Page 21 of The Lies We Leave Behind

21

The next day I stood outside the Hare and Hound Hotel. It was one William and I had nearly stayed at the first time we’d decided to spend a night together. But then we’d seen the Rose Cottage, with its sprawling garden and picturesque countryside views and we’d chosen that one instead.

“Excuse me,” I said to the gentleman at the counter. “I’d like to leave a message for someone staying with you.”

“Of course, miss,” he said and shifted some things on his side of the counter before proffering a piece of paper and an envelope. “Feel free to have a seat in the lobby if you need.”

“Thank you,” I said, taking the items and turning toward the lobby where a single man in a hat sat in a chair near the fireplace, a book open in his lap, a cup of tea on the table beside him.

He looked up and smiled as I sat in a nearby chair.

“Miss Campbell?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Yes?” I said, my own gaze taking in his plain face...the sandy-colored hair beneath his hat. “Oh. You’re—”

“Lee Baker,” he said. “You can call me Lee.”

“How—” I looked to the gentleman at the counter, but he was busying himself dusting the shelves behind him. “How did you know it was me?”

“I’ve seen your picture. Also, you look a lot like Victoria. It would be hard not to figure it out.”

I smiled. He wasn’t wrong. We were often mistaken for mother and daughter.

“My aunt said you have a package for me?” I said, getting up and moving to the chair nearest him.

“Indeed I do. Can I interest you in some lunch? We can discuss the contents of the package I’ve brought while we eat if you have time.”

“Of course.”

“I found a lovely restaurant just down the street a ways that does a half-decent sandwich. Will that do?”

“Lead the way.”

As we walked, he talked, reminding me a lot of my uncle. He was informed on a variety of subjects, deftly moving from one to the next. He asked questions and listened intently to the answers. And there was a warmness to him that contradicted what I could only describe as a wall. My uncle Frank had the same wall. I’d mentioned it once to Aunt Vic and she’d laughed and nodded.

“It’s part of what drew me to your uncle,” she’d said. “He was so mysterious. And handsome, of course. Friendly, kind, attentive, intelligent...but there was a space between us I could never quite get past. Eventually, I stopped trying. I knew he loved me and assumed it was only because of his job that he was the way he was.”

I’d often wondered if that was the truth, but had never asked. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk now, my head tilted as I looked up at Lee with curiosity.

“Is it because of your job that, while you are friendly and talkative, you also seem far away?”

He chuckled. “You’re observant like your aunt, I see,” he said and nodded. “And to answer your question, yes. We are trained well in a variety of things and encouraged to keep up on events of the world, no matter how big or small. We’re well-read, are good cooks, great drivers, enjoy a good whiskey or bottle of wine, and can ride horses with the best of them... All so that we always have something to discuss and never succumb to awkward silences that might get us questioned. But at the same time, we have to observe. The expression on someone’s face, their body language, the telltale signs of a weapon hidden beneath clothing...”

“Well, that explains how my uncle knew I was hiding an extra cookie in my pajamas when I was eighteen, and how he knows how to make such a great mutton chop and lemon chiffon pie.”

Lee laughed. “Exactly.”

At the restaurant we were led to a table in the center of the room.

“Is it alright if we take that one?” Lee asked the hostess, pointing to a table in the far corner.

“Of course,” she said brightly. “Right this way.”

We were seated, tea ordered, when Lee reached into his briefcase and handed me a slender box and an envelope.

“From your aunt,” he said.

I saw her neat penmanship and smiled. This envelope was thicker than the last. But the box I was confused by. There were definitely none of the winter clothes I’d requested in there. As I moved to open it, Lee stopped me.

“Best save it all for later. In the privacy of your room. What’s in them is for no one else’s eyes.”

“Is it...” I trailed off, glancing around the room.

“The documents you requested.” His voice was quiet as he perused the menu. I set the box and letter in my handbag and picked up my own menu, my hands shaking a little as I tried to read the few options offered.

