Chapter 48 Chapter Forty Seven

In a station café near the train station, Flick and Paul ate breakfast: substitute coffee, black bread, and sausages with little or no meat.Ruby, Jelly, and Greta sat at another table, pretending they didn't know them.Flick watched the movement on the street warily. She knew Michelle was in danger.She had thought of going to warn him.She could go to Molière's place—but that would be too cheap for the Gestapo, who would definitely be following Michel and were planning to follow her up.Even calling Molier was risky; the phone would be tapped by a Gestapo switching station, giving away her hiding place.She thought that if she wanted to help Michelle, it would be best not to contact him directly.Dieter Frank will not arrest Michel until Flick is caught.

He therefore left Michel a note for Madame La Perrier to forward to him.The note reads: This seemed fine in theory, but she had spent the morning anxiously waiting to see if it would work. Then, at eleven o'clock, she saw the tall van come up and stop at the entrance of the station.Flick held his breath.There was a line of white writing on the side of the van that she recognized as "Molier & Sons Butcher's." She was relieved when she saw Michelle get out of the car. He entered the station.He is carrying out her plan. She looked around to see who was following him, but it was impossible.There were people coming and going at the station, some on foot, some on bicycles or in cars, and all of them seemed to be following Michelle.

She stayed in the cafe, pretending to drink the bitter substitute coffee, keeping an eye out for the truck to see if it was being watched.She watched the pedestrians and vehicles coming in and out of the station one by one, but she couldn't see anyone watching the truck.Fifteen minutes later, she nodded to Paul, and they picked up their suitcases and walked out of the café. Flick opened the door of the truck and sat in the driver's seat.Paul got into the car from the other side.Flick's heart rose to his throat.If this was a trap set by the Gestapo, they would be out by now to arrest her.She reached under the seat and found a key.She started the car.

She looked around.Nobody paid any attention to her.Ruby, Jelly, and Greta walk out of the café.Flick shook his head, motioning for them to get into the car from behind. She turned to look behind.Shelving, cabinets, and ice cube trays for cooling were installed in the van to keep the temperature low.It all looked scrubbed clean, but there was still an awful smell of raw meat. The back door opened.Three other women threw their suitcases up and climbed into the car one by one.Ruby closed the car door. Flick put it into first gear and the car drove away. "We won!" said Jelly, "thank God."

Flick smiled slightly.The hardest part is yet to come. She drove out of town and onto a road to Saint-Cécile.She kept an alert eye on the police cars and the Gestapo Chetron, but felt fairly safe nonetheless.That row of logos on the truck was a legal cover.It was normal for a woman to drive this kind of car, because many men went to the German labor camps-or to escape the labor camps, they went to the mountains to join the anti-German guerrillas. They reached Saint-Cécile just after noon.Flick noticed that the streets here are miraculously quiet, and that in France, people focus on the first meal of the day at noon.She drove to Antoinette's residence.A pair of tall wooden doors were ajar, revealing the courtyard of the residence.Paul jumped out of the van, opened the wooden door, Flick drove into the yard, and Paul closed the door.Now, the car and its emblem are invisible from the street.

"As soon as I whistle, you come in," Flick said, jumping out of the car too. She walked towards Antoinette's door, while the others waited in the car.The last time she knocked on this door was eight days ago, but as if in a previous life, Michelle's aunt didn't answer the door immediately, she was frightened by the gunshots in the square.But she immediately agreed.After a while, Antoinette opened the door, a thin, middle-aged woman in a fashionable but faded yellow cotton dress.She stared blankly at Flick for a moment: Flick was still wearing a black wig.Then she recognized her. "It's you!" she said, with a look of panic on her face. "What do you want?"

Flick whistled to the others and pushed Antoinette inside. "Don't worry," she said, "we're going to tie you up and make the Germans think we forced you to do it." "What?" Antoinette asked tremblingly. "I'll tell you in a minute. Are you home alone?" "yes." "it is good." Others came in and Ruby closed the door.They went into Antoinette's kitchen.On the table was a lunch of black bread, a salad of shredded carrots, a morsel of cheese, and an unlabeled bottle of wine.Antoinette asked again: "What is this for?"

"Sit down," said Flick, "and finish your lunch." She sat down, but said in her mouth: "I can't eat." "That's easy," said Flick. "You and the other women don't have to go to the castle to clean up tonight. . . . let's go." She looked at her inexplicably and said, "How can this be done?" "We sent messages to every woman telling them to come to you before work, and when they came we tied them up. Then we entered the castle in their place." "You can't get in, you don't have a pass." "No, we have."

"Why..." Antoinette gasped, "you stole my pass! Just last Sunday. I thought I lost it. That got me in trouble with the Germans." Big trouble!" "I'm sorry to have caused you this trouble." "But it's worse now—you're going to blow up that place!" Antoinette began to groan, shaking her head again and again, "They're going to blame me, you know who they are, we They will all be tortured." Flick gritted his teeth.She knew Antoinette might be right.The Gestapo might kill the real cleaners for their involvement in the deception. “We will do everything we can to make you look innocent,” she said. “You are our victim, like the Germans.” Still, there are risks, and Flick is well aware of that .

"They won't believe us," Antoinette cried, "we might be killed." Flick was hard-hearted. "Yes," she said, "or else it's war."