The Lost Girls of Paris
Page 13
“Hello.” Josie looked up and smiled warmly. She kissed Marie on the cheek. “I’m glad you arrived safely,” Josie said. Her nose wrinkled. “There’s a toilet if you want to freshen up.” Embarrassment rose in Marie, followed by defensiveness: of course she was a mess—how could she be otherwise when she had spent the night in that awful shed? But Josie had been in the field weeks longer and her hair was well coiffed, dress freshly pressed. Her shoes were slingbacks, and bore no trace of dirt or wear. Even her nails were perfect pale pink ovals. “You’ll want to look proper before you head out,” Josie added. Where, Marie wondered, would she be going?
In the water closet, Marie smoothed her hair as well as she could and washed her face, noting with dissatisfaction that the strong camphor soap had turned her cheeks bright red. The travel and night in the hut had left her skin sallow, with dark circles under her eyes.
When Marie returned from the bathroom, Josie had finished disassembling the gun and was cleaning the pieces expertly with a soft white cloth. Marie studied her friend. “You’re well?”
“Never better.” Josie looked invigorated. There was a healthy blush to her cheeks and her eyes were bright. “I’ve been traveling the countryside, arming the partisans and teaching them how to use our weapons.”
“You aren’t on the radio then?” Josie had been so good at transmitting in class at Arisaig House; it would be a waste not to have her working with one. Of course, she had been good at everything else, too. Marie saw then what an asset her friend must be to the circuit, and felt her own inadequacies grow by comparison.
“At times I am,” Josie replied. “But everything is more fluid in the field. We must do what is needed.” Josie sounded years older than when Marie had seen her last, more confident than ever. The work here clearly suited her. Marie was not at all sure she would feel the same.
“You’re Tuesday-Thursday on the skeds,” Josie said. That meant the days Marie would broadcast and send her messages back to London.
Marie pictured Eleanor waiting to receive and hoped her typing would be good and clear enough. She wondered what she would be asked to transmit. “Do I broadcast from here?”
Josie shook her head. “From wherever you’ll be staying. You’ll have to ask Vesper.” Marie’s eyes traveled across the room to where Vesper stood, studying him closely. He was a few years older than the rest of them, she guessed, with high cheekbones and cerulean-blue eyes. Some might call him good-looking, including herself, if she hadn’t disliked him from the start. “He controls everything for the operation in Paris and the northern part of France, dozens and dozens of agents and maybe a hundred local contacts.”
Marie was puzzled. They had learned in training that the work in France consisted of small groups of agents, usually working in threes, a circuit leader, a radio operator and a courier. They were separated because if one was compromised, it wouldn’t taint the rest. But here Vesper was in charge of it all. Was it really safe to have one man know so much?
Across the room, voices rose. At the table, Vesper stood huddled over a map with Albert and Will, who had awoken during the earlier commotion of Josie’s arrival. A disagreement had erupted among the men, their voices rising so all could hear.
“Cousins,” Josie said, tilting her head in the direction of Vesper and Will. Marie was surprised they looked and acted so different. Will’s devil-may-care style and gentle demeanor seemed in sharp contrast to his cousin’s sternness. “You wouldn’t have guessed it, I know. Keep an eye out for that one,” she added, nodding toward Will. “Not hard on the eyes and a total ladies’ man to be sure. He’s got girls everywhere, they say, including at a cathouse in Paris.”
“Josie!” Marie brought her hand to her mouth, surprised.
Her friend shrugged. “These are long, lonely months out here and things happen. Just keep your head about you and don’t get distracted.”
“I thought Will returned to England.”
Josie shook her head. “He had mechanical troubles after taking off. So he had to land at another one of our fields. We towed the plane to one of our safe sites for repair.” Marie shuddered, grateful that they had landed safely before the plane broke.
The men at the table grew louder. “We need to find another safe house near Mantes-la-Jolie,” Vesper said.
Will shook his head. “It’s too much, too soon. After the other arrests, we can’t ask the locals to chance it. We need to tighten our ranks and lay low for a while.”
“Impossible!” Vesper flared. “We’ve got orders to take the bridge within the month. We need to be ready.”
“Then at least warn the locals what is to come, so they can get their families to safety,” Will pressed.
“And risk leaking word of the operation?” Vesper countered.
Marie turned to Josie. “What are they fighting about?”
Josie shrugged. “Those two are always like that. Best not to get involved.”
But Marie moved closer, too curious to help herself. “What is it?” she asked, surprised at her own audacity.
Vesper looked in her direction, clearly annoyed. “No questions. The less you know, the better for you—and for all of us.”
But Will answered. “Right now we’re constructing a network of safe houses and drop boxes between here and Mantes-la-Jolie. We have a dangerous operation coming up, and the agents who will undertake it need places to hide so that they can flee after. But the locals have grown wary of helping us. In another village, Neuilly-sur-Seine, there were mass reprisals for helping the partisans. Under orders of the chief of the German SD Kriegler, the men were shot and the women and children locked in a church that was set afire.” Marie stifled a gasp. “The whole town was killed.”
