Waiting for the Violins (4 page)

Rommel wore the Knight’s Cross with diamonds, swords, and oak leaves, putting him at the highest level of decorated soldiers. But von Falkenhausen’s Knight’s Cross of the Württemberg Crown was bestowed primarily on the aristocracy, and the sparkling star at his throat advertised that he was a baron.

Dining with the devil
, she’d thought all evening, though in spite of her appalling escort, she had greatly enjoyed the Tchaikovsky violin concerto. Only the invitation to the private reception at the château afterward had come as an unpleasant surprise. At least they weren’t alone. Half a dozen other officers, some with wives or female companions, made small talk throughout the drawing room.

While a waiter filled her champagne glass for the second time, von Falkenhausen said, “I’ve always found Tchaikovsky a bit too emotional. Like all the Russians. What do you think, Herr General?”

Erwin Rommel downed his champagne and held the glass out to be refilled. “Emotional? Why not? I tried learning just the first movement of that concerto when I was young. Never got it off the ground.”

“You played violin, Herr General?” Her astonishment was sincere. A common bond between her brother and the general whose troops had…she shook her head. Trying to reconcile his musical aspirations with his role as enemy general made her dizzy.

“Yes, I did. Though perhaps it was the soldier part of me that played it so badly.”

“I find the violin a bit depressing.” Von Falkenhausen looked into the air, apparently trying to recall something. “Don’t the French have a poem about the languorous sobs of the violin?”

Sandrine nodded. “Yes. Verlaine’s ‘Violins of Autumn.’ It’s true, they can be poignant, but if you know the passage is coming, you wait for it with pleasure. Violins can be deeply affecting.” She thought of Laurent and hated herself for drinking champagne with his killers.

“Rommel chortled. Well, well. It appears we’ve established who in this company has a soul and who does not.”

Von Falkenhausen hadn’t taken his eyes off Sandrine. “I venture that Madame Toussaint’s soul is beautiful indeed.”

*

Sandrine stood by while Gaston closed the double doors of the carriage house, protecting the Mercedes Benz 230 Laurent had bought in 1939. When the Germans had arrived and begun requisitioning, she and Gaston had hidden it in the woods under a tarp and a mound of dirt and brush. Deceit had saved the Château Malou from their grasp, and simple concealment had saved the car. She wasn’t sure what good it did, though.

“A dilemma, isn’t it, madam?” Gaston seemed to read her thoughts. “If you drive it, the Germans will take it. If you don’t drive it, it’s the same as if the Germans had taken it.”

Their feet crunched on the gravel as they marched back to the house. “That’s it, precisely. But I’m still hoping that friends in the local administration can counterfeit papers registering it as an official, or even medical, vehicle. Then we could use it to transport the men.”

“Not very far, though. They would still stop you at the border, even if you were in a tank.” He hiked up his overalls. “And getting enough petrol on the black market? Well, that’s another issue altogether.”

“Ever the optimist, eh, Gaston?”

They’d just reached the door when the sleek black car of the military governor swung around the curve toward them. Without a word, Gaston hurried into the house, she knew, to warn the hidden Englishmen and remove all signs of them.

As the car pulled up in front of her, she noted with irony that it was also a Mercedes, though of a grander design than hers. When the door opened on the driver’s side and Baron von Falkenhausen stepped out, he was alone. Her fear gave way to dread.

She remained composed. “Good afternoon, Herr Baron. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He stepped toward her and took her hand, executing a military bow with a hinted heel-tap and a quick nod. “Madame Toussaint. How lovely to find you at home. The other day at the Café Suèdoise, you were so kind as to invite me to your château, and I confess, the idea intrigued me. Have I disturbed you?”

“No, not at all.” The bastard. He’d invited himself. And now she had to keep him far away from her Tommies.

“Won’t you come inside?” Forcing calm on herself, she ascended the stone steps ahead of him.

Gaston stood in the entryway, and his calm manner told her that her two Englishmen were carefully hidden.

“Would you please bring up a bottle of wine, Gaston?” she said as they passed into the sitting room. The fire he’d laid before they went to the carriage house now burned brightly.

She gestured toward the long leather sofa. “Please make yourself comfortable.”

