Lana's War Read online

  “A friend has a restaurant in Le Marais. He gets veal on the black market. He wraps the cutlets inside a lettuce leaf for his favorite customers, and no one is the wiser.”

  Lana imagined a juicy veal cutlet brushed with oil and sprinkled with basil.

  “A whole veal cutlet?” she breathed.

  “We might have to share one, but we can each have our own dessert,” Frederic said, and his smile was as bright as the lampposts lighting the sidewalk.

  * * *

  Lana sat on the bench in the Place du Panthéon and rubbed a bloodstain on her skirt. The shock of the afternoon had left her exhausted and her thoughts jumbled together.

  For three years, they had lived in fear, but the fear was somewhat removed: like a gossamer curtain that separated the stage from the audience. Of course Lana had witnessed things that left her shaking: when she went to her mother’s one day and found the Levins’ apartment on the second floor empty. No one knew where they had gone, but Lana discovered Madame Levin’s toy poodle trembling in their coat closet and was certain they had been sent to a labor camp.

  Last year, Avram in her geometry class never returned from summer vacation. Lana learned from a professor that Avram was one of the five thousand Jews rounded up by French police and sent to Drancy. From there they were put on trains to one of the camps in the east.

  But now the abstract fear had become something that happened to her. The misery was so thick and deep it threatened to overpower her. It would be easy to let it take its course, to sit on this bench forever and simply stop living.

  She noticed a new bloodstain on her skirt before the pain even started. The spot spread between her legs, and she stood up and shakily walked the five blocks to their flat.

  The knot that had been in her stomach since she had hid outside the convent became a knife piercing her flesh. She climbed three flights of stairs like a blind person led by a sense of the familiar. Then she sunk to the floor and slid to the bathroom.

  It was only hours later, when the cramps subsided and she had somehow managed to heat up a hot-water bottle that she let herself acknowledge what had happened. The Gestapo officers hadn’t just shot Frederic, they had also murdered Frederic’s child.

  Chapter Two

  Paris, October 1943

  Lana stood in the convent kitchen and sliced a rutabaga. These days, it seemed the only thing she did was slice vegetables. In the three months since Frederic died and she lost the baby, it was one of the few ways of dulling the pain. She was slowly pulling herself out of her grief. The first two months had been a blur of whole days spent sleeping, coupled with nights when sleep wouldn’t come. She lay hunched on Frederic’s side of the bed and pictured the Gestapo officer’s gleaming pistol and Frederic lying in a pool of blood on the piano seat.

  Her mother visited every day, and her landlady kept an eye on her at night, and Sister Therese brought flowers from the convent’s garden. Eventually, Lana began getting dressed and venturing outside. Shopkeepers who didn’t know what happened waved gaily as if she and Frederic had been on vacation. Monsieur Gaston, who owned the bakery, had scraped up ingredients to make a pain au chocolat because he remembered it was their anniversary.

  Lana returned to the university in the new term, but she took only one class. Even turning the pages of her textbook was difficult. She was like the patients in the military hospitals who had gone off to war whole and healthy and now struggled to feed themselves. Slicing vegetables was easier. She didn’t have to solve chemistry equations or interact with classmates.

  “Lana, you shouldn’t spend all your time in our kitchen.” Sister Therese entered the room. She placed a bucket of potatoes on the counter and took out a peeler.

  “You’re saying that because you don’t like my cooking.” Lana laughed. “I only had rationing coupons for rutabaga. But the vendor gave me a new recipe: dice the rutabaga and stir it into vegetable bouillon. He said it’s delicious.”

  “Rutabaga stopped being delicious months ago.” Sister Therese grimaced. “When the war is over, I never want to eat rutabaga again. Even if it is accompanying sirloin tips and served in the dining room of the Hôtel de Crillon.”

  “I think you’re right.” Lana stared despondently at the yellow vegetable. Rutabaga was the only thing that grew plentifully in wartime. They had it almost every meal. “I’d give a week of my life to turn this rutabaga into a crêpe.”

