Waiting for the Violins (22 page)

The respite was short, for the next morning, after a quick breakfast of bread and cheese, they were hustled into the farmer’s coal-burning truck and chugging south to Paris.

When he deposited them at the outskirts and they began the hour-long march to Gare d’Austerlitz, Nick gazed around him. “Crikey. My first time in Paris, and I had to fight my way through the wilderness to get here. A pity we can’t do any sightseeing.”

“Not if you want to get back to England alive.” Sandrine pointed with her head toward German soldiers at a café across the street.

The crowd inside the Gare d’Austerlitz gave them the illusion of safety, but the train to Bayonne wasn’t at the scheduled track. “What’s the problem?” Sandrine asked at the ticket window.

“I don’t know, madam.” He shrugged. “Watch the board. They’ll post the track when the train comes in.”

“Let’s keep moving. We’ll be less conspicuous,” Sandrine suggested. They wove their way in and out of the clusters of people who were smoking, sitting on their luggage, waiting. They turned a corner and found themselves on the auxiliary tracks. Sandrine stopped abruptly.

“What are cattle cars doing here? They don’t load livestock from this station.”

“Nobody’s permitted here,” a voice behind them said. Alarmed, Antonia pivoted, her hand already reaching for her papers. But it was only a railroad man and not a Milice. “These tracks are closed,” he said, and his somber tone told them something more than inconvenience was at stake.

“Sorry, we didn’t know,” Sandrine replied, and tugged Ian by the arm back in the direction they’d come. Antonia followed, glancing once behind her. The empty cattle cars seemed ominous, malevolent.

“What the hell was that all about?” Nick asked sotto voce, as they moved away.

“He didn’t say,” Sandrine said. “Just keep walking.”

They strolled for the next twenty minutes, back and forth through the crowds, not speaking or making eye contact with other passengers. Finally the announcement came—“Train to Bayonne on Track 5”—and they crowded in among hundreds of others. Good, Antonia thought. The more crowded the train, the harder it would be to patrol.

*

B
AYONNE
. The station sign slid by the train window. They lifted their rucksacks from the floor of the packed corridor and shuffled behind the other passengers to the exit.

Ahead of them Germans manned the border station. Where were the French?

“It’s all right,” Sandrine murmured reassuringly. “Philippe warned me this might happen. We’ll do the same thing he did
.
”

She led the others away from the line. “Sophie, you go first. Down that corridor leading to the toilets. At the end is a door to the street. If all goes well, Fernand will have already been here to unlock it and will be waiting just across the street. He’s tall, with a moustache.”

And if he’s not there?
Antonia refrained from asking. She followed the directions toward the tiny toilet, the odor of which discouraged use. At the end of the corridor, behind a pile of crates, was the door, and she tried the handle. It was unlocked so she edged the crates away from the door and slipped through, closing it quietly behind her.

A tall, swarthy man waited across the street, reading a newspaper. As she approached, he looked up and revealed, to her relief, a moustache.

“Fernand?”

“Yes,” he answered, folding the paper.

“The others are directly behind me, I hope,” she added. But he was already glancing past her, and his smile told her the next person was out.

When Sandrine emerged last, he shook hands with everyone. “Just let me lock up again so the stationmaster doesn’t suspect anything. My truck’s over there.”

He pointed toward a ramshackle farm vehicle with a closed two-person cabin and an open wagon in the rear. It carried the usual piles of hay to conceal them. When would the Gestapo finally catch on that hay was one of their enemy’s best weapons?

*

The truck halted with a slight shudder. At the sound of Sandrine’s voice, Antonia threw back the cover of hay and surveyed the new environment. Behind them was a stand of pine trees and, in front of them, open fields and a large stone house. Though it had a yard with chickens, it was more villa than farmhouse, and Antonia recalled Sandrine telling her that Fernand earned a living as an interpreter at the German headquarters in Anglet. An excellent cover for a smuggler of men.

She climbed out and caught up with Sandrine at the door, where a slight, round-faced woman awaited them.

“Come on in, all of you,” the woman said in French. I know you’re hungry so dinner’s ready.”

