A Soldier of No Importance [ Band of Brothers ] 1

SIXTY NINE

Alice knew George would kill her for this. So would Bill and Joe too. George would probably start a search party for her as soon as he read the note after his nap. But she had to do this, and she had to do it alone.

Her pulse quickened as she stood outside the small yet lively nightclub. A sign hung above the heavy, black door with script in red and white: La Maison Rouge. Jean-Luc would probably kill her too, for coming back to the place that started it all, and by herself no less. But she had to.

Light flooded out from the crack under the door and a pair of windows to the left. She could hear music too. With a deep breath, Alice moved her trembling hand to the doorknob. It opened inwards and she was met immediately with the raucous noise of celebrating youths and clinking drinks. She stepped inside.

The room looked different, and yet altogether the same. No more Nazi flags forced to hang from the walls, replaced instead of the red, white, and blue of France. She saw the words 'liberté, égalité, fraternité' painted on a board and nailed above the main bar. 

The jukebox radio still sat in the same place, to the right of the door close to the bar. Instead of the occasional Germans, Americans and British mingled with the Parisian citizens. There was a lot more laughter in the Maison Rouge than she remembered. 

With her fingers, Alice traced a gouged indent in the wooden wallboard to the right of the door. Her hand trembled when she pulled away. The Maison Rouge had always been a small place, intimate. Whenever the Nazis had stopped in, she and the others had been enraged. 

Alice walked further in, past the dozen tables to her left. Her eyes caught the photographs still hanging along the right hand wall. A small smile graced her features. Soon she came to stop by the bar. She went to ask for a glass of wine, but the words stuck. So she ordered whiskey instead. The old man, white haired and wrinkled, smiled and nodded. Soon she held the glass.

Alice continued back further into the bar. The short hallway to the back rooms filled with cigarette smoke, darkened by the lack of light. But it opened again on the left, with another large room with twenty tables and a dance space. Alice stood at the doorway and watched soldiers and civilians fraternizing. They looked so happy, so carefree. 

As she turned from the dance room, Alice looked ahead. The door to the back office store room stood slightly ajar. Her breath caught in her throat. 

"We just need to ask you a few questions, mademoiselle."

She stopped in her tracks, several meters from the door. Her eyes squeezed shut. Giving herself a few moments to breathe, she moved forward.

"You were seen in the company of Herr Shultz just a night before plans went missing from his person. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, Miss Klein?"

"No," Alice whispered. 

She stood before the doorway. Her heart pounded in her chest as she moved a hand towards the door and pushed it further open. It did so silently. She reached inside to the right of the door and flipped on the light switch. 

Once inside, Alice looked to her right. Her whole body trembled. Tracks from desperate fingernails still lay in the wooden paneling. Her nails, her struggle, her body. Her stomach churned. Alice placed her fingers on the scratches.

"Do you know what we do to Germans who betray the Fatherland?"

Alice shuddered. Her body felt as though someone had shoved ice down her clothes. She turned away. The window in the back of the room, some ten feet from her, still had no drapes or blinds. The darkness of  night reared up behind the glass. Trying to maintain her breathing, Alice shot one last look at the scratches in the wood paneling before ducking back out.