Echoes

18

AMADEA WAS ALONE IN THE FOREST FOR TWO DAYS. SHE walked by day, and slept for a few hours at night. The air was cool and fresh, although at one point she thought she smelled fire in the air. Lidice. But the forest was dark. Even in the daytime it was deeply shaded. She had no idea where she was going, or if she would find anyone before she died of hunger, exhaustion, and thirst. The water in Wilhelm's canteen ran out. And on the second day she found a stream. She didn't know if the water was good or not, but she drank it anyway. It couldn't be any worse than the water they had drunk in Theresienstadt, standing stagnant in barrels, full of diseases. This water at least tasted clean. The forest was cool. There were no sounds except birds in the trees high above her and the ones she made. She saw a rabbit once, and a squirrel. It felt like an enchanted forest, and the enchantment was that she was free. She had killed a man to get here. She knew she would never forgive herself for that. It had been an accident, but still she would have to answer for it. She wished she could tell the Mother Superior. Wished she were back in the convent with her sisters. She had buried her papers under a clump of dirt. She had no identification now. None. She was a random soul, a lost person wandering through the forest. And there was no number on her arm. She could tell them whatever she wanted if they found her, but they would know. She looked like all the others in the camps. Thin, malnourished, filthy. The shoes she wore had almost no soles. She lay down finally at the end of the second day, and thought about eating leaves. She wondered if they were poisonous. She had found some berries and eaten those, and they had given her terrible cramps, and more dysentery. She felt weak and exhausted and sick. And as the light faded in the forest, she lay down to sleep on the soft earth. If the Nazis found her, maybe they would just shoot her there. It was a good place to die. She had seen no one in two days. She didn't know if they were looking for her, or if they cared. She was just one more Jew. And wherever the partisans were, they were surely not here.

She was alone in the forest, and remembered to say her prayers as she fell asleep. She prayed for Wilhelm's soul, and thought of his mother and sister and how sad they would be. She thought of her mother and Daphne and wondered where they were and if they were still alive. Maybe they had escaped, too. She smiled thinking of it, and then she fell asleep.

They found her there the next morning, as the light filtered dimly through the trees. They came on silent feet and signaled to each other. One of them held her down, and the other covered her mouth so she wouldn't scream. She woke with a huge start and a terrified look. There were men with guns, six of them, surrounding her. Wilhelm's gun lay on the ground beside her. She couldn't reach it and didn't know how to use it anyway. One of the men signaled to her not to scream, and she nodded slightly. There was no way of knowing who they were. They watched her for a moment, and then let her go, as five of them pointed guns at her and one of them searched her pockets. There was nothing. They found nothing, except for the last candy she had left. It was a German bonbon, and they eyed her with suspicion. The men spoke to each other in hushed voices in Czech. She had picked up a little in the camp, from Czechoslovak prisoners. She wasn't sure if they were good men or bad, if they were the partisans she had hoped to find. And even if they were, she didn't know if they would rape her, or what to expect from them. They pulled her roughly to her feet and signaled to her to follow. They had her surrounded, and one of the men took the gun. She stumbled often, and they walked fast. She was tired and weak, and when she fell, they let her pick herself up in case it was a trick.

Not one of them spoke to each other, except rarely, as they walked for several hours, and then she saw a camp in the forest. There were about twenty men there, and they left her with two of the men under guard, and then pulled her roughly into a clump of trees where a group of armed men sat talking. They looked up at her as she walked in. And the men who had walked with her to get there left. There was a long silence as they looked at her, and then finally one of them spoke. He addressed her in Czech first, and she shook her head. And then he spoke to her in German.

“Where did you come from?” he asked in proficient although heavily accented German, as he looked her over. She was filthy and thin, she had cuts and scratches everywhere, and her shoes were in shreds on her feet. The soles of her feet were bleeding. She looked him straight in the eyes.

“Theresienstadt,” she said softly. If they were partisans, she had to tell them the truth. They couldn't help her otherwise, and maybe wouldn't anyway.

