The Alice Network

by Kate Quinn

  Dread swept over me. I remembered Madame Rouffanche’s voice, saying, Hélène Joubert, she said her name was . . . we called her Rose.

  “It’s not clear if your cousin actually was Resistance,” Eve went on. “She certainly had connections if the man who fathered her child was involved. She wasn’t listed as active in any of the networks Allenton knew, though that’s not proof. Maybe she had nothing more to do with them after bearing her child, or maybe she passed on information from her workplace in Limoges. Who knows? Whether she spied on the Nazis who came to Le Lethe or not, I think René decided your Rose was suspicious. He would have been rather fearful at that point about eavesdropping waitresses.” A tight, bitter smile. “Even if she was Resistance, your cousin wouldn’t have been involved in the kidnapping and killing of any German officers, that would have been an operation for more experienced fighters. But René wanted her gone, so—”

  “So he made sure hers was the name to be reported?” I whispered. “Why wouldn’t he just fire her if he wanted her away from his restaurant?”

  “He probably viewed it as safer to have her permanently disposed of. He could have shot her himself—certainly by then, he had no qualms about pulling a trigger. But he might not have felt he could do such a thing again, not after the public incident with the sous-chef. That might have cost him too many Nazi favors. So he just passed on your cousin’s name, and the town where he already knew she went on weekends, and took care of her that way.” Eve tilted her head. “In fairness, he couldn’t have known the entire town would be massacred. But even had the Germans been merciful to the rest of Oradour-sur-Glane, your cousin would undoubtedly still have been rounded up and executed by the SS. Because of René Bordelon.”

  My skin was crawling. The photograph in my hand burned me. I looked again at that smug old face.

  “There is no vengeance to be had against the Germans who actually ended your cousin’s life,” Eve said. “Sturmbannführer Diekmann, the man who ordered the massacre, died a matter of weeks afterward in the Allied assault—that’s a matter of military record, confirmed by Allenton. The soldiers who carried out his orders would have either died with him, been disseminated back to Germany after the war, or still linger on in prisoner of war camps. None were named and brought to trial for what happened at Oradour-sur-Glane, either at Nuremburg or afterward, and without another mass trial, it’s unlikely you’d ever find out which man fired the shots that killed your cousin. Those men are probably beyond your reach. René is not. He didn’t pull the trigger, but he certainly did his best to arrange your cousin’s death.”

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even breathe. I sat staring down at that smug face. Oh, Rose . . .

  “I am going to track down René Bordelon, Charlie St. Clair, and make him pay for what he’s done.” Eve flexed her destroyed hands. “Are you coming with me?”

  PART IV

  CHAPTER 32

  EVE

  March 1916

  Brussels

  The trial was over in a single day.

  For Eve, those grinding hours in the imposing room passed in a blur. Violette stared straight ahead when they were all marched in under guard, and Lili cast her mobile gaze all around the high glass ceiling and curule chairs and proud Belgian lions—but Eve focused downward on her mottle-skinned, half-healed fingers clenched together in front of her. They still hurt savagely despite the passage of the intervening months; the pain seemed far more important than the drone of German words overhead.

  More formalities as the other officials filed in. Eve’s eyes traveled from face to face. German soldiers, German officials, German clerks . . . But no Frenchmen, no civilians allowed in to view the spectacle. René Bordelon was not here to crane his gaze at the ruin he had made of her, and for that Eve was grateful. She dreaded seeing his face more than she dreaded hearing her sentence. Had she seen him, she knew she would have collapsed, shivering, to the thick carpet.

  I did not use to be so small and fearful, she thought as one of the judges harangued them. She had been this broken thing for months now, lying in her cell trembling and weeping at any provocation, and she still wasn’t used to it. The only thing fierce about Eve anymore was her self-loathing.

  Betrayer. The whisper was a part of her blood now; it pulsed with every heartbeat, poisonous and matter-of-fact. Betrayer.

