Twelve
Elaine
The task of learning to operate the printing press proved to be far more complicated than merely rolling the great flywheel of the Minerva and pumping the foot treadle.
The ink needed to be dribbled just so over the flat, circular disk that fed the rollers. Then the placement of the paper on the platen had to be perfectly aligned where it would be stamped with the plate. Once completed, the paper would then be shifted to the delivery board and replaced with a fresh page. It was all a careful dance to coordinate at once.
Elaine’s movements were clumsy and slow at first, the shift awkward with paper slightly askew, the print either splotchy and dark or barely visible. But she was stubborn in her efforts, and over the course of the next several months, her body found a rhythm to the smaller of the two presses. Her feet and hands did their own sort of waltz, moving with alacrity and freeing her mind from being so diligently focused on the task.
Once she’d mastered the art of creating newsprint on the manual press, Marcel trained her on the operation of the automatic machine to tend to in his absence. The larger of the two machines, however, possessed a cold distance that never appealed to Elaine—not like the intimacy and skill of the Minerva.
It wasn’t uncommon for the light of day to dim into night, long past the curfew, rendering her unable to make her way to Manon’s. While arduous and taxed with work that followed her into her dreams, Elaine never begrudged the effort. She relished it, craving the need to put to paper the power of effective words and being part of something larger than herself.
Even sleeping in the small makeshift bedroom from a converted office on those long nights didn’t bother her. What she found disconcerting, however, was the quiet once the machines went still and one’s imagination was left to spin terrifying explanations for every pop and creak.
One night, as the cold seeped up through the concrete floors and the banging and whirring of the mountainous machine faded to a hum, indicating the final pages had been printed, silence sifted over the warehouse like freshly fallen snow. Elaine breathed a sigh of relief.
The agony of a pulsing headache lingered since that morning and still had not abated. While the sounds usually blended into the background, that day each slam of the printing plate seemed to strike against her tender skull.
Elaine turned the machine off and gathered the newsprint, careful not to hug them to the pressed front of her pale pink blouse. Ink did not come out easily, and soap was impossible to find. It was yet another one of life’s former conveniences once taken for granted, never appreciating what had previously been so readily available.
After setting the newspapers on the desk, the silence pressed at her, heavy and seemingly eternal. She cleared her throat to minimize its weight. The sound echoed back at her.
The room was cavernous, its emptiness threatening to swallow her whole. A shiver rippled down her back. She strode to the door, flicked off the lights, and made her way down the corridor toward the kitchen. A cup of roasted barley and chicory always calmed her before bed.
An audible thump carried down the hall.
Elaine froze.
The building was only sighing into its old bones, no doubt. Nothing to work into a panic over.
With a shake of her head at her own foolish paranoia, she pushed into the dismal little kitchen and put a kettle onto the stove to boil the water. Something down the hall banged, the noise audible over the gush of the faucet.
Elaine squeezed her eyes shut and hissed out a breath, refusing to let her mind play vicious tricks.
Then came a sneeze in the distance.
Chills raced from her heart to her skin so the small hairs on her forearms stood on end. No natural sound of a building settling could mimic a sneeze.
Antoine and Jean left several hours before, and Marcel was in Grenoble. Fellow Resistance members sometimes took shelter with them when safe houses were unable to be located, but in such an instance, Elaine and the others were notified.
To her knowledge, no one should be there now.
She quietly slid a drawer open and pulled out a butcher knife. The weapon would be ineffective against a gun, of course, but the heft of the cool handle against her palm offered some semblance of security. However false it may be. She toed off her shoes and crept toward the door, straining to listen in the silence for evidence of where the intruder might be.
A whistle pierced the air and made her startle with such force, she nearly parted with her own skin. Heart racing and hands trembling, she wrenched the kettle from the stove with her free hand and turned off the heat from the burner. The shrill cry immediately cut short.
It was too late. Whoever was inside would know exactly where she was. She crept out of the kitchen, her entire body tense as her brain screamed at her to run.
But where would she go? It was past curfew, and she was barefoot, her identity papers in her desk within the warehouse. Not to mention the damp chill as the October rains consumed Lyon. Outside, she would be even more vulnerable. At least in here, she knew where to hide. Or possibly sneak up on the intruder. If she could take the person by surprise, she might have a fighting chance.
She slipped down the hallway, her feet cold against the bare floor. The door to the bedroom remained closed, but a nagging suspicion told her the sound had come from there.
Adrenaline poured into her with such potency, nausea churned in her empty stomach. She forced herself onward, easing the door open so it moved soundlessly.
Weapon brandished, her heart pounding like a drum, she turned the corner.
A woman with dark hair pulled back from her face gazed up, a child cradled in her embrace. “Please.” Her arms tightened around the boy. “We have nowhere else to go.”
Caution prickled Elaine’s awareness. The press was not easy to discover, especially in a place where so many warehouses were abandoned, their stores depleted by the occupation.
Elaine scanned the room. “Is there anyone else here with you?”
The mother shook her head. “It’s only us.”
Elaine lowered the blade but kept it in her hand as a precaution.
“My husband, Lewis, is in America,” the woman stated, her stare fixed on the knife. “We are alone.” Her voice caught.
“Why did you come here and how did you get in?”
“We escaped.” She stroked a hand over her son’s dark hair and spoke in a gentle tone. “I heard the Gestapo at our door saying they had reports of movement in the home after the occupants left, where an older couple were keeping us hidden. We went out the back door and walked as far as we could. But when the curfew began, I panicked and climbed over the terrace wall at the back of the building. The door there was open and no one was around. That’s how we entered the warehouse...”
Elaine let out a slow exhale. Her foolish error could have been more disastrous. The noxious odor of grease and oil exacerbated her headache earlier, the fumes more than she could take with the press’s repeated banging. But she never suspected anyone would break onto the terrace, not with the neighborhood being so old and practically abandoned.
But then, desperation often led to impulsive decisions.
Both women watched one another with wariness. While Elaine had been drilled to always be vigilant, there was something innate in her that told her to trust this frightened woman. Her young child pressed against her chest nestled closer against the black outdoor coat the woman still wore.
At last, Elaine tucked the knife behind her, and the tension drained—mostly—from her taut muscles. “Have you had dinner?”
The woman swallowed. “Please, if you have just something for my son.”
“You may have some for yourself as well.” Elaine had seen too many starving women giving all their food to their children.
Still, the woman hesitated, her eyes wide and cautious, as obviously disinclined to trust as Elaine.
“I’m Elaine.” She waved for the woman to follow her.
The woman regarded her for a long moment. “I’m Sarah and this is Noah.” The little boy in her arms raised his head and blinked up with eyes like his mother—hazel and heavily lashed, his appearance angelic. Dark curls fell over his serious brow, and a crease lined one flushed cheek where he