“You were a prisoner there?” She nodded. “You escaped?”

“Yes.”

“You have no number,” he said suspiciously. She looked more like a German agent with her tall blond good looks. Even dirty and exhausted she was beautiful, and obviously frightened. But she was brave, too, he could see, and he admired that.

“They never tattooed me. They forgot,” she said with a small smile. He didn't smile back. This was serious business. There was a lot at stake. For all of them. Not only her.

“You're a Jew?”

“Half. My mother was German Jewish. My father was a French Catholic. She was a convert.”

“Where is she? At Theresienstadt, too?”

Amadea's eyes wavered, but only for a moment. “They sent her to Ravensbrück a year ago.”

“How long were you in Terezin?” He used the Czech name for it, not the one she used.

“Since January.” He nodded.

“Do you speak French?” This time she nodded. “How well?”

“Fluently.”

“Do you have an accent? Can you pass for German or French equally?” She felt weak as she realized they were going to help her, or try to. The questions he asked were brisk and efficient. He looked like a farmer, but he was more than that. He was the leader of the partisans in the area. He would be the one to decide if they would help her or not.

“I can pass equally,” she said. But he realized as she did that she looked German. In this case, it was an asset. She looked entirely Aryan. And then she looked at him and dared to ask a question. “What will you do with me? Where will I go?”

“I don't know.” He shook his head. “You can't go back to Germany if you're a Jew, not to stay at least. We can get you through with false papers, but they'll find you eventually. And you can't stay here. All the German women went back. The officers' wives come to visit sometimes. We'll see.” He said something to one of his men then, and a few minutes later, they brought her food. She was so hungry she felt sick, and could hardly eat. She hadn't seen real food in six months. “You'll have to stay here for a while. There's trouble all around.”

“What happened in Lidice?” she asked softly.

His eyes blazed with hatred as he answered. “All the men and boys are dead. The women were deported. The town is gone.”

“I'm sorry,” she said softly, and he looked away. He didn't tell her that his brother and his family had lived there. The reprisal had been total.

“We can't move you for weeks, maybe months. And it takes time to get the papers.”

“Thank you.” She didn't care how long they kept her. It was better than where she had been. Ordinarily, they would have moved her to a safe house in Prague, but they couldn't now.

In the end, she was there, living in the forest, in his camp until the beginning of August. Things had calmed down somewhat by then. She spent most of her time praying, or walking in a small area around the camp. Other men came and went, and only once a woman. They never spoke to her. And whenever she was alone, she prayed. The forest was so peaceful that it was hard to believe sometimes that there was a war raging beyond their camp. It was late one night after she'd been there for a few weeks, and they realized that she came from Cologne that they told her Cologne had been bombed from one end to the other by a thousand British bombers. They had heard nothing about it in Theresienstadt. The partisans' description of it was amazing. It had been a major hit to the Nazis. She hoped that nothing had happened to the Daubignys, but they were far enough out of the city that hopefully they had escaped major damage.

Almost two months after Amadea had come to them, the local leader of the partisans sat down with her and explained what was going to happen. They had heard nothing about her successful escape from local authorities. Presumably she was so unimportant that they felt that one Jew more or less, dead or alive, was not worth their notice. There was no way of knowing if they had connected it to Wilhelm's disappearance on the same evening, or if they cared about it. Hopefully, they didn't. She wondered if they had ever found him. The partisans had not wanted to get that close to the camp to retrieve him and bury him elsewhere.

The freedom fighters had had papers made for her in Prague, and they were astonishingly authentic looking. They said her name was Frieda Oberhoff, and that she was a twenty-five-year-old housewife from Munich. Her husband was stationed in Prague, and she had come to visit him. He was the Kommandant of a small precinct. He was going back to Munich with her on leave and from there they would go directly to Paris for a short holiday, before she went back to Munich and he returned to Prague. Their traveling papers looked impeccable. And a young woman brought clothes and a suitcase to her. She helped Amadea dress, and they took a photograph of her for her passport. Everything was in order.

