Waiting for the Violins (25 page)

Finally Sandrine broke the silence. “Christine has four men ready for a trip down the line. Two of them are the pilots you interrogated. She also has a friend who wants to join the Free Belgian army in England and an ex-city councilman who’s wanted by the Gestapo. I’ll be taking them down along with Philippe. It’s time for him to learn the line so I don’t always have to be the one. It’s going to be harder with four ‘passengers,’ especially when one of them is elderly, but that’s what we’ve got this time.”

“Uh-huh,” Antonia mumbled, chewing.

An uncomfortable silence followed, and Sandrine spoke again. “To make matters worse, Florentino is wearing out. We can’t keep sending him over week after week. We need another guide, a second man who can alternate with him.”

Antonia nodded indifferent agreement.

“And we’ll need more funds soon too. Another drop from London.” Sandrine looked directly at her. “Can you arrange that for next week?”

“Yes, of course,” Antonia replied woodenly. “I’ll ask for it in my next transmission.”

“I should be back in about a week, and the money will be gone then. It would be most welcome if new funds were waiting.”

“Yes, it would.” Antonia finished her meal without further remark and excused herself from the table. Once back in her room she stared glumly out the window again. Night had fallen completely, and no moonlight shone through the leaden night sky. The pond was a wide black spot, icy and grim, a metaphor for what was inside her.

Through her closed door, she heard Sandrine come up the stairs and go to her own room. Antonia pressed her ear against the door that separated them. The wood was cold against her cheek, and she felt suddenly craven. She heard very little in any case, though a few dull sounds suggested Sandrine was making a fire to take off the chill of the empty room. Once she was warm, she would probably undress and wash from the pitcher and bowl on her table. Antonia imagined her standing in front of the fire, wiping down her body with the wet rag. Wiping away the baron’s touch.

Antonia pushed herself angrily away from the wall, at once repulsed and aroused. But the thought returned of Sandrine’s thighs, wet with soapy water. Thighs that the violator had touched at will.

She rubbed her face and returned to the window, her chest pounding with outrage that ruthless power could snatch away what she had honestly labored for.

Yes, she thought in the curious internal dialogue with herself. She had earned Sandrine’s love, during a week of dangerous trekking through three countries, swimming across icy rivers, sleeping in filthy barns, hiding from the police, catching a bullet in her hand. They had risked their lives together, had huddled in each other’s arms against the cold. And yet, while she edged into Sandrine’s affections, tracing their closing proximity by millimeters, the most powerful Nazi in Belgium had simply shown up and taken possession of her.

Antonia paced again and heard her own angry breathing. On an impulse, she marched toward the door between their rooms and knocked.

“Yes?” the voice on the other side said.

“I’d like to come in. To talk,” Antonia said. She was careful not to make it a question for fear of an answer of “no.”

There was a long silence. Agonizingly long. Then the door opened. Sandrine stood in front of her in a white satin nightgown that reached to her ankles. The top of the nightgown was divided into panels of lacework, one covering each breast with a deep décolleté. Over that, she had put on a peignoir of the same material. The fabric was gathered at the shoulder and stood up slightly, and the long sleeves had lace at the cuffs. What a difference from the rough clothing of their trip down the line.

Antonia, still dressed, felt like an oaf. “May I come in?” she repeated.

Sandrine’s look was unreadable. “Come in by the fire. It must be cold in your room.”

An opening. “Yes, it is. Very cold.”

They stood before the crackling fire. “About your visitor this evening. Baron von Falkenhausen.”

“What about him?”

Antonia glanced around, searching for the right words. She had no right words. “It’s true, then. He…what’s the charming euphemism? He has his way with you.”

“Of course it’s true. How else do you think you’re able to live here without being arrested? How else do you suppose I can harbor a parade of British aviators without constant scrutiny?”

She stopped for a breath, her ire obviously growing. “At last count, I’ve saved forty-six people, you included.” She retreated to a red upholstered armchair and crossed her legs angrily.

“Is there no other way?”

