“Thank you,” said Stefano to Fedor.
“Have faith, my brother,” said Fedor. “I had word from my brother-in-law that it is now just a matter of weeks before this is over.” They discussed the plan to take Monique and her daughter into Austria. From there she would have to make her way back in the direction of Germany. It was a loose plan, the fact that Monique would have to go it alone for much of the way. They had already decided that the assassins’ attempt was not Nazi ordered, and it was unlikely they were looking for her, which meant it would be safe to catch the train from Austria to Dresden. However, Allied aerial bombings would be her biggest problem, forcing a slower journey home, when she eventually made it across the Austrian border. Fedor taught her several lines in Russian in case she was faced with Russian soldiers. She was also to mention the name of his brother-in-law, who would help her and guide her to Fedor and Stefano. If she didn’t remember the lines, he could not guarantee her safety. Russian soldiers could be brutal, he told her, and not in the mind-set for tolerance. She repeated the lines until they were perfect.
Stefano left Monique to prepare Vivi to sleep on one of the mattresses, while he walked with Fedor to his car. Fedor would return at first light with supplies for their journey and for Monique’s.
“I trust this place is adequate,” said Fedor, raising his eyebrows in the direction of the villa, a small smile on his face. And Stefano pushed his friend in jest, and thought of Monique, wondering if love was possible and if the night held something that he had had barely time to dream about in recent years.
“Tomorrow, Brother, I will return with more ammunition and provisions for our journey, and we will continue the fight, to the end,” Fedor said to Stefano.
“To the end,” said Stefano, and the two men hugged. “We still have much work to do.”
Stefano watched him climb into the car and disappear up the track. It was a friendship that had been forged in blood and grief and wine, but it would undoubtedly stand the test of time if time permitted.
Stefano returned inside to boil some water on the cooker to make some coffee, while Monique fed her daughter some of the cheese and milk she had brought with her. While she rocked Vivi to sleep, Stefano opened a tin of food with his knife to share between them.
Vivi had curled up asleep with several blankets, and Monique had draped her coat over her for extra warmth. The baby had cried at first as they had left the Verona apartment; the gunshots had terrified her, but the exhaustion of the event had finally caught up with her.
“Where will you go next?” asked Monique, sitting with Stefano on the other mattress. She shivered from the cold, and Stefano took off his coat to drape around her shoulders.
“Fedor and I will go north to fight with the Russian army and enter Berlin. I will find Erich Steiner, too. I will kill him.”
“You do not need to kill him. It is too easy. Death is too easy. Break him. Take away his control, the superiority he believes he has. But it is dangerous what you do. He is calculating and likely to be prepared for anything. I don’t want it to be you that dies in the attempt.”
“I don’t want to die either,” he said, spooning some of the beans and meat into his mouth, before passing the spoon to Monique to do the same.
“The Germans are desperate,” she said. “They will stop at nothing.”
He smiled. “You don’t have to worry about me.” And it was then she saw the blood on his trousers.
“Oh, your wound! Let me help you.”
He lifted up his trouser leg, and she bound his leg again with torn strips of clothing. He watched her do this, her hands working carefully and gently, her face furrowed in concentration. The coat around her shoulders did not completely cover the satin dress beneath. She had admitted feelings for him, he remembered, in her letter. The last letter she would write to her father.
Vivi began to cry again, and she went to her on the other side of the room. Half an hour later the child was quiet and sleeping.
“I think it was a nightmare,” said Monique.
They shared more of the hot coffee from the same cup and discussed Fedor’s plan for the following day.
“I hope to never see Erich again!” she said.
“If I have my way, you won’t.”
Stefano was still angry at the mention of him, at the fact that Stefano had come so close to killing him. His heart was racing with anger, fear, and something else. He had developed strong feelings for Monique in the week they had spent together. He had never met anyone like her; he was unnerved by her suffering and dazzled by her resilience. She had saved lives with the information and finances she had provided to the resistance.
Something else he remembered feeling at the sound of Erich’s voice, amid the hatred and thoughts of killing, was the feeling of envy that someone had staked a claim on her, someone who had never deserved her.
She had seen him thinking deeply and reached out to hold his hand.
“You are cold without your coat,” she said.
Her eyes were dark in the dim light, her hair pulled back with a piece of string, her face glowing yellow. She held his gaze, daring him almost and knowing what was in his thoughts. They sat on the mattress opposite each other. He put down the cup and moved nearer to her so that their faces were close. He felt frightened and excited, but the feeling that overrode all others was the desire to hold her, to never let her go, to protect her and her daughter.
He leaned forward and kissed her softly, and she returned the kiss, cautiously. He placed his hands on her shoulders and slid back the coat from her shoulders to feel her skin, to rub his hands on her back. She drew closer, putting her arms around his neck shyly, and he reached over to turn off the lamp. Behind her he unzipped the satin dress and pulled her downward so they would lie together.
Slowly and shyly shedding their clothes beneath the blankets, they still had hours before they would separate, before someone would come to take them elsewhere. He would not rush this moment, which might be the last time he was with her. He tasted the buttery sweetness of her, explored the secret creases of her body with his hands, and kissed the silken expanses of her skin, and they held each other and loved more than he had thought possible.
Naked, they wrapped themselves in blankets and sat on the balcony, warmed by each other and forgetting for a moment they were still at war. They stayed there talking about themselves, about their pasts; shared their real names; and speculated about a life they might continue together one day. Until it grew too cold and he carried her inside to lay her back on the mattress and enfold her cooling body with the warmth of his own once again.
At some point she left to check on Vivi, and he could marvel at the shape of her against the light from the night sky through the window, the curves, as she stood to go. And she returned to become entwined, each afraid of release, until the early morning light spread across the inner walls of the room.
They dressed and waited for the car to come. The driver would take her as far as he could, and she would have to walk with Vivi into Austria. Stefano feared for her safety and could not bear the thought that he might lose her, too. Though they professed a desire to be together, the pair did not make any promises, unsure whether they would survive the war and whether their destinies would intertwine.
It would be three months after the war was finished when Fedor would come to him in the Russian barracks outside of Berlin, where Stefano had chosen to remain and work, unknowing of Monique’s whereabouts, but still with a glimmer of hope that a message would come. And when it did, it would be the beginning of his final quest to end his own war once and for all.
CHAPTER 35
GEORG