“Good Lord,” he whispered. “Do you really think they . . . How on earth did you know?”
“Didn’t you ever do that when you were a child, Mr. Leslie?” Maisie whispered. “One of the boys in my class at school drilled some holes in the wall between the parlor and the kitchen in his house, so he could listen to his parents’ conversations. I think he used some wire and an old tin or something to give a bit of volume, and he probably didn’t hear anything important, though he must have felt like a spy. I am sure our guards here are doing much the same thing, but they have more sophisticated tools at their disposal.” She kept her voice low. “The Germans are great engineers, you know—one day I am sure they will invent something that will do the job nicely. Anyway, let us take a seat here and wait in silence for my father, shall we? We are both rather tense, and it’s best we do our utmost to contain any doubt. I do not want to be weak in the face of his interrogators, and those who may have caused him harm.”
“We have been assured—”
She looked down at the ground as she spoke, so that Leslie had to strain to hear.
“I don’t care what you have been assured, Mr. Leslie. I paid attention when we walked toward this building, which I hope very much to leave soon. I looked beyond this guardhouse into that vast expanse of concrete and those bunkers. I noticed some of the men out there, working, and for the briefest moment I knew that those are men subjected to terror. Now, silence, please. I want only to go home now, not to be here for any longer than I have to. And I want my father with me.”
Leslie nodded, his gaze focused on the two mottled spots on the walls.
Another twenty minutes passed. In that time, Maisie struggled to draw upon everything she had been taught by Khan, the teacher to whom Maurice had taken her to learn that “seeing is not something one necessarily does with the eyes.” Despite relentless cold drafts that seemed to seep from the outside and through the bricks, she cleared her mind, concentrating only on her breathing, tempering the sound of an inner voice that tested her, that gave her reason to feel fear. She envisaged all that she wanted to return home to—her father, Brenda, Priscilla, the Evernden boys, and those she loved at Chelstone. As time went on, she found her heart filled with renewed admiration for her dead husband, for his willingness to give his life in the service of his country, though only a handful of people knew the truth. She wondered how many men and women would risk their lives in ways that would forever be unacknowledged because, like James, they worked in a place unknown to all but a few. And when she returned with Leon Donat to England, he would enter into that same dark world—the quiet corridors of secrecy surrounding Britain’s defense of her realm.
Maisie and Gilbert Leslie looked up toward the door as the key turned in the lock. Their eyes met, and they came to their feet in unison, as if there had been a prearranged agreement to appear impervious before the German guards.
“Kommen Sie mit mir jetzt, Sie beide.”
Come with me now, both of you. The words seemed to snap from the guard’s mouth. He stood back as they left a room that felt more like a cell, then pushed past to lead them to the office where the meeting with Untersturmführer Acker and the Kommandant had taken place.
Both officers were staring at Maisie—Edwina Donat—as she regarded the man standing in the corner of the room. He held out his hands to her as she began to run toward him. Then she stopped.
“Meine Tochter. Meine Tochter. Komm zu mir. Komm in meine Arme.”
As Maisie heard the words—My daughter. My daughter. Come to me. Come into my arms—she stopped and looked at the man, feeling as if her heart would break into many parts. His skeletal hands and sockless feet drew her attention more than the small pyramids of bone that were once full cheeks. His eyes seemed burned into their sockets, and she could see the points of his clavicles prominent through the fabric of his collarless shirt and the threadbare jacket draped over his skeletal frame. The trousers he had been given seemed as if they would not even fit a twelve-year-old boy, and as he moved toward her, the soles of his shoes flapped away from the cracked and worn leather.
And then, before she said a word, she wondered how she might save this man. She dropped her head, instead seeing the face of Francesca Thomas. Know him, Edwina. Know your father. Is this he?