The Book of Lost and Found

by Lucy Foley

  Étienne has become an invaluable addition to their team – bringing to his role the same quiet focus that he applies to everything. He stays late into the night in the museum basement, intent upon his work. By morning, neat stacks of mimeographed pamphlets line the walls.

  Georgette laughs at him. ‘Étienne … how will we get rid of all of these? There are more here than there are people left in Paris!’

  Étienne shrugs, and a hot flush creeps across his pale cheeks. Georgette always seems to have this effect upon him.

  Alice jumps in, to save him. ‘What she means is that this is fantastic – more than anything we could have hoped for.’

  Étienne smiles, weakly.

  The group meets once a week now, down in the bowels of the bookshop, to report on progress and discuss new ideas.

  At the third meeting, Alice manages to speak to Madame Beauclerc, the wearer of the pale suit and pearls who had appeared so out of place at the initial gathering. Anyone less like a political rebel – except Étienne, perhaps – would be difficult to conceive. Hélène Beauclerc is from one of Paris’s oldest families. Her father was the city’s mayor, her late husband a bishop. She does indeed live on the Right Bank; in one of the soaring stucco mansions of the leafy 16th arrondissement.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Alice asks, unable to stem her curiosity.

  At first, Hélène is defensive. ‘For the same reason as everyone else,’ she says, shortly. Alice nods. Then the other woman gives a sigh of defeat. ‘There’s something else too … My son, he’s a prisoner of war, in some godforsaken prison camp in Germany.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  The sympathy seems almost too much for Hélène, who grips the ever-present handbag yet tighter, until her knuckles show white on the handle. She speaks fiercely, eyes fixed on the floor in front of her. ‘He’s no soldier, Philippe. He’s a bright, happy boy – and gentle. I see those boys, those Boches – the same age, falling out of our bars, treating Paris like their playground and it makes me sick. I’ll do anything, if it helps get them out.’ She looks up at Alice, steely.

  48

  New York, September 1986

  It was early evening, and beyond the glass a purplish haze had bled into the blue of the sky nearest the horizon, above the tops of the tallest trees in the park. We were entering that time of year, and the time of day, in which I’ve always felt the light is at its richest. Some recompense from nature, perhaps, before the impending plunge into night and winter.

  Alice had made us our drinks herself – insisting to Julie that she had done enough for the day. They were a deep and luminous orange-red and very strong. They were Negronis: the drink Alice had discovered as a girl in Venice.

  ‘Do you like it?’ she asked, watching me take my first sip.

  ‘I … don’t know.’ The sweetness was cut by a cough-remedy bitterness, and the gin bit at my throat. Yet it intrigued me, too, and made me take another draught.

  Alice looked pleased by my answer. ‘Then you will come to love it. If you don’t detest it from the off it will have its chance to grow on you.’

  ‘Is that a good thing?’

  ‘In moderation, yes.’ She smiled. I was beginning to know that smile: slow, thoughtful, heavy-lidded. ‘I hope it isn’t a disappointment. I wasn’t one of those girls who jumped from planes in the middle of the night, or carried secret messages in their knickers, but, in my defence, I think it’s fair to say that what we were doing was arguably as useful to the cause – and perhaps as dangerous – as all of that. We were showing people that hope was not lost: that someone was fighting for them. That is a potent thing. The way the Boches’ – she favoured this word, rather than ‘Nazis’ or ‘Germans’ – ‘reacted shows that they recognized that fact.’

  She took out a tin then, and opened it to reveal a row of slim white cigarettes, snugly packed; some foreign brand. ‘Would you like one?’ I realized I hadn’t known that she smoked. ‘A habit from the war,’ she said, by way of explanation. ‘A filthy one, too, but I find that it relaxes one so efficiently.’

  Alice lit one for me, then another for herself. She smoked thoughtfully – not hungrily, as many people do. She made it look almost like a form of meditation.

