was to operate the radio from somewhere hidden away. Yet somehow in her first twenty-four hours on the ground, she’d become first translator, and now operative. She recalled then how Eleanor said the agents must be well trained in all aspects of the job because they might be called upon to do anything at any time, as well as Josie’s comment that they must do the work that was needed. This was her mission, or part of it, at least.
“I know you’re nervous,” Julian said, his voice softening. “Fear is always the first instinct—and rightly so. It’s what keeps us on our guard—and alive. But you must train it, harness it. Now go. Ask the owner if he has The Odyssey by Homer in the original.”
“How will that signal anything?”
“There’s a well worked-out series of questions we use to test whether someone is sympathetic to the resistance. We might ask a fishmonger if haddock is in season or the flower shop clerk about tulips. It is usually something out of season or hard to get.” He exhaled impatiently. “I really don’t have time to explain further. If he has helped before, he will understand the message.”
Marie started into the village, past an école with children playing in the yard at recess. The bookstore was just north of the square, a quiet storefront beneath a balconied home with a window box of withered poppies between open cornflower blue shutters. Librairie des Marne, read the faded yellow paint on the sign outside. Inside, the tiny shop was quiet, save for a boy browsing a rack of comic books. The air was thick with the smell of old paper.
Marie waited until the boy had paid and gone, then approached the bookseller behind the counter in the rear. He was a wizened man with a ring of white hair and spectacles that seemed to rest directly on his bushy moustache with nothing in between. She noticed then a decoration of the First World War on the wall. The bookseller was a veteran—and perhaps something of a patriot. “Bonjour. I am looking for a book.”
“Oh?” The shopkeeper sounded surprised. “So few people read today. Most just want my books for kindling.”
The bookseller looked so pleased at the prospect of actual business that Marie felt reluctant to disappoint him. “A volume of The Iliad in the original.” He turned toward the shelf behind him and started to rifle though the books. “I mean, The Odyssey,” she corrected hastily.
The bookseller turned back slowly. “You don’t actually want the book, do you?”
“No.”
His eyes widened. Clearly he knew the signal. “You can accept a package?” she asked.
He shook his head vehemently. “Non.” His eyes traveled across the narrow cobblestone street to a café. Seated behind the plate glass window were several SS, eating breakfast. “I have new neighbors. I’m sorry.”
Marie’s heartbeat quickened. Surely the Germans had seen her walk into the bookshop.
Pushing down her fear, she tried again. “Monsieur, it would be low profile. Just a letter box in one of the books. You wouldn’t even notice.” She did not mention the prospect of agents needing to hide in his shop, knowing it would be too much.
“Mademoiselle, my daughter lives upstairs with her son, who is not yet one year old. For myself and even my wife, I would not care at all. But I have to think of my grandchild.”
Marie thought of Tess back home in East Anglia. Leaving a child behind was one thing, but to have her right in the middle of the danger would be unbearable. She had no right to ask this of the poor man. She started for the door. Then she saw Vesper in her mind, waiting on the edge of the town expectantly. She could not fail.
“Monsieur, your assistance is dearly needed.” A note of desperation crept into her voice.
The bookseller shook his head, then walked from behind the counter to the front of the store and turned the sign in the window to Closed. “Adieu, mademoiselle.” He disappeared through a door at the back of the shop.
Marie paused, debating whether she should go after him. But she would not convince him, and drawing attention to herself might make things worse. She started out on the street, dejected. She had failed.
Marie walked from the shop, retracing her steps out of the village and across the low bridge. When she reached the place where she had left Julian, she did not see him. Had he abandoned her? For a moment, she was