She shook her head. “He has enough things to occupy his mind. Maybe one day.”
“I can’t see what difference it would make to Andrei or his work if you were married.”
For a few moments she stood looking at him without speaking, and then she said softly, “Have you looked at Andrei recently? He’s thirty-five next birthday but he looks like a man of fifty. Think about his life. He loves Chantal but he sees very little of her. The work he does is for a cause. Not for himself. He daren’t have a friend. He can’t even confide in Chantal for her sake. No hobbies, no holidays, no kids, no time for anything but his task.” She paused. “We’re all he’s got, Ivan. And I’m not going to do anything that could disturb him. Never.”
“Does Sam know about what Andrei does?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Are you sure that the cause is worth the sacrifice?”
“Anything I do or don’t do is for Andrei—not a cause.”
“Does Sam mind not being married to you?”
“Sam understands.” She smiled. “That’s why I love him.” She paused. “And how are things with you and Rachel Henschel these days? She’s not been here for weeks.”
“Drives me crazy. I waited all that time for her to be of age so we could be married. And now she’s old enough—what happens, for God’s sake? Says she needs to know more about life before she settles down.”
“Better now than after you’re married.”
“All it means is she goes around with other guys. And she don’t wear my ring any more.”
“And you?”
“What’s that mean?”
“I’ve heard that you’ve got quite a few pretty girl-friends.”
He smiled and shrugged. “That’s just to make her jealous.”
Anna laughed. “I’d still put my silver dollar on you being married to Rachel.”
He shook his head slowly, smiling. “I hope you’re right, honey.”
CHAPTER 17
Parish heard the news on the BBC’s French Service and he realised at once that it would affect all the networks in France including Malloy’s operation.
Malloy was reading a book to a group of five or six of the old men when Parish signalled to him. Malloy read to the end of the chapter and then joined Parish in the corridor that led to his own rooms.
As they walked together Parish said, “What were you reading to the old boys?”
Malloy held up the book. It was Alphonse Daudet’s Lettres de mon moulin. He smiled. “I’ve read it to them three or four times but they never seem to get tired of it. It’s gentle and about the countryside. I think it reminds them of when they were young.”
By then they were in Malloy’s place.
“I just heard the news on the BBC’s French Service. It’s going to make problems. Or it could do. I thought I’d better warn you.”
“What is it?”
“The Americans landed over a hundred thousand troops in North Africa yesterday.”
“Where?”
“In Morocco and Algeria, that means they were probably fighting some of the Vichy French. Seems like two French ships were sunk in the harbour at Oran. I guess they must have resisted. When the French scuttled their navy ships at Toulon last month when the Germans tried to take over the fleet, that was OK. They accepted that. But they won’t like this. Eisenhower apparently did a broadcast saying that the French were not the enemy but a lot of Frenchmen are not going to see it that way.”
“Why have they landed there? I thought the Brits were about to run Rommel out of North Africa.”
“Politics I guess.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Your people are spending millions of dollars a day on the war, the White House probably thought it might be a good idea to show the voters that they were getting something for their money.”
Malloy looked at Parish for several long moments and then said, “We’re on the same side, Parish. Fighting the same war.”
“But we’ve been fighting it longer. And we didn’t wait until we were attacked.”
Malloy stood up. “You didn’t exactly rush to help the Austrians or the Czechs when Hitler marched in, did you?”
Parish laughed. “Touché. I guess cowardice and diplomacy are the same thing under different names.”
Malloy looked at Pascal as he sat shivering in the barn.
“D’you realise what it is next Friday?”
Pascal shook his head. “What is it, some crazy Yank holiday?”
“It’s Christmas Day, my friend. We’ll take a few days off.”
Pascal looked unimpressed. “Better we spend our time planning. You said you’d got an idea you wanted to talk about.”
Malloy smiled. “OK. We’d better get on our way.”
They had spent four days on the farm just outside Brest in a vain attempt to get into the town but Brest was a German Navy base and had been made a Defence Zone with security that was too risky to try to penetrate. Even skilled workers with all the correct documentation had to pass through a maze of check-points and random searches. But they had talked with one of Pascal’s communist contacts who had arranged for them to meet a signalman who was working for the Germans handling the traffic of all German troop trains.
It took them three days to get back to the village and there had been a drop while they were away and a bundle of mail for Malloy. It was only the second lot of mail that he had received in five months.
There were seven letters from Kathy and he sorted them into date order before he read them. They were full of chat about the apartment and their friends, and anecdotes about several visits to his father. She’d seen a film that she was sure he would like called Casablanca. There was a song in it called “As Time Goes By” that was very “them.” She had decided to have a flat-mate, a girl named Milly who worked in the same office as she did. Milly’s husband was Navy and “somewhere in the Pacific.” Malloy’s father had taken a part-time job at a local plant making domestic radio sets.
Despite the newsiness of the letters it all
