Waiting for the Violins (24 page)

Antonia grunted. “I’m pretty sure the slug went through my hand, but we should try to clean it. I have a little sulfa powder with the bandages in my pack. Ex-nurse, you know.”

“Good. We’ll fix you up and take you back to the farm.” Sandrine swabbed down the oozing palm and pressed gently, until Antonia cried out. “Aieeee! Broken bone, broken bone!”

“Yeah, it looks like it, but you’re also damned lucky. You’ve got a big artery in the hand that goes down and curves back, and the bullet just missed it. So you won’t bleed to death while we hike.” Sandrine wrapped a long strip of sterile bandage around the hand, tying it in a knot at the uninjured thumb.

Antonia gritted her teeth against the pain, which now pulsed as far as her elbow. “
Ooof
. Let’s get going before I start to cry.”

Sandrine helped her to her feet again. “Cry all you want, dear. I’ll never tell a soul. After you’ve had a little rest at Anglet, we’ll return to Brussels. Now that our ‘parcels’ are delivered, we can train the rest of the way home.” Sandrine led her back up into the foothills of the Pyrenees.

“It’s just that it’s still Christmas day.” Antonia couldn’t stop whining. “Where are the goddamn kings? There are supposed to be kings.”

Chapter Twenty-four

Brussels, December 31, 1942

Antonia checked her watch on her still heavily bandaged wrist. Midnight. The Gestapo would be celebrating New Year’s Eve, just like everyone else, and no one would bother to send a direction-finder vehicle through the Malou woods. The perfect time to transmit.

She climbed the stairs to the new attic “radio room” that Mathilde and Gaston had created during her long hike into Spain. Gaston had built a false wall at one end of the attic with an entryway made of a panel that looked just like the rest of the wall. Mathilde had wiped down the oppressive dust and added cushions to make the cubicle comfortable.

Laborious and clumsy as it had been using her “wrong” right hand, she’d already apprised London of the successful mission to Spain, and now she merely waited for instructions for the next one. What pilots had been lost in the interim, and where had they gone down? She set her headphones on.

Sandrine startled her as she stepped inside the cubicle holding two glasses of champagne. “Happy New Year, Antonia. Let’s hope 1943 sees the end of the war.”

“Happy New Year to you.” They tapped glasses and Antonia drank, letting her glance linger for a moment on the shine of Sandrine’s hair under the overhead lamp. She averted her eyes, annoyed at herself for her constant craving. Nothing had come of the Christmas kiss, and she sensed no sign of one being offered for New Year’s. She had already fully exploited her crippled hand for tenderness and sympathy.

“Any messages come in yet?”

“No. I was just tuning in.” She looked at her watch again. “They should be sending just about now.” The first ping sounded. “Yes, it’s starting.”

She scribbled rapidly as the dots and dashes poured through, nodding mechanically along with the rhythm. Then the transmission ended. She bent over the notepad of scrawl from her right hand and, comparing the letters with her poem code chart, began to decipher the gibberish into English words.

“The first part of the message is for you, it seems.” She read out loud from the slip of paper.

No Arthur Talbot in RAF stop. Only Reginald Talbot stop. Squadron 52 is maintenance squadron in Iraq stop. No engagement in European theater.

Sandrine threw her head back. “Oh, thank God.”

“Why thank God?”

“Because I killed him. I can’t tell you how much that’s been on my conscience.”

“Oh. But…he doesn’t exist.”

“I mean I executed a Gestapo agent who called himself Arthur Talbot. He gave his squadron as the 52nd and it’s tormented me for weeks. The bastard even carried a picture of a woman and baby. I wonder who they were.”

Antonia didn’t reply and mulled over the fact that Sandrine had killed at least two men point-blank. Would she herself have the courage to do so?

“Listen, I’ve been thinking.” Sandrine broke into her thoughts. “We need another radio operator.”

“What? You want to replace me? Just because of my hand?”

“No, of course not. But what would have happened if we’d been caught in Spain? Who would have notified London? No, we need a backup or an assistant who can send messages when you can’t. I think you should train one of us in Morse, on your wireless.”