  ‘I think it was the feeling of doing something,’ she said. ‘It was the same for Hélène. She’d never had a job, she confided in me. She’d never been anything much, besides a wife and mother. Yet it turned out that she was useful, despite her doubts. She had a natural way with words, and she was good at writing pieces for the leaflets, pieces that might incite ordinary French people to action, not just those that were already politicized. She was also extremely brave: right up until the end.

  ‘Hélène and I were the only two who weren’t political. Nearly everyone else in that room was a Communist, had been part of the Popular Front – even Georgette, who had been involved in some student movements. The situation we were in, I felt the important thing was to be joined in the cause, if not in precisely the same ideology. Do you understand?’

  I said that I did.

  ‘Before I joined them,’ she said, ‘I liked to think of myself as brave. But, when I thought back on it, I’d run away from everything I was afraid of: my mother, my stepfather, what had happened … even love. I’ve since learned that to overcome fear one must confront it. It might sound like a tired platitude – and perhaps it is – but it’s the way I’ve tried to live my life ever since.’

  49

  Paris, August 1940

  It is at the fourth meeting that she sees him. Julien. A decade has passed, and yet he has hardly changed. The hair is liberally streaked with grey, but the blue pirate’s eyes are the same. Beside him sits a young blonde, who looks up at him every few seconds with a gaze of total adoration.

  Yves introduces him to the room as a hero, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, a long-standing member of the PCF. Julien sits and smiles modestly, looking about him at his audience. Alice has evidently changed more than he in the time that has passed, because he doesn’t recognize her. Or perhaps it is the context, the strangeness of her being here, that throws him. Eventually, however, his eyes return to her and he frowns. She sees him struggle to place her, and then she sees recognition.

  Julien stands to deliver some rousing words on his experiences in Spain, of the guerrilla tactics that were vital to the Resistance there. Oh yes, thinks Alice – I remember that voice. Then he introduces the blonde young woman next to him. ‘This is Marcelette,’ he tells them. ‘She will be joining our efforts.’ Alice looks at her again, incredulous. She cannot be more than sixteen or seventeen, though the full cheeks and large round eyes make her look even younger. She is beautiful yes, but in the way a child is beautiful.

  ‘He must be joking,’ Georgette murmurs. ‘She’s a schoolgirl.’

  Julien, it seems, has overheard. He flashes Georgette a quick smile. ‘I am completely serious. Marcelette may be young, but do not doubt her bravery, her dedication to the cause. She is to be our secret weapon.’ He smiles down at her. ‘Who could suspect such a face?’

  He has a point, Alice thinks. Looking at her, it would be almost impossible to believe Marcelette capable of guile.

  He comes to find her afterwards. ‘Alice?’

  ‘Julien.’ Alice can see the girl – Marcelette – watching them from the corner of the room.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it …’ He smiles, but she can see he is unnerved. She remembers, all in a rush, the last time she saw him.

  ‘Neither could I.’

  ‘Yes, but –’ he gestures ‘– this is my city; it’s where I was born. You … in Paris?’

  ‘I’ve been here for ten years.’

  He laughs. ‘I don’t understand. Last time I saw you, you were an English schoolgirl …’

  She shrugs. ‘I’ve changed.’ She does not choose to explain more, and he apparently knows not to ask.

  ‘Come for supper with me?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Pl
ease. It’s so good to see you after all this time.’

  ‘Fine.’ What harm can it do? ‘Will you bring Marcelette?’

  He frowns. ‘Why would I?’

  ‘But she’s your …’ she pauses to let him give the answer and then, when nothing is forthcoming, supplies it herself: ‘… daughter?’

  He laughs and shakes his head. ‘No. Not my daughter. A friend.’

  He takes her to an anonymous bistro a few streets away from the bookshop. During the meal – an approximation of a cassoulet, indifferent in the way that all food in the city is now – she becomes aware of something. He has no power for her, any more. As he talks of his heroism in the Spanish Civil War, his promotion in the PCF, his charm separates, like soured milk, into its constituent parts. He is not a bad person – indeed, if even half of what he says of Spain is true, he is an extremely courageous one – but he is egotistical, self-interested. Alice congratulates her younger self: she might not have escaped his lure at first, but at least she did not give into him completely.

