In former days, Elaine would have asked after the man and the baby, especially with their absence so apparent in the quiet home. But those were conversations of the past. The less she knew of her hostess, the better.
Elaine straightened and went to the kitchen where Manon had laid out a plate for her with two fat lentil sausages, a few boiled rutabagas, and a narrow slice of bread. It was a veritable feast. Elaine ate everything but the bread—not because she was full, but to tuck away to have delivered to Joseph at the prison the following day. She wasn’t sure such parcels made it to him or not, but it was still worth the effort to try.
Her husband weighed on her thoughts constantly now—the worry at how much longer he would be kept at Montluc, the anticipation of seeing him once more. Even as she climbed into the pillowy bed that night and folded the thick blanket over herself, she begrudged her own warm safety as she imagined what he must be enduring.
Denise claimed Elaine didn’t have the training to manage a way to liberate Joseph. Unfortunately, she was not wrong, but surely Etienne would. Once Elaine had finished whatever task awaited her the next day, she would reach out to demand he do anything necessary to expedite Joseph’s freedom. And she would be there to help.
SEVEN
Ava
The PVDE did not come for Ava, but nor did her neighbor return after his arrest. The next day stretched into one week and then another and then another still. Unfortunately, no movement ever came from the apartment across the hall.
Light caressed her shutters, squeezing in through the cracks to inform her of the coming of dawn. Before she even so much as dressed, she crept to her front door and glanced out the peephole as she did every morning and strained to listen.
Yet again, no sound came from her neighbor’s apartment.
There was an aching need in her to ask after him. However, the fear of having her folly laid bare, especially to the likes of Mr. Sims, made her hold her tongue. Her boss’s foul disposition had not brightened in the past weeks of their acquaintance despite her finally realizing what necessary publications were being sought after by their department to aid the war effort.
The stillness of her apartment was maddening and worried at a thread of guilt she could not cut away. For the first time since having read Crime and Punishment, she now had a modicum of understanding how Raskolnikov’s fugue state could stem from the burden of his misdeeds, chipping away at the back of his logical mind until he was desperate to tell someone.
Anyone.
Even the likes of James.
Ava straightened away from where she leaned over the peephole. James hadn’t been about since that first day, and she longed to inquire as to any suggestions he might offer in unearthing her neighbor’s whereabouts. And just how culpable she was in his disappearance. However, now that she actually wanted to see James, he was nowhere to be found.
With a resigned sigh, she backed away from the door and readied herself for the day. In her time in Lisbon, she had fallen into something of a routine with her morning list of tasks and set out into the city with a messenger bag slung over her shoulder for her literary haul. The PVDE’s curiosity in her faded several days after her neighbor’s disappearance, having finally lost interest in her boring habits, and she did not mourn the absence of her unwanted entourage.
She approached the kiosk near her apartment first and waved at the young man behind the counter. “Bom Dia, Alfonso.”
The newsstand owner grinned at her and asked how she was doing in Portuguese. It was with him she practiced her fledgling grasp of this new language. Her answers still came out slowly and with great concentration as happened with a new tongue, but experience taught her that once those new words began to seep into her thoughts, fluency would soon follow.
Not only did Alfonso let her cut her teeth on her rough Portuguese with him, he also saved the best papers for her. Like many in Lisbon, his memory ran far back to the Great War when Portugal had not been neutral, and the Germans were their enemy. A Royal Air Force pin glinted beneath the lapel of his jacket when he leaned forward, a show of support for the Allies that many wore, though not all had to hide it from their patrons as he did.