War Bonds: A Novel of World War Two, page 16
“I wish we could go away,” she whispered, hips moving, her breath warm over his face, “that you and I could leave all this and start again.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “We could go away.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A little truth helps the lie go down.
–Italian proverb
London, early 1944
It did not require much effort to tidy Jesse’s beauty shop. With so little traffic, she found herself sweeping, then sweeping again to clear the tile floor of non-existent hair shorn from non-existent customers. She felt it important to look busy, to behave as if the salon were a viable concern. Cash from the Abwehr kept her bills paid, little bundles wrapped and dropped at intervals in a hedgerow outside the Tube station, made to look like a stack of newspapers. She had failed to pick up just one bundle in the past two years, believing some lucky person had stumbled upon her payment. Now she went to the Tube station at the beginning of each pickup window to make sure it didn’t happen again.
The assessment of her family in Scotland notwithstanding, Jesse had not made an ill-advised marriage to an introverted Teutonic bookkeeper. In fact, she had not made a marriage at all, although she hoped to. She had met Hans while on holiday in Munich, found him magnetic and fascinating in ways Scottish men were not, and quickly fell under his influence. They had shared a glorious holiday trip through Bavaria, the birthplace of the National Socialist Party, where Hans introduced her to his bright, passionate friends who understood the world far better than she. They welcomed her into their world, sharing the burgeoning vision of Germany reborn.
In her, Hans found the ideal mix of gullibility and potential: she believed he loved her and her background could be of use once Germany asserted itself across Europe. Jesse telegrammed her parents just as Hitler was ascending to the Chancellorship and consolidating his power, saying she had found work in Germany and was staying: she was learning to cut hair. Jesse was not a true believer in the Nazi regime, but she did believe in Hans, who had convinced her she held his heart. When he outlined a plan that would involve her, as their other friends were doing, collecting intelligence to protect the Party, she promised to do whatever he asked for the good of Germany. She did not concern herself with the younger women in their circle with whom Hans met late into the night. Operatives, all of them, he assured her. These were business meetings only.
Once Britain declared war, Hans informed her she was returning to the U.K., with the cover story that her husband had died and that she had suffered because of rumors of Jewish ancestry. Initially, she felt utterly betrayed: she would sooner die than return to Scotland without him. But once she learned she would be furnished with a quaint little salon in London close to Covent Garden, she saw the possibilities. She intended to demonstrate her loyalty through her work here, believing it would one day result in a real marriage proposal. Once Germany won the war, she envisioned her triumphant return to an indebted Hans. Then their life would truly begin.
What she couldn’t know was that with the success of the code-breakers over at Bletchley Park, who could decipher encoded German messages via their Enigma machine, her activities were well known to MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency. The little drips and drabs of information she’d penned never made it to the post office box in Iowa, USA: the Americans had made quick work dismantling that clutch of spies long before Pearl Harbor, so Jesse’s letters were regularly intercepted, then reviewed by German agents who had been turned and were now assisting MI5 in order to save their necks. Jesse’s lack of skill with following the code books often exhausted the translators, who were never sure if they had something consequential or useless before them. Partly out of amusement, and, some said, for the sake of the handful of women who still frequented her salon, MI5 did not arrest her immediately, but continued to leave her little packets of money outside the Tube station and surveil her in the event she turned up something important, even responding on occasion with a letter meant to look like it came from her contact in America. Her visits with Beryl had been closely observed and had Jack not stepped forward to confess he’d accidentally let strategic information slip to a British civilian, he might well have spent the rest of the war locked up under suspicion as an enemy agent.
