The Paris Agent(44)
“Fleur,” I said politely. “Thank you for the coffee.”
“It is my pleasure.”
Fortunately for me, Régis was a poor conversationalist, more interested in talking at me than engaging me to talk, so as he drank his wine and I forced down the corn coffee, I let him chat aimlessly about himself while I focused instead on the conversation taking place between the two young men from the garage. I could see their reflection in a mirror behind the bar, so I knew they were leaning close toward one another, talking quietly as they smoked and sipped wine.
“…so many arrested. Did you even know what they were up to right in front of us…？”
“…can you believe we were working right next to a weapons cache like that? My God! When the Gestapo pulled down that wall…”
“I only found this job because of Blaise, you know. We’ve been neighbors for years and I had no idea…never suspected he was involved in the resistance! But last night, they came for him too. They woke half the neighborhood up when they smashed in his door…”
My companion was midsentence when I watched in the reflection as the men behind me rose. I slid off my stool and at his scowl, offered an apologetic look.
“I’m sorry, Régis,” I pleaded, pressing a hand to my stomach. “I’m feeling terribly unwell.” His irritation was palpable, and that in turn irritated me. God save me from men who thought they were entitled to so much as a minute of a woman’s time just because they bought her a drink! I needed to leave quickly and I wanted to make this man squirm a little. I bent forward and winced as I dropped my voice and added, “I have terrible women’s problems, you see.”
At that, Régis recoiled as if I’d slapped him and nodded hastily to indicate I should go.
I followed the garage workers into the street and tailed them from a distance over the next half-dozen blocks. They stopped to exchange farewells, at which point I hung back, leaning against a lamppost and pretending to search through my handbag. One of the men walked to the entrance to a small block of apartments, and the second continued walking.
I couldn’t easily check inside the apartment building to see if any doors were damaged like the one they were discussing in the bar, so I made a mental note of where the building was, and continued following the second man. After another four blocks he turned into the yard of a small house. Next door was a house that was the mirror image of his own except that the front door was boarded up.
And best of all, behind the faded curtains on the windows at the front of the house, I could see that lights were on inside. Someone may have been arrested last night, but someone else had definitely been left behind.
It was close to curfew now—I would have to move fast. I jogged to the laneway behind the houses and located the small courtyard attached to the home with the damaged front door. I pulled open the wooden gate slowly then crept inside. Here the curtains had not been drawn, so I could see right into the house, where a young woman was feeding a little boy as he sat in a wooden high chair. The child was just a toddler, with light brown hair and big brown eyes, rosy cheeks and a little graze on his forehead, as if he’d stumbled trying to walk. The young woman’s nose was red and raw and her eyes swollen as if she’d been crying. Still, she looked at the child with such love in her gaze. As if he were her most precious treasure. As if he was all she had left in the world.
My vision blurred, and for just a moment, I was in her shoes, staring into the eyes of a child who trusted me completely. A child I would die to protect.
Just then, the woman looked up, and saw me through the window, and opened her mouth as if to scream. I pressed a finger over my lips and with the other, fumbled into my brassiere. I withdrew a small wad of cash and pressed it against the glass.
Her mouth remained fixed in a shocked circle, but the scream I’d feared did not come. Money was a powerful motivator, especially to a woman who had just lost her breadwinner. Instead, she lowered the spoon, allowing the toddler to take it. He immediately began to bang it on the nearby table, happily singing to himself in baby talk as the woman cautiously rose to her feet.
The back door swung open, just a crack.
“I don’t want to make trouble for you,” I said, voice low, staying back just far enough from the light seeping through the door that my face remained in shadow. “But I heard your husband was arrested last night.” She nodded, still staring at me suspiciously. I extended the notes toward her then asked carefully, “Was he working with the resistance?”
Her eyebrows knit. She glanced between the money in my hand and her son, behind her.
“I can’t—”
“If I were loyal to the Germans I’d have nothing to gain in asking,” I rushed to assure her. She hesitated, so I pressed, “Right? They already know the answer to the question. So the very fact that I am asking it should tell you I’m an ally.”
“I don’t know much at all. He had been sneaking out after curfew,” she said, her eyes welling with tears. “He told me he was just visiting his brother, but he was also arrested last night. My sister-in-law said that many of their friends have now been taken too.”
“This sister-in-law—”
“Her name is Nathalie.”
“And Nathalie is still free, will you give me her address?” The woman nodded. I passed her the cash then stepped back into the shadows.