Ten

Elaine

The days ran together as scenery did on a swiftly moving train. In that stretch of June becoming July, Elaine had no word of Joseph, but that didn't mean he left her thoughts.

Through all the newspaper drops and message deliveries and transferring of supplies to and from the Maquis, Joseph weighed on Elaine's mind, leaden with many regrets.

The foremost of which being the realization that she had put too much faith in Etienne.

If she had known she would not see Joseph until the war ended, she would have found a way to go to him while he was in prison. Or written a note that hid his culpability but still conveyed the depth of her feelings.

Now it was too late.

On one overly bright morning where the sun splintered off the Rh?ne like shards of glass, Elaine arrived earlier than usual at the apartment on Rue d'Algérie. A slight creak of the wood floors from inside announced someone had entered before her.

Etienne came to the doorway of the living room as she toed off her shoes. It was the first time they had seen one another since she'd learned that Joseph had been sent to the work camp. Silence burgeoned between them as the blade of grief cut through her.

He regarded her with a wounded, wary look. "Elaine."

"Did you find a way to send my note?" She didn't bother to hide the coolness of her tone.

"I put it through the channels I could."

"But you don't know if it was delivered."

He lowered his gaze.

Heat flashed in her cheeks, and her muscles tightened at the back of her neck. She should have known this would happen, but she had been foolish enough to cling to a thread of hope.

But, no, it was as she feared—as she ought to have expected. She walked around him to extract the typewriter from the hidden compartment in the wall and uncapped the case.

"I'll make this right, Elaine," Etienne said.

She glanced up. Now that she was closer, the exhaustion that bruised the delicate skin under his eyes was evident, as were the lines of his face, which had deepened since she last saw him. He was younger than Joseph, but now he looked older by several years.

"I know he was arrested by Werner, and I am poignantly aware of what that means." Elaine wanted to hurl the lid of the typewriter in an explosion of rage, but instead set it gently on the floor. "I wish you would have been the one to tell me."

Etienne blinked slowly, as if in pain. "I wanted to spare you such a detail."

"I want to be told everything," Elaine said through gritted teeth. "He is my husband."

Etienne nodded.

"Was he tortured?" She held her breath, dreading the answer and yet needing to hear it.

After a long moment, Etienne nodded again.

An ache knotted in the pit of Elaine's stomach with the confirmation of what she already suspected. She put a hand out to the table's surface, using its support to steady herself.

"Elaine, I'm sorry I could not—"

The door opened. "Bonjour," Nicole sang out. "I found bread yesterday and a small bit of cheese." Her entrance was followed by the clunk of her shoes being kicked off.

The time of Nicole's arrival allowed Elaine to compose herself as the other woman hastened to the kitchen to deposit the food before she joined them in the living room. She smiled at Etienne. "Ah, Gabriel. I expect this means you have a fascinating new task for us."

He gave one final look at Elaine and his features smoothed, ready to do business. "I do."

Once Denise and Josette were with them, Etienne explained that they would be transporting pieces of a printing press from several locations to a warehouse on 35 Rue Viala. The weight of the items was considerable and required the utmost care as one broken piece might render the machine inoperable.

They all listened intently, Josette chewing at her nails as he spoke. Once he had finished, he took his leave and did not try to pull Elaine aside privately again, leaving them to eat the food Nicole procured in peace.

Regardless of the messenger, the mission was one Elaine found herself eager to embark upon. Their efforts would help release more newspapers and tracts, which would garner more support for the Resistance. Like the leaflets sent out in March that attracted so many recruits that the Savoy Maquis went from a group of only two hundred and fifty men to over five thousand.

The greater their numbers, the higher the likelihood of a swift victory. And the sooner Joseph would be released.

The success of the tracts with the Savoy Maquis was evidence that words did have power, even against a force such as the Nazis. And Elaine anticipated the opportunity to do her part to encourage France to rise together and fight.

