Half in Shadow: A Novel by Gemma Liviero

Author:Gemma Liviero [Liviero, Gemma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2022-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

18. THE MISSION

At La Vérité, Josephine has already created several new identities for Allied soldiers hidden in safe houses, and Eugène has used his artistic skills to create a stencil simulating an official seal. Tomorrow, her work will become more dangerous, and she is feeling anxious.

Despite hearing news in the underground of a German defeat, there seems no end to occupation. Work at the hotel is constant, and to feed the officers as well as the men in the field, supplies have had to be ordered from America and Holland. Produce sold to shops and restaurants in Germany has been sequestrated by the military.

“Your little German friend has a lot of work to do,” says Benôit one day, catching her looking out the window, thinking of Franz. The manager has a sixth sense. “There are many people he has to catch.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are some who sabotage the Germans’ buildings here, and also the smuggling of people, which I hear them constantly complaining about.”

“Oh,” she says, wondering if her underground work is written across her face.

“Anyway, I’m sure he will return,” he says. “Don’t worry too much.”

Josephine shrugs her shoulders to pretend Franz is of no consequence, and she sees that Benôit is looking at her hands, which are pink and raw. They are constantly in developing and bleaching agents, turpentine, and ink.

“You should get some cream for your skin,” he says.

She nods and disappears quickly to avoid any questions.

The gravelly, pitted path crunches loudly under Josephine’s bike wheels. Several chickens squawk and scatter in various directions as she approaches her destination just outside Brussels. She has followed Eugène’s instructions, deviating along a narrow pathway that vehicles cannot travel.

It was here where war boots have trampled and littered the ground with uprooted trees left to rot beside the creek that runs through the village. This is another village where people were slaughtered. The remaining trees stand defiant with knowledge of the crimes that occurred, overhead boughs bending down inquisitively toward her, their leaves chattering their secrets of the dead. A feeling of panic sends a shiver up Josephine’s back at the memory of Louvain. She can see tiny pockmarks in the skeletal remains of a wagon, turned on its side, violently it seems, stripped of most of its wooden body, likely to be used for heating. People still live here, but many were forced to move away, their houses razed. A house on the corner had been burned down to one level and gutted.

The small, pale stone cottage she seeks sits alone and back from the road. A rectangular, unremarkable construction that does not beckon to those who travel by. Windows boarded behind a dying tree with antler-shaped boughs.

Josephine pauses on the road, her skirt released from being tucked underneath her. She pulls the written instructions from her pocket to check the address, then searches behind her to make sure she hasn’t been followed. She walks her bike the remaining distance along an uneven pathway to the front door.

She

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