Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

The way in which they’d parted hung in the air between them.

They’d been angry with each other. Since then so much had happened. They were no longer the same people.

As it turned out, though, the differences didn’t matter. Their entire history as sisters passed between them in that single look, along with a silent acknowledgment that whoever they were now, whatever life had done to them, they had come together with a mutual purpose: saving the life of their mother.

“It’s such an honor to meet the famous Black Swan,” Emmy said. It was imperative to give no sign to anyone who might be watching that they were anything other than chance-met strangers, and it was clear Emmy was conscious of that. Her face was bland. Her tone verged on gushing. But Genevieve could see that she wasn’t astonished to learn of her other identity, and her sense that her sister had already been aware of her star persona was reinforced when Emmy continued, “I must tell you, I’m quite a fan.”

All too conscious of the gawking, listening soldiers, Genevieve smiled. “Are you? That’s very nice. May I have a tart?”

“Molasses or squab?”

“Molasses.” Either would choke her, Genevieve was sure. She was having a hard time reconciling the knowledge that Emmy was an SOE agent with her memories of her always proper older sister, but so it apparently was. She cast about for a way to convey her vital message to her sister under the avid eyes and ears of their audience but could come up with nothing. From Emmy’s presence, it was safe to assume Vartan had delivered the note she’d given him. She had no doubt he’d added his own bit to it, including the key facts of Lillian’s arrest and removal to, presumably, Paris. With Emmy aware of their mother’s desperate situation, finding a way to save Lillian no longer rested solely on her own woefully inadequate shoulders, thank God. She would have felt a profound sense of relief except for the dire necessity of acquainting Emmy with the order Max had been given, coupled with the difficulty of conveying such information there, with so many eyes on them.

“That will be forty francs,” Emmy said.

Genevieve handed over the appropriate coins. Dropping them, Emmy gave a frustrated exclamation and ducked behind the cart to retrieve what she could, while Genevieve swooped down on a coin that rolled across the cobblestones near her feet and the soldiers gave chase to a few more.

“How clumsy of me! Thank you,” Emmy said to the soldiers as she straightened with a smile to receive the coins they returned to her. The soldiers, to a man, were dazzled and murmured incoherently. To Genevieve, who handed her the errant coin she’d captured, she said, “Thank you,” as well.

“Here you are. I hope you enjoy it.” A moment later Emmy passed over a cloth-wrapped tart accompanied by a quick but speaking look before turning to her next customer.

Clutching the tart, effectively dismissed, Genevieve did what she would have done if she had, indeed, just bought a random treat from a random vendor: she walked away with a smile and a wave for the soldiers whose eyes still followed her. Even after so much time had passed, she knew her sister well enough to know the look she’d been given meant something. And Emmy was never clumsy—the coin drop had been done on purpose.

She made sure to put the line of vehicles in front of the Ritz between herself and any onlookers—the hotel’s outer wall was on her other side, with curtains drawn over the windows—then carefully unwrapped the tart. She saw the key at once. Emmy had stuck it in the tart so that the top part protruded through the crust. After a quick check of her surroundings to make doubly sure no one was watching, she pulled the key out. The caramelly scent of the molasses filling blended with the stench of exhaust from the cars as she used the cloth the tart came wrapped in to carefully wipe the key clean. From the look of it, it was a door key. Closer examination revealed that its shank had been engraved with an address: 2 rue Duphot.

She knew that street. It was nearby.

Pocketing the key, rewrapping the now slightly mutilated tart, she looked around to discover that Emmy, having apparently sold out of her inventory, was pushing the cart out of the square.

“Would you care for this?” she asked the young boy who was assiduously polishing the windshields of the parked cars in hopes of earning a few coins as payment, as she pulled an edge of the cloth back to show him the tart. With food now such a precious commodity, to throw such a thing away would have been nothing short of criminal, and her stomach was in such knots she wasn’t even going to make the attempt. “I find I can’t eat it after all.”

“Would I? Thank you!” The boy—he couldn’t have been more than eight—took the sweet with a look almost of reverence and devoured it in three bites.

Smiling at him, Genevieve walked back inside the Ritz. She penned a note for Otto—Don’t wait for me, I’ll find my own way to rehearsal—and left it with the receptionist with instructions that it be given to Otto upon his arrival. Then she headed on foot for 2 rue Duphot.

It was only a few blocks away.

The narrow, curving street was mixed residential and commercial. Buildings on either side abutted one another, forming canyon-like walls with just a narrow strip of blue sky visible above to keep her from feeling totally claustrophobic. Only a few people were about. A woman swept her steps. Another walked a dog along the street. A young girl on a bicycle pedaled toward her. A man, walking in the opposite direction, disappeared around a curve. Colorful awnings above doors and small signs hanging beside entrances denoted shops. The appearance of the houses was more varied.

