Waiting for the Violins (3 page)

“The cur attacked me, sir.”

“Get back to your work or I’ll put you on report. The last thing we need is this kind of crap stirring up the locals.”

“Yes sir.” He saluted and strode angrily back onto the main street.

“My apologies, mademoiselle.” The senior officer tipped his head slightly toward the sobbing girl, who held the dog in her arms, then followed the delinquent gendarme.

*

Sandrine Toussaint was sitting inside the Café Suèdoise, looking out onto the Rue de Bouchers, when she heard the gunshot. Laura Collin turned in alarm, and as she rushed through the stockroom to the rear door, Sandrine followed.

Laura’s younger sister, Celine, knelt on the ground clutching the injured dog to her chest. “They’ve shot Suzi.” She sobbed, struggling to her feet.

Speechless, Sandrine held the door open while Laura helped Celine inside. Crouching beside one of the café tables, Laura pressed a linen napkin against the wound to staunch the bleeding, then inspected the dog’s hindquarters.

“Look, there are two holes, a little one here and a larger one in the back. The bullet passed all the way through.” The dog curled up and shrieked at her touch.

Francis Brasseur, Laura’s husband, came from behind his counter and stood over them. A handsome man, his size and mane of black hair gave him a commanding presence, which belied a passive personality. A weak back had kept him from military service, but both he and the army seemed to agree he was not soldier material. “They shoot our dogs to remind us they can shoot us.”

“The bastards,” Laura snarled. “I’d like to shoot a few of them, and the damned Belgian police along with them.” Half the size of her husband, Laura seemed to contain all the aggression he lacked. She helped Celine carry the dog to a chair at the side of the café.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Francis said. “You’ll just get us all in trouble with that kind of talk.”

Sandrine followed Laura and Celine across the café. “It’s not ridiculous, Francis. Resistance is developing everywhere in Belgium. The Germans just call it terrorism.”

“Well, I’m not keen on that kind of thing. Anyone who resists is going to end up in a Gestapo jail.” He went back to his counter and resumed drying glassware. “Besides, not all Belgians want to. Your own neighbors, you don’t know whether they hate the Nazis or welcome them. Not to mention the Rexists and the collaborators and the Belgian SS. The dog’s still alive, so it’s best to forget what happened.”

Sandrine crossed her arms. “I don’t think she should forget, Francis. I don’t think any of us should forget that Belgian men died less than a year ago trying to stop this occupation.” She addressed Laura. “If you’re really serious about resistance, I know people who are already doing something, and they need help.”

Laura took a step toward her, pale eyes squinting slightly. “You want us to assassinate Germans? At this point, you could convince me.”

“No. Nothing direct like that. But I know an organization of Belgian patriots who are smuggling people down to Spain and then to England, soldiers who couldn’t escape at Dunkirk and men who want to fight with the free Belgian Army. A young woman started it, all by herself, with just a couple of guides to cross the mountains.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Andrée de Jongh. Her father is headmaster at one of the schools near here, and I’m sure they’d be grateful for some assistance.”

Celine still held the bloodstained napkin to the rump of her whimpering dog. “Count me in,” she said hoarsely. “Just tell me what to do.”

Staring into the distance, Laura seemed to jump ahead. “They’ll need new identity cards, ration stamps, people to hide them along the route…”

“Clothing, medical attention, communications systems,” Sandrine added. “Some of that already exists. And we’re working on the rest.”

“We?” Francis remarked. “Does that mean you’re one of them?”

Laura still stared into space, nodding to herself. “I know someone who works in the town registry and I bet—”

All heads turned as the door swung open and a German officer entered, followed by a subaltern carrying a briefcase. Sandrine recognized him from the newspapers and unconsciously took a step back. He marched halfway into the café and clicked his heels with a sharp military bow in front of her.

“Alexander von Falkenhausen at your service. Are you the owner of the dog?”

“No, Herr Baron. That is the young lady.” She pointed toward Celine, who still sat with the wounded dog in her arms.

His eyebrows rose and he smiled faintly. “Recognition by a lovely lady. What a compliment.” He turned and approached Celine, who glowered up at him.