“No other way to keep a powerful man sexually beholden to me?” Sandrine’s voice rose in pitch. “You think if I just cooked him a nice dinner every week, he’d let me keep my house and car? A car that transports contraband and Allied pilots? Did you join your spy organization directly from the convent?”

That stung. “You’ve got it wrong. I’m not puritanical. I don’t care who you’ve had sex with. No.” She corrected herself. “I do care. Do you enjoy it?”

Sandrine’s eyes blazed. “What sort of question is that? Of course I don’t enjoy it. You have such a low opinion of me that you think I fuck Nazis for pleasure? How dare you talk to me like that? I surrender to his abuse and then have to endure this sanctimony from you? Get out of my room.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Antonia refused to move. “It wasn’t an accusation. I’m sorry if it sounded like one. It’s anger partly on your behalf, and also…” She took a breath. “It’s jealousy.”

“What?” Now it was Sandrine who was puzzled.

“We’ve been through so much together, going down the line. You even kissed me, on Christmas Eve, and I haven’t ever dared to touch you. Not in the way I want. I just keep waiting for you to care for me and let me come close.” She felt her lips press together in her own suppressed rage. “And then this vile man arrives and puts his hands on you and touches you in a way I never could, and I can’t bear the thought of it.”

Sandrine frowned into the fire but said nothing.

Terrified of the silence, Antonia rambled on. “I don’t know, I can’t know, how you feel about me. Or if you ever thought of…that. A woman, I mean. Who loved you and wanted you. I have. I do.” Antonia held her forehead, hearing her voice tighten. “And it’s tearing my heart out to know I can’t have you but he can, any time he wants, as often as he wants.”

Sandrine still sat. With her legs crossed under her long silk gown and her hands hanging loosely from each armrest, she looked almost regal. Like the Marschallin in
Rosenkavalier
, the tiny, still-lucid part of Antonia’s brain thought. And she herself stood there in slacks, a desperate Octavian.

But the Marschallin remained silent.

“Say something, for God’s sake,” she implored.

“I don’t know what to say. You’re valuable to me, and I’m sorry if I snapped at you. It’s just that…well, no woman has ever said those things to me. It’s confusing. I don’t…I can’t…”

“You’re not angry?”

“No, I’m not. And I understand that you don’t condemn me. So we’re even, I suppose. But I can’t deal with this subject right now. I have to meet Philippe very early at the train station, and I have a lot on my mind. I think…I think maybe it’s best if you go back to your own room now.” She stood up, in an apparently gentle way of urging Antonia back toward the door.

Antonia retreated. “If you wish. Good night, then.” She stood in the open doorway.

Sandrine stood for a long moment studying her, with neither love nor pity in her expression. Only a sort of helplessness.

“Good night, Antonia,” she said softly.

“Good night,” she replied, and the door closed slowly, inexorably, in front of her.

Chapter Twenty-five

Heinz Büttner was a proud man. At least that was how he explained his tendency to hold a grudge almost indefinitely. Browbeaten his entire youth by an overbearing father, he wouldn’t stand for another to demean him, no matter how slight the offense. And for some damned woman to call him a coward? That shit was going to cost her.

He watched the café for weeks, both on and off duty, but could find no sign of criminal behavior. In desperation, he followed the older woman home, hoping she’d violate some order or other and he could catch her out. If he did, he’d surely be reinstated and perhaps even get a crack at joining the prestigious Security Service. But best of all, he’d enjoy seeing the expression on the slut’s face.

The surprises piled up. The woman in question owned a château, with a pond and woods. And she was indeed guilty of a crime, though he hadn’t reckoned with the size of it. She was fucking the governor general. Not only could he not use that against her, but her status as whore was also going to make entrapping her all the more difficult.

But Heinz Büttner was a proud man, he reminded himself. And a persistent one.

His duty hours were long, and it was not easy to stalk this Belgian collaborator, but he was determined to discredit the slut in the eyes of her master and then, with a little luck, to have her arrested. The bitch had no idea who she was dealing with.

