Code Name Sapphire Read online

  Praise for The Woman with the Blue Star

  “Pam Jenoff’s meticulously researched story…is a timely and compelling account of the lengths we go to for the family we are born with, and the family we make for ourselves. It will leave you gasping at the end.”

  —Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Two Ways and A Spark of Light

  “Heartfelt and beautifully written… This emotional novel is filled with twists, turns, and displays of bravery and love that you will never forget. You will not be able to put [it] down.”

  —Lisa Scottoline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eternal

  “The Woman with the Blue Star is a profoundly moving novel from a writer who is, deservedly, both admired and beloved for the truth, power, and beauty of her work.”

  —Jennifer Robson, New York Times bestselling author of The Gown

  “A beautifully written and extraordinarily well-researched story. Pam Jenoff captures the trials and the triumphs of the human spirit… . This book is a must-read.”

  —Kelly Rimmer, New York Times bestselling author of The Things We Cannot Say

  “[A] haunting, harrowing tale of love, loss and survival… . Readers who loved The Nightingale and The Alice Network will happily follow The Woman with the Blue Star.”

  —Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times bestselling author of Hello, Summer and Sunset Beach

  “Once again, Pam Jenoff displays her mastery… . Book clubs will assuredly devour this compulsively readable novel that both wrenches and warms the heart.”

  —Kristina McMorris, New York Times bestselling author of Sold on a Monday

  Pam Jenoff is the author of several books of historical fiction, including the New York Times bestsellers The Lost Girls of Paris and The Woman with the Blue Star. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University and a master’s degree in history from Cambridge, and she received her Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives with her husband and three children near Philadelphia, where, in addition to writing, she teaches law school.

  Code Name Sapphire

  Pam Jenoff

  For my family. For always.

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  1

  Micheline

  February 1942

  Micheline threw the still-smoldering Gauloises cigarette to the ground and crushed it with the high heel of her black leather boot. Then she marched across the darkened Paris street and grabbed the man she’d never seen before by the lapels, throwing him back against the stained brick wall of the station.

  “Kiss me!” she ordered in English, whispering tersely.

  The airman, his crew cut a dead giveaway despite his French civilian clothing and chapeau, stood motionless, too surprised to move as Micheline reached up and pulled him toward her, pressing her open mouth against his. His musty scent was mixed with a hint of tobacco. The streetlight cast a yellow pool on the pavement around them, illuminating their embrace. Micheline felt the man’s body responding against her own. The navy beret which covered her red curls tilted off-center, threatening to fall to the ground.

  A second later, Micheline broke away and brought her mouth close to his ear. “If you hope to live, follow me.” Without another word, she started away down the Rue des Récollets. She sensed the one-two beat as he hesitated, followed by the rapid pattern of his footsteps against the icy pavement. She strained hard to make sure she did not hear anyone else following them but did not dare to look back.

  Micheline slowed, allowing the airman to catch up. When he reached her, she moved closer, linking her arm in his and tilting her head toward his shoulder. Anyone watching would have thought them just a smitten couple.

  Micheline had spotted the airman a few minutes earlier, standing on the pavement outside the Gare de l’Est, a half kilometer from the intended rendezvous spot, looking out of place. It was always that way with the Brits, scared and barely out of school. The passeur, a girl from Brittany called Renee, was supposed to escort the airman. Her instructions had been simple: deliver the soldier to the Hotel Oud-Antwerpen, where a local contact would take him and hide him for the night. But Renee had never shown. Something must have gone wrong and she’d panicked and fled, leaving the airman alone.

  Another ten minutes outside the station and the police would have picked him up. There was already a gendarme at the corner, watching the solider too steadily. That might have been what spooked Renee. Micheline, who was in Paris on an unrelated errand but was aware of the planned pickup, had seen the stranded airman by the station and knew she had to intervene. But Micheline had no way to lead him away on the open street without attracting attention. So she had resorted to The Embrace.

  It was not the first time she had feigned passion in the service of the network. The Sapphire Line, as it was now called, had formed almost immediately after the war started. They had a singular purpose: ferrying downed British airmen from the Dutch or German borders across Belgium and occupied France to freedom. This was the hardest part of the journey, getting the airmen across Paris from Gare de l‘Est where they arrived to Gare d’Austerlitz where they would set out for points south. It was a few days across France to the Pyrenees, with only a brief stop or two for rest. When the line worked, it was brilliant. But when it failed, catastrophe. There were no second chances.

