That was daily life now—along with the gnawing ache of insatiable hunger, the threadbare blanket of comfort and safety ripped away with the Germans’ barbaric tactics. Even in Elaine’s exhausted state, every pop and creak of the old building as it settled deeper into its foundation made her jump. She was nearly to the kitchen, her nerves strung tight as a trip wire when the front door flew open, flooding the dark hall with light from outside.
Elaine’s heart leaped and she froze where she stood, a deer before a hunter. Caught.
But the figure stumbling into the backlit doorway was no Nazi.
“Help me,” Nicole gasped as she staggered under the weight of a man she had propped against her side.
Elaine ran to her friend without hesitation, first closing and securing the door behind them, then putting herself under the man’s other arm. He was skeletal, but she and Nicole were scarcely better off, and they still struggled to keep him upright.
“I can walk.” The man’s voice carried a familiar timbre, both serious and authoritative at once.
Marcel.
With what little strength he possessed, he straightened, and the burden of his weight eased from Elaine’s shoulders. They guided him into the quiet warehouse.
Antoine lifted his head, eyes going wide. But he did not hesitate. “Jean, come at once. Bring your kit.”
Elaine pulled a chair toward Marcel. As he settled gingerly into the cradle of the seat, she could finally see his face for the first time. Bruising mottled his features, coloring his skin with the offended red of new marks, the purple of ones sustained days ago and even the yellow-green of those on their way to healing. A cut split his lower lip, and his hair, usually cropped close to his scalp, was at least an inch long and glistening with blood on one side.
As with the man at Montluc, Marcel’s fingernails were all removed, leaving only patches of angry red.
No one shied away from gore these days when abuse was so prevalent. But then, never had Elaine witnessed someone with whom she was so familiar be injured as Marcel was now. In that battered visage, she still knew a proud father’s smile, a man who loved his wife and cared for those in his employ, a hard worker who wanted only to see his country free and safe.
Jean settled before Marcel with a bag opened at his side. Though Jean’s face remained calm, there was a tremble to his fingers as he dashed a bit of what he called Carrel-Dakin fluid over wounds Elaine had not initially noticed. While Jean was no doctor, he had been trained in first aid in his final year at school when the Germans came through Lyon at the start of the war.
“Werner,” Marcel muttered. “I said nothing.”
“We know,” Elaine soothed. “And the papers have gone out these last two months.”
“Two months?” His brows pushed together.
Elaine could too easily remember the awful cell in Montluc and the odor of fear and blood that permeated Werner’s office. The memories visited her often at night and woke her with a chilled sweat. It was easy to see how time would blur in such a perpetual state.
“Yvette.” His wife’s name emerged from a deep place within his chest.
“She had the baby.” A sad smile quivered at the corners of Nicole’s lips. “A girl named Claire.”
A tear trickled down Marcel’s battered cheek. “Orphan,” he muttered.
“Oui,” Elaine whispered around a fresh lash of pain for him. “Yvette took her to the orphanage as you directed.”
Though no doubt it had devastated his wife to do so, her womb and heart both empty. But a child could be used against Marcel. He and Yvette had given up much for the Resistance, including their children, who had all been sent to an orphanage in the last brutal months. To protect them in the best way their parents knew how. An end to the war would finally reunite them, but nothing could bring back first steps and first words and all the other firsts their sacrifices cost them.