She was going to be traveling with a young German who had worked with them. He had gone in and out of Germany into Czechoslovakia and Poland. This would be the second time he traveled into France on a mission like this one. She was to meet him the following day at a safe house in Prague.

She didn't know how to thank the leader of the group when she left the camp. All she could do was look at him and tell him that she would pray for him. They had saved her life, and were giving her a new one. The plan was for her to join a cell of the Resistance outside Paris, but she still had to get through Germany first, as the Kommandant's wife. In her bright blue summer dress and white hat the day she left, she certainly looked the part. She even had high heels and white gloves. She turned to look at them for a last time, and then got in the car with the men who were driving her into the city. They were both Czechoslovaks who worked for the Germans and were beyond reproach. No one stopped them or checked their papers as they drove into the city, and less than an hour after she had left the partisan camp, she was in the basement of the safe house in Prague. At midnight, the man who was going to travel with her arrived. He was wearing an SS uniform, and he was tall and handsome and blond. He was actually a Czech who had grown up in Germany. His German was flawless, and he looked every inch an SS officer as they introduced him to Amadea late that night.

They were leaving on a train at nine in the morning. They knew that the train would be full, the soldiers in the station distracted. They would be checking papers randomly, but it would never occur to them to be suspicious of the handsome SS officer traveling with his beautiful young wife. One of the men dropped them off at the station, and they strode onto the platform chatting amiably, as he told Amadea in an undertone to smile and laugh. It felt odd to be wearing fashionable women's clothes again. She hadn't done that since she was a girl of eighteen. And she felt very odd to be traveling with a man. She was terrified that someone would recognize that her papers were false, but neither the agent nor the soldier watching people board the train questioned them. They didn't even give them a cursory glance and just waved them on. Amadea and her traveling companion looked like Hitler's dream for the master race. Tall, blond beautiful people with blue eyes. They settled into a first-class compartment as Amadea stared at him with wide eyes.

“We did it,” she whispered, and he nodded and put a finger to his lips. You never knew who might be listening. The essence of the masquerade was to consistently play the part. They spoke to each other comfortably in German. He discussed vacation plans with her and what she wanted to see in Paris. He told her about the hotel where they would stay, and chatted with her about her mother in Munich. As the train pulled out of the station, Amadea watched with haunted eyes as Prague slowly drifted away. All she could think of was the day she had come here in the cattle car. The agonies and the miseries they had endured, the slop buckets and the people crying and eventually dying all around them. She had stood up for days. And now she was sitting in a first-class compartment wearing a hat and white gloves, traveling with a freedom fighter in an SS uniform. All she could conclude was that, for whatever reason, thus far at least, the God she loved so profoundly had wanted her to survive.

The trip to Munich was uneventful and took just over five hours. She slept part of the way, and woke with a start when she saw a German soldier walk by. Wolff, the man she was traveling with, or the name he was using anyway, laughed at her and smiled at the soldier, and through clenched teeth told her to smile as well. She went back to sleep after that, and eventually dozed with her head on his shoulder. He woke her when they pulled into Hauptbahnhof station in Munich.

They had two hours to spare between trains. He suggested dinner at a restaurant at the station, and said it was a shame they didn't have time to go into town. But they agreed that they were anxious to get to France. Paris was a major holiday destination for Germans these days. With the Germans occupying it, everyone wanted to go to Paris. In the restaurant, Wolff talked to her about the fun they would have. But even as they chatted, she noticed that he was ever vigilant. He seemed to keep an eye on everyone and everything, all the while seeming to chat effortlessly with her.

Amadea didn't relax till she got on the train to Paris. They had a first-class compartment again, and she had scarcely been able to eat dinner, she was so worried that something terrible would happen and they'd get arrested on the spot.