After Jesse expressed a too-avid interest in his upcoming assignments, Jack met with his commanding officer and the combat intelligence officer at Kimbolton. The intel officer had leaned on him hard about his undisciplined talk and the lives it could cost. Operation Argument—Big Week—aimed to take out the German aircraft industry in six successive days of unrelenting fury. What the hell had he been doing talking about it? The losses of Allied men and aircraft would be bad enough without Jack giving the Germans forewarning. He attempted without success to explain the extenuating circumstances—the grief that proved disorienting to both Beryl and himself. His C.O. confined him to base until such time the damage from his disclosure was understood and contained. He was to have no contact with Beryl or the English children who frequented Kimbolton. The violation was a serious one, said his superior, not one he would expect an officer like Jack to commit. The intel officer then sent the information up the chain to American then British intelligence who examined it, then acted. When Jesse sent word to the Iowans of “something big” commencing in mid-February 1944, she had signed her own arrest warrant. It was time to shut her down.
. . .
As she leaned on her broom, Jesse’s thoughts ran to the day she would see Hans again: she believed it was drawing closer—the Brits couldn’t even figure out how to get across the Channel and would surely capitulate soon. Her contact with Hans over the past three years had been limited, just a line or two relayed by her Iowa “friends” urging her to continue her good work. How she had wished for a more intimate message, one that assured her he was well and still cared for her.
The bell on the door jangled and a man unfamiliar to her entered the salon.
“Afternoon, sir. Hello to you. So very sorry but we don’t cut gentlemen’s hair. There’s a barber ’round that corner who’s open until late today, so you can try there.”
“Thanks awfully, but I won’t be needing a haircut,” said the man, his eyes locked on her in a way she found deeply uncomfortable.
“This is a salon for ladies, sir, so I’m sorry I won’t be able to do the shampoo for ya either,” responded Jesse, who did not appreciate the way this stranger leaned over her reception desk, seeming to scan the papers laid there. “If there won’t be anything else then, sir, I’ll be locking the door, so if you’ll be off then…”
“Miss Jordan, it’s not a hair washing I need either. A mutual friend suggested I come by and meet you. I understand you are a refugee of sorts, forced to leave Germany because of your Jewish heritage?”
Jesse’s mouth opened as if she intended to speak, the patches of rosacea on her checks burning as her alarm grew. Mutual friend? She had no real friends in London, just scant customers with whom she pushed her cover story. Who could have sent this man to her? Was he her handler? She had no clear sense if he was friend or enemy. Stick to your story, she reminded herself. Play the part.
“Well, yes, no, although it’s not true,” she sputtered. “There were those saying that… back in Munich… and, well, after my husband died with all that going on there, I thought it best to return here and stay clear of any issues involving, you know, all of that.”
“Wise decision. And how is your dead husband, Hans? In Berlin, now, right? Although, I guess more correctly I should say your friend Hans, since you never actually married, and he remains, shall we say, active with any number of women of his choosing. Isn’t that so?” The man smiled, in no hurry for her reply.
Color drained from her face. “I’m not sure what you mean. My husband was a bookkeeper who passed away. I am not married now.” Jesse gripped the broom, wondering in a panic if she was strong enough to draw it up quickly and press it into the man’s windpipe before he seized her.
“Indeed, you’re not, nor have you ever been,” said the man, now approaching her and reaching for something in his pocket. “Miss Jordan, I am arresting you on suspicion of espionage…”
And at this, Jesse threw her broom in his general direction and darted towards the back door of the salon where two other men waited, MI5 agents all, to end Jesse’s amateurish foray into espionage. They seized her and drew her arms to her back to place her in handcuffs.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she shrieked. “I am a hairdresser! Nothing more! Leave me be now! Let go of me, I say.”
“We shall do no such thing,” said the first man. “These kind gentlemen are taking you off to Scotland Yard for a little chat. I shall place a sign in the window to say you are no longer in business—wartime hardship and all that. Ah, look. Not even a quid in the cash drawer. How in the world were you making ends meet?”
. . .
