Page 47 of The Mademoiselle Alliance
46
The One Who Did Not Die
Bruchsal Fortress, Germany, December 1943
As Léon rouses, flashes of the past day or so drift into his consciousness: standing on a rooftop in Paris and seeing the stars for the first time in two and a half months, believing that all his nights would be starry from then on. Trying to do the honorable thing—which Marie-Madeleine has always said will be his downfall—by bringing Bob and Inayat with him.
If only he’d left as soon as he reached the roof. He’d be in Minerva’s arms right now and his face wouldn’t hurt like a lion was sinking its teeth into his bones.
No if onlys . The path to hell is paved with them, mortared with regrets.
Bruchsal, he’d heard his guards say when he was lying in the back of the van in that twilight state between waking and falling back into blackness. Which means he’s in Germany. While escape is a possibility in France, in Germany, it’s a mad dream. Especially after he caught a glimpse of what Bruchsal is: a fortress.
He also heard the guards tell the jailer at the drawbridge, “ Ein wichtiger Terrorist, ein Specialist des Entfliehens. ”
An important terrorist. An expert in escape.
Not Léon Faye anymore. Not Eagle, either.
God, he wants to vomit. Wants to curl up and try to keep all his broken bones together. But his ankles and wrists are manacled to an iron bedstead. He’s lying on a floor that isn’t just damp, but wet, as if he’s so far below ground he’ll never see the sun again.
For the first time in his life, he wonders: Did I love France too much?
The latch in the door clatters, a bowl is pushed through the hatch. “Half rations,” the guard says. “To teach you a lesson.”
What lesson could that possibly teach? He already knows the Nazis are so cruel that no myth or story, no painting or sculpted hell has ever captured what a real monster is.
Which means he can’t let them win. Especially now that his mind has begun to work and he remembers what the guard at Avenue Foch had whispered, grinning, into Léon’s ear in the thirty seconds before he’d slipped into unconsciousness: One of your agents is working for us . The one who escorted you onto the train right before we caught you. A tall fellow…
Lanky.
The man who shouldn’t have been at the landing ground; the man who insisted all the Alliance agents stay together on the train. Léon has to get to Lanky before Lanky gets to Minerva.
Despite being chained to a bed, fed almost nothing, locked in a room he’s told he will never leave, he will do something that will take more courage than he’s ever found inside him before.
Bruchsal is the place where you die—unless you make yourself live.
He’ll recall Marie-Madeleine, he decides, centimeter by centimeter, starting with her ankles. He just has to do that until the Allies invade; has to be like Hecuba in Euripides’s great play—the one who did not die, even though he’s living inside hell.