Nick hadn’t understood, but as he stepped in the entryway, he exclaimed, “Crikey. I smell beef! Real beef.” He stared up into the air as if he could see the clouds of aroma.

“Even I understood that.” The woman laughed, glancing at Sandrine. “Courtesy of the local black market.”

“Ah, so you’ve been up to your old tricks then. Business must be good.” Sandrine slipped off her rucksack and let it drop to the floor.

“This week, yes. You keep supplying me with funds, and I’ll keep finding the smugglers.”

“Don’t worry, Elvire,” Sandrine said. “We’ve come bearing cash.”

“Good to know. Now put your things in the living room, and go wash up. Then the lads can help me set the table. We want to get you all filled up for your big climb.”

*

Dinner-table conversation had been cheerful, as between old friends, and even though the airmen scarcely took part, they laughed when the others laughed, and Sandrine, with her dark-blond hair tied up in a bandanna, looked radiant. Antonia tried not to glance too often at her.

Afterward, Fernand escorted the men to the room that had belonged to the couple’s children. Sandrine and Antonia had the privilege of the living room, where a fire had been set.

“We’ve put the sofa cushions on the floor along with some blankets,” Elvire explained. “You’ll have to sleep like Persians, but at least you won’t get cold.” She added another log and wiped her hands on her apron.

“Good night, my dears.” With quick cheek kisses to both of them, she padded off in thick slippers to her bedroom.

Sandrine dropped down onto one of the cushions and unlaced her shoes. She drew them off with a sigh of pleasure. “Oh, that feels good.”

“I’ve been waiting all evening to do that.” Antonia pulled her heavy boots off as well and rubbed her toes. “The fire’s nice too,” she added, suddenly shy. It would be the first time she would sleep near a woman since Dora. She blushed at the comparison. “They’re lovely people, Fernand and Elvire. Have you always stopped here?”

“Yes, always. Andrée met them back when she formed the line. They put their lives at risk each time, and the only money they ask for is to cover the black-market food. They think it’s important for everyone to get a big healthy meal before crossing the mountains.”

“It’s really going to be that bad?”

“I’m afraid so. You’ll be hiking for twenty-four hours—cold, exhausted, and footsore. Patrols comb both sides of the mountain, and you might have to run for your life—if not from the French Milice, then from the Spanish carabineros. Police are police, and they have orders to stop you.”

“But other than that, it’ll be fun, eh?”

“Yes, heaps of fun. Anyhow, that part of the route isn’t fixed. A Basque guide named Florentino will pick us up tomorrow. He knows the mountains better than just about everyone.”

“Have you ever lost anyone?”

“Yes.” Sandrine let the answer sink in. “But there’s no point in talking about it. Go to sleep now.” She pulled Antonia’s blanket up over her shoulder with parental concern.

Antonia gazed up at the half-lit face, warmly delineated by the firelight on one side and obscure on the other. “I haven’t had anyone tuck me in for decades. Do you also tell stories?”

Sandrine lay on her side, facing her. “
You
should be telling the stories. You’re the one who jumped back into Belgium. That took courage.”

“Less courage than what you do, over and over again. You seem utterly fearless.”

“I do my best.” She brushed her fingertips along Antonia’s cheek.

Her entire body heated at the touch. Surely it was an invitation. She rose on one elbow, gathering courage for the kiss. Any kind of kiss.

“Good night, dear,” Sandrine said suddenly, and turned away from her.

Antonia lay back down again, her mind reeling. What had just happened? Had she misinterpreted a simple gesture? The uncertainty was excruciating. She shrank down closer to the fire at her feet, pulled the blanket halfway over her head, and tried to think of nothing.

It was no good. She was too much aware of Sandrine, lying next to her. The drowsiness she’d felt after dinner had vanished, and now she lay with her head buzzing. Sandrine’s short breaths made it clear she didn’t sleep either. It felt like they were two filaments in a lightbulb, with an electric current vibrating between them.

“Sandrine, I’m cold. Really. Can I lie against you to get warm?”
God, that sounded pathetic
.

“Yes, I’m cold too. But we have to go to sleep, all right?”

Antonia slid up against the warm back and shuddered with pleasure at the touch. She dared not curl her arm around Sandrine’s waist, so she folded it up against her own chest.

