Landscape of Shadows, page 11
He opens the door fully. Within is a small area of landing, wide and deep enough for one person to stand on but no more.
He checks that the light switch and bulb are working. A steeply pitched flight of steps constructed of concrete and stone is revealed, falling abruptly away from the narrow landing to a depth of ten meters or more. The effect of such depth combined with the extreme angle of pitch is dizzying.
A single steel rail serves as banister. It does little to offset the hair-raising perspective of that deadly drop.
The strange aftermath of Henri’s death—those rolling eyes and the speechless mouth—may well be nothing but legend. So also may be the claims of Henri’s cruelty to his poor friar confessor.
But Henri’s dungeon is another matter. Henri’s dungeon is no legend. It is real enough.
Max returns to the rear hallway. He hands a strip of cloth to the tall airman and gestures with the pistol. Again, there is no need for explanation: the men have been through similar procedures before on their journey along the escape line. The airman ties the cloth in place as a blindfold. Max guides him at gunpoint through the kitchen and to the lobby. He helps him step over the high ledge beneath the portrait and places him safely inside Henri’s doorway.
Only now does he remove the blindfold and switch on the light, so that the man can see where he is.
Their reactions are always the same, the reactions of the people that Max guides here, regardless of whether they are civilians or military personnel—reactions that are the natural and instinctive response to where they find themselves. Without warning they discover they are in a place where one false step—or a nudge from Max—will pitch them head first to a certain broken neck.
The British airman is no exception, for all his familiarity with vertiginous heights. Instinctively he tries to step back, but is stopped by the muzzle of the Browning in his back. He seizes hold of the steel banister and clings to it as the pistol urges him downward.
Max follows him down the steps, staying safely behind and above him, and gestures for him to open the heavy oak door at the bottom and enter the dungeon. When the man has found the light inside and switched it on, Max descends fully and locks him in.
The whole procedure has been done without a word being spoken.
He repeats the procedure with the other two airmen.
In the dungeon the men will find food and drinking water waiting for them, a barrel of water with which to wash, mattresses and bedding, and metal pails to serve as latrines—primitive arrangements but adequate.
When all the men have been delivered to the dungeon, Max swings Henri’s portrait and the section of oak paneling back into place for the final time. The iron leaves recede neatly into the gilt foliage and the mechanism locks smoothly with its usual solid clunk, testimony to the fine workmanship of Henri’s long-forgotten builder.
Max makes a last check of the lobby and the windowless hallway. There is no trace that anyone has been present in the hallway or that Henri’s portrait has been disturbed.
And certainly Henri will tell no tales.
Once again knowledge has been restricted. The airmen may be captured at any stage of their onward journey from here. Among the information they will yield under interrogation—and they will yield such information—will be mention of a basement deep underground where they were hidden. But they will not be able to say where it was.
They will be ignorant of anywhere called Dinon-sur-Authie, because the guides who brought them here will have been careful never to have uttered the name or allowed them to see road signs, whether in French or German lettering. They can report only that they were taken to a large house in which Germans were staying. They will not be able to name the Hôtel Picardie, and there are many large houses in which Germans are resident.
Max also knows they will not be able to name him. They will be made to describe him, but tonight they are desperate and fearful, and in the hands of interrogators they will be in an even worse state. Any descriptions they provide, even without trying deliberately to mislead their interrogators, will be confused and unreliable. They will not even agree on whether Max wore a cap.
And none of them will tell of the portrait of Duc Henri, because none of them has seen it.
Nor have Pierre, Juliette or Auguste ever seen what is hidden behind that portrait. They have no reason to suspect that anything is hidden there. They do not know where or how Max hides his charges. Nor does Laure Rioche.
Need to know only. The golden rule.
With the airmen safely hidden, Max puts the Browning away and steps outside to clear his head. He returns to the archway, removes the cap and wipes his brow.
“What the hell are you up to?” whispers a voice from the darkness.
CHAPTER 28
HIS FIRST INSTINCT is to go for the Browning, but even as his hand moves towards it he is registering who has spoken.
He leaves the weapon where it is and turns to face her. He can make out only a dark silhouette.
“How did you get out?” he demands.
She meets the question with one of her own. “What kind of late-night guests were those I saw? They have a peculiar way of arriving.”
He tries to assess risk and potential damage. So she has seen the airmen arrive, but she does not know who or what they are, nor how they got here—even if she saw the signal lights. She is outside now and hopefully that is where she was while he was questioning the men and taking them to the dungeon. All the blackout blinds are in place, they were in place throughout, and there are no windows in the rear service hallway, so she could not have seen anything that happened indoors, including what he did with Duc Henri’s portrait. His questioning of the airmen was conducted in hushed tones, so she could not have overheard anything. She may not even speak English.
On the other hand, if her original objective was to flee the Picardie and Dinon, the fact that she is still here and has waited for him to reappear—with no guarantee that he would do so—is a measure of her determination to pry into matters that are none of her business.