  A pattern has been established. Less frequently now, but every few weeks, Georgette, Alice and Étienne meet with the rest of the cell. Yves, Julien, Marcelette and several of the others are involved in different work. Something that requires them to be away for weeks at a time. From the little that she has been able to glean, Alice’s suspicion is that it involves travel to the Free Zone. She has heard rumours of people being helped out of the country this way – and some, a smaller number, helped into it. In the Free Zone the Vichy authorities have a reputation for being less stringent in their attitudes to border control. All the same, getting people there and managing to help them across the border must be treacherous work indeed.

  Compared to something of such scale and inherent risk, the task of producing pamphlets seems like child’s play. But no, Georgette reminds Alice, in many ways their work is as dangerous. The importance of propaganda to the Nazis can be seen on every street, where grinning, horribly caricatured Jews prey on cowering head-scarfed women, where British planes rain fiery death on unsuspecting French villages.

  By day the museum functions as normal – though it is quiet enough that one or sometimes two of them can leave for an hour or so to distribute leaflets through the city. In the evenings, Alice goes home and works at her typewriter. Étienne and Georgette remain in the museum, copying those pieces that have already been typed up, working into the small hours. The three of them might be betrayed by their pallor and the blue smudges beneath their eyes, were it not for the fact that most Parisians – tired and malnourished, worn down by the daily struggle – share the same appearance.

  Alice is accustomed to letting herself into the museum in the morning to a sleeping silence, knowing that Georgette and Étienne have probably snatched a few hours of rest from their work in the basement. Every day, she creeps downstairs to make a pot of strong coffee that they will drink together when the others wake. The morning Alice makes her discovery she does just this, lifting the trapdoor concealed beneath a thin rug, making her way carefully down to the musty warmth below.

  There are two armchairs in the cellar. In the usual scheme of things, Étienne will take one, Georgette the other. On this particular morning, however, this is not the case. It takes Alice a moment to comprehend the scene before her. One of the armchairs is empty. In the other are two bodies. Curled about each other, so still that Alice begins to panic, until she sees Georgette’s exposed shoulder blade move, ever so slightly, with an indrawn breath. Georgette is nude from the waist up: her pale skin bluish in the weak electric light. A small white breast is visible in the crook of Étienne’s arm, which is thrown tightly about her. Georgette’s red curls spill over his shoulder, and one hand has found a resting place in the hollow beneath his throat. Her face is pressed into his chest. Étienne faces outwards, towards Alice. Even in sleep, he appears to be smiling.

  Alice retreats as soundlessly as she can, clutching the coffee pot to her chest. She lowers the trapdoor, cringing as it sighs home. She makes her way to the front desk and sits, trying to collect her thoughts. Her whole body is shaking. She feels what – exactly? Joy, certainly … but undercut by something that feels rather like envy. She is worried for them, too. At a time like this, can such a thing have a future?

  Over the next few weeks, Alice sees everything that must have slipped beneath her notice in the past. The looks they exchange when they think they’re unobserved, which belie their careful civility with each other in public. She still finds it hard to believe: Georgette with her beauty and confidence, Étienne so quiet and awkward. Observing more closely now, she sees how tender they are with one another. In Georgette’s presence, Étienne speaks and laughs more – is, at times, even witty – and in return her sharpness is softened by his gentleness.

  One morning, they come to her – and she sees that they are holding hands.

  ‘We wanted you to be the first to know,’ says Georgette.

  Étienne nods, and clears his throat. ‘We’re getting married.’

  Alice’s surprise is only in part feigned. She had never quite imagined that it could come to this. Perhaps there is hope for the world after all.

  The ceremony is small and cheap. Alice is the only person attending who is not related to the bride or groom. She sits beside old Monsieur Dupré, who sleeps through most of the proceedings. He wakes just in time for the final blessing and applauds loudly, as though he is at the theatre. Georgette’s mother, an austere professor of mathematics, surprises everyone by bursting into noisy tears.