“You'll get used to this eventually,” he said in a low voice as they boarded the train. But with luck she wouldn't have to. She had no idea what they were going to do to hide her outside Paris, but the idea of circulating among German officers, pretending to be the wife of an SS officer on vacation, nearly made her faint with terror. It was almost as frightening as the night she had fled Theresienstadt. That had taken courage, but this took rigorous composure. She sat rigidly in her seat once again until the train pulled out. And this time they would be traveling overnight.

The attendant opened the beds for them, and after he left, Wolff told her to put on her nightgown, as Amadea looked shocked.

“I'm your husband.” He laughed. “You could at least take off your gloves and hat.” Even she laughed at that.

She turned her back to him and put her nightgown on, pulling her dress off underneath it, and when she turned, he was wearing pajamas. He was a strikingly good-looking man.

“I've never done this before,” she said, looking embarrassed as he smiled at her, and she hoped he wouldn't take the charade too far. He didn't look like that sort of man.

“I take it you're not married?” he asked softly. The noise of the train covered their conversation, and he was no longer worried. No one was listening to them now.

Amadea smiled in answer. “No, I'm not. I'm a Carmelite.” He looked shocked for a minute and rolled his eyes.

“Well, I've never spent the night with a nun before. I suppose there's always a first time.” He helped her onto her bed, and sat looking up at her from the narrow bench across from it. She was a lovely looking girl, nun or not. “How did you get to Prague?”

She hesitated for a moment before she answered. There were no simple explanations anymore, for anything. Only hard ones. “Theresienstadt.” It explained everything with a single word. “Are you married?” she asked, curious about him too now. He nodded, and then she saw something painful in his eyes.

“I was. My wife and two sons were killed in Holland during the reprisals. She was Jewish. They didn't even bother to deport them, just killed them on the spot. I came back to Prague after that.” He had been back in Czechoslovakia for two years, doing what he could to put a stick in the Germans' wheels. “What are you going to do after you get to Paris?” he asked, as they rode through Germany. They would be in Paris by morning.

“I have no idea.” She had never been there before. If she had the opportunity, she wanted to visit her fa-ther's part of the world in Dordogne, and maybe even get a glimpse of their château. But she knew she wouldn't be free to move around. The partisans in Prague had assured her that she would be hidden by the underground in France, wherever they felt it was safest for her, more than likely somewhere outside Paris. They both knew that she had to wait and see what they told her when she arrived.

“I hope we travel together again sometime,” he said as he stood up and yawned. She thought he was remarkably calm, given the potential dangers of their situation. But he had been doing missions like this for two years.

“I don't think I'll be leaving France.” She couldn't imagine risking going back into Germany again until after the war. France would be difficult enough, given her situation. Germany was impossible. She would rather die than be deported again, next time more than likely to someplace worse. Theresienstadt had been bad enough. She couldn't help thinking of all the people there, and what would happen to them. It had been nothing less than a miracle that she'd escaped and was on this train.

“Will you go back to the convent again after the war?” Wolff asked with interest, and she smiled. Her whole face lit up as she did.

“Of course.”

“Did you never have doubts about the choice you made?”

“Never once. I knew it was right the day I went in.”

“And now? After all you've seen? Can you really believe it's right to be shut away from the world? There's so much more you can do for people out here.”

“Oh no,” she said with a look of wonderment, “we pray for so many people. There is so much to do.” He smiled, listening to her, he wasn't going to argue with her. But he couldn't help wondering if she'd really go back one day. She was a beautiful girl, and she had much to discover and learn. It was an odd feeling for him knowing that he was traveling with a nun. She certainly didn't look like one to him. She looked very human and desirable, although she seemed to be unaware of it, which he thought was part of her appeal. She was a very attractive woman in a distinguished sort of way.

He lay awake on his bunk that night, listening for problems on the train. They could be stopped and boarded at any time, and he wanted to be awake if that happened. He got up once or twice, and saw that Amadea was fast asleep.

He woke her the next morning in time to dress before they reached the station. He dressed and stood outside the compartment while she washed her face and brushed her teeth and changed. And a few minutes later, he accompanied her to the bathroom and waited for her. She looked very composed when they went back to the compartment and she put her hat and gloves on again. She had her passport and traveling papers in her purse.

