Fourteen

Elaine

Elaine found Manon sitting on the cushioned seat at the piano, her slender fingers resting on the keys without playing. As if the instrument no longer gave off music. Or perhaps it was the woman who'd lost the melody.

"Manon?" Elaine stepped lightly into the room to avoid startling her.

Manon removed her hands from the piano. "I did not expect you for some time."

"I need to speak with you."

Manon turned on the bench to face Elaine. Her dark eyes seemed larger than usual, her cheeks hollow beneath her sharp cheekbones. There was always a fragility about the woman, but suddenly she appeared immensely delicate, susceptible to being swept away by the slightest whisper of wind.

Perhaps the conversation should not be had after all.

"What is it?" Manon asked.

Elaine's tongue went still with indecision.

"Do you need my help?" Manon indicated she should take a seat on the plush blue velvet settee. "Whatever it is that is on your mind that you are struggling to say, I want to know what it is." Despite her wan appearance, her voice was strong.

Elaine obediently settled on the sofa without leaning back, and the words dislodged from the stubborn place in her chest. "I've met a mother and son who are without a home at present. Yours would be more suited for them than other safe houses." Elaine gave a regretful smile. "I know that means I will give up my place here with you, but I think it better for them."

"You may stay as well," Manon offered. "The couch—"

"I couldn't add to your risk or theirs."

Manon gave a small, thoughtful smile. "It is considerate of you to put them first. They can come, of course."

"They are Jewish," Elaine said. "The boy..."

Manon nodded. "I understand."

"It will place you in more danger than previous guests."

Manon exhaled a bitter laugh. "Danger."

Her reaction took Elaine aback somewhat. "The child might be loud..."

The brief mirth slipped from Manon's face as she turned to the piano, studying the display of photographs. "It will be good to have a child here again."

The statement was made more to herself than to Elaine. Still looking at the pictures, Manon continued in a thin voice. "Did you know I had a son?"

Had.

Elaine couldn't help but glance up at the portraits where a black-and-white Manon leaned her head toward the dark-haired man, and another where a baby gazed out with large eyes and a dimpled smile. War was unkind to all, but mostly to the vulnerable.

"Is that him?" Elaine asked, breaking the weight of silence that settled between them. "Your son."

Manon lifted a small palm-sized frame from the piano. "Yes." With slow and gentle care, she ran a finger down the image. "My husband was killed at Dunkirk shortly after I discovered I was with child."

Part of Elaine felt she was not worthy of this story, and yet another part of her wondered if the telling might be something of a balm to Manon's soul.

"When Claude was born, I devoted myself to him," Manon continued. "He was the only piece I had left of the man I loved so dearly." She went quiet for a while, but Elaine did not press her, content to let the conversation fade away if that was Manon's wish.

Manon sighed, as though it hurt to breathe, a discomfort with which Elaine had become personally acquainted.

"One day I was baking and needed a small pat of butter," Manon eventually said. "A friend in the next building and I often shared our limited goods. Claude was sleeping, so peaceful and precious that I did not want to rouse him for such a short trip. After all, I only planned to be gone for a few minutes at most. I left him."

The frame shook in her hand before she gingerly settled it in her lap. "When I went to see Georgette, she wasn't there, but the Germans were. Apparently, she was with the Resistance and had been caught. I was arrested as an accomplice."

Elaine held her breath, not wanting to learn the rest of the story, but unable to tell the other woman to stop.

"They refused to accept my innocence, no matter how I beseeched them." Manon's tone went flat, the way one did when they separated from all emotion. For survival. And it was no wonder when she continued. "Rather than helping me, they slapped the cell bars with their truncheons and ordered me to be silent. When they finally released me, my arms and hands were bloodied and bruised from beating on the doors of my prison. My voice was gone from crying to be heard. My shirt..." Her words caught. "My shirt was stiff with the wasted milk my body produced for my sweet son." She cradled the picture of Claude's happy visage. "They kept me for nine days."

Elaine drew in a sharp gasp and tried to cover it with her hand. But there was no hiding her shocked reaction to such horror.

Manon shifted her focus from her son's photograph to the blank wall in the distance. "When I returned home, I stood in front of my door for over an hour before bringing myself to enter. I already knew it was too late for him."

"I'm so sorry," Elaine whispered. She wished for a more insightful response, something that might be of better comfort. But there was no balm for a wound such as Manon's. Nothing could ever heal what had been so violently ripped away.

