Marie
Paris, 1944
Five days. That was how long Marie had been in the cellar of the whorehouse. Marie looked around the tiny space, its dark, close confines reminiscent of the gardener’s shed where Julian had left her that first night. She lay her head on the filthy, perfumed-soaked pillow, too tired to care who might have used the creaky mattress previously. Her clothes were grimy and she could smell her own stench beneath them. Across the room there was a laundry basket, a bustier with the nipples cut out carelessly strewn on top. How, Marie wondered, had she gotten here?
After leaving Will at the Lysander, she’d started back through the woods. A few minutes later, she’d heard a rumble, low and deep. The bridge. She’d turned back, daring to stop only for a second to see the way the explosion illuminated the night sky. The detonation had worked after all. She felt a moment’s pride, quickly replaced by panic. The Germans would come swiftly after those they believed responsible. She had to keep moving.
Despite her promise to Will, Marie did not go immediately to the brothel in Paris. She needed to check the area for any sign of Julian. She had desperately wanted to return to the flat and try the radio again, but remembering his warning, she had not. Instead, she had gone back to the safe house where Julian had brought her the morning after she’d landed, hoping he might have gone there. But the château was deserted. The old library had been hastily abandoned, dirty plates still on the tables and spoiled food left out. There was a pile of ash in the fireplace where someone had burned papers. Marie put her hand on it, hoping it might still be warm. But the fire had gone out days ago. There were chairs overturned and she wondered if there might have been a raid by the Germans. It appeared the other agents had simply disappeared.
Marie made her way to Paris then, taking a train to the outskirts of the city. She spent the sleepless hours between darkness and dawn hidden in an alley so she didn’t get arrested for breaking curfew. The next morning she hitched a ride with a toothless lorry driver who was too interested in staring at her legs to ask questions.
At last, she reached the Left Bank, a tangle of narrow, crowded streets and leaning tall houses that seemed in itself the perfect place to disappear. If she’d had enough money, she might have stayed on her own and not gone to the unfamiliar brothel, as Will had instructed.
Finally she reached the whorehouse on Rue Malebranche and climbed the side stairs above the bistro. A woman no older than herself, wearing more makeup than she had ever seen, answered the door. “I’m Renee Demare,” she began, using her cover. “Will sent me.” She didn’t have any sort of password and she hoped that his name would be enough. There was a flicker of recognition around the woman’s eyes.
“Where is he?”
“He flew a plane back to London.”
“You should have gone with him. Things are very dangerous now,” the woman hissed. “I’ve had two other agents knock in the past day.”
“Who were they?” Marie asked.
“Agents from Montreuil, seeking shelter. I had to turn them away.” Marie expected to be sent packing as well. “I’m Lisette,” she added.
“I need a place to stay for the next six days until Will comes back for me.” Marie could see the woman calculating the risk, weighing it against whatever loyalty she owed to Will.
Finally, Lisette nodded. “Six days. No longer.”
Lisette led her down to the cellar. “One more thing,” Marie said. Lisette turned to her, arms folded. “Vesper didn’t return as expected. But we think he’s somewhere in-country. I need to find him.”
“Impossible,” Lisette snapped. “Do you have any idea what has happened out on the streets in the past twenty-four hours? More than a dozen agents have been arrested, and almost all of the safe houses have been discovered.” Marie thought back to the deserted villa. Had the other agents been arrested there? If the Germans had that location, they might know about her flat as well. She regretted then leaving her radio intact, lest they come looking for her and discover it. “And the locals who were helping have grown scared and started turning folks in. It’s a miracle you made it here,” Lisette added. “To start asking questions now would be suicide for all of us.”
“Please.” Impulsively, Marie reached out and touched Lisette’s arm. “You must understand—I didn’t fly out with Will because I need to find Vesper. I can’t simply sit here.”
But Lisette shook her head emphatically. “If you stay here, you must stay out of sight. Otherwise you will risk this location—and my girls.”
“Then I can’t stay,” Marie countered.
“All right,” Lisette relented finally. “I will make inquiries for you. But you must stay hidden.”
Marie wanted to argue that she herself had to go looking. But what chance did she have really, without connections or any link to the locals here? No, Lisette was her best and perhaps only chance of finding him. “Thank you,” she said finally.
“I’ll ask around for you. But don’t get your hopes up,” Lisette cautioned. “With all of the arrests, it’s all but over now.”
