Page 54 of The Resistance Book Club

The Professor opened the door to his rooms and ushered Margot in. He followed her, closed the door and slid the bolt across firmly. Only then did he lean back against the door and draw in a deep, pained breath.

Margot wanted to help him and tend to the wound on his leg, but they’d have to wait.

She gently laid her hand on his shoulder and wondered where Isabelle was, but she didn’t dare ask him in case the soldier on the stairs overheard. The Professor put his finger to his lips and crossed to the piano.He took his place at the keyboard and began to play a gentle melody that, to Margot’s untutored ear, sounded like a lullaby. Only then did he whisper, ‘We have to get her down into your rooms.’

‘But how? There’s that soldier on the stairs.’ Margot’s mind was spinning again. She felt as if she was trapped in a maze without a map. ‘That’s the only way down to my flat…unless we hide her inside something and hope she doesn’t cry?’

They couldn’t put a baby in a suitcase, though Margot was sure some people must’ve attempted it. And it’d look obvious that she was trying to hide something if she appeared on the landing with a suitcase. She was hardly going to suggest lowering her out of a window. Poor Isabelle, such a tiny little thing in her basket?—

‘That’s it!’ Margot whispered, the idea suddenly striking her. ‘A laundry basket. You’re my tenant, so of course I’d need to take your washing.’

The Professor looked up at her and smiled. ‘Perfect,’ he murmured. ‘And surely even the SS will appreciate that a woman of your stature could hardly lift a laundry basket with a terrorist hiding inside it.’ He gave a nod. ‘I can pile the cushions and clean linen in the Moses basket; they won’t notice what it really is.’

It was the best plan they had. Margot followed the Professor into his bedroom, where Isabelle was lying in her basket. She’d kicked off her blanket and she was happily milling her chubby legs as she gripped her toy goose. She looked so sweet that Margot didn’t want to disturb her, but they had no choice.

They whispered to Isabelle as they put clean linen inside the basket with her. They added just enough to make it look plausibly like a washing basket, but not too much; Margot dreaded the thought that they might accidentally smother her. All the while, she listened out for noises.

Isabelle puckered her face through the small gap left in thelinen, as if she was about to cry, but Margot murmured to her, ‘It’s just a game, Isabelle! Just a little game!’

At the sound of a heavy engine, the Professor opened the blackout curtain a hair’s breadth and glanced out of the window. ‘My brother’s here,’ he whispered. ‘Take her downstairs and lock your door.’ He stooped to tell Isabelle gently, ‘Be good, little one.’

‘We’ll go and find Herr Knuddel, won’t we?’ Margot said to the baby.

She picked up the basket. It was heavy with the addition of the linen. She held it in her arms, rather than by the handles, and hoped she looked like a convincing washerwoman. They went to the front door, Margot whispering little sounds of comfort as quietly as she could to Isabelle.

At the door, her gaze locked with the Professor’s. There was something there; beyond their shared fear, she saw warmth.

‘You’re remarkable,’ he whispered. Then he drew back the bolt and opened the door.

Margot couldn’t say a word. She told herself over and over again that she was just carrying the washing; she didn’t want them to know that she was carrying a precious bundle. The soldier they’d left on the landing had gone, but Margot could hear heavy footsteps on the stairs, voices talking in German. Lauterborn was here, with reinforcements. Fear turned her blood to ice.

As she took each step, she pleaded silently that Isabelle wouldn’t cry. The baby seemed puzzled, but not afraid, and only made the slightest coo, which was drowned out as one of the stairs creaked under Margot’s foot.

As she reached the landing and the door to her apartment, Margot could tell that the footsteps would soon be upon her. Juggling the basket, she reached for the door handle as Felix Lauterborn rose out of the darkness of the stairwell. He swept his peaked cap from his head and gave her a polite nod.

‘Allow me, madame,’ he said smoothly, placing the cap back on his head. Then he took the basket from her arms. ‘How like my brother to leave a lady to do the heavy work.’

Margot silently willed Isabelle not to make a sound as she opened the door, trying not to hurry, otherwise her panic would be obvious.

‘Thank you, monsieur,’ she said, as she held the door open with her elbow and reached for the basket. Instead, Lauterborn carried it past her and set it down on the floor. Then he clicked his heels together and cast a glance upwards.

‘As we say in my homeland,’ he said with a smile, ‘first the work, then the pleasure. Good evening, madame. I apologise for this disturbance in your home.’

With that, Lauterborn strode out onto the landing and towards the stairs, shouting something in German as he went. Margot didn’t understand what he said, but she recognised one furious bark of a word: Theodor.

She locked and bolted the door, then took Isabelle out from under the linen. The little girl was hot and started to gripe, so Margot held her, rubbing her back, and quietly paced up and down the room as she whispered to the baby.

She hated to think of the Professor facing his brother alone. What on earth would happen if he and his men found the radio? There could be all manner of other things among the Professor’s belongings upstairs that could give away his links to the resistance, and there was nothing more that Margot could do.

Margot could hear the raised voices of the brothers and the heavy footsteps of the SS as they carried out their search. She wasn’t sure what the Professor was hoping to achieve by the furious, uncharacteristic tirade with which he was regaling his sibling, but did her best to entertain the baby in her arms, who, little by little, drifted back to sleep despite the noise. Eventually the footsteps from above fell silent and she heard them on thestaircase instead, followed by one more angry exchange from the two men before someone who Margot knew must be Lauterborn thundered down the stairs and past her door with a final shouted, furious oath.

Margot paused. She could feel the heaviness in the building dissipate. Soon, engines rumbled outside, then drove away. They’d gone.

She left her flat and, with the sleeping Isabelle in her arms, went upstairs and knocked on the Professor’s door. ‘Monsieur, are you all right?’

‘I have some tidying up to do,’ the Professor said as he opened the door. ‘But that’s nothing.’

Margot entered the room and was immediately shocked by the mess that the SS had made. Cushions were flung on the floor, chairs were on their sides, books and piano scores lay upside down with their pages splayed. The vase on the piano had been knocked over, clothes had been thrown onto the floor, and the lampshade above them was half-hanging off. An upturned bottle of ink was leaking across the table, while the tablecloth had been yanked off and trampled on the floor.