the notion of someone listening to every word hadn’t occurred to her. She looked around. The soldiers were out of sight but must be nearby. Only fellow prisoners were close enough to hear their words.
Pierrette gazed at Isa. “I see by the quality of your nightgown that you’re a woman of some means. Or—” she winked—“at least kept by someone as such.”
Isa shook her head. “I’m being held because I refused to accept the attention of a German officer.”
The woman laughed, so different from a few inconsolable moments ago. “If that is all they have, they must be very clever to figure out a way to hold you.”
Isa’s heart raced. If they searched her home, they might come up with enough evidence to cast out all hope. Surely they had nothing against her yet. The Hauptmann’s visit made that clear.
But even if they did search her home, she had complete confidence in the secrecy of that room. Complete.
* * *
“This is Monsieur Painlevé. He is one of the foremost Walloon advocates in Brussels.”
Edward—Father Antoine—sat in Ambassador Brand Whitlock’s plush office at the American Legation as the barrister entered the room.
Monsieur Painlevé was an older man, perhaps sixty, with graying hair and a smile that seemed as comfortable on his face as the pince-nez resting on his nose. “Monsieur Whitlock introduces me as if it were still before the war. As it is, I am nothing more than a prisoner of war. Same as you.”
“Mr. Whitlock says you might help our friend.”
“He’s told me a bit about the trouble,” Painlevé said, “but my help may be nothing more than to give you a better understanding of why I’m unable to help much at all.”
Edward looked between the two men. “Can you represent her?”
“That depends. What is the charge?”
“They say they’re holding her because she helped an Allied soldier. Evidently a spy came to her door posing as an Allied and she gave him something to eat. That is all.”
He looked perplexed. “Usually such offenses are settled without an arrest. A fine, house arrest perhaps. But not imprisonment.”
“There is more,” Whitlock said, looking at Edward. “Tell him the rest.”
“She slapped the face of a German officer—one who tried to take advantage of her. He’s behind this arrest. She is held for no other reason than protecting her virtue.”
The man waved his hand. “No, no, that is not the reason, Father. At least, that will not be the reason claimed in court. She has insulted a German officer. To them, that is enough. The reason behind that slap is irrelevant.”
“This is ludicrous,” Edward said, half to himself. He’d spent the better part of the last eight hours going from contact to contact, hoping to find someone able to work the bribe money he had ready. So far he’d come up with no one. The Kommandantur was as close to bribe-proof as the Major hinted. Edward had been forced to seek the American ambassador in hopes that a more traditional route might succeed.
“I have sat in on many cases in the German courts,” Brand Whitlock said. “They’re not completely without justice. And if anyone can help, it is Monsieur Painlevé.”
Edward looked to the barrister for confirmation, which he seemed reluctant to give. “I will say this: justice can be met there, but it is met inconsistently. At times, the courts are nothing short of a laughingstock, if anyone can laugh these days. But you do have the good luck that your parishioner is being tried in a Brussels court. If she were sent to one of the provinces, say Hasselt . . . well, there would be little hope for fairness, I’m afraid.”
“Is it possible for her to be sent elsewhere, even if she was arrested here in Brussels?”
The man lifted both hands. “With the German army, anything is possible.”
Edward sank back in his chair. He’d come for help and received only more possibilities to worry over.
“In theory,” the barrister continued, “the tribunals were set up to try cases that involved crimes against either the German state or its army. But over the past two years I’ve seen case after case of so-called crimes that can be found in no military penal code—not even a German one. It’s what comes of unlimited power, unfortunately. The army is the law. Basically, if a German prosecutor wishes to do away with someone, he may ask for a certain penalty and have it granted.”
“Then what are you allowed to do as a defendant’s advocate?”