  “I forgot what a crêpe tastes like,” Sister Therese said.

  “A crêpe filled with raspberries and fresh crème and dusted with powdered sugar,” Lana said dreamily, recalling the first months of their marriage when it was possible to find a restaurant that served crêpes. She and Frederic didn’t mind the growing lack of food on the shelves with the promise of sweet crêpes once a week. The memory dissolved, and she stabbed the rutabaga with a knife.

  “Be careful, you’ll slice your finger.” Sister Therese watched her. “You spend all morning in class, and then you come here and help with the children until nighttime. When do you have time to cook your own dinner or see people?”

  “There’s no one I want to see.” Lana grunted. “I like being here, I feel useful.”

  “We are grateful for everything you do.” Sister Therese nodded. “I know it hasn’t been long since Frederic died, but you mustn’t forget that you’re alive.”

  “What if I don’t want to live?” Lana returned. “The Gestapo took everything, I couldn’t even save my baby.”

  “It’s not your fault that you lost the baby,” Sister Therese countered.

  “You can’t understand what it’s like to lose everything.”

  Sister Therese’s eyes dimmed, and she bowed her head. Her expression was filled with grief.

  “Three nuns at our sister convent in Lyon were stabbed by Gestapo officers for harboring Jewish refugees,” Sister Therese said quietly.

  “I’m sorry, you’re right,” Lana said. “Everyone in France has experienced loss. At least here I don’t have to think. It’s easier to slice rutabaga than to imagine life without Frederic.”

  “What if I knew a way you can help others survive?” Sister Therese looked up from the potatoes. “And avenge Frederic’s death at the same time.”

  Lana stopped. She turned to stare at Sister Therese.

  “What are you saying?” she asked.

  “Certain people come to nuns and tell us things. People who despise the Nazis.”

  “Like what?”

  “I was approached by a man who had heard of you. He would like to meet you.”

  “A man wants to meet me?” Lana repeated.

  “If I tell you more, I’m putting you in danger.”

  Lana remembered the way the Gestapo officer was so friendly to Frederic and then mocked him. She recalled Esther’s frightened eyes when she was discovered in the piano.

  “I would like to meet this man,” she said.

  “Are you sure? Once you do, your life will never be the same.”

  Lana wiped the knife with the sleeve of her dress. “I’m perfectly sure. Please tell me where.”

  * * *

  Lana looked from the piece of paper that Sister Therese had given her to the coffee shop across the street. The address matched the one on the paper. But the sign above the door read SOLDATENKAFFEE MADELEINE. The sign used to read CAFé MADELEINE; the Germans had taken it over like they took over everything in Paris.

  Sister Therese must have given her the wrong address. Why would this man ask to meet her at a café that was favored by Germans soldiers?

  She locked eyes with a young soldier whose cheeks were covered with acne and wondered how he could fight in Hitler’s army. How could boys who wrote letters home to their mothers turn into men like the Gestapo officer who shot Frederic?

  A man sitting at a table in the back picked up his book. Lana strained to see the cover. Sister Therese said her contact was about thirty-five and would be reading Thomas Mann.

  The man had dark hair and
wore a navy coat.

  “Madame Hartmann, I’m Henri,” he said when she approached the table. “Thank you for coming. Please sit down.”

  “Call me Lana.” Lana pulled out the chair. “I thought I was in the wrong place.”

  “You mean why would I ask you to meet in a café frequented by German officers? It’s quiet now, and no one will hear us. It doesn’t get busy until later in the day.” The man grinned. His smile made his face somehow older. His forehead wrinkled, and the lines around his mouth were more pronounced. “In this game, it’s all about perception. If I run into any German soldiers who walk by the window in a different setting they’ll remember they saw me at a café that’s popular with Germans and think we’re old friends. But no one will overhear us; we’re quite safe.”

  “I see,” Lana said, glancing around warily. The tables were almost empty.