She looked with fascination as they pulled into the Gare de l'Est. Her eyes were wide at the bustling activity on the platform. And he whispered to her before they left the compartment.

“Don't look frightened. Look like a happy tourist, excited to be here with your husband for a romantic vacation.”

“I'm not sure what that looks like,” she whispered back with a grin.

“Pretend you're not a nun.”

“I can't do that.” She was still smiling, and they looked like a happy young couple as they left the train. They each carried their suitcases, and she had a gloved hand tucked into his arm. No one stopped them, no one questioned them. They were two splendid-looking Aryans on their way to enjoy a holiday in Paris. And outside the station, Wolff hailed a cab.

They went to a café on the Left Bank, where they said they were meeting friends, and afterward would go to their hotel. The driver was sullen, and he didn't appear to understand German. Amadea had spoken to him in French, and he was surprised by how well she spoke it. He assumed she was German after listening to them talk in the backseat, but when she spoke to him, she sounded French. She looked German to him.

Wolff gave him a more than decent tip, and the driver thanked him politely and drove off. He knew better than to be rude to Germans, particularly officers of the SS. One of his friends had been shot by one six months before, just for mouthing off, and calling him a “sale boche.”

They sat in the café, drinking coffee, or what passed for it these days, and the waiter brought them a basket of croissants. Ten minutes later they were joined by Wolff's friend, who was obviously thrilled to see him and clapped him on the shoulder. They were friends from student days, or so they said. In fact, they had never met, but they performed well, as Amadea observed them with a shy smile. Wolff introduced her as his wife. They sat together for a few minutes, and then Wolff's friend offered to drive them to their hotel. They got into his car with their bags. No one at the café appeared to be particularly interested. And once in the car, on the outskirts of Paris, Wolff changed his clothes into the ones their contact had brought. The SS uniform and all its accoutrements disappeared into a valise with a false bottom. He changed expertly as they drove along, while conversing with the driver. They paid no attention to Amadea, and appeared to be speaking in code. Wolff said he was going back tonight.

They stopped at a small house outside Paris, in the Val-de-Marne district. It looked like any other ordinary house. The kind of house where you would visit your grandmother or a widowed great-aunt. There was a pleasant old couple sitting in the kitchen having breakfast and reading the paper.

Their driver, whose name was Pierre, gave them a cursory glance. “Bonjour, Grandmaman, Grandpapa…” He walked right past them to a closet, opened a false door at the back of it, and then went down a dark stairway into the basement, as Wolff and Amadea followed. He walked them into the wine cellar, and stood there for a moment, without turning on a light, and then pushed a well-concealed door. Behind it lay a bevy of activity. Once the door was closed behind them, they saw a dozen men sitting around a makeshift table, two women, and another man on a shortwave radio. The room was cramped, and there were papers and boxes everywhere, a camera, several suitcases. They looked like they had been there for many days.

“Salut,” the driver addressed one of the men, and the others nodded and acknowledged him.

“Salut, Pierre” echoed around the room, and one of them asked if he had brought the package. Pierre nodded toward Amadea. She was the package they had been waiting for. One of the women smiled at her and extended a hand.

“Welcome to Paris. Did you have a good trip?” She addressed Amadea in German, who in turn answered her in flawless French, much to their surprise. “We didn't know you spoke French.” They didn't have many details on her yet, only that she was a camp survivor, and had been rescued by the partisans near Prague. They said she needed refuge in France. And word was she could be useful to them. No one had explained how. But it was obvious to them now. She looked German and spoke flawless German and French.

Wolff sat down with two of the men in a corner then, and filled them in on what was happening in Prague, and what the German movements and plans were there. They spoke in low voices, and Amadea couldn't hear what they said.

The man who appeared to be in charge was looking Amadea over carefully. He had never seen a more typical Aryan, and she seemed to be equally at ease in French and German. “We were going to put you on a farm in the South if we could get you there safely. You certainly look like a German, an Aryan for sure. You're Jewish?”

