Waiting for the Violins (12 page)

She shook his hand nervously. “Sophie. Let’s leave it at that, all right?”

“Sophie it is. Mine’s Moishe Goldman.”

“And you live downstairs? Or is it just a hideout.”

“Hideout. After we robbed your tram, my friends and I got a little over-confident, so we hit another line. That one didn’t turn out so well. The police chased us and I ran here to hide. The people downstairs are my brother and his wife. Maybe you’d like to meet them.”

*

“Moishe, why did you bring this stranger into our house?” The woman stood up from a table where she’d been feeding a child of about two.

“She’s not a stranger, Rywka, not any more. Her name is Sophie and she’s from England.”

A man who had been assembling—or disassembling—a lamp on the other side of the room approached them still holding a screwdriver. “What good is an English girl to us? Their soldiers have all run away and gone home.”

“Aisik, you know very well the British are bombing the Germans all the time. Anyway, she’s on our side and wants to join our Resistance.”

Antonia frowned slightly. That wasn’t at all what she’d said upstairs, though she declined to correct him.

“This is Aisik.” Moishe held his hand out toward the balding man with pale gray-blue eyes and a more benign expression than Moishe himself cultivated. He was better dressed than his brother, with well-tailored trousers held up by suspenders and a blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

“And this is Rywka, my wife,” Aisik said. Slender, with a somewhat pretty oval face, dark-brown eyes, and a small puckered mouth that tilted slightly to the side, Rywka nodded a distrustful greeting.

The baby began to fret and she soothed him. He had the same round, slightly crooked mouth as his mother, the same eyes that looked up anxiously at the newcomer.

Aisik was apparently more curious than threatened. He motioned her to a chair. “What brings you to Brussels, then?”

Sitting again with her child on her lap, Rywka was not so easily reassured. “How do we know you’re not getting information for the Gestapo?”

“I suppose you can’t be sure. Although I already know where you live, and if I were with the Gestapo, it would already be too late. But you could have me arrested as well now. I’d be shot even sooner than you.”

Moishe lit a cigarette, took a puff, and blew out disagreeable-smelling smoke. “She’s right about that.”

Aisik got to the point. “So why did you come? What are you doing here? How can you help us?” His French was thickly accented, but it would have been rude to ask his country of origin. Her first guess was still Poland.

She shrugged. “Unfortunately I’ve only just arrived and have little to offer at the moment. I came with another agent, but our plane was shot down, along with the wireless I was supposed to use. I need to contact London for instructions.”

“So you’re as helpless as we are,” Aisik said glumly, and rubbed his forehead.

“For the moment, yes. But as soon as I can contact London, our forces will be able to help in lots of ways. The critical thing is the wireless. Does your organization have one?”

“We never thought about needing one,” Moishe said. “No one’s ever discussed getting help from outside. But of course we could always use money.”

“Can you tell me more about your group, and others too? What kind of resistance is there right now? The more I know, the more I can report back to London. For example, is Christine Mathys part of the Resistance? Can I trust her with information?”

“You can trust her not to denounce you, but you shouldn’t give her information. She provides shelter, maybe a connection or two, but I’m sure she doesn’t want to know what other people are doing. It keeps everyone safer.”

“But what about the groups that
are
active? Where are they, what are they? Who’s running them?”

Moishe stared up at the ceiling and scratched his chin. “I don’t know that much myself. Only what I read in some of the underground papers. Our group is the
Partisans Armés
, and we’re under the
Front de l’Independence
, but the Zionists, the Socialists, and the Communists are all active one way or another. The political parties have their resistance groups too, and then there’s
Solidarité,
which produces false identity papers and steals ration tickets for people living clandestine, like us. I’ve also heard people are hiding from the labor conscriptions in the Ardenne.
Maquisards,
they call themselves.”

“Who’s in charge? Who can I make contact with?”

“I can’t really tell you. The groups are always changing, merging or breaking up. I only know who I take orders from, but none of the others. We want to keep it that way. When the Germans capture and torture you, you can’t tell them much.”

