“Let’s go inside,” she said.
In the kitchen, Isaac Baume took off his torn gloves and rubbed his hands together before he tore off two pieces of bread and passed one to his son. He mumbled a prayer, as was his habit before eating, then took a bite. She registered that his beard was gone, and there was a grayish tint in his sunken cheeks. Claudette busied herself pouring wine into the goblets. She felt Raphaël’s lanky figure somewhere behind her at a respectful distance.
“We can’t delay here,” she whispered, and started toward the back corridor, then stopped. She couldn’t leave the lit kitchen without getting a glimpse of the face of the only young man who’d ever fired her imagination.
The light showed the same drawn cheeks as his father’s, but firmer, the jawline defined. A lot of uncombed wavy hair. Unshaven face. Bright eyes that examined her with open curiosity.
Blushing, she patted down an errant strand of hair and signaled the men to follow her.
They wove their way up the service stairs to a narrow corridor hidden between double walls. Raphaël’s uneven steps were discordant with hers. He was trying as hard as she was to control the thuds made by a leg that didn’t fully obey. Their steps clattered in the confined spaces, and the noise worsened when they cut through the wide gallery to enter the tower. The duchess’s chamber was down the other end of the gallery. What was Claudette doing, taking this risk?
“Let’s crawl,” she whispered to Raphaël, and they dragged themselves over the short distance to the tower, his father beside them, carrying the food basket.
In Claudette’s first months here, the duchess had asked a visiting physician friend to check her. The man was surprised that her brace had no knee hinges. He took meticulous measurements and, in spite of the war, brought from Paris a brace complete with a new pair of leather shoes. The padded, hinged knee brace had improved Claudette’s walk and posture, reducing her backache. There had been no limit to the duchess’s kindness, yet Claudette had decided to betray her patroness. It’s just for tonight, she promised herself.
They entered the small vestibule in the tower. Claudette closed the door behind them and breathed a bit easier. She pointed to another door. “The water closet has a sink,” she whispered. The faucet also had a handheld spray hose for personal hygiene; Claudette used it daily in the adjacent square floor basin, since Madame Couture insisted that there be no source of malodor in the atelier. Claudette flipped a switch to the water heater, a luxury she had never dreamed of at Mémère’s house. “You may bathe when it warms up.”
As soon as the water splashed in the lavatory, the pipes came to life with a blast of popping and crackling sounds, and Claudette realized that the noise reverberated downstairs. Anyone could hear it. She bit her nails, wishing that her guests would hurry up. This madness couldn’t extend beyond tonight.
She retrieved blankets from Mémère’s trunk, which also contained Mémère’s coat, shawls, and sewing and knitting paraphernalia. Claudette had taken these when she left. Looters, she’d known, would empty the rest of the home long before her father came to claim his inheritance.
When she lit the candles she kept in case of power failure, she saw Raphaël’s eyes—curious, kind, the color of fresh grass. She was glad that he couldn’t see the heat flushing her face as she led him and his father to the nearby narrow door. At her signal, Isaac Baume forced it open. Carrying their candles and blankets, they pushed aside discarded nursery furniture and toys to reach the steep steps.
The room upstairs was as empty as Claudette remembered, though colder. Wooden cots were piled up, barely visible in the half-moon outside the four round, dusty windows.
“I don’t know where else to take you,” she said to Isaac Baume.
“This is good. God bless you for your compassion.”
Raphaël untangled a few cots from the pile, and Isaac Baume unrolled the thin mattresses. Claudette assumed that no fleas infested them, given that there had been no human flesh to feed on.
Isaac Baume dropped onto the cot, and the two men began to eat. Claudette averted her eyes from their hunger and headed down to fetch a washbowl and a ceramic pitcher.
Navigating the staircase back up while carrying a water pitcher set inside a bowl was impossible for Claudette. Raphaël stepped down to take them from her. Their fingers brushed accidentally, and the touch electrified her with an unfamiliar sensation.
Upstairs, Isaac Baume was lying under a blanket. He tried to get up. “Thank you for all your trouble.”
Again, her heart contracted at the humility of his tone. “Get some sleep,” she replied, unable to add that it was only for one night. In her mind’s eye she saw the duchess’s face, and the guilt returned. “Where are your other children?” she asked.
“My daughter, they rounded her up because of me.” Responding to Claudette’s unasked question he explained, “I was born in Poland. Foreign Jews are being exiled.”
“To where?”
“They say to labor camps.”
“But your children were born in France, right?”
“It makes no difference even though I’ve lived here legally, and my children are French citizens.” He added, “My youngest son is hiding at a monastery.”
Claudette made the sign of the cross. “One day, I hope you’ll all be together.”
For the first time, Raphaël spoke. “My father told me a lot about you when I was growing up. I’m delighted to finally meet you.”
Heat flooded her face. His voice was low and sonorous. It sent a shiver of pleasure through Claudette. The only man she’d ever fantasized about had dropped into her life in the middle of the night. No romance novel could have sprung a greater surprise.
She smiled, then covered her mouth to hide her broken front teeth.
Chapter Twelve
Claudette
Château de Valençay, France
February 1942
In Claudette’s first month at the château, the duchess had installed her in a room close to the atelier and ordered the cook to send Claudette a light breakfast and dinner every day to save her the trips to the distant kitchen. This morning, the breakfast tray that Marguerite delivered was laden—there was a pitcher of coffee instead of a single cup, three soft-boiled eggs, and bread and butter.
“Why this sudden appetite?” Marguerite asked, glancing at the three plates and three sets of utensils.
Claudette was shocked at Lisette’s lack of discretion. She avoided Marguerite’s eyes. Who else was in on the secret? How long before the duchess discovered her deception?
Marguerite turned to leave with a snap of her head that bounced the dark curls under her starched cap. Her demeanor stood in sharp contrast to their former easy bantering. She stopped at the door. “I wanted to do something for the Résistance,” she hissed, “and of all people, you get to do it?”
The Résistance? Claudette almost blurted out a denial. Is that what Lisette thought too?
Marguerite looked at the closed doors of the unoccupied chambers, silent as sentries. Nothing revealed that Claudette had rummaged there at the crack of dawn for clean, warm men’s clothes. Marguerite said brusquely, “I’ll go tidy up the atelier.”
All day, as Claudette embroidered the lapels of the duchess’s jacket with silk, she was distracted. The tiny embroidery needle, as slender as the finest fishbone, pricked her finger time and again. And then she accidentally nicked the fabric with the tip of her scissors. Isaac Baume had given her these scissors, along with a matching thimble. The scissors’ ring-finger rest, designed as a crane in flight, was like her soaring heart.