“My mother was.”

He glanced at her arm-he knew she had come out of one of the camps. “You have a number?” She shook her head. She was perfect. He hated to send her away. They needed her in Paris. He was squinting thoughtfully as he looked at her. “Do you have good nerves?” he asked with a wry smile.

Wolff overheard them and vouched for her. “She was fine on the train.” And then with an affectionate look at his traveling companion, he said, “She's a nun. A Carmelite.”

“That's interesting,” the head of the cell said, looking at her. “Isn't having good judgment one of the requirements for becoming a Carmelite? And a good nervous equilibrium, if I remember correctly.”

Amadea laughed. “How do you know that? Yes, both, and good health.”

“My sister entered an order in Touraine. They were crazy to take her. She has terrible judgment, and bad nerves. She stayed two years and came out and got married. I'm sure they were happy to see her go. She has six kids.” He smiled at her, and Amadea felt a connection to him. They hadn't been introduced, but she had heard several people call him Serge. “I have a brother who's a priest.” He was the head of a cell in Marseilles, which he didn't volunteer to Amadea. He had trained with Father Jacques in Avon, where he had been hiding Jewish boys in the school he ran. Serge's brother was doing much the same thing in Marseilles, as were individual members of the clergy all over France, often on an independent basis. Serge knew a number of them. But he didn't want to make use of this young German woman as a nun. She could be far more useful in other ways. She could easily masquerade as a German, and pull it off flawlessly, if she had the guts. That's what he had to learn. “We'll keep you here for a few weeks. You can stay downstairs until we get your papers in order. After that you can stay with my grandparents. You're my cousin from Chartres. That should be religious enough for you.” She realized then that Pierre and Serge were brothers. The darkened room had the atmosphere of a factory, there was so much going on. Someone was running a small printing press in a corner. They were printing bulletins to distribute to buoy French spirits and tell them what was really happening with the war.

One of the women took Amadea's photograph then, for her new French papers. And a little while later, the other woman went upstairs and brought back food for Amadea and Wolff. After what she had seen at Theresienstadt, food seemed so plentiful to her now everywhere. She was surprised to find she was ravenous, as Serge continued to interview her. And a few hours later, Wolff left. He was going back to Prague.

He stopped to say good-bye to her before he left. “Good luck, Sister,” he said, smiling at her. “Perhaps we'll meet again.”

“Thank you,” she said, sad to see him leave. She felt as though they were friends. “God bless you and keep you safe.”

“I'm sure He will,” he said confidently. He stopped for a few minutes to talk to Serge again, and then he and Pierre left. He would change back into the SS uniform on the way back to the station. He seemed fearless to Amadea. They all did. They were a shining example of French courage. Although the country had surrendered to the Germans in three weeks, there were cells like this one all over France, fighting to free the French again, to keep Jews alive, and restore the coun-try's honor. But more than anything, they were saving lives, and doing all they could to help the Allied war effort, working closely with the British.

Amadea slept on a narrow cot in the basement room that night, as the men talked until the wee hours. Her papers were ready the next day. They were even more remarkable than the German ones, which Serge said he would keep for her. He didn't want them on her, if she went out for him with the others. They had talked about her long into the night, and had made a decision. He was sending her to Melun. It was sixty miles southeast of Paris, and he thought she would be safer there. They needed her desperately. The British were parachuting supplies in to them there, and men. It was delicate work.

This time her papers said that she was an unmarried woman from a town near Melun. Her name was Amélie Dumas. They used her correct birthday, and said she had been born in Lyon. If asked, she had studied at the Sorbonne before the war. She had studied literature and art. He asked her if there was a code name she wanted, and without hesitating she said, “Teresa.” She knew it would give her courage. She had no idea what they expected of her, but whatever it was, she would do it. Yet again, she owed these people her life.

