B004U2USMY EBOK (35 page)

“And your wife?” she asked, gently. “What
about her?”

“I called, or tried to, at Strasbourg. David
is going to try again from Switzerland. She knows what to do.
She’s smart and resourceful.”

“But not so smart and resourceful that she
can help all the way from Germany. You’re down to two friends and
they’re both in this car.”

“I don’t plan to put you in danger.”

“Too late for that, now.” She put a hand on
his arm. “Why don’t you tell me what you have planned. Maybe I can
help.”

“I don’t suppose it could hurt,” Helmut said.
“If you’re captured, I’m likely either dead or also in custody.”

“That’s right.”

“Did you know there was almost a second war
with the French army last fall?”

“What French army?”

“Vichy kept its army. Small, weak, pathetic,
true, but it existed. It had to police Algeria, for one, protect
the coast against Allied attack. When Algeria fell to the
Americans, the Wehrmacht launched a second invasion to occupy the
south.”

“I heard that. I couldn’t figure out why they
had to invade.”

“Hitler couldn’t leave the south of France
exposed, especially not the coasts. He didn’t trust what remained
of the French in any event. But what wasn’t reported was that the
French almost fought back.”

“You can destroy the French army, but you
can’t do anything about French pride,” she said.

“Fifty thousand troops took defensive
positions around Toulon. The Germans surrounded them and there was
almost shooting. The French cause was hopeless and they disbanded
at the last minute. The thing is, they still have their weapons.”

“What’s changed? I don’t know much, but I
know fifty thousand troops is nothing. They couldn’t hope to
defeat the
boches
.
”

“Exactly. That’s why they disbanded and
that’s why the Germans simply let them. But Gaby, they don’t have
to defeat the Germans. All they have to do is seize the port of
Marseille and hold off the Wehrmacht for five days. They’ll have
the element of surprise. It will take the Germans time to mount a
counterattack. Meanwhile, the British and the Americans control
the western Mediterranean. If the port of Marseille stays open. .
.”

“You’re saying you want the Americans to
invade.”

“They’re going to invade anyway. They might
come through southern France, maybe across the Channel, or via
Belgium. Denmark, Italy, Greece, it doesn’t matter. The Americans
are too strong, they are winning and the Western Front is too
thinly protected. It’s just a question of timing. Because
meanwhile the Russians have turned the tide in the east. If the
Americans wait another year it will be too late. The Soviet Union,
not the United States and Britain, will win the war. Tell me,
would you rather be liberated by Stalin or Roosevelt?”

“I see. And the gold coins?”

“Bribing Vichy officials. Paying mobsters,
saboteurs. Payment for French soldiers.”

“Why gold?”

“Because gold has no value unless they win. A
man spends his gold and the Gestapo will be kicking down his door.
If a man takes the gold, it is worthless unless the Americans
win.”

“French roosters?” she asked.

“Robbed from French vaults when France fell.
I merely bought it back to return to the French people.”

“But where did you get so much money?”

“I’m a good businessman. Or was. I’ve saved
my profits, liquidated half my capital. All for this. Saved some
currency to tie up loose ends.”

“Loose ends like David Mayer.”

“All my employees. And my wife, you,
Christine. Hopefully, myself, if I survive the next few days. But
yes, it’s over. I’m almost broke. Maybe in a few years I’ll
rebuild.”

“I’m sure you will, you have a talent.”

“I’ve got it,” Christine said from the seat
behind them.

“I thought you were asleep,” Gabriela said.
“Got what?”

“I was asleep, and that’s why I’ve got it. I
figured it out. The red rooster, I understand. It’s France. Roger
Leblanc thinks he’s France. That’s why he made a rooster and put
it on top of that building. It’s looking down, it has his face on
it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said.
“You’re still dreaming.”

“Listen! The German prison. The rooster is a
Coq Gallois
, like on the gold coins. It’s just sitting up
there, doing nothing, while the
boches
run their horrid
little factory.”

No, she wasn’t asleep. In fact, she sounded
more awake than Gabriela had ever heard.

