Chateau of Secrets: A Novel (35 page)

“How is your arm?” she asked of the man trailing behind them.

“Tolerable.”

“My brother will know how to help you.”

Daniel tripped, and Eddie caught him. “Is your brother down here?”

“He travels much, but he is in charge of the men who stay here.”

There was pride in her voice, and she realized it was the first time she’d been able to tell someone about Michel’s work. He could have hidden away in England with their grandparents, ignored the plight of his country to protect himself. For almost four years the Nazis had tried to stop him, yet he chose to continue the fight for France and for the people being persecuted in their country. So many had given up, resigned themselves to their occupants’ presence, but he never quit. These Americans were fighting hard in the skies for her country, and she was immensely proud of the work her brother was doing on the ground as well.

“Perhaps your brother can help us get home,” Eddie said.

“Perhaps . . .” She slowed her walk. “How long will the Allies fight?”

“Until Hitler is gone,” Eddie said.

His words brought her peace. “Sometimes it feels as if the Germans will never leave.”

“There are thousands upon thousands of soldiers across the Channel, waiting to fight,” Eddie said. “It won’t be long before the rest of our men will join your brother in fighting on French soil.”

Every day she woke up afraid the Germans would find out she’d never married, that Philippe would return again and take Adeline from her, that they would uncover her brother’s hiding place.

She was tired of living in fear.

The stench of human waste grew stronger, along with a cloud of cigarette smoke that hovered in the narrow tunnel, but they pressed on until the dull light in front of her merged with the edge of her beam.

“Wait here,” she commanded before tiptoeing forward.

She peeked into the large room where she’d found the cigarette butts and bedding before. This time, the room was packed
with men, about thirty of them, leaning against the walls or huddling around the lanterns on the floor, reading newspapers or quietly playing cards. Most of them were terribly thin, with clothes more like strands of thread dangling from their skin.

Where had they all come from? Her pittance of food wouldn’t have done much to feed this many men, but it had been something to support them, to show she was resisting instead of just strengthening their enemy.

When she stepped into the room, the men quieted and they all turned to stare at her.

Michel elbowed his way through them. “Gigi, I—”

She stopped him before he began to lecture her again about coming into the tunnel. “The Nazis shot down an American plane in the valley.”

His mouth dropped open before he spoke. “Were there any survivors?”

She nodded slowly. “At least two of them.”

He stepped forward, his eyes wide. “Where are they?”

She cleared her throat. “In the tunnel, behind me.”

In the dim light, she watched his gaze falter between frustration and curiosity and perhaps even hope. “You weren’t supposed to tell anyone about this place,” he said, but there was no threat in his tone, as if he was speaking out for the sake of the men waiting behind him.

“I had to hide them, Michel.” She glanced at the faces of the men. “And it seems like half of Saint-Lô already knows about your tunnel.”

He swept his arm out beside him. “I trust my life to any of these men.”

“And you told me to trust the Americans as well.”

Michel buttoned the top button on his shirt. “We were just preparing to leave for the night.”

She shivered. What were they planning?

“Perhaps they can rest here until you return.” She hesitated. “One man has injured his arm.”

When Michel stepped into the corridor, most of the men continued whispering or playing their card games. Except one man. His gaze rested on her face, and even though his face was smudged with dirt like the others, his jawline shaded with whiskers, this man smiled at her.

When he stepped forward, her stomach somersaulted. “Do you remember me?” he asked.

She was almost afraid to speak with him but forced herself to answer. “I believe I do.”

“I’m Jean-Marc,” he said. “We went to primary school together.”

“Rausch.” She wrapped her arms across her chest. “Your name is Jean-Marc Rausch.”

He smiled again, as if he were pleased that she remembered him. She was pleased as well—that he was safe, hidden in the tunnel, and that the Germans, or Philippe, couldn’t interrogate him down here.

She rubbed her arms. “A lot has happened since primary school.”

