London House, page 23
That night, curled together in her huge bed, I broached the subject again. “What are you hiding, Caro?”
She turned my question back on me. “I was going to ask you the same thing. In this last year, you’ve gone away.”
There were many things to say and maybe, if I had the courage, pure truth could have been ours. But I shrank from it once more.
“I didn’t go anywhere. That’s just it. I stayed.” I arched away from her to see her more clearly. “You keep saying I stepped away from my true self, but I didn’t. Yes, I got scared. I almost died, Caro, and it scared me enough to finally recognize what I had and who I had, and it was enough. I grew up and stopped chasing every rainbow.”
Caro swiped at her eyes like she used to do. “They thought you would—die, that is. Not quit chasing your rainbows. They sent me away. They didn’t let me say goodbye.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be, and I’m not angry anymore. But I can’t deny it happened and that it changed everything. I felt guilty and sad, and then just angry. I’ve been angry for so long now . . . But perhaps that was the plan all along. You are where you need to be and I’m doing what I can.”
I gripped her hand. “You told Father you were going to Scotland, to Arisaig to scout fabrics. There’s more you can do. Rejoin the ATS here in London, come serve in Derbyshire. Parkley has just been commissioned for the Army. We will have lots to do. Come help us.”
“I can’t. Please understand.” Caro’s fingers traced the quilt’s counterpane as if counting the stitches. “You’d be surprised at how important a working zipper and sturdy canvas are to an army.” I sensed the smile in her voice, the secret, and the lie.
She scooted closer. “I need you to believe in me, Margo. Now. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.” I wrapped my arms around her.
She spoke, her head resting against mine. “I’ll be gone for a month and there may be more trips throughout this year as the Army implements uniform changes. Please don’t let Father go sideways about all this. Trust that what I am doing is right and important, and defend me. Can you do that?”
She had asked the same question twice. What was she really asking?
Caro twisted to search my face. She needed an answer.
“Yes. Of course.”
She nodded as if committing my answer to memory. And, rather than feel like everything was clear or assured between us, I felt the gulf open wider.
London House
16 June 1941
Dear Margo,
Martine wrote from Paris last week. I don’t even know how she gets her letters out, but I suspect she employs Schiap’s connections. Word had it that, at some point, Schiap was even using the diplomatic mail of the German ambassador to Vichy France, Otto Abetz, to get her missives out. Then again, Bettina’s husband is in the Nazi ranks. Maybe he’s helping Schiap.
Either way, Schiap or Bettina would have Martine’s head if they knew what she wrote . . .
I shouldn’t, but I have to tell you. I can’t keep this horror inside. Writing it somehow lessens the pain.
Élisabeth de Rothschild came to a showing a couple weeks ago and some stupid girl now working at the salon signed her death warrant. The girl either didn’t realize de Rothschild converted to Judaism when she married or she purposely sat her next to Abetz’s wife out of spite. De Rothschild moved seats.
Martine said she didn’t make a fuss about it; she simply got up and quietly moved. But the offense was noted, a warrant issued, and now she’s been arrested.
She’ll be shipped to Germany, if she hasn’t been already. They have camps there. They call them work camps. Others call them prison camps. Either way, it is beyond belief and she will not survive. The stories of those camps would sicken you.
It’s a mess at the salon, and Martine must clean up what she can. Bettina, Schiap’s number two, is furious and ready to fire everyone. And Schiap is gone. She fled—there is no other word—to New York and is not returning. Yet somehow she has arranged for her precious House of Schiaparelli to stay open and poor Martine is trying to survive within it. I feel Schiap’s duplicity in this—and cowardice.
I feel France’s collusion as well. She has let Germany swallow her once again. You should have heard the bravado before the Germans invaded. Bravado I believed and joined in—that France would embody the call of La Marseillaise and run her streets with the blood of her enemies before she’d ever bow to invaders.
The streets are silent now. Silent because the Germans order them to be so.
Will they cross the Channel?
Will the Germans silence us as well?
I’m sorry, dear sister. I’m so tired tonight I can’t see clearly. Work has drained me and depleted my hope.
Tonight I passed a police officer arresting a man on Chesham Place. He was robbing a bombed home and carrying two sets of identification papers. I surmise he was trying to pass off the second set so that false information would be recorded and he could return home with no record, safe in his anonymity.
Is that the best we can do? Turn on each other as long as no one sees our true selves?
It reminded me that I’m no better. Remember that brassier I wrote you about long ago? The one I adapted from the Lobster Dress design and rolled papers into the supports? Something feels treacherous about that innocent project now. I actually designed that bra to hide something. Identification papers? Perhaps.
I’m beginning to doubt there’s any innocence left in the world. There certainly isn’t in me. I have another trip coming up—this time to Morar. You won’t be able to reach me, but I’ll telephone as soon as I return to London.
Be safe, dear sister.
Love,
Caro
While I read, Mat scrolled through his phone. He tilted it to me as I looked up. “Put that letter with this and we know she was heading to Morar for training.”