“Mademoiselle, please accept my apologies for the unpleasant incident.”

“His name was Büttner. Heinz Büttner. He’s a criminal,” Celine said defiantly.

“It’s not just an ‘unpleasant incident,’ Herr Baron,” Sandrine said with a more conciliatory tone. “The dog is a beloved family member, an innocent creature.”

“Yes, quite so, madam. I’ve had a few dogs and understand your concern. I will see to it that the division veterinarian tends to the creature and that the gendarme responsible is disciplined.” He bent slightly at the waist as if asking her to dance. “And might I ask to whom I am speaking?”

“Sandrine Toussaint,” she said coolly.

“Ah, yes. Owner of the Château Malou. As I recall, my officers inspected it last year as a possible headquarters but reported it as unsuitable.” He paused, apparently for effect. “Had I known the owner of the Château Malou was so charming, I would have insisted on making the inspection myself. Perhaps you will invite me to visit one day.” He held her glance longer than she liked, and she looked away.

“Of course. You are always welcome,” she replied mechanically.

Francis came out from behind the counter. “Herr Baron. Can we offer you a glass of wine or beer?” Sandrine looked at him with surprise, Laura with horror.

“Thank you, but I have other duties to perform today. Perhaps another time.” He swept his gaze around the café. “Nice ambiance. I shall make a point of recommending this place to my colleagues.”

“We would be honored to provide a little sanctuary to the Wehrmacht,” Francis replied with a slightly servile tilt of the head.

Von Falkenhausen returned his attention to Sandrine. “I hope we can continue our chat on a less sorrowful occasion.” He took a step toward the sullen Celine. “Once again, mademoiselle, my sincerest regrets. I will send the divisional veterinarian as soon as possible.” He snapped another quick soldier’s bow and left, his adjutant following him silently.

“What in God’s name did you just do?” Laura hissed at her husband. “You’re going to make us into a club for the Wehrmacht?”

Francis held up both of his hands. “My dear, if we’re going to engage in smuggling Allied soldiers, we’d better have a few Nazi friends to protect us from scrutiny, don’t you think?”

He turned to Sandrine. “Would you be so kind as to inform Monsieur de Jongh that we are at his disposal?”

Chapter Five

June 1941

Sandrine rode her bicycle through the strip of woods toward the Château Malou. Even from a distance, it was at once majestic and pathetic, reminiscent of class privilege and testimony to its passing.

In spite of the crisis with Celine’s dog, the trip into Brussels had proved productive. The de Jonghs would be glad. Now two new people were on board, three if she counted Celine, who was barely fifteen.

She dismounted at the entrance of the château and stared up at it nostalgically. With its two stories and seven bays of tall shuttered windows it had a certain sad splendor, even in the rain.

The housemaster came out at the sound of her arrival to take her bike to the carriage house. “Thank you, Gaston.” She climbed the stone steps to the entrance and slipped through the still-open oak doors.

The high-ceiling entryway with its wall niche and marble Greek vase might have been imposing a century earlier, but now the vase was empty, and it all seemed cold. Warmth and welcome came toward her in the form of her rambunctious wolfhounds. “Hello, Baudie, Vercie.” She scratched energetically under their ears.

As she hung up her coat and exchanged her wet shoes for dry slippers, her housekeeper appeared.

“Hello, Mathilde. Everyone fed and watered?”

“Yes, madam. Would you like to eat something too?”

“That sounds lovely. I’m famished.” With the dogs pattering happily behind her, she followed Mathilde down the stairs to the kitchen. The pleasing smell of fried onions met her in the doorway, but she hesitated.

“Let me first go check on our guests,” she said, and continued down the narrow corridor leading to the coal room. At the end of the corridor, the cupboard that concealed the hidden “apartment” was slightly ajar.

“It’s me, lads,” she called out, and swung the cupboard out toward her. A cloud of warm air, thick with the odor of men, wafted toward her.

A young man of about thirty, wearing corduroy trousers and a pullover sweater that had seen better days, stood up to meet her. Behind him, a younger man, blond and boyish, hiked up trousers that were obviously a size too large. Both were pale from weeks of hiding.