Antonia grumbled. “Uh. Everyone’s always talking about torture.”

“It’s a reality.” Moishe shrugged. “And the chances are good they’ll get you.”

“Yes…well…” She changed the subject. “Have you heard the name de Jongh? Andrée or Frédéric?”

“No. As I told you, we don’t exchange much information, least of all, names.”

“So, what does your group do? Other than rob trams?” Antonia asked.

“Well, we do rescue operations. Recently we got one of our own out of the hospital at Etterbeek.” He chuckled, obviously recalling the incident. “You can’t just walk in, you know, so one of our women faked an illness. Two of the men carried her in, and while she was being examined, they locked up the policeman on guard. When our guys found Kuba, the patient, they got him out while the doctor was still examining the woman.”

“Tell her how it ended, Moishe.” Aisik was snickering now too.

“So, our guys walk past the exam room where Sarah is sitting with her shirt off. While the doctor stands there, his mouth wide open, she puts the shirt on and comes out to join them. Then the whole gang marches to a back door and out they go. And all the while, the hospital staff is calling out, “Bravo.” Outside, they grab a Red Cross ambulance, tie the friendly driver up so he doesn’t get in trouble, and take off.”

Antonia nodded, amused. “Rescue operations are good, but what else do you do against the Germans?”

“Whatever the leaders order us to. Fires, sabotage, eliminating informers and collaborators. We’re also pretty good at stealing things. Why are you asking? Do you want to join?”

“Can you get me a wireless?”

“Not right away, but eventually. We have to put the word out that we need one and see what happens. Could take a few weeks.”

Antonia considered the alternative. To do nothing and hope a wireless would magically appear in her room, or fight alongside the armed partisans in exchange for their finding her one. Eventually. Maybe.

“All right, then. I’ll join you. And I already have a gun. One that works.”

Moishe smiled. “That would be a great improvement. Could you teach me how to shoot it?”

Chapter Fifteen

On an early morning not long after, Sandrine Toussaint was threading her way along the narrow walkways of Spilliaert’s fish market holding her breath at the smell of rotten fish that seemed to emanate from the very cobblestones. She marched past a row of carts that were particularly pungent and slipped into the back room of one of the market merchants. Repugnant as the smell was during the interrogations, it kept passersby at a distance.

She called out the code greeting, “Have you any sardines today,” and a second door opened up. Christine Mathys was on duty and waved her into the erstwhile storeroom. At the center of the room stood an old worktable, and behind it a British pilot sat looking dazed and disheveled. A thin file lay in front of him.

“The other one’s with Philippe,” Christine said. “A farmer found them hiding in his barn outside of Mechelen and called us last night. They speak only English, of course.”

“Of course,” Sandrine said, resigned. The soft-spoken Philippe was Christine’s addition to the line, a clever, courageous man, but like most of the others, he spoke no English. It was going to be up to her to do the interrogations, and she dreaded it. Two years of English at university supplementing a woeful preparation in secondary school was scarcely adequate for her to detect lies or falsehoods in the testimonies. All she could do was ask the pilots to talk about themselves and study their handwritten accounts to see if they were reasonable and consistent.

She glanced up from the dossier. “You’re Harry Chapman?’

“That’s me, Miss.” The beefy redhead with a shadow of red stubble on his chin nodded like a schoolboy anxious to please. “And my mate is Eddie Boyle. I’m glad they got someone who could talk to us. It was getting kinda frustrating out there.”

“Yes, I can imagine. Now can you tell me about your mission and a little bit about yourself?”

Sandrine drilled him on details, names of family members, flight instructors, places, but she was unable to verify his answers. If the Gestapo had trained him to infiltrate their operation, she could do nothing about it but see if Eddie Boyle, being held in the other room, confirmed his story.

So much was at stake—her own life and that of all the other good people on the line—but her knowledge of life in England was based on the one visit she’d made with Laurent before his death. She feared they would one day pay for that deficiency.