  Lili knew of her betrayal. They’d barely been allowed to speak to each other, these past months in their separate prison cells in Saint-Gilles, but Eve had bribed one of the guards to tell Lili what she’d done. She couldn’t have carried the weight of that betrayal as a lie. Eve’s heart hammered now as she gazed across the room, forcing herself to look past Violette’s stolid profile to where Lili sat. Spit on me, Eve begged silently. I have earned it.

  But all Lili did was smile. Her small face flashed one of its mischievous looks as though she didn’t sit ringed about by hostile guards, as if she was still a free woman—and she put two fingers to her lips and blew Eve a kiss.

  Eve flinched as though the kiss were a blow.

  They were questioned one at a time, not allowed to hear each other’s testimony. Violette first, her real name of Léonie van Houtte spoken for the first time in Eve’s hearing, though she still couldn’t think of Lili’s lieutenant by any name but Violette. She at least viewed Eve as the traitor she was; the other woman’s stare was hate filled as Eve filed out under guard. Eve was brought in to be questioned next, and she didn’t bother with a defense. Everyone here knows what the outcome will be. She stood silent under the harangue of German, feeling her hands throb, breathing the stale smells of hair oil and shoe polish, and soon enough she was led out again. Lili was the one they wanted most; she could sense the liquid ripple that went over the room in anticipation, almost savage, and wondered if such a ripple had gone over the viewers in the Colosseum before the lions were released. The lions in this room were gold and carved, but they could still levy death.

  The judges disappeared; half an hour ticked past measured by a deliberate clock—and it was over. Eve, Lili, Violette, and several lesser defendants were all arrayed before the court, and a vast silence fell. Eve’s mouth went dry as paper, and she could feel herself trembling. At the corner of her eye, she saw Violette’s fingers twitch as though she wanted to reach for Lili’s hand. Lili stood like a statue.

  The words rolled out in nasal German.

  “For Louise de Bettignies, death.”

  “For Léonie van Houtte, death.”

  “For Evelyn Gardiner, death.”

  Ripples crossed the room, and Eve felt as though she had been kicked in the chest. Not by dread.

  Relief.

  She looked down at her mangled hands with blurring eyes and thought, as she’d thought while weeping on the floor of René’s green-walled study, I want to die.

  No more months of cells and monotony, pain and morphine and guilt. Just the mouths of the guns, arrayed before her. The imagined sight was beautiful. A ripple of gunfire and then—nothing.

  But before her heart could squeeze in relief, Lili stepped forward. She spoke in soft, perfect German, the only time in the entire trial she spoke in the language of the enemy.

  “Gentlemen, I ask you not to shoot my friends. They are young, and I implore your mercy for them.” Her blond head tilted. “Me, I want to die well.”

  “I accept my sentence.” Violette spoke in clear, contemptuous tones, cutting her leader off. “You can shoot me. But I ask you before I die, and you cannot refuse me: do not part me from Lil—from Louise de Bettignies.”

  Eve heard her own voice. “Or me.”

  A row of German faces looked down at them, and Eve saw blank confusion there. She’d seen the same expression from their guards at Saint-Gilles: bewilderment, looking at tiny Lili and stuttering Eve and Violette with her glasses like a schoolteacher, wondering how any of them could possibly be spies.

  The Boches have held us for months, Eve thought, and they still don’t know
what to make of the fleurs du mal. The thought gave her a flicker of savage pride for a moment, something to straighten her shoulders before the guilt flattened them again.

  The three women of the Alice Network were allowed to stand as further discussion carried on in whispers among the German officials. Another hour crept past. Eve’s hands throbbed. Another announcement. Another kick resounding dully through her chest, only this was not relief. This was despair.

  The trial was done.

  So,” Lili said. “They will not shoot us.”

  Violette was still shivering in reaction as they waited in the courtyard between their guards. Eve stood numb and upright, but the news seemed to have nearly shattered Violette, who had looked braced for a bullet right then and there in the courtroom. “They will send us to Germany . . . ,” she muttered.

