road?”
“A small inconvenience,” Michael said.
“I don’t think I want to hear any more.” She picked up the silver pocket watch, clicked the winding stem twice, and looked at the cyanide capsule when the back popped open. She grunted softly, closed the watch, and returned it to him. “You might want to keep that. Knowing the time is very important these days.”
The white-haired man returned with a bundle of clothes and a pair of scuffed black shoes. “We got your sizes over the radio,” the woman said. “But we were expecting two men.” She motioned toward the contents of Gaby’s suitcase. “You brought your own clothes, then? That’s good. We don’t have civilian papers for you. Too easily traced in the city. If either of you are captured…” She looked at Michael, her eyes hard. “I expect you to know what time it is.” She waited until Michael nodded his understanding. “You won’t see your uniforms or the car again. You’ll be supplied with bicycles. If you feel you must have a car, we’ll talk about it. We don’t have a lot of money here, but we have a fortune in friends. You’ll call me Camille, and you will talk only to me. You’re not to address either of these two gentlemen.” She motioned toward the Frenchmen, who were gathering up the German uniforms and putting them in a basket with a lid. “Keep your pistol,” she told Michael. “Those are hard to come by.” She stared at Gaby for a few seconds, as if evaluating her, then at Michael. “I’m sure you both have had experience in this. I don’t care anything about who you are, or what you’ve done; the important thing is that a lot of lives depend on your being smart-and careful-while you’re in Paris. We’ll help you as much as we can, but if you’re captured we don’t know you. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly,” Michael answered.
“Good. If you’d like to rest awhile, your room is through there.” Camille nodded toward a corridor and a doorway. “I was just making some onion soup, if you’d like a taste.”
Michael picked up the shoes and bundle of clothes from the table where they’d been set, and Gaby closed her suitcase and hefted it. Camille said, “You children behave yourselves,” and then she turned away and walked into a small kitchen where a pot boiled on a cast-iron stove.
“After you,” Michael said, and followed Gaby along the corridor to their new quarters. The door creaked on its hinges as Gaby pushed it open. Inside was a four-poster bed with a white quilt and a more somber cot with a green blanket. The room was cramped but clean, with a skylight and a window that looked out over the drunken pastel buildings.
Gaby put her suitcase down on the four-poster bed with solid authority. Michael looked at the cot, and he thought he heard his back groan. He went to the window and slid it open, getting a lungful of Paris air. He was still in his underwear, and so was Gaby, but there seemed no need to hurry about anything, including getting dressed-or undressed, as the case might be. Gaby lay down on the bed and covered herself with a crisp linen sheet. She watched him, framed against the window; she let her gaze play over his muscles, his sleek back, and long, dark- haired legs. “I’m going to rest for a while,” she announced, the sheet up to her chin.
“Be my guest.”
“There’s not room for two in this bed,” she said.
“Of course there isn’t,” he agreed. He glanced quickly at her, saw her long black hair, unpinned now that it was out from under the cap, splayed across the goosedown pillow like an intricate fan.
“Not even if I squeezed over,” Gaby continued. “So you’ll have to sleep on the cot.”
“Yes, I will.”
She shifted her position, the goosedown mattress settling beneath her. The sheets were cool and smelled faintly of cloves: an aroma Michael had detected as soon as they entered the room. Gaby hadn’t realized how tired she was; she’d been up at five o’clock, and her sleep had been restless at best. Why had she come with this man? she asked herself. She hardly knew him. Didn’t know him, really. Who was he to her? Her eyes had drifted shut; now she opened them and found him standing over the bed, staring down at her. So close it made her skin tingle.
Her bare leg had slipped out from under the sheet. Michael ran his fingers along her ankle, raising chill bumps. Then he gently grasped her ankle and slid her leg back under the fragrant linen. She thought for an instant that his fingers had burned their impressions on her flesh. “Sleep well,” he said, and he put on a pair of brown pants that had patches on both knees. He started to go out, and Gaby sat up with the sheet clutched to her breasts. “Where are you going?”
