Page 11 of Love in the Shadows

He didn’t look up. “Because you were not safe in Berlin.”

“And you can guarantee that we will be here? Have you looked around you?”

He turned a page. “I cannot talk to you about the war, Johanna. But you need to trust that you will be better off here than in Berlin.”

“Better off in isolation, surrounded by French people. You cannot discuss your work, and I have none to share with you. There’s nothing for us to talk about.”

He put the paper on the table and lit a cigarette, then continued to read as he smoked. “You must realise we also have enemies in Berlin. You cannot be so naïve as to think otherwise.”

Anger blossomed inside her head, making it hard to think. She was neither naïve nor a fool, but the French hated the air they breathed and the ground they walked on. At least in Berlin she had been able to spend some time among old friends where she could forget the truth. She would rather die there than in this wilderness. “Astrid has no friends here, Gerhard. She’s a child, and children need to play.” She clenched her fists under the table and gritted her teeth.

He looked up and held her gaze with an emptiness in his eyes that unsteadied her. Unlike the resignation and defeat she’d seen in the French people queuing on the street, he also conveyed deep passion, not for her in the slightest but for his work. He frightened her.

“No one is our friend, Johanna.”

His tone softened and for a moment she thought she saw a glimmer of something of the man she knew. That hope was gone in the blink of an eye.

“I’m going to bed. I’ll be gone before you rise.” He stood, gathered up his paper and hat, and turned to her. “Remember, you’re here to help, Johanna. We will have important guests to host, and you will go to the National Socialist Women’s Group meetings, show your allegiance while you are here.”

She gritted her teeth. She had not come here to sit among a group of women she had little in common with and whose purpose in life had become the promotion of unopposed ideological rhetoric.

He turned and left her.

Tears welled in her eyes and slipped onto her cheeks. She hurt from his deception, and the loss of her career and the freedom she’d once had seemed suddenly more poignant than ever. A stronger man would not have felt threatened by her continuing to play for the orchestra. She hadn’t had the courage to insist back then because of the impact on his budding career. And after the war broke out, his perspective was reinforced by the Reich. Her life, her voice, had been stripped away from her. Now, all she was good for was hosting senior officers of the SS and listening to women spiel ill thought through nonsense. She would not go to the damned meetings, no matter what.

“Is everything finished with, Frau Neumann?”

She wiped her cheeks, cleared her throat and stood up, avoiding eye contact. “Yes. We are done here.”

She walked out of the dining room, a little unsteady on her feet, once again feeling the woman’s gaze on her back. She liked herself a little less too, for speaking to Fraulein Brun in a tone that resembled her husband’s. Johanna was not like Gerhard, and, for the sake of Astrid, she was not going to let herself become like him either.

“Bonsoir, Madame Neumann.”

Johanna turned her head at the softly spoken French. The tenderness in her tone was more unnerving than her earlier feistiness. “Gute Nacht, Fraulein Brun,” she said.

She left the dining room, sent Kohl in to watch over the French women as they cleared up, and made her way to bed feeling exposed and vulnerable.

***

FABIENNE WATCHED THE HOUSE from her bedroom, the slither of light that the shutters didn’t hide at her old bedroom window at the opposite end to the master suite. Frau Neumann had taken a separate bedroom, and who could blame her? The kommandant was a pig, and one Fabienne would be happy to see roasting on a spit.

The light went out just after midnight and she took herself to bed, lit a cigarette and smoked it while staring into the darkness, reflecting on the exchange between the Neumanns at dinner.

Frau Neumann wasn’t a bad person from what she could tell, though it was still early days. However, if the kommandant’s wife had wanted to make her mark with them, she would have done so already. It was clear that her relationship with her husband was more than a little fraught and upsetting to her. Theirs wouldn’t be the first marriage to suffer because of the war, and she hoped they suffered a lot and not just in their marriage.

But a spurned wife and doting mother might be less likely to adopt her fascist husband’s perspective and be more unwilling to condone the inhumane cruelty that the Nazis continued to inflict. Added to that, Frau Neumann had no friends here; she had no one to turn to other than the nanny or her daughter. And from personal experience, Fabienne knew that wasn’t the same as having a friend to speak to in confidence. If Fabienne was right, a division such as she had just witnessed between the Neumanns could prove very useful to their cause. If, and it was a big if, she could get Frau Neumann to trust and confide in her…

6.

RETRIEVING THE AIRMEN FROM the barn had gone smoothly but from there on in there was a higher risk of being stopped by the German soldiers who monitored curfew. Fabienne had a permit that covered her for her dairy duties at this time of day, but if they decided to search the truck and discovered the airmen, they would be executed before sunrise.

The drone from the vehicles on the road had slowed overnight, but that just meant the distant crackle of gunfire when it came seemed closer. In the early days of the war, she used to hear the less-threatening pop of a shotgun: those brave enough to flout the rules of curfew to hunt for boars. Drawing the night guards’ attention towards the woods didn’t help her to move freely though, and she was glad that no one had been boar hunting in many months. Even though the French people were starving, it was no longer worth the risk of being caught.

She watched the house as she opened the rear doors of the milk van. It didn’t look as if anyone was up, but it was hard to tell for sure with the shuttered windows. Certainly, Frau Neumann’s room remained shrouded in darkness. But the kommandant’s schedule varied, and he might leave the house at any time of day or night.

She checked again from window to window for any signs of movement before calling the airmen forward from the side of the cottage where she’d left them waiting. She climbed into the back of the truck, moved the pallets towards the rear of the van, and opened the trap door to reveal the hidden space beneath. She signalled for the two men to get inside.

“You’re going to be in there for two hours, maybe longer. Be patient. We must go to the dairy and make deliveries first. Keep still and stay silent, okay?”

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