So Marie waited helplessly in the cellar for five days, her hope of finding Julian fading. Each night Lisette came back with nothing. No news of his whereabouts. Marie saw his face constantly, and she wondered where he was and whether he was hurt.
A creaking from above pulled Marie from her thoughts. Footsteps, too heavy to be Lisette’s. One minute passed, then another. Then silence. A cold sweat broke out on Marie’s skin. But the footsteps creaked again on the floor above, followed by a rattle and clink sound. She relaxed slightly. Probably Anders, the barkeep, setting out the clean glasses from the night prior. The whorehouse had a quiet rhythm during the day, silent preparations for the boisterous evening that always followed.
There was an unexpected, high-pitched ringing, the bells above the front door to the bar as it opened. Marie tensed once more. The girls all used the discreet back entrance and almost no one came here during the day. She crept up the stairs from the cellar and peeked through the crack in the door. Two gendarmes had entered the bar.
“Have you seen this woman?” Once of the policemen held up a photo. Anders’s expression did not change, but Marie knew without a shadow of a doubt they were looking for her.
Anders shook his head. “She isn’t one of our girls.” Marie prayed the barman would keep her cover.
“Marie Roux,” the policeman pressed. They knew who she was. But how?
“She isn’t here,” Anders said, and retrieved a bottle of expensive cognac from beneath the counter. “We’re closed,” he added, extending the bottle toward the man. Marie held her breath. Would the bribe work?
“We’ll be back tonight,” the policeman said ominously, taking the bottle Anders offered and starting back toward the door.
When the door had shut behind the gendarmes, Marie slumped against the door frame. But her relief was short-lived: hands grabbed her from behind and pulled her back into the cellar, nearly throwing her down the stairs. She struggled to escape the grasp.
It was Lisette, her face flushed with anger. “Idiot!” she growled, her voice angry and low. “What were you doing up there? Are you trying to get us all killed?” Marie searched for a good answer and found none. “Here.” Lisette thrust a piece of hard baguette at her.
“Thank you,” Marie said guiltily. She gobbled down the bread, not bothering with manners. She wanted to ask for water, but did not dare. “The policemen, they were looking for me. How could they possibly know who I am, or that I am here?”
Lisette shrugged. “They seem to know everything these days.”
“And you’ve still had no word of Vesper?”
“Non. I’ve checked with all my usual sources. But it is as if he never landed.” Or, Marie thought, perhaps he had somehow disappeared. “There’s no sign of him anywhere and the others are all gone. Perhaps he didn’t leave London.”
Marie shook her head. “He did. There was a broadcast saying as much.” Who knew how much of the transmissions could be trusted anymore? But that part at least seemed to ring true. Julian had come back for them but never made it. “I’m certain of it.”
“You love him, don’t you?” Lisette asked bluntly. Marie was caught off guard by the personal question from a woman she hardly knew. She prepared to deny it. But Lisette’s expression was a mix of sadness and understanding; Marie wondered who the girl had lost, whether it was before she turned to this way of life.
“Yes.” Love seemed a strong word for someone she had known such a short time. But hearing it aloud, she knew that it was the truth.
“Well, wherever he’s gone, there’s no trace. Things are more dangerous now than ever,” Lisette said in a low voice. “Three students at the university were arrested yesterday. And the dry cleaner who once made documents for us, gone.” Since coming to the brothel, Marie had been awed by the extent of Lisette’s network, the way she was able to use her connections to get information and help the resistance. But Lisette’s involvement only heightened the danger. The Germans were tightening the noose and it was just a matter of time until they figured out Marie was hiding here.
“Now that you have food, stay downstairs and out of sight,” Lisette ordered. “Or was there something more?”
Marie hesitated. Lisette had seen it in her before she had even seen it in herself. “I have to go,” she said.
“Go? But the Lysander isn’t scheduled for another day.”
“I can’t stay here anymore. I’m bringing too much danger to you all.”
“Where can you possibly go?”
“I have to go back to the flat.”
“You foolish girl, it isn’t safe now. And you are risking the lives of everyone who helped you if you are caught.”
“I don’t have a choice. My radio is still there. I should have destroyed it before I left, but when I decided to stay and look for Julian, I left it intact in case there was further word from London about him. Now that I’m going for good, I have to destroy it.” She waited for Lisette to argue further, but she did not. “Thank you for all you have done.”
Lisette followed her to the cellar stairs. “Godspeed. And be careful. Vesper would never forgive me if something happened to you.”