When Manon looked up, her eyes were no longer flat pools of black, but now flared with more spirit than Elaine had ever seen in them. "I joined the very Resistance they erroneously persecuted me for belonging to, and I do not worry about danger. I have nothing left to lose. If it were not for my faith, I would have joined my husband and son months ago." The blaze of her expression waned, as energy did when it burned bright and was gone just as quickly. "Perhaps this boy will be another chance for me. To save what I could not with my own."

She looked down at the picture once more, lost in her thoughts. Elaine rose and put a hand on Manon's bony shoulder. The other woman did not stir.

Her story stayed with Elaine for the rest of the day and would remain with her for her entire life. Now, however, she was glad she had spoken to the other woman and hoped that in helping to save Sarah and Noah, Manon might also perhaps save part of herself.

When Elaine returned to the warehouse, she found the print room in full production with preparations for the latest paper. Antoine was hunched over the desk, his focus as sharp as the point with which he sketched in his artistic hand over the metal. Marcel fluttered over the printing presses like a mother hen, and Jean sat at the table where Elaine occasionally worked with the Roneo, little Noah in front of him.

Jean covered his eyes with his hands, then threw them back to reveal his face, his smile exaggerated like a performer at a fair. Sarah was at Noah's side, gazing down at her son as the boy stared up at Jean with wide, hazel eyes. Every time Jean uncovered his face, Noah's mouth would lift with the slightest hint of cautious joy.

The sight was bittersweet. The effects of war were everywhere in Lyon and the children were not unaffected, the wondrous shine of youth buffed away by the oppressive Nazi occupation.

"I found some bread and a tin of sardines," Elaine announced as she joined them. "As well as some Jerusalem artichokes and rutabagas."

Noah sat upright, no longer interested in Jean with the prospect of food.

Elaine handed her basket to Sarah. "I also found a safe place for you to stay. The woman is quiet, but kind, and her home is welcoming."

Sarah nodded her thanks.

"I am trying to do what I can to find a way for you to get to America," Elaine said in a low voice.

Sarah closed her eyes, her face relaxed in gratitude. Noah tugged at the rim of the shopping basket in an attempt to see what was inside, almost tipping the precious contents. With a patient laugh, Sarah swept it away from him and pulled her son into her arms, carrying him off to the kitchen.

Together, Elaine and Jean watched the two exit the warehouse, Sarah's footsteps drowned out by the cacophonous humming and banging of the automatic printing press.

"I'd like children someday," Jean said wistfully. "To get married after this war."

"With a certain blond," Elaine teased.

A flush blossomed over Jean's young face.

"I want to help Sarah and Noah," she said, her tone serious. "They need to be in America, to have their family reunited."

A doubtful look crossed Jean's face, much in the way that clouds blocked out the sun.

It was an impossible request that she was aware would take an act of God to set into motion. "Sarah hasn't seen her husband in two years."

"A lot of women haven't seen their husbands in that long." This was said with a somber sympathy reflected in Jean's bright blue eyes.

"Yes, but she actually stands a chance of getting to him and would be safer in doing so," Elaine said, surprised at how the truth of those words cut her. "Perhaps I am truly considering it because of my own husband."

The door to the warehouse squealed open, and Josette scuttled through the opening. Even from a distance, she appeared diminutive, her shoulders tucked forward as if silently willing to shrink herself into nothing.

Elaine went to her friend and fought to swallow her gasp of surprise. Josette's collarbones thrust out from her pallid skin like twigs, and the small gold crucifix seemed to droop an inch lower.

"Have you been ill?" Elaine asked, not embracing her for fear of breaking her.

A tic near Josette's right eye quivered. "No." She worked the corners of her mouth up in an unconvincing smile.

Elaine couldn't help but stare in horror. "What's happened to you?"

"I've been nervous lately." Josette's hand tightened around the basket handle, as if forcefully keeping herself from bringing her ragged nails to her lips.

"Perhaps taking some time off—"

"No." Josette protested with such vehemence, her voice cut over the clatter of the printing press and called the attention of Jean, Marcel and even Antoine. Her gaze slid around the room, and she lowered her head with a shake of self-castigation.

"My neighbor was taken last night for harboring Jews, as well as those they were hiding," Josette said, her volume conversational again. "Every day we aren't doing something means more people are condemned to arrests and work camps."

