Page 79 of Love in the Shadows

Johanna smiled. “Nanny, would you like an omelette?”

Nanny looked flustered. “Well, if that’s possible. Thank you.”

“Of course,” Fabienne said. She averted her eyes and set to work whisking the eggs.

Nanny’s eyelids set heavily over her eyes, and dark rings highlighted the bags that sagged down her cheeks.

Johanna should have noticed how tired she was before. It hadn’t dawned on her that Nanny and Frau Tussaud would be about the same age. Nanny was possibly a few years older. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Nanny?”

Nanny’s wrinkles deepened and her cheeks coloured. “That would be very nice, thank you.”

Johanna indicated to the table. “Sit down. Let’s have breakfast together.”

Johanna sensed Nanny’s silent questions and the evident discomfort that had her sitting as though the seat spiked her. She presented her with a cup of coffee and sat at the table next to her. Johanna would have liked to have confided in her, helped her to see that these were good people, kind people, and not the enemy. But where would she start, and what if Nanny couldn’t bear to hear the words and turned against Johanna because of them. Nanny had said she would protect Johanna, but that didn’t mean she would condone the level of fraternisation they were engaged in.

Fabienne served them both an omelette with a smile.

Frau Tussaud had set the crepe batter to rest and was making pastry.

Nanny and Johanna ate breakfast together for the first time since Johanna had been a child. Nanny’s discomfort seemed to ease a little as she tucked into the omelette. For Johanna, the status differences that had always existed between them, that had dictated her life and caused her to fear her father and husband and doubt her own worthiness, dissolved. She wasn’t the Johanna Neumann who had played for the Berliner Philharmoniker, or who had entertained the elite wives in a city she had once adored, or the wife who had arrived in Erstein eight months earlier. For the first time in her life, she was free from it all and even though she didn’t know where that freedom would lead her next, it didn’t matter.

Nanny finished breakfast, sighed and put her hand to her belly. “That was delicious. Thank you. I’ll go and get Astrid ready for school.” She stood up.

“You can take the afternoon off today, Nanny. I’ll take care of Astrid. Hauptmann Schmidt will be painting the shutters at the back of the house.”

Nanny’s eyebrows raised, though there was a hint of a smile tugging at her lips. “Very well, Frau Neumann.”

***

Fabienne was sitting with her back against the woodshed at the back of the cottage, savouring the sun, when Johanna and Astrid turned up after lunch.

A shadow fell across her face, and she blinked her eyes open to see Johanna smiling down at her. The dark-blue summer dress complemented her eyes, not that she’d been able to tell her that earlier. She was the most beautiful woman Fabienne had ever met.

Astrid darted past her and into the kitchen, heading for Nancy’s room.

Johanna sat down next to her. “You look relaxed.” She smelled faintly of lavender.

Fabienne didn’t feel anything – she’d just been trying to let the reality of what had happened settle – so it didn’t taunt her waking thoughts. She sat up straighter and held Johanna’s hand. The contact was both soothing and disconcerting. Love had always felt this way, like a deep longing that always came with a warning attached to it. She should be happy to have had the chance to love Johanna as Johanna loved her, but she wasn’t. It would never be enough. Was it unreasonable to want more? And, knowing that forever wasn’t likely, was it not sensible to let that love go before their hearts broke so completely? She knew the answer, but she couldn’t stop wanting Johanna.

Johanna assessed her, frowning. “Are you okay?”

Fabienne continued to stare out over the fields. “There is a lot to process.” She wasn’t okay, not about anything right now. She needed to be held, to feel safe, and to forget.

Johanna squeezed her hand. “I don’t suppose me saying that you did the right thing is going to help.”

Fabienne knew she’d had no choice but to shoot the guards. It was the retaliations that distressed her more; the innocent victims who had suffered because of her actions. “I sometimes wonder whether what we do is worth it: nineteen children saved and thirty-two—”

“Don’t, Fabienne. You’ll turn yourself inside out, and what’s done is done. If we thought about the numbers, we wouldn’t act. My countrymen don’t care how many people they kill, and that kind of evil has to be stopped. No one fighting against oppression dies in vain. We must do what we can until the war stops.”

Louis Bertrand had taught Fabienne that they didn’t have the luxury of being able to keep the German soldiers alive while also saving the prisoners. She had killed Müller because he deserved it, and there hadn’t been any recriminations. But the patrol soldiers were just doing their job. That was different. She rubbed her tired eyes. “I didn’t want to shoot.”

Johanna wrapped her arm around her shoulder, held her close. “We do what we must. It’s called survival. If they had opened that trap door, we wouldn’t be sat here now, and they would probably have also come after your grandmother and Nancy as well. My husband would have been disgraced, and Astrid…God knows what would have happened to her.”

Fabienne took a deep breath and released it slowly. “I know.” She eased away from Johanna and got to her feet, held out her hand. “Will you come with me for a while, where we can be alone together?”

They went indoors. Linette was in the living room with Bénédicte. She acknowledged Johanna with a wave.

“I’m going to get the girls to make the jam sandwiches and cut up some chunks of cheese,” Mamie said. “Linette picked some berries, so we’ll have a pie.”

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