Page 52 of Love in the Shadows

“We have to move a group of sixteen children.”

Mamie’s eyes widened. “Through the tunnels?”

“Yes.”

They didn’t need to discuss the challenge the task presented. It was going to be impossible to move them all in one go. Fabienne had moved two people at a time, a maximum of three if they were small enough, in the hidden space in the milk-van. Moving people over time meant they needed somewhere to hold them. They would be exposed using the barns, though if that was the only option then Fabienne would have to consider it. Her idea, to use the wine cellar below the house, was insane. But, with Johanna’s help, it might just work.

“When?” Mamie cut a thin slice from the loaf she’d made over a week ago and ate it.

“The twenty-seventh of May.”

“It’s impossible to move that many people, Fabienne. Where will we keep them? The barns? Feed them with what?” Mamie shook her head.

Fabienne had had a lot of time to think during the night. The rendezvous was almost two months away and the Germans would have stopped their searches for the missing Jews by then and everything would have calmed down. “I think we need to use the cellar in the house.”

Mamie rinsed her cup and put it on the draining board to dry. “Right under the kommandant’s nose. Have you lost your mind?”

Fabienne smiled. “Possibly.” She kissed Mamie’s cheek. “But think about it. There will be less movement out in the open. The space is big enough, dry, and no one is going to be looking for them there. We will have time to get them to safety. And with Johanna’s help, it would be easier.”

“Does she know about this plan?”

Fabienne was working on Johanna without her knowing it, by getting her to store food in the cellar. “One step at a time.”

“And what about our current guest?” Mamie asked.

Fabienne sighed and shook her head. “She can’t be moved yet.”

“And if they come and search the cottage?” Mamie pointed in the direction of the living room, beyond it the yard and the kommandant’s house.

“I will ask for new papers for her. We will say she’s a cousin’s wife from Reims. Her husband is dead, and her house was destroyed. She had no one else to turn to.” Assigning the woman a new identity was possible; getting decently forged documents that would pass scrutiny wasn’t guaranteed. She hoped they would not need to use them.

“And what do we tell Nancy?”

Fabienne saw the fear in Mamie’s tired eyes. She didn’t want Nancy to think she had another relation she’d never met and ask questions they didn’t have answers to. But she couldn’t tell her the truth. “The same. I will go and talk to her now.” Fabienne was risking all their lives for this woman and her unborn baby. But, as Johanna had rightly said, she couldn’t let her die. She had a small wheel of cheese and a pad of butter to bargain with, and she would get what she needed. “I will make the arrangements when I go for our rations.”

“I must go to work,” Mamie said.

Fabienne waited until the back door closed before digging her hands through her hair. If she didn’t involve Johanna, she couldn’t see how to rescue the children. As for Esther Rosenblatt, all she could do was hope that their proximity to, and employment with, the Neumanns would keep them under the radar of German scrutiny for long enough. She didn’t like the growing uncertainty that stirred in her stomach, but it wasn’t an entirely new feeling. She had to carry on as if nothing had changed. She touched her arm where the tenderness reminded her of Johanna’s attentiveness, the kiss, and the gift of real coffee.

Everything had changed.

Her world had tilted and now spun on a new axis, and the future looked very different than she had imagined possible even before the war. There had never been a woman who had turned her head and her heart so completely. The longing simmered inside her, increased her appetite. And therein lay the danger. Looking too far ahead, dreaming of a different life with a woman she loved. It affected her thinking, her judgement, her decision-making. And that might be all it would take to get them killed.

She went upstairs to wake Nancy and tell her about the distant relative who had arrived.

22.

AT THE DAIRY, MAURICE had complained bitterly to Fabienne about how the extended cold weather had affected the milk yield, which was down another churn this week. They had had a similar problem the previous year, he told the familiar guard. She had agreed with him as the van had been loaded with additional crates for the German barracks and only half a churn for French citizens. It was better than nothing, and Fabienne would supplement it from the stock they kept hidden in the disused cave near the cheese factory.

The officious, intense guard had been moved to a new post that morning, which was some relief as he had a keen eye for detail and an unbending will to do his job to the highest standard. He was the perfect soldier and a giant pain in the arse to them.

She left the dairy and stopped at the church, gathered up the wrapped cheese and butter from the footwell in the van, and started through the graveyard to the front doors. She had Esther Rosenblatt’s Ausweis tucked in a pocket inside her coat.

“Halt!”

Fabienne stopped. Her heart thundered, and she prayed they didn’t search her. “Guten morgen, Herr Sturmführer.” She smiled.

The senior of the two guards waved his hand at her. “Papers.”

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