  It still made her nervous. A German officer could come in and sit at the table beside them. And how could she trust a complete stranger? But Sister Therese was one of her dear friends, and she had confidence in her judgment.

  “I took the liberty of ordering you a café crème.” He pointed to the cup. “I didn’t want to be interrupted by a waiter; they have the biggest ears in Paris.”

  “Thank you.” Lana took a sip and waited for him to continue.

  “How much do you know about the Drancy internment camp?” He leaned forward.

  “I’ve read about it,” Lana said.

  The first Jews were rounded up in 1941 and taken to Drancy, northeast of Paris. It was supposed to be temporary, but they were kept there for weeks without adequate food or water. Lana had read about the terrible conditions. Eighty people slept in a room. Some died in their beds, and the others were too weak to move them.

  “Up until early this year the camp was run by the French, but in July the Gestapo took over.” He looked at Lana. “The Gestapo thought the French were moving too slowly and wanted to be sure all the occupants were exterminated. Mothers were separated from their children and sent to labor camps in the east. The children were made to wait alone for weeks before they were sent there too. Then they were gassed on arrival. The SS officer who was put in charge is someone you’ll recognize.” He paused. “His name is Alois Brunner.”

  She didn’t know the name. Her expression was blank.

  “Until recently Brunner was here in Paris. He’s the SS officer who killed your husband,” Henri clarified.

  “I see.” Lana’s cheeks felt hot, and she worried she might faint.

  “Three weeks ago Brunner was sent to the South of France. The Riviera was taken over by the Germans in September, and the coastline is full of Jews who escaped persecution in Austria and Germany.” He sipped his coffee. “It’s Brunner’s job to fix that.”

  “What do you mean?” Lana’s eyes widened.

  “Under the Italian occupation, the Jews on the Riviera were mainly left alone. Mussolini himself had a Jewish mistress, and he refused to turn Jews over to the French police. But all that changed last month when the Germans took control. We’ve learned that Brunner plans on rounding up every Jew between Marseille and Monaco and putting them on trains to Drancy and then to the camps.”

  “But what can I do?” Lana wondered. She ran her fingers over the rim of her café crème. “I live in Paris.”

  “I’m getting to that,” he said calmly.

  He picked up his coffee cup and sipped it slowly. His brow was furrowed, and he sat upright in his chair.

  “Until now the French Riviera has been a pleasant oasis for people of many nationalities. The casinos are thriving, and there are nightclubs and promenades with elegant shops. It attracts an eclectic mix of residents, including a group of White Russians.”

  “White Russians?” Lana repeated.

  “Members of the Russian nobility, like Tatiana Antanova, who fled Russia during the revolution. Some of them left with jewels they turned into cash, allowing them to live in villas and throw parties. Parties that German officers, including Alois Brunner, attend.”

  How did Henri know her mother’s name? Lana talked about her mother’s heritage with Sister Therese. Perhaps she had told him.

  “I take it you know about my mother,” she said. The blood pulsed through her veins. “The Bolsheviks took everything she had; she left without a penny. She would never become friendly with Germans, people who think nothing of killing children. Of course she misses imperial Russia; her family lived there for centuries. But she’s married to a French count, and she’s happy. Paris is her home now, and she despises the Germans as much as anyone.”

  Henri was silent for a long time. “Now I can see why Sister Therese recommended you. At first I was afraid you were too young and inexperienced for this kind of work, but Sister Therese said you’d be perfect. She was right, you have the fire needed to be successful without buckling under pressure.”

  The air rushed out of Lana’s lungs, and she sat back in her chair. “I don’t understand.”

  “There are many White Russians who feel the same about Hitler as your mother. After all, the Russian nobility ruled Russia for centuries. They hope to return, and they don’t want Russia to be overrun by Germans.” He stopped. “But others feel differently. They think the Germans will help get rid of Stalin and then they can take back what’s rightfully theirs.

