Waiting for the Violins (37 page)

She smirked back. “War and carnage hasn’t mellowed you a bit, has it, Lew?”

*

June 1, 1945

Antonia studied the walls of the tiny dark nook that was their radio room. When the war was over, if she survived it, she wanted a house with large rooms. And the radio would have to be a receiver only. Music, entertainment, and uplifting news, like the BBC messages they’d listened to the evening before.

Advances by the Russians in the Crimea and the Allies in Italy. Heavy Allied bombings of the continent, obviously as a softening up. Could they manage to create the illusion of a delayed invasion in light of all that?

Lew appeared in the doorway, and Sandrine was visible behind him holding cups of steaming tea.

“Tea break. Jolly good,” Antonia said, sliding her chair back from the wireless table. “I’ve sent out the two messages you gave me about the fictional British Fourth Army based in Edinburgh, and the fictional First U.S. Army Group targeting Pas de Calais. I’ve put it in the old code, the one the SOE used only for weather and non-strategic information. I’m sure they’ve broken it by now since it’s so simple. Let’s hope they fall for it.”

Lew pulled out two more folding chairs and sat down on one of them. “Or that they at least get a little nervous about it and keep a few divisions stationed in Norway just in case, and the rest of their forces around Calais.”

Sandrine handed over one of the cups and took the other chair. “Won’t they detect all the activity down here?”

Lew nodded. “Unavoidable. But the whole point is to keep them uncertain and buy time. Ideally, we want to convince them that what’s happening here is diversionary. Once they set a strategy, there’s always a delay before they can change it, even when they begin to suspect they were wrong. It has to go through a hierarchy of command.”

“Ideally,” Antonia repeated. “By the way, how will we know when and where the actual invasion
will
take place? Will the SOE send us a message?”

Lew tapped out a cigarette from a crumpled pack and lit it with a trench lighter. “I think London wants all the surrounding Resistance groups to spring into action in one large assault, even if they don’t know the focus of the invasion. As I understand it, the BBC will transmit a variety of code signals to all the resisters at the same time, triggering a wave of sabotage against rail lines, power stations, communication networks. Anything to delay the sending of reinforcements.”

Sandrine set down her cup. “Ambitious strategy. What will our code signal be?”

Lew smiled with a hint of smugness. “Some very nice French poetry, I believe.”

*

June 5, 1945

Antonia slept in short segments, rising every few hours to continue transmitting fictional strategic reports to fictional headquarters. Lew relieved her for brief periods but was otherwise occupied with gathering real intelligence from local sources.

The room where they all slept was adjacent to the room where they worked, and though Antonia appreciated the combat necessity of close quarters, she longed for the day when she and Sandrine could share a room alone. She also marveled that married women were able to sleep at all next to a snoring man.

For all his brusque machismo, Lew had cheerfully taken on the role of cook and provider from the limited supplies dropped the week before. While Sandrine acted as courier and interpreter with local resisters, and Antonia sat before the wireless, Lew would disappear for an hour or two and return with something to eat. Then, without comment, he’d warm it over the double-coil hot plate he’d managed to procure and serve it on fine china. He also had a respectable hoard of black English tea.

They’d just finished a tolerable stew of turnips and horsemeat when Lew set down his plate and held his watch under the light. “Almost time for the BBC news. C’mon, girls, gather ’round the campfire.” He pulled his chair closer to the radio.

They joined him and waited for Edith Piaf to stop singing about her broken heart and for the news broadcast to come on. Finally, at 23:15 o’clock exactly, they heard the
di-di-di—dah
, the thrilling cadence that stirred the heart of every Frenchman and every Belgian.

Then the clipped tenor voice they all loved began his recitation.

June 5, 1944. This is London calling, the European News Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Here is the news. But first, here are some messages for our friends in occupied countries. The Trojan War will not be held. John is growing a very long beard this week. The long sighs of the violins of autumn. Les sanglots longs des violons d’autumne. Wound my heart with a monotonous languor. And in the news: From the Italian Front the late bulletin reports that Allied armor and motorized infantry roared into Rome, across the Tiber and into the heart of the city…

Lew jumped up from his chair and snatched the air. “That’s it! That’s the signal.”

