The Knife-Edge Path Page 16

  Kurt turned to her, and she looked up at him, hopes soaring for a moment. By his eyes she couldn’t tell what he wanted. She reached for him, he gently took her into his arms and she had only seconds to pray he cared for her before he let go.

  She stood back and said, “I’ll see you when all this is over.”

  He didn’t nod, said nothing.

  Haught’s voice broke in. “We’ll be taking off now, Simone.” He laid his hand affectionately on Kurt’s shoulder. “Don’t let these frogs put anything over on you. Get your issue of clean linen and a cake of soap. If this guy balks, report him to Darlan. He’ll settle his hash.”

  “Yes,” Kurt said in a strangely meek voice, unlike him. His hand looked limp, too, as he shook with them both, saying goodbye.

  They wished Geli good luck.

  As soon as they walked out she looked for Kurt, but he was leaning across the counter, waiting to get the gendarme’s attention. She didn’t wait before she said, “Goodbye, Kurt,” and marched to the stairway and up to the room where Colonel Darlan was still holding court. She stood there near his desk until his eyes came up, then said, “Shall I wait here for you, Colonel?”

  “Ah yes, do that, Madame. You might want to sit over there.” Darlan indicated the row of three empty wooden chairs against the wall.

  She sat in the chair nearest to the doorway. Maybe she wouldn’t feel so alone here, she thought. Something was wrong. As if she’d seen the last of Kurt and he had made the getaway he’d wanted. He’d found a way to ditch her. Yet why had he let her come along with him this far? She’d got De Vos on her side, only to lose him when she’d mourned a Nazi killer. Had Ubbink warned Kurt against her anyway? She would never know unless she asked him. Ask him as if now it was her turn; let Elfriede Bensch, wearing his wedding ring, go to the back of the line, yet all this time it had been her. Simone Miroux was only pretty enough to trample on their vows, for she was here, turning her siren down, so far away was the woman who might hear it if she knew.

  20

  Colonel Darlan found a place for Geli to stay with the local pastor, named Hecklinger, at the rectory where he lived with his two young daughters. His wife had died of pneumonia in 1942. In the tiny room he set aside for her there was an old typewriter, encased in a dusty cover, on the shelf above the hangers in the closet. She asked the pastor if she might use it for a day or two. Not for herself, but for a friend lodged at the Hotel Mohren. He said the ribbon might have dried out somewhat, but yes, she was welcome to it. It was getting on toward dusk when she walked over to the hotel, lugging the heavy machine.

  Boisterous French soldiers crowded the lobby. As she made her way toward the front desk, glimpses of two gendarmes showed through the pack of men milling about. They had their hands too full with business there behind the counter to notice her walking toward the stairway.

  She kept on going up the stairs, feeling excited, stopped a moment on the first landing to get a better grip on the machine. Nobody yelled out, ‘Hey, you!’ and finally as she came up onto the third landing, facing 310, she turned leftward into the corridor.

  Then she was standing there in front of 313, and thought no, she wouldn’t knock. Shifting the typewriter under one arm she tried the knob. It wasn’t locked and she went in.

  He was sitting at a small pocked wooden desk, cradling his forehead with one hand, a pencil in the other. He looked up and stared at her. She kicked the door shut behind her and started toward him with a big smile, typewriter joggling against her belly.

  “Look what I’ve found for you, Kurt! The pastor where I’m staying lent it to me. Don’t worry, I slipped right past them downstairs. Too much of a crowd for anybody to notice. Won’t this come in handy? For your report?” She lowered the typewriter onto the rumpled blanket at the foot of the bed.

  He scooted around in the chair. “I’m writing it out in French.”

  “Yes, but typed, they’ll find it easier to read. Don’t you think?”

  He nodded tentatively. “That could be,” he said. His face was dour, unsettled, as if she were intruding.

  “What’s wrong, Kurt? Are you worried about something?”

  He looked up at her with a faint shrug. “Worry always seems to tag along with hope.”