“That’s why I’m headed out myself to find new locations,” Vesper explained. “We have the best shot of the locals listening to me.”
“But your French,” Albert said, clucking his tongue. “You can’t possibly go alone.”
“I can go with you,” Marie ventured, instantly regretting it.
Vesper looked as surprised as she at the offer. Then he scowled. “Impossible!” he snapped. “You’ve only just arrived. You have zero actual experience. It’s too dangerous.”
“Her French is brilliant—and yours nonexistent,” Albert added chidingly. Marie wondered how it was possible for the leader of the circuit to operate in France without speaking the language.
Vesper did not answer but stared at her, considering. Did he prefer to travel alone or simply not want her? Either way, he was going to say no, she thought with a mix of disappointment and relief.
“Only as far as Mantes-la-Jolie,” he conceded finally, and she could see the surprise on the faces around her that he agreed at all. “Come.”
As Vesper started through the door, Marie looked back over her shoulder at Josie. They had been reunited for such a short time, and who knew when they would see each other again? She wanted to run to Josie, to say goodbye and see if she had any words of wisdom or advice. But Josie simply raised her hand to say farewell, and Marie knew she had no choice but to go.
She raced down the stairs and out the front door of the villa to catch Vesper, slowing only as she passed the unexploded ordnance in the garden. Vesper did not take the bike they had ridden earlier, but instead set out on foot across the field opposite the house. Neither spoke. His strides were long and she had to nearly run to keep up. Her skin was unpleasantly damp beneath her dress.
They walked on for some time, neither speaking. In the distance, church bells pealed ten. “You’re slow,” he said accusingly a moment later as the field ended at a country road.
“What do you expect?” she spat, all of the anger and fear of the past few days flaring up in her. “You left me in a shed alone and freezing overnight without food or water. I’m exhausted.”
“I haven’t slept a full night in two weeks,” he
replied. “It’s the nature of the work, always on the move. But you’ll have rest and food as soon as we have you settled with your wireless. I’m surprised you’d want to come along to help a simple courier,” he added, changing the subject.
Marie flushed. “I had no idea I’d been met by the famous Vesper,” she replied, trying to make light of her earlier gaffe. “What an honor.”
He looked surprised, as if no one had ever joked with him. “You could sound as if you meant it,” he replied stiffly. “I’m also called Julian, by the way.”
“How do you manage without speaking French?” she asked, before hearing Eleanor’s admonishment for asking too many questions.
“As circuit leader, I seldom interact with the locals. It would be too dangerous if I was caught. So I stay low, operate through the other men.”
“And women,” she pointed out. “Or do you think we shouldn’t be here?”
“I think women can be just what the operation needs, if they are good enough—and committed to the task.” This last part sounded pointed—and directed at her. A question seemed to linger under his words, echoing her own doubts.
She decided to ignore it. “You said that we are headed to Mantes-la-Jolie?”
“To a nearby village, actually, Rosny-sur-Seine. Presently we have no safe house in the region, other than the villa, which is too big and visible to hide an agent on the run. We’re trying to establish one, but we can’t simply walk into town and ask who is willing to risk their lives by hiding fleeing agents. So we start smaller and find a local who will act as a drop box for our messages, before asking if they will hide people.”
Before she could reply, there came a rumbling sound from around the corner. A large brown military truck appeared, traveling toward them. Marie tensed and started toward the trees once more. Julian grabbed her arm, and this time she was too terrified to protest. “Easy,” he said in a low voice. “We are just a French couple, out for a morning walk.” She forced herself to continue walking normally, eyes down. A moment later, when the truck had disappeared around the corner, he dropped her arm roughly. “You do know that your cover is that of a Frenchwoman?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then act like one.”
She lowered her head. “I’m sorry. If you’d like me to go back to the villa, you can take someone else. Perhaps Josie...”
“It’s too late,” he said, as they neared a village with a tangle of limestone houses and a canal winding along one side. “We’re here.” Marie was surprised that their destination was so close to the villa; they could not have walked more than a few miles. He paused before a stone bridge that ran low over the canal. “This region is one where we haven’t had many local contacts. The village is new to us but we’ve been told that there may be townsfolk sympathetic to the resistance and willing to help. We need to find a house or a café where we can leave messages—and where one of our agents can eventually hide for a night if need be.”
“Not a café,” Marie replied. Her eyes traveled down the main road into the town, a twisting cobblestone thoroughfare ending at a small square. “A bookshop,” she added slowly, the notion forming as she spoke. Messages could be exchanged while perusing the books or perhaps even left in a particular volume. “If they have one.”
“A bookshop,” Julian repeated, turning the idea over in his head. “It’s brilliant!” He was looking at her with approval now. She felt her cheeks flush. “There is one, just off the square. The Germans would never go there because they hate books.” Then his smile faded. “You have to do it—persuade the shopkeeper.”
“Me alone?” Marie asked. She had been on the ground less than twelve hours.
“Yes. A man walking into the shops at midday raises too many questions.”
