The Librarian Spy(6)
Still the woman refused to curl her fingers around the precious papers. “What will you do?”
Hélène ignored the question, not wishing to think of the consequences. “I am not at risk as you are.”
And Claudine was very much at risk. Far too many Jews had been packed into trains and never seen again—families, innocent children, it was more than Hélène could bear and why she fought her husband so vigorously for the chance to join the Resistance. Now she was in a position where she could actually help, and she would not turn away from the opportunity.
“Please.” Hélène held the papers against Claudine’s palm until the woman’s fingers reluctantly closed around them.
“The curfew will begin soon,” Hélène said. “Stay here until morning.”
But Claudine shook her head. “I cannot put you at further risk, not after...” Her voice caught, and she lifted the identity card and ration coupons. “This.”
Hélène wanted to argue, but Claudine was already moving toward the door, whispering her thanks in a profuse rush of gratitude.
But Hélène could not accept her thanks. It was the least any French citizen could do for the Jews who the Nazis so openly and maliciously persecuted. The memory of Lucie rose in her thoughts.
The only woman Hélène had befriended in Lyon, when they waited in a bread line one rainy afternoon. Lucie had an umbrella and offered to share. While the weather had been gray and cold, Lucie’s sunny disposition more than made up for it. Like Hélène, Lucie did not have children either. Rather than allow others’ opinions of her to annoy her as they did Hélène, Lucie waived their censure off with cheerful indifference.
She always saw the light in the world, no matter how dark it became.
It was her brilliance that helped Hélène through so many of those hard days when hunger began to set in, when curfew restrictions edged into their daily comfort and when one couldn’t leave their house without a large wallet full of ration coupons and an identity card.
That was, until Lucie and her husband disappeared in the night, their apartment ransacked and cleared of its valuables. Hélène had been helpless to do anything to aid her friend despite the countless attempts to find her whereabouts. It was around the same time Joseph refused to allow her to engage in any Resistant activity, which rendered her impotent. The outrage had remained with her, simmering.
At least now, Hélène had done something.
She closed the door behind Claudine, and once more Hélène was swallowed up by the apartment’s empty silence.
The repercussions of her decision woke her in the early hours of dawn while the rest of Lyon was still asleep. The curfew had come and gone and still Joseph had not returned.
Only now, she could not go to the police to inquire as to his whereabouts. No one would speak to her without first seeing her identity card, and if she reported the papers as lost, they would be on the lookout for a thief. If Claudine was caught with what would then be assumed stolen papers...
No, going to the police was no longer an option.
A glance in the kitchen confirmed only a heel of bread remained, along with the few Jerusalem artichokes Hélène had managed to find the day before. Such limited stores would not be sufficient to get by.
Her stomach, deprived of even a meager supper the night before, gave a low growl of hunger. The food would not last the day, let alone long enough for her to come up with a viable solution.
She would have to go to Etienne once more and see if this time he might be home, for there was no one else she knew well enough to trust for help. Their current world was a lonely one, where people had to be careful what they said, what they did, and with whom they were acquainted. Theirs was a world of enemies, where the occupiers wielded submachine guns and fear while the French had only their empty shopping baskets and the power of forbidden words.
Realizing it would be better to wait until the streets were cluttered with people to avoid arousing suspicion, Hélène boiled the Jerusalem artichokes and ate them with the small heel of bread. Once the sun began to rise, she drew her shopping basket from the shelf along with her handbag, as she would any ordinary day, and left the apartment. She was seldom stopped for her papers and likely would not be troubled that day either. She needed only to act normal.
However, acting normal with one’s heart pounding was a very difficult feat. Initially she walked too fast, the clack of her shoes obvious even to her own ears. She slowed her pace and kept her gaze forward, intent on her purpose in the hopes that she would not be stopped.
She was close to Etienne’s apartment in Croix-Rousse where the streets pitched upward on an incline so steep, that she had to slow down to keep her breath from coming out in great huffs. A fresh smattering of papers lined one wall declaring Viva de Gaulle! Long live de Gaulle, the man who encouraged them all to resist the oppression of the Germans.
A Nazi officer rounded the corner, several feet from Hélène. The rising morning sun reflected off his highly polished black boots and winked at a medal pinned to his chest. His gaze sharpened as he caught sight of the tracts.
With a click of each booted heel on the cobblestones, he strode to the wall and yanked down one of the papers. The illegal note tore off in uneven strips, so only the top came free, and the message clung stubbornly, fully intact. He pulled again, this time succeeding in tearing the words so only a partial “le” remained.