“Does Josie’s mother understand that even if her daughter did make a mistake or two, she was still an incredible agent? The only thing I know for sure is that the war ended because women like Josie stepped up,” Dad says.
“I really don’t think Drusilla does understand that, Dad,” I whisper, thinking about the sadness in Drusilla’s eyes as she talked about her daughter.
“Maybe one day I could meet her.”
“Maybe one day, that would be good for both of you,” I agree. I might even facilitate such a meeting myself. There’s just someone else I have to speak to first.
C H A P T E R 25
ELOISE
Karlsruhe Prison, Germany
September, 1944
“What do you think will happen?” Josie asked me on that first night together. It was late, and we were lying side by side on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. I was still shaken by the events of the day—by the reunion with my friend, or what was left of her, as tortured and starved as she had been, and by the news that my son was not safe from the risk of the war, as I’d long believed. “I am months behind what is happening with the war, of course. Has there been any good news?”
I told her everything I knew about the D-Day landings, and about the joyous, relieved mood that swept Britain at the news.
“So…do you really think we will win?”
“It was looking very promising for us when I was captured,” I told her. “I suspect and hope that’s why they moved us all further into Germany—the Allies must surely be advancing. Europe will soon be free and the world will be at peace. I’m just not sure…”
“If it will happen in time for us?” she said, finishing my sentence. I nodded sadly.
“I don’t think the Germans will give up without a fight. I’m imagining the advance of the front will be slow.” My chest ached at the thought of never seeing Hughie again. I intended to keep a lookout for chances to escape and to keep my spirits up, but I had to be realistic about it too. Josie and I were in a terrible predicament, and now even further from home.
“If we survive, I’m going to meet Noah in Paris,” she said, smiling softly. “We’re going to have a family. Build a life together.”
“If we survive,” I whispered, “I’m going to go find my son and he will be enough for me for the rest of my life. I will make my life’s work raising him into a good man, the kind of man who cares about other people. A man who cares about what’s right, just as his father did.”
“Do you think it has been worth it? Even if we don’t survive?”
I thought about missing my mother’s funeral, about my son being in the care of strangers, perhaps disconnected from the very record of our family. I thought about everything I’d seen and the hours of fear and anxiety and pain I’d experienced.
But then I pictured Hughie growing up without the anxiety of the looming shadow of the Nazis just on the other side of the Channel. I saw him growing up in a world where hate had been conquered, and freedom had won. Surely, if the Allies won the war, humanity would reject bigotry and cruelty and the world would be a better place forever. Surely, if the Allies won, the world would learn to reject hate, and embrace love.
Even if he never knew the role I’d played, it would all be worth it if he could be free.
“Absolutely,” I said, my voice cracking with emotion. “My role in all of this has been so small, but at least I did something.”
“Even if it costs me my life,” Josie whispered, “I will be proud to have sacrificed it for France and for freedom. It means something that we fought for what we believed in, doesn’t it?”
“We might still make it,” I reminded her, wiping my eyes. “You’ve survived all of those months in solitary confinement already. Perhaps we’ll just stay here in this cell together until we are liberated.”
“That wouldn’t be so bad,” she said, smiling. “I can certainly think of worse fates.”
The first time there was an air raid, we heard the rest of the prison being evacuated down into a basement, but Josie and I were left behind. I could hear others, not far from us, shouting for help in English and French.
I went to the door and thumped on it furiously to add to the protest.
“You can’t just leave us here! Help!”
For a few minutes, there was nothing, but then Hertha came to the door. We saw her most days and had become familiar with her, if not friendly. Perhaps she was privy to what Josie had already endured, because Hertha had been allowing us a few special privileges. We were supposed to shower once every three weeks, but she’d been taking us to the shower block every Sunday, and occasionally she would slip us extra food. One day, she even allowed us a whole hour outside, instead of our regulation thirty minutes. As the air raid continued Hertha spoke, frustration in her voice. Josie translated for me from the bed, where she was sitting with her knees drawn up.
“She tells me that the warden says we must stay here.”
And then Hertha was gone, her footsteps thumping along the hallway.
It was dark in the cell, but I could see Josie’s big eyes and her pale face through the moonlight filtering through the window. I sat beside her on the bed, trying to think of how we might keep ourselves safe if a bomb happened to land on the building, and quickly came to the conclusion that there was nothing we could do to protect ourselves. Even if we lay beneath the bed, that simple wooden plank would offer no protection at all.
“This N&N business…” I asked hesitantly.
“I don’t understand the particulars but I know it is not a good thing.”
We rode out the air raid sitting on the bed, holding one another’s hands. There wasn’t much to say when we were both aware that we could die at any second, but I drew comfort from knowing I was with a friend, even as I was frustrated almost to tears at my own powerlessness. Within an hour, the all clear sounded, the prison guards led the other prisoners back to their cells. I stood at the door and thumped until Hertha came back.
“Is it really the intention to leave us here to die if the prison is hit by a bomb?” I asked her. Josie came to stand beside me and translated the words into German through the door, and Hertha replied, her tone low and rushed.
“We are supposed to be isolated. The only reason we are allowed to share a cell is that they do not have the capacity to house us individually. She says they don’t really have the capacity to house us at all and the warden is furious that we are here.” Josie paused, listening as Hertha spoke, then looked at me anxiously. “Oh no—she says the warden is doing her best to move us on.”
“Where to?”
“She just said to a prison equipped to handle political prisoners, not a civilian prison like this,” Josie sighed. “God, I hope that doesn’t happen.”
Life at Karlsruhe was surprisingly tolerable. We had three meals a day delivered to our cell through a hatch, and even “coffee” at 4:00 p.m. each day, which was generally acorn coffee or sometimes bitter, watery tea. The food was woeful by the standards of a free citizen but Josie assured me it could be much worse. There was bread with a small portion of margarine and soup, often with a serving of vegetables at lunch and dinner, and on the weekends, sparse chunks of meat in a thin stew with noodles. Periodically we’d be surprised by a few slices of sausage or milk with our coffee, and Hertha was forever slipping us extra plates if she was on shift.