Number 2 was a house, tall, narrow and dignified, with a stone facade that had been painted a soft, cheery yellow. Windows on either side of the front door had their curtains pulled tightly shut. On the stoop a blue ceramic pot held a colorful mix of poppies and lilies of the valley. The delicate white bells and bright red blossoms fluttered in the breeze that came whistling down the street as Genevieve mounted the steps. In the center of the flowers, a child’s pinwheel whirred as it spun.

With one more quick look around to make certain she wasn’t being observed, she used the key and let herself in.

Emmy was waiting for her.

They acknowledged each other with a quick exchange of glances as Genevieve stepped into a dark, wood-paneled center hallway, the most distinguishing feature of which was a steep staircase along one side that led to the floor above. The hall was cold and smelled musty.

Moving past her without a word, Emmy closed and locked the door, then turned back. “You’re looking well.”

“Thank you. As are you.” The exchange was slightly stilted. Genevieve was conscious of the gulf between them: time, and much else.

“I’m not, but we’re not here to discuss that.” Emmy beckoned. “Come into the lounge.”

She led the way into a chamber that was only slightly less gloomy than the hall, thanks to the tightly drawn drapes that covered the large front window. Genevieve got a quick impression of a high ceiling, a long-unused fireplace, a worn carpet, and a few pieces of torn and scarred furniture—and several darker rectangles on the pale green walls where it was obvious paintings had once hung.

“Whose house is this?” The question was involuntary, prompted because something about the atmosphere made her uncomfortable. As her gaze returned to her sister, Genevieve crossed her arms over her chest. She had no desire to sit, and Emmy didn’t appear to want to, either.

“It belongs to the owner of an art gallery in Montmartre. He and his family were arrested last year. They’re Jews.” Emmy gestured at the walls. “As you can see, they had a number of valuable paintings. The Nazis took them. The house they simply left. It’s been ransacked several times. Everything that wasn’t stolen has been badly damaged. We’ve been using it as a safe house off and on for some months now.”

Unspoken but implicit in her words was the near certainty that the owners would never be back.

It was a tragedy that had become commonplace. Houses and businesses abandoned when their Jewish owners were rounded up and deported could be found in multiples in every arrondissement in the city. They were like tombstones, bearing silent witness to the atrocities that had claimed their owners. Neighbors and those who knew what had happened tended to avert their eyes and walk a little faster when they passed by, as if fearful of bringing such a fate down upon their own heads.

Genevieve thought of Anna and Rachel. An icy shiver slid down her spine.

Closing her mind to what she couldn’t help, Genevieve looked at her sister. “You’re with the SOE?”

Even with the evidence in front of her, she still found it hard to believe, and her voice held a note of astonishment.

“Vartan should not have told you that. He has a big mouth.”

“He thought we were working together.”

“Nevertheless.”

“How did that come about?”

Emmy took off her scarf. Her hair, always thick as a horse’s tail, was long now and had been braided and twisted into a fat bun at her nape.

“You know Alain died?”

Genevieve gave a curt nod. As determinedly as she’d walked away from her family, she hadn’t been able to keep herself from discreetly inquiring about them when the chance presented itself, as it did occasionally as she toured, when she might come across someone who had recently traveled through Cherbourg, or who might have connections with the wine business, or even the odd newspaper. That she had sought out such news was, she saw now, an indication of how much she had missed them, although at the time she hadn’t been prepared to acknowledge that even to herself. Thinking about them had meant thinking about the past, and that carried such pain with it that she’d refused to do it.

Emmy said, “My husband—my second husband, David Granville—is British. He’s the third son of Lord Granville, the vice admiral, and after we married and moved to England, he was given a job at the War Office. When the Nazis overran France, the SOE was in desperate need of women who were fluent in French to go in and gather intelligence. When they learned that I am French, they approached me. I said no at first, but then David... He couldn’t be talked out of going off to fight. He was with the Eighth Army and got taken prisoner at El Alamein. When that happened, I told them I would go. I’ve been carrying out missions for Baker Street for almost a year and a half now. I got in touch with Papa—” Her voice faltered.

“I can’t believe he’s dead,” Genevieve said. Her chest ached with the grief she’d been carefully keeping at bay.

She saw her own pain reflected in Emmy’s eyes. “I know. He was already working with the SOE when I arrived in France. I warned him of the risk he was taking, but you know him. He insisted on carrying on. Remember how Maman was always saying, ‘There’s no doing anything with him once he gets an idea in his head, so the only thing to do is not let it get in there’?”

That last was said in a tone that mixed affection with sorrow. It was something Lillian had frequently told them as a kind of rule of thumb for how she planned to deal with their sometimes stubborn father. They’d always translated it to tell Papa only what you want him to know. Even as the ache in her chest intensified, Genevieve nodded, and they both smiled a little mistily at the memory.

“Well.” As though to provide herself with a distraction, Emmy carefully folded her scarf and tucked it into her coat pocket before looking at Genevieve again. Her manner grew brisk. “You said you needed to see me. Here I am. I can’t stay long. Keeping on the move is the best protection against capture.”