“But the other things I asked for?” I asked.

His eyes moved over the food items listed and I got the distinct impression he wasn’t reading at all.

“I believe there is money included to get what you need.” He lowered his menu. “Your aunt did not come by the decision to send that—” his eyes slid toward my handbag then back to me “—lightly. But apparently your request came with quite the plea. One that she didn’t feel it was her place to dispel. I’ve not read the contents of her letter, but she did express to me what it entailed.”

While his demeanor and face didn’t change, his dark blue eyes bore into mine from across the table.

“What you are wanting to do is near impossible for anyone not in the upper echelons of German society. One has to be a high-ranking official, an important prisoner being moved, a movie star, or a very wealthy member of German society to move like we’ll have to through the country.”

“We?” I asked.

“I’m no military man. Nor am I a prisoner. And as you can probably imagine, I wouldn’t make much of a movie star.”

I felt my cheeks warm, not wanting to insult him. He definitely wasn’t leading man material.

I frowned, trying to make sense of what he was getting at.

“So you’re...”

“A man of great means in a country that reveres such things,” he said before snapping his menu shut and smiling up at the waiter who’d come to take our order.

A weak soup was brought out first, and as we sipped the heavily salted liquid, the chef’s attempt to hide the lack of ingredients, I attempted to form questions and found myself at a loss. Who was this man? And who exactly was my uncle? I realized in this moment I knew very little about who and what he was. What organization he worked for. And how he’d been able to pull off my disappearance ten years before. My aunt had only ever given the vaguest of details, and being young and scared, I’d accepted that. But now I had questions. And I knew it wasn’t likely I’d get answers. If I wanted to do this, I was going to have to trust that they knew what they were doing, and this was the man who could help me.

“I can see the questions forming in your mind,” he said, resting his soup spoon on the plate beneath the bowl. “Best leave most of them for when we don’t have an audience. What I can tell you is, read the letter your aunt sent. Consider her thoughts and worries. And then we’ll talk again. Perhaps it will be a short conversation. Perhaps not. But read the letter first. There are things you should know about where you are wanting to go.”

I nodded, setting my own spoon down, my bowl still half-full, my appetite having left me.

“If I should choose the longer conversation,” I said, “you would be accompanying me?”

“There’s no other way. You’d never get in on your own and not many others are available or willing to take a young woman behind enemy lines for reasons not ordered by their superiors.”

I took him in then. Really took him in. From his tousled sandy blond hair, and sharp navy blue eyes, to his affable demeanor, kind face, and broad shoulders. He could easily pass for the friendly American I believed him to be. But smarten up the hair and demeanor, sharpen the clothes, and he’d look just as at home in my father’s austere office in downtown Hamburg, a distinctive armband wrapped around his suit jacket.

Our sandwiches were brought out then and he changed the subject deftly, asking about my time in the Pacific, noting where I’d been stationed as if we’d spoken previously on many occasions. From there he asked me about my missions to France, told a couple amusing anecdotes about my aunt and uncle, and by the time our simple dessert was served, he’d all but disarmed me of my concerns.

“You are good at your job,” I said, dabbing the corner of my mouth with my napkin before taking a last sip of tea.

“You should taste my meat loaf and apple pie.”

I grinned and then stared down at the letter in my handbag, wondering what it might say about this man. Wondering if my aunt’s words, that had comforted me more times than I could count, would serve to do the same now when I was contemplating something I never had since the day I stepped foot on the ship that had taken me far from my motherland. The idea that I was now thinking of returning, in the midst of our world’s greatest war, was not only probably my stupidest idea, but certainly my most terrifying. And yet I had to go. I had to at least try to keep the promise I’d made so long ago to a little girl who’d trusted me with her entire little being, even if the journey itself killed me.

I touched the ring on my finger. I just hoped William would one day understand when I finally told him the truth of who I was and where I came from.