“To get a bowl of soup,” Michael answered. “I’m hungry.” And then he turned and left, shutting the door quietly behind him.
Gaby lay back down, but now she couldn’t sleep. A heat pulsed at her center, and her nerves were jangled. It was the remainder of their encounter with the fighter plane, she decided. Who wouldn’t be unable to rest after something like that? They were lucky to be alive, and tomorrow…
Well, tomorrow would take care of itself. Like all tomorrows did.
She reached down, beside the bed, and pulled the cot a few inches closer. He’d never know. Then, satisfied and growing drowsy in the embrace of goose down, Gaby closed her eyes. A few minutes passed, in which the shadows of airplanes and the sounds of gunfire played through her mind. Those things faded, like bad dreams in daylight.
She slept.
4
Michael dismounted, and the springs mewled softly. He leaned the rusted Peugeot bicycle against a street lamp at the intersection of the Rue de Belleville and the Rue des Pyrenees, and he checked his pocket watch in the yellow glow. Nine-forty-three. Camille had said the curfew began at eleven o’clock sharp. After that time the German military police-the rough, hard-nosed bastards-roamed the streets. He kept his head down, studying his watch, as Gaby slowly pedaled past him, going southeast on the Pyrenees. The darkness took her.
Apartment buildings, most of them once elegant homes decorated with statuary, stood around him, furtive lights gleaming in some of their windows. The avenue was quiet but for a few velo taxis and a horse-drawn carriage or two. On their ride from Montmartre through the twisting streets, Michael and Gaby had seen many German soldiers, strolling the boulevards in rowdy groups or sitting in sidewalk cafes like drunken lords. They’d seen, as well, a number of troop transport trucks and armored cars scuttling busily over the paved stones. But Michael and Gaby, in their new disguises, attracted no attention. Michael wore his patched pants, a blue shirt, and a dark brown corduroy coat that had seen better days; on his feet were the scuffed black shoes, and on his head a brown cap. Gaby wore black slacks, a yellow blouse, and a bulky gray sweater that hid the bulge of her Luger. They wore the outfits of regular, struggling Paris citizens, whose main concern was getting food on the table rather than the dictates of European fashion.
Michael gave her a moment or two more, then he got on his bicycle and pedaled after her, between the aged and sand stone beauties. Much of the statuary was broken, he saw. Some of it had been wrestled up from its moorings and stolen away, probably to grace Nazi dwellings. Michael pedaled at a slow, steady pace. A carriage went past, heading in the opposite direction, the horse’s hooves clopping on the pavement. Michael came to the sign marking the Rue Tobas, and he swung the bicycle to the right.
The buildings here were crowded close, and there were few lights. This district, once wealthy, had the air of decay and dissolution. Some of the windows were broken and mended with tape, and much of the carved masonry had either collapsed or been removed. Michael thought of a ballet dancer whose legs had become bloated and thick with veins. Headless statues stood in a fountain that held bits of trash and old newspapers instead of water. A stone wall screamed a black Nazi swastika and the painted words DEUTSCHLAND SIEGT AN ALLEN FRONTEN-“Germany Victorious on all Fronts.” We’ll soon see, Michael thought as he pedaled past.
He knew this street, had studied it well on the map. Coming up on the right was a gray building-once a stately home-with broken stone steps sweeping up from the curb. He knew this building, too. He kept pedaling and quickly glanced up. On the second floor light crept through the blinds of a corner window. Apartment number eight. Adam was in that room. And Michael didn’t look, but he was aware of the gray stone building across the street, too, where the Gestapo had their watchmen. No pedestrians were on the street, and Gaby had already pedaled on ahead to wait for him. Michael moved past Adam’s building, sensing he was being watched. Possibly from the roof of the building opposite Adam’s. Possibly from a darkened window. This was a mouse trap, Michael thought. Adam