On February 20, 1944, more than one thousand bombers and nearly as many fighter planes lifted off from airfields across East Anglia to drive the Luftwaffe from the skies over Europe. Jack and Buck piloted the Gator that first day and would fly two more missions before the assault concluded. Their targets were the massive aircraft factories, assembly, and component plants spread across the Reich. While Allied losses were heavy, the fervent hope was that the pounding they inflicted for those six days would clear the skies of German aircraft, making possible an Allied invasion. While there had been no official announcement, of course, that this colossal attack was coming, the British whispered among themselves that something must be up because there were so few Americans on the streets: the country had grown altogether quiet because every airman and ground crewman, it seemed, was either preparing for a mission, getting briefed on a mission, or recovering from a mission and preparing for the next one. Where Londoners once commiserated over the ill-mannered rubes who had descended so loudly, so conspicuously, on their mannered city barely two years ago, they now fretted over these boys—their Yanks—and prayed for their safety.
At Jack’s persistent request, his combat intelligence officer had finally relayed a message to Beryl at the hospital, saying Jack would be out of contact for the next number of weeks, regretting that he could not be more available to her under the circumstances. A week after she received the news from the War Office, she returned to work, finding the familiar smells and sounds and activity soothed her, cueing her to the pattern of her duties. With Jack indisposed, she had delayed plans to go to Elsworth and deliver the news of Gordon’s death to Colin. Every day her son lived free of the eventual grief to come was her gift to him. Ignorance is bliss, the saying went, and in this case, she wished she, too, were ignorant.
A month later, Beryl made her way home from work, preoccupied as she always was, hardly noticing the hint of spring that made her walk far more pleasant. It occurred to her she had not seen Jesse since that afternoon she had appeared while Jack was at the flat. She counted back to estimate how many weeks it had been. Five—no, a bit more, she decided. Jesse had promised to check on Beryl once Jack returned to base, but had not done so. It had been a relief to Beryl, actually, who did not consider Jesse a close friend. Their acquaintance spanned only a few years. But the war had forced casual friendships into something much more intense, as people of all backgrounds found themselves side by side in the Tube station, clutching perfect strangers during air raids, hailing them as dearest friends the next time they met because of what they had survived together. She and Jesse had endured the destruction of Densmore’s, the constant threat of attack, and the daily privation of their circumstances. And, of course, taming Beryl’s hair had been Jesse’s ongoing challenge. She prepared herself to stop by the shop and field the questions about Gordon that Jesse would no doubt pose.
But there, on the inside window, was a little sign indicating the salon had closed down. It was dated six weeks earlier. How had she not noticed this? Poor Jesse, having to close her doors for lack of business. As she turned to cross the street and enter her flat, she could not have noticed the man watching her from the window of Jesse’s tiny sitting room just above the salon.
. . .
Knowing Jesse as he did, Hans should have foreseen, perhaps, that her earnest but inept espionage would not only fail to elucidate British war plans for the Nazis but accomplish precisely the opposite. The thing had gone wrong fairly early: once England declared war on Germany, every piece of international mail—incoming and outgoing—underwent thorough scrutiny, so he was not surprised her communications ceased soon after the Battle of Britain began. He knew she was limited, but his handlers insisted Hans deploy her in the U.K. in the event she could unearth worthwhile tidbits. He was only too happy to comply with this order as several years of playacting romantic interest while he groomed her had worn on him. What Hans could not know was that Jesse had indeed produced actionable intelligence—for the Allies. Censors passed the story up the line of the British lieutenant regularly working in the home of a Nazi colonel, presumably with access to all the resources contained therein. Thanks to Jesse’s good work, Polish paratroops serving with the RAF, who now regularly dropped behind the lines to distribute information and supplies, assist evacuees through the escape lines, and sabotage German transportation and communication, were instructed to make contact with this lieutenant. Had Jesse been working for the British, MI5 agents concluded, she might deserve a commendation for the actionable intelligence she passed along. Instead, she remained jailed, piteously pleading that this was a mistake: she was a simple Scottish hairdresser who had done nothing wrong. As time wore on and the agents shared information with her on Hans’ activities in Germany, she came to understand she had indeed done something very, very wrong: it was trusting a liar like Hans who had used her, trading on her love which he did not reciprocate.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger,
since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently;
but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life—knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.