  When they were several blocks from the station and out of sight of the policeman, Micheline pulled the airman into a doorway. He looked as though he expected her to kiss him again. Instead, she adjusted his chapeau in the classic French style so as not to give him away as a foreigner. The disguise, consisting of secondhand, outdated trousers and a too-large shirt, would not fool anyone. And if the clothes did not give him away, his tattered army boots certainly would. He would be forced to take those off farther south anyway. The evacuees tied their shoes around their necks and replaced them with alpargates, the strong laced sandals necessary for crossing the Bidasoa River into Spain.

  “Where are you from?” Micheline demanded. She hated to speak aloud out here, but she had to verify that he was actually an airman and not a German spy before taking him to one of their safe houses. If the line was infiltrated even once, it would spread like a cancer, and the entire network would be gone.

  The airman paused, his trained instinct not to answer. “Ely in Cambridgeshire.”

  “What is the most popular movie in Britain right now?”

&n
bsp; He thought for a second. “49th Parallel.”

  “Good. What type of plane were you flying? How many men?”

  “Halifax. Six. I don’t know if the others made it.” There was a choke in his voice.

  “I’m sorry.” There were a half-dozen other questions she wanted to ask to verify his identity, if only there was time. But they had to keep moving. “Come.”

  She started walking again more briskly now, savoring the familiar surge of adrenaline that rushed through her as she led the airman to safety. Though just twenty-three years old, Micheline had risen quickly to the top of the network, and she seldom got to undertake rescues herself anymore, instead overseeing operations from her headquarters in Brussels. But the job was fluid and changing. Sometimes, like now, when the mission called for it and there was no one else, she had to jump in. She had nearly forgotten how much she liked being in the field.

  As the bell of the church of Saint-Chappelle tolled eleven, Micheline calculated mentally, judging the best way to protect the airman for the night. They had already missed the rendezvous with the contact at the hotel who would have hidden him. Paris was the most dangerous segment of the escape line, but it was often necessary because so many of the trains ran through the French capital. An airman could not simply be dropped at Gare de l’Est and be expected to make his way across the city to the southern stations where the trains left for Lyon or Marseilles. No, he had to be individually ferried through the back streets and alleys by someone who knew the city and how to avoid the security checkpoints, and who spoke impeccable French in case they were stopped and questioned.

  When they reached the banks of the Seine, Micheline led the airman across the Pont au Change and into the shadowy alleyways of the Left Bank, clinging to the shadows. The cafés were already closed, barkeepers turning chairs onto tables, snuffing out the candles that burned low. She forced herself to walk at a normal pace and not to run. Her close-fitted trench swished smartly below her knees. She looked to the passersby like she belonged in the throngs of students who frequented the Latin Quarter.

  Thirty minutes later they reached the safe-house apartment on Rue de Babylone. Micheline took the airman’s hand and led him up the stairs to the apartment, a room which was bare except for a mattress and a weathered armoire and a sink in the corner. He would stay no longer than twelve hours in the city, just enough time to rest and carry on.

  Inside, the airman looked weakened and confused. “We went down quickly after we were shot,” he offered, saying too much, as they all did. “They hit the fuel tank.”

  “Are you wounded?”

  “No. There were others, though. Someone will look for them, right?” She nodded, but it was a lie. The network could not spare the resources to go back and search for those who were wounded and presumed dead. He opened his mouth to ask something else, but she put her finger to her lips and shook her head. It was not safe to say too much anywhere, even here. The airman’s eyes widened. She had seen more than once how very afraid the young soldiers were, the ones who panicked or cried out in their sleep. They were eighteen and nineteen, not more than boys, and thousands of kilometers from home. Micheline herself was just a few years older and sometimes wondered why she could be strong when they could not.

  “Empty your pockets,” she instructed firmly. There were too many times when a well-intentioned Brit carried something sentimental from home which would be a dead giveaway if he was stopped and questioned.

  The airman glanced around the apartment. Then he turned back toward her hopefully, as if the kiss had been real and matters might continue here. “Did you want to...?”

  Micheline stifled a laugh. She might have been offended at the overture, but he seemed so naive she almost pitied him. “Here.” She rummaged in the armoire for new clothes. Then she threw the clothes at him and gestured toward a screen that offered a bit of privacy at the far end of the room. “Get dressed.” He moved slowly, clumsily toward the divider. A tram clacked by on the street below, rattling the cloudy window panes.

  A few minutes later, he reemerged in the simple shoes and buttoned shirt of a peasant farmer, an outfit that would help to get him through the south of France to the Pyrenees. She took his old clothes from him. “There’s bread in the cupboard,” she said. “Stay away from the windows, and don’t make a sound. Someone will come for you before dawn. That person will have a key. Don’t open the door for anyone.”

  “Merci,” he ventured, and it seemed likely that it was all the French that he knew or understood.

  “Bonne chance,” she replied, wishing him luck.