She and the other two women drove to Melun that night, they were just three women who had come to Paris for a few days, and were going back to the farms where they lived. They were stopped once, their papers were checked, the German soldiers laughed and winked at them for a minute, tried to tease them with chocolate bars and cigarettes, and sent them on their way. They were harmless for once, and loved flirting with the French women. They had spoken to the three women in broken French.

It was after dark when they got to the farmhouse, and went in. The farmer and his wife seemed surprised to see Amadea. The other two women introduced them, and the farmer's wife showed her to a small room behind the kitchen. She was to help them on the farm and help with the chores. The farmer's wife had terrible arthritis and could no longer help her husband. Amadea was to do all they directed her to do, and at night she was to work for the local cell. One of the men would come to see her the next day. The farmer and his wife had been in the Resistance since the occupation of France. They looked like harmless old people, but were not. They were extraordinarily courageous, and knew all of the operatives in the area. The clothes the farmer's wife gave her made Amadea look like a farm girl. She looked like a strong girl, and although she was still very thin, she was healthy and young, and she looked the part of a farm girl in a worn faded dress and an apron.

She spent the night in yet another unfamiliar bed, but was grateful to have one. The two women from the cell in Paris went back in the morning, and wished Amadea well. As she did with everyone now, she wondered if she would ever see them again. Everything about life seemed to be transient and unpredictable. People disappeared out of each other's lives in an instant. And each time you said good-bye, it could be forever, and often was. They were doing dangerous work, and Amadea was anxious to help them. She felt as though she owed them a lot, and wanted to repay the debt.

She helped with the chores on the farm that morning, and milked the few cows they still had. She carried wood, worked in the garden, helped cook lunch, and did the washing. She worked as tirelessly and as seriously as she had in the convent, and the old woman was grateful. She hadn't had that much help in years. And after dinner that night, their nephew came to visit. His name was Jean-Yves. He was a tall gangly man with dark hair and dark eyes, and there was something faintly sorrowful about him. He was two years older than Amadea and looked like he had the world on his shoulders. His uncle poured him a glass of the wine he made himself, and offered a glass to Amadea, which she declined. She had a glass of milk instead, from the cow she had milked that morning. It was cold and fresh, and she sat quietly at the kitchen table as the two men talked. Afterward Jean-Yves asked her if she'd like to go for a walk, and she understood that it was expected. He was the cell member she was meant to work with. They strolled outside in the warm air, like two young people getting to know each other, and he looked at her somewhat suspiciously.

“I hear you had a long trip.” She nodded. It was still hard to believe she was here. She had left Prague only days ago. And her refuge in the forest only shortly before that. Her head was still spinning from it all, and the stress of crossing borders with a partisan dressed as an SS officer, and carrying false papers. She was Amélie Dumas now. Jean-Yves was a Breton, and had been a fisherman, before he came to Melun, but he actually was related to her hosts. It was all confusing for her at this point. It was a lot of information to take in and absorb. False identities, real jobs, secret agents of the Resistance, and all of them trying to free France.

“I'm lucky to be here,” she said simply, grateful to them all for what they were doing for her. She was hoping to help them in exchange. It was better than hiding in a tunnel somewhere, praying that the Nazis didn't find her. She liked this better, and it made more sense to her.

“We need you here. We're getting a drop tomorrow.”

“From England?” she asked softly, but there was no one to hear them in the gentle night air. He nodded in response. “Where do they come in?”

“In the fields. They radio us first. We go out to meet them. We use torches. They can only stay on the ground for about four minutes when they land. Or sometimes they just parachute things in. It depends what they bring.” It was dangerous work, but they were anxious to do it. He was one of the leaders of his cell. There was a man above him, but Jean-Yves was one of their best men, and the most fearless. He had been a daredevil in his youth. She couldn't help wondering why he looked so sad. As they walked through the orchards, he looked mournful. “Do you know how to use a shortwave radio?” he inquired, and she shook her head. “I'll teach you. It's fairly simple. Can you use a gun?” She shook her head again, and then he laughed. “What were you before this? A fashion model or an actress, or just a spoiled girl?” She was so good looking, he assumed it had been something like that, and this time she laughed at him.

