Page 14

Ten

It had turned into a beautiful morning by the time they reached the town. The air was cool and crisp, and the sky had gone a vibrant, cloudless blue. Up on the hilltop, an old stone church looked down over the town, surrounded by bare trees.

Rebecca inhaled, taking in the sharp smell of burning leaves.

There was something comforting about that smell.

It reminded her of her childhood, when her father would pack the whole family up every autumn and take the train from Paris to the Alsace, where he’d grown up, for a week of grueling hikes and history lectures.

Before her father had been forced to resign from his teaching position at the Lycée Henri-IV. Before the whole world had gone mad.

She kept both hands firmly on the wheel as she approached the center of town.

Off to her left, she could see a gathering of uniformed milice, with their blue jackets and berets, congregating outside a school.

Against the schoolhouse wall, a dozen townspeople stood in a line as uniformed men rifled through their papers.

Rebecca watched as one blue-clad milicien slapped an elderly man in the mouth, then shoved him to the ground and laughed.

Cruel, angry, impotent boys , Rebecca thought.

She recalled the story of a village where a group of Resistance fighters had sabotaged the local power grid, wreaking havoc for the nearby garrison.

The milice were never able to round up the saboteurs, so instead they went to the nearby town and filled the church with as many people as they could fit—women, children, the old and infirm.

They asked them some questions, but no one knew anything about the saboteurs, so the milice took the people out back a dozen at a time and gunned them down, leaving their bodies where they fell.

They left the corpses to rot in the sun, as a warning to those who would dare conspire with the Resistance.

Even now, the thought of it filled her with a helpless rage.

Two miliciens stepped into the street in front of Rebecca and waved for her to stop the car. David had once told her she had a suspicious face, and so she forced herself to smile as they approached the window.

The taller of the two men had a mean, stupid face, like he’d been molded from putty by a slow-witted child.

The shorter man was skinny, slouched and chinless, and seemed to wear a permanent smirk, as if he were always thinking of a particularly filthy joke.

Rebecca wondered what it would feel like to drive her knuckles into his pronounced Adam’s apple.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” the smaller man said. “Where are you heading this morning?”

“Dordogne,” she said lightly. “I’m spending a few days with my cousin there.”

The shorter of the two men squinted into the distance as if he had not heard her. Behind him, the larger man loomed, looking slow but menacing.

“We’ve had some reports of Resistance activity in the area. Heard they’re transporting guns from the coast. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, ma mignonne?”

Rebecca arranged her face in a mask of shock and outrage. “My God, no, I had no idea.”

Behind the men, another milicien hovered over a young girl as she shrank against the stone wall.

The larger man’s eyes settled on the hood of the automobile, and he pursed his lips in approval. “I like your car.”

“Thank you.”

The smaller man snickered. “Maybe we should requisition it, if you like it so much.”

Rebecca felt her throat constrict. “I’m afraid my boyfriend wouldn’t like that. The car belongs to him.”

“Oh? And who is your boyfriend?”

“His name is Hans. Captain Hans Müller.”

The man’s smile evaporated. Pathetic , Rebecca thought. These boys wanted so badly to play at being Nazis, but the idea of a Frenchwoman warming a German bed still filled them with disgust.

“Papers, please.”

“Of course.” Rebecca retrieved her identification, careful not to reveal the Browning semiautomatic pistol in her purse as she did.

The papers had been crafted for her at great expense and bore her image—brown hair cut to her shoulders, downturned lips, permanent circles under the eyes, just like her mother—as well as a name that was almost hers, but not quite.

“You’re twenty-two? You look older.”

“Times are hard.” Rebecca offered an apologetic smile. The man didn’t smile back.

“I’ll need to open the luggage compartment.”

Rebecca’s guts turned to ice. “Is something wrong?”

“Probably not. But we have to check. Wouldn’t want to be fooled by a pretty face.”

“You think I have a pretty face?” Please, please, oh please.

The man made a gesture, as if to say, Eh, I’ve seen better , then held out his hand. “The key?”

She thought fast. There were half a dozen miliciens here, all armed.

She could speed off, but she would almost certainly be gunned down.

If she handed over her keys, she would have precious seconds to get the pistol from her purse while they opened the luggage compartment.