*

Having accepted the pilots’ stories, Sandrine passed them along to the photographer for their false identification papers. Three head shots for each man, six flashes of light, and the job was done. “We’ll get these to you as soon as possible, but you know how it is,” the photographer said to Sandrine, packing his camera and lights into his valise. Without further conversation, he slipped out again.

The door had scarcely closed when they heard another knock and a repetition of the code greeting. Philippe opened the door to Celine holding the bundle of clothing.

“I’m sorry. Laura couldn’t get away from the café so she sent this with me.”

“Well, come in, dear.” Sandrine took the bundle out of her arms. Across the room, Christine shook her head with maternal concern. “Francis shouldn’t have sent you. Now you’re in the same danger as the rest of us.”

“Don’t worry. I got here by all the back ways without passing a single German,” she said with youthful certainty.

Sandrine carried the bundle to the table where the pilots sat and examined all the articles. Two sets of pants, two shirts, two jackets, all worn and mended. Just what they’d ordered.

“Here, try these on between you.”

The men retreated to the adjacent room and made the change. A few minutes later they returned.

“Not a bad fit,” Sandrine said. “Trousers are a bit short on you, Eddie, but no one looks very fashionable these days.” She handed each one a beret. “Make sure you wear them pulled down over your forehead to cover your British haircuts. We’ll also teach you to walk right. You Brits arrive here strutting like roosters and would be spotted in a minute. You’ve got to learn not to walk with your hands in your pockets, jingling your change, and don’t stare at the women.”

“That last one’s gonna be hard.” Harry winked.

Christine turned on him. “Yeah, well, force yourself. It’s not a joke. Your lives depend on this charade, and so do ours. If you’re caught, you’ll go to a prison camp, but we’ll all be shot. So no more wisecracks, eh?”

After a sideward glance of admiration at Christine for the verbal knuckle-rap, Sandrine continued. “A car will come by for you this afternoon. You’ll be in among bundles of firewood, so don’t worry if it’s a bit stuffy. The trip will only take about half an hour.”

“Where are they taking us?” Eddie, the more slender man who spoke little, asked anxiously.

“To my place,” Sandrine said.

*

It was still early afternoon when the delivery wagon pulled up to the entrance and Philippe drew the snorting horse to a halt. With Gaston’s help, he quickly unloaded the firewood, and the two Englishmen clambered over the side. They gawked at the château façade until Gaston prodded them up the steps into the entryway.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stop and have a warm bite, Philippe?” Sandrine touched him on the arm.

“Thank you, but I have to return the cart to the farmer before he gets anxious. Besides, I’m having dinner with Christine.”

“All right, then.” Smiling inwardly at the thought of her two good friends spending an evening together, she waved him off and followed the men into the entryway.

Harry stepped toward the main room where the tall fireplace was burning impotently against the chill. Glancing around, he whistled softly. “Is this a famous mansion or something?”

Sandrine drew him back by the arm and led him toward the stairs. “It’s better you don’t know any names. Come on downstairs to meet the others and see where the facilities are. Mathilde will bring you some hot food in a while, and after that, you can settle in.”

“How long are we going to be here?” Eddie asked.

“I don’t know.” She marched toward the stairwell and glanced back at them to let them know they were to follow.

At the bottom of the stairs, she led them along the corridor to a wall that was supposed to be deceptive but, under any real scrutiny, could be seen as false. The cupboard in front of it slid to the side and opened to a small room. Inside, lantern light revealed two pale faces.

“It’s all right, men. I’m just bringing you two more comrades. I’ll let you show them around and explain the rules.”

Harry grumbled. “Jaysus, it’s like a prison cell down here.”

“You think so? Guess you haven’t been in a German prison,” one of the others replied.

“Look, I’ll let you all get acquainted. Mathilde will have lunch in a while, and then, if everything’s quiet, we’ll bring you up for some exercise in the woods. You know the rules. If you hear anything outside, like a car arriving, extinguish the light and be quiet.”

Once upstairs, Sandrine allowed herself to drop onto the sofa in front of the useless fire. It barely raised the room temperature, but if she drew the sofa up close to it, she could stay warm enough to sleep.