Lucie pointedly took a step backward.
Charles laughed, his dark hair brushing the shoulders of his oversized suit. “Thank you for giving Saint-Yves a gig. Now he can afford wine to cry into.”
Lucie gazed toward the poet, clad in a red velvet jacket and entertaining starry-eyed students from the Sorbonne. “Maybe he should write about happier subjects than existential angst.”
“Ah, but existential angst makes him happy,” Geneviève said.
“True.” Lucie stepped aside to let a couple pass. “Speaking of angst, how’s Jerzy? I haven’t seen him lately. I didn’t expect him tonight, but ...”
Charles and Geneviève gaped at each other.
“Have you not heard?” Geneviève said, her voice low and her forehead creased. “He was arrested in therafle.”
“No.” The word plummeted from Lucie’s mouth. A month earlier, over three thousand Jewish men, mostly from Poland, had been rounded up and sent to camps in northern France. It was all she could do not to march up to Wattenberg and pitch him out of her store. “The Germans arrested him?”
“The Germans?” Charles crossed his arms. “They ordered the arrests, but the French police carried them out.”
Lucie knew that. But now it gnawed at her fresh. Dear angsty Jerzy. He’d never hurt a soul. And now he was locked away.
Geneviève clucked her tongue. “I’m sorry, Lucie. We ruined your glorious evening.”
“We’ll cheer you up at La Méditerranée,” Charles said. “It’s time to send people to the restaurant anyway.”
“It is.” With her performance face concealing her heartbreak, Lucie thanked those who were departing, reminded friends to join the party at La Méditerranée, then relieved Bernadette at the cash register so the assistant could escort Saint-Yves to the restaurant.
After the last guest left, Lucie locked the cash register and the front door. Tomorrow after church, she’d count the cash, clean the store, and return the rental chairs.
Night sounds drifted to her as she made her way to the place de l’Odéon in the deep darkness. A violin played. Families laughed, argued. Music from Radio-Paris floated down. Although everyone listened to the BBC, no one would allow it to be heard on the street.
“Excuse me, Miss Girard.” A man’s voice came from behind her.
She whirled around, her hand pressed to her chest.
Emil Wattenberg stepped up, his hat low over his darkened face. “Pardon me. I did not mean to frighten you.”
“I’m not frightened. Just startled.” But her heart thudded against her fingers.
Wattenberg motioned down the street. “I do not want to stop you, only to talk to you.”
“Oh?” She resumed walking, cringing inside. Had he discovered a resistance note? Would he ask to help with the rent again? Or for a date?
“I did not want to talk to you with your friends. They will not welcome me as you have.”
Welcome? She’d ignored him all evening. Lucie murmuredto encourage him to continue. She didn’t want to be seen with a German officer, even one in civilian clothes.
“You know I work for the German Embassy,” Wattenberg said. “You are familiar with the Otto List.”
“The list of over one thousand books the Germans have banned from sale in France? Yes, I’m familiar with it.” Sarcasm crept into her voice.
“On July 1, the list will have more titles.”
Lucie’s steps dragged, her shoes shuffling on the pavement. More books for the Germans or their lackeys, the French police, to confiscate. “How many more?”
“You will not like it. The list will include all books by English or American authors published after 1870.”
“Americans?” Lucie sucked in a sharp breath. “But we’re neutral.”
“It is—what is the word?—the influence of Jews and Negroes, of communists, of modernism.” His voice warped with disapproval—disapproval of censorship or of those influences?
