will be pain, I warn you.” Her voice was brusque, officious, and Eve thought of Lili saying, The habit of nagging, let me assure you, goes with a nurse no matter what she does. Right now, Eve found it comforting.
Violette wiped down her instruments with something astringent. She cleaned her fingers with the same harsh-smelling stuff, and warmed the metal between her hands for a moment. “Doctors,” she said, “never warm their instruments. They don’t realize how cold the metal is on a woman’s parts.”
The laudanum was already making Eve’s head swim. The room blurred. Her body felt blunt and heavy. “Have you done this before?” she heard herself ask from a distance.
“Once,” Violette said brusquely. “Earlier this year—Antoine’s little sister, Aurélie. She works for us, escorting the couriers so the locals don’t get suspicious, and she got caught at night by some German soldiers looking for fun. Only nineteen, poor thing. Her family came to me when they found out the bastards left her enceinte.”
“Did she survive—this?” Eve looked at the instruments in Violette’s hands.
“Yes, and she went right back to work for the network afterward, good stout-hearted girl that she is.”
If she did it, so can I, Eve thought. But she couldn’t stop herself from flinching as she felt Violette’s hands part her bare knees, and heard her say, “Brace yourself, now.”
Despite Violette’s attempts at warming the instrument, it pierced Eve like an icicle. The pain, when it came, was sharp. “Lie quiet,” the order came, though Eve didn’t move. Violette did something, Eve didn’t know what, it all felt very distant. The pain bloomed then faded away again, bloomed and faded. Cold. Eve closed her eyes, willing it all to go far, far away from her. Lie quiet.
The instruments were gone. It was done, but it wasn’t done. Violette was saying something. “—will be some bleeding now. You don’t panic at the sight of blood, do you?”
“I don’t panic at anything,” Eve said through numb lips, and Violette smiled grudgingly.
“You don’t, I’ll say that for you. I first saw you, and I thought you’d go screaming home to your mummy within a week.”
“It hurts,” Eve heard herself saying. “It hurts.”
“I know,” Violette said, and gave her more drops of laudanum. Bitter. Why did everything in Lille taste bitter except what came from René? He was the source of rich food and delicious wine and warm cups of chocolat, whereas everything shared with Lili and Violette was bitter and vile. In Lille everything was upside down; evil was delicious and good tasted like gall.
Violette was taking bloody cloths away, replacing the pads under Eve’s hips and between her legs. “You’re doing well,” she said. “Lie still.”
Church bells rang outside, sounding evening mass. Did anyone go? Who thought prayer did any good in this place? “Lille,” Eve said, and heard herself quoting Baudelaire. “‘Its black enchantments, its hellish cortege of alarms, its cups of poison and its tears, its din of chains and dead men’s bones . . .’”
“You’re rambling,” Violette said. “Try to lie quiet.”
“I know I’m rambling,” Eve replied. “And I am lying quiet, you bossy bitch.”
“That’s gratitude for you,” Violette commented as she piled Eve with more blankets.
“I’m cold.”
“I know.”
And Eve cried violently. Not from pain, not from sadness. From relief. René Bordelon had no more hold on her future, and the relief brought tears like a storm.
By morning it was over.
Violette had a list of instructions. “You might bleed more. Keep plenty of cloth on hand, clean cloth. And take this for pain.” The little vial of laudanum was pressed into Eve’s hand. “I’d stay to keep an eye on you, but I’m scheduled to travel back to Roubaix today. There are urgent reports that need carrying across the border.”
“Yes.” They had a job to do, after all. “Be careful, Violette. You said the Fritzes monitored your last trip too closely.”
“I’ll travel a different route if I must.” If Violette was afraid—and no one in the network could help but be afraid now; the Germans knew there were spies in the region and the checkpoints had been hellish—she would never show her fear. Something she and Eve had in common. “Can you find a way to keep out of that profiteer’s bed for a while? You need time to heal.”
“I’ll tell him I’m having a bad monthly. He finds all that distasteful.” That would buy at least a week.
Violette pursed her lips. “How will you stop this from happening again?”