Explosives did not tax Elaine's shopping basket as much as the foreign roller object that lay crookedly against the woven side. The oblong shape reminded her of a rolling pin, though thinner and far heavier. It was concealed beneath several pathetically small carrots, a bundle of rutabagas, and as much bread as she was allowed to buy for the week. Or rather, as much as she was able to find. More often than not, they couldn't receive their full allotment due to limited stock.

This was the fourth item she had relocated from one of the three garages where the burdensome pieces were stored. The Grande-Blanche hospital came into view, meaning she was finally close. She adjusted the heft of her shopping basket from one hand to the other and tried to avoid leaning too hard away from the drag of her cargo. It wouldn't do to bring attention to herself, especially so near the destination.

Denise approached from the opposite direction with a pram that sagged deep into its frame. She shoved her burden toward the sprawling white building with "35" inscribed above the entryway.

Elaine rushed ahead to open the door for Denise who expertly maneuvered the buggy into the entry, the wheels protesting the angle with a high-pitched squeal.

"Printing plates," she explained.

"Where did you get the pram?" Elaine closed the door behind them, its bang loud enough to echo in the long, empty hall.

"It's mine." Denise's knuckles were white as she steered the teetering baby carriage toward the warehouse within. "I have a daughter."

Elaine's shock must have shown on her face for Denise scoffed. "Don't look so surprised. It is why I am fighting so hard against this occupation. I do not want my Sophie to grow up in this world without enough food and even less freedom, to be told her only purpose is to be a uterus and her husband's housekeeper."

"Does she stay with you?" The question escaped Elaine before she could stop it.

"She is with my mother." Denise stopped before another closed door, which Elaine also pushed open for her.

There were so many more questions Elaine wanted to ask, prying ones about how long it had been since Denise had seen her daughter or how painful the separation must be. But they all had enough bruising on their hearts to know better than to prod at tender topics.

As Denise passed through the entryway, she paused. "My Jacob is Jewish. Pierre created all of our papers, including the one that keeps my daughter alive and safe every day." The sharpness of her stare relaxed with unspoken gratitude. "My husband and child are not the only Jews Pierre has saved in these harrowing times."

Joseph had been a hero to so many. The understanding left a pang of longing in Elaine to have him back. His loss was palpable always, an ache that could never be soothed.

Denise navigated her way through the open doorway without another word, as though the entire conversation had never happened. But to Elaine, the admission made an indelible imprint upon her that she knew would remain forever.

A man with dark hair closely cropped against his head like a soldier squatted by a pile of machinery with a rag loosely held in his hand. Elaine recognized the parts he pensively surveyed as the various items she and the other ladies had painstakingly transported.

Some had been fitted together and rose from the ground like a skeletal demon, its dark bones glossy with an iridescent sheen of oil. The man stood as they approached and strode toward them, their footsteps all echoing in the vast empty space amid the grating screech of the overtaxed pram wheels. A deafening silence fell over them as they came to a stop.

Grease stained his fingers with its dark smears, and its odor hung thick in the air.

"I'm Marcel." He extended his hand, then grimaced and wiped at it with the dirty cloth. "Thank you for your help in relocating the printing press. I'm aware it is quite the arduous job."

Elaine examined the beast he was assembling. "No more so than building it, I assume."

He gave a self-deprecating laugh. "It will probably take a month or two to complete with so many components." He hefted the plate from Denise's pram. The baby carriage jolted up several inches, coiling tight its springs after the cumbersome strain.

Elaine relieved her basket of the roller instrument and carried it to the partially built mechanism, adding the object to the errant spread of machinery. Curious, she studied the beginnings of the printing press and considered where certain parts might go.

Marcel joined her. "You have experience with a Roneo?"

"That's correct," Elaine confirmed, wondering who might have told him.

"We have one here." He motioned to a shelf with various items stacked upon its wide surface. "If you'd be willing, I'd appreciate your assistance."

If she were enlisted to operate the Roneo, she could play a vital part in recruitment of new Resistance members. She would have a role in the implementation of those words that swayed the reluctant French who were in a state of misled hope—that there would be enough food this year, or sufficient fuel this winter, that the occupiers would leave them to their own devices. The more their disillusionment was countered with truth, the more willing they would be to help.

And with her skills, she could be an important component.

