Miss Ellis emerged from the dining room to powder her nose. Just after that, Mr Stafford Reid appeared too. This in itself was an interesting development and for a moment I wondered if they were going to kiss each other as well. But instead they just stood quite close together and talked quietly. I had to very carefully lean my head against the banisters to be able to hear what they were saying.
First of all, Mr Reid said, ‘You’re right, Dorothy, Guillaume is the perfect man for the trip.’ I listened even harder at that because Guillaume is Papa. Then Miss Ellis said, ‘Yes, but travelling on his own might create suspicion.’ And Mr Reid nodded and said, ‘But not if it’s a family holiday to the mountains.’ Miss Ellis replied, ‘Do you think Delphine would agree to such an undertaking?’ （Delphine is Maman’s name）。 And Mr Reid said, ‘She wouldn’t need to know it’s anything other than a family trip. Guillaume will be able to persuade her, I’m sure.’
Then Miss Ellis said, ‘Do you think it will be safe for the girls?’ and Mr Reid said, ‘I think it will be safe because of the girls. They’ll be the perfect camouflage. A family outing to explore a little more of Morocco – what could be more innocent?’
I had my forehead pressed so hard against the banisters by that point that they left red dents in my skin. But then Mr Reid and Miss Ellis went back into the dining room, where the conversation seemed to become a bit more boring again. I suppose people had drunk a great deal of the good wine by that stage of the proceedings. They were all laughing a lot. I stayed sitting on the stairs for a while longer but no one else came out and so in the end I went quietly up to my room. I hung my dress up carefully in the wardrobe, as Maman had instructed me to do, and then I lay on my bed for quite a long time just thinking about everything. I didn’t even read my book. I wondered about those brown envelopes that Papa had been passing to Miss Ellis and the list of places and numbers I’d seen and I had a feeling that somehow this plan for a trip to the mountains was linked to them, although I couldn’t work out how exactly.
I’ve decided not to say anything to Papa or Maman about the conversation between Mr Reid and Miss Ellis. It will be interesting to see what happens about the proposal of a family trip to the mountains.
But I’m definitely going to say something to Annette about kissing Olivier, that’s for sure.
Zoe – 2010
Next time I go to the library, I find a book on the American presence in Morocco during the war. Searching through the index, my eye is caught by a familiar name: Stafford Reid. I leaf through to the pages on which he is referenced. He was one of a number of vice-consuls appointed to serve in Morocco in the 1940s, I read. Officially, they were here to help deal with the flood of refugees from across Europe seeking visas for the United States. But then I come across a paragraph that tells of a very different reality. Several of the vice-consuls had another, more clandestine remit. They were appointed to gather intelligence, as well as to help establish and co-ordinate a resistance network in North Africa. It was a group that would come to play a key role in the course of the war.
Among other undercover activities, I learn that Stafford Reid’s role had been to establish a radio network with its base in a hidden room in the basement of the American consulate attached to an antenna concealed in the roof. Known as Station Lincoln, it provided a crucial communications hub, with Reid responsible for the coding and decoding of messages.
As I read this, my hands begin to itch and burn. I fish a tube of cream out of Grace’s changing bag and massage some into the red welts. The relief it provides is only temporary, though, and a few minutes later I’m unable to resist scratching at them again, worrying at the skin the same way my anxiety troubles my brain. Did Josie’s father know what he was getting involved in when he began going to those ‘meetings’？ Was he becoming a pawn in the very dangerous game of chess that was being played out on the plains of North Africa? Did he realise the danger he was exposing himself to? And did he know his girls were being used as a cover, as Josie suspected when she overheard the conversation on the stairs?
The burning of my skin becomes unbearable and I can’t concentrate on the words on the page in front of me any more. I think Grace must sense my anxiety because she gives a little whimper in her sleep and angrily punches the air with one chubby fist. I put my laptop away and gather everything together, checking out the book on the American campaign in North Africa at the front desk.