MOST SECRET FIELD OPERATION SUMMARY
06/08 June 1941
I met with Martine at our usual spot. I provided her with 50,000 francs to secure a safe house for October and needed supplies. She has grown increasingly nervous of exposure as three arrests have been made within her group. She fears there is a mole.
There is and, I believe, he is still active. I suspect Christophe, but Martine refused to consider his duplicity. He began to work for Schiaparelli in April 1940 and quickly became a trusted bodyguard for her person and the salon. He kept watch over everyone rather than integrate into the workforce, remaining distant from the salon’s daily rhythm. Many grew to suspect German affinities within him during the early weeks of his employment, even while I still worked there. While Martine has noted he is now more aggressive and more secretive, she believes that he can be trusted—he guards the House of Schiaparelli. I reminded her that is not the same as guarding her.
As I left out the back courtyard door, I met him outside her studio—close enough I suspect he heard bits of our conversation. He grabbed my arm and insisted I tell him what I was doing there. I said Schiap called me back to help transport designs to America. He half believed my lie. His eyes then narrowed and he pulled a knife from a holster on his calf. He demanded I come to the French police and try my story again, as Schiap told him everything and she had not mentioned this request. I tried to assert my command, but it failed.
At his strike, I lifted my arms in defense. He cut a four-inch gash into my left forearm. I then raised my knee to his groin and dropped him to the ground. I yelled at him for attacking me and I rattled off several plans, all fake, of which he knew nothing, to prove he was not in Schiap’s confidence. I hope my lies and bluster will keep him from calling the police and putting Martine in their crosshairs. He may now feel he was in the wrong and could get into trouble with Schiap.
I left quickly, doubling back and forth over a mile of streets and alleys to make sure I was not followed to the safe house. Dr. Montreau stitched my arm.
Martine is no longer safe. She knows nothing of his attack on me. He has grown bolder, and I believe Christophe will sell any information he gleans to the Germans and will turn Martine over to them without compunction. Another agent needs to reach out and make certain Martine is warned and her network is secure. Christophe is a threat, and my continued involvement will endanger Martine and her contacts.
MOST SECRET CIPHER TELEGRAM
To: War Office
From: Nelson, Frank
28/7 cipher 14/12
Desp. 2242 8 June 1941
Recd. 0015 9 June 1941
Your para 1, ROSE’s June trip signaled her unpreparedness and the heightening dangers. Please arrange for her to report to Morar for training as soon as she lands from Douarnenez. I strongly suggest enough time be given for field drills in sabotage if you expect her to augment CLEMENTINE.
Your para 5, I agree she is compromised. Infiltration prior to CLEMENTINE should be kept to a minimum and on an emergency basis only. I strongly recommend, after that time, she be pulled from the field.
“That’s the Christophe from Arnim’s file I told you about, the one sent to Auschwitz in November ’41. I expect that his deportation was related to all of this, but we may never know.”
“I wish we could know about Martine.” I rested my head on my arms. “Caro loved her. I’d like to believe she survived, at least, and was happy.”
“She was,” Mat whispered.
I lifted my head and was met by an adorably sheepish grin.
“You mentioned her yesterday at the Archives, and after last night, I wanted to do something nice for you . . . I followed Martine.”
“How?” I sat up.
He circled the table carrying his computer with him. “It wasn’t so hard really. I started with what Schiaparelli’s had online and from there I went to all the databases I could think of—regional, national, and international for World War Two. A few didn’t get fully online until 2018 so we’re lucky that way, but look . . .”
His screen displayed a compilation of screen shots, marking his way across the Internet and Martine Hervé’s travels across the globe and through time.
“Ordino . . . Barcelona . . . She went over the Pyrenees?”
“She and about thirty-three thousand others throughout the war. But she was early. See, she’s registered in Barcelona in spring of ’42. Then I found a marriage license in 1946, birth certificates in 1953 and ’55 and . . .” He pointed to a last box.
“She has a grandson living in California.”
“And several other kids and grandkids still in Spain, but this one has a wife, three children, and a dog . . . People should be terrified with how much information is out there.”
“I know.” I laughed through sputtery tears. “But I’m so glad, right now, that it is.” I reached up and hugged him. His arms slowly wrapped around me and held.
This morning he smelled like lemon and mint. It was a good early morning scent, relaxing in a sunshiny way. I breathed him in and it brought hope to another of my senses. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how much I needed some good news.”
I felt Mat stiffen within my embrace. He stepped back and closed his computer. The glow I felt tracing Martine’s trail across Europe and her family’s journey to the United States vanished with his laptop’s click. Suddenly our reality, rather than Martine’s successful escape, loomed before us—and, with Mat’s sudden retreat, there was awkwardness, a distance, and something yet unnamed between us I still couldn’t put my finger on.
“Mat?”
He backed away—all the way around to his side of our worktable. “I just wanted you to have that.”
“It must have taken hours.”
He fussed with the chaos of pages in front of him. “A few. But it’s good to have that loop closed.” He located what he was looking for and stretched a list across the table to me. “After those field notes, read the diary entries I listed here. It all comes together. The story is forming a cohesive whole. Caro gets cut in France, comes home, gets assigned more training, and in these entries we read what she told Margaret about it all.”