  Without waiting for a response, she walked briskly from the apartment. She wondered uneasily whether he would still be safely there when the new passeur arrived to claim him for the next leg of his long journey home or whether another calamity would befall the already-struggling network.

  2

  Hannah

  Hannah peered through the tiny window of her second-class cabin, the lights along the shoreline twinkling in the distance like a mirage.

  It had been more than two days since the MS Brittany had pulled into Havana Harbor. When the ship had first docked, the passengers had gathered too eagerly at the gangplank. But as the hours passed in the Cuban air, muggy even in February, and they were not let off, their bodies grew sweaty under many layers of clothing and the stench that had been with them all along became insufferable. People dropped their heavy suitcases and sat on them. Confusion bubbled around Hannah in multiple languages, replaced eventually by quieting fatigue. “Paperwork delay,” the steward claimed, though she suspected it was a lie. They were urged back to their rooms with promises of a nice meal. No one wanted to eat; they all just wanted to leave.

  Hannah had spoken little to the other passengers during the long journey. But after they were not permitted to disembark, she found herself moving closer to groups of people, trying to overhear snippets of conversation that might have some bit of information. They were not to be let off in Cuba, she gleaned with alarm from the rumors. The landing documents they had purchased were, in fact, fraudulent. There was talk that they might disembark in Miami instead. “The United States will take us,” an Austrian woman with several small children had proclaimed confidently. Hearing this, Hannah had been less than certain. Freedom and equality, she knew from experience, were a promise made only to some.

  Hannah lay on her narrow berth now. Her memories reeled back, as they always did in the darkness, to that final night months earlier in Berlin as she lay on the cold floor of Isaac’s long-shuttered kosher butcher shop, certain each breath would be her last. She could still feel the sharp pain of broken glass shards as they pressed against her belly. There had been Nazis, violent S.S., rampaging in the streets of Scheunenviertel, the city’s ravaged Jewish quarter, with knives, terrorizing any remaining Jews they caught. What would stop them from doing the same to her and the child she carried? She had dived behind the meat counter in a panic.

  As she hid in the darkness, Hannah’s heart pounded. The truth was she and Isaac were not just any Jews. They were part of the resistance, Hannah drawing anti-Fascist political cartoons under a pseudonym and Isaac printing them in the underground newspaper he distributed across the city and beyond. If the Germans found the printing press hidden in the back of the butcher shop, it would mean death not just for her and Isaac but everyone who worked with them.

  The men drew closer to the door of the shop, undeniably marked as Jewish with a swath of yellow paint. Their shadows loomed large and menacing across the floor. She slid awkwardly behind the counter, hindered by her rounded stomach. She held her breath, trying not to move. “Stop!” she heard Isaac’s voice commanding, with only a trace of a waver in it. He sounded so firm that for a minute she thought they actually might listen. He had stepped out from hiding in the cutting room purposefully in order to direct them toward the opposite end of the shop, away from her and the mate
rials hidden in the back room.

  Of course, the men did not stop. They crashed through the door and knocked him to the ground. Isaac let out a wail as he fell to the floor. The men beat and kicked him with dull, sickening thuds. For a moment, her eyes locked with his beneath the counter. She wanted desperately to leap out to his defense the way he had to hers. He averted his gaze, willing her not to move, to stay hidden and save their child and herself. But his cries were unbearable. Blood flowed from his head, mixing with stains left by slaughtered animals on the floor.

  Soon Isaac grew silent. The men stormed through the store, running past her without seeing. She covered her head with her hands and burrowed deeper beneath the counter, praying. She heard tables and shelves crash to the ground and a shout of glee as they discovered the printing press. Her papers were there, and now they would know that Maxim, the pseudonym she used for her comics, had originated here. As they smashed the press to bits, she held her breath, waiting for the men to discover her and kill her as well.

  But the men left the shop, satisfied that they had finished the job. As they ran back onto the street in search of new prey, Hannah started crawling toward Isaac, then froze. A lone Nazi brute, who she had not noticed remained in the store, was looking through the counter for bits of meat. As she crouched lower, a floorboard creaked. The Nazi’s head swung in her direction and she waited, holding her breath for certain detection. But he turned back to his attempted looting. The store had been closed for many months, though, and so he found nothing.

  When at last the would-be thief had gone, Hannah scurried to Isaac, praying he might be alive. She knew he could not survive the beating, but she wished he might linger for a few minutes so that she could touch his face and whisper words of comfort. She leaned her head close as he whispered his very last instructions, the one thing he needed her to do. “Go. The newspaper is finished, and it isn’t safe for you to remain here anymore. Save yourself and our child.” He could not protect her any longer.