Elaine studied the typewriter. “How does the fabric stay still when you’re typing?”
Josette held up a needle and thread. “We sew it to the paper.” She took the swatch from Nicole and wove several loose stitches to secure it to the page, then fed the result into the machine without issue.
Looking at the keys as she typed, Josette copied the line of jumbled letters Denise had pieced out of the poem she had been working on. The ink hit the silk, staining the delicate fabric until the entire code was complete.
When Josette was done, she removed the paper, clipped the threads and the silk floated to the table with the message boldly standing out against its smooth surface.
“I’m assuming you know how to type, or Gabriel wouldn’t have sent you here.” Nicole offered the chair to Elaine as Josette eased out.
“I used to be a secretary.” Elaine slid into the seat, still warm from its previous occupant. Though she had been married for over five years, it had not been so long since she’d been in front of a typewriter. Joseph had not insisted she quit her job when they wed, despite the disparaging looks she often received from her coworkers for having kept on with her employment after marriage. He’d even encouraged her to seek a new secretary position when they first moved to Lyon. Though by then, no more jobs were available as refugees from other countries that were attacked before France had already arrived and assumed those roles.
“Mind the keys,” Denise cautioned.
Elaine did as she was told, paying special care to the mismatched letters. It was an odd thing to have the familiarity of the cool, smooth keys under her fingertips, but not be able to fall back on her ability to blindly type. In the end, she removed her hands from the keyboard and pecked out the message as any novice would.
Nicole pulled the page free, and her gaze skimmed over Elaine’s work. “Perfect.”
They worked through the afternoon, her fingers finding the appropriate keys with less difficulty, when a knock at the door resonated through the apartment. Every woman stiffened and glanced at one another, as if confirming no visitors were expected. Of the four of them, it was Denise who approached the foyer, her feet silent as she moved over the old floorboards.
Before she could ask who it was, a voice on the other end said, “Sous le pont Mirabeau…”
Without hesitation, Denise replied, “…coule la Seine.”
Under the Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine.
Elaine frowned at Nicole with confusion.
“It is a code from Le pont Mirabeau by Guillaume Apollinaire,” the other woman explained as Denise received a stack of papers from a male courier who departed as abruptly as he’d come.
Elaine nodded, remembering the poem about an artist and his love that she first heard while in lycée as a girl.
Denise returned with the pile of what appeared to be newsprint in her arms. “We have deliveries tomorrow.” She set her load on the table, revealing numerous copies of Combat, one of the many clandestine newspapers distributed by the Resistance.
Elaine picked up a copy and read the first article detailing the arrests at Villeurbanne when the men called up for compulsory service did not show at the train station at their assigned times. The Gestapo sealed off that section of Lyon and rounded up over three hundred young men to transport to work camps by force.
“Combat is my preference,” Denise said. “Though I know Josette prefers Cahiers du Témoignage Chrétien, the newspaper for Christian Resistance supporters, and Nicole likes the journal Femmes fran?aises when she can get it. Which publication do you like best?”
Over six months had passed since Elaine last laid eyes on any clandestine newspaper, back when Joseph had suddenly demanded she stop all acts of resistance once the Germans returned to Lyon and stayed. But before then, they used to read through Combat together, the editorial geared toward soldiers and intellectuals; both aspects Joseph could appreciate. As could she, by association of her love for her husband.