A Rendezvous To Remember. Geri Krotow

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ abilities. I don’t speak fluent German but I understand enough to know when the bastards are planning another domestic raid. My English has improved, too, since I’ve worked with the RAF intelligence planted here.

      Originally I’d thought that when I married Henri, he might support me in providing a safe landing spot for the spies England sends us.

      I will never tell him about my Resistance work. It’s what sustains me, even more than protecting my family. When he’s smashing my jaw or I crack another tooth on a door frame from his strike, I just think of what our young boys are going through. We will persevere.

      Belgium will be free again, thanks to our strength of will and our Allied angels.

      Like manna from heaven they float down, infiltrate our society and use the information they glean to help the analysts back in London.

      The war will end quickly.

      Our Allies are strong.

      If only I felt as strong. This morning, as he does every morning, Henri wanted me upon wakening. I’d prefer to keep our relations in the dark. It’s easier if I don’t have to see the devil when I have to suffer the weight of him.

      And the brutality of his lovemaking. It’s not lovemaking; it’s forced violence. He rapes me every time. Except I don’t resist. What good would it do? He’d just knock me out with a blow and have at it anyhow. At least this way I can get up and do my best to wash away any chance of his seed implanting.

      May 24, 1942

      He’s angry. It’s almost a year and no whisper of a baby yet. At thirty-five he doesn’t want to wait. While I, at almost 21, pray he’ll die in his sleep, God forgive me.

      I pray I can have babies with real love one day.

      Even as I write this, I can’t say I believe love exists anymore. Not when my Jewish friends are being murdered, not when I’m beaten senseless for not making my pommes de terre tender enough.

      I made a horrible mistake last week. In a moment of weakness, when Henri again mentioned his anger at no child from me, I suggested we could adopt. I have contacts. I didn’t tell him this, of course. With luck, we could adopt a Jewish baby. One whose parents have been sent away or will be soon. Several families in our town have adopted these babies, though it’s done quietly, without fanfare.

      We could save a life and might even have a chance at saving our marriage.

      At changing his heart.

      He answered by shoving my head into the tub of water I’d used to wash the dishes.

      “Do you desire a slow miserable death? That’s what the Gestapo will give us both if they hear your filthy talk. The only babies in this house will be mine.”

      He kept ranting as he pulled on my hair, allowing me to gasp for air, then plunging my face back into the dirty water.

      Sometimes I think of a different day, when I was young and looked forward to life and love. Before the Germans came back to our beautiful country and stamped out any hope of freedom.

      Chapter 3

      Esmée’s Journal

      November 23, 1942

      Winter is upon us. But my heart is far colder than any wind from the North Sea.

      Yesterday I saw the ultimate betrayal. More painful than any of his slaps or punches or kicks.

      I watched that bastard, my husband, give food—first-quality harvest and three pigs—to our enemy. He smiled and laughed, and even smoked a cigarette with them. He doesn’t think I saw them. He thinks I was busy in the cellar, boiling our linens. I fumed inside as he sold his soul for our country’s blood.

      Thank you, God, that I never told him about my involvement in the Resistance.

      Now I’ll have to be more careful than ever when I go out, which can only be when he’s either passed out from beer or when he goes into Brussels, which is rarer. I used to think he went into Brussels just to sell his goods, but now I wonder if he’s been making friends with the Germans all along. Maybe he’s charming one of their vile wives?

      No matter to me. I am determined to get my family, my real family, through the war. I pray his seed never takes root inside me. God forgive me, I don’t want a child with this devil.

      Melinda closed Grammy’s book and leaned her head against the back of the worn leather reading chair. She needed a break. It was as if the venom in Grammy’s words could burn Melinda’s skin more than sixty years after they were written.

      She shoved her feet into her scuffed slippers and went to the kitchen to make a large pot of tea. She looked at the antique clock on the wall; she’d wound it last night.

      She and Nicholas had bought this clock together, during a visit to Niagara-on-the-Lake. The intricate carving on the simple wooden box was yet another reminder of her own love gone bad.

      Here it was, eight-thirty on a Saturday evening.

      Dinner wasn’t even an option. Her stomach was as tense as her nerves. Tea was the only thing that ever helped her through these times, and there’d been many cups in the last few years.

      The backyard light flicked on, evident through the toile curtains that hung halfway down the picture window, which ran the length of the kitchen.

      Despite her nervousness, Melinda walked over to the door. Probably just some wayward raccoon or neighborhood cat, but it never hurt to check. She’d been living in the heart of D.C. for too long to ignore any hint of danger.

      The baseball bat she kept at her bedside was upstairs. Her fingers itched for it. As she stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, the teapot started to whistle.

      The figure of a large man loomed in the window of the kitchen door. Melinda screamed.

      And then her brain registered what her eyes saw.

      “Nicholas!” His name was a strange mix of strangled cry and whispered prayer. Before her feet could respond to her brain’s order to move, Nicholas had unlocked the door and it swung open.

      He looked as tall and imposing as ever, albeit a bit slimmer than she remembered. He was bundled against the cold in a charcoal overcoat.

      He’d always been the most attractive man she’d known, and still was. Her gaze went to his face, and met his blue eyes that, right now, blazed fire at her.

      He hadn’t expected her any more than she had him.

      “What are you—”

      “Why are you screaming at me?”

      They both spoke at once. Their eye contact remained steady while the words hung in the frosty air between them.

      “It’s freezing in here.” She broke the contact and nodded at the door he’d left wide-open behind him.

      “Don’t want that, do we?” He slammed the door shut with his foot, never moving his eyes from her face.

СКАЧАТЬ