“And Roger put his face on it,” Gabriela
said. “When the Gestapo came and arrested the zazous, Roger sat
and watched.”

“That’s me, too,” Christine said. Her voice
was softer now, rippled with a current of anguish. “Do you think
that’s how my face looks? When the
boches
come to me, when
I lie on my back and do nothing. Is that what I look like?” Her
voice rose in pitch. “That dead look, is that me? Please, tell
me.”

“Christine, no. Don’t do this to yourself.”

“I can’t help it. My god, I’m a
collaborator.”

“Christine,” Helmut said. “Listen to me. In
war, everybody is a collaborator.”

Chapter Twenty-nine:

The human smuggler led them along a hedgerow
just after dusk, then into a thick copse of trees and up to the
edge of another farm. He stopped Helmut and Gabriela and waited.
They could see a ramshackle stone cottage with a single lit
window. Ten minutes passed.

The smuggler was a nervous young man, wiry
with a thin mustache. Maybe eighteen, twenty years old. Gabriela
couldn’t understand what alarmed him about the farmhouse. At last,
he whispered, “All right, it is safe. Go.”

Helmut had paid him five hundred reichsmarks,
agreed to pay five hundred more for every crossing, of which there
would be several. Five hundred more when he brought the truck
across the border, loaded with bags of flour. It was an exorbitant
fee, but it was a complicated undertaking.

Gabriela carried a heavy bag as did Helmut
and the smuggler. Her arms ached.

They stopped again some distance on, this
time in a wide ditch. Trees on either side, but clear pasture in
front. The stars glittered overhead. A chill breeze blew down from
the Massif Central just to their south. In the distance, a dog
barked. Then it was silent again. Still they waited.

Gabriela could sense Helmut’s impatience as
he stirred by her side. “What is this about?”

“They come through this wood,” the smuggler
whispered. “They’re dangerous to both sides.”

“You mean the Resistance?” Gabriela asked.
“The
maquis
?
Why would they care what we’re doing?”

“They’re always on the lookout for
collaborators.” Again, that whispered urgency. “Some are no more
than common criminals. They don’t care, they’ll rob anyone.”

But then later, when they set off again, the
man said, “Stay back from the road. They come down this way in
their trucks, even in the middle of the night. Always looking for
contraband.”

“You mean the
boches
?” Gabriela
asked. “German military, is that who we’re looking out for?”

He didn’t answer. A few minutes later,
however, he warned, “These farms are dangerous. If they see you
passing, know you have a little money, they won’t hesitate to rob
you.”

“Who will rob you?” Helmut asked. “You mean
the farmers?”

But again, he refused to clarify. It was
never more specific than “they” or “them.” It occurred to Gabriela
that the smuggler classified everyone as either
us
or
they.
And
they
were always a risk to
us,
no matter who
they
were.

At last, they reached the safe house, a small
inn at the edge of the village of Gaudet. And just in time;
Gabriela’s aching arms couldn’t take any more.

“Be careful, they can’t entirely be trusted,”
the smuggler warned. “Sometimes they’ll take advantage of
travelers.”

But when they arrived, the innkeeper took
their money and gave them a key. He was an
ancien combattant
from the last war, with a crooked nose and a thick neck marked
with mustard gas scars. One eye was cloudy gray and blind. He
fixed Helmut with a hard look with his remaining eye, but said
nothing, just pointed them toward the room. He disappeared into a
back room and didn’t reappear. Helmut carried the bags upstairs
one at a time while she stayed with the smuggler.

The whole setup, dividing trusted people to
stay with the bags of gold coins, reminded her of the old logic
puzzle from the
colégio
in Barcelona.

You have a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage and
you have to get them across the river.

Helmut looked tired when he came back
downstairs. He leaned forward to speak in her ear. “You’ve got the
Mauser? Good. Lock the door. If someone tries to enter, shoot
them. I don’t care who they are or what they say.”

“And have you figured out yet who
they
are?”

He laughed. “I have no idea.”

“Helmut, be careful. I don’t trust that guy,
either.”

