Anna checks the door to make sure it’s locked, then asks, “Why do you think the Gestapo is here?”
I shrug. I’ve heard German soldiers visit French doctors for treatment so their commanding officers don’t find out they’ve got a venereal disease. If that’s why Wolff’s here, I hope his prick rots off. The important thing is that he doesn’t seem to be here for me or the kids. “I have to get to class . . .” Anna was so poised a moment ago, but now she’s shaking, so I add, “It’s going to be fine.”
In that, I couldn’t be more wrong.
* * *
—
Long after the Gestapo officers drag Amaury de LaGrange out of the castle, the baroness stands at the window with her hands over her face. The baron went with dignity, everyone agreed—angrily yanking his arm from the Gestapo officers so he could straighten his jacket and don his fedora. Then he stooped to fold his tall frame into the backseat of the Mercedes-Benz, and with a little wave, he was gone.
“I don’t understand why they didn’t arrest me,” the baroness says again, as we all try to comfort her. “I’m the American. I’m the one who helped found this place and marched on Bastille Day . . .”
I marched too, and now my stomach is in knots.
Before he was taken, the baron assured everyone that it was a simple misunderstanding and that he’d be back in a few hours. But a few hours have already come and gone.
I stay with Anna and her mother that night—though I’m not sure how much comfort I am. And by the next morning, when we wait in the library by the silent telephone, the baroness has circles under her eyes. She starts pacing, then suddenly stops by the walnut desk where her husband’s pipe is still where he left it. Then she throws open the desk drawer and fishes out a set of keys.
Anna’s head jerks up from the sofa. “What are you doing, Maman?”
I think I know exactly what the baroness intends to do—something we should have done at the first whisper of the occupation. “Let me do it,” I say. “My husband is a gendarme. If the pistols are registered, he’ll know. If not, he’ll know that too. I’ll get rid of them.”
The baroness takes the measure of me, then confesses, “I don’t want to get rid of George Washington’s dueling pistols. I want to hide them.”
Anna blanches, and maybe she’s right to. We see lists in the newspapers of people who have been executed for hiding weapons every day, or just failing to denounce those who do. Maybe this is why Anna says, “Better to turn them in, Maman. There have been amnesties . . .”
“The Germans don’t always honor them,” I say. “You’d be handing them evidence to use against your father. If they needed any.” Then I turn my attention back to the baroness. “Which is another reason to let me do it. If I’m caught, I’m not so closely associated with him.”
Anna’s eyes mist over in both gratitude and shock. Two years ago, I felt like she was the only person left in my life who really knew me at all. Maybe she did. Two years ago I wouldn’t have risked my neck for stupid flintlocks that belonged to George Washington.
I wouldn’t have done it to protect the baron either, but here we are . . .
Anna wraps her arms around me in thanks—and I let her. Her closeness and her perfume still dizzy me, even though my feelings for her are all twisted up because of my guilt over Henri and my marriage to Travert. My longing still exists, even if we’re not as close as we used to be. Even as I’ve tried to push her away. “Marthe, we can’t let you take such an awful risk for us.”
“Better me than you,” I say. Besides, though she doesn’t know it, I’m already hiding children and forging documents, so what’s one more secret? After all, the Germans can only kill me once . . .
I roll the pistols into an old dirtied rag. I take them into the secret passages and dig out a stone from the wall to make a pocket, which I cover with a shallower stone and seal with dirt. The Germans aren’t going to find them, and even if they do, they might think the pistols have been hidden here for years. I’m feeling pretty proud of myself.
Almost proud enough to tell Travert, but that night he has news for me. “I wasn’t able to find a current address for Maxime Furlaud. But an old neighbor said he moved to New York sometime after 1918 and married an American sculptress.”
That’s curious, and more than anybody has been able to tell me before. I’m so grateful to Travert, and I wish I had time to think about it, but what I really need now is for him to find the baron.