The Last Time I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene [63]
The girl stared at the flowers the hungry way Claire used to stare at jewels, but she wouldn’t meet Claire’s eyes. These days no one met one another’s eyes. They still waited for the retribution to end. For the guillotine to drop.
At the Tuileries stop, two police officers came aboard the car. They walked down the aisle asking for identification. Claire slipped hers out and held it in front of her without looking up. After a moment, they passed on.
The air smelled of rain when she exited the subway at the Louvre station. Odette waited out front.
“Where’s Christophe?” Claire asked, not bothering to appear to be pleased.
“Nearby.”
“What? Worried I wouldn’t come if you used your own nom de plume?”
Odette shrugged, her lips pinched like her face ached. “You must understand why I pressed you to act.” She looked around. “Let’s walk.”
They strode side by side along rue de Rivoli, turned onto rue Perrault.
“We are in a war, Claire. I must sometimes act as a soldier, not as a friend.”
Claire nearly stopped at this. After Odette threatened her? “A friend?”
“Yes.”
Well, at least Odette sounded ashamed. The way Claire had saved their skins, she should be. “A friend who doesn’t act like one,” Claire said. “What would you call that?”
“Pained,” Odette said.
They turned to face a large church. An imposing bell tower, ornately carved stone colored soft pink against the cloudy sky. Gothic spires pointed out from the corners. An enormous stained-glass window overlooked the oversized wooden doors.
“Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois.” Odette motioned for Claire to step inside.
Claire led the way down the center aisle of small wooden chairs. Odette touched Claire’s arm and pointed toward a man sitting near the front, next to a thick stone column at the end of a row. It was Christophe. Kinsel. His head was bowed. Claire sat in the chair next to him, arranged herself on the braided fiber seat and held the flowers in front of her. Odette crossed herself and walked away.
Christophe opened his eyes and faced Claire. “Bonjour, Evelyn. I hope you are well?” He took the flowers and set them carefully on the seat next to him.
Claire held his gaze, kept a faint smile on her face. Pleasant, was what she called the expression, perfected by Madame. As if daring the recipient to offer something wonderful, with a warning not to disappoint.
“I am well, merci.” Then added as if an afterthought, “Of course we have lost a great deal of business, due to the latest unpleasantness.”
“Things will only get worse.” He stared at the golden cross in the nave below the windows. “There will be more attacks. More reprisals. Many innocent people will die. Nazi evil sets no boundaries.” He turned to face her, head on. “Do you know what is happening on the streets as we speak? A mass arrest of Jews. Why? In retaliation for acts against the occupying power. Thousands of people—thousands—are being pulled out of their homes. Taken away to Drancy. Nazis call the Jews vermin. What do you think will happen to them next?”
Claire shrugged, her chest heavy. When she was a child, her father drowned what he called vermin inside an old burlap bag in the cow pond. You don’t waste bullets on vermin, he’d said.
“Who is implementing this Nazi order? The Parisian flics,” Christophe said. Our police. “There was a time when we could believe this would pass. A few months perhaps, then our life as the French would return to normal. But the Nazis want to remake the world. There will be nothing left of our life. Join us.”
Claire ignored the ache in her throat. Christophe wasn’t wrong. But this life she had, like a spring bud, was so young, so fragile. “The risk—”
“Yes. Always. But we do what we can.”
“You are asking me to endanger the shop.”
“Your position there gives you access to what we need. It is necessary.”
Necessary. A good word. But then, Claire knew what was necessary. He was trying to get her riled up, as if she were a soldier before battle. But she knew what she fought for today. She made as if to rise from the chair.
“What do