He takes her back to his quarters and the bedroom. To his surprise she makes no protest. He switches on the dim light. When he sees the empty window frame, the scraped-out putty and the broken knife, it is all too obvious how she freed herself. He looks at the pane of glass with its sharp edges and corners, sees the state of her hands, a mass of open cuts and bruises, and shakes his head at the risk she has taken.
“You could have sliced through an artery.”
“Then your problems would have been solved. No more Sophie Carrière causing trouble or dumping herself on you.”
She leans back against the wall. She is quiet, deep in thought, head down, her face concealed by the curtain of hair. He waits, sensing that she has more to say. He is learning her ways.
She pushes the hair aside and looks at him.
“Let me save you the trouble of lying, Max. I know what you’re doing, why you have people arriving in the middle of the night and why you’ve taken them into the hotel. Three men, all of them young, and they looked to me like military types. I know you’re armed and I saw you search them. They didn’t object to that, they let you do that as if it was what they expected, as meek as lambs. You took them in at gunpoint, just like you did with me. Again they didn’t argue, even though they outnumbered you, because they expected that as well. This is your show and they know it. I think they’re Allied servicemen. They’re on the run and you’re hiding them here, protecting them.”
She stops, to see what he has to say. He says nothing.
“But you’re doing more than just hiding them, aren’t you? They’re here because they need to get out of France, out of German-held territory, and back to wherever they belong, which is England I suppose. You can help them do that because you’re running an escape network. That’s what this place is—an escape line.”
And there it is. He looks at her. That disturbing gaze is still fixed on him. She is many things but stupid is not one of them. Of course, he can deny everything. He can insist she has it all wrong. He can try inventing some story or other to account for what she has seen. And she will believe none of it.
“The last time I heard your opinion, I was a collaborator.”
“So now you’re not. Make the most of my good opinion while it lasts. Tell me the truth. I’m not even asking where you’ve hidden them—I just want to know if I’m right.”
He knows they have reached a point of no return. If she tries to escape again and is captured, she will end up telling the Germans what she believes anyway—she will have no choice; they will force it from her, just as he warned. So much for his damage assessment.
But at least she does not know about Henri’s dungeon, as she herself has made clear. Nor anything about the rest of the escape line before or beyond Dinon and the Picardie. All he can do now is dissuade her from further foolishness—the very behavior that might land her in Egon Wolff’s hands. And the only way he can do that is if she knows how much is at stake.
So in the end he has no choice.
“You want the truth,” he says. “Yes, the Picardie is part of an escape line. We move military personnel and civilians, we take them in and keep them safe until we can move them on. A couple of days here, a few nights, then they’re gone, moved on to the next cell as soon as possible.”
Her eyes are bright with triumph. “Military personnel? So I’m right. Allied fighters.”
“In the early days it was soldiers who hadn’t managed to escape from Dunkirk. Now it’s mostly airmen who’ve been shot down or crash-landed.”
“And the civilians—who are they? Jews?”
“Sometimes. They might be people who’ve spoken out against the Germans or are on a wanted list—intellectuals, academics, writers, politicians and officials who’ve refused to do the Germans’ bidding—endangered individuals who need to get out of France or another occupied country—Belgium, the Netherlands. They might be one step ahead of arrest or they might have been arrested and managed to get away. And yes, from time to time there are Jews. Whoever they are, Jews or otherwise, if London clears them they join the line. In the same way as with military personnel, we receive them here and move them on as soon as it’s safe to do so—safe for us, safe for them, and safe for the next part of the line, the next cell.”
“You keep saying ‘we’. You and who else?”
He shakes his head, denying her that information. He has told her enough—and that much only because of what she has worked out for herself. Now it is his turn to gather information.
“You told me your family was arrested at the beginning of the occupation. Arrested but then released. Are they still at liberty?”
She pauses for a long moment before replying. But reply she does, as if acknowledging that some kind of trade in truth has been agreed between them.
Her gaze is distant, unfocused.
“Roundups of Jews are nothing new in Paris. The first to be taken were foreign Jews. But recently the Germans have been turning their attention to French Jews like my family. Our mistake was not leaving the city at the very beginning, as soon as we knew the Germans were coming. We should have fled and not returned, like others who left and never came back. But not only fled Paris—we should have got out of France. A couple of months ago my mother and father were arrested again. They had to present themselves at their local gendarmerie—that’s how the Germans get our French police to do their dirty work for them. It was the same police station that Papa, Maman and I had been taken to before.”
“What about you? You weren’t arrested this time?”
“I wasn’t at home. I don’t know if I’d been sent for as well. I missed curfew the previous night and had to stay with friends. When I got home that morning our neighbors told me what had happened. I tried to find out where my parents had been taken after the gendarmerie, but I got nowhere. I’m realistic now, I don’t think I’ll ever see them again. They’re gone. I went into hiding. My friends and I had been talking for months about becoming involved with the Resistance. It took me a while to make contact with the right people, but that morning was when I made my decision.”