“Where will I find the time?”

“You’ve got nothing
but
time. I’m going to be running around with Christine setting up new safe houses and collecting the new pilots. You’ve got to interrogate them, but other than that, you have no duties.”

“I suppose you have a point.” Antonia dropped her headphones onto her neck, grasping the earpieces as if asserting ownership. “Who do you have in mind? Philippe?”

Sandrine shook her head. “I don’t think so. He has his farm to run, and he doesn’t know English.”

“What about Francis or Laura?”

“They have to be at the café all the time. They’d be missed if they came out here for training. And we certainly can’t move the wireless back there.”

“So who’s left that we trust? And knows English?”

“Fortunately, I gave the problem a lot of thought, and I’ve already found someone perfect for the job. Celine Collin. She’s from the Ardenne but seems to be staying permanently in Brussels now. She wants to be involved.”

“Celine? Laura’s sister? She’s awfully young. And will she even want to do it?”

Sandrine smiled, with only the faintest hint of smugness.

“She’s already agreed. Do you want to talk to her? She’s in the kitchen with Mathilde.”

“You scoundrel. You had this whole conversation planned! What if I’d said no?”

“I knew you wouldn’t.” Sandrine leaned in and pecked her on the cheek before heading toward the stairs.

Ah, so that was going to be the New Year’s kiss.

*

Celine Collin’s long, narrow face was pretty in an ordinary way, and her slight overbite and taciturn manner did little to dispel the impression of simplicity. But when she spoke about strategies to defeat the Germans, her close-set eyes blazed and a bright, analytical mind revealed itself.

Antonia pulled up a stool next to her in the château kitchen, while behind them, Mathilde chopped vegetables for dinner.

“Why did you come back to Brussels? You’re certainly much safer with your family in the Ardenne.”

“I was working sometimes as a courier for the evaders hiding in the hills near my village, but those are mostly guys who ran away from the forced-labor roundups. Not much going on there. When Laura told me about the Comet Line, that sounded more important. Since she’s my sister, it was easy to get a permit to change residence to Brussels.”

Antonia studied the pale face, with its superficial mask of innocence and the hint of a hardened veteran behind it. “Where did you learn English?”

“At school before the war. I speak Flemish too, even a little German. When the Nazis came, I started listening to the BBC, first to Radio Londres
in French and then to the English broadcasts too. I learned a lot more that way.”

“Listening to the BBC is illegal. You should be careful.” As soon as she’d made the remark, she realized how condescending it was.

Celine snorted. “I think everyone in my town listens to the BBC. In the Ardenne the Nazis don’t check so carefully.”

“In any case, it’s not so important to know perfect English to send messages. You just have to make short sentences and put them into our code and then into Morse. The briefer the better.”

“Yes, I know that.”

Antonia was beginning to appreciate the quality of mind she was dealing with. “All right, then. We’ll give you a try. But first, you’ll have to learn the alphabet in Morse. That shouldn’t be so difficult.”

“It’s not. I’ve already started, and I know them up to the letter N. A is
dot dash
. B is
dash dot dot dot
. C is
dash dot dash
dot
. E is—”

“Stop, please. I believe you. But we don’t say ‘dot’ and ‘dash.’ We call the sounds
dah
and
di
, with the
di
at the end of a letter called
dit
. So C, for example, is
dah di dah dit
. And I can teach you some good memory tricks. For example, you can associate the letter V, as in victory, with the opening notes of Beethoven’s
Fifth Symphony
, that is,
di-di-di-dah.
You can even use that letter in isolation for ‘victory’ so you don’t have to spell out the whole word.”

“Oh, I like that.” Celine tapped it out a few times on the table.

“Excellent. So here’s your assignment for now. First, finish learning the alphabet. Practice it day and night, and when you’ve got it down, start spelling out names and words. I want you to think in Morse and dream in Morse. Then I want you to come back in five days’ time with a message that you can give me in Morse. One long sentence will do, anything you want.”

“I can do it, I’m sure.”

“I want you to say it to me without stopping, using only
dah
and
di
and
dit
. If you get everything right, we’ll move on to the next stage, where you ‘send’ it to me on the handset. That way I can see how steady your hand is.”

