“If you say so.”
She didn’t like the way he was looking at her now.
“Anyhow,” he said, “I suppose Fleur isn’t your real name.”
“I suppose not.” She left it at that.
“Well, then. My name is Lawrence. Not an assumed name, mind you. Lawrence Bartholomew Fischer. I fly Spitfires.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Fischer. And I think you’ll find the accommodations here quite suitable. I’ll show you to the closet.”
“The . . . closet?”
FISCHER WAS WITH RUBY FOR a day and a half, followed less than a week later by a bomber pilot named Harley Holt and then a gunner named Stephen Orlando. They ran together after that; one or two a week would show up at her door, and each time, she would welcome them, feed them, and sneak them into the hall closet, where they waited for Laure to pick them up.
There were a few close calls—neighbors who happened to see the men coming or going, the infrequent appearances of the concierge, Madame Lefèvre, in the hall downstairs—but Ruby knew from their pursed lips that they assumed she was entertaining various gentleman callers. Just as well.
Charlotte, however, was well aware of what was going on, and this concerned Ruby. She knew she could trust her young neighbor, but in the end, Charlotte was only a girl. What if she let something slip? Or what if Ruby was found out and someone believed that Charlotte and her family had been involved?
Still, Ruby couldn’t turn her back on the men.
In her third month working with the escape line, she was surprised to welcome an Air Force pilot on loan to the RAF who’d been raised in Palmdale, just ten miles from her own hometown. “Golly, miss, of course I know Lancaster!” he’d exclaimed when she told him where she was from. She knew she shouldn’t be handing out details like that, and normally, she was much more discreet, but she couldn’t help jumping at the opportunity to reminisce about Southern California with a stranger who had somehow found his way to her door on the other side of the world. “Your parents must be mighty worried about you. You hear from them often?”
She shook her head. “It’s been months now.”
“Damned war. Well, if you want, I can get a message to them on your behalf when I get home.”
She hesitated. For a second, it sounded like a dream come true. But telling him her real name or who her parents were came with too many complications. She’d already said too much. “Just help the Allies win the war, will you?”
“Yes, miss.” His expression was grave. “I will do my absolute best. It’s why I’m so eager to get out of this damned city. No offense intended, of course.”
“None taken. It does feel a bit like Paris is damned, doesn’t it?”
He nodded and looked toward her window. “I imagine this must have been a pretty beautiful place before the war.”
“It truly was.”
“You think you’ll move back to the States when this is all done?”
“I honestly don’t know. I have trouble thinking beyond tomorrow.”
“Strange how war changes things, isn’t it? I was supposed to be taking over my father’s tax business. Instead, I’m hiding out in a pretty stranger’s apartment in Paris. Never thought I’d wind up here.”
“Neither did I,” Ruby said, and like the pilot, she wasn’t just talking about Paris. She was talking about the way life had twisted, the way she no longer recognized the ground she was standing on. “But the war can’t last forever, can it? Maybe it’s not too late to find our way back to the lives we’re supposed to have.”
“Or maybe this is it.” The pilot smiled sadly. “Maybe this is exactly who we were meant to be all along.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
October 1941
After Thomas left Ruby’s apartment, Laure led him to a train station in Paris, where there were three other British pilots waiting, each with his own guide. Thomas had been given strict orders not to acknowledge any of them—and certainly not to talk to them—but it was a comfort just to know they were there. He was no longer in this alone, which made him feel like he had a legitimate chance of survival.
They boarded a night train to Bordeaux, and though Laure was in his compartment, he was not to look at her or attempt to communicate in any way. The value of a night train was that he could feign sleep each time a train official or German officer walked by, and that was exactly what he did, cracking his eyes open slightly only after their footfalls had disappeared. In the morning, they switched to a train to Bayonne, and he caught glimpses of the other pilots boarding cars along with their guides too. So far, so good; they were in southern France now, which seemed less perilous than Paris.
In Bayonne, their guides left them with terse good luck wishes and handed them off to another man, who gave them each a ticket and put them on a smaller train to the tiny town of Dax. This, Thomas understood, was to be another dangerous part of the journey; the new man wouldn’t be accompanying them because of the risk of capture. They were to get off the train and try to appear inconspicuous as they waited to be picked up outside the station by another contact. “Rely on your false papers,” the man said quietly in French, which Thomas quickly translated for the others. “Say nothing, even if questioned.”
On the train, Thomas watched with growing trepidation as a German soldier boarded the first compartment and began asking passengers for their papers. One of the other three RAF pilots seemed younger than the rest—nineteen, maybe twenty—and he was the first one the Nazi soldier reached. Thomas sat paralyzed as the young pilot looked blankly at the soldier who was barking an order at him. Give him your papers, Thomas thought, wishing he could come to the boy’s rescue without arousing suspicion. Damn it, just do what the guides told you to!
After a few long seconds, Thomas watched as the boy reached into his pocket with hands that were clearly shaking and handed over his identity papers. The Nazi soldier looked at them for a moment and asked in French what the purpose of his travel was. The boy continued to stare, and the soldier, his eyes blazing with suspicion, repeated the question more loudly. Oh God, Thomas thought. He’s about to be caught.
But then an elderly woman sitting across the row from the pilot spoke up, explaining to the German soldier that the boy was her grandson, that they were going to visit a distant aunt, and that the boy was deaf. “How dare you ridicule him?” the woman asked. The Nazi soldier looked uncertain, but the woman moved next to the young pilot and put an arm around his shoulder. “There, there, my boy. He didn’t mean any offense.” The soldier narrowed his eyes, but after a moment, he grunted in disgust and moved on.
Thomas exhaled a huge sigh of relief, and although he dared not make eye contact with any of the other pilots, he did lock gazes with the elderly woman, who smiled slightly at him, nodded, and left to find a seat in another car. Thank God for Good Samaritans.
When the train arrived in Dax, the four pilots got off and tried to blend into the small crowd as they handed their tickets in and left the station. Outside, a pair of men were waiting for them.
“Welcome,” the taller one greeted them in English. He sported a mustache and a faded cap. Thomas didn’t think he sounded French, but he couldn’t place his strong accent. “We’re here to take the group of you to the mountains.” He lifted his chin at the six bicycles leaning against the wall beside them.