“What has happened to you?” he asked.

She almost told him what she had done, how she had taken his name as her own, but Michel stepped into the room, the two airmen behind him. “Daniel’s arm is broken, but our doctor can set it,” he said to her before he turned back to the airmen. “If we can find someone to make you
papiers d’identité
, I have a friend who can escort you down to Spain and arrange your transport back to Great Britain.”

“We will need photographs to make identity papers,” Gisèle said.

“We have pictures.” Eddie opened his backpack. “In our emergency kits.”

Gisèle took the photographs from him and Daniel. “Then I’ll try and obtain papers for both of you.”

Eddie hugged her and Daniel carefully shook her hand. She might never see them again, yet they were all fighting together.

Michel escorted her toward the ledge. “Where will you get the papers?” he asked.

“I have a friend . . .”

“Be careful, Gigi.”

She nodded. “Are you afraid?”

In the dim light, she saw compassion in his eyes. “Of course.”

“Yet you continue to fight . . .”

“Courage doesn’t mean you stop being afraid.” He kissed her cheeks. “It means you continue to fight, even when you’re terrified.”

All these years, she’d thought her brother wasn’t afraid of anything.

As she climbed the steps to the
chapelle
, she tucked the men’s photographs into her brassiere and brushed the leaves out of her hair, the dust off her skirt. No matter how worn she was, no matter how afraid, she would continue to fight.

“Madame Rausch!” the patrolman called out as she moved through the cemetery. “It is not safe for you to be out tonight.”

Taking a deep breath, she turned to face him. “It is not safe to pray?”

He shook his head.

As he escorted her back to the château, he didn’t seem to notice the smell of damp moss or perspiration on her clothes. Nor did he notice the trembling in her hands or the prayers that slipped from her lips.

It might not have been safe to pray, even in the darkness, but on nights like this, she needed to pray even more. For courage for herself, in spite of her fears. For Eddie and his navigator. For Jean-Marc and Michel. For André and Nadine. And for all those aboveground with her trying to keep the earth from cracking wide open and swallowing the people they loved.

R
iley and I trekked down the hill beside the château, to the path along the Vire, so he could record footage of the river and the valley beyond it. My headache was already gone, replaced instead with an odd giddiness, as intoxicating as the nectar-laced honeybees that danced around the hawthorn blossoms.

Riley didn’t say anything else about Austin or mention our awkward exchange in the kitchen, but after he filmed the valley, he began to ramble on about a man he’d interviewed named Benjamin Tendler, a part-Jewish officer who had served in the Wehrmacht.

“Mr. Tendler knew the last name of the man who helped my grandfather with his papers. He said it was another German Jew in the Wehrmacht, a man named Josef Milch. Apparently, Milch falsified what was called an
Abnenpass
for Mr. Tendler to prove his Aryan lineage. With this document, he could stay in the military.”

“I still don’t understand why a Jewish man would stay in the German military,”

Riley returned his camera to his backpack. “The rest of Mr. Tendler’s family was killed at Auschwitz.”

“So he hid behind a German uniform?”

“How can you judge him, Chloe?” A look akin to torment flashed through Riley’s eyes. “How can any of us judge?”

I instantly backed down, and we began walking again toward the town. How could I judge a man’s decision to choose life over certain death, even if it meant he had to compromise what he valued? I’d hidden many times, even when the reasons for hiding weren’t life-and-death.

“You’re right,” I said. “I can’t judge him or Mr. Milch.”

“Mr. Tendler said he had a picture of him and Josef someplace. He’s going to try to email it to me.”

“If your grandfather met Josef Milch here, perhaps my grandmother knew him as well.”

Riley stopped and looked at me. “Mr. Tendler was in Saint-Lô the weeks after D-Day. He said he saw Josef here, sneaking through the night with a group of children.”

“Where were the children from?” I asked.

