Danielle Steel - Echoes

“To where?” Amadea said, trying to focus on the problem. But she was so tired she could hardly stay awake. She kept drifting into unconsciousness when she talked to them. In one of her brief moments of lucidity, they explained what was going to happen. Everything had been arranged.

“There's a plane coming for you tonight.”

“Don't send me back to the camp,” she pleaded with him… “I'll be good, I promise. I'll get up in a minute.” But they all knew she couldn't. A doctor had come and said she would be paralyzed for life. And even in her condition, if the Germans found her, she'd be killed. They wouldn't even bother sending her to a camp. She was worthless to them now, even as a slave.

To make matters worse, it was too dangerous for them to keep her now. A young boy had informed, and the Germans knew that she was either part of or in charge of a cell. They all knew Serge was right. She had no choice but to get out. If they could get her out alive, which seemed doubtful. One of the Lysanders was coming for her that night. If they could get her on it. And if she survived. She was unconscious that night when they carried her out of the barn. One of the women had wrapped her in a blanket. She looked like a dead body, and they had covered her face. She moaned as they carried her, but she didn't regain consciousness again.

A young boy who had known her since she came to France ran across the field with her, as the others shone their lights. It felt more like a funeral than a rescue mission. One of the men had cried and said she would be dead before they got her off the plane. And the others suspected he was right.

The door was open as soon as the small plane landed. And they literally threw her onto the floor of the plane, still wrapped in the blanket. There were two men on the plane. One of them pulled her in, and then slammed the door shut as they took off. The pilot just managed to clear the trees, and then turned and headed toward England as the other man gently pulled the blanket off her face. They knew they had come for a French Resistance fighter they had to get out. They knew nothing more than that. They didn't even know her name. Serge had radioed what they needed to know to the British. All the pilots needed to know was where to go and that there was someone to pick up. They had.

“I think we made a bum run on this one,” the man sitting next to her on the floor said as he saw her face. She was barely breathing, and she had almost no pulse. “I don't think she's going to make it.” The pilot said nothing, and flew home.

They were both surprised to find that she was still alive when they got to England. An ambulance was waiting on the tarmac and took her. They took her to a hospital, where a bed was waiting for her, and when they saw her, they realized that she needed a lot more than a bed. She had third-degree burns all over her back, and her spine was broken. It was unlikely, the surgeon wrote in the report, after they had done what they could for her, that she would ever walk again.

They put her in the ward under the name on the papers she was carrying. Her French identification papers said her name was Amélie Dumas. Shortly afterward, a clerk from the British Secret Service office had called and identified her under the code name of Teresa.

“Do you suppose she's a British agent?” one of the nurses asked another when she saw the notation on the chart. They knew she had been picked up in France, but not why, or by whom.

“Could be. She hasn't spoken a word since she got here. I don't know what language she speaks.”

The head sister looked at the chart intently. It was hard to tell these days. She wasn't British Army in any case, and she was in desperate shape. “She could be one of ours.”

“Whoever she is, she's been through some pretty rough times,” the other nurse said.

Amadea didn't regain consciousness until three days later, and when she did, she only did so for a minute. She looked up at the nurse ministering to her and spoke in French with haunted, unseeing eyes. She spoke in French, not German or English, and said only, “Je suis l'épouse du Christ Crucifié”… I am the bride of the crucified Christ. And with that, she lost consciousness again.

ON JUNE 6, THE ALLIES HAD LANDED IN NORMANDY, AND Amadea cried when she heard the news. More than anyone in the hospital, it was what she had prayed for and fought for. It was mid-June before Amadea could be rolled out into the hospital garden in a wheelchair.

The doctors had told her that it was unlikely she would ever walk again, although not entirely certain. But highly unlikely, as they put it. She thought her legs were a small sacrifice to have made for the war effort, and to keep the people she had fought for alive. There were countless others who would never even see life from a wheelchair. And as she sat in the sunshine, with a blanket over her legs, she suddenly realized that she would be one of those old nuns in wheelchairs that the young nuns took care of. She didn't care if she had to crawl into the convent, as soon as they let her out of the hospital, she was going back. There was a Carmelite convent in Notting Hill in London, and she was planning to visit them when she was able to get out. But the doctor said she couldn't consider it yet. Her burns were still healing, and she needed therapy for her back and legs. And she didn't want to be a burden on the other nuns just yet.

She sat in the garden with her eyes closed and her face to the sunshine, when beside her she heard a familiar voice. She couldn't place it, and she had heard it in another language. It was like an echo of the distant past.

“Well, Sister, you've certainly done it this time.” She opened her eyes and saw Rupert standing next to her. He was wearing the uniform of a British officer. And it seemed strange to her not to be seeing him in the uniform of the SS. She realized that the unfamiliar sound of his voice was that he was speaking English, and not German or French. She smiled as she looked at him. “I understand you tried single-handedly to destroy the entire French railway system and half the German Army with it. I hear you did a hell of a job.”

