the building. Two quick raps on the front door followed.
Mavis gasped as if she had come up out of the water. I closed my eyes briefly. One last breath.
‘We’re here to clean up sewing scraps,’ Marguerite said, face straining. ‘If we’re asked.’
I entertained the thought that perhaps it was someone who’d lost his or her way, needed directions, an old man with a cane perhaps? But whoever had looked through that window had made an effort, climbed up on something, as I had all those months ago when I saw the Résistance hiding guns in the crypt. No—I knew—whoever was on the other side of the door was searching for something, someone, maybe even me. Crumpling the note in my hand, I stuffed it down the front of my dress.
Marguerite took a deep breath near the door, shaking out her hands and shoulders. She cracked it open. ‘Hallo?’ she said, and Mavis reached for my hand, only to drop it when she heard a man’s voice behind the opened door—a German voice.
The conversation seemed innocent enough at first, listening to Marguerite talk about the weather and the cafés in Lyon. Then the conversation changed—he was asking about the convent, the crypt and how long the Sisters had been in Lyon. My heart sank when I heard her say, ‘Come in.’
I recognized his Gestapo uniform immediately as he walked in with his pointed hat and his dark, knee-high boots. His eyes skirted over all of us but at the same time skimmed the walls, ceiling, and sewing machines.
Marguerite pushed the door closed. ‘What brings—’
‘Not yet,’ the officer said, motioning at Marguerite. ‘Mach auf! Open up!’ He walked around the room with his hands clasped behind his back as Marguerite held the door open for another officer, followed by another, the door pushing closed between each one only to be stopped by another hand until there were four officers in all.
They moved about the machines, eyes interested in everything, chatting in German, chuckling occasionally. The darkness of their uniforms, saying words I didn’t know as they circled about, made me feel queasy.
One officer stood in front of the crate we had stuffed with guns, his black baton dangling from his belt loop scraping against it as he moved. When he spoke, he looked directly at Marguerite even though he addressed us all.
‘What’s been keeping you busy this morning, Sister… and?’ Another officer looked Mavis and me over, saying something in German.
‘And postulants,’ Marguerite said.
‘Of course.’ He put a hand to his chest and bowed cynically. ‘Officer Baader. Lyon Gestapo.’ His thin smile spoke more than his words as he took off his hat, and tucked it under his arm. A chiselled face to go along with his strong, bony hands. ‘This congregation has many sisters. Doesn’t it?’ He put two fingers to his head as if recalling some prior knowledge. ‘Are there twenty-three?’
Marguerite looked at me before answering. ‘Twenty at present. Recently three went to the Lord.’
He smiled. ‘We have something in common; there are about that many Gestapo at Hotel Terminus. Our headquarters here in Lyon.’
Marguerite flashed him a quick smile. ‘Yes—Hotel Terminus. I know where it is.’
‘Oh, you do? That is good.’ He put a hand to his chin and tapped his lips just below his thin moustache. ‘That is good you know where it is.’
There was a long, hot pause where he and Marguerite looked at each other and nobody talked. Perhaps it was his critical smile, or perhaps it was the way he stood back, relaxed near the crate of guns, watching his men circulate around the room rummaging through scraps of cloth near the sewing machines, but I felt he knew the answers to his questions before he asked them.
‘What’s this?’ He bolted toward the crypt door, and we followed. ‘Something valuable I can tell.’ He held the lock that dangled from the door handle in his hands, pressing his thumb into the key hole. ‘Impressive lock.’
‘Absolutely,’ Marguerite said.
His eyebrows lifted into his forehead, and his whole head rippled. He whistled with a flick of his finger, and another officer joined him at the crypt door.
‘This is our crypt,’ Marguerite said. ‘The bodies of the sisters.’
Baader’s face relaxed. ‘Ja,’ he said. ‘I can smell it now. Das Stinkt!’ He turned to his men while pulling on the lock. ‘Tote Nonnen.’
His men laughed when he said the one German word I understood, ‘dead’.