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Fifteen

There had been a book in the return bin that morning, clearly pushed through the slot sometime after Christian had locked up on Thursday night and before he’d arrived Friday morning.

He could still see its outline there in the bin, even as he sat at dinner with Ackermann and Gustaf and one of his superior’s cronies hours later, a plate of steak before him.

Steak, when his son was lucky to have soup with actual bone broth in the weeks when Christian couldn’t smuggle them meat.

He could still see the autumn sun catching on the gilt lettering, could still feel the hammering of his heart as he prayed Kraus wouldn’t see it.

Could still feel the way the world had slowed as, praise God, his aide moved straight for the lavatory, like he did most every morning.

He could still taste the bile that had stung his throat as he bent down to pick it up and hastened to move it to the stack of other books awaiting his attention at his table.

Because it had to be either from Corinne or Josef. And neither would risk slipping him a book, and presumably a message within it, if it wasn’t an emergency.

He’d been right—and he’d been wrong. As evidenced by the note slipped between pages 102 and 103, which he had read four times and then folded and slipped into his innermost pocket, throwing it away with his lunch rubbish, despite it being full of nothing but vague pronouns.

Josef, who had never quite got over the cold of weeks before thanks, he was sure, to poor nutrition, now had the flu.

Corinne had kept Felix at her flat again last night, which he’d already known.

But this morning’s note from her had said that he’d come down with it too, and that he was inconsolable, and if Christian could find even a moment to slip away today, even if it was late, she knew Felix would appreciate it.

Not an emergency. Not truly. But he knew how his son got when he was sick.

He wanted to be held, and he would whimper even as he slept, and Corinne—who had likely never dealt with a sick child before—would be wondering at every moment if he was ill enough to need a doctor.

Because Felix would look, sound, and seem miserable .

No doubt he was miserable. But if it was just the flu, then he would bounce back quickly. He probably felt better already. He always got better so much faster than any of the adults who caught the same thing.

That was what he’d been telling himself all day, as Kraus shadowed his every move until now, when he had his standing dinner with Gustaf.

Corinne knew he had this commitment, of course.

She would know that he would have canceled it if he could have—but when Ackermann had invited himself along, he hadn’t dared.

His fingers flexed around his fork, yearning to brush over his son’s forehead. Was he feverish? How hot? Did Corinne have a thermometer?

“You seem distracted tonight, Bauer.” Ackermann took a swig of his beer, though he barely spared Christian a glance despite the observation. He had, as usual, requested a table near the window so he could “people watch.” By which he meant ogle every Parisienne to walk obliviously by.

Gustaf chuckled. He and Ackermann hadn’t exactly hit it off—his superior truly wasn’t fond of bücherwurms , it seemed. But it hadn’t taken Gustaf long to learn that if he responded favorably to whatever blonde, brunette, or ginger Ackermann pointed out, he’d earn himself a bit less taunting.

A lesson Christian had pointedly ignored, each and every time he was forced to dine with his commanding officer.

Meals with Gustaf he didn’t actually mind.

Despite the fact that his fellow sonderführer was far too much a true believer in Nazi propaganda, he was still a learned man, capable of intelligent conversation on a variety of topics close to Christian’s heart.

Their weekly Friday dinners couldn’t hold a candle to the time he spent at Corinne’s flat, of course, but Gustaf had quickly become the closest thing Christian had to a friend among the Nazis in Paris.

“I daresay he’s just distracted by thoughts of my favorite professor at the Sorbonne.”

Christian snapped his gaze to Gustaf, who was grinning at him.

He took it back. They weren’t friends at all.

Ackermann frowned. “What, did he get in a debate with a stuffy old French scholar?”

Gustaf, blast him, laughed. “Quite the contrary—when he stopped at the university to pick me up, he caught a glimpse of one of the few female professors on campus. And she is quite worth looking twice at.”

Blast, blast, blast. He’d tried to school his expression when he’d caught an unexpected sight of Corinne—but he’d been too caught off guard.

He’d thought, given her note, that she’d taken the day off to tend to Felix.

What was she doing on campus? Did it mean his son was better?

Had she taken him back to Josef’s? Had he been there , in her office?