Work camps.

The words always snagged at a wounded place in Elaine's heart and made all the worry for Joseph bubble forefront in her mind. Despite Etienne's constant promise to unearth information, no news was ever forthcoming.

Josette pulled an envelope from the false bottom of her basket, a slight tremor to her hands. "I must deliver this to Marcel, then I'm meeting Nicole back at the apartment."

Elaine nodded and took the item from her friend. "Take care of yourself. Please."

Josette's head bobbed in agreement, but the slide of her stare to the floor told Elaine the other woman wouldn't heed the warning.

"And give Nicole my love." Elaine embraced Josette gently, feeling nothing but fragile bones beneath her friend's gray coat.

Marcel approached as Josette strode away. "What do you think of her?" It was the same question he asked before.

Only this time, Elaine couldn't bring herself to remain silent. "I'm worried." She handed the item to Marcel.

"I am too." He didn't look at the envelope, but instead continued to study the door Josette had departed through.

Elaine left him to his delivery and went to the automatic printing press. The machine whirred with the flashing of papers, the spinning of gears and metal arms that reached and grabbed and shifted. Her own thoughts were precisely the same: in constant motion, flexing around worry and concern. For Josette whose composed nature was unraveling like a sweater with a loose thread. For Sarah and Noah who understood the poignancy of loss and the fear of losing more. For Manon and the pain of what she endured. For Joseph and how little information Elaine possessed of his location or health.

Perhaps being so lost in her thoughts kept her from noticing Etienne walk into the room.

"Elaine."

She startled at the voice beside her.

The tip of Etienne's nose was pink, his eyes bloodshot. "I need to speak with you."

A low rattle of fear vibrated through her.

Rather than share his news there, he led her to the back door where the prior evening, Sarah and Noah had slipped inside the warehouse. Elaine's knees went so soft, she worried she might slide to the floor before making it out onto the terrace.

Outside was a beautiful October day without a hint of a breeze to disrupt the crisp air as the sun streamed down through puffy white clouds. It was the kind of weather Elaine would have noticed and appreciated on any other day. Now, all she cared about was what Etienne had to say and what that meant for Joseph.

"Elaine." Etienne swept his battered old fedora from his head and clutched the brim with a white-knuckled grip.

"Oui?"How the word made it past her lips she'd never know.

"It's Joseph." Etienne's brows drew together with the intensity of one in deep concentration. As though he couldn't quite figure out what to say.

Elaine nodded for him to continue, not trusting her own voice.

He let out a shaky exhale. "I am so sorry to give you this news..."

Her stomach plummeted to the ground. She shook her head and backed away, not wanting to hear the rest. If she didn't hear, she couldn't know. And if she didn't know, it wouldn't be real. There might still be a chance that Joseph lived. There might still be hope.

Etienne reached for her. He stank of stale cigarettes and desperation and regret. "Joseph is dead."

A blast of bitter wind swept through the terrace in that moment, upsetting the amber-colored leaves of the plane tree so they tumbled and scraped against one another.

Elaine clenched her hand into a fist and looked up at the long branches stretching into the sky overhead. The lush green foliage had faded to an autumnal gold. Another season passed with more to come, on and on in its endless cycle.

But Joseph would have no more seasons. He wouldn't witness the splendor of the world shifting into the myriad colors of the year, or feel its temperature rise and dip.

Just like he wouldn't be there to put his arm around her in a crowd of people to keep her from being jostled or prepare her coffee while she lazed just five minutes longer in bed.

There were so many times his stare went distant in the comfortable quiet moments between them. She swore his mind was made up of a complex series of cogs and gears that clicked through problems with a mechanical precision. Never again would she witness that familiar, scholarly gaze and wonder what world-changing dilemma he was internally solving.

He was a beacon of knowledge and in an instant, all the brilliance and intelligence was snuffed out like a flame, leaving not even a curl of smoke in its wake.

All that remained was a broken heart.

Hers.

"Elaine," Etienne said in a hoarse voice. "I'm so sorry."

In looking at him, her rage found its target. Grief carved deeply at Etienne's haggard face, his shoulders sloped with defeat, a soldier who'd lost his comrade.

But in that moment, when the pain of her own loss blistered her insides and left breathing difficult to drag through her aching chest, she could not summon sympathy for him. Not when she had trusted him to free Joseph from Montluc so long ago.