“I wanted to be sure you knew about Maman. She must be rescued, but I have no idea how to go about it. Vartan thought you could do it. I’m available to help any way I can. Sometimes being the Black Swan is very useful for things like getting admitted to places. Or getting out of them.” At the last moment, Genevieve had second thoughts about adding what she’d learned the previous night. It occurred to her that, just possibly, as an SOE agent herself, Emmy might feel compelled to honor the order Max had been given. Almost as soon as the notion occurred, though, she rejected it. Emmy and their mother had always been extremely close. Whatever else might have changed in the ensuing years, she was as sure as it was possible to be that that had not.

“I’ll remember that.” Emmy’s tone was noncommittal.

Genevieve said, “There’s one more thing you should know. I’ve learned that the SOE has given orders that Maman is to be killed if she cannot be immediately rescued.”

Emmy frowned. “Where did you hear that?”

Loyalty to Max kept her from revealing the details. Protecting him and his operation was ingrained in her by now.

She shook her head. “I can’t say. But it’s true, I give you my word.”

Emmy said, “I trusted you enough to come and meet you, and to bring you here. It’s your turn to trust me.”

Genevieve gave her a long look. Emmy’s face was older, with shadows in her eyes that spoke of difficult experiences and hard lessons learned since they had last seen each other, but she knew it as well as she knew her own. She knew her sister’s character as well as she knew her own, too. In the end it wasn’t even a tough decision to make.

She said, “I’ve been working for the SOE, too. For—someone—who got a message from—I’m quite sure it was London. I happened to see it. It was an order, I believe from whoever is in charge there. It said the baroness was a threat, and this person should see that she was executed if she couldn’t be rescued. Act quickly, he was told.”

“I haven’t heard of any such order.” She paused and seemed to reflect. When she spoke again, it was almost as if she were talking to herself. “But then, I wouldn’t. I’m based with the Maquis, and I work with a network of cells to coordinate airdrops and sabotage and intelligence gathering, things like that. Papa’s cell was one of those in my network. Now that it’s been destroyed and can be of no more use to us, I wouldn’t ordinarily be involved. I would have been notified that the cell was gone, and that would have been that. It’s only because Vartan contacted me—because of the personal connection—that I went to Cherbourg. That I’m here.”

Genevieve felt a flutter of alarm. “You do mean to rescue Maman?”

This time Emmy’s smile was small and grim. “It won’t be easy. But of course I’m going to try. I have friends I hope can help. Papa knew something that I’m afraid he told her, which the boche must suspect. Which anybody must suspect who knew how they were together. That explains why they’ve kept her alive and brought her here to Paris. She must be being very brave, holding out, but they will succeed in torturing it out of her, and then they’ll execute her.” Her expression turned thoughtful. “I can see why your friend was given that order. If she was not my mother, I would agree with it.”

Genevieve was horrified. “You would agree with murder? Of an innocent woman?”

“The fight is so desperate, and the consequences of losing are so enormous. If the Nazis prevail, it will be the end of the world as we know it. They will engage in mass slaughter on a scale that makes everything they’ve done up until now seem like nothing. Any of us who survive will wish we were dead, I promise you.”

Genevieve shivered. “What does she know that’s so dangerous?”

Emmy grimaced. “If I’m right, and I’m very much afraid I am, details of the planned Allied invasion of France. The Nazis have gotten wind of it, but everything possible is being done to mislead them as to when it will happen, and where. It’s vital that they not learn the truth.” Her gaze locked with Genevieve’s. “There. I’ve told you a big secret. Now you must tell me one. Who is this man you’re working for? He’ll be trying to locate Maman, too. Perhaps I can use what he’s turned up in his search. At the very least I must know who to watch out for.”

Still Genevieve hesitated. “You would not—I don’t want anything to happen to him.”

“Oh, is he cute?”

That unexpected bit of teasing, the sudden sparkle in Emmy’s eyes, was so like the Emmy of old that Genevieve was startled. It brought her sister back to her as nothing else had, in a way that was heartwarming and gut-wrenching at the same time.

“It isn’t that,” Genevieve said, and was only aware of how defensive she sounded when it was too late to do anything about it. Emmy’s smile flashed. Genevieve frowned quellingly at her, and suddenly it was as if all those years they’d spent apart had vanished in the blink of an eye. “He’s doing important and valuable work, and to interfere with it or cause harm to come to him would be a huge disservice to the partisans. Also, it would be wrong.”

“I understand your concern for his work.” Emmy’s tone was grave, but that teasing sparkle still lurked in her eyes. “If we’re lucky, we’ll never come anywhere near him, and if we’re not, you can be sure we’d never do anything to harm one of our own agents. I just prefer to approach this nearly impossible task with as much information as possible. So who is he? Come on, je te tiens, tu me tiens, I need to know.”

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