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Last night, he said he hadn’t killed anyone yet, but he was still afraid for his soul. Would he feel the same way if he were working with a local resistance group? Would he even be interested in helping them?
It’s a question I cannot ask him. Not now. Not while his friends are escaping to a country where they’ll finally be safe. Not while his sister’s and mother’s whereabouts are unknown. And not when I’ve been given direct instructions not to include him.
I light the candle and burn the original message from the drop box and the one I transcribed. Once the ashes have been disposed of, I work at coding a new message for Allaire.
Message received and understood. Will keep you apprised of the situation. If the blue tits land safely in the nest, it will go a long way in securing The Wolf’s loyalties to us.
I secure the coded message and my supplies in the hiding place and reposition the wooden floorboards, rug, and white thread. The courier is scheduled to arrive in four days to check the other drop box for messages to Allaire. It will be another day or two after that before he will receive it, assuming everything goes according to schedule.
I return outside to tend to the garden. The hard manual labor is the perfect distraction from my thoughts. I’m beyond exhausted, and a kaleidoscope of emotions consume me, and with each twist of the wrist, a new emotion becomes predominant. Optimism. Grief. Fear. Hope. Worry. Guilt. Love.
Jacques has already eaten the evening meal by the time Johann enters the house. The thud-thud-thud of his booted footsteps don’t go upstairs or come into the kitchen. They head to the drawing room. This is followed by a murmur of voices. The two men are talking, but I cannot hear what they are saying.
I put the plate I was washing on the sideboard, dry my hands with the tea towel, and go to see what’s going on. Johann is bent over the side table, his back to me, his body blocking whatever he’s working on.
He straightens and steps away, revealing a radio. The dark wood is slightly chipped, the edges worn. It once belonged to someone else until the Germans confiscated it. I don’t even want to think what might have happened to its previous owners.
“It’s illegal for us to be in possession of that,” I remind him.
“We will just have to make sure it isn’t found,” Johann says. “And if it is found, I will take responsibility for it. But I need to know if Oskar and his family make it to their destination, and this is the only way for you to learn they are safe, non?”
“That’s correct.”
He rubs his hand over the smooth wooden surface. “Don’t tell me what the coded messages say. Then German intelligence won’t be able to learn anything from me if they should find it here.”
I nod, thankful I can now listen to the BBC French news more frequently than before. Since Johann has been living here, I’ve been reduced to listening to it whenever he’s away in the evenings. “We will still need to be cautious,” I say. “We cannot risk it being found.”
“Agreed.”
There’s a reason the Nazis don’t want the French to listen to the broadcasts. The BBC news is the only way to rally support of those wishing to resist the occupation, to let them know Britain hasn’t abandoned occupied Europe to the Germans. It provides hope in a time when there is so little of it.
Jacques, Johann, and I sit close to the radio so we can keep the volume low. The timpani beat of Dot. Dot. Dot. Dash begins the broadcast. The Morse code for “V.” For victory.
“Ici Londres! Les Français parlent aux Français.”
The announcement is followed by five minutes of the world news, something that has been in short supply in France. The Germans make sure we only see their propaganda. A variety of entertainment—poems, comical plays, commentaries on the war, slogans, songs—makes up the meat of the show. It lasts for about thirty minutes.
“Resist the demands of the Vichy government,” the announcer says in French. “They are not your friends. They will bring our beautiful country to ruins with their corruption and drive for power. Resist and fight. Everything you do takes us one step closer to winning back our country. If you work in a factory that makes goods that supply German soldiers, do what you can to make the products subpar.”
Johann laughs, the sound a soft rumble in his chest. “That would explain why the tyres are constantly needing to be replaced on some of the German military vehicles. The men were complaining the French don’t know how to make tyres like the Germans do.”
The final five minutes of the broadcast pertains to my role in the SOE.
“The turkey ate the cow,” the radio announcer proclaims. “Claude has a rainbow beard. Monkeys sing with bananas.”
Some of the silly messages are just noise, as meaningless as they come across. They are created to distract the enemy, leaving the Germans to scramble and figure out what the messages mean. The other silly messages are signals to agents on the ground, to confirm an air drop is happening as scheduled that evening, the RAF plane having just taken off from England.
None of the messages tonight are applicable to the job I was recruited to do.
The broadcast ends, and Johann hides the radio in the barn. I know he hasn’t found our other hiding spots because the security measures I employ have yet to be disturbed.
“Looks like it will be a beautiful sunset,” Johann tells me. “Should we go to the pond to watch it?”
“I’d like that very much.”
He and I walk towards the pond, neither of us talking. The night is quiet other than the drone of insects. It’s a welcome reprieve from the explosions, the rhythmic staccato of marching soldiers, the vibration of an engine belonging to the enemy.
Johann and I sit on the grassy bank, and he laces his fingers with mine. We gaze to the horizon, where the sun lies just above scattered clouds.