“Hello, Jack, Teddy. Listen. I’ve talked to a few friends in Brussels. It’s going to take awhile, but they’re putting together a plan to move you south, through France to Spain.”

“Crikey, I’m ready. Tomorrow’s not too soon.”

“We’re not that far yet. Could be a couple of weeks. We need to make identification papers and travel permits for you. Then we have to find safe houses where you can rest and eat, guides through the mountains, all that sort of thing. I just wanted to let you know we’re working on it.”

“Weeks, eh?” The one called Teddy sighed.

She nodded sympathetically. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

“Thanks. Gaston already took us out for an hour, with the dogs. I think the big one likes me. The one with the name I can’t pronounce.”

“Vercingetorix. A Gallic hero in ancient war. We call him Vercie.”

“Vercie, right. Anyhow, I think I’ll simply take another nap,” Teddy said. “Like the one I just had.”

“Be patient, lads. We’re doing the best we can.” She turned away, hating to leave them in their dark hideaway, hating the sense of helplessness, theirs and her own.

*

Adding another log to the fire, Sandrine buttoned her sweater against the chill.

Well, that was the price one paid to be heir to a three-hundred-year-old estate. She stood close to the flames while the log caught, enjoying the warmth on her legs, and glanced again at the pictures on the mantelpiece, of her parents, her husband Guy, and her brother.

She was proud of her family and their mansion, but maintaining it was a financial nightmare, even with the income from Guy’s investments in the Congo plantations. Laurent’s last big expenditure outside of house repairs had been in 1939, his beloved Mercedes Benz 230, but he’d been able to drive it for only a year before the war started. And now the juggling act had fallen to her, the sole surviving member of the family. She brushed dust off the picture of Laurent.

She missed him terribly. Her husband and father less so. Politically they had been conservative and she could not forgive them for the right-wing Rexist party they belonged to.

The 1930s had decimated the two families of the Château Malou. One death after another followed—her mother of pneumonia and her husband after only four years of marriage, of yellow fever.

Her father had lived on, still inviting his dreadful guests to the house where they ranted about the “moral renewal” of Belgian society through a more powerful Catholic church. She ceased to argue with them, seeing that their anticommunism, anti-Semitism, and anti-masonry were nearly identical to German fascism. But it was all rather naïve, as it turned out.

Her father’s death in 1937 had spared him the irony and the sorrow of seeing German fascists kill his own son when they seized Belgium.

How things had changed. The four people who had made up her family were gone, the house was cold and empty, and she harbored two British soldiers in her basement.

“Baudie! Vercie, come here!” she called, retreating to the sofa, and in a moment the clattering of their claws sounded on the hardwood floor. The door was already ajar, and the two Russian wolfhounds leapt onto the sofa scrambling for places over and under her legs. Awkward as the tangle was, the warmth of the dogs was a great comfort, and she slowly slipped from brooding into napping.

The ringing phone woke her and she sat up, shooing away the dogs. It took a moment for her head to clear and for her to recognize the voice, and she cringed.

“Oh, Baron von Falkenhausen. What an unexpected…pleasure. I’m fine, thank you.” She finished the conversation mechanically, providing the only allowable answers to the most powerful man in Belgium.

Yes, she did like classical music. No, she hadn’t heard about the new Bulgarian violinist playing with the National Orchestra. Yes, she’d be delighted to attend a concert at the Palais des Beaux-Arts. In the company of the famous General Rommel? What an honor that would be.

An evening with the biggest Nazi in Belgium and with the general whose soldiers had killed her brother. When she hung up, her fingers were white.

*

The château Baron von Falkenhausen had chosen as an alternative was vastly more imposing than her own, but just as hard to heat, and at the post-concert reception, she found herself once again trying to warm herself by a huge and ineffective fireplace. This time two Wehrmacht generals in full dress uniform flanked her.

She stood between two monsters, and only the comedy of their competing displays of military prowess alleviated the intimidation she felt. Both stood erect, impeccable, in gray-green tunics with gold, braided shoulder boards and the arabesque collar patches of a general. Both had the embroidered swastika over the right pocket and hugely impressive medal arrays across their chests.