“Is that better?” Sandrine’s voice was soft.

“Yes, much better.”

It
was
better. Arousal came and went, replaced by an enormous comfort, something short of romance but beyond friendship. In the dead of winter and in war, and for that night, it seemed enough.

*

Antonia awoke alone, wrapped in both blankets. Gradually her sleep-befuddled mind made sense of the sounds of Sandrine and Elvire in the kitchen and of the smell of cooked beans. She drew on her shoes and laced them, hearing the two pilots also emerge from their room. Embarrassed to be the last one, she struggled to her feet and folded the blankets. She longed for a bath, but a quick wash of her face in the basin next to the WC would have to do.

The others were already seated at the table scooping eggs and beans onto their plates. In spite of the ample dinner the night before, the aviators were ravenous, finishing their meals while Antonia had just begun.

Sandrine spoke little and, after eating, busied herself with inspecting her rucksack.

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in my carrying these any more.” She held up one of the .38 Enfields before handing them back to their owners. “Though I can’t imagine their doing much good if we meet a patrol with rifles.”

The sound of someone arriving by bicycle outside ended the conversation, and a few moments later Florentino stepped into the kitchen.

He was huge. Antonia recalled that Basques were supposed to be short, but this one was certainly not. He looked like he could carry a man across his broad shoulders. His features were rugged but not brutish. He spoke only Basque, which worried Antonia slightly, though less than the fact that he smelled faintly of alcohol.

He carried four walking sticks and presented them without commentary to each of them. Was it a way to warn them of the difficulties ahead?

After a round of embraces, good wishes, and pats on the back, they set off southwestward. The sky was clear, the winter air was bracing, and Antonia felt travel-hardened. She no longer had the child-voice in her head that kept asking how much longer it would take. She simply hiked, stoically, one step after the other, as if the walking itself were their entire purpose in spite of the dull ache in her hips and thighs.

Scarcely had they started out when they turned off the road and began to follow a narrow shepherd’s path, where her constant tripping over rocks and roots redirected her pain to her ankles and feet. She began to see the wisdom in Florentino’s occasional nipping from a small bottle of spirits.

He allowed them to stop every two hours, but the ten-minute respite was almost more cruel than kind. Then, six hours into the hike, he called a halt for lunch, and Antonia dropped down where she stood. Nick and Ian stretched out flat on the ground, and Sandrine rubbed her calf muscles. Only Florentino, whose large paws dwarfed the bread in his hand, seemed indifferent.

Half an hour for bread, cheese, and water, and they started again, with Antonia’s every muscle screaming protest. And now it had begun to snow.

Soon it began to fall in thick flakes. A small part of her mind took pleasure at the beauty of snowfall on the tree-studded hills, but keeping an eye on the man in front of her and watching the slippery ground occupied the rest of it. She stumbled repeatedly, each mishap sending a bright wave of pain up her leg.

When night fell, she felt as if she were wandering in another world—cold, damp, slippery, and infernal. Finally Florentino stopped, and behind him, the others bumped against each other.

She puzzled as Florentino knelt before a double tree trunk with a circle of rocks at its base, then snorted quietly in amusement when he uncovered a pair of unworn espadrilles and another bottle of cognac. “The man knows what’s important, doesn’t he?” she said to Sandrine.

“Amazing, isn’t it? It doesn’t seem to affect his ability to guide us, does it?”

“That remains to be seen. For all we know, we might be somewhere in Switzerland.”

Florentino got to his feet, stared up through the snow, and frowned. “Cold,” he said, in one of his few words of French, and unstoppered the new bottle. Yes, the wind was obviously bringing a new drop in temperature. Then, to her surprise, he offered the cognac to her.

She hesitated only a moment, then gratefully accepted it, tipped it back, and let the scorching liquid burn its way down her throat. She wheezed for a moment, then felt the pleasant warmth flow into her chest. She passed the bottle to Sandrine, who repeated the gesture and handed it on to the men.

It was a good move, Antonia decided. Though the whisky probably had no actual beneficial effect, the act of sharing gave them all a boost of courage to get over the mountain.