Marie stepped out, squinting in the daylight, the brightest she had seen in almost a week. She hesitated, wondering if it would have been wiser to wait until after dark. But getting around after curfew was even harder. And if she didn’t go now, she knew she might never leave at all.
She smoothed her hair, hoping her bedraggled appearance would not cause her to stand out. But the pedestrians here were students and artists, their clothes an eclectic mix. Then she started down the boulevard, taking in the sloping houses of the Latin Quarter. She passed a cathedral, its doors wide-open. The familiar musty smell of the damp, ancient stones filled her nose. Marie paused. Once, she and Tess had gone faithfully every Sunday, hand in hand, to Saint Thomas More in Swiss Cottage. Now she entered the church and fell to her knees, feeling the cold, hard stone beneath her. Prayer flowed from her like water, for Julian and the other agents who might still be at large, for her family.
A moment later, she stood and started for the door, wishing there was time to light a candle in one of the darkened naves. But taking the time to stop and pray had been frivolous enough. Instead, somewhat fortified, she pressed on.
It was midafternoon by the time she reached Rosny-sur-Seine. The clustered houses seemed tiny and claustrophobic after the teeming streets of Paris. But as she neared the safe house, a feeling of warmth overtook her. Somehow, in the weeks she had been here in the village, it had become her home.
There was no time for sentiment, though. As she eyed the shuttered café on the ground floor of the house, Marie’s doubts grew. She should not be here. She hurried across the street, nodding to the bookseller through the plate glass window of his shop. Had she imagined it, or was his expression more uneasy than usual? She paused before the safe house. The café on the ground floor was nearly empty, the Germans who frequented in the evening still sleeping off the previous night’s drink. The window shutters of the landlord’s flat on the floor above, usually flung wide-open, were drawn. She walked around the back of the house, then stopped again.
The back door was ajar.
Run, a voice inside her screamed. Instead, she studied the ground. There was thick brown dirt, creased like the sole of a man’s shoe, looking out of place on the stoop, which the landlady, Madame Turout, always kept so meticulously clean. The dirt was fresh; someone had been there within the hour.
Marie looked over her shoulder. She should turn around and leave, she knew. Will was right; coming back was too dangerous. But she could not desert the radio and risk having it found. She started up the steps.
When she reached the top, she pulled out the skeleton key and promptly dropped it. It clattered noisily to the wood floor. Hurriedly, she picked it up and tried again to insert it in the lock with shaking fingers. She slipped inside the flat, wondering as she did if she was too late.
The flat appeared as she had left it a week earlier, seemingly untouched. The gramophone containing the radio looked as ordinary as a toaster or other household appliance. Studying the radio, an idea came to her suddenly: she should send one quick last message to London, signaling to Eleanor that Julian was still missing and that she was coming home. Marie knew she should not linger here. But she had to try.
She put the crystals in and turned the dial. Nothing. Her body broke out in a sweat. It wasn’t going to work. She checked the back of the radio, wondering if someone had tampered with it. Everything she knew about fixing the wireless set ran through her mind. But there simply wasn’t time. She needed to go. And she couldn’t take it with her without attracting attention. No, if she couldn’t transmit one last time, she would simply destroy the radio so that no one else could use it. She reached for the iron pot she’d nearly used to wreck it a week earlier, raised it above her head.
There was a quiet knock. Marie froze. Someone was here.
She looked from the door to the fourth-floor window, wishing the tree outside was heavy enough to support her. But there was no means of escape. The knock came again. “Yes?” she managed, setting down the iron pot.
“Mademoiselle?” a high-pitched voice said on the other side of the door. Marie relaxed, recognizing the landlady’s seven-year-old son, Claude. “There’s a message for you downstairs.”
Marie’s heart lifted; could it be a message from Julian? “Moment, s’il vous plaît,” she said, setting down the pot. She closed the wireless case and picked it up, starting for the door. “Claude, would you please tell your mother…” she began as she opened the door.
Pointed at her chest was the barrel of a policeman’s gun.
“Marie Roux,” said the officer who was holding the gun. “You are under arrest.” A second milice pushed past her and began to search the flat.
She raised one hand to indicate surrender. With her other, she tried to set down the radio case behind the door. But the second officer kicked it with his foot.
“Easy,” his colleague admonished. He smiled coldly at Marie. “I’m told you’ll be needing that.”