The Room on Rue Amélie Read online

  He did, looking uncertain. His fingers were still laced with hers, and he was sitting closer than he had been before, their knees touching now. “Ruby, it’s not that I don’t believe in you. In fact, you seem like a real ace at saving people. It’s just that I would never want to be the one putting you in harm’s way.”

  “Thomas, this is the first time in years I’ve felt like myself.” The way he was looking at her made her think he understood. “Before I married my husband, I was a university student in New York. I was self-sufficient, and I believed in myself.”

  Thomas nodded and squeezed her hand gently, encouraging her to go on.

  “But somehow that changed. I thought when I came here that my independence would grow. I was going on a great adventure to Paris, after all.” She smiled at her own naïveté. “But somehow along the way, I went from being a brave adventurer to simply being a wife, nothing more. It would be easy to blame it on Marcel, but it was just as much my fault. I let him talk over my opinions. I let him make all the decisions. I let him push me to the side, until I wasn’t myself in our marriage anymore. Maybe I never had been to start with. But regardless, I lost the person I’d been, the person I wanted to be, and I don’t think I grasped it until it was too late.” She felt suddenly ridiculous. “I’m very sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”

  “I’m glad you are.” Thomas reached for her other hand and waited for her to look up at him. When she did, he held her gaze. “I’m glad you’re telling me, because you’re wrong, Ruby. I’m sorry you’ve felt lost. But it seems to me that you’ve known who you were all along, even if you didn’t realize it.”

  “You can’t know that,” she protested. “You don’t even know me.”

  “Not yet anyhow. But the way you’ve cared for me these last few days, well, it was the work of someone who knows exactly who she is. You showed great kindness and great courage. Those things are rarer than you think.”

  “Thank you.” She could feel her cheeks growing warm. How did he know exactly the right thing to say? “But you see, I think someone who truly knows herself is capable of helping more. And so far, I’ve felt very useless in this war.”

  “Ruby, you saved my life.”

  “And I’m thankful for that. But is saving one or two men enough? My husband thought I was weak and foolish. It’s why he never told me about the work he was doing to help the Allies. And maybe I was foolish. How could I not have seen what was going on? But I want to do more. I want to be a part of this fight.”

  “I think you already are.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true.” She looked away. “But I’m a stronger person than he ever thought I was.”

  “Ruby,” Thomas said. He waited until she looked right at him, and then he held her gaze. “I don’t doubt that for a second.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  October 1941

  There was something about the girl—Ruby—that changed everything for Thomas. When he’d parachuted into France, eight days earlier, all he’d wanted was to get back to England as quickly as possible. Now, he was grateful for the delay. He knew that every day he stayed in Paris the danger would grow, but somehow, it didn’t matter.

  That was a foolish way to think, though, and he knew it. Ruby had saved him, and he had bonded to her because of that. It was what his CO would have told him, anyhow. But Thomas couldn’t help thinking there was more to it.

  He knew it would be wise to move on. After all, though Ruby clearly wanted to help, her husband had been the link to the escape line, not her. But he simply didn’t want to go.

  The day before, she had mentioned that it would be better if he slept in the small cupboard in the hall, the place where her husband had hidden the RAF pilots who had preceded him. But then darkness had fallen while they talked, losing track of the hours, and she had said it would be fine if he wanted to spend the night in her apartment instead.

  “I don’t want to put you in any danger,” he’d said. But the truth was, he didn’t want to leave. The cupboard outside her door might as well have been miles away.

  “I think we’re safe for now,” she’d said, and he’d nodded, even though he knew better. It was just that he enjoyed talking with her—about her childhood and his, about her hopes and his dreams, about the lives they wanted to live once the war was over. He wasn’t ready for the conversation to be over yet.

  “You know, you remind me a little of my mother,” Thomas said just before midnight, feeling like a proper fool as soon as the words were out of his mouth. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t the right thing to say to a pretty girl. I only mean that she was one of the most decent people I knew, and it strikes me that you’re that way too. Kind and caring and generous. I hope it’s all right to tell you that.”

  Ruby smiled, and even in the dim light of the candles that burned between them, he was nearly certain he could see her blushing. “Thank you. It’s a wonderful compliment. You remind me a bit of my father too.”

  “Do I?”

  “He’s a very good man. He always listened to me, made me feel that I was someone special, someone important. He treated my mother that way too. I’ve thought of him a lot over the past few years and wondered how I wound up marrying someone who wasn’t like that at all.”

  “Sometimes that’s a part of growing up, though, isn’t it? We try to strike out on our own, to carve our own path, and we realize too late what we’ve left behind.”

  “Did you do that too? Leave behind a piece of your past?”

  “Yes,” he said after a long pause. “I believe I did. I was in such a hurry to be a hero for Britain that I raced out the door without so much as a look back. I told myself I would visit, that I would write all the time, because, you see, it was just me and my mum. My father died years ago, and we didn’t have any other family. But then things became hectic, and I found myself putting it off, telling myself I would write her the next day or visit her the next week. That wasn’t who she raised me to be, you see. I was supposed to be a better son than that, and I always thought I would be when the war was over, after I’d helped save Britain. But then, I ran out of days and weeks.” He was embarrassed to feel moisture in his eyes, and he turned away quickly before Ruby noticed.