“There was a Catholic orphanage outside of the city that had taken in Jewish children after their parents were sent to concentration camps. The Nazis raided it in the days before the Americans liberated Saint-Lô, but the children were gone.”

“I wonder what happened to them.”

“Mr. Tendler didn’t know, but I want to get some footage of the place,” he said. “I’m hoping Madame Calvez can tell us where the orphanage is.”

“I’d like to go with you.”

He nodded.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” he asked as we neared Madame Calvez’s home.

I laughed. He’d never bothered in the past to obtain permission before asking after my personal life. “Why not?’ I said. My pride had already been wrecked.

“It seems to me—” He sounded a bit nervous. “Well, what did you see in a guy like Austin?”

Instead of hiding behind my polished shield, I decided to be gut-wrenchingly real with him. “Everyone wanted Austin.” I took a deep breath. “But Austin—I thought he wanted to be with me.”

And with those words, I realized that Austin was not the only selfish one in the relationship. Austin wanted to marry me for what he thought I could offer him, but I too wanted to marry Austin for what he could give me. Somehow I’d mixed up my worth with Austin’s love.

He turned to me. “You are valuable, Chloe. Without him.”

I kept walking, no longer wanting to talk about me. “Did you leave behind a girlfriend in New York?”

He was silent for a moment. “It’s been a long time since I had a serious relationship.”

“Not enough women in New York for you?” I quipped, the online pictures of him looping through my mind again. He was certainly handsome enough, and confident enough, to get mobbed by a horde of single women.

“I have no desire to be in a relationship for the sake of being in one,” he said. “I’ve made mistakes in the past, terrible ones. The next time I date a woman, I hope it’s for keeps.”

For some reason I blushed. Perhaps it was the intensity in his words. Or because I was still trying to figure out my upside-down emotions in the kitchen.

“One day, a man is going to try to earn your trust again, Chloe,” he said. “But the only one who won’t fail you is God.”

A verse flooded back to me, one that Mémé used to quote for me.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths
.

Maybe I did need to learn to trust Him completely before I trusted another man.

When Riley stopped again to film along the path, I heard laughter in the trees. Hiking a bit farther down the path, I saw Madame Calvez’s house. And then I saw Isabelle on the swing, her long hair flapping in the wind as the swing pitched her toward the sky.

“Mademoiselle!” Isabelle shouted, and then switched to her English at the peak of her swing. “Miss Chloe.”

I waved.

Her arms were flapping as she leaned forward and swung back toward me. “I’m flying.”

She flew past me, pumping up toward the sky.

“Is that man gone?”

I shouted up to her. “Which one?”

“The mean one,” she hollered as she swung past me again.

“He is.”

Her swing slowed. “I didn’t like him one bit.”

I smiled. “I’m not particularly fond of him either.”

“He said you were supposed to marry him.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“Good,” she said. “I think you should marry Monsieur Holtz instead.”

“I—”

Riley cleared his throat, and I wished I could fly with Isabelle. Far, far away.

When Isabelle saw him, she hopped off her swing and raced toward him. Kissed him on both of his cheeks. He looked as if he wanted to fly away as well.

“I will go find Grand-mère,” she said, skipping toward the back door.

Riley and I stood there in an uncomfortable silence. It was strange how one minute of time—one awkward comment—put us both back on edge. I couldn’t erase that moment, so I decided to make light of it. “For some odd reason, Isabelle likes you.”

His smile hung crooked with his shrug. “I suppose I am irresistible.”

I rolled my eyes. “Really, I think you’re just plain irritating.”

He laughed, and it felt so good to laugh with him.

We sat down on the patio again. “I’ll wait here,” I said. “Madame Calvez won’t tell you anything if I go inside.”

The back door slid open, and Isabelle hurried outside. Her brown eyes creased with worry, her smile erased.

I jumped up from my seat. “What is it?”

Her voice shook. “Something is wrong with Grand-mère.”

Riley and I rushed inside.

Chapter 49