The Postmistress of Paris(109)

They followed Nanée, he and Luki. He and Luki and Pemmy and Joey, Luki might have said. How thankful he was for Madam Menier sending the kangaroos. How thankful he was for her helping Nanée get Luki out of occupied France. For the foreman and the housekeeper and the chauffeur who helped her. For the nuns who kept her safe before that. For Berthe. For everyone who had protected Luki when he couldn’t.

Nanée stopped. She stood absolutely still. He heard what she heard then. Not voices but something lower, something that quickly took shape as the sound of footsteps. Not just one person but several, it sounded like.

Nanée backed away from the cliff edge, to the wall of rock, for the protection of the overhang.

He did the same, pulling Luki with him, wishing the awful howl of the wind would return so they wouldn’t be heard.

A small, muted note sounded.

Edouard listened in fear, horrified to see that Pemmy and the little musical joey had fallen onto the ground on the other side of the path. An inch or two farther, and they would tumble into the chasm.

“Was war das?” a voice above them demanded. What was that?





Monday, December 9, 1940





THE PYRENEES


Nanée squatted carefully, silently. The footsteps overhead had stopped, the voices so close that she could reach up and pass them a canteen for a sip of water. She didn’t think they could see Edouard and Luki and her, but if they looked over the edge, they would see the kangaroos.

Voices responded to that first familiar voice, Robert’s voice—the German from the Kundt Commission who’d tried to charm her the night before in Banyuls-sur-Mer. The soldiers spoke among themselves, German she couldn’t begin to understand.

Could she get the stuffed kangaroos before the Germans caught sight of them? Her flying scarf around Pemmy’s neck was so close she could almost reach it from where she was.

“Musik,” Robert said. “Ich h?re Musik.”

Nanée grabbed the kangaroos. She tried to move carefully, but still the music sounded again, a single note from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, “Waltz of the Flowers.” Nasty creatures always get their comeuppance in the end, Daddy had assured her.

But that had been pretend. This wasn’t pretend.

Another quiet metallic plink sounded.

“H?rt ihr das?” Robert insisted. “Musik.”

The soldiers went silent just above them.

Nanée held her breath and listened, thinking Robe Heir. Thinking little Bobby and imagining this Robert too as she’d imagined the commandant, as a pathetic little boy playing dress-up in a ratty old robe that had been his grandmother’s. Are you an honorable man?

Several of the men on the road above were talking at once now, all looking for the source of Robert’s music.

She racked her mind for a plan. She had an American passport. Luki had an American passport. But Edouard was a stateless refugee, with one set of documents that were forged and another under his own name, which was on the Gestapo list for deportation to Germany.

How many of these men had there been the night before? In their black boots and their black uniforms, their black limousines, their black hearts. Were they all there now?

She fingered the kangaroo’s mohair ear the way she so often fondled Dagobert’s. Would she ever see him again?

What a brave girl you are. You don’t even cry.

“Die Musik ist in deinem Kopf,” one of the other Gestapo above them said. Not Robe Heir.

There was much hilarity in response.

“Die Musik muss aus der Tiefe der H?hle kommen. Mach weiter, Robert. Springen!”

They laughed and laughed at that.

Voices again, and the sound of scrambling above. One of them climbing down?

Nanée looked about, but there was nowhere for Edouard and Luki and her to hide, nowhere to escape. Just the narrow, rocky path in either direction, and the long drop off the cliff ledge.

More scrambling. A tussle?

More words. More laughter.

Boys taunting each other, like they had when Robe Heir had stopped to flirt with her last night. Like Dickey and his friends had taunted her that time she went dove hunting with Daddy and them.

The Gestapo moved on, still laughing.

They appeared up ahead on the curving road, three men in black boots and black uniforms. Only three.

If she could see them, they could see her. Their backs were to her, walking away, but if they turned now and looked, they would see Edouard and Luki and her.

She signaled for Edouard to stay up against the cliff wall behind her. She was already removing her gloves and reaching into the pocket of her flight jacket for her pearl-handled Webley.

There were only three Germans.

She tucked the kangaroos between her thighs to free her hands, and silently readied the gun.

The Nazis kept moving forward, kept laughing.

She pointed the gun, both hands on the grip and her finger on the trigger, her arms straight out in front of her, the way her father taught her.

Focusing on the target.

Wishing she could do something else with the kangaroos so she could widen her stance.

Wishing she had a longer-barreled gun for the better shot.

Willing the men not to turn back, not to see them.

Perfectly still and focused.

She had a clean line of sight.

They weren’t far away now, but with each passing moment they were expanding the distance.