The Life That I Have

Chapter 36

A week later Anya waited desperately in the airplane hanger, clutching a sleeping Harlean to her.
  "You realize you won't be able to speak to him," Phillipa Haycock said.
  "I know, but I can wave, can't I?" Anya replied, trying to disguise her eagerness to see Rudi. How she wanted to introduce Harlean to him and say 'this is your Daddy.'
  Unfortunately, that wouldn't happen today. The minute Rudi arrived, he would be taken to a large country house, where he would be thoroughly interviewed, just in case he was some sort of double-agent.
  Anya thought this procedure was silly; but she knew Rudi wasn't a double agent.
  "I wasn't going to ask you this– it's really none of my business. But– it wasn't just 'someone you met in the Maquis', was it?"
  "What?"
  "Harlean. It was Rudi, wasn't it?"
  "What is? I don't understand?" Anya bluffed. "What makes you think... Oh, what the hell. Yes, Rudi is her father. And he's the man I'm going to marry. I love him."
  There, it was out. She had said it.
  "Why didn't you say? Did you think I was going to put you in prison or something?"
  "Frankly, yes," Anya replied bluntly.
  Just then, the drone of an airplane caught Anya's attention.
  "It's him!" she exclaimed, like an excited child.
  After a few minutes of anticipating waiting, Rudi appeared, accompanied by several other official looking men.
  "Rudi!" Anya called.
  He turned.
  "Anya!"
  Their loud shouts awoke Harlean, who began to cry.
  "Shh, baby," Anya whispered comfortingly.
  But when she looked up, she saw Rudi had gone.

Gilles and Marilyne pulled up around the corner from the café.
  "Have you loaded the gun?" he asked Marilyne, who responded by nodding. "You know what to do? The minute I pull up, you fire."
  "Are you sure you should be driving with your arm?" she asked.
  "It's fine. I can steer perfectly well with one hand," he reassured her. He paused. "Ready?"
  Marilyne looked him in the eye and nodded.
  "Ready."
  Gilles put his foot down hard on the accelerator and the shot forward, around the corner, where it screeched to a halt.
  General von Fredrichs, his Sergeant and General Abt were all seated around an outside café table.
  Marilyne from the back seat, carefully took aim and fired through the open car window.
  Von Fredrichs, who had been rising to his feet, fell heavily to the ground, as did the other two. A young Leutnant sitting at a nearby table sprang up and drawing his pistol, began to fire at the car.    
  The car squealed and lurched forward and was out of sight within a second.
  When they were safely away from the café, Gilles pulled up.
  "Wow, that was close, wasn't it Marilyne? Marilyne?"
  He turned and saw Marilyne was sitting in the back seat, looking out of the window. Her position was funny, and her eyes had glazed over.
  "Marilyne?" he reached out and gently shook her arm. She slumped forward. Gilles looked down at his hand, which had an ominous red liquid on his fingertips.
  "Marilyne!"
  For the first time since he was a boy, Gilles began to cry.

Anya waited by the town hall, staring at the church clock. Why did time always go so slowly when you wanted something to happen?
  Suddenly, a large black car turned the corner, and Anya drew in her breath sharply, only to let it out again as the car drove past.
  She tore her eyes away from the clock and looked down into the pram. Harlean's big blue eyes smiled back at her. Rudi's eyes.
  A car drew up, and as Anya looked up, Rudi stepped out. She ran forward and threw her arms around him, and felt him doing the same. Somehow, their lips met.
  After what seemed like an age, Anya broke away and led Rudi over to the pram. She reached down and scooped up the squirming baby.
  "Harlean, this is your Daddy," she said, smiling through her tears.
  There they stood, the three of them; a family; surrounded by the wreckage and destruction of a war, that seemed so far away at that moment.

         THE END