The Room on Rue Amélie(13)

Something flickered across Ruby’s face. “Oh, yes. I think he will make a wonderful father.”

Charlotte nodded, but before she could say anything else, she heard her mother calling for her from inside. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I must go to school now.”

“Of course. I’ll see you later, then. And, Charlotte? Whenever you feel lonely, remember you have me for a friend.”

Charlotte couldn’t shake the conversation with Ruby all morning. She sat through her teachers’ lectures with her mind whirling as she replayed the look on Ruby’s face again and again. Her words about Monsieur Benoit making a wonderful father had sounded like a lie, but how could they be?

Then again, Monsieur Benoit was a bit of a mystery. Charlotte sometimes felt guilty, because Ruby had made a point of calling Charlotte her friend, but Charlotte hadn’t been completely honest with her. Wouldn’t a friend tell another friend that her husband was keeping secrets? She knew only that late at night when she couldn’t sleep, she sometimes heard Ruby’s husband whispering to people in the hall outside her door. Once in a while, there were movements too, shuffling, scraping, clicking sounds that didn’t make sense.

Now that Ruby was going to have a baby, Charlotte knew that she must find out what Monsieur Benoit was up to. It was the least she could do. Ruby had called her a friend, after all. So that night, after her parents were asleep, Charlotte crept out of bed and into the parlor. She felt fiercely protective of her neighbor all of a sudden, and as she sat in the darkness, waiting, she realized it was because of the look in Ruby’s eyes when she’d talked of Monsieur Benoit that morning. Charlotte didn’t understand what it was, exactly, but she knew something was wrong.

The hours ticked by, and Charlotte fought off the urge to fall asleep. By two-thirty in the morning, she began to think that she was being a fool. She had just gotten up to return to bed when there was a noise in the hall. She gasped and tiptoed to the door to look through the small peephole.

It was Monsieur Benoit! He was dressed in a dark overcoat that glistened with snowflakes. He had just come in from the cold, long past the curfew, and now he was standing in the hallway—crouching, really—and breathing hard. Charlotte stood as still as she could, but she had to stop herself from inhaling sharply a few seconds later when the front door to the building opened a crack. There was a noise on the stairs, and then there was a shadowy figure standing just outside Charlotte’s door.

“The bird flies at night,” the person said softly, and Charlotte was startled to realize that the voice belonged to a woman. Had Monsieur Benoit taken a mistress? While Ruby was pregnant? Icy anger coursed through Charlotte’s veins.

“Only through the storm,” Monsieur Benoit murmured back. It made no sense at all, but at least it wasn’t the amorous reply of a man to his paramour.

“Here,” the woman said, producing a small parcel from beneath her cloak and thrusting it at him. “Be careful.” And then she was gone again, down the stairs and out into the snowy night.

Charlotte remained as still as a statue in the silence that followed. For a long time, Monsieur Benoit just stood there, clutching the parcel and staring at the front door. It was almost as if he was expecting someone else. Then, finally, he seemed to snap out of his trance. All at once, he was a flurry of motion, unwinding the strings of the package and pulling out its contents, which, in the darkness, Charlotte could barely see. But it seemed to be a collection of men’s clothing, a tin of something, and a few fat sausages. What on earth?

Just when Charlotte thought the night couldn’t get any stranger, Monsieur Benoit stepped to the blank wall opposite his apartment, looked around, and pressed on one of the panels on the lower right side. This time, Charlotte couldn’t contain her gasp as a small door slid open and Marcel slipped inside. There was a hidden compartment in the hall large enough for a man? A moment later, he reemerged, his arms empty, and touched the wall again. The door slid closed and Monsieur Benoit looked furtively around once more before entering his own apartment, which Charlotte could see clearly because her doorway sat in the corner of the building, overlooking the whole hall.

Charlotte wanted to venture out to test the hidden door for herself, but if Monsieur Benoit heard her, she would certainly be in trouble. So she resolved to wait until the next time she saw him leave at night. She would learn then what secrets he was hiding, and she’d tell Ruby when the time was right. That’s what a true friend would do.





CHAPTER EIGHT


January 1941

By the start of the new year, death was everywhere. Oliver had been shot down over the outskirts of London just after the first of January, and John Stephens had plunged into the English Channel after taking down three enemy Messerschmitt Bf 109s. Still, Thomas kept fighting. He was feeling more and more at home in the cockpit; the Spit had become almost like an extension of himself. He didn’t even have to think about how to get it to do his bidding anymore; it bobbed and wove with the slightest tick of the column. And even though the logical part of his brain reminded him that he could die at any moment, he felt invincible soaring through the heavens, at one with the bright blue sky.

The condolence letter home to Oliver’s mother would be difficult, and as Thomas sat down to write it late one night at the base in South Wales where they had been stationed since late summer, he couldn’t help but think of his own mother. He owed her a visit, but he hadn’t been granted leave in quite a while. It was an all-men-on-deck situation. Nearly every night since early September, the Luftwaffe had bombed London. The city was burning, people were dying, and it was up to the RAF to put a stop to it. Some nights, it felt impossible. Other times, Thomas looked down at London below and marveled at the way the churches and monuments still stood tall, thumbing their noses at the Germans.