Heart-shaped yellow linden leaves swooped down in the chilly breeze, and she brushed one off Paul’s letter. In his neat, bold handwriting, he’d addressed her as “my beloved” and signed it, “he who loves you.” Lucie would trim and save those bits before burning the rest.
Last night when he’d picked upThe House of the Seven Gables, he’d slipped the letter to her between franc notes.
“It’s time for a lesson,” he’d written. Apparently he had important information to relay. And she craved his presence, even if chaperoned by a tiny ballerina.
Lucie’s breath whirled silver, joining the breeze among the drifting yellow leaves, the spindly black trees, and the men and women in winter coats. At the end of the place de la Sorbonne, the Sorbonne Chapel lifted its ornate golden seventeenth-century façade to the gray sky.
Her lunch break over, Lucie tucked Paul’s note into her purse and left payment for her meager fare. Strolling down the cobblestoneplaza, Lucie picked up a dozen of the prettiest linden leaves for her store display.
As she approached the boulevard Saint-Michel, Lucie stayed to the left side of the plaza. The Librarie Rive Gauche stood on the right corner. Opened in April, the largest bookstore in Paris specialized in Nazi and collaborationist literature, and she’d only ever seen German soldiers enter.
The store window displayed memorabilia and writings from fascist French writer Henry de Montherlant. His new book,Le solstice de Juin, celebrated the German conquest of France as the inevitable triumph of paganism over Christianity.
Lucie wanted to spit in that direction, but she wasn’t the spitting sort.
She crossed Boul’ Mich’ and headed down the narrow rue de Vaugirard toward home.
It wouldn’t be home for long. For the first time ever, she was anxious to leave Paris.
In early October, French fascists had set off bombs in six synagogues in Paris. And in the past week, résistants had assassinated German officers in Bordeaux and Nantes, leading to the execution of almost 150 men—and a seventeen-year-old boy. From London, Gen. Charles de Gaulle pleaded with the resistance to stop such killings to avoid further reprisals.
After the attack on the Champs-Élysées, Lucie had pinned down Renard in a private conversation in the bookstore. She’d made him promise no weapons would pass through her store, nor any messages about shootings or bombings. To keep him honest, she’d told him she’d no longer follow his order not to read the notes.
At the next intersection Lucie waited for a bicycle to pass, then she trotted across, the freezing wind pushing her from behind.
Leaving for the States seemed wise.
Lucie passed the Odéon Théâtre. Leaving required reamsof paperwork—an “Ausweis” exit permit from the Germans to cross the demarcation line, an exit visa from Vichy France, and transit visas for Spain and Portugal. A time-consuming process that might turn dangerous German attention to her store and Paul’s factory.
Leaving would also deprive the resistance of an important letter box, where dozens of messages passed each week.
And leaving would mean abandoning Green Leaf Books. Who would buy an English-language bookstore, stripped of stock and devoid of customers? She could sign the deed to Bernadette, but without Paul’s financial support, the store would fold.
Usually the thought of losing the store prompted a crush of guilt, but now only a soft, sad wave. Yes, Hal and Erma’s dream would die, but Lucie had done her best.
Today she needed to inform Bernadette so she could search for a new job.
At the place de la Odéon, Lucie turned up her street to the beloved green façade. The store windows displayed bright and appealing books, surrounded by fall leaves.
The back office was dark, but Bernadette wouldn’t return from lunch for at least an hour.
Lucie placed her purse and hat in the office but kept on her coat and gloves to ward off the chill. The Germans gave out no coal for heating, and Lucie wanted to save her firewood for winter.
With the store empty, Lucie arranged the yellow linden leaves among the orange plane leaves and the chestnut leaves, her favorite. Each of the seven rounded lobules changed from green in the center to yellow to orange to brown on the serrated edges.
Soon all the leaves would be brown, but that would be attractive too.
A young man in a gray coat entered, a man who’d frequented the store the last few weeks. He had a memorable face with along jaw that reminded Lucie of a spade. And he always bought books, although he spoke no English.
Lucie addressed him in French. “Bonjour, monsieur. May I help you find a book?”
He stood by the cash register. “My wife put a book on hold and asked me to pick it up.”
A new résistant. The harsher the Germans became, the faster the resistance grew.
After she laid down the last linden leaf, Lucie went behind the desk, where half a dozen books waited. “What is the title?”
“I do not know. My wife told me to pick it up.”