  “Don’t think that way. What could go wrong? You heard what Evans had to say about your report.”

  “I don’t know. You’ve seen the hatred going around here.”

  “I still say nobody can deny the truth of your report. You’re not alone. You’ve got me to back you up.”

  As soon as she said it, something swept across his face like a magician’s hand, and she thought she could see Elfriede in his eyes, curiously looking on, awaiting her turn. The road ahead took a curve toward her. The other woman he had made a mistake with hung on. He’d keep her around a while longer in case he ran into trouble. Love had been a slip of the flesh, confided to a priest in the confessional. A dream left to fade where it could never have come true, pushed off like a Viking funeral. Nobody would sift through the ashes of the war. A little petulance crept into her voice, “So here it is if you want it,” she said. “If nothing else it buys us a few minutes together.”

  “You’re not supposed to be here, you know.”

  Her heart fell in. “Then I guess we’re even. Sorry to see me, then?” She said it with a grin, as if she knew better.

  He looked away, shoulders slumping with a sigh. “No, I’m sorry. Thanks for bringing it up. How did you get past them downstairs?”

  “Oh, I just walked right past them like I belonged there. It was easy.”

  He gave her a look tinged with a smile, as much as to say a woman like you doesn’t go unnoticed in a crowd.

  She felt foolish standing there, and walked past him to the window and looked down across the road at the crippled German Schwimmwagen tipped onto its side.

  Behind her that typewriter, like something also silenced by the war, sagging into the mattress.

  He didn’t want it, or her.

  In her mind she stared down at Stumpff’s dead face. Henk de Vos stood there beside her. She was in Mochalsky’s car again, beside Kurt in the back seat, racing to get clear of Berlin. They got out beside a shattered church in some little town, from where they’d have to go on foot, so choked was the road ahead with refugees and military vehicles. Goodbye, Ubbink! Goodbye, Henk! How much had they told him?

  Now it was her turn. She whirled on him, thrusting her hands behind her back. “Kurt -”

  He turned his head.

  She could feel it. Was there any use? Where was he? One foot in his report. She’d outrun her supplies, left the war behind. What right had she to live on borrowed time with him? His future still gaped like a mine field and he had a wife to whom he owed whatever love had not been left for dead. Another woman stood here with him in this borrowed room. That one the Dutchmen had to tell on, so he’d know. Now that he knew, he needn’t ask. And if he wouldn’t ask, did she love him? Or had it only been that woman known as Mlle Miroux?

  He was looking at her, as if waiting.

  She said, “Have you told your wife what’s happened to you, Kurt?”

  “No, I couldn’t. There was no way to get through.”

  “But if you could -?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That time you sued her for divorce – did she know why?”

  “She wouldn’t have understood.”

  “That’s all in ruins now, though, isn’t it? Like us.” She couldn’t bring herself to say, “I know she’s on your conscience, now,” but let the bait hang out there, praying he would get up and take her in his arms.

  He looked at his watch. “Simone, somebody’s coming soon to question me. Captain Paul, from Constance.”

  “I see. You think I’d better not be here when he arrives.”

  “It might be difficult. He wouldn’t let you stay.”

  “Yes. Well, then -” She couldn’t say what she was thinking – that Captain Paul was n
ot here, yet. She was. She went up close to him, laid her hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. He stared up at her and she wanted to say would I be here if I didn’t love you? He might laugh cruelly in her face. Temptation lined the damning truth with gold and silver. There, too, was the torch that burned a thousand women at the stake. Then it was gone. He didn’t move, didn’t speak. She didn’t want to know. The fears she’d tried to put aside came home to roost: the Dutchmen had got to him. She hated them and said heatedly, “Why don’t you just tell me, Kurt. Do you want me to go away?”

  A kind of childish bewilderment came into his face.

  She couldn’t read it.

  The door rattled with a hard rapping.

  A voice out in the corridor crowed, “Herr Langsdorff! Captain Paul is here!”