Von Falkenhausen held out his own hand, waiting for her to sit first. Then he sat down a discreet distance from her and glanced around the sparsely furnished room. “Elegant simplicity. Excellent taste, though rather understated, for someone who loves Tchaikovsky,” he said.

“Now you’re teasing me.”

“Yes, I am. Forgive me, dear lady. I thought we were friends enough for me to indulge in a bit of playfulness.”

Gaston returned with one of her good bottles of wine and two glasses on a tray, which he set on the table in front of them. He leaned forward in his best butler manner and announced quietly, “A Bordeaux, Monsieur Baron. From 1933.”

“Ah, yes. A fateful year,” von Falkenhausen murmured, watching the wine trickle into both glasses. He held out her wineglass to her and she accepted it, tapped its rim against his, and drank.

“I see you have retained your automobile,” he said casually.

Sandrine almost choked. She set down her glass to conceal the trembling in her hand.

“Don’t be alarmed, my dear lady. I’m not here to cause you any trouble. Though you were naughty to not register it as ordered.”

“How did you…?”

“My dear. As military governor of all Belgium, I do have to take note of inconsistencies, such as a château that hasn’t registered a motor vehicle. It was easy to send over someone to peek into your carriage house.”

“Does this mean you’ll requisition it?”

He touched her wrist with feathery lightness. “Perhaps we can arrange for it to be an exception. As an official vehicle, for example.” His smile, too subtle to be lewd, was just as alarming in its discretion. The cards were laid out.

Shaken by the hold he now had over her, Sandrine took another sip of wine. In spite of its nine years aging, it suddenly tasted bitter. Von Falkenhausen also drank and stared for a moment into the glow of the fireplace.

“You will be pleased to know that I’ve ordered the division veterinarian to tend to your friend’s dog. He usually works with horses, but I’m sure he can dress the wound on a dog as well.” He smiled with a beneficence that looked out of place on the rest of his rigid military person.

“That was very kind. It’s only a pity that such brutal men have to patrol the streets. Or that anyone has to patrol them. Surely we’re civilized enough…”

He raised his hand to silence her. “Please, dear lady. Do not taint those lovely lips with political talk. Not now, in front of this glorious fire and with this magnificent wine. Let us enjoy the moment, as a man and a woman.”

He set his glass down and shifted sideways to face her. She dropped her eyes, focusing on his dress boot, so polished it reflected the firelight.

“We are not monsters. We are soldiers doing our duty, far from our homes, our wives and children. Can you for a moment forget the uniform I wear and just see me as a man?”

She knew what was coming and it sickened her. “Herr Baron, we have different national loyalties.”

“Oh, but it is mere fate that I was born in Prussia and you in Belgium. There is a far older, one might say, primitive element that unites us. We are human, with human needs. You are a widow. You’ve known your husband’s desires. Surely you miss the touch and protection of a man.” His hand brushed her thigh as he leaned toward her.

“Your hair is so lovely. Rather like my wife’s. Autumn-leaf yellow, she calls it, though yours is more tawny. Lioness, perhaps.” He ran his fingers down a few strands of it.

She flinched at the unwelcome flattery of the molester, all the more because it seemed sincere.

“Thank you for the compliment, Herr Baron, though I’m afraid your attentions would count as illegal fraternization.” She tried to back away from him but found no place left on the sofa

His hand was creeping along her shoulder. “My dear, I make the rules for this country, and I exempt us from them. I can assure your car and a petrol ration. Come, dear lady, and comfort a lonely man.” He slid closer, enfolding her in an embrace. His dry lips were already on her neck, and the double scents of wool and French cologne filled her nostrils.

She thought of the two desperate pilots in her cellar and of the string of others that would come, week after week. The house was critical for their safety, as the car was for transporting them. Lives, scores of them, depended on her overcoming her disgust.

Though her skin crawled, she forced herself to say, “Just a moment, Baron. Let me lock the door.”

Chapter Six

Beaulieu, Hampshire, England

January 1942

The mix of gravel and ice crunched loudly as the car pulled up in front of a stately stone building.

“Nice house,” Antonia remarked. “Gothic, isn’t it?”