Without looking at Denise to gauge her reaction, Elaine nodded. "I would be honored to."

Josette entered the room with a man on either side of her. The taller of the two had auburn hair and appeared younger than the other by at least a decade, his strides lanky by comparison.

"Here is the location," the older man said to Josette in a cordial manner that went along with his dress. He didn't opt for the loose trousers and simple, button-down shirt as the other men, but instead wore a tailored suit, his bow tie perfectly straight and his hair parted severely to one side.

Josette gave a nervous giggle. "I can't believe I got lost after having been here several times already." From her basket, she withdrew a strange piece with a screw jutting from it and set the item beside the roller.

Her nails had been chewed down past the raw, pink area of her nail bed so the skin there burned with an angry red. Before Elaine could ask after her friend, the older man extended his hand toward her. "I'm Antoine."

Absent any grease on his fingers, Elaine accepted his hand with a firm shake. His pensive gray eyes regarded her with lingering consideration. "Pierre taught me everything I know about the stamping process on false papers. It's an honor to meet you."

Another mention of her husband.

If only Elaine could have known the Joseph with whom everyone else was so well acquainted. And yet to her, she was learning he was an utter stranger.

Elaine murmured her thanks and struggled to figure out what to say next when the taller man stepped forward. "I'm Jean. I do the typography here." Though he was young, the corners of his eyes were crinkled before he smiled, suggesting the happy expression was commonplace.

Marcel regarded Elaine. "If you're ready to begin with the Roneo, Jean can show you where everything is."

She hesitated in her surprise.

They wanted her to start so soon?

"I..." She cast an apologetic glance toward Denise, who seemed not at all bothered by the turn of events. "Of course."

Denise gave her a nod and departed with Josette, the latter of whom waved briskly in Elaine's direction.

Jean led Elaine across the room to the duplicator with his long-legged stride. Time had left a fine layer of dust sifted over the machine, rendering the surface dull. Jean hefted it from the shelf and placed it on a desk piled with enough paper to make them seem like a supplier.

While Elaine and the other women used small bits for their messages, she had never seen so much in this quantity, not with the ration in place.

"Where did you get all this?" Her fingertips skimmed the precious stack.

Marcel and Jean shared an amused glance. Mirth sparked in Marcel's green eyes. "We are the Bureau de recherché géodésiques et géophysiques."

A bureau of geodesical and geophysical research? Elaine arched an eyebrow quizzically at the two men and their impish grins.

"Or so the Germans think," added Jean. "Marcel registered—"

Nicole swept into the room, heels clacking, her outfit chic in her usual white and blue motif, a matching hat tilted rakishly over one eye as the silky blond curls at the ends of her hair bounced midway down her back.

Jean's mouth dropped open.

"The last time I lugged something about this heavy, it was a sack full of guns," Nicole called out jovially as she exaggerated the strain of her bag.

"Who is that?" Jean asked under his breath.

"That is Nicole." Elaine gave a knowing look at the besotted man, then indicated the Roneo. "Do you have the transfer sheets? And the fluid? And possibly a rag to wipe it down with?"

"Hmm?" Jean dragged his gaze from Nicole and his cheeks went scarlet. "Oui, of course." He opened a drawer, displaying a stack of rags. From a bin sitting atop the desk, he presented the two-page master. She separated the paper form with its script penned in a neat, block letter text from its waxy back, which she carefully affixed to the rolling drum, wax-side out.

"And fluid." He grabbed a tin from the shelf, the contents inside sloshing.

She took it with thanks and poured the methanol into the tank on the left side of the machine, its scent sharp and unmistakable. While the liquid gurgled its way into the wick, she scanned the paper used to create the necessary wax sheet. It was a call to the people of Lyon to gather at Place de la Croix-Rousse in the evening of the upcoming Bastille Day on July 14 and proudly bear the tricolor in defiance of their German oppressors.

Her heart thumped harder in her chest. She was a part of this compelling message.

After swiping away a layer of dust, she adjusted the paper into the feeder tray—a feature her own rustic machine never had. "How many copies?"

"As many as it will do."