“Thank you, Colonel.” Her eyes lit up as soon as she saw him. He was the only friend she'd seen since she'd been there. And she had been having terrible nightmares about Theresienstadt. Worse than she'd ever had since she left. “What have you been up to?” It had been six months since they last met, after their last mission into Germany together, when he'd been shot as he left France. “How's your shoulder, by the way?”

“It aches a bit in the bad weather, but nothing that time won't take care of.” In fact, he'd taken a nasty hit, but the doctors had done a good job putting him back together. Better than they had done with her. Or at least that was what he heard. The surgeon he had spoken to before visiting her said there was virtually no hope of her ever walking again, but they didn't want to tell her that quite that bluntly. He had said that for the moment at least, she appeared to be resigned to it. According to him, it was a miracle that she was alive. But miracles were her stock in trade.

“I got your message when you got back here. Thank you. I was worried,” she said sincerely, as he sat down on the bench facing her.

“Not nearly as worried as I've been about you,” he said seriously. “Sounds like you took a devil of a hit.”

“I've never been good with explosives,” she said, sounding the way some women did when they said they couldn't manage apple pies or soufflés.

“You might consider giving them up in that case,” he said practically, with a twinkle in his eye.

“Have you come to ask me to go back to Germany, pretending to be your wife?” she asked mischievously. As terrifying as it had been, in retrospect she had enjoyed working with him. Almost as much as he had enjoyed working with her. “Maybe you could say I'm your grandmother, now that I'm in a wheelchair,” she said, looking faintly embarrassed, and he brushed the comment off.

“Nonsense. You'll be running around again in no time. They tell me you'll be getting out next month.” He had kept close track of her, and had promised Serge he would. But he had waited until he thought she'd be up to a visit. He knew she had been in bad shape until then. She'd had a very rough two months.

“I thought I'd go to the convent in Notting Hill, when I get out. I don't want to be a burden to them, but there's still a lot I can do. I'll have to brush up on my sewing,” she said demurely, looking only for an instant like a nun. But he knew her better.

“I don't suppose they'll want you blowing up their garden. It could actually upset them quite a lot,” he said, smiling at her, happy to see her. In spite of the rough spot she'd been through, she looked well and, as always, beautiful. Her long blond hair hung down her back and shone in the sunlight. “Actually, I had a proposition for you. Not as exciting as a mission into Germany, I'll admit. But close. And at times, almost as challenging for the nerves.” She looked surprised as she listened. She couldn't imagine that in her current condition the British Secret Service would want her to do a mission with him. Her days as a Resistance fighter were over. But hopefully in a while, the war would be, too. She had fought a good fight for a long time. Longer than most. “Actually, to be honest, I need help with my kinders. They're getting older. They've been with me for five years now. The little ones are not so little, and getting into all kinds of mischief. The older ones are nearly grown up, and causing all kinds of ruckus at my place. I'm here in London most of the time, and frankly I need someone to keep an eye on them until this whole mess is over. And when it is, I'm going to need help tracking down their parents for them, if they're still alive. It could be quite a job. It's not easy for a man alone with twelve children,” he said plaintively, and she laughed. “I don't suppose you'd put off reenlisting with your order for a bit, to help out an old friend. We were married for a few days at one point, as much as a week I'd say, all in all. I mean, you owe me at least that. You can't just walk off and leave me with twelve children on my own.” She was laughing as she listened, and she suspected he was just being charitable, but also kind, which was typical of him.

“You're not serious, are you?” she asked with a strange expression. She felt an old stirring of friendship for him. Although they didn't know each other well, after all they had risked together, it created a powerful bond. In a sense, during their two missions, they had protected each other's lives. And done some terrific work. She was proud of what they'd done.

“Actually, I am serious. I adore them. But to be honest with you, Amadea, they're driving my housekeeper insane. She's seventy-six years old. She was my nanny when I was a boy, and my children's. These kinders need someone a bit younger to entertain them and keep them in line.” He was being truthful with her.

“I'm not sure how useful I'd be at either these days.” She glanced down at the wheelchair, and then back at him. “They might push me off a cliff if they don't like what I said.”

“They're really good kids,” he said, sounding serious finally. She could see that he meant what he had said. It was also easy to see that he loved them, but he was right. He had no wife, and a seventy-six-year-old housekeeper was no match for twelve lively young children, with no parent at hand. Rupert was away much of the time, on missions, or at work in London. He only got down to East Sussex on the weekends. On the other hand, she was anxious to get back to the convent. She had been out in the world long enough, and done all she was meant to. It was time for her to go back, and she said as much to him, as gently as she could. “Don't you suppose they could manage without you for a few more months?” he asked hopefully. “It's part of the war effort, after all. These children are victims of the Nazis, as you are. And it's going to be hard on them after the war, when a lot of them find out what happened to their parents. It could be very rough.” He tore at her heartstrings, and she hesitated as she looked at him. The fates constantly seemed to conspire to keep her from the convent. She wanted to ask God what he wanted of her. But as she looked at the expression in Rupert's eyes, she knew. She was meant to take care of these children. Maybe that was why God had sent Rupert to her. It was endless. But after three years out of the convent now, she supposed she could wait a while longer. She was beginning to think she'd be ninety when she took her final vows. But she knew that eventually she would. Of that she was sure.