The Lost Girls of Paris

by Pam Jenoff

  She pulled her hand back. “Not yet,” she whispered. She closed the bag, then went and joined the others.

  Chapter Eight

  Grace

  New York, 1946

  The suitcase was gone.

  Grace stood motionless in the concourse of Grand Central, letting the end-of-day crowds swirl around her as she stared at the space beneath the bench where the suitcase had been that morning. For a moment, she thought she might have imagined it. But the photographs she had removed from the suitcase were there, thick in her hand. No, someone had taken or moved it in the hours while she had been at work.

  That the suitcase was no longer under the bench should not have been a surprise. It belonged to someone and hours had passed. It was only natural that someone had come to claim it. But now that it was gone, the mystery of the suitcase and the photographs became all the more intriguing. Grace looked down at the photos in her hand, which she felt bad for having taken in the first place.

  “Excuse me,” Grace called to a porter as he passed.

  He stopped, tipped his red cap in her direction. “Ma’am?”

  “I’m looking for a suitcase.”

  “If it’s in the stored luggage, I can get it for you.” He held out his hand. “Can I have your ticket?”

  “No, you don’t understand. It isn’t my bag. There was one left under a bench earlier this morning. Over there.” She pointed. “I’m trying to find out where it went. Brown, with writing on the side.”

  The porter looked perplexed. “But if it isn’t your bag, why are you looking for it?”

  Good question, Grace thought. She considered saying something about the photographs, but decided against it. “I’m trying to find its owner,” she said finally.

  “I can’t help you without a ticket. You might want to ask at the lost and found,” he replied.

  The lost and found was on the lower level of the station in a quiet, musty corner that seemed worlds away from the bustle above. An older man with white sideburns wearing a brimmed visor and a vest sat behind the counter, reading a newspaper. “I’m looking for a suitcase, brown with chalk writing on it.”

  The clerk shifted the unlit cigar he was chewing to the corner of his mouth. “When did you lose it?”

  “Today,” she said, feeling that it was in some sense true.

  The man disappeared into a back room and she heard him rummaging through bins. Then he reemerged and shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Are you certain?” She peered over his shoulder, craning her neck and trying to see the stacks of bags and other lost belongings on the other side of the wall.

  “Yup.” He pulled a ledger from beneath the counter and opened it. “Everything that gets turned in is logged here. No suitcases in the past day.”

  Then why, she wondered, had he bothered checking in the back? “Is it unusual for a person to lose something as big as a suitcase?”

  “You’d be surprised the things people leave behind,” he replied. “Bags, boxes. A couple of bikes. Even dogs.”

  “And it all comes here?”

  “All except the dogs. Those go to the city pound. You can leave your name and information. If someone turns in your bag, we’ll contact you,” he added.

  “Grace Flemming,” she said, using her maiden name as a reflex. She stopped, suddenly ashamed. Was she erasing Tom already, as if their marriage had never happened at all?

  Hurriedly, she scribbled down the address of the boardinghouse in the ledger where the clerk indicated. Then she stepped away from the counter and started up the steps. When she reached the main level, she crossed the concourse to the bench and stopped, staring at the spot underneath where the suitcase had been. Perhaps the owner had come back for it after all. Guilt washed over her as she imagined a woman opening the bag and finding the photographs gone.

  Grace stood, holding the orphaned photos uncertainly. She could turn them in to the lost and found on their own. They weren’t her problem, really. Then she would be done with the whole matter. But they remained weighty in her hand. She was responsible for separating the photos from the suitcase. The owner was probably wondering where her pictures had gone. Perhaps she was even distraught over losing them. No, Grace had taken the photos and it was her responsibility to return them.

  But how? The suitcase had disappeared and Grace had no idea as to the owner or who might have claimed it. Or almost no idea, she corrected, remembering the single name that had been chalked on the bag: Trigg. She recalled, too, that there was a watermark on the photos. She opened the envelope furtively, as though someone might be watching. The watermark was there: O’Neill’s, London. The suitcase was from England, or at least the photos were. Perhaps she should take them to the British consulate.

  But the clock in the middle of the station showed half past five and the throng of rush hour commuters was beginning to thin. The consulate would be closed now. Grace was suddenly weary. She wanted to go home to her room at the boardinghouse—which she hadn’t seen in nearly two days—and soak in a hot bath and forget all of this.

  Grace’s stomach rumbled. She started out of the station toward the coffee shop across the street. Ruth’s, it was called, though the th of the lighted sign above the door had burned out. No fancy steakhouse dinner tonight. Really she needed to stop eating out altogether, get some groceries to make simple meals in the rooming house kitchen and save a bit of money. Frugality was not something she’d grown up with, but a skill that she had honed these past months living in the city and stretching what little she had left.

  She took a seat at the nearly empty counter. “A grilled cheese sandwich and a Pepsi, please,” she said to the yellow-haired waitress after counting the change in her purse mentally and deciding that she had enough.

