Two Crosses (4 page)

Ophélie glanced over her shoulder at the men half a block away. For a moment, a look of fear flitted across her innocent face. Then she replaced it with a smile as she tossed her long brown hair over her shoulders. “
Oui, Mama.
I’m coming.”

Like an actress poised before her audience, she turned to face the shadows of the strangers. Ophélie would play her part well. For the sake of Mama, she would not be afraid. She would know nothing, no matter what they asked. If, of course, they came to the door, as so many others had done before in her short life.

She skipped into the apartment building, as if she hadn’t a care in the world, then ran up the stairs.

“You must leave at once,
ma chérie
,” whispered Mama as she pulled Ophélie inside the apartment and bolted the door. She handed her daughter the precious little blue sack that had been stored away, waiting for this fateful day. “Go out the secret way, Ophélie. Run fast to M. Gady’s shop. Tell him you must stay with him until I come. He will understand. Now go quickly.”

As Ophélie prepared to leave, her mother caught her up in her arms and hugged her fiercely against her breast. “Always you know that Mama loves you. Always. You’re a wonderful girl.”

Mother and child ran to the back bedroom, and Mama opened the window. Ophélie perched on the sill for only a moment, like a baby swallow before its first flight. Then, with the small sack crossed over her neck, she grabbed the thick rope her mother had tied to the outside railing months ago. The rope fell to the ground and Ophélie shimmied down gracefully, just as she had done in their many “secret practice sessions,” as Mama called them. Ophélie had felt a sense of adventure and excitement as she practiced for some unknown day. But as dusk settled in and she touched the cement of the street below, she knew that tonight was not a practice. She looked up for one last glimpse of Mama pulling in the rope and closing the window.

“Au revoir, Mama. A bientôt
,” whispered Ophélie as she rushed down the side street and lost herself in the teeming crowd of the Left Bank of Paris at sunset.

Anne-Marie Duchemin could hear their footsteps as the three men raced up the stairs to her apartment.
Oh, God, this is it.
She would not let them find her daughter. She would delay them for the precious few minutes Ophélie needed to reach M. Gady’s shop. They would never find her there … unless they forced Anne-Marie to talk.

She had no doubt that she might talk if she were tortured. It had happened before. But this time she was prepared. Her life did not matter anymore.

Anne-Marie would not die for a lofty cause that, however important, was very flawed. No, she had discovered that there was only one cause worth dying for—love. She felt the tiny bottle sewn inside her sleeve. If necessary, she could slip a pill under her tongue, and she would reveal nothing.

She quickly untied the escape rope, fingers trembling, and ran to the kitchen, where she opened the small metal trash chute. Silently she let the rope fall into the trash bin in the basement.

By now the men were banging on the door, cursing loudly in Arabic. Anne-Marie stood frozen in the hallway.
Only a few seconds now, and she will be safe.
Again with shaking fingers, she unbolted the brass lock and grasped the door handle. Immediately two dark-skinned Arab men rushed in, shoving Anne-Marie aside. As Anne-Marie caught herself on a small table in the hall, she recognized the third man, who entered slowly.

“Moustafa!” she whispered.

The man lowered his head as she said his name. Anne-Marie read the look of guilt and sorrow in his eyes:
I had no choice
. She knew it was true. They had forced him to talk, and he was ashamed.

“Where is the girl? Bring her here now.” The tallest of the three directed the second man, whose young face was badly scarred, toward the kitchen.

Moustafa stood, riveted in his place, dark panic in his eyes.

“You coward! Help Rachid. Go find the girl!” The tall man pushed Moustafa down the hallway.

Anne-Marie followed Moustafa as he obediently, like a whipped puppy, walked toward the back of the apartment and briefly glanced around the sparse bedroom. It held an old mattress with springs but no headboard, two chairs with worn material, a cheap armoire, and a small bedside table. Moustafa stopped by the window to look out at the street below. The curtain fluttered slightly, and Anne-Marie saw that the window was not completely closed. Quietly Moustafa pushed it shut and turned the handle to lock it.

“There is nothing back here, Ali. She is not here,” he reported.

Ali turned his rage-filled face to Anne-Marie. “Where is your daughter? We have seen her. We know she is near.”

Anne-Marie said nothing, but she was sure her terror showed in her eyes. She remembered too well Ali’s penchant for sadistic pleasure.

He reached for her face, grabbing her chin. “Tell me, woman.” His voice filled with hatred. “I can make you talk.” He swung his other hand and hit her fiercely across the cheek.