“You’re going to trust me with the radio?”

“Disconnected, of course. But that’s only half the job. You have to be able to put the message into our own code system, and that will take a little longer to teach you.”

“I’ll learn it. You’ll see. I really want to do this.” The simple, small-town face took on an intensity that rendered her beautiful, and Antonia felt a sudden affection for her. She was going to break hearts with that passion one day.

Antonia accompanied Celine upstairs and to the door of the château, where she’d parked her bicycle. “Five days, the whole alphabet.”

Celine threw a leg over her bicycle, and leaned sideways to kiss Antonia quickly on the cheek. “
Di di di dah,”
she called out as she rode off.

Waving at the departing figure, Antonia smiled at the word
Victory
, Celine’s first communication in Morse.

*

The February afternoon after her third lesson was brisk, and as Celine pedaled away bundled in headscarf and mittens, Suzi galloping after her, Gaston was collecting firewood in a wheelbarrow. She waved to him and sped past the carriage house onto the road back to Brussels center.

Satisfied also with the improvement in her own wounded hand, which now could send almost normally, Antonia returned to the sitting room where Sandrine had a fire going.

Sandrine glanced up from her book, pedagogic in her reading glasses. “How’s she doing?” Antonia stood with her back to the fire, enjoying the spread of heat up her legs. It was so peaceful, so domestic, both of them there together by the fire, Mathilde downstairs preparing dinner, Gaston bringing in wood, and their “little sister” riding off on her bicycle.

“She’s very talented. She’ll be sending in no time. Then you won’t need me any longer. Promise me you won’t throw me out?”

Sandrine laughed, the firelight twinkling in her spectacles. “I’ll never throw you out. You’re much too valuable to me.”

“Valuable. Really?” She fished for some sort of declaration.

Before Sandrine could answer, the sound of a car arriving in front of the château drew their attention. A moment later, Gaston stuck his head through the doorway without knocking.

“Excuse me, madam. It’s Monsieur le Baron. Perhaps Madame Forrester should…”

Sandrine jumped up from the sofa. “Yes. Antonia, I’m sorry. You have to go upstairs, right away. Stay in your room until Mathilde calls you, please.”

Antonia obeyed, rushing into the stairwell.

She slipped into her room and sat on the edge of her bed, then paced, then sat down again. Who was the visitor? Monsieur le Baron, Mathilde had said. How many barons were there in Brussels? She knew of only one.

The realization caused many pieces to fall into place. Not only was the visitor not supposed to see her, the unexplained stranger in the house, but she herself was not supposed to see him, the man who dispensed favors. Like an unrequisitioned car and a petrol ration.

The vague suspicion that she’d harbored but been able to thrust to the back of her mind now emerged as ugly certainty, and it sickened her.

Shivering, she drew the quilt from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. A moment later she heard a soft tap on the door. It creaked open and Mathilde stepped halfway in.

“Is he gone?” she asked with childish hopefulness.

“He usually stays for an hour or two.” Mathilde stared at the floor and her glance said everything. Then, with cool objectivity, she said, “Dinner will be delayed.”

“I see. All right. Thank you, Mathilde.” She retreated to the bed, cocooned in her quilt, and laid her head on the pillow. Her mind roiled with impotent disgust. In the cold silence of the room, she fell asleep again and dreamt of standing in the snow before a cozy cottage. Through the open door she could see a fire burning, and she sensed Sandrine waiting someplace within. But when she stepped through the doorway toward the hearth, she found herself surrounded by wounded soldiers on a burning deck. She turned to flee and the floor gave way. Flailing as the flames caught her hair, she sank into the icy water.

*

The dinner conversation was minimal and curt. Though the early evening visit of the governor general hung in the air like a bad odor, no one spoke of it. Antonia herself could scarcely order her thoughts. Politically, she understood that it gained them all protection, but the idea of what had happened, and would happen again, repelled her.

Sandrine herself was taciturn, but the faint blush on her face all evening suggested she knew she was tainted, and Antonia felt guilty for reproaching her, even if only in her own mind.