While their dogs bark, the Gestapo lines up nurses and doctors against the wall, where my sketches of Adrienne Lafayette look on. Madame LeVerrier yelps when a Gestapo officer forces her arthritic arms over her head. And Anna draws herself up to her full height, gloriously beautiful in anger. “Gentlemen! I demand to know the meaning of this.”
Wolff’s lips quirk, and he comes close enough to kiss her. “My apologies, Countess, did I neglect to mention this is a raid?” He reaches for her cheek, but she flinches. Then he pulls out handcuffs to bind her. “You’re all under arrest. We’ll sort out the guilty and innocent later.”
It’s how they protect informants—they arrest everyone. Children, their doctors, their caretakers. As they start handcuffing everyone I know—people I care about—my stomach roils. Old Madame LeVerrier won’t survive a camp, and I can’t let everyone suffer for what I did. There has to be some other way . . . but I’m too tired to think of it. Hands laced behind my head, I shout, “I’m the only guilty one! I can tell you everything you want to know.”
Wolff turns from Anna and grabs my collar. “You?”
I stare into those icy eyes and my teeth begin to chatter.
“Where are the Jewish girls?” he asks, shaking me.
“I’ll show you if you let everyone else go. I brought the Jewish girls here, no one else.”
My words have everyone gasping. I don’t dare look at my colleagues. I don’t know if they’ll understand or be furious. At first, Wolff doesn’t even seem to believe me. I’m the wife of a gendarme, after all. It’s only after I confess that the girls came from a convent that Wolff’s eyes take on the gleam of a predator who has scented prey.
I tell him, “When I overheard Madame Xavier call you, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake bringing them here.”
Another gasp echoes as every eye turns to Faustine Xavier—and she is visibly shaken to be exposed. You didn’t think you’d get away with it, did you? Whatever happens to me now, at least I’ll have the satisfaction of everyone knowing what a poisonous collaborator she is.
She reddens, sputtering, then admits everything. “You made a terrible mistake, indeed, Madame Travert. Yes, it’s true, I made the call. I wouldn’t want the authorities to think any of us at the castle harbor criminals. I’m sure Madame Travert is exactly right, that she took this upon herself and no one else was involved.”
Wolff shakes me again. “Where are they?”
I clench my chattering teeth. “First, promise—”
“You’ll find them in the girls’ lazaret,” Faustine interrupts with a lift of her chin.
“Wait,” I say, to buy more time. “Let someone go to the records room. You can compare the list against whoever you’re looking for, so that you don’t frighten the rest of the children.”
Anna is nodding, but Faustine says, “There’s no need. The lazaret is just a few minutes’ walk. I can point out the girls who came together if Madame Travert refuses.”
Wolff nods, then yanks my arms back. Handcuffs bite into my wrists. He drags me to the door—but not before I see Madame LeVerrier spit in Faustine Xavier’s face.
I’ll break if I look at Anna, so I stare straight ahead as the Gestapo officer frog-marches me out. He grabs the back of my neck, fingers digging hard, pistol jabbing the small of my back, propelling me out onto the drive, where I’m actually a little surprised not to see more Gestapo agents.
They must not have realized how big the castle really is and how difficult it can be to keep children under control. Or maybe these are all the men Wolff could round up on short notice. They must have called the gendarmerie to help, because Travert is now here. As he gets out of his car, our eyes lock, and he blanches. I know what he’s thinking. He warned me. He starts to say, “My wife—”
A Gestapo officer barks something at him in German and shoves Travert back, threatening him. It’s all right, I try to say with a nearly imperceptible shake of my head. There’s nothing you can do.
But Travert shouts, “Where are you taking her?”
“If you wish to appeal her arrest, do it in Brioude,” Wolff says as his officers force Travert back into his patrol car at gunpoint. Travert looks furious and hopeless all at once, and I’m sorrier than I could’ve imagined to know this is the last look I’ll ever see on his surly face. Because, of course, I’ll never be taken to Brioude alive.