  “She died?” Ruby asked.

  “Yes. In the Blitz. I—I couldn’t save her.”

  “I’m so sorry, Thomas.” Ruby moved closer to him on the couch and put her arms around him, pulling him into a hug. Her touch was electric. “I know just what it feels like to lose someone you love deeply, to feel as if you failed because you couldn’t save them.”

  And just like that, the moment was over. “Yes, of course, your husband.” He pulled away, hating the pang of jealousy he felt. Of course she’d loved the man she’d married; it shouldn’t bother him to hear that.

  Ruby looked startled. “No, that’s not who I meant.”

  Thomas thought she might elaborate, but instead, she went silent, her eyes filling with tears. She folded inward, and she suddenly looked haunted, broken. He wanted to ask who she was talking about, who had shattered her this way, but he knew better than to press. Instead, he put his arm around her and murmured, “I’m very sorry, Ruby.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever talked to anyone like this before,” she said after a while.

  “Neither have I.” They looked into each other’s eyes, and for a moment, he thought he might try to kiss her, but then he lost his courage.

  “I feel as if I could talk with you forever, without running out of things to say,” she said at last.

  And so they stayed up hours more, talking about everything, although she never told him whose death had broken her heart. He got up just past three in the morning to get them a couple of glasses of water, and when he returned to the living room, he found her asleep on the couch, her head tilted to the left as her hair spilled over her shoulders. He gently pulled a blanket over her and settled onto the hard-backed chair across from her. Then he simply watched
her sleep until he himself drifted off, just before dawn.

  When he awoke, her eyes were open and she was studying him. She quickly glanced away as he came to. “You’re up,” she said.

  He smiled at her. “What time is it?”

  “Just past nine. I never sleep this late.”

  “Me neither.”

  The silence between them felt loaded.

  “You covered me with the blanket last night?” she asked finally. “After I fell asleep?”

  “You looked so peaceful. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  He could see her swallow hard. “Thank you. That was very kind. I haven’t slept that well in ages.” She cleared her throat. “Anyhow, I promise I’ll try again today to find Aubert. I really am very sorry about the delay. You must be eager to move on.”

  “No,” Thomas said carefully. He waited until she looked up at him. “The truth is, I’m not sure I want to leave.”

  He loved the way her cheeks turned pink before she replied. “I just wish I had more food to give you. But with the rations . . .”

  “Ruby, I have everything I need.” He looked her in the eye and wondered if there was any chance at all that she was feeling the same way.

  SHE LEFT AN HOUR LATER, over Thomas’s objections that she was putting herself in danger. “We’re all in danger all the time,” she said with a sad smile as she paused in the doorway. “The only way to change that is to fight back.”

  She was gone before he could reply. Thomas spent the next hour staring at Ruby’s framed photos, feeling helpless. She was risking her life for him, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.

  He hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t expected her. She was different from the girls who hung around the air bases, batting their eyes at the pilots. She was different from the girls he’d gone to school with too, and not just because she was American. There was a strength to her, a fearlessness, and the strangest thing was that she didn’t seem to see it in herself. She wasn’t tough and standoffish like one might expect from a courageous girl. Someone had made her put her defenses up, though, and he thought it might have been her husband. But that didn’t explain whom she was grieving for. Had there been someone else, another man she’d loved?

  A sharp knock at the door pulled him out of his thoughts and he froze. What if it was the Germans? Should he flee via the terrace? Hide in Ruby’s wardrobe? Stand here like a man and try to fight them off? Then again, if he was caught in Ruby’s apartment, she would be on the hook for it. He couldn’t do that to her.

  “Damn it,” he cursed, paralyzed by indecision, just as the knocking came again, more insistent this time. He took a careful step toward the door. Ruby had a peephole; perhaps he could assess the situation in the hall before deciding what to do. If there were only two soldiers there, he had a chance to take them.

  He was just about to lean in toward the door when he heard someone crying. It sounded like a child. He peered out and realized he was looking at a dark-haired little girl, maybe twelve or thirteen.

  “Please, Madame Benoit!” the girl said in French through sobs. “It’s my maman! She needs your help!”

  Thomas held his breath. Could it be some sort of trap? Had the Nazis put the child up to this so that he’d open the door?

  When he didn’t answer, the girl seemed to pull herself together a bit. She knocked once more, more softly this time. “Monsieur Pilot?” she said more softly, and he was so startled that he took a step back from the door. “I know you’re in there. Please, my mother has fallen. I need your help. I can be trusted. I’m Ruby’s friend.”

  Thomas stood stock-still, and after a moment, the girl whispered “Please?” in such a pitiful tone that he could feel his heart breaking a little. “I don’t know what else to do,” she added, backing away from the door. He watched her through the peephole as she disappeared into the apartment in the elbow of the building.