  “Your job would be to take up residence in the French Riviera and become part of the latter group.” He looked at Lana approvingly. “A beautiful blond descendant of Russian nobility in Nice to escape wartime Paris and have a good time.”

  Lana tried to imagine attending parties in seaside villas and playing the roulette wheel at the casinos. She had never been to the Riviera. What would it be like to be alone in a strange place? And Frederic had been dead for only three months. It would be difficult to pretend to enjoy herself when she missed him so much.

  “I don’t know anyone on the French Riviera,” she said. “Where would I live? What would I do?”

  It would be difficult living away from her mother. And leaving Paris would mean never seeing any of the places she and Frederic enjoyed: the public gardens and the quaint streets in Le Marais. She didn’t want to miss her class at the university or stop going to the convent.

  “All you have to do is say you’re Lana Antanova and you’ll be accepted. Leave the rest to us. You’ll live with our contact there: His name is Guy Pascal. He’s a Swiss industrialist with a splendid villa above Nice.”

  “You want me to live with a man I’ve never met?” She gaped.

  He chuckled, and his eyes sparkled. “There are worse covers in the French Resistance. Guy is thirty-two and he’s handsome and charming. You will be his lover.”

  Lana gulped. She couldn’t be a man’s mistress. Frederic had been dead for a short time. She still thought about him every day.

  Henri leaned forward and smiled encouragingly.

  “Don’t worry, it will only be for show. Guy is a perfect gentleman, and he’s serious about his work.”

  “How would we say that we met?” Lana queried. “I was a married woman. My husband died so recently.”

  “You will say that you and Guy met on holiday years ago. You bumped into Guy again after your husband’s death, and the spark was rekindled.” Henri studied Lana appreciatively. “You’re too young and pretty to spend the rest of your life alone.”

  The thought of sitting across from a strange man at the breakfast table made Lana’s stomach turn. But she couldn’t continue to spend the war slicing rutabaga in the convent’s kitchen. She had an opportunity to help, to avenge Frederic’s senseless death. It wasn’t just Frederic, it was Esther and Sophie and Ida and the other Jewish children at the convent. Her baby. There had to be a way to stop all the death. Here was her chance to help the children survive.

  “Why should I trust you?” Lana asked. “You’re asking me to change my life, and I don’t know anything about you.”

  Henri looked at her levelly. He nodded and sat back in
his chair.

  “The war affects all of us. My mother is half-Jewish.” He paused. “She was sent to one of the camps from Drancy six months ago when Alois Brunner was in charge. I’m like you in a way. I want to get rid of Brunner and help as many Jews at the same time.”

  “I see,” Lana whispered.

  “You could save a lot of Jews, Lana.”

  She guessed that Henri was a member of the French Resistance. She had heard how they blew up railways and performed all kinds of dangerous acts. And she often wondered how people could be so brave. Now she understood. It was easier to risk your life if you had lost the reason to live. But what if she failed? She could put other people’s lives in danger.

  “But what would I be doing?” she wondered. “I don’t know anything about explosives, and I’ve never carried a gun.”

  “You wouldn’t have to do anything like that. It’s better if you don’t know too much until you agree and until you arrive, but I promise you’ll find it easy. The important thing is to become part of the social set. Guy will tell you everything you need to know.”

  “Can I give my answer tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Of course. Give Sister Therese your answer.” He nodded.

  A few German soldiers walked in and approached the counter.

  “It’ll be best we don’t see each other again. Though I’ve enjoyed this immensely. It’s not often that I have the pleasure of drinking coffee with an accomplished young Russian countess.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’m confident Countess Lana Antanova will be a welcome addition to the social set of the French Riviera.”

  * * *

  Lana walked down Avenue Montaigne toward her mother’s apartment. Her mother had begged Lana to move in when Frederic died, but she kept putting it off. It was silly: she couldn’t afford their rent, and Frederic would have wanted her to be more comfortable, surrounded by her loved ones. But she wasn’t ready to leave behind their life.