She would have no way to escape, but she was a good shot.

She was sure she could kill at least two of them before they cut her down.

Who knows? She might even live. Two dead traitors are better than none.

Rebecca smiled. “Of course.” She handed over the keys.

The two men walked to the back of the car.

Rebecca reached inside her purse. Next to her lipstick and her pistol was a burgundy leather glasses case, and inside, a pair of round, wire-rimmed spectacles, with both lenses crushed.

She pressed her hand to the case, and felt the familiar, comforting texture under her fingertips.

“May my memory be a blessing,” she whispered. “To someone.” She realized that there might not be anyone left who knew her real name.

Rebecca shifted her hand to the pistol as she watched the two men in her mirror.

She would aim for the heart. Shoot the two by the car, then start on the others, if they didn’t kill her right away.

She listened for a shout of surprise, of anger, but it never came.

Perhaps they knew all along. One hand on the door, the other on the gun, she was about to step out of the car, when the hatch closed again.

The men returned to the driver’s side window.

The little man handed Rebecca her papers and her keys.

“Enjoy Dordogne.”

Rebecca’s hand was still inside her purse. She took it out and placed it back on the wheel.

“Merci.”

She drove and watched the two men grow smaller in her mirror, while her heart leapt inside her like an animal trying to claw its way out.

···

Rebecca kept her eyes on the rearview mirror, waiting to see if she was being followed.

Thirty minutes went by while she sweat through her blouse, one hand on the gun in her purse.

Her mind raced. It was impossible the two men hadn’t seen the woman in her luggage compartment.

Which left only one possibility—they had seen her, and they had let them go anyway. Why?

When she was sure they were alone, she pulled to the side of the road and circled quickly to the back of the car, pistol in hand.

She unlocked it and threw the hatch open.

Lydia was there, curled on her side, disheveled and squinting at the sudden burst of light. Rebecca shoved the pistol in her face.

“Get out.”

Lydia’s eyes went wide. “What are you doing?”

“Get out of the car. Now.”

Lydia scrambled to sit up in the cramped compartment. Once she was upright, Rebecca grabbed her, throwing her to her knees in the middle of the empty country road.

“Why did they let us go?”

Lydia’s hands were raised and bleeding from where they had broken her fall. “I don’t know.”

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t! I have no idea!”

“Who do you work for?”

“I don’t work for anyone. I’m not a spy, you know that.”

“Exactly. You’re not SOE, not French Resistance. Even David doesn’t know who you really are. Do you want to know what I think?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “I think you’re setting me up.”

“No, Rebecca, I swear—”

“ Shut up! Are you an informant? Is that why they let you go?”

“No.”

Rebecca looked around. No cars coming in either direction. The Englishwoman knelt in the gravel at her feet. She felt a familiar sensation inside herself—something calcifying around her heart, making her feel hard and numb as she prepared herself to do a terrible thing.

“Tell me something true in the next three seconds, or I will put a bullet in your head.”

“Rebecca—”

“Three.”

“Rebecca, listen to me—”

“Two.”

Lydia disappeared. One second, she was cowering at Rebecca’s feet, and the next, there was nothing but empty road, and blue sky, and golden fields stretching for miles in every direction.

Rebecca stumbled back. She could hear gravel moving around her, footsteps that weren’t her own, but she couldn’t see anyone there.

“Merde. Merde, merde, merde.”

Then Lydia was back. Off to her left, facing her, not trying to run. Rebecca turned and aimed her pistol.

“ Astyffn ban ,” Lydia said.

Rebecca froze. She could still breathe, a small comfort as she listened to the frantic panting of her own breath, but try as she might, she couldn’t move.

She focused all her energy on the trigger, but even that tiny movement felt as impossible as flying.

A wave of terror washed over her as Lydia approached, slowly and calmly, and took the gun from her hand.

“I’m not your enemy, Rebecca.” Lydia held the gun by her side. She walked to the driver’s side door, opened it, and placed the gun back inside Rebecca’s purse. Then she returned and stood before Rebecca’s frozen body.

“I’m going to release you. And then we can talk.”

Rebecca stared at Lydia, trying to convey something with her eyes—submission. Lydia seemed to understand.