“You did.” Then Moreau smiled. The first smile Paul had ever seen from the man.
It was brilliant.
23
SUNDAY, AUGUST24, 1941
In the church courtyard, Lucie hugged little Bobby Bishop to her side. “I’ll miss you. Children’s Hour won’t be the same without your jokes.”
Bobby hugged her back. “Bye, Miss Girard.”
The Bishops were leaving for the USA. The expatriate community in Paris grew smaller each week, and each loss ate away at Lucie.
After Bobby scampered away, Josie Aubrey tugged on the skirt of Lucie’s favorite summer dress. “I’m not leaving.”
Lucie leaned down to the child’s level. “I’m glad you’re here.”
The courtyard was almost deserted. Paul leaned against the brick wall of the church house in a navy suit, his fedora shadowing one eye, the other eye fixed on her.
Lucie’s breath caught. She’d never been attracted to men in conventional suits, but Paul wore them well.
He gazed around the courtyard, then approached.
Lucie smoothed the skirt of her light green dress sprigged with blossoms of blue and yellow. She loved the sweetheart neckline and how the gathered skirt swished as she walked.
“Before you refuse my offer,” Paul said, “hear me out.”
“Offer?” Her voice came out squeakier than she liked.
“Tensions have been high.” He dipped his chin toward his daughter as if reminding Lucie of listening ears. “I’d like to walk you home.”
“That isn’t—”
“I won’t rest until I know you’re safely home. Josie and I will follow you anyway.”
Josie’s expectant smile tugged at her, and Lucie squeezed the girl’s hand. “All right.”
Paul motioned to the gate, and Lucie led Josie out and onto the tree-lined quai d’Orsay along the Seine. Any apprehension she felt about spending time with Paul seemed trifling compared to the terror gripping Paris the past few days.
“It feels like an ordinary summer day.” Paul gazed up through the trees.
“It does.” A breeze blew, and puffy clouds dotted the blue sky. But nothing was ordinary.
On Tuesday, two men had been executed for participating in a communist demonstration. On Wednesday, four thousand Jewish men had been rounded up in the 11th arrondissement and locked away, joining Jerzy Epstein and the others arrested in May’s rafle.
Then on Thursday, a résistant had shot and killed a German naval cadet as the cadet boarded a Métro train.
Paul watched a black car pass dozens of bicyclists on the street. “We’ll have to be careful to stay on the right side of the law. Even keeping curfew.”
“I know.” On Friday, Gen. Otto von Stülpnagel, the German military commander in Paris, had decreed that for every act of violence against a German, hostages would be pulled from prisons and shot—even if imprisoned for minor offenses like breaking curfew.
Lucie paused while Josie examined a rock under a tree. Following the rules might come easily to Paul, but Lucie was deliberately breaking the law.
Her insides twisted. Not because she could be executed—although the thought terrified—but because her work might lead to violence.
Passing messages had seemed romantic as she imagined resistance members holding clandestine meetings and publishing underground newspapers. But to gun down a young man, a complete stranger, in cold blood?
Across the Seine rose the ornate glass roof of the Grand Palais, now home of “La France européene” exhibition promoting France’s place in a German-dominated Europe. For the first year of the occupation, many Parisians had embraced that vision, especially when German behavior was “correct.” That was no longer the case.
