“That’s settled, then.” Lili inspected her cigarette butt. “Damn. I’ve been saving this for a fortnight, and all I got out of it was two good puffs. I can’t tell you how I love this primitive life . . .”
Eve reached out, gripping Lili’s free hand. “Promise me you will be more careful. I worry about you.”
“What’s the use of worrying?” Lili wrinkled her nose. “Back in September, you know, I let the worrying get to me. I had a premonition of sorts, so strong I went to visit my family. I was convinced I had to see them while I could, one last time . . . When I left, I kept thinking, ‘It’s all over now; I’m going to be caught and shot.’ And nothing happened, nothing at all. Worry is wasted time, little daisy.”
Eve paused, choosing her words. “What if Violette is forced to give up your name?”
“Even if they force her to tell about me, they cannot find me. I’m a handful of water, running everywhere.” Lili smiled. “I’ll vary my routine, change my routes. I promise.” The smile faded. “Mustache is right about one thing: this won’t last much longer, of that I’m sure. There’s been a big push through Champagne; they’re sure to break through by the New Year. We’ve only to hold on a little while more.” Softly. “And then Violette will be released. If they’ll only give her a prison sentence—she can survive that.”
“What if it isn’t just a few m-months?” Eve had only been in Lille for a matter of months, but it might as well be an eternity. “What if this war lasts years?”
“Then it’s years,” Lili said. “What of it?”
What of it indeed? And neither of them gave any more thought to pleading their way home.
The news dropped into Eve’s ear just a few days later via Kommandant Hoffman and a pair of colonels, all well into their brandies. Not quite a nugget like the news of the kaiser’s visit, but important enough to make Eve’s ears prick up.
“You’re certain?” Lili was back on her rounds, having had new identity cards made in case her old names had been disclosed.
Eve nodded, perching on the edge of the rickety table. “The Germans mean to launch a massive assault in January or February of the new year. Confirmed.”
“The target?”
“Verdun.” Eve shivered slightly. There was something about the name of that place she’d never seen. A flat finality. It sounds like a killing ground. But it wouldn’t be if the generals were forewarned. Perhaps Verdun would mark the end to the killing.
“It’s a risk to you, passing this on,” Lili judged. Not all Eve’s information could be passed, not if acting on it might expose a leak in Le Lethe.
“This is important,” Eve answered. “It’s for information like this that we didn’t beg to go home.”
Lili weighed that, but finally assented. “I was already scheduled to meet Uncle Edward in Tournai in two days. You’ll have to come with me. For something like this, they’ll question us both, as they did for the kaiser report.”
Eve nodded. It would be over a Sunday; she’d miss no work. “Can you get an extra safe-conduct pass in t-time?”
“My contact hasn’t let me down yet, bless him.”
Eve gnawed at her thumbnail, already bitten to the quick. Perhaps it was Violette’s arrest, or perhaps the vicious cold of October, but she’d been fighting a wave of superstitious dread all week. Was Christine giving her a suspicious look at work, not just a scornful one? That German lieutenant who stopped talking so suddenly when Eve came with his coffee—was he aware she’d been listening? Had René, who had been so solicitous lately, sniffed out one of her lies and decided to lull her into a false sense of security before pouncing?
Get hold of yourself.
It was a late night with René that evening. He built a fire in his chamber against the cold and read À Rebours aloud to Eve, occasionally putting down the book to reenact some of Huysmans’s more depraved passages. Eve was more bored by depravity than titillated by it, but Marguerite was suitably wide-eyed and uncertain, and René seemed pleased. “You’re coming along nicely, pet,” he murmured, running a fingertip around her earlobe. “Perhaps we should retire to the country for a while, like Huysmans’s hero, eh? Somewhere warmer than Limoges where we can enjoy ourselves without all this Teutonic dreariness. Grasse is very pleasant this time of year. The smell of flowers comes on