The Roneo could produce almost five hundred sheets, but the ink on the printed copy gradually degraded with each pass so the run likely would fall somewhere closer to four hundred and fifty if they were lucky.

She grasped the handle, rolling it forward in the way that was as familiar to her as the acrid aroma of the methanol. "I'm going to need more paper."

Not only was Elaine proficient at running the mimeograph machine, but her ability to repair it with ease was especially welcome. So it was that she never resumed her work with Nicole, Denise, and Josette, though the absence of their constant companionship was felt keenly as the days turned into weeks and then a month.

They saw one another on occasion with deliveries, but visits were few and woefully far between. And through it all, Etienne had no further updates on Joseph.

In that time, Elaine continued to reside with Manon. Though never unkind, the woman seemed disinclined to engage with Elaine. Shrouded in her own solitude, she moved through the house like a specter, adorned in loose black dresses that accentuated the frailness of her slender body. Still, she always had a meal prepared for Elaine. Though the contents were meager, they were decorously waiting on a white plate painted with violets and delicate sunshine yellow roses.

The printing press's assembly was underway, the skeleton fleshed out into a powerful beast—a machine worthy of discrediting Nazi propaganda.

There was a second press—the Minerva—that did not require electricity to make it run, but rather the pumping of one's foot on a pedal at its base. It was a noisy thing once in operation, the ink plate thwacking against the blank page to imprint the text. Coordinated effort was involved as well, with the operator simultaneously stomping the treadle, removing the completed paper and replacing it with a clean, unprinted one.

Marcel operated the Minerva when he wasn't puzzling through the myriad remaining pieces of the automatic press, until at last it was complete. The thing sounded like the five-ton monster it was, huffing and chuffing and slamming against the backdrop of the Minerva's own thundering performance. Its noise was why the warehouse was set so far from Lyon's heart and within the massive building.

The orchestra of newsprint went on without stop throughout the day until their composition fell into the background. Only when an issue occurred did the production cease, rendering the silence off-putting as one abruptly missed the symphony of its operation.

Elaine and the three men found a comfortable rhythm in their routines, with Jean printing out text in blocks of metal slugs that had to cool before being touched and fitted to plates for the presses. Marcel hovered over the automatic machine in these first days, monitoring each printout with critical study before nodding to himself in approval and returning the paper back to its neat stack. Antoine was Elaine's favorite to observe as he worked over thin sheets of zinc with a sharpened tool, etching out images with the precise skill of an artist.

"We should run the story," Antoine said one morning when Elaine walked in.

"Absolutely not." Marcel kept his stare fixed on the printing press, apparently not in the mood to argue.

Antoine slipped a finger beneath his bow tie as if easing the pressure building there. "But it is news that Max—Jean Moulin—is dead."

Max was a code name Elaine knew—not through personal introduction, for she would never warrant as much with a man of his caliber, but he came up often in conversations and coded messages. He was the right-hand man in Lyon for General de Gaulle, the war hero who encouraged French Resistance from London. Max had been charged with uniting their different independent factions into one.

What did his death mean for the Resistance? For their future?

"Do you see her face?" Marcel nodded to Elaine with a hard expression. "If you tell France Max is dead, our people will be stricken too, and you will lose support, not gain more."

Elaine immediately schooled her features to mask her emotions, a lesson she would not forget. Even among friends.

"It is news," Marcel agreed solemnly. "But our job is to gather new recruits, not turn them away by informing them that General de Gaulle's most trusted man was tortured to death by Hauptsturmführer Barbie." He turned his attention to Elaine and spoke with a gentler tone. "Max was not the only man maintaining the networks in Lyon. We will endure."

"I hear he did not talk despite the brutal torture he endured." Jean's voice was soft with an awed reverence.

"Still, it is not a story that needs to be published," Marcel said with finality and walked away with a stack of fresh newsprint in his arms.

"Tortured?" Elaine asked through numb lips.

Jean nodded, brooding aloud. "It is true bravery and strength alone that keeps one from talking."

Like Joseph.