"Was my message delivered to him?" Anger edged her words like a weapon.

His expression was one of helplessness that tugged somewhere deep in the raw ache of her soul. "I have no way of knowing if he received your note. I can tell you that I called in every favor I had to make it happen."

Words had power.

She learned that from her fateful last fight with Joseph, painfully realizing that words spoken could never be taken back—words that no longer would be made right with an apology. The mistake was one she would not repeat even as the invective rose in her throat like bile.

He had failed Joseph. While Joseph was beaten by Werner, Etienne walked free. He left his best friend to die.

She almost choked as she swallowed down such bitterness. However, her refusal to lay such heavy accusations at his feet did not mean she would offer him forgiveness.

Instead, she put her back to Etienne and returned to the warehouse, her body numb and her heart on fire. Somehow, she managed to stay her tears. Deep down she was fully aware that when they did come, they would be like a dam breaking, flowing out in an uncontrollable wave that would be impossible to hold back.

Her actions were wooden for the rest of the day as she coordinated efforts to have Sarah and Noah settled at Manon's. Elaine brushed aside concerns for her well-being as she resumed her work. The men skirted around her, their concerned gazes flicking to her periodically as though they expected her to topple.

There were many moments she suspected she might as well.

No matter what task she set upon, her thoughts were of Joseph. From the times they strolled along the Rh?ne at night with stars dotting the sky like flecks of diamonds, to the countless mornings she kissed him goodbye as he left for work. With heavy regret, she also recalled when she had stopped that simple spousal affection after their fighting brought their marriage to its knees.

When the day began to darken into night, Marcel approached her. "Go to the back room, Elaine. Get some rest."

"I'd like to keep working," she replied numbly. "Being busy has helped."

Empathy showed in his eyes, so poignant it almost cracked the fragile shell of her composure. "If you think it will help," he said slowly, clearly not in agreement with her. "But only tonight."

Such kindness tugged at a guilty thread in her conscience for what she was about to do. She gave an obedient nod to Marcel, who pushed his arms into his jacket and picked up his hat, the top of his dark fedora pinched between his fingers, still hesitant.

"I'll be fine," she assured him.

He tossed a final, worried look her way, settled his hat on his head, and exited the room. Several long seconds later, the front door to the building slammed closed.

She was alone.

There wasn't a second to waste. She pulled out a piece of paper and immediately set to work to puzzle through the code, using the poem in circulation among Resistant that week: "Mignonne allons voir si la rose" by Pierre de Ronsard. That done, she went to the Linotype Machine Jean had been instructing her to use and painstakingly plucked at the keys, retyping an article on the bombing of nearby factories. Only this time, she slid the code into words, intentionally misspelling them.

The effort took a considerable amount of time on the strange keyboard. With lower letters on the left, capital on the right, and all the spacing and punctuation in the middle, it would likely be an age before she typed without looking or achieved a speed like Jean's.

The metal slugs with the lines of text slid down from the machine and cooled while she adjusted the printing sheet. Her pulse roared in her ears as she worked, carefully removing the previous verbiage and fitting the changed ones into the same space.

She readjusted the printing plate into the automatic press as it hummed to life and the papers spun their way through the ink. The first completed page settled onto the tray, followed swiftly by others. She picked it up and scanned the contents, confirming the final product to be exactly how she envisioned. Once the misspelled words were identified and the code broken, her message would be read as:

Jewish mother and child need transport to America.

It was stated as simply as she could word it. Members of the Resistance would know where to go to offer their aid. Marcel would, of course, be incensed by her direct disobedience, especially at the flawed words to the casual observer.

Elaine turned her thoughts to Joseph, to how many Jews he saved by changing their identity cards. And she recalled the woman she had given her own to, who now carried Joseph's surname.

In her husband's absence, Elaine continued on in the fight he had sacrificed everything for. And though she was aware he hadn't wanted her to be in the Resistance, he would have been proud of her.

That thought wrenched at her heart.

A tear plopped onto the page. The fresh ink sucked into the droplet, obliterating the careful lettering and turning her tear a murky black. It was followed by another and another still.

Elaine's legs were suddenly too weak to hold her upright. She folded to the floor beneath the weight of her profound grief, the pain exploding inside her too unbearable to endure. The walls holding back her sorrow became tenuous, and the dam collapsed as she yielded to the agony of a broken heart.