  As the waitress pulled her drink from the soda fountain, Grace’s eyes traveled to the television above the counter. An image of Grand Central flashed across the screen. They were talking about the woman who had been hit by a car and killed in front of the station that morning.

  “Turn it up,” she said suddenly, forgetting in her urgency to be polite.

  The newscaster continued, “The accident took place at 9:10 a.m...” That was just a few minutes before she walked by.

  Then a woman’s image flashed across the screen, dark hair drawn back, face somber. “The victim,” said the newscaster, “has been identified as British citizen Eleanor Trigg.”

  Remembering the name that had been chalked on the suitcase, Grace froze. The woman whose photographs Grace had taken was the very one who had been killed in the accident.

  Chapter Nine

  Marie

  England, 1944

  Marie sat in her room in the barracks at Tangmere Airfield, trying not to sweat through the wool of her travel suit because she would surely be wearing it for days. As she waited, alone, she rechecked her papers: identification and ration cards, travel and work permits. Each was false—and each had to be perfect.

  It was not the first time Marie had prepared to go. Three nights earlier, as she waited, she had watched the fog roll in, low and menacing. She knew there would be no flying that night. Still she’d gone through the motions, picking up her bag and walking dutifully outside to the car. She had made it to the side of the plane before the mission was called off.

  Now Marie waited in her room once more, hoping that the rain she felt coming in the night air was not enough to stop the flight. It was nearly a month since that day at Arisaig House when Eleanor had given her the option of giving up and going home. Often she wondered if she had made the right choice. Each night before she went to bed, she told herself she might ask the next day if the offer to leave still stood. But there was something about the crispness of those mornings in the Scottish Highlands, the mist rising above the hills as the girls marched stiff-backed around the loch, that had gotten into her soul. Thi
s was where she was meant to be, and there was no turning away.

  It was more than just the beauty of the Scottish countryside, which she would inevitably leave behind, that held her. And it wasn’t just about the money anymore either. After Josie had deployed, something within Marie had changed. She became engrossed in the training. She strained to learn her radio codes quicker and faster. “You might have to transmit from inside a toilet so quickly no one suspects anything more than a trip to the loo,” the instructor had once explained. She’d completed a three-day mission outside without food, forced to trap or scavenge from the brush whatever she needed to eat. She could feel the other girls watching and following her lead. It was as if she had risen up to take Josie’s place. She became so focused on her role and succeeding at the job that she forgot to be afraid.

  Then a week earlier, she’d been called to the office at Arisaig House before the morning run and told to pack her things. Her departure was so abrupt she had not even had time to say goodbye to any of the others. There was no explanation, just a black sedan with a driver who hadn’t spoken. As the rugged coast faded behind her, she wondered if she were being sent home. But instead, they had brought her down to the military airfield in rural West Sussex to take care of the last-minute items. There was endless paperwork to be completed, which seemed odd for a job and a mission that wasn’t meant to exist at all.

  The morning after she arrived at the air base there was a knock on her door. “Eleanor.” Marie had not seen her since her visit to Arisaig House. Eleanor, she had come to realize, was much more than just the recruitment officer she professed to be at their first meeting. In fact, she ran everything at SOE having to do with the women.

  Eleanor had summoned her to follow and led Marie to a private office in a building not far from the barracks at the airfield where Marie had been staying. She produced a bottle of wine. It seemed strange that they would serve alcohol in the middle of the day.

  But Eleanor didn’t mean for them to drink the wine this time; instead, she unwrapped the newspaper that covered the bottle and pored over the first page. “Ah, the ration cards are changing in Lyon!” It was the news, not the drink inside it, which interested Eleanor.

  Eleanor continued, “You must stay current on affairs. Outdated intelligence is worse than no intelligence at all and will give you away twice as quickly.

  “And you must never neglect the importance of open-source intelligence,” Eleanor continued. Marie cocked her head. “Information you can learn that is publicly available, from the newspapers, the locals. The flotsam method of intelligence gathering, it’s called. Little pieces of information gathered from the most mundane sources. Things that you can observe with your own eyes, like movements of trains and soldiers. Like when you see a bunch of Jerrys cashing in their francs, you know they are about to deploy.”

  Eleanor looked up from the newspaper. “You are Renee Demare, a shopgirl from Épernay, a town south of Reims,” she began without introduction.

  Marie understood then that she was being given her cover. Her heart surged with excitement and fear. “So you’re sending me after all?”

  “It was always the plan. I just had to be sure,” Eleanor said simply.

  “About me?” Eleanor nodded. Marie wanted to ask if she was sure, but even now feared the answer.

  “So your cover...” Eleanor said. Marie’s excitement at going was quickly replaced by nervousness. Cover was the last step before deployment. When she had learned this during training, Marie had been surprised. It seemed to her that it would have made more sense to have the story well in advance and begin to wear it like a second skin. They didn’t want the agents talking about their cover during training at SOE school, though, knowing details about one another that they should not. “You are to say that your family was killed during an early air raid,” Eleanor explained. “And that you’ve come to live in an apartment owned by your late aunt.”

