The Darkest Hour(26)
When I reach the city limits, a briny breeze ripples through my stolen dress and I catch my first glimpse of Cherbourg. It looks like a postcard I could send home to Maman, with the sky and sea a blazing blue and the pretty town houses pressed together like sweet buns straight out of the oven. Out in the harbor, dozens of ships float quietly on the calm waters, reminding me of the bottled letters that Theo and I threw into the harbor when we were kids. Did any of them ever make it this far?
Once I guide my bicycle into town, however, my quaint postcard of a city gets torn to pieces. It’s clear that the war has brought destruction to Cherbourg. I pedal past a brick shell of a shoe factory—a casualty of the bombings, I’m sure—and over streets littered with fresh rubble that leaves my shoes caked in dust. The Nazis and Allies have been playing tug-of-war with the city, hoping to gain control of its port. At the rate they’re going, though, I wonder if there’ll be anything left of Cherbourg once they’re finished.
I avoid the Germans the best I can, but I can only avoid so much. My fists clench around the handlebars each time I spot one of their trucks or a pair of their uniformed patrols, and I lead the bicycle around corners and into sour-smelling alleys to get away from them. These side streets take me farther and farther from the safe house, but I’d rather get there in one piece than not at all.
By the time I track back to the coordinates it’s well past noon, and I wonder if Sabine has already caught up with me. I spot the safe house, but I don’t knock straightaway. I ride past it to size up the place. It’s a sliver of a building, four stories tall, and skinny as a matchstick. I look over the windows and roofline to detect whether it has been compromised—maybe a broken window or a radio antenna poking out where it shouldn’t be—but the place looks clean, at least from the outside.
My pulse scatters at what I’ll find on the other side of those walls, but I march up to the front door and rap three times. Footsteps shuffle from inside, and the door creaks open an inch, revealing a snow-haired woman peering up at me through the crack. She’s a tiny thing, with a long nose and round unblinking eyes like a heron’s.
Suspicion paints her voice cold. “I’m not interested in what you’re selling.”
“Madame, I’m not here to sell you anything.” I step closer and dim my voice to a whisper so that I can tell her the code phrase that Harken instructed me to give. “The piano will be tuned this September.”
Her expression does an about-face. A smile springs onto her lips, and she tells me the correct code phrase in return. “I look forward to playing more Chopin.” Then she tugs me inside the house under the wings of her shawl. “Whatever took you so long? Come in, come in.”
Once I’m tucked inside the woman’s cozy house, I’m greeted by a stone fireplace that holds a spitting-hot fire. There’s a pot hanging above the flames, and the scent of whatever is cooking inside of it—hearty and meaty—makes my mouth water. The woman drags me to her kitchen table and introduces herself as Ava Rochette while she plies me with a cup of water and a bowl of onion stew. Clucking over me, she insists on wrapping up my injured wrist, all the while explaining how she joined the Resistance in Cherbourg a year ago, not long after her two grandsons were taken to Germany in the draft.
“I decided that if I couldn’t bring them back from Germany myself, I’d fight the Germans here the best that I could,” she says with a long sigh. But she saves a smile for me. “What am I to call you, dear?”
I nearly give her Fleurette, but I remember that alias has been compromised. Instead I say, “Marie-Louise,” the name on my extra papers. I scan the room for any sign of Sabine. Even on foot, she should’ve arrived by now. She’s quick and she knows this area, and I half expect her to bound down the narrow set of stairs. “Did my colleague arrive earlier? She has dark hair and goes by the name of—”
“Non, you’re the first. I was told yesterday to expect two girls from the Parisian Resistance, but when both of you failed to come I thought that the Nazis must’ve gotten to you.”
“We escaped from them.” Barely, I almost add. I don’t correct her, either, about my being in the Resistance. Outside of Laurent, only a handful of French know about Covert Operations’ existence—and we’d like to keep it that way. I drain the rest of my water and thank Madame Rochette for it while I dig into the stew. “I’ll need to speak with Monsieur Dorner as soon as possible. Is he being kept nearby?”
She chuckles. “You could say that. The Resistance put him in my attic.”
I nearly drop my spoon. “He has been here this whole time?”
“Yes, right on top of our heads.” She points up to the second floor. “I agreed to take him in after another safe house came under suspicion.”
“The Resistance left him with you, alone?”
“Oh, I can protect myself, don’t you fret,” she says, sipping at her grilled-barley tea and nodding at the enormous butcher knife that takes residence beside her copper sink. “Dorner has been expecting someone to come interrogate him.”
“Your Resistance contacts haven’t questioned him yet?”
“They did, but just enough to decide to contact your liaisons in Paris. Do you wish to see Dorner now?”
My appetite vanishes, and I set down my spoon. See him now? If Major Harken were here, he’d tell me to wait for Sabine. Don’t you forget that I left Chevalier in charge, he’d say, before reminding me of the two missions I’ve botched already.