“A Carmelite nun. But if that was supposed to be a compliment, thank you very much.” She wasn't sure being called an actress was a compliment, her mother certainly wouldn't have thought so. He looked startled by her response.

“Did you leave the convent before the war?”

“No. Only after my mother and sister were deported. For the safety of the others. It was the right thing to do.” She didn't know it yet, but Sister Teresa Benedicta a Cruce, Edith Stein, and her sister Rosa had been deported to Auschwitz from the convent in Holland only days before. By the time she was walking in the orchards in Melun with Jean-Yves, Edith Stein had been gassed and was dead.

“And you'll go back to the convent after the war?”

“Yes,” Amadea said with the ring of certainty in her voice. It was what kept her going.

“What a waste,” he said, looking at her.

“Not in the least. It's a wonderful life.”

“How can you say that?” he said argumentatively. “All locked away like that. Besides, you don't look like a nun.”

“Yes, I do,” she said calmly. “And it's a very busy life. We work very hard all day, and pray for all of you.”

“Do you pray now?”

“Of course I do. There's a lot to pray for these days.” Including and most especially the man whose death she had caused on her escape from Theresienstadt. She still remembered Wilhelm's face with blood everywhere from his cracked head. She knew she would feel responsible for it all her life, and had a lifetime of penance to do.

“Will you pray for my brothers?” he asked suddenly, and stopped to look at her. He looked younger than she felt, although he was older than she. She felt very old these days. They had all seen too much by now, some more than others.

“Yes, I will. Where are they?” she asked, touched that he would ask her to pray for them. She would pray for them that night.

“They were killed two weeks ago by the Nazis, in Lyon. They were with Moulin.” She had learned who he was from Serge. He was the hero of the Resistance.

“I'm sorry. Do you have other brothers and sisters?” she asked gently, hoping that he did, but he only shook his head.

“My parents are dead. My father died in a fishing accident when I was a boy. My mother died last year. She had pneumonia, and we couldn't get medicine for her.” His brothers' recent deaths explained his mournful look. His entire family was gone, except for his aunt and uncle in Melun. Hers was too.

“My family is gone too. Or they may be. My mother and sister were deported a year ago June.” There had been no news of them since that she knew of. “My father died when I was ten. My mother's family was all deported after Kristallnacht. They were Jewish. And my father's family disowned him when they married, because my mother was German and Jewish. He was a French Catholic. They were in the first war then. People do such stupid things. Neither of their families ever forgave them.”

“Were they happy?” He seemed interested, and Amadea was touched. They were two young people making friends. In hard times. Very hard times.

“Very. They loved each other very much.”

“Do you think they regretted what they did, defying their families, I mean?”

“No, I don't. But it was hard on my mother when he died. She was never the same again. My sister was only two. I always took care of her,” Amadea said, as tears sprang to her eyes. She hadn't talked about Daphne in a long time, and suddenly it made Amadea miss her more, and her mother too. “I think there are a lot of people like us now, who have no families left.”

“My brothers were twins,” he said as though it mattered now. It mattered to him.

“I'll pray for them tonight. And for you.”

“Thank you,” he said politely as they walked slowly back to the farm. He liked her. She seemed very mature, but she had been through a lot too. It was still hard for him to believe she was a nun, or to understand why she wanted to be. But it seemed to give her something very deep and peaceful that he liked about her. She was comforting to be with. He felt safe with her, and knew he was. “I'll pick you up tomorrow night. Wear dark clothes. We black our faces when we get out there. I'll bring you some shoe polish.”

“Thank you,” she said with a smile.

“It was nice talking to you, Amélie. You're a good person.”

“So are you, Jean-Yves.” He walked her back to the farmhouse then, and as he drove back to the farm where he lived, he was glad to know that she'd be praying for him. There was something about her that made him feel she had God's ear.