Marie nodded. People would wonder why he was not off fighting. “But I came with you only to translate. You saw how poorly I did back there acting calmly when the army truck passed us.”
“Are you here to do the job or not?” he snapped.
Her job, Marie wanted to retort, was to operate the radio from somewhere hidden away. Yet somehow in her first twenty-four hours on the ground, she’d become first translator, and now operative. She recalled then how Eleanor said the agents must be well trained in all aspects of the job because they might be called upon to do anything at any time, as well as Josie’s comment that they must do the work that was needed. This was her mission, or part of it, at least.
“I know you’re nervous,” Julian said, his voice softening. “Fear is always the first instinct—and rightly so. It’s what keeps us on our guard—and alive. But you must train it, harness it. Now go. Ask the owner if he has The Odyssey by Homer in the original.”
“How will that signal anything?”
“There’s a well worked-out series of questions we use to test whether someone is sympathetic to the resistance. We might ask a fishmonger if haddock is in season or the flower shop clerk about tulips. It is usually something out of season or hard to get.” He exhaled impatiently. “I really don’t have time to explain further. If he has helped before, he will understand the message.”
Marie started into the village, past an école with children playing in the yard at recess. The bookstore was just north of the square, a quiet storefront beneath a balconied home with a window box of withered poppies between open cornflower blue shutters. Librairie des Marne, read the faded yellow paint on the sign outside. Inside, the tiny shop was quiet, save for a boy browsing a rack of comic books. The air was thick with the smell of old paper.
Marie waited until the boy had paid and gone, then approached the bookseller behind the counter in the rear. He was a wizened man with a ring of white hair and spectacles that seemed to rest directly on his bushy moustache with nothing in between. She noticed then a decoration of the First World War on the wall. The bookseller was a veteran—and perhaps something of a patriot. “Bonjour. I am looking for a book.”
“Oh?” The shopkeeper sounded surprised. “So few people read today. Most just want my books for kindling.”
The bookseller looked so pleased at the prospect of actual business that Marie felt reluctant to disappoint him. “A volume of The Iliad in the original.” He turned toward the shelf behind him and started to rifle though the books. “I mean, The Odyssey,” she corrected hastily.
The bookseller turned back slowly. “You don’t actually want the book, do you?”
“No.”
His eyes widened. Clearly he knew the signal. “You can accept a package?” she asked.
He shook his head vehemently. “Non.” His eyes traveled across the narrow cobblestone street to a café. Seated behind the plate glass window were several SS, eating breakfast. “I have new neighbors. I’m sorry.”
Marie’s heartbeat quickened. Surely the Germans had seen her walk into the bookshop.
Pushing down her fear, she tried again. “Monsieur, it would be low profile. Just a letter box in one of the books. You wouldn’t even notice.” She did not mention the prospect of agents needing to hide in his shop, knowing it would be too much.
“Mademoiselle, my daughter lives upstairs with her son, who is not yet one year old. For myself and even my wife, I would not care at all. But I have to think of my grandchild.”
Marie thought of Tess back home in East Anglia. Leaving a child behind was one thing, but to have her right in the middle of the danger would be unbearable. She had no right to ask this of the poor man. She started for the door. Then she saw Vesper in her mind, waiting on the edge of the town expectantly. She could not fail.
“Monsieur, your assistance is dearly needed.” A note of desperation crept into her voice.
The bookseller shook his head, then walked from behind the counter to the front of the store and turned the sign in the window to Closed. “Adieu, mademoiselle.” He disappeared through a door at the back of the shop.
Marie walked from the shop, retracing her steps out of the village and across the low bridge. When she reached the place where she had left Julian, she did not see him. Had he abandoned her? For a moment, she was almost relieved; she would not have to tell him about her failure. But without him, she would have nowhere to go.
She spied Julian then, half-hidden among the trees. She made her way up the embankment to him. “How did it go?”
Marie shook her head. “He wouldn’t agree.”
She waited for Vesper to berate her. “I’m not surprised,” he replied instead. “There have been many reprisals in the region. Everyone is scared to help now.”
“Perhaps another shop in the town,” she suggested.
“We can’t afford to ask anyone else today. We’ve already stirred up matters with the bookseller and if we ask too many questions around town, people will start to talk.”
“What now?”
“I’ll take you to the place where you’ll be staying. I would have had another agent bring you to the flat, but since we are here I’ll take you myself. We can regroup and come up with a new plan.” Marie felt a tug of disappointment. She had hoped that they might go back to the safe house and see Josie again. “Come.”
Marie had expected him to start back into the forest. She watched with surprise as he instead started toward the town from which she’d just come. “I thought you said you couldn’t be seen here,” she said, not following him.
He turned back. “Do you always ask so many questions?” The frustration in his voice was unmistakable. “I said I shouldn’t be seen here. And if you follow me quietly, I won’t be.” He led her into the village once more, taking one back street and then another, just skirting the square. “The flat from which you’ll transmit is in this village as well,” he whispered. “In staying here, you should be able to get a sense as to who else we might be able to approach about a safe house.”