The right people. He lets that pass without comment. No point riling her. Better to keep her talking. Certainly better than her usual bickering and complaints.
“You haven’t mentioned your brother.”
Another pause—a brief one this time, all the more decisive for its brevity.
“He died long before that.”
Just as when she first spoke of the arrest of her family, her clipped reply makes it clear that she has said all she intends. His hope to keep her talking founders. He will get no more from her. Their trade in truth is at an end.
But he has heard enough anyway. Her family is gone—in all likelihood she is right to assume that her parents are dead. Her motives for joining the Resistance are clear. And equally clear is the callousness of the hard men in choosing her for their mission—not only untrained and untested, but also, it now turns out, only a matter of weeks after joining them.
She inhales and expels a deep breath, as if chasing from her mind the past and the memories she has summoned.
“This escape line,” she says. “Right under the noses of your German guests. The last place they’d suspect anything of the sort.”
“Which is why those German guests are so important to us. Do you understand now? Having them here is about more than extra food rations.” He pauses, marking a change of direction. “Now I must ask something very important of you, Sophie.”
But as with the existence of the escape line, she has worked that out for herself as well.
“Paris,” she says.
“Yes, Paris. Under no circumstances should you tell them about any of this. Your Resistance cell might not be secure. I have my suspicions.”
She looks as if she is about to argue, but he carries on.
“Whether you accept that or not, you must say nothing about what you’ve learnt tonight.”
“I know that.”
“Anything you tell Paris could jeopardize the lives of many people—”
“Max, I know.”
“Good. And I must be sure you won’t cause any trouble here, you won’t do anything that could lead to your capture. Because you’ll be interrogated and—”
“Max, please, I understand. Really, I do.”
“No trouble here in the Picardie and not a word to Paris. I ask that of you.”
There is amusement in her eyes, as though she would make one of her little games from his anxiety.
“All right, Max. I’ve got the point. No trouble, not a word to Paris. My lips are sealed. Look—you see?”
She raises a finger to her lips. Full lips, dark and glistening in the faint light of that weak bulb.
Like a fool he does what she says—he looks at her as the finger touches her lips. That is his mistake. Something in the room changes. Or perhaps it is something within himself, a misstep in the beat of his heart, a missed pulse. Suddenly there seems to be too little air in the small bedroom despite the missing window glass. He finds he is standing too close to her.
Or is it she who has moved?
He does not know how it happens, even afterwards he cannot unravel how it comes about, but in that moment she is in his arms, her slim body trembling against his.
Did he clasp her or did she come to him?
Her eyes have closed. The moment seems suspended in time and space, as though there is nothing in the world but this small room and the two of them. He hardly dares breathe but feels her breath on his cheek, feels the movement of her breasts as her chest rises and falls. Her lips touch his, brushing them so gently he might only be imagining it. He feels the warmth of her body and smells the fragrance that was here when he first came to her in this bedroom. A tense current of desire, of sensations and needs long forgotten, courses through his body.
How a man’s life can tilt on its axis. How it can tumble beyond his control.
A warning rises to the surface of his mind. He tries to dismiss it but it is insistent. It is the conviction that this is wrong, that he must not allow it to happen. However the moment came about, whichever of them provoked it, he must end it.
He frees her from his embrace as gently as he can.
She is startled. She opens her eyes and he sees that he was right about their elusive colors: there are golds and greens within their gray ocean—an ocean in which he cannot tell whether he is swimming or sinking.
“What is it, Max?” Her voice is barely audible. “Is it because of her?”
A chill touches him. What is this? What does she know?
“Max, I found the photographs. I don’t know who she is, but—”
He steps back, taking her injured hands in his.
“Stay here now, Sophie. Don’t try to leave again on your own. I’ll come back.”
She does not hide her distress. Does not or cannot.
“If you leave now, Max, you won’t come back to me. I know you won’t.”
“I will. I promise.”
“You promise? Do you keep your promises, Max?”
“Always.”
As he leaves the room he knows Geneviève is there, watching and listening.
“Always,” he whispers.
There is still an hour or so until dawn. He fetches a blanket and tries to doze on a sofa in the lobby. But his efforts are useless; no sleep comes to him.
Eventually he gives up and goes to the washroom behind the kitchen. He washes, shaves, dresses in fresh clothing and returns to the lobby. To wait for morning and the meeting with Egon Wolff.
CHAPTER 29
OUTSIDE HER PRISON a new day is beginning. Sunlight falls through the empty window. The mirror casts its reflection and the slow progress of the oval of light across the walls recommences.
The door is no longer locked—he has given up on that—but this bedroom is a prison more than ever now.
Once, she hated him for imprisoning her here. Now her imprisonment is worse; it is no longer defined and bounded by these four walls, for he has imprisoned her poor heart, he has put it in chains. It will bear the weight of those chains wherever she goes and whatever she does. There will be no digging her way free from them.
