A Feather on the Water(41)

Delphine had forgotten it was Sunday. Since coming to Seidenmühle, weekends had ceased to exist.

She’d walked past the chapel many times, but she’d never been inside. She hesitated on the threshold. The idea of entering a holy place—however humble—felt uncomfortable. The last time she had entered one had been the day she’d discovered that Claude and Philippe were never coming home.

She’d wandered into an empty church near the Hotel Lutetia. Half-blind from crying, she’d slumped down in one of the pews. Sitting with her eyes closed, breathing in the smell of wax polish and incense, she’d prayed for a sign. For something, anything, to let her know that they were still there. But there had been nothing in that hallowed building that spoke to her. Looking about her, she had an overwhelming feeling that the beauty of the architecture and the objects that adorned it were for the glory of man, not God. And the silence was unbearable. There was no comfort to be had in that place.

“Madame Fabius!” Father Josef must have spotted her loitering in the doorway. She hardly recognized him in his priest’s robes. He was standing at the far end of the chapel, beckoning her inside.

With a deep breath, she walked down the narrow aisle. It felt different from what she’d expected. The wooden walls gave off a warmth that had been sadly lacking in the Parisian church. And it smelled different. No beeswax here, nor incense. The single candle on the altar table gave off no discernible odor. There was a faint scent of something that reminded her of the florist’s shop on Avenue Foch that she used to visit before the war. She spotted the vases of wildflowers on either side of the altar: roses, like the ones Wolf had given her, and trailing swathes of honeysuckle.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said.

“Don’t be.” He smiled. “It’s a pleasure to see you. You’re a little early, but it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh.” She looked at her feet, embarrassed that he’d thought she’d come for Mass. “I’m afraid I can’t stay; I have to get back to the hospital. There’s a woman there—one of the new arrivals—who would like her baby baptized.”

“Of course. I understand,” he said when she explained about the parents not being married. “Tell them I can marry them at the same time as I christen the baby, if that’s what they want.”

Delphine’s eyes were drawn to a crucifix on the table behind him. She had always thought it a gruesome aspect of the Catholic Church, to have an effigy of that broken body on display. In her opinion, the cross on its own was enough to convey the message. But suddenly she saw it in a new way, as if she were looking through the eyes of the DPs who would soon be arriving for Mass. It struck her that such an image would have a particular poignancy for people who had survived the horrors of Nazi labor camps.

“Kitty told me you were in Dachau.” The words came out unbidden. Something about this place had drawn them out of her.

“Yes, I was,” he replied.

“My husband died there. And my son.” It was as if someone had invaded her body, taken control of her mouth. The realization that she had uttered the words that she had feared letting out for so long made her feel faint.

“What are their names?”

Are? He’d used the present tense. As if they were still alive.

“M . . . my husband’s name is C . . . Claude,” she stuttered. “M . . . my son’s is Philippe.” It was the first time she’d said their names out loud since that terrible day in the Hotel Lutetia. Her legs gave way. She sank down onto one of the wooden benches.

“Can you tell me about them?” Father Josef sat down beside her.

Delphine took a breath. Then it all came tumbling out. “Claude was a doctor at the American Hospital in Paris. He used to hide people on the wards—Allied airmen on the run from the Germans. If we had a visit from the Nazis, Claude would pretend that the men were unconscious, so they wouldn’t give themselves away if a German spoke to them.” She pressed her lips together, aware that her jaw was trembling. “Philippe was in the Resistance. He helped the men get out of France—organized a safe house and an escape route via Spain.”

“And they were arrested?”

“Yes.” The word caught in her throat. “I . . . I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I . . . haven’t . . . I’ve never . . .”

“It’s all right. Take your time.”

She nodded, swallowing hard. Now that it was out, she needed to tell him all of it. “By the spring of ’44, too many people knew the secret. Someone told the Germans about the safe house. Claude was there with Philippe when the place was raided.”

“They took them to Dachau?”

“I didn’t know where they were. Not at first. Then I got a postcard. It was months after they were arrested. Claude had smuggled it out via someone in the camp who had a sister in Switzerland—that was where it was posted from. It said that he and Philippe were alive and that they were together.” She paused. Her mouth was so dry she had to swallow again. “That was at the end of August ’44. The Allies had already invaded, and Paris was liberated. I kept hoping, praying that my boys would come walking through the door.”

She told him about the daily vigil at the Hotel Lutetia, and the man who had spotted the photographs she’d pinned up on the wall. “He was in the Resistance—running a safe house in another part of Paris,” she said. “He was arrested the same day as my husband and son. When he told me what had happened, I realized that by the time I’d received that postcard, Claude and Philippe were already dead.” She grasped the hard wooden edge of the bench, the thin skin on the backs of her hands as tight as a drum. “They were together, at least,” she murmured. “That’s what I cling to.”