  The voice belonged to Colonel Darlan.

  “I’ll go now go,” she said. “I’ll try to see you in the morning. Wait for me.”

  He gave her a look she couldn’t decipher.

  “Langsdorff! Open up! We haven’t got all day!”

  21

  Geli woke up early the next morning to a smell of lilacs gusting in through the open window on the warm July breeze, sweeping the dingy lace curtains in and out. The sun glared on the stucco remains of a blasted wall across the street on which tanks and jeeps kept grinding past, stirring up dust.

  She was brushing out her hair when the door creaked and Pastor Hecklinger peeked in, saying, “Excuse me, Madame. A man to see you. May I send him in?”

  Her heart soared.

  They’d let Kurt out.

  “Who is it?” she said.

  “Colonel Darlan, Madame.”

  She kept her hopes up still, and hurried to the door, tying the sash around her dressing gown.

  Colonel Darlan came in looking weary and careworn, with bags under his eyes, but managing to smile. “So sorry to bother you, Madame. I have some news.” He was looking around for a place to sit.

  She pointed at the one chair back against the wall beside the dresser. “Please sit down, Colonel. What news?”

  He didn’t answer as he sat in the wooden chair with a groan and Geli leaned back against the edge of the bed across from him.

  “Yes, first of all, I’ve come to tell you that you’re free to go whenever and wherever you wish – except, of course, back to where you came from. That wouldn’t be wise – in the direction of our advancing front.” He let his smile linger on her, as if giving her time to take him up on the obvious logic.

  “Free to - then the restriction has been lifted?”

  “Just that.”

  “For myself and -?”

  “Not for Herr Langsdorff, I’m afraid. That is, not yet.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “You’re not being detained for any security reason. You can go now as you please. As for your friend, that might have been up to him, except -” He took a breath and, blinking rapidly, said, “You have certain ties to Herr Langsdorff, we understand that. The nature of which I take it to be personal enough for you to wish to continue on with him. However, I must tell you that, late last night, he was transferred to Constance on the orders of Captain Paul.”

  A hammer drove up into her head, blood pulsed and swelled there as she waited for the next thing he would say, softening the blow. “You mean somebody just came and got him, and just -?” Her heart burst and tears rushed out.

  Darlan got up as she restlessly began to shake her head.

  “No, no, Monsieur, I’m all right.” She crooked a knuckle under her wet eyes, dug roughly across one cheek and then the other. “What reason did they have for taking him away?”

  Darlan lowered himself back into the chair, gripping the back to ease his fall. “They took him for further interrogation by Commandant Jimmey in Constance.”

  “But anybody who’s read his report can’t help but -”

  Darlan looked up with a heavy-lidded blink. “That’s not up to me, Madame. I read all of his report last night, and I must say it was most impressive. In fact, Captain Paul’s opinion of Herr Langsdorff is favorable. Unfortunately, Jimmey, as his superior, has the final say.”

  “Final say for what?”

  “For whether Langsdorff should be perhaps employed by the anti-werewolf force, or detained longer, possibly sent on to Paris.”

  “Paris? Why there?”

  “There is a place in Notre Dame de Champs – an old Renaissance bastion now being used to hold German captives – most of them suspected of war crimes.”

  “War crimes! But for God’s sake, Kurt Langsdorff is anything but that.” She made a fist and tilled it roughly once again across her wet cheek.

  Darlan wagged a finger at her. “I’m not saying it will go that far. Only that once these wheels begin to turn, they turn very slowly. I’ve known Jimmey since the start of the war. A very conservative man, which means he trusts his ability to let somebody else take chances. I wouldn’t be surprised if they do take Langsdorff’s case clear on to Paris.”

  “But surely somebody, before it goes that far -?”

