Page 99 of Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure
“Who knows anymore,” he said. “The world has gone mad. We are all being ruled by a madman.”
“What about your wife?” Ellie asked because she noticed the wedding band on his finger. “What will happen to her?”
“She is not Jewish, thank God,” he said. “But she has gone up to a friend in the countryside, just in case they come to question her. Who knows if I’ll ever see her again.” And a tear trickled down his cheek. He wiped it away hastily.
Tommy returned and sat keeping him company while Ellie went out to the terrace, and with hands that trembled a little she pegged the blue shirt on to the line, raising it high enough to be seen. It fluttered bravely in the breeze. Would Nico see it? she wondered. How often did he check her line? Anyway, the man was safe for the moment. She fed him vegetable soup for lunch. Roland was delighted to find a guest and chatted to him about music.
“How I have missed artistic company,” he said. “I keep thinking I must go back to Paris, where I can attend the opera again.”
“Is the opera still performing, I wonder?” the man said. “I heard they have shut down so much, and of course there is the curfew after dark.”
“But the Germans love music,” Roland said.
“You would have thought so, wouldn’t you,” the man replied.
Ellie made a big show of inviting their guest to stay the night. Clive and Tommy went up to bed. Roland lingered. At last Ellie said, pointedly, “You must be tired, my dear,” to the man. “Let me show you to your room. You don’t have to stay awake and be polite any longer.”
She led him upstairs. Roland also came up and went into his room. After a suitable while, Ellie tapped on the spare room door and led the man down again.
“Get ready,” she said. “We don’t know when the boat will come, but I should take you down, just in case.”
She put on her overcoat. He put on his, and she led him out into the night. It was fortunate that the moon was almost full. She had brought a torch and picked out the steep and winding steps as they went down the cliff.
“Go very carefully,” she said. They took the steps one by one. At the bottom they came to the small harbour—a little dock protected by an outcropping of rocks. Any boat moored there would be invisible from passing ships. Ellie stood looking and listening, every fibre in her being tense and alert. She heard the slap of waves against the rocks, the rustle of wind in the pine trees above. Apart from that, silence.
“You should sit down here, out of the wind,” she said, indicating a flat area of rock. “It may be some time. He’ll have to wait until he can slip away without being noticed. There are German sentries in the village now.”
The man brushed off the rock surface before sitting on it. “I don’t know why you people risk your lives for someone you don’t know,” he said. “In my culture you would be called a righteous person.”
“We have to do what we can,” Ellie said. “We can’t let evil swallow the world.”
“No. We can’t.”
They sat in silence. Then Ellie stood up. “What was that?”
She heard it then. The lowpop popof a motor, and the boat came into sight. Nico flashed a signal from his torch, then cut the motorand the boat drifted to them. He stood up, leapt out before it could hit the dock.
“I’ve picked up some oars,” he said. “Better to row silently until I’m well clear of the village.” He turned to the stranger. “Good evening, sir. A fine night for a sea voyage, I think.”
He helped the man into the boat, then pushed off, waved and started the motor. Once they were out to sea, she heard it rev up to full power and they were gone.
In the morning there was a note from Nico outside the front door:All went smoothly. This is a great idea.
Ellie herself was amazed how smoothly it had gone. More Jewish men followed. They were always men of consequence: professors, scientists, artists, writers. It seemed unfair to Ellie that some lives were considered more valuable than others—how could anyone determine that a professor had more worth than a baker or a shoemaker?—but she understood that not all could be saved. Also these men usually had non-Jewish wives. Those whose families were also Jewish had refused to leave them. The men were all movingly grateful, and some even hugged her when she took them down the cliff to meet Nico’s boat.
Because it was working so well, Ellie had stopped worrying so much. But with the warmer spring weather and calmer seas, the German navy was more in evidence, guarding the strategic port of Marseille. It was now not unusual to see a naval vessel or even a convoy passing out at sea from where they sat on the terrace. They never came near the coast, which was a relief. Then one night Ellie had gone to bed. There had been no Jewish guest that day. They had enjoyed a good meal, a big chicken stew with lots of vegetables, thanks to one of the chickens that had died of old age. They had played a few rounds of bridge, and Ellie had felt quite content as she pulled the covers over her. She hadjust dozed off when she heard the rattle of pebbles at her shutters. She jumped up, opening the shutters. In the dark she could just make out Nico standing there.
“I’ll come down,” she whispered, then hurriedly slipped on her robe and tiptoed down the stairs. He had come around to the front door and slipped inside the moment she opened it. He was breathing heavily, as if he had been running.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“They almost got me,” he said. “I was delivering some supplies to the cell further down the coast when this German patrol boat appeared out of nowhere. They shone a searchlight on me and told me to come alongside. I had ammunition in the boat. Of course I wasn’t going to do that, so I put the throttle on full and got out of there. But they fired at me. I managed to outrun them, and naturally I know this stretch of coast better than they do, so I was able to hide out in a hidden cove and then, when they had gone past, make my way back here.”
Ellie noticed he was wincing. “You said they fired at you. Did they hit you?”
“I’m not sure. Probably yes. I felt something, but there was so much adrenalin coursing through me that I hardly noticed.”
“Take off your coat,” she said. “Let’s see.”
