Not, she didn’t think, a very dangerous message, since the protégé was already safely out of France. A trial run. But the woman wept with relief.
WITHIN TWO WEEKS Nanée was on the trolley for her thirteenth delivery, and on October 13 too, shrugging off the sense she ought to pull the plug this time. Was it just superstition? She chanced a glance at the man she thought had been following her all the way from the CAS office—watching the office or watching for her; it didn’t much matter which. This message was for two refugees in strict hiding, the police far too interested in the couple for them to risk being found. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs, feeling the man’s gaze on her, watching despite the inconspicuous gray trench coat she wore over her secondhand skirt. No, it wasn’t just any man’s admiring glance at a woman’s legs. She wasn’t mistaken. He was definitely following her.
If she had a little more nerve, she would manage to casually chat with him, to charm him. Put him off his guard. But she did have a plan.
She watched out the trolley as they reached the outskirts of Marseille. Varian hadn’t yet sent her on a delivery to the Panier, but she’d ridden this route to Prado Beach so many times now that she knew every stop and doorway. She had managed to deliver every message Varian entrusted to her, and this one was urgent. Urgent good news. Not the best news. She never did get to bring the very best news: that someone was to be included in the next small group headed to the border. She liked to imagine doing so. She liked to imagine whispering through one of those cracked doors that it was someone’s turn to escape. Would they throw their arms around her, or would they be so terrified now that the moment was upon them that they might begin to change their minds? She liked to imagine leading the mad dash over the border to Spain too, but only those directly involved in the convoys were allowed even to know when they were going, and that wasn’t a task with which Varian entrusted her.
The trolley passed her stop, but she stayed on. She saw in her peripheral vision the man still watching her. She pretended to be absorbed in reading her book—Gussie’s lucky book he’d loaned to her since it was her thirteenth delivery, and on October 13.
She had nothing incriminating on her, she reminded herself. The man might take her in for questioning, but anyone in the Vichy police would be daunted by her American passport. No one wanted to be the one whose actions toward an American might be the excuse for Roosevelt to shrug off the thin veil of neutrality and join the British in fighting this war. Roosevelt wouldn’t, of course, make any decision based on what the French did or didn’t do to Nanée—but what was logic in a war that began with a phony Polish attack on a German radio station, staged by Hitler’s thugs so they had an excuse to invade?
After the trolley had completed its next stop, just as it was setting off again, she closed the book and hopped off as if just realizing she was missing her stop.
The tail, caught off guard, had to negotiate around a stout woman with shopping bags.
Nanée used the distraction to duck into the doorway she’d been waiting to pass.
Had the tail managed to get off? Had he seen where Nanée had gone? She chanced a peek around the edge of the portico. He stood in the street, searching as the trolley clanged away.
A woman from the trolley lumbered away down the street, briefly greeting a teenage boy who continued in Nanée’s direction.
Nanée stepped farther back, watching the trolley tracks.
The boy appeared in her view, just feet away. He continued on a few yards, then stood waiting at the stop for the trolley to downtown Marseille.
After a moment, the boy, sensing Nanée’s presence, glanced back over his shoulder. She fumbled for her keys as if she lived there, hoping the man tailing her wasn’t looking in the boy’s direction. Hoping he might have gone the other way.
She heard the clang of a trolley coming from the other direction, bound back to Marseille center.
She listened to the grind of it slowing.
Watched it pass her.
Watched it stop, the entire trolley now in her view.
Watched, still from her hiding place in the doorway, as an old woman with a young girl got off.
The boy alone got on.
She heard footsteps, now hurrying toward her just as the trolley began on its way again.
She ran for it. Hopped on just in time.
Too late for the tail to catch the trolley.
She did not look back. She didn’t wave to him, tempting as that was.
At the address, finally, Nanée gave the code knock, two, three, one, at a hotel room door. It opened slightly.