  The sentence had been amended: they were all to suffer fifteen years’ hard labor in Siegburg Prison.

  “Fifteen years?” Lili wrinkled her nose. “No. We labor until the victory of France, that is all.”

  “I w-w-wish it was the line of guns,” Eve heard herself saying.

  Violette’s red-rimmed eyes bored into her, bitter and accusing. “You deserve the guns,” she said, and spat full into Eve’s face. “Judas.”

  The guards intervened, dragging Violette a few paces away. Eve stood unmoving, letting the warm spittle trickle down her cheek, and the other guards let Lili approach, drawing back a little. Only a tiny oasis of privacy, but it was the most a prisoner could expect.

  “Sorry, little daisy.” The touch of a worn cuff against Eve’s cheek, wiping her clean. She almost flinched at the sensation. She hadn’t been touched kindly in so long. “Violette takes it hard.”

  “She hates me.” Eve said it without rancor. “For b-betraying you.”

  “Pah, who knows how the Boches got my name or found out I ran the network? You don’t remember giving it up, opium or no opium.” Lili shrugged in complete indifference. “I was identified. How that happened doesn’t matter.”

  “It does,” Eve stated.

  A smile. “Not to me.”

  Eve nearly wept. Do not forgive me, she wanted to cry. Please, do not forgive me! Forgiveness hurt so much more than hatred.

  Violette was allowed to rejoin them, glaring but quiescent, and Eve welcomed her silent loathing. They all stood in silence, waiting for the car that would take them back to their cells. From there, it would probably be a matter of days until they were transported to Siegburg Prison.

  Siegburg. Eve had heard horror stories of that place. She looked east toward Germany, and saw the other women looking too, as though the prison’s dank walls were already in sight.

  “Do not think about it, mes anges.” Lili came up between Eve and Violette, putting an arm around each and squeezing hard. “Enjoy the present. You are both here, and I am close to you.”

  Eve leaned her head on Lili’s shoulder and they all stood in the pale March sunlight, waiting to be taken away.

  CHAPTER 33

  CHARLIE

  June 1947

  Through the remainder of the night, I stared at the photograph of a monster and tried to make sense of what he’d done. You got Rose killed, I thought, over and over. You got Rose killed. An SS officer had given the order to fire, and a German soldier had pulled the trigger—but my cousin would never have been targeted at all if not for this man in his elegant suit and silver-headed cane.

  I hadn’t been able to answer Eve’s question. I was too shocked, taking the photograph and stumbling back to my room in complete silence. I felt as though I’d been hit by a boulder, lying across my bed limp and crushed under the weight.

  René Bordelon. The name echoed. You got Rose killed.

  He had always been the link between Eve and me. Rose had worked for him, Eve had worked for him—two women out of probably thousands who had labored in his employ over the decades—and because of that unremarkable fact, his name on a piece of paper had led me to Eve, and then here. But I had never thought the link more than a paper one.

  By dawn I was dressed, packed, and headed out to the front steps of the auberge. It didn’t surprise me to see Eve already there with her satchel at her feet, straight and fierce and smoking her first cigarette of the day. She turned, and I saw that her eyes were as red and grained as mine.

  “I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll help you track him down.”

  “Good,” Eve said as matter-of-factly as if I’d agreed to help her get a cup of coffee. “Finn’s getting the car.”

  We stood and waited in the pink morning light. “Why do you even want my help?” I couldn’t help asking. Another question I’d turned over last night. “You’ve wanted to bring this man to justice for more than thirty years. Wouldn’t it be easier without some pregnant college girl in tow? You don’t need me.” Though a large part of me wished she did. I wanted to take care of her, even if she was prickly as a handful of needles.

  “No, I don’t need you,” she said briskly. “But the bastard’s wronged both of us, not just me, and that means you have a right to revenge if you want it. I believe in revenge.” Eve looked at me, inscrutable. “I’ve lost faith in much over the years, but not that.”