Major Atkins opened the door on his side. “Yes. Apparently it used to be the gatehouse of an abbey. Thirteenth century, they tell me. He stepped out onto the hard-packed snow and came around to her side. “Don’t much care for the style myself. A bit too Knights of the Roundtable for me.” He held the car door open for her.

“Is that where I’ll be training?” she asked, drawing her coat collar up around her neck and surveying the vast snow-covered estate. “It seems such an anachronism, teaching modern warfare in a medieval building.” She gazed up at the gables and turrets, all with a cap of white. “We should be learning Gregorian chants or how to roast boar.”

“Wouldn’t that be lovely? But this is just administration, and I’m to deposit you here for check-in. The courses you’ll be taking will be scattered throughout other locations.”

“Just what
are
all those courses?” she asked, then chuckled. “I suppose I ought to have asked that sooner, eh?”

“Well, if you had, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. It’s all top secret, you know. Some of the groups training here don’t know about all the others. It’s to prevent anyone revealing the whole operation if they’re captured.”

He leaned in front of her to open the front door, and they both stepped into a warm vestibule. She wiped her snow-damp shoes on a mat as an officer in his early fifties approached.

“Miss Forrester. Pleased to meet you. I’m Major Woolrich.” She took his proffered hand and liked the brief firm grip he offered.

“Thank you, Major Atkins. That will be all.” After a casual salute he led her down a corridor to his office. Once inside, he motioned her toward one of two armchairs and sat down in the other, then drew a pipe from his shirt pocket. He fished a matchbox up from the same pocket, lit the already-full bowl, and puffed a few times to get it going. Relaxing back into his chair, he crossed his legs.

“I understand you were injured at Dunkirk,” he said. “I trust by now you are fully recovered. It was burns, wasn’t it?”

“Burns, ribs, broken shoulder, and a concussion. And yes, I’m fully recovered. Thank you for asking, Major.”

“I’m glad to hear it because some of what we will be doing here is very taxing. But let me start at the beginning.”

He puffed a few times on his pipe. “Beaulieu is part of eleven schools on or near this estate, each one teaching a different skill, and you will have a superficial experience of all of them. The point, of course, is to determine your strengths, and the sort of mission we might send you on will depend on your performance.”

“Can you tell me what some of those subjects are?”

“We’ll start off teaching you to recognize the uniforms and ranks in the German military. Then you’ll review the geography of France and Belgium. We don’t want you getting lost, now, do we?” He smiled, though his teeth still clenched his pipe.

“And the physical training?”

“A bit of running about, shooting, self-defense, parachuting. That’s usually the way we get you there.”

“So I have to learn to jump from an airplane.”

“Afraid so. Though the planes fly below radar, so the drop isn’t so great.”

“So, jumping. That’s it? In the physical department, I mean.”

“Uh, no. You’ll also be trained to kill. Silently.”

“Ah.”

He puffed again, letting the thought sink in. “We’ll also teach you how to stay hidden and keep warm sleeping in the woods, how to operate a radio, that sort of thing. And…that’s about it. Do you have any questions?”

Antonia slowly shook her head, then took a long breath. “All right, then. When do we start?”

“Tomorrow, if that suits you, after you’ve had a good night’s rest. I’ll send a man out to collect your luggage and take you around to your quarters.” He stood up and tapped out the cinders from the bowl of his pipe into a glass ashtray, signaling the end of the conversation. Amidst the charred tobacco, a few cinders still burned, like a minute landscape of ruin. She blinked away the grim image and turned toward the door.

“Ready when you are, Major.”

*

As the car that had deposited her drove away, Antonia unlocked the cottage door and let herself in.

“Oh, sorry!” She halted in the doorway.

The woman in bra and panties who, judging by her towel-turban, had apparently just shampooed, waved a dismissive hand. “Quite all right. You must be my new housemate.” She held out her hand. “Dora Springfield.”

Antonia set down her suitcase and handbag and gripped the damp palm. “Antonia Forrester. You been here long?”

“No, just started yesterday. Looks like we’re both beginners.” She unwrapped the towel from her head and used the dry corner to rub at reddish-brown hair. “Do you suppose we’ll be training together?”