” Madame LaRoche says.

The door to the outside opens. Bishop and a few other men come in with supplies. I wait for Pierre to join them, but the door swings closed and stays that way.

“Ladies, are you prepared to leave for Paris? You will report to your SOE circuit leader there and follow his instructions. Do you have his contact information?”

“Of course,” Denise says. “But when will I get to fire my weapons? Winston Churchill himself ordered the SOE to ‘set Europe ablaze.’”

“Concentrate on your radio duties, Denise.” Bishop scratches the crook in the bridge of his nose, a memento from his early boxing career, as if to shield an out-of-character smile. “And don’t be so trigger happy.”

She grumbles, “Oh, bother—,” and my immediate thought is
of the Winnie the Pooh stuffed bear at the end of my cousin’s bed, his arm forever held in a cheery wave that greeted me on my way to and from my bedroom.

Bishop says, “Take a few moments to study the devices on the table. Be prepared to employ any or all of them during your time in the field.”

“These little lovelies are mine.” Denise reaches for a pair of clunky women’s shoes that aren’t little or lovely. From the wedge heel she removes a small, hidden blade. “I could kick some arse with these. Quite literally.”

During our training we were introduced to some of the SOE’s gadgets. I loved the ones with a surprising twist. Explosives disguised as Chianti bottles, or cigarettes, or lumps of coal. Shaving cream and toothpaste containers with secret compartments that hid codes or microprints. Tins of “foot powder” filled with an irritating itching powder.

Bishop hands Denise and me our identification papers and ration cards.

“Oh, would you look at my photo. It’s dreadful!” Denise says, waving her identity card in my face. “How’s yours?”

Cameras usually capture me at my worst. In the final group photo before I left school, every girl in the front row wore her prettiest smile. And there I sat at the end of the line, my face contorted unattractively in a sneeze. My
carte d’identité
breaks the photo curse. With my head tilted just so, and a perfect blend of highlight and shadow, I look sophisticated. Like a film star.

“I like mine,” I say.

When I show Denise, she clicks her tongue in annoyance. “Yours is much nicer than mine. I should have asked for a retake.”

In my hands I hold a new identity. Physical proof that I’ve
become someone else. The cards are forgeries of course, but fingerprinted, stamped, signed, and dated, mine looks so official. So real.

Bishop ushers us outside.

Things are stepping up fast. Are we really about to be cut loose, to ride away on our own, with no supervision or support to fall back on? A pang of guilt comes over me. Somehow I fooled a bunch of high-ranking people into believing not only that I’m older than seventeen, but also that I’m capable of playing a real role in this war.

The horse-drawn cart, driven by Pierre, bumps down the lane and stops outside the gate. Pierre leaps down with ease, his brown hair fluttering back from his handsome face.

“Pierre will take you as far as the nearest village,” Bishop says.

Madame LaRoche runs at us, a half-empty basket of eggs swinging from her hand. “Girls, have a safe trip. Promise me you will take care.”

After loading our bicycles into the cart, Bishop extends a hand to help Denise climb to her seat. She swats him away. In one graceful motion she steps up and into the cart, flaunting her obvious horse-riding talent.

Pierre steps closer. Uncomfortably close. The slight breeze stirred up when he kneels brings his earthy, manly scent to me.

I stare at his cupped hands so long he finally says, “Step up, Adele. I’ll help you.”

Accepting his offer of help means I’ll have to touch him. My mouth goes dry. My heart pounds. In movies, handsome men make women weak in the knees, a silly made-up ailment that doesn’t affect girls in real life. I’m wrong about that. It does.

I set one foot on his hands and push off with legs as wobbly as a gelatin salad. With nothing to hold on to, I’m thrown off-balance. Flailing, I grab a fistful of his woolen sweater. His strong arm protectively reaches around my back to catch me, and he lifts me to the runner board.

“Thank you, Pierre,” I say.

As he climbs into the cart he nods. “I wouldn’t let you fall.”

This sentiment flusters me even more. There’s no hope for regaining the strength in my weak knees now. I drop into the empty space next to Denise.

Madame LaRoche waves as we leave. “Our door will always be open to you.”

At the end of the laneway, I shield my eyes against the bright sun to catch one last glimpse of Bishop, Madame LaRoche, and the others. I have no way of knowing if I’ll ever see any of them again.

For a long while we ride in silence. The rhythmic clomping of horse hooves down the dusty road calms my nerves and whirling thoughts.

“One of your men was captured last night, Adele?” Pierre asks.

I jump, not expecting him to be the one to speak up.

“Yes, he was arrested by four gendarmes,” I say.

“The French police obey all German orders like obedient little children. They’re in charge of rounding up the Jews, you know. French Jews, their own countrymen. It’s unforgivable. Two years ago, the police rounded up more than thirteen thousand Jews in the
Vélodrome d’Hiver
, a cycling stadium near the Eiffel Tower. They were held there for nearly a week, in vile conditions. All of them were sent to camps. My sister and her husband were able to hide only ten people before the raids.”

I cover my mouth with my hand.

“They are committing unspeakably evil atrocities in Germany, and in Poland.”