had a job to do.
Verdun.
So she huddled against the floor weeping as German boots moved uneasily about her. The soldiers stared and murmured, which Eve ignored because of course Marguerite understood no German past ja and nein. Her every screaming nerve focused on the next room where there was no sound—none at all—from the leader of the Alice Network.
They won’t know she’s its leader, Eve thought harshly. They don’t know what a prize they have in her. But she still saw a nightmare image of Lili shoved up against a wall like Edith Cavell. Blindfolded, her hands bound, an X marked on her bosom for the guns to aim at. Lili crumpling to the ground, probably still smiling.
No, Eve screamed inside, but she knew how to use her own horror, how to let the image bring another flood of tears. Tears and abject helplessness would help more than any show of courage. No one feared a helpless, weeping girl.
It wasn’t long before a policeman came, and with him a grim-looking woman in green serge whom Eve recognized. She frequently assisted at German checkpoints, a merciless bitch Lili had nicknamed the Frog for her green uniform and greedy padlike fingers as she searched people’s belongings. She looked down at Eve now, hard-faced, and barked out one word in French. “Undress.”
“H-h-here?” Eve rose, swollen-eyed and hugging herself, shrinking away from all the curious men. “I c-c-c-c—”
“Undress!” the Frog snapped, but the policeman looked vaguely ashamed and ordered the soldiers out. Eve was left alone with the Frog, who started wrenching at her buttons.
“If you’re carrying messages like that other bitch,” she warned, “I’ll find them and it’ll be the firing squad for you.” She stripped Eve’s shirtwaist off, showing the frayed chemise underneath, and Eve loosened her own skirt with clumsy fingers. This cannot be real. She was just putting on this skirt a few hours ago before the dying fire in René’s chamber, as he wrinkled his nose at her underclothes and said, “You look like a charity-school wretch, my pet. I’m getting you a proper chemise, something with Valenciennes lace . . .” Eve was swamped by a wave of dizziness and promptly went with it, pitching over onto the floor as though fainting. She curled up, moaning faintly as the Frog stripped the rest of her clothes away and performed a humiliatingly thorough search. Verdun, Eve thought, eyes squeezed shut, as the woman’s hard fingers probed the undersides of her breasts and between her fingers and roughly through her hair. Verdun, she thought as her hairpins were yanked out one by one. Thank God she wasn’t carrying information around a pin this time . . .
It didn’t take long. Perhaps ten minutes, as the Frog searched first Eve’s body and then her clothes—her skirt hem for lumps, her shoe heels for paper slips. At last a sharp slap stung Eve’s cheek, and she opened her eyes, still leaking tears. “Get dressed,” the Frog said, looking disappointed.
Eve sat up, hugging her own nakedness. “C-c-can I have a glass of w-w-w-w—”
The Frog mocked her stammer. “Glass of what, my g-g-g-girl?”
“Water,” Eve cried, sniveling away, and could have kissed the bitch for her mockery. Let them think me an idiot. Just a stupid girl who let a stranger borrow her pass.
“Want water?” The Frog pointed to the glass of scummy liquid where the dressing soldiers had clearly dunked their toothbrushes. “Help yourself.” She left with a laugh at her own wit.
Eve dressed stiffly. On the outside Marguerite Le François trembled and shivered, barely functioning, while inside Evelyn Gardiner’s mind raced along like a high-speed train. She looked through to the next room, where the Frog was marching in on Lili, and was very much afraid she knew what Lili planned to do.
The Frog barked at Lili to undress.
You’ll resist, Eve thought.
Lili stood still as a pillar, refusing to move. The Frog seized the much smaller woman and yanked at her skirt.
You’ll keep resisting, Eve thought.
Lili struggled, but the Frog was stout and heavy-handed, and she wrenched Lili out of her clothes piece by piece. Lili stopped thrashing, but she didn’t cower in nakedness as Eve had; she held herself straight and stoic as the Frog patted her down. Every rib was visible, and the bones of her sternum jutted out like a ladder. So small. The Frog moved on to the pile of clothing atop the satchel, shoving the smaller woman so hard out of the way that Lili staggered, but her