  She stood there tall and stony as an obelisk, and I wondered just what form her revenge was going to take. It gave me a disquieting pang, as the Lagonda came around the corner.

  “Besides,” Eve said in an undertone as Finn loaded the bags into the trunk. “I may not need you, but I definitely need him. And I put the odds at fifty-fifty that wherever you go, he goes.”

  I blinked. “What makes you say that?”

  She touched a red mark on my throat that I’d seen in the mirror this morning and tried to cover with my loosened hair—a mark Finn’s mouth had left last night. “I know the difference between a mosquito bite and a love bite, Yank.”

  “Done with your blethering, ladies?” Finn came around the driver’s side. “It’s a braw morning for a drive.”

  “Yes,” I mumbled, ears burning. Eve grinned as she climbed into the backseat. Finn missed the grin, but he saw my red flush and paused after he slid behind the wheel.

  “All right, lass?” he asked quietly.

  There wasn’t really a word for what I was after the past day and night together. Grieving and hopeful, profoundly shocked and profoundly angry—angrier every time I looked at the photograph of the old man we had all agreed to track down. And if I looked at Finn my skin tingled with an all-over flash of what had passed between us not twelve hours ago. “I’m all right,” I said finally. He nodded, and I couldn’t tell how things stood between us, if he was sorry or not for what had happened. So I left him to put the car in gear, and turned to Eve in the backseat.

  “One thing you haven’t told us: how do we find René Bordelon? He’s not going by that name anymore, or René du Malassis either. And we don’t know where he went when he fled Limoges. So how do we pick up his trail from here?”

  Eve took a last drag off her cigarette and flicked the end into the street. “I have an idea about th-th—about that. He told me more than once that he intended to retire in Grasse, that he even had some dilapidated property there, an old villa he might restore someday. He’s seventy-three now; he won’t be starting another restaurant. Sounds like retired to me. I’ll wager he went to rebuild that villa, read his books, play his music, and enjoy the southern sunshine. I say we go to G-G-Grasse.”

  “And do what?” I raised my eyebrows. “Drive around looking out the window?”

  “Give me some credit, Yank. René never told me where his property in Grasse was, but I’ve got some good ideas of how to find it.”

  “But what if he isn’t there at all?” Finn sounded doubtful. “All we have is a few chance remarks made more than thirty years ago.”

  “Has anyone h-h-here got a better idea of where to start?”

  Admittedly, I didn’t. I shrugged. Finn reached for the set of maps crumpled at my feet. “At an easy pace, we make
Grasse in two days. Stop in Grenoble tonight . . .”

  “Grenoble it is.” Eve tilted her head back, closing her eyes to the sky. “Step on it, Scotsman.”

  The Lagonda hummed along southeast, the three of us each lost in our own thoughts. I found myself looking at the photograph of René again. I wondered what that SS officer had looked like, the one who gave the orders to massacre the village. I wondered what the German soldiers had looked like, the ones who could look at a girl fleeing a burning church with a baby in her arms, and be willing to pull a trigger. Anger flushed through me, slow and burning, and I thought of what Eve had said about those men, that I’d likely never find out which soldiers killed Rose.

  Maybe I could, someday. Names had to exist, records. Maybe the German soldiers who survived could be brought to trial, not just for Rose but for Madame Rouffanche and her murdered village. Oradour-sur-Glane deserved justice for its dead as much as any of the atrocities investigated at Nuremburg.

  But that was a problem for another day. Here, now, aimed for Grasse, the Nazis who had a hand in Rose’s death were out of my reach. But René Bordelon might not be.

  As the car rolled through ever-rising hills and the gorgeous expanse of lakes and pastures, I pondered a new equation: Rose plus Lili, divided by Eve plus me, equaling René Bordelon. Four women with one man among us all. I stared at his face in the grainy photograph, looking for remorse, guilt, cruelty. But you couldn’t see those things in a picture. He was just an old man out to dinner.