–Aristotle
Occupied France
It is an odd thing, how time passes.
There are the joyous, gossamer moments that hurtle past, that cannot be grasped or gripped or held still, their beauty and bliss replayed and savored, again and again, but only in memory.
And the stunningly painful passages, when the debilitating burden of loss is so grave that time freezes, refusing to advance, the forfeiture of the beloved clouding the present, heavy and dark.
Then there is the routine of life; hectic, over-filled days that become weeks, then months—how did it get to be summer already? Where did autumn go?—prompting the sudden realization that this thing or the other was never finished, despite the best of intentions, provoking the blithely repeated question: where did the time go? This explains in a fair way why a particular wall never does get painted and why the crewelwork for the pillow cover is interminably set aside. It also accounts in part for why Lieutenant William Hughes had not yet come home. With so much to do, he never seemed to get around to it.
It wasn’t that Wills intended to live four, five years in hiding, working with the Resistance, shepherding others to freedom but living apart from his own wife and son. Like many, he had expected the Allies to draw things to a quick conclusion. But they had not, and day stretched into week and then month and then ultimately, years. From his earliest days in hiding when he resolved he must live out his gratitude for all Albert’s family had done for him, he had expected that he, eventually, would be among those walking to freedom after the next rescue. Or the next. Or the one after that. He had access to forged documents that could protect him and his French had improved dramatically. But he felt himself essential here, skilled and equipped for the rigorous trip across the mountains, his butcher training always put to good use to trap and prepare game to serve the travelers. He knew how to read the signs—when the German shifted their surveillance sequences to try to find escapees. The British Special Operations Executive airdropped supplies and agents with regularity and as a key operative along this portion of the escape route, and like all leaders consumed and gratified by demanding work, Wills found himself unable to relinquish command to someone else. Many of the courageous guerrilla partisans—the Maquis—had given their lives to the effort, some making only a tiny, fatal slip. Fatigue usually played a part, instincts and intuition dulled just enough that key signs were missed. One fighter met two German soldiers dressed as American fliers at Dax. He fed and resupplied them and in return, they broke his neck as he slept, the three Brits in the group waking to the struggle and fleeing into the woods. A teenage boy working the line learned the story when he recovered the Brits hiding miles off course. Each exposure meant an entire rework of the escape lines, which increased the danger and created more room for missteps. With young Frenchmen and women—children, really, as some were young teens—continuing to place themselves at risk, Wills could not see his way to abandoning the work. Nor could he risk exposing his true identity or his whereabouts without endangering those with whom he worked. But at least now, Ivy knew he lived.
While escorting the fliers presented certain challenges—the Americans often tried to direct the whole business, questioning each stop, each fork in the road, always believing they could enhance the plan—the Jewish families gave Wills the most sleepless nights. Most were French Jews who realized too late their French citizenship would not protect them. By the time they found their way to the underground network and those who would help them escape, they were badly weakened after months in hiding with limited food, no medical care. He had buried more than one during the crossing, believing that they allowed themselves to die once they recognized their children were steps from freedom and would survive. Their children were often frail, docile, and worried when they deserved to be rambunctious and curious, normal children living free and safe lives. They bore the emotional cost of leaving behind grandparents who were too old or too ill to flee, who mistakenly believed the Germans would have no interest in old people minding their own business. Many of these children, Wills hauled over his shoulder to carry across the mountains, depositing them at the monastery where they were fed and restored, the monks giving over their small stone chapel for Shabbat services, the Benedictines themselves reading from the Torah they now kept alongside their Bible. Wills had attended more than one of these services, heartened when he saw the haunted look in the children’s eyes change to recognition as they heard the cantor begin the familiar melody. It was this Wills found impossible to abandon. Would these souls survive if he were not doing this work?
