I paged through my notes, knowing that Caro had left another clue. She had written something in a letter that had made little narrative sense, something about papers and identities.
“Here.” I nudged close into Mat to share the page. “She wrote about that man in London who carried two sets of identity cards so that when arrested his real identity couldn’t be found—he could remain anonymous. The story makes no sense until you see she was leaving her trail of bread crumbs . . . Every story had significance.”
“So she—what?—destroyed the Rose papers as soon as she got in trouble in Paris? Then pulled the string and released the Nanette ones?”
“If she was in real danger, yes.”
“But Arnim knew her real name, and it doesn’t explain why he was shot.”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. Mat was right. “But she is Nanette.”
I waited. My last sentence was not a question, but I needed Mat’s agreement. It was beyond clear, yet . . . I still needed him on board.
He dropped his eyes back to my notebook, brows furrowed in concentration. “Brunel shoots Arnim, point-blank range, execution style, and then shoots Caro and takes her into custody. If she didn’t die from that wound, whatever happened to her next was probably horrible.”
He accepted Caro was Nanette. I looped an arm around him in a half hug and, without thinking, planted a quick kiss at the corner of his mouth.
“We can find her, right? You said the Germans kept meticulous records. What would Brunel do? Question her? Torture her? Send her to a concentration camp?”
“All of the above, if not immediately execute her.” Mat pushed away from the doorjamb. “I need my computer.”
I followed him as far as the living room. Dad sat on one of the couches reading.
“We found her.” There was no stopping my tears this time. “She really did leave every clue necessary, if one knew her well enough.” I stopped short. “And knew they needed to look.”
Mat returned, dropped on the couch across from Dad, and started typing. “The Arolsen Archives are the most comprehensive. If she went to any German camp under the name Nanette Bellefeuille, we have a good chance of getting a hit. The report said she was from Paris, right? Not another village?”
I found my picture of the police report on my phone. “Yes. Paris.”
“I bet she’d kept her lies to a minimum . . . fake name, fake city, but real birthdate.” He was talking to himself rather than to us. “Done.”
He shut his computer. His elation lasted an instant and ended in a groan. Flipping his laptop open again, he continued. “I’m not thinking. They have the most complete records, but not the fastest.”
“Who is faster?” Dad asked.
“The US National Archives . . . Name . . . City . . . Birthdate . . . Enter.” He stared at his screen a few seconds then looked up. “One record found.”
“Only one?” I dropped next to him. “It’s her. It has to be. Can you open it?”
“There’s the rub.” Mat grimaced. “Arolsen will give us the most complete information, but it can take four to ten months. We can instantly see a match in the US National Archives, but it still takes a couple months to get the file . . . Unless . . .”
“Unless?” I drew the word long to prompt him.
“I’ve made friends with a tech guy at the Archives over the years. He may just . . .”
Mat started typing again. This time I didn’t interrupt.
After a few minutes he closed his laptop and looked between Dad and me. We simply stared back.
“Now we wait.” He nodded to each of us. We still sat staring. “We found her. You both get that, right? We don’t know the details yet, but by getting that hit, we know she was a victim of Nazi persecution, not a traitor and not a defector. If you had any doubts, sir, banish them.”
“No.” Dad burst out into a laugh. It rushed out of him like a valve released of pressure. “I don’t have any doubts at all.”
“You should open an official inquiry in Britain,” Mat continued. “Your aunt was a hero, and when you look at the SOE memorials in London, the Violette Szabo memorial or the one in Westminster Abbey, you should know she was a vital part of that. Her name not only needs to be recorded but added to the SOE memorial here in Valen?ay. She lost her life here, regardless of where she was actually killed.”
My dad pressed his fingers to his mouth and nodded. “Not in my wildest dreams.”
Thirty-Seven
Mat left us to shower and dress. I sensed he was trying to give us time, but I had no idea what to do with the gift. I looked around the living room feeling lost. I had nothing to research, no lead to chase, and still no understanding of how it could or would change life today. I couldn’t tell my grandmother. I couldn’t ease her pain. I couldn’t brighten my father’s childhood. I couldn’t refashion my own. Yet, despite all the couldn’ts, an odd elation gripped me.
I studied my dad, standing feet from me staring out the windows toward the Eiffel Tower. I suspected he wasn’t seeing anything beyond his past either.
“Why don’t I go find a café and get some pastries?”
He turned with a befuddled expression, as if trying to wind his way through a maze. He considered me and I wondered if he’d heard my question.
“Ah . . . I should come with you.”
I swung my head, already halfway to the front door. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
I needed out. I needed to breathe. I needed . . . I wasn’t sure what I needed. I simply felt like the most meaningful thing I’d done had taken a prolonged intermission—and left me in a hyped-up interlude. What was I to do? Where was I to go? What came next? I had all these questions, but we were stalled right on the brink of answering them.
I wandered out into a quiet morning street and inhaled the deepest, most freeing breath I’d taken in years. It filled me all the way to my stomach and with it came scents of flowers, chocolate, yeast, sugar, coffee, and petrol.
Paris, like me, wasn’t fully awake yet. It felt as if she was in that intermission between the busy night and the frenetic day with endless possibilities ahead of her. Few pedestrians traveled the broad stone sidewalks. White pillowy clouds rested above like cotton balls thrown onto a blue canvas.
I wandered down rue Bonaparte toward the Seine again and stopped at a corner café. The display case housed a typically Parisian, decadent pastry selection. After choosing a couple croissants, three éclairs, two canelés, four financiers, and a dozen macarons I should have resisted—along with three café au laits—I headed back to the apartment.
Dad wasn’t in the living room upon my return. I caught sight of his profile in the small library and thought he’d retreated there to read. I placed the pastry box in the kitchen, transferred the coffees to proper café bowls, and headed to deliver his.
Dad and Mat, sitting close and talking, was such an unexpected sight, I stopped short by the door.
Dad glanced my direction, nodded to Mat, then pushed himself out of the brown leather chair. “I called your mom. She’ll be here around noon . . . I’ll let you two talk.”
As he passed me in the doorway, I handed him his coffee.