Or had she left him for a few minutes with Madame Dardenne while she took care of something important?

And then, yes, there was the more obvious bit too. Seeing her in her native environment, striding those university paths as if she were the queen of academia. Gorgeous and confident and deserving of the acclaim she’d achieved, gaining a position at such a young age, and being a woman.

Obviously Gustaf had noticed. He’d just made the reasonable assumption that Christian had been floored by the beauty of a stranger. Nothing to worry about, he’d thought.

Until now.

Ackermann’s brows clashed like thunder, and he leaned forward. “Did you say a female professor? And you’ve let this continue—a woman in such a position?”

Christian could read the panic in Gustaf’s eyes.

He probably would have helped him even if it didn’t mean protecting Corinne—at least, he liked to think he would have, though he was none too pleased with Gustaf just now.

“We’ve spoken of this particular professor before, sir,” Christian said calmly.

“Quite a predicament, given that she teaches German literature as I myself would, certainly better than any other Frenchman we’ve encountered.

We decided it was more important that the students learn the true heart of Germany than that they be spared a woman’s thoughts. ”

Ackermann looked from one of them to the other. “No Frenchman can know the heart of Germany.”

“Oh, but you should hear her sometime!” Gustaf was far too quick to say. “Listening to her speak of Goethe makes me fall in love with the Fatherland all over again.”

“I am not inclined to listen to any lectures, especially from a woman,” Ackermann growled.

Good. Good.

But Gustaf, the idiot, opened his mouth again, laughing this time. “If you don’t want to come for the literature lesson, then come to look at her. I’m telling you, sir, she puts all those women strolling along out there to shame—she must, if she drew stoic Bauer’s stare, eh?”

If he weren’t a pacifist, he’d seriously consider plucking out every one of Gustaf’s hairs and stuffing them in his overactive mouth.

“I was hardly staring. She reminded me for a moment of someone I know in Berlin—you know how it goes, expecting to see neighbors and friends even in foreign cities. And I didn’t realize it was the professor you’d mentioned until you said so. ”

Ackermann chuckled—a grating, chafing, patronizing sound. “Well, well. Now I’m interested. What does she look like?”

“Like the epitome of a perfect Aryan woman. Blonde curls, blue eyes, these lips that just beg to be kissed—she could be a movie star.”

Ackermann narrowed his eyes. On Christian. “It seems our friend has a type. The only woman I’ve ever caught him staring at also had blonde curls. Quite the looker that one was too—she strode by right out that window our first time dining here.”

Christian forced himself to take a bite, chew, swallow as they goaded him. As if he hadn’t a care in the world. “I do in fact have a type—but not that. Shall I show you a photo of my wife?”

“Wife?” Gustaf frowned. “You’re married? And haven’t mentioned it in all this time?”

“Widowed.” Still, he reached into his wallet and pulled out the old, dog-eared photo he’d been carrying there for the last decade, since he and Ilse first began seeing each other.

Since the night she’d slipped it to him with a pretty blush, just in case he wanted it.

He’d made a show of sliding it into a place of honor after praising how pretty she looked in it and had never removed it but to draw it out to look at. “This is Ilse. Beautiful, wasn’t she?”

They couldn’t argue with that, though Ilse’s beauty had been a more understated kind than Corinne’s. Still, the photographer had caught her at her best, giving the camera a long look from under her dark lashes.

Ackermann grunted and passed the photo to his friend, who in turn passed it to Gustaf.

Gustaf’s face softened as he looked at it. “Sorry, old man. Didn’t realize you were still grieving your wife. How long were you married?”

“Not long enough.” The answer he always gave, because when he confessed they’d been married only two years before she died, people expected him to have moved on just as quickly.

“Children?”

And this was the question he truly hated answering.

He knew well that God detested a lying tongue—but he also valued life, and even the priest had told him it was no sin to protect it, not in the face of a government that denounced God and all that was holy and would have stolen that precious life.

“One, but I’m afraid I buried him nearly a year ago. ”

He’d buried a coffin, anyway, in the family plot, beside his parents and Ilse.

“I’m sorry.” Gustaf handed the photo back, expression somber. “I didn’t realize.”