  Later, Alice will cling to this day – the joy and hope, the normality. She will invoke it as proof that there is something beyond the new truth of her situation. It will be the last day of her old life.

  50

  It comes in the middle of the night. The hum of an engine in the square, the raised voices downstairs. She hears Madame Fourrier, indignant, and can imagine her in her nightcap and gown, facing them down. She hears them, too; voices carrying the authority of those for whom no place, whatever the hour, is out of bounds. She hears the door slam, another, weaker cry of protest from the landlady, and then the old steps ringing with quick, heavy footsteps. The whole house will be awake now, of that Alice is certain. Waiting to see who it will be.

  It is for her, of course it is. She had known it would be. All she can do is wait. They are taking their time, banging on each and every door. Madame Fourrier has evidently not helped them as far as she might have done. She does not need to look about her room to check that there is nothing to give her away here, at least not without an extremely thorough search. The Remington is as well hidden as it can be, in the secret cavity in the wall behind the chest of drawers. She has set a match to any wasted stencils each night over the sink, washing away the blackened evidence. She is grateful now for all the wine Monsieur Dupré produced after the ceremony, the wine that made her too clumsy and stupid to think about typing that night. Otherwise there would be the usual fresh sheaf of stencils on her desk.

  Finally – and it is almost a strange relief – the knock comes. Alice doesn’t answer at first. She will pretend that she has only just been woken by the commotion, from the deep, uninterrupted sleep of someone with nothing to hide. It comes again, louder. Then a thud, lower down – a boot, perhaps. She throws herself from the bed. She won’t have them breaking in: an act that would, in itself, seem to criminalize her. She goes to the door and turns the key, flings it back as the man in front goes to strike it again. He falls forward into the room and swears in German, just stopping himself from losing his balance. He is small but powerfully built, this first one. The man behind him is tall and palely blond, and Alice is unnerved by his passing resemblance to Étienne. They wear the black uniform of the Gestapo.

  ‘Alice Eversley?’ the stockier man asks. As he says it he smiles, and Alice realizes that he is enjoying himself. He lets his eyes run over her body, insubstantially concealed by her thin nightgown. But she is Célia, now, she thinks. She is no long
er Alice Eversley. Should she deny it? Claim that she is an innocent woman, with no knowledge of this other person?

  Before she can decide, the taller man speaks in French, pre-empting her. His voice is surprisingly soft, his accent good, but his eyes, as he studies her, are cold. ‘There’s no use pretending,’ he tells her. ‘I’m afraid, my dear’ – ma chérie – ‘that we know both of your names – Alice, Célia … quite clever. One of your friends has given us all we need.’

  Who? She knows that it can’t be Étienne or Georgette. She prays they will be safe, the one night neither of them is at home. The tall man shakes his head, as though reading her thoughts. ‘We have them, too,’ he says, almost regretfully. ‘They’d tried to fool us, I think, by checking into a hotel. We found them easily enough.’

  The hotel had been booked for their wedding night. It was probably easier for the Gestapo to find them there than anywhere else, Alice thinks. The hotels, especially the better ones, are all packed with Nazis these days.

  The taller man searches the room, riffling through drawers, flicking through her books, feeling under the bed, while the other takes her arm in a firm grip, far tighter than it needs to be. They don’t produce anything – it would take a far more imaginative, extensive search to discover the Remington. The man’s disappointment is palpable, despite the pains he takes not to show it. It would earn him extra credit, undoubtedly, to have unearthed some new piece of evidence.

  They escort Alice downstairs, and she can sense the other tenants listening, curious and relieved. At the bottom of the stairs she glimpses something odd, a black shape protruding through the doorway that leads to the restaurant. Then she realizes what it is. A foot. As they move past, she sees the fallen form of Madame Fourrier spread-eagled on the tiles.

  Alice stalls, hoping for some small movement that might indicate the landlady is alive, but the men haul her on, out into the black wet street to the waiting car. They drive her through the silent city, along the Boulevard du Montparnasse. When they pass the entrance to La Coupoule, Alice looks away.