The Last of the Stanfields(44)
“Careful now: I haven’t made any promise.”
“Oh yes you have. Maybe not with words, but your eyes sure did.”
“You’re not following me. You didn’t think I’d want anything in return? This is Sam Goldstein you’re talking to, my boy! My condition is as follows: should some ill twist of fate befall me before you, take Hanna with you back to Baltimore. And don’t tell me I drive a hard bargain. You and I both know your end of the deal is much sweeter. You get to take a cruise with my lovely daughter, and I with your coffin!”
After a laugh and a nod, the two men sealed the deal with a firm handshake.
As it turned out, Robert did make it back from his mission just fine, and May 1944 came and went with no Lysander arriving to take him back to England. By early June, the war had escalated even further. Stranded and seemingly forgotten, Robert grew more and more involved with the Resistance.
With the arrival of the Allied Forces imminent, the partisans began emerging from the shadows. Armed Resistance fighters rose out of nowhere to strike the enemy. The beaches of Normandy were a world away, and even with Allied Forces on the march, peaceful days weren’t coming nearly as quickly as Sam and Robert had hoped. Backed into a corner, the Germans began lashing out, their crackdowns increasing in severity. The most fanatical members of the local militias had yet to surrender, and instead doubled down on their relentless hunt for Resistance fighters.
One night, an enemy patrol of local militiamen came dangerously close to discovering the hunting lodge. Lookouts spotted them approaching through the forest and raised the alarm. Sam and Hanna ran to hide in the cellar while the partisan crew stationed themselves at the windows, guns in hand.
With tension mounting, Sam came up and begged Robert to join them in the cellar. Once below, Sam led Robert to a wall of some twenty-odd crates that had been stacked up to mask the secret tunnel leading to the weapons cache. The men moved aside boxes until there was a large enough gap for Hanna to slip through. The tunnel was nearly ten meters long, with sufficient space for Hanna to hide for a short time. But she refused.
“Not without you, Papa!” Hanna pleaded. “I won’t be locked up in there without you.”
“Do as I say, Hanna! You mustn’t question me. You know what you’re responsible for now. You have to do the right thing.”
Sam hugged his daughter close, then began stacking up the crates once more to close the gap. Robert stood watching in shock. It was the very first time he had heard Hanna speak a single word, and the mere sound of her voice had left him dumbstruck.
“Well, are you just going to stand there gawking or are you going to lend a hand?”
“Sam, don’t be crazy! Get into the damn hole with your daughter, and let me seal the two of you up in there.”
“No. Not this time, I refuse. I’ve spent too long burrowing down here like a frightened animal. If the good guys are taking on the enemy, I plan to join in and fight by their side.”
Once the crates were back in place, Sam and Robert climbed back up to ground level, and each took position at a window with a Sten submachine gun in hand.
“You know how to use that thing?” Robert asked.
“Well, you don’t have to be a genius, do you? Let me guess: Pull the trigger?”
This made a nearby partisan snicker. “You hold it like this, by the magazine, old man, or all you’ll end up doing is shooting a bunch of holes in the ceiling,” he said. “That thing’s got a hair trigger, so hold on tight. You do so much as hiccup, you’ll set it off!”
They could hear the militiamen stalking through the forest outside, the sound of their footsteps marking their approach. The partisans were tightwire tense, barely even breathing as they waited to open fire on a pack of faceless enemies. Just then, the militiamen abruptly departed, and everyone sighed with relief. They had never even set foot on the path leading toward the hunting lodge.
Crisis averted, Sam and Robert went down to free Hanna from her hiding place. The girl immediately stormed up the stairs and disappeared into her room. Robert started to follow, but Sam stopped him with a hand on his arm. He dragged his American friend down into the dark tunnel, came to a sudden stop, and sparked up a lighter. Robert squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light.
“I got the idea from watching the partisans dig away down here, hiding their weapons,” the art dealer whispered. “See this wooden post?” he asked, running his hand over one of the thick beams holding up the tunnel. “I’ve used it as my very own hiding spot.”
In the glow of the flickering flame, Sam slid out part of the wooden beam and waved Robert in for a closer look. A deep hole had been dug into the wall behind, and Robert could make out some kind of a tube hidden within, the flames reflecting off its metal surface.
“I rolled them inside the cylinder and hid it here where they would be safe,” Sam said. “Whatever fate befalls the two of us, they must never get into German hands.”
Robert watched entranced as Sam slid the wooden beam back into place.
“Manet, Cézanne, Delacroix, Fragonard, Renoir, Ingres, Degas, Corot, Rembrandt. And of course, my precious Hopper. The ten most beautiful paintings from my entire collection . . . the spoils of a life’s work. Priceless masterpieces. Priceless. Enough to ensure Hanna’s entire future.”
“Who else knows about this?”