“What? Which one of those was the signal?” Sandrine asked.

Lew turned down the volume of the radio as it droned on about Allied advances in Italy.

“The line of the Verlaine poem.
Les sanglots longs des violons d’autumne,
” he repeated with a Welsh accent. “That means they’re coming! Operations will start within forty-eight hours. It’s time for us to go into high speed and put things into motion from here.”

“And what are those things?” Sandrine asked.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got jobs for everyone. Toni, you and I’ll move out today toward Arromanches. We’ve set up a safe house there, and I’m scheduled to meet with the Arromanches group to start defusing the mines on the beaches. You’ll continue broadcasting from the house, repeating your fake strategies and messages nonstop, until the very last minute and beyond. As long as Rommel and his bosses think the Normandy activity is a feint, they won’t budge from Calais, and every hour they hesitate is an hour gained.”

“And me?” Sandrine asked.

“We need you to deliver plastic explosives to our French comrades here in Bayeux. Unless you can think of a way to keep Rommel from ordering more troops down from the North.”

“Where is he? Rommel, I mean. Does anyone know?”

“Word is, he’s based near Calais, but he has local headquarters in Bayeux too. Right at the beginning of the route de Caen. Why?” He laughed at the thought. “You think you can divert his attention for a couple of days?”

She seemed to stare into the middle distance for a moment. “Maybe.”

Antonia shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking, and please, don’t attempt it. They’ll arrest you the minute you get near the place. We don’t need that.
I
don’t need that at this late date.”

Lew reached for something bulky under the table. “She’s right. Technically, you’re under my command, and I order you to stay away from them. Instead, I want you to deliver this package.” He held out what looked like a baby wrapped in several blankets. A doll’s head peeked out from the top of the bundle. “It’s the explosive material they need to blow up the signal station. Go to 25 rue d’Olivet and ask for Emil Leblanc.”

“Clever wrapping,” Sandrine observed, allowing the subject to change.

“No one’s going to stop a woman running with a baby.” He placed the load in her arms, then spread a map of Bayeux out on the table. “Leblanc’s place is right here.” He tapped on one of the small streets, which she noted wasn’t far away from the route de Caen.

“When you finish the delivery, you’ll have to make your way to Arromanches. We’ll be at 200 avenue de Verdun. Remember that.”

“25 rue d’Olivet and 200 avenue de Verdun,” she repeated, memorizing the two addresses. With a quick, slightly anxious glance toward Antonia, she clutched the explosives-in-swaddling and hurried out onto the street.

*

Antonia watched through the window, drumming her fingers on the glass as Sandrine turned a corner and disappeared from sight.

Behind her, Lew was dismantling the radio and packing it into its valise. “Don’t be worrying yerself, Toni. She’s a French speaker, in France, and she’s been evading the Nazis longer than you.”

She turned around. “She’s also been captured and tortured by the Gestapo, so don’t give me that ‘she’s a pro’ fairy tale. Anything can happen to anyone.” Busying herself, she collected their half-dozen code books and maps and dropped them into a crate, along with a Browning automatic and four cartridge boxes.

“True, that. But you have to let her do her job. We can’t keep wringing our hands about each other.”

“You’ve never wrung your hands about anyone. You just don’t care about her.” She added two flashlights and reached for their box of replacement crystals, tubes, wires, and spare radio parts.

“Not the way you do. I’ve seen the way you two are together. Like lovers.”

She set down the box and slowly turned to face him. “What are you talking about?”

Lew crossed his arms and leered amiably. “Don’t waste yer steam denying it now. Dora told me about yer little adventure before you left Ringway, so I know what you girls get up to sometimes.”

“She told you about…?” Her face became hot. “That was indelicate of her.”

Lew laughed out loud. “Oh, nothing was delicate about Dora, I can tell you. We were together for almost two years, and I knew her better than you. In the biblical sense too. Bit of a wild woman, that one. Guess that makes you and me in-laws, sort of, eh?” He snickered. “Or outlaws. But she
did
like to talk. It’s a wonder she didn’t give away state secrets.”