“I’ll be careful.” He lowered his voice
further. “Only four hundred more kilos to go.”

She retreated to the room and locked the
door. She lit the lamp, then lay down on the bed with the gun in
her hand. It wasn’t her intention to fall asleep, but she was
exhausted and long past the ability to maintain the constant
tension she’d felt since the previous night at the
Egyptienne
. She woke to
Helmut pounding on the door. She let him in and helped him with
the bags of gold.

He woke her about once an hour with two more
bags. Sometime after midnight, he brought Christine and they paid
off the smuggler. The man slipped the wad of bills into his
pocket. “The truck will be parked around back first thing in the
morning.”

“And the guns?” Helmut asked.

He reached into his coat and pulled out a
pair of handguns and then a box of shells. Helmut turned them over
in his hands. “Lugers. German sidearms. Where did you get these?
Wait, never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“Probably not,” the smuggler said.

“Well, thanks.” The two men shook hands.

“If you come back, need to get north again,
ask for Yves in the village.
Bonne chance et bon courage,
I hope they don’t catch you.”

Helmut turned to Christine once they were
alone. “Your man came through, I’ll give you that. I half expected
to be robbed by armed men. Or worse.”

“I’ve used him before. He’s expensive, but
he’s good and he can be trusted.”

“You girls can have the big room. I’ll take
this one. Lock your doors, keep the guns at hand.”

“Nah, I’ll take the smaller room,” Christine
said. “And I’ll be fine by myself. I think you two have some
unfinished business.”

“It’s okay,” Gabriela said. “I mean, we’re
not, we haven’t. . .”

“No need to explain it to me,” Christine
said. “Go ahead, I’ll be fine. I’m only too happy to have a few
hours alone, by myself, in a comfortable bed.”

She took the key to the second room and left
them alone, staring awkwardly at each other. The sound of the door
in the adjacent room closing, the lock turning.

“I’ll sleep on the floor if you’d like,”
Helmut said.

“No, don’t do that. Go ahead, sit down. You
look exhausted.” She helped him out of his shoes, took off his
jacket, then sat down beside him on the bed.

“Thank you.” He rubbed at his temples, then
gave her a direct look. His eyes were piercing and startlingly
blue. “I’m so sorry for everything.”

She put her hand on his. “Shh, I know. I
think I understand.”

“You do?”

“It’s the war, it makes everything wrong and
it justifies everything.”

“Not everything, there has to be a line.”

“But you didn’t cross it,” she said. “You
could have and I’d have never known. But you didn’t, you stopped,
you told me.”

He reached a hand and rested it against her
cheek. She leaned forward until their noses touched and they
looked into each other’s eyes. His gaze was so intense it was hard
not to look away.

Slowly he leaned forward. His lips brushed
hers. She responded. It was a gentle kiss. The second kiss was
more passionate. They put their arms around each other and kissed
longer, harder. She was burning with desire and she could tell if
she pushed, they would be undressing each other within moments.

There was nothing said aloud. Gabriela didn’t
pull away, and she sensed no reservation from Helmut.
Nevertheless, there came a point where an unspoken agreement
passed between them. They disengaged, first pulling back just a
few inches, crossed again by a brief kiss, then further. At last
they separated.

“Oh,” he said. “That was nice.”

“Yes.”

And then Gabriela was helping him under the
covers. She crawled in next to him, still clothed in what she’d
worn the previous night—they had picked up fresh clothes earlier
in the day, but were saving them for the next day—and put her arm
around him. She lay her head against his chest. He pressed his
face into her hair, kissed her head. Then leaned back against the
pillow.

She could feel his heart beating furiously.
But gradually, minute by minute, it calmed. Helmut sighed. His
breathing turned regular. He was asleep, she could feel exhaustion
pulling at her as well.

Gabriela put her hand to his face and stroked
his cheek.

It didn’t seem fair, none of this seemed
fair. A different time, a different place. Things would have been
different.

#

They unloaded the bags of gold coins into the
safe house in Marseille. It was already spring in the south and
Christine went upstairs and threw open the shutters.