Or maybe she had imagined that memory, constructed it from the threads of her own need and wrapped it tightly around her shoulders. She didn’t know anymore.
Now it was Germans who crowded into the shadowy nooks and crannies.
In the six weeks since Isabelle had reopened the shop, word had apparently spread among the soldiers that a pretty French girl could be found often at the shop’s counter.
They arrived in a stream, dressed in their spotless uniforms, their voices loud as they jostled one another. Isabelle flirted with them mercilessly but made sure never to leave the shop until it was empty. And she always left by the back door, wearing a charcoal cloak with the hood drawn up, even in the heat of summer. The soldiers might be jovial and smiling—boys, really, who talked of pretty fräuleins back home and bought French classics by “acceptable” authors for their families—but she never forgot that they were the enemy.
“M’mselle, you are so beautiful, and you are ignoring us. How will we survive?” A young German officer reached for her.
She laughed prettily and pirouetted out of his reach. “Now, M’sieur, you know I can show no favorites.” She sidled into place behind the sales counter. “I see you are holding a book of poetry. Certainly you have a girl back home who would love to receive such a thoughtful gift from you.”
His friends shoved him forward, all of them talking at once.
Isabelle was taking his money when the bell above the front door tinkled gaily.
Isabelle looked up, expecting to see more German soldiers, but it was Anouk. She was dressed, as usual, more for her temperament than the season, in all black. A fitted V-neck black sweater and straight skirt with a black beret and gloves. A Gauloises cigarette hung from her bright red lips, unlit.
She paused in the open doorway, with a rectangle of the empty alley behind her, a flash of red geraniums and greenery.
At the bell, the Germans turned.
Anouk let the door shut behind her. She casually lit her cigarette and inhaled deeply.
With half of the store length between them, and three German soldiers milling about, Isabelle’s gaze caught Anouk’s. In the weeks that Isabelle had been a courier (she’d gone to Blois, Lyon, and Marseilles, to Amboise and Nice, not to mention at least a dozen drops in Paris recently, all under her new name—Juliette Gervaise—using false papers that Anouk had slipped her one day in a bistro, right under the Germans’ noses), Anouk had been her most frequent contact and even with their age difference—which had to be at least a decade, maybe more—they had become friends in the way of women who live parallel lives—wordlessly but no less real for its silence. Isabelle had learned to see past Anouk’s dour expression and flat mouth, to ignore her taciturn demeanor. Behind all that, Isabelle thought there was sadness. A lot of it. And anger.
Anouk walked forward with a regal, disdainful air that cut a man down to size before he even spoke. The Germans fell silent, watching her, moving sideways to let her pass. Isabelle heard one of them say “mannish” and another “widow.”
Anouk seemed not to notice them at all. At the counter she stopped and took a long drag on her cigarette. The smoke blurred her face, and for a moment, only her cherry-red lips were noticeable. She reached down for her handbag and withdrew a small brown book. The author’s name—Baudelaire—was etched into the leather, and although the surface was so scratched and worn and discolored the title was impossible to read, Isabelle knew the volume. Les Fleurs du mal. The Flowers of Evil. It was the book they used to signal a meeting.
“I am looking for something else by this author,” Anouk said, exhaling smoke.
“I am sorry, Madame. I have no more Baudelaire. Some Verlaine, perhaps? Or Rimbaud?”
“Nothing then.” Anouk turned and left the bookshop. It wasn’t until the bell tinkled that her spell broke and the soldiers began speaking again. When no one was looking, Isabelle palmed the small volume of poetry. Inside of it was a message for her to deliver, along with the time it was to be delivered. The place was as usual: the bench in front of the Comédie Française. The message was hidden beneath the end papers, which had been lifted and reglued dozens of times.
Isabelle watched the clock, willing the time to advance. She had her next assignment.
At precisely six P.M., she herded the soldiers out of the bookshop and closed up for the night. Outside, she found the chef and owner of the bistro next door, Monsieur Deparde, smoking a cigarette. The poor man looked as tired as she felt. She wondered sometimes, when she saw him sweating over the fryer or shucking oysters, how he felt about feeding Germans. “Bonsoir, M’sieur,” she said.
“Bonsoir, M’mselle.”
“Long day?” she commiserated.
“Oui.”
She handed him a small, used copy of fables for his children. “For Jacques and Gigi,” she said with a smile.
“One moment.” He rushed into the café and returned with a small, grease-stained sack. “Frites,” he said.
Isabelle was absurdly grateful. These days she not only ate the enemy’s leftovers, she was thankful for them. “Merci.”
Leaving her bicycle in the shop, she decided to ignore the crowded, depressingly silent Métro and walk home, enjoying the greasy, salty frites on her way. Everywhere she looked, Germans were pouring into cafés and bistros and restaurants, while the ashen-faced Parisians hurried to be home before curfew. Twice along the way, she had a niggling sense that she was being followed, but when she turned, there was no one behind her.
She wasn’t sure what brought her to a halt on the corner near the park, but all at once, she knew that something was wrong. Out of place. In front of her, the street was full of Nazi vehicles honking at one another. Somewhere someone screamed.
Isabelle felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise. She glanced back quickly, but no one was behind her. Lately she often felt as if she were being followed. It was her nerves working overtime. The golden dome of the Invalides shone in the fading rays of the sun. Her heart started pounding. Fear made her perspire. The musky, sour scent of it mingled with the greasy odor of frites, and for a moment her stomach tilted uncomfortably.
Everything was fine. No one was following her. She was being foolish.
She turned onto rue de Grenelle.
Something caught her eye, made her stop.
Up ahead she saw a shadow where there shouldn’t be a shadow. Movement where it should be still.
Frowning, she crossed the street, picking her way through the slow-moving traffic. On the other side, she moved briskly past the clot of Germans drinking wine in the bistro toward an apartment building on the next corner.
There, hidden in the dense shrubbery beside an ornate set of glossy black doors, she saw a man crouched down behind a tree in a huge copper urn.
She opened the gate and stepped into the yard. She heard the man scramble backward, his boots crunching on the stones beneath him.
Then he stilled.
Isabelle could hear the Germans laughing at the café down the street, yelling out Sikt! s’il vous plaît to the poor, overworked waitress.
It was the supper hour. The one hour of the day when all the enemy cared about was entertainment and stuffing their stomachs with food and wine that belonged to the French. She crept over to the potted lemon tree.
The man was squatted down, trying to make himself as small as possible. Dirt smeared his face and one eye was swollen shut, but there was no mistaking him for a Frenchman: he was wearing a British flight suit.
“Mon Dieu,” she muttered. “Anglais?”
He said nothing.
“RAF?” she asked in English.
His eyes widened. She could see him trying to decide whether to trust her. Very slowly, he nodded.