All but one. A small boy stepped into the circle of light. His dark hair was a dirty tousle on his forehead, but when he looked up at them, his eyes were as blue as chips of jewels in the dirt. He walked up to Lieutenant Commander Stout, who froze, uncomprehending.
The little boy reached up to touch a patch on Stout’s field coat. His giggle suddenly filled the mine, a golden bubble of happiness in the dark. Then he grabbed Stout’s forefinger in his chubby little hand and tugged him forward. Enchanted, the soldiers followed as if in a dream as the little boy led them to a large metal door. He reached up with a tiny fist and rapped a complicated tune on the metal.
“Amerikaner,” he chirped.
The door creaked open. Seeing only uniforms, Dominic and his men leapt to attention, yanking the barrels of their guns up to take aim. But the eyes they looked into were not German. They were British, French, American, according to the patches on their soot-covered uniforms. And at the sight of armed Allied troops making their way into the mine, the men fell to their knees and some burst into tears.
The nearest man grasped Stout by the sleeves in shaking hands in spite of the fact that the astonished lieutenant general still aimed a pistol at him.
“Please,” he begged. “Take us home.”
50
Edith
Outside Puławy, Poland
March 1941
ONE NIGHT, WHILE THE GERMAN OFFICERS LOUNGED AT the dining table, happily stuffed with potato dumplings and Polish vodka, Edith saw her opportunity.
Empty plate in hand, Edith slipped from the table and made her way to the kitchen. Behind her, the men swirled their glasses and laughed at one another’s crude jokes. She would do her best to appear as if she were simply retiring for the evening, she thought. After all, her cell-like bedroom was located just down the hallway from the scullery.
In the kitchen, the three Polish women bustled around one another, stacking dirty plates, wiping dough and flour from the counters, sweeping debris from the floor. Edith wasn’t sure which one to approach first. She didn’t know their names; it had seemed better that way, she thought. She only knew what Jakub had told her: if Edith dutifully copied each day’s inventory, making note of the trucks and trains headed to the German and Austrian borders, the women would know what to do with the information. They could put them in the right hands. At least Edith hoped that they could.
Edith’s palm went instinctively to the pocket of her field jacket. Folded into a tiny packet was the day’s manifest of items that Edith had cataloged, including the original owners and locations, if they were known, all notated in her small, neat handwriting. But she hesitated. Did these unassuming-looking women really have the power to stop their allies in the Resistance from blowing up trains and trucks, as Jakub had told her? It seemed incredible to fathom. But Edith trusted Jakub, and he assured her that it was the best chance to protect these works, to perhaps someday return them to their rightful owners. What else could she do? She was only one woman stuck in a basement near the Russian border, her only contact with the outside world a regiment of Nazi soldiers, an unassuming Polish translator, and a kitchen full of resistors masquerading as kitchen staff.
Edith hesitated. Which one should she approach? The youngest of the three women stood at the sink, up to her elbows in soapy water. Edith settled on the woman wiping the counters. She stepped alongside her and placed her dirty plate on the counter. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out the day’s inventory.
The woman did not meet Edith’s eyes and hardly stopped what she was doing. She simply moved her hand toward Edith’s and swiped the small paper packet into her own pocket. A small, nearly imperceptible movement under the edge of the kitchen counter. Edith turned away, then heard a whisper behind her back.
“Danke schon.”
Edith felt the hairs on the back of her neck bristle. They understood German after all.
Through a narrow opening in the dining room doorway, Edith glanced at the officers still seated at the table. A hefty soldier, one of the unit’s commanding officers, tilted back in his chair and worked a toothpick into the cracks between his teeth.
Edith felt herself huff a sigh of wonder. The men had no idea that the kitchen women were listening to every word they said.
51
Dominic
Siegen, Germany
April 1945
POWS. HOW HAD THEY ESCAPED THEIR NAZI CAPTORS? Dominic’s jaw fell open. How long had they been hiding in this mine alongside the residents of Siegen?
Stephany was doling out more of their powdered coffee rations to warm their frozen bones when Hancock came running. All the men in the room flinched as one, and Dominic clutched his rifle more tightly. But the expression on Hancock’s face was perfect joy.
“Sir!” For once, even the dapper Hancock was disheveled with excitement. He pushed his helmet straight, face shining. “You’ve got to see this.”
Dominic, Stephany, and Stout followed Hancock down a series of winding tunnels until they came to a door that, judging by the splintered frame, had just been broken down. Behind the door, Dominic only saw a cloud of fine dust. But as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, a beautiful portrait of a curly-haired lady with pink cheeks looked back at him. Then he saw what Hancock had seen. Row upon row of works of art. Paintings. Sculptures. Stacks and stacks of packed cases. The priceless works were placed haphazardly on slapdash shelves made of raw lumber, their splendor incongruous amid the dirt, the cold, and the smell.
But the truth was undeniable: Siegen’s mines hid everything that old Herr Weyres had promised.
Dominic felt his weary heart beating faster as he stepped into the room. He could immediately see that this dirty mine might hold masterpieces he’d only ever read about. He wanted to reach out and touch it all, but instead, he gripped the barrel of his rifle and walked among them, gazing at the gilded frames and shining surfaces of oil paint. Some of the paintings were labeled with tags scrawled in black ink. Manet. Vermeer. It rang like a hall of fame of artists whose work Dominic had only dreamed of seeing in the flesh. Suddenly, Dominic’s fingers itched to draw.
Keep drawing.
In a flash, Dominic was back in Aachen, kneeling over Paul in front of the ruined cathedral, watching as his friend gasped out his last breaths. The agony that swamped his body was replaced with disgust. He turned away, suddenly nauseated. It was splendid, but he would give every last piece of art in this room to have Paul back.
As he turned, dull with pain, he saw it. A huge crate, the word AACHEN scrawled across it.
“Stephany,” he said, his voice flat.
The vicar hurried over, hope in his eyes. They widened when he spotted the crate. He rushed to it, his fingers scrabbling fruitlessly on the wood; Hancock seized a crowbar and the servicemen helped him to pry the thing open. The contents were wrapped in burlap. Hands shaking, Stephany drew it aside as gently as if it wrapped a sleeping baby. Gold and jewels glittered among the rough cloth, and Stephany fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face, as if his own family members had just been found alive. Fluent German poured from him, too fast for Dominic to keep up. Dominic’s heart surged. He knelt by Stephany, putting a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “What is it?”
When Stephany looked up at him, the joy in his eyes seized Dominic by the throat. He grabbed Dominic’s shoulders with shaking hands.