Both ladies gasped.
Lucie stirred her coffee, although she could only dream of sugar and cream. “It isn’t the child’s fault her father is a collaborator.”
“A factory owner who lives in the 16tharrondissement.” Marie-Claude shuddered. “No feeling, no heart, no soul.”
Only partly true, and Lucie sipped her coffee. She’d seen pain in his eyes. And his offer to help with her store showed heart. Perhaps she shouldn’t have turned him down.
She opened her mouth to ask her friends’ opinion, but they’donly tease her about wanting business help and imply she’d lose her standing in the artistic community.
Stores lined the boulevard—publishers and art supply shops and costume designers. The artistic community needed businesses to support it, businesses like hers, a place to find books, a place to read and discuss. It was one of the reasons she’d bought the store, one of the reasons she couldn’t let it fail.
At the table to Lucie’s left, a woman stood and departed, and a paper fluttered on the chair. Bold letters across the top proclaimedLiberté. A resistance newspaper!
Lucie averted her gaze, restrained her itching fingers, and plotted a way to sneak it into her purse when she left. Oh, the brave souls who wrote and printed and distributed the papers.
“Excuse me, Mademoiselle Girard?” The mystery man stood before her table, the résistant who’d told her never to talk to him again. Talking to her.
Lucie pulled herself together. “Bonjour, monsieur.”
He tipped his shabby hat. “My apologies, mademoiselle. I come often to your beautiful bookstore, but I have never made a purchase. I am but a poor university student.”
Lucie let a smile rise. “You are always welcome, no purchase required.”
“I am grateful. To thank you, I want to give you a book. You may read it or sell it. It is for you, dear lady.” With a slight bow, he held out a volume of Tennyson’s poetry, the same volume she’d sold on Monday with a note tucked inside.
“How kind of you.” Lucie held the book to her heart. “Tennyson is a favorite of mine. Merci beaucoup.”
“De rien.”He dipped his head to the ladies. “Au revoir, mesdemoiselles.”
Véronique leaned closer. “What a sweet gift.”
“It is.” But Lucie had a hunch the sweetest part of the gift lay pressed between the leaves of the book. A gift she’d wait to discover until she was alone.
Everything about the evening was a test, even the time. Lucie scurried over the cobblestones on rue Royer-Collard.
The note in the book had read “Collard 5-A” with the writing facing page 22. And the letterJfor jeudi with an arrow pointing to ten o’clock. She would arrive home after the curfew at twenty-three hours, which was a test. Would she risk arrest and a night in jail for this meeting?
She would.
At number 22 she entered. The door to the concierge’s apartment was shut, so Lucie tiptoed upstairs to apartment 5-A.
Now came the tricky part. Under the street name had been a string of symbols—dash-dot-dot-dash-dot. Thinking it might be Morse code, she’d looked it up in a book in her store. It could be DN or NR, neither of which held a clue.
Or was it unrelated to Morse code?
The rhythm called to her, and she knocked once with her fist, rapped twice with her knuckles, fist, knuckles.
“Who is it?” a male voice asked.
“I come from the bookstore.”
And the door opened.
The résistant shut the door behind her, then headed into the kitchen.
Lucie held her breath. The radio in the living room played Radio-Paris, the collabo announcer praising the Vichy government’s agreement to allow German troops to cross French territory in Syria to reach Iraq, where they were fighting the British—and how in response, Germany had graciously lowered the tribute France paid to cover the cost of her own occupation.
The man peered out of the kitchen and gave her a quizzical look. “Come. Sit.”