  He hesitated only a moment longer before slipping quietly out of Ruby’s apartment into the dim hall. He felt exposed, but he couldn’t go back now. It would be unconscionable to turn his back on a child who needed his help. Drawing a deep breath and hoping for the best, he knocked lightly on the door of the girl’s apartment.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  October 1941

  Charlotte was in a panic. She and Maman had been in the kitchen, chopping a few precious potatoes to make a soup, when her mother suddenly collapsed in a heap, striking the counter on her way down. Now, Charlotte couldn’t wake her, and the blood pouring from her forehead was forming a small, frightening pool. She had tried everything she could think of—shaking her mother, talking loudly to her, placing a cool cloth on her forehead—but Maman hadn’t even stirred. And her father likely wouldn’t be home for hours; he had disappeared early this morning for a meeting with a few other men Charlotte knew from the synagogue.

  Charlotte had tried Ruby’s apartment, but no one had come to the door. The other neighbors, well, some of them had made clear their feelings about Jews. And she certainly didn’t want to enlist the help of anyone who hated her family. Who knew what could happen? She couldn’t call a doctor for help either; the one who had delivered Ruby’s stillborn baby had left for the Free Zone weeks ago, and she didn’t know another. Her father had spoken sternly to her several times about how there was no way to know whom to trust anymore.

  Charlotte bent to her mother’s side again. “Please wake up, Maman. Please! I don’t know what to do!” But her mother still didn’t stir.

  Just then, there was a light knock at the door. Heart thudding, Charlotte crept to the peephole and looked out. There was a man she didn’t know in the hallway, dressed in pants and a shirt too small for him. “I’m the pilot, mademoiselle,” he said softly in accented French. “I’m here to help.”

  She recognized him now, though he was clean-shaven and looked much different than he had the day he arrived. She took a deep breath and opened the door. “Hello, monsieur.” She looked him up and down. He had broad shoulders, dark hair, and bright blue eyes, the kind that looked like they would crinkle at the corners when he smiled. “Please, come in.”

  “Something happened to your mother?” He was already moving into her apartment.

  “Yes.” Charlotte swallowed hard, scrambling after him. She could see him looking around quickly, and she wondered fleetingly what he was seeing. Did he notice the Star of David quilt her grandmother had sewn, now lying folded over a chair? Did he see the threadbare sofa, the worn rug, the things Maman was ashamed of? “She fell while we were chopping potatoes. I—I can’t wake her up.”

  Charlotte could feel tears streaming down her face, and she was embarrassed. She wasn’t a baby; why was she crying? But the pilot didn’t seem to notice. He was already kneeling beside her mother, placing two fingers on her neck, and bending his ear toward her mouth.

  “Is she breathing?” Charlotte asked, trying not to sound as frantic as she felt.

  “She is. Do you have a clean towel you can bring me?” he asked without turning around. “And a jug of cool water, please?”

  “Of course.” Charlotte raced into the bathroom, where she grabbed a fresh towel. She handed it to the pilot, who was still bent over her mother, then she quickly got him a large pitcher of water. “Is she going to be all right?”

  “Yes. I think she just fainted. Look, she’s already regaining consciousness.”

  Charlotte peered over his shoulder at her mother, whose eyelids were indeed beginning to flutter. “Oh, thank God. Maman? Maman? Are you all right?”

  Her mother mumbled something unintelligible and closed her eyes again.

  “She’ll be okay,” the pilot said. “We’ll just need to check and see how badly she hit her head. Had she been ill?”

  “Not that I know of.” Charlotte felt like a terrible daughter. How could she not have noticed that there was something wrong with her mother?

  “Don’t worry,” the pilot said, apparently reading her thoughts. “Sometim
es these things just happen. And you acted quickly to get her help. You showed great presence of mind.”

  “But I risked exposing you.” She realized suddenly how foolish she’d been. “If someone had seen—”

  “But no one did. Besides, when one’s mother is ill, it’s impossible to think clearly, isn’t it?”

  Charlotte nodded. “Do you—do you have a mother?” She knew the question was silly as soon as it was out of her mouth. Of course he had a mother!

  “Yes, I did. She was a wonderful woman.” He hesitated. “Now, let’s get your mum over to the couch so that we can prop her head up a bit, shall we?”

  Charlotte nodded, and as the pilot scooped her mother effortlessly into his arms, she grabbed the bloodied towel and the water and followed him to where he laid her down gently. Maman’s eyelids were fluttering again, and she was trying to say something. “What is it, Maman?” Charlotte asked, leaning in.

  “The man,” her mother rasped weakly. “Who is the man?”

  The pilot smiled and stepped back as Charlotte squeezed Maman’s hand. “A friend, Maman. He’s a friend.”

  AN HOUR LATER, MAMAN WAS resting comfortably in her own bed, her head bandaged after the pilot had determined that the wound wasn’t deep. “It might be a good idea to have a doctor take a look, just to ensure it doesn’t get infected,” he said. “But it’s nothing to worry about for now. As for the fainting, I think perhaps your mother isn’t getting enough to eat.”

  “None of us are.”

  The pilot nodded. “Rations are very tight, aren’t they?”

  “I sometimes think the damned Nazis are trying to starve us all to death.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t put it past them.” If the pilot was shocked by her language, he didn’t show it. “Let’s say we let your mother rest for a while. She should feel better after a bit of a sleep.”