“Is it so hard?”
Legrand lifted her hand and kissed it.
Daisy stared at her fingers, which he continued to hold, not far from the lips that had kissed them. Then she looked at the lips, and finally up at his eyes, which were warm and very blue, and seemed to be communicating something important to her. It was terrifying, looking at someone like that, eyes meeting eyes, but Daisy forced herself to hold Legrand’s gaze. He had to know, he had to understand, just in case. What if the Gestapo swooped in, the next moment? He had to know that she prayed for him, she dreamed of him, she thought of him every moment, she was in love with him, she loved him.
“I don’t even know your real name,” she said.
Legrand rose to his feet and pulled her up with him. They stood face-to-face, mere centimeters between them. Daisy felt his breath on her skin. She smelled his sweat, his soap, his tobacco. She thought, We’re going to kiss. At last, I am going to kiss him. And then what? But there is so much work to do.
He took her other hand and leaned forward. Daisy closed her eyes.
But the kiss, when it arrived an instant later, met her forehead. He held his lips there for a moment or two, while the heat of the July air melted them both, and Daisy was disappointed and grateful, both at once.
“You have the strength of a lioness,” he said. “My brave, beautiful Daisy. You must be strong enough for us both.”
In the whole of Daisy’s life, nobody had ever called her strong or brave, not even after she gave birth to Olivier, who was four and a half kilos and nearly split her in two. It gave her strength. It made her feel as if she actually were as brave as he thought her.
She stepped back and released his hands. “I’ll deliver the books,” she said, “and I’ll find that list. Whatever it takes.”
Whatever it takes. It was an easy thing to say, an old cliché. A promise you made before you really considered what you might be called upon to do, and how hard it would be.
In the scheme of things, it wasn’t that hard to put on a pretty dress and go out to Maxim’s with your husband and make cheerful conversation with him, to flatter and flirt with him. Yet to Daisy it was agony. It was torture, each word dragged from her lungs, each smile pinned on by brute force, the performance of her life, sustained only by the thought of Legrand and the sensation of his hands holding hers, his lips on her forehead, telling her she had the strength of a lioness.
By the time they returned to the grand apartment on avenue Marceau, Daisy was exhausted. Still, she persevered. She poured Pierre some brandy—he had already drunk a bottle and a half of wine at dinner—and curled herself tenderly around him on the sofa. She praised once more all his hard work at the office and teased him about this big secret he was keeping from her.
“No, no, no!” he said, wagging his finger, loosening his necktie. “It’s all locked up tight in the safe.”
“Not the safe in your own study! As close as that?”
“To leave it in the office would be madness,” he told her, in an air of great condescension. “There are spies about, you know!”
“No! Who would do such a thing?”
“But never you fear, my dear. They can’t outwit me.”
“You’re so clever, Pierre. But can’t you show me? I want to see this extraordinary thing you’ve done.”
Pierre stuck his hand under her dress. “I have much more extraordinary things to show you right now.”
“Pierre, wait—” The word choked off in a gasp, as Pierre’s finger jabbed between her legs.
“Ah, ah, look at this! Someone’s a little aroused by her husband’s success, no?”
Not exactly by that, Daisy thought. She tried to squirm away from the jabbing finger. “Pierre! Not here! The children . . .”
“The children are in bed,” he said. “Justine’s gone home for the night.”
Daisy’s dress made a deep V at the neckline. Pierre removed his hand from between her legs, only to jerk down her sleeves, to jerk away her brassiere so her bosom came free. In reflex, her hands came up to cover her naked breasts, but she checked herself. She wasn’t supposed to deny him, was she? She was supposed to submit; she had to soften him up, to make him vulnerable, to give him what he wanted so she could take what she wanted. She made herself cup her breasts instead, to present them to Pierre as a delectable gift. Naturally Pierre didn’t question this bounty, no more than a child questions the sudden appearance of a bag of sweets. He grabbed a breast in each fist and squeezed, he slobbered his tongue all over her skin and pushed her right back on the cushions.