The Room on Rue Amélie(48)
“I might ask you the same.”
He laughed, which turned into a hacking cough. “I was shot out of the sky over Abbeville. A farmer saw my plane go down and reached me before the Germans did. Hid me in his barn for two days before passing me along to a chap who drove me to another town. I slept three nights there in the basement of an inn, then I was picked up by a member of the Resistance, who gave me a bicycle and had me follow him to the suburbs of Paris. I was given instructions to come to you. I’m told this is my last stop before I head for Spain.”
Ruby was sure he wasn’t supposed to have filled her in in such detail. “Each of us only knows the next step in the line,” she said gently. “But please take care not to tell anyone else where you stayed at each step of the way. It could endanger the operation.”
He narrowed his eyes, and she could tell in an instant he wasn’t accustomed to being chided. “I didn’t give you any details. Besides, surely you know all of this already.”
“Actually, I didn’t.”
“If you say so.”
She didn’t like the way he was looking at her now.
“Anyhow,” he said, “I suppose Fleur isn’t your real name.”
“I suppose not.” She left it at that.
“Well, then. My name is Lawrence. Not an assumed name, mind you. Lawrence Bartholomew Fischer. I fly Spitfires.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Fischer. And I think you’ll find the accommodations here quite suitable. I’ll show you to the closet.”
“The . . . closet?”
FISCHER WAS WITH RUBY FOR a day and a half, followed less than a week later by a bomber pilot named Harley Holt and then a gunner named Stephen Orlando. They ran together after that; one or two a week would show up at her door, and each time, she would welcome them, feed them, and sneak them into the hall closet, where they waited for Laure to pick them up.
There were a few close calls—neighbors who happened to see the men coming or going, the infrequent appearances of the concierge, Madame Lefèvre, in the hall downstairs—but Ruby knew from their pursed lips that they assumed she was entertaining various gentleman callers. Just as well.
Charlotte, however, was well aware of what was going on, and this concerned Ruby. She knew she could trust her young neighbor, but in the end, Charlotte was only a girl. What if she let something slip? Or what if Ruby was found out and someone believed that Charlotte and her family had been involved?
Still, Ruby couldn’t turn her back on the men.
In her third month working with the escape line, she was surprised to welcome an Air Force pilot on loan to the RAF who’d been raised in Palmdale, just ten miles from her own hometown. “Golly, miss, of course I know Lancaster!” he’d exclaimed when she told him where she was from. She knew she shouldn’t be handing out details like that, and normally, she was much more discreet, but she couldn’t help jumping at the opportunity to reminisce about Southern California with a stranger who had somehow found his way to her door on the other side of the world. “Your parents must be mighty worried about you. You hear from them often?”
She shook her head. “It’s been months now.”
“Damned war. Well, if you want, I can get a message to them on your behalf when I get home.”
She hesitated. For a second, it sounded like a dream come true. But telling him her real name or who her parents were came with too many complications. She’d already said too much. “Just help the Allies win the war, will you?”
“Yes, miss.” His expression was grave. “I will do my absolute best. It’s why I’m so eager to get out of this damned city. No offense intended, of course.”
“None taken. It does feel a bit like Paris is damned, doesn’t it?”
He nodded and looked toward her window. “I imagine this must have been a pretty beautiful place before the war.”
“It truly was.”
“You think you’ll move back to the States when this is all done?”
“I honestly don’t know. I have trouble thinking beyond tomorrow.”
“Strange how war changes things, isn’t it? I was supposed to be taking over my father’s tax business. Instead, I’m hiding out in a pretty stranger’s apartment in Paris. Never thought I’d wind up here.”
“Neither did I,” Ruby said, and like the pilot, she wasn’t just talking about Paris. She was talking about the way life had twisted, the way she no longer recognized the ground she was standing on. “But the war can’t last forever, can it? Maybe it’s not too late to find our way back to the lives we’re supposed to have.”
“Or maybe this is it.” The pilot smiled sadly. “Maybe this is exactly who we were meant to be all along.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
October 1941
After Thomas left Ruby’s apartment, Laure led him to a train station in Paris, where there were three other British pilots waiting, each with his own guide. Thomas had been given strict orders not to acknowledge any of them—and certainly not to talk to them—but it was a comfort just to know they were there. He was no longer in this alone, which made him feel like he had a legitimate chance of survival.
They boarded a night train to Bordeaux, and though Laure was in his compartment, he was not to look at her or attempt to communicate in any way. The value of a night train was that he could feign sleep each time a train official or German officer walked by, and that was exactly what he did, cracking his eyes open slightly only after their footfalls had disappeared. In the morning, they switched to a train to Bayonne, and he caught glimpses of the other pilots boarding cars along with their guides too. So far, so good; they were in southern France now, which seemed less perilous than Paris.