Anne-Marie cried out as she fell backward, and Moustafa caught her. “Please.” She was on her knees. “You don’t need her. I’ll go with you! She’s nothing to you.” She was sobbing now, and Ali pulled her to her feet. He looked as if he might strike her again, but Moustafa interrupted.

“Ali, sir, I have seen them often at the meat stand, as I told you. The girl is only six. She knows nothing.”

“And have you lived with them?” He turned angrily to glare at Moustafa, relaxing his grip on Anne-Marie. “Have you heard every conversation? Of course not! You do not know. There is a war in your country. Algeria will be independent! And you would protect a disgusting whore and her bastard instead of the cause. You will die with them, fool.”

Finishing his search of the small apartment, the young man called Rachid came back to the hall. “Ali! Calm yourself. You will kill her, and then we’ll never find the others. Moustafa is right. What would a scared child know? Bring along the woman. She will talk. She’s talked before.”

Ophélie waited for her mother at M. Gady’s shop until well past dark. Each time a customer came through the doorway, pushing aside the long strands of colorful beads, she glanced up hopefully. But it was never Mama. They came and bought flour and couscous and rice from Thailand and hot little peppers. They laughed and joked with the stooped, graying shopkeeper. He winked back and shuffled behind the counter. Ophélie sat on a small stool and watched each face. She grew angry that they could laugh and joke while her life had stopped abruptly. She wondered when M. Gady would close the store. Her stomach rumbled, and she knew it must be past dinnertime.

As if reading her thoughts, M. Gady said, “Ah, little Ophélie, we will lock the store soon and have our supper,
n’est-ce pas
? Oh, such sadness in your big brown eyes! Come now, little one, do not worry. M. Gady will care for you. And your mother will come soon. You will see.”

But Ophélie read the fear in his tired eyes. She had seen such lines of concern often on Mama’s face. No, something was wrong.

The small blue velvet bag still hung on the white cord around her neck, hidden beneath her dress. She found an excuse to leave the watchful eye of M. Gady and go to the back of the shop and up the narrow steps that led to his apartment. Mama had said she should give the bag to M. Gady immediately, but she could not. What if he didn’t give it back? Then all that mattered would be lost, and she would not carry even the memory of her mother with her. Quickly she removed the bag from around her neck. Reaching inside, she fumbled through two folded envelopes until she touched a thin necklace at the bottom. Bringing it out, she examined the small gold cross that hung on the chain. She lifted it to her lips and kissed it gently, then put it away.

She crept back down the stairs as darkness closed its heavy curtain over the busy city. Out in the dust of the street behind the shop, she bent down and with her finger drew a crude picture of the cross she had just held. It was a thick cross, with a dove hanging below the lowest branch. “For you, Mama,” she whispered. “Here is hope.” Then she stood and brushed away the picture with the sole of her shoe.

Although only forty-six years of age, Ali Boudani looked more like a man of sixty. His face was weathered and his teeth crooked and broken. He carried his tall, lean frame with steely confidence, a look he had acquired through thirty years in the armed service. He was the spitting image of his father, whose military progress he had watched proudly at the end of World War I, when Ali was only four.

The musty basement where he paced back and forth was occupied by a handful of somber men, several of them dark-skinned Arabs like himself. Two others were unmistakably French.

Ali addressed the group. “Today, right here in Paris, we have found the woman we have been hunting these months. Anne-Marie Duchemin.” The face of a woman, delicate and beautiful, appeared on a screen at the front of the room. “We must thank our new friend, Moustafa, for this prize.” Ali chuckled as he pointed to the young man seated in the back of the small, smoke-filled room.

“A foolish woman. A disgusting
pied-noir
. Her parents were killed in the massacre of 1958. A most unfortunate accident.” A smile played around his lips. “Anne-Marie was of great help to us. She had the little child, and Jean-Claude was so kind to her.”

The men quietly laughed and nodded their heads. A few of the Arabs patted a handsome young Frenchman on the back.

“Very helpful, this woman, until she left Algeria six months ago. She wanted to protect her daughter, you understand. Perhaps she has succeeded in that for now. We did not find the child.” Another picture flashed on the screen: a young girl, fine and graceful, a reflection of a younger Anne-Marie, brown hair pulled back in a long braid, and a carefree smile on her face.

“We believe that Anne-Marie has information about the disturbing smuggling activities we have recently learned of and has had close ties in the past with several informers. We will have this information soon. We will take her back to Algeria with us.” He clicked off the projector, and the men rose to leave. “Jean-Claude and Emile. You will stay in France. There is work for you here.”