9 July 1941
Dear Beatrice,
Another disastrous dinner. Why does she bother to come home? Does she simply come to fight? Again, I left the table early with Mother on my heels. I don’t think Father and Caro even noticed we left.
As usual, Caro came to my room upon leaving the dining room. I sat on my bed and listened to her pound up the stairs and down the hall. She stomps like an elephant when mad.
She didn’t bother to knock, just burst through my door. “I’m not coming back.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. The Blitz is over. Things will calm down. He’ll calm down.”
“It’s not him. It’s me. I keep picking needless fights. I just get so angry.” She plopped onto my bed. “But it won’t calm down, Margo. Don’t believe that. This war will get far worse before it gets better.”
“Listen to you.” I laid down my book and sat upright. “This is a new tune.” I didn’t want to revisit all that claptrap she used to recite, but couldn’t help teasing her a little.
She stared at me. “I know more now.”
I lifted a brow. She says that expression makes me look like a hawk. She noted it and banked her fire. I sensed she caught that she had accidentally signaled something by her tone, something she didn’t want me to know.
The air thickened between us, but rather than share with me, she flicked her fingers as if shooing a ladybug. “It’s nothing. Just talk in the RAF. Randolph is worried.”
She was lying. So I decided to dig—and I sometimes play dirty. “You’re still stringing him along, are you?”
She’s not, but the charge reddened her face. “I’m not stringing him along, Margo. Don’t say that. I love him and I would never hurt him.”
“I believe you did. Once. But you lied to him, Caro, and you used me as cover over our birthday last year. You had never planned to come home, yet you deliberately told him that. You lied to him then as you’re lying to me now. Isn’t that a form of betrayal? A form of cheating?”
She moved as if ready to leave. I reached for her arm. “Just talk to me. You can trust—” She jerked back, toppling off the bed to stand. Noting a flash of red, I pounced forward after her. “Show me.”
“What?”
I grabbed at her other arm to keep her from leaving. “Show me.” I repeated the command with such force she wilted and lifted her sleeve.
There is a huge red, raised, and jagged scar across her forearm! It had to have been a horribly deep cut that required stitches to close.
“That’s fresh. Who hurt you?”
“No one. It happened about a month ago.” She stood at the foot of my bed, feet braced to either flee or fight. I wasn’t sure which.
She traced the scar with her finger. “It was a fallen wire . . . I didn’t see it heading to work one morning and walked right into it. If I hadn’t raised my arm at the last second, it would have sliced my face.”
“I’m so sorry.” I stepped toward her. “You poor thing. Did I just hurt you?”
“It’s still tender, that’s all.” She slid her sleeve back down as if needing to hide it again.
All my anger evaporated, but my fear for her increased. She lied to me, Beatrice. Right then and there—again. No wire can create such serrations.
But what was I to say? Push her and lose her? Accuse her again? Then she really might not come back home—ever. I sit here safe in the north while she lives and works in London, braving bombs and who knows what else each night.
“Remember how well you know me, Margo. You know my heart and I love you.” She fixed me with an intense stare. “George too.”
“I know.” A sigh signaled to us both that I was backing down. It’s true; I’ve never doubted her love for me or for Randolph.
She didn’t leave. She climbed back onto my bed. “Will you be sad to move to the South Cottage in the fall?”
“Not at all.” I climbed up next to her. “It would be impossible to stay when the Army takes over. And it’s what we must do. Sometimes we don’t have a choice with the situations handed to us. We’ll make the best of it.”
She smiled up at me. “See? I always said you were our better half. I’d be put out.”
“Somehow I don’t believe that’s true.” I glanced to her arm and her now-hidden scar. “I’ve got an uneasy feeling you’re giving life and limb and I’m simply moving to the end of the garden.”
“Do you think if you do something well and good that how you get there doesn’t matter? Can the end justify the means?”
I sat straighter. “What are you talking about?”
She hung her head “Nothing . . . I hurt Father tonight. More deeply than I intended to. I simply . . . I can’t have him worry. That’s why I said I wasn’t coming back. It’s better to have him angry at me than to make him worry about me. I can’t have any of you worry.”
“You’re poking him on purpose?” I gestured toward her arm and watched her tuck it behind her back. “There’s more to that cut, isn’t there?”
She climbed off the bed and backed to the door. I knew I was right, but also knew I couldn’t push.
“Don’t discount your work or your value, Margo. And I’m sorry I’ve jabbed you about Mother and Father. They need you. Right where you are, doing what you are.”
“And you?”
“I’m doing what I can.” She shrugged, one hand on the knob of the connecting door between our rooms. “Maybe one day they’ll even be proud of me again.”
Her last sentence lingered long after she left. It brought to mind a long-ago letter. She once wrote that Father told her she was “amounting to nothing” and that those words now sat between them.
What is she willing to risk to prove him wrong?
I fear everything.
Thirty
