flushed with anger. “Idiot!” she growled, her voice angry and low. “What were you doing up there? Are you trying to get us all killed?” Marie searched for a good answer and found none. “Here.” Lisette thrust a piece of hard baguette at her.
“Thank you,” Marie said guiltily. She gobbled down the bread, not bothering with manners. She wanted to ask for water, but did not dare. “The policemen, they were looking for me. How could they possibly know who I am, or that I am here?”
Lisette shrugged. “They seem to know everything these days.”
“And you’ve still had no word of Vesper?”
“Non. I’ve checked with all my usual sources. But it is as if he never landed.” Or, Marie thought, perhaps he had somehow disappeared. “There’s no sign of him anywhere and the others are all gone. Perhaps he didn’t leave London.”
Marie shook her head. “He did. There was a broadcast saying as much.” Who knew how much of the transmissions could be trusted anymore? But that part at least seemed to ring true. Julian had come back for them but never made it. “I’m certain of it.”
“You love him, don’t you?” Lisette asked bluntly. Marie was caught off guard by the personal question from a woman she hardly knew. She prepared to deny it. But Lisette’s expression was a mix of sadness and understanding; Marie wondered who the girl had lost, whether it was before she turned to this way of life.
“Yes.” Love seemed a strong word for someone she had known such a short time. But hearing it aloud, she knew that it was the truth.
“Well, wherever he’s gone, there’s no trace. Things are more dangerous now than ever,” Lisette said in a low voice. “Three students at the university were arrested yesterday. And the dry cleaner who once made documents for us, gone.” Since coming to the brothel, Marie had been awed by the extent of Lisette’s network, the way she was able to use her connections to get information and help the resistance. But Lisette’s involvement only heightened the danger. The Germans were tightening the noose and it was just a matter of time until they figured out Marie was hiding here.
“Now that you have food, stay downstairs and out of sight,” Lisette ordered. “Or was there something more?”
Marie hesitated. Lisette had seen it in her before she had even seen it in herself. “I have to go,” she said.
“Go? But the Lysander isn’t scheduled for another day.”
“I can’t stay here anymore. I’m bringing too much danger to you all.”
“Where can you possibly go?”
“I have to go back to the flat.”
“You foolish girl, it isn’t safe now. And you are risking the lives of everyone who helped you if you are caught.”
“I don’t have a choice. My radio is still there. I should have destroyed it before I left, but when I decided to stay and look for Julian, I left it intact in case there was further word from London about him. Now that I’m going for good, I have to destroy it.” She waited for Lisette to argue further, but she did not. “Thank you for all you have done.”
Lisette followed her to the cellar stairs. “Godspeed. And be careful. Vesper would never forgive me if something happened to you.”
Marie stepped out, squinting in the daylight, the brightest she had seen in almost a week. She hesitated, wondering if it would have been wiser to wait until after dark. But getting around after curfew was even harder. And if she didn’t go now, she knew she might never leave at all.
She smoothed her hair, hoping her bedraggled appearance would not cause her to stand out. But the pedestrians here were students and artists, their clothes an eclectic mix. Then she started down the boulevard, taking in the sloping houses of the Latin Quarter. She passed a cathedral, its doors wide-open. The familiar musty smell of the damp, ancient stones filled her nose. Marie paused. Once, she and Tess had gone faithfully every Sunday, hand in hand, to Saint Thomas More in Swiss Cottage. Now she entered the church and fell to her knees, feeling the cold, hard stone beneath her. Prayer flowed from her like water, for Julian and the other agents who might still be at large, for her family.
A moment later, she stood and started for the door, wishing there was time to light a candle in one of the darkened naves. But taking the time to stop and pray had been