  Darlan was shaking his head fatefully. “You don’t know Jimmey. You can’t get past him if he’s got his mind made up and the authority to do something about it. I outrank him, but in matters of intelligence, out here, he’s got the final say. Jesus Christ himself could appear before Jimmey and he’d suspect him of being some escapee from a morality play. Frankly, I got a little hot with him. I told him to think carefully. Langsdorff’s report will be extremely interesting for the Secret Service. The man has voluntarily surrendered, and made himself available to supply the names of Nazi officials who bear the responsibility for unspeakable crimes against the Jews. He is – and told me so himself – prepared to sustain those charges in front of an international tribunal. What more do you want? I said to Jimmey. He said that’s all well and good, but somebody else, not him, will have to decide this man’s fate. By which time it could be too late, I pointed out. I might as well be talking to the wall.”

  “Colonel, there’s no time for me to tell you why, but I have to go after him. We left Berlin in such a hurry. I’ve come away without all my proper papers.”

  “But you must have something. You won’t get very far without papers of some sort.”

  “I do still have my old French passport. But I’m alone, and since I’ll have to go back through your lines to France, I may need something else if they detain me.”

  “Such as?”

  “A letter of safe passage?”

  He looked at her a moment, musing judicially the way a father looks at a daughter who’s been bad but he can still love and forgive her.

  “I’m going anyway,” she said. “One way or another.”

  Darlan said in a weary voice, “I’ll have to think this over. One thing gives me pause.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re French, you say. I should ask you how you came to have French papers in Germany. If there’s anything you’re running from -”

  “Not any more, sir. I’m hanging on for dear life.”

  He looked down at his knees, looked up again. “I’m a soldier, not a security officer, but I’ll see what I can do for you. Come to my office tonight. I’ll be there until after midnight.”

  She took his hand in both of hers and squeezed. “Thank you, Colonel. Thank you with all my heart!”

  “I will accept that,” he said with a kindly smile.

  “I’ll see you before midnight, then,” she said.

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  She stood there by the bed, watching Darlan go out, then went to the window and looked down into the street. A group of children were playing keep-away with a flabby leather ball. The sky became a fan of brilliant pink and yellow behind the shell of a blasted building. A bicycle bell zinged. A small dog nervously skirting the children trotted to the rubble under the wall across the street, sniffed and urinated. Somewhere downstairs a radio was playing. The chansonnier was not a voice she knew, but
she remembered the song from a record her mother used to play sometimes at home: Non, je ne regrette rien. ‘I don’t give a damn for the past. I’m starting at zero again. My life, my happiness begins today with you.’

  The smell of lilacs seemed to thicken like the presence of a ghost.

  22

  The brawny sergeant behind the wicket took his time before he looked up at her. His bloodshot eyes were glazed with a kind of dull hostility.

  Before Geli could speak, he said, “Go down that way, if you’re applying for one of the stenographer’s positions.” He jabbed his left thumb toward the right.

  “I’m not,” Geli said. “I’m looking for a man I’m told has been imprisoned here.”

  The burly man, whose tunic strained across a row of brass buttons, began to shake his head. “Next of kin?”

  “No, but I have -”

  “Boyfriend,” the sergeant stated smugly.

  “I only wish to know if you can tell me if this man is here.”

  “What makes you think he is?”

  Geli reached into her purse and pulled out Colonel Darlan’s dog-eared letter of safe passage. “This will explain. The name of the man I’m looking for -”

  The sergeant snatched the paper through the aperture and began to smooth it out on his side.

  Geli hurried to say, “His name is Langsdorff. Kurt Langsdorff. That was given to me in Rottweil by -”

  The sergeant rudely pushed the paper back. “Names mean nothing to me unless you’re next of kin. Perhaps you don’t know that collaborators are still being picked up here in Paris.”

  “Are you suggesting -?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. Giving you a word of advice.”

  Geli stuffed the paper back into her purse, feeling hot. She was about to turn away when she tripped on something he had said. “What were you saying about a stenographer’s position?”

  Breathing stormily, the sergeant pointed toward the left again. “Three doors down that way on your right. I wouldn’t bother if you’ve got no experience.”