  “But if they check the records in Épernay...”

  “Impossible. The mairie has been destroyed by fire.” The location had been chosen deliberately for the lack of records available from the town hall. So much detail and thought. “If you are captured, you must maintain this identity. If impossible, you may reveal only your name and rank, nothing more. You hold out for forty-eight hours. That will give the others time to recover from the damage.”

  “And then?”

  “And then they will break you. The region you are going to is controlled in part by a high-ranking German officer called Hans Kriegler, who heads up the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD, German intelligence. They are ruthless and absolutely committed to hunting down every last one of our agents. Do not expect to be treated any differently because you are a woman. If you are caught, they will torture you, and once they have learned all that they think you know, you will likely be killed. You should kill yourself first if it comes to that.” Eleanor stared at her levelly, not blinking. Marie struggled not to show emotion on her face. Though she had been warned of the danger before, it never got easier to hear. Eleanor continued, “You’ll be landed by Lysander.”

  “What about parachute training?” Marie asked. She had heard that this was how some of the girls had been sent.

  Eleanor shook her head. “There’s no time. You are needed on the ground sooner.” Josie had gone in a rush, too, Marie recalled. What had given rise to the sudden need? “You will be deploying as a radio operator with the Vesper network. Vesper is one of our most important circuits because it covers Paris, as well as so much of the ground the Allies will need to cross after the invasion. The network is engaged in a very aggressive campaign of sabotage and their need for radio communication is frequent. At the same time, it is one of the most heavily occupied regions in France. You will have to avoid detection by both the SD and the police.” Eleanor’s voice was sharp with intensity and her pupils narrowed as she focused. “Do you understand?”

  Marie nodded, taking it all in. But her stomach had a queer feeling. This was the most she had learned about her mission. In some ways, it had been easier not knowing. “You’ll be working for Vesper himself,” Eleanor said. “He fought in Marseille, survived many battles. He’s an excellent commander. He’ll expect the best from you.”

  “Like someone else,” Marie said, realizing her mistake too late. She had never joked with Eleanor before and she waited for her to bristle at the familiarity.

  But the older woman smiled. “I suppose I should take that as a compliment.” Marie saw then that Eleanor was neither rude nor mean. She had been hard on the girls because they could not afford an accident that might cause themselves or others their lives.

  There came a knocking at the door, drawing Marie from her memories of her conversation with Eleanor days earlier. “Yes?” She rose, but before she could reach the door, it opened a crack.

  “Hearse is here,” a man’s voice called. Marie cringed at the reference to the car that would take her to the plane. He reached in the room and picked up the case containing her wireless radio, which had been brought from Scotland along with her.

  Eleanor waited in front of the barracks in the darkness. Marie was surprised to see the tip of a cigarette gleaming just above her hand. Eleanor did not speak, but started toward the black Vauxhall. Marie followed, handing her bags to the driver. She and Eleanor climbed into the back of the car. “The curfew in Paris has been changed to nine thirty,” Eleanor said as they drove through the military base in the darkness.

  The night air tickled Marie’s nose and she sneezed. She reached into a pocket. Her hand closed around something unfamiliar. She pulled out a tailor ticket and a cinema stub, both printed in French. Little things designed to create authenticity.

  “Here.” Eleanor passed Marie a purse. It contained a compact, lipstick and wallet. Marie realized these were not simple toiletries, but devices like those she had seen in Professor Digglesby’s workshop at Arisaig House during t
raining, tools she might need to survive once deployed.

  They passed an RAF sentry holding a lantern and stopped at the edge of the aerodrome. Marie stepped from the car and walked to the boot where the driver was unloading bags. She picked up the case containing her radio, but Eleanor reached out and stopped her. “I don’t understand...”

  “The radio is too heavy for the Lysander. It will be dropped separately.”

  “But...” Marie was dismayed. She had grown used to the radio being by her side these past few months, felt attached to it. It was like a kind of armor and without it she would be exposed. She let go of the radio reluctantly, then looked up toward the tarmac at the tiny Lysander. How could a plane be unable to manage her thirty-pound wireless set but transport her safely to France?

  “It will be dropped from a separate flight,” Eleanor promised.

  “How will I find it?” Marie asked, dubious.

  “They will get it to you,” Eleanor reassured her. “Don’t worry. They’re very good.”

  Whoever “they” were, Marie thought. All she had heard was one code name: Vesper. She knew no one.

  They stood on the edge of the airfield, the dampness of the grass soaking through Marie’s nylons at the ankle. The sickly sweet smell of early dogwood roses wafted moist across the field. Eleanor checked Marie’s cuffs to see that they were folded just so. She was calm as ever, nonemotional. But her hand trembled slightly as she fixed Marie’s collar and there was faint perspiration on her upper lip—little signs of nervousness Marie wished she had not seen because they scared her more than anything else had.

  At last Eleanor led her toward the plane. The words batting order were chalked on the side of the plane, followed by names she didn’t recognize. “What’s that?” Marie asked.