Could she be so strong? No matter how hard she concentrated, it was impossible to weigh her own fortitude against such an unknown scale.

"None of us knows how we would react," Jean said, as though he too were lost in the same macabre thought. "I think we all hope to be so valiant and pray we never have to find out."

He tucked his hands into his pockets, his long form bent over, as if walking into a hearty wind, and returned to the small office they used for creating false identity cards.

"Ma chérie,"Nicole's voice called out. She sauntered in with Josette at her side, their ever-present shopping baskets looped in the crooks of their elbows. Rather than go to Marcel, Nicole marched over to Elaine and hugged her. "How we've missed you."

Elaine squeezed Nicole's slim frame in return, noting the prominent outline of the other woman's ribs and vertebrae as she did so. No doubt Elaine felt the same in their embrace.

It was a reminder of the pervasive hunger that gnawed at their unfulfilled bellies and fogged their minds with weariness. In any event, seeing Nicole and Josette again was still a rare and wonderful delight.

Or at least Nicole.

Josette's youthful glow had dimmed to an unhealthy pallor in the time since Elaine had seen her last; even the luster of her brown curls seemed to have dulled. "It's good to see you," she said in a shy whisper, her smile tight.

The printing press churned in the background, and though Elaine was deaf to its clatter, Josette flinched with every bang.

"I trust these brutes are treating you well," Nicole said aloud and looked pointedly at the men in a mock threat.

"She's a fast learner." Antoine lifted his head from his art and offered a kind smile at Elaine. "We're glad to have her."

"I'm thinking of teaching her how to use the Minerva." Marcel indicated to the smaller press.

"Are you?" Elaine's pulse spiked at the possibility of moving beyond the small duplicating machine and her clerical duties. Printing wasn't done by women. But then, there were few men now to choose from. Why not a woman?

"I'll need to go to Grenoble soon." Marcel removed a stack of papers from the press and relocated them to the table where several others lay. They not only printed Combat, which was written by their team, but also Défence de la France for the southern region.

"Grenoble?" Nicole interjected. "Why, I've just come from there and have your stamps."

What she held in the wicker's false bottom was a precious treasure. The stamps were priceless in a time when rubber was so difficult to obtain and so integral. As each new stamp was introduced for travel passes and identity papers and everything in between, an inside contact who worked as a secretary in Lyon's town hall provided them with information to replicate the originals.

"You can bring them over there." Elaine pointed to the room where Jean had gone and smiled to herself as Nicole click-clacked her way toward him.

Elaine turned her attention to Josette. "Are you doing well?"

The printing press banged, and Josette cringed. "Yes." The smile she plastered on her dry lips was anything other than genuine. "Of course I am."

Despite her obvious attempt to nudge away Elaine's concern, Josette's nerves were raw, her fear so visceral Elaine caught its metallic odor over the pulpy, velvety aromas of ink and paper.

"Denise has gone to join the Maquis, so it's just Nicole and I now." Josette brought her hand to her mouth and nipped at the cropped nail bed with her front teeth, the action distracted and without thought.

Her behavior was distressing.

Elaine had never been much of a maternal woman, but found herself wanting to draw Josette into her arms and comfort her as one did a frightened child.

"And you are certain you are well?" Elaine pressed.

Josette chewed at the mutilated nail, saying nothing for the moment stretching between them. Elaine almost thought the other woman might offer a real answer in the silence, but then Josette nodded, her eyes squinting in a mock smile. "I'm fine."

She wasn't fine. Alarmingly so.

Nicole sauntered over to them, her lightened basket swinging in her hand. Elaine embraced her and whispered discreetly into her friend's ear. "Will Josette be all right?"

"I'll be sure of it." Nicole straightened with a bright smile, and the two were off to resume their work on messages for deliveries.

"What do you think of Josette?" Marcel asked after the women departed.

Knowing her reply might result in Josette being pulled from her duties, Elaine remained quiet. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not allow herself to be reassured by Nicole's glib response.

Marcel didn't press her, but narrowed his eyes slightly in thought, then shook away whatever was in his thoughts and waved for her to follow him. "Come, let me show you how to operate the printing press."