“What happened with Dora was meaningless and has nothing to do with Sandrine and me, so I would appreciate your not mentioning it ever again.”

“I won’t. Word of honor.” He held up his right hand. “I just wanted to show you I’m not shocked. Actually, I think it’s good for both of you, and you seem happy. A pity that you’re both off the market, though. A fella gets lonely.”

Shock and outright fear softened to annoyance. “Can we talk about something else now? How much of all this stuff are we going to take to Arromanches?”

“All of it. We want to eat and stay warm, don’t we? So I’ll pack the bedding and you box up our kitchen supplies. Start with the hot plate. Worth its weight in gold, that.”

Calmed by his assurances, she set up another ordinance crate and laid the hot plate into it, along with their stew pot and kettle. After collecting their few towels, she began to pack the dishes. “These are beautiful.” She held up one with a blue-willow pattern. “Where did you get fine china in the middle of a war zone?”

He joined her at the table. “The same place I got these.” He lifted a towel covering their mismatched silverware. She’d noticed them at all the meals they’d eaten but never thought to ask about them.

“Nothing matches anything else, but I’m thinking sterling silver’s never bad, eh?”

“Did you steal them? Or what?” She picked up what looked like an oyster fork.

“Nothing like that. They’re from an antique shop in town where Dora made friends. They had a lot of things hidden so the Nazis wouldn’t steal them, but they needed money. I gave them quite a lot, more than the Germans would have, plus a load of Spam and a carton of cigarettes. Much better than cash.” He returned to the other room to roll up their field mattresses.

Antonia studied the tiny fork, turning it in the light. Although one of the two prongs was broken, the mix of sterling silver and gold plate, along with the silversmith’s mark on the handle, told her it was old and valuable, even if damaged. The pattern was ornate, baroque curlicues of gold surrounding a wave pattern etched into the silver, and a line of gold ran the length of the handle.

“Do you have any tools?”

“Some. Hammer, pliers, wire cutter. Basic stuff. In the green metal case under the sink.”

“Good,” she said, then bundled up the silverware in a towel and tucked it in with the plates.

A bomb detonated somewhere in the distance. Then another one, and the packing became urgent. She forced herself not to think of Sandrine, running through the streets unarmed.

“Hurry up there, will ya?” came from the other room.

“I’m here.” She crammed the tool case alongside the hot plate and kettle, then hefted both crates and followed him out to the car.

*

The rain that had been continuous most of the day discouraged street activity, and Sandrine completed the errand to the rue d’Olivet with relative ease. Within an hour of leaving Lew’s Bayeux headquarters, she’d delivered the “baby” to the relevant hands with much thanks and the offer of cigarettes. She declined and simply asked the shortest way to the route de Caen.

Once on the street again, unburdened by the awkward bundle, she strode nervously toward a meeting that might be totally useless. Or suicidal. But fate had placed certain cards in her hand, and it would be a waste to not play them. She removed her beret, which, even without an insignia, hinted too much of the maquisard, and ran her fingers through her hair. Lew’s little electric burner had allowed her to heat water to wash it, and now that it had grown long, she was conscious of how attractive it was. But was it attractive enough to flirt with a general preparing for battle?

Rommel’s headquarters were unmistakable. A solid edifice, protected on one side by buildings and on the other by a wall of sandbags. Soldiers stood guard at the front.

She gathered her courage and marched up to one of them, her heart racing. “Could you please inform General Rommel that Sandrine Toussaint would like to speak with him?” she asked in halting German.

The guards looked flabbergasted, and although her knowledge of German slang was poor, she grasped that they discussed between them whether to shoo her away or shoot her. The obstacle seemed insurmountable until both guards suddenly stood at attention and delivered a crisp salute to someone behind her.

She pivoted around to face a wide chest covered with decorations and a familiar face.

“Ah, Madame Toussaint, what a surprise. To what do I owe this pleasure?”