He was the cold-eyed hunter and she the prey, so he congratulated himself when his doggedness brought him finally to the Château Malou woods just as she was leaving in her fancy car. With four suspicious men.

Four combat-age men, who should have been in the forced-labor details, or on the farms, or anywhere but there, and slipping away at dusk. They were clearly up to something, and this was his chance.

He watched them load up, wave good-bye to someone at the doorway, and drive away. As soon as the château door was closed, he stepped out of the bushes and peered down the road, trying to determine the direction they’d gone. He’d need that information for his report. Then, realizing he’d been careless, he withdrew again and began the way back to where he’d parked his bicycle.

He’d almost reached it when he heard the snapping of twigs behind him and turned.

*

Gaston was discreet. He took pains to not pry into or even speculate about the personal aspects of his employer’s life. But he had known Sandrine Toussaint since she was a child, having been hired on when she reached school age, and so he knew her moods. He had sensed immediately her servitude to the governor general and hated it, but he also understood her—and his—helplessness to change it. His role was simply to maintain and provision the house and allow her to carry out the mission that they all supported.

But something had happened the evening before between Mme Toussaint and her guest, and the almost unbearable tension between them didn’t dissipate until Mme Forrester telephoned the young Celine Collin and summoned her for wireless instruction. When the young lady arrived in all her exuberance, the atmosphere immediately brightened and he was relieved.

The departure for the trip down the line was scheduled for five in the evening, and the number of passengers in the car this time prevented him from acting as chauffeur. Instead, Mme Toussaint would drive herself, with her four escapees occupying the other seats, and she would hand the car over at the station to Christine Mathys, who would return it before curfew.

Not to be left idle, he tested the car motor and found it working, determined that the tank had enough petrol for the trip, repaired the garage-door hinge, and brought in more firewood.

At four o’clock, while the travelers brought their rucksacks to the entry hall and enjoyed a final supper prepared by Mathilde, he did a leisurely walk-about along the road and through the surrounding woods to ensure that no visitors, by coincidence or by stealth, were there to witness the event. Veteran of the Great War that he was, he took his role of protector seriously enough to carry his old hunting rifle with him.

And so, at exactly five o’clock, he stood concealed among the trees at the northern edge of the gravel circle at the front of the château and observed the packing and then the departure of the automobile. He considered stepping out to say good-bye but changed his mind at the last moment.

Perhaps melancholy kept him in the shadows, the waterless fountain blocking him from visibility. Sullen, he watched Mathilde wave them off and the car start down the slowly darkening path. The great oak door to the château shut, and he shouldered his rifle, preparing to go back inside when something caught his eye.

On the other side of the gravel court, a man stepped out briefly from the bush and peered after the retreating car. Then, as if realizing he was exposed, he dropped back behind the trees.

Gaston was off immediately and silently. He circled around the court, keeping out of sight, until he was near the road. He feared for a moment he’d lost sight of the intruder in the dusk, but the darkness itself came to his aid. The intruder turned on a light to illuminate his way through the unfamiliar woods, and Gaston, who knew every bush, easily followed the spot of light moving among the trees.

When the stranger came to a halt and bent to attach his light to the front of a bicycle, Gaston stepped out behind him.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

The intruder spun around and reached instinctively for his sidearm, but the rifle bore aimed precisely at his forehead stopped his hand in mid-air.

Gaston could not make out his uniform in the dark but did not need to. It was one of the half-dozen policing entities that kept all Belgium under control, and he had seen the departing escapees. He had to be removed. Still, he might be allowed a few words to explain himself.

“Don’t point that rifle at me, you idiot. If something happens to me, you’ll pay with your life.”

“Wrong answer,” Gaston said, and fired. The intruder dropped to the ground without a sound.

Gaston lifted the light from the bicycle and did an about-face, lighting his way along the path back to the house.

*

Twenty minutes later he stood in the circle of women and dogs around the dead man.

“A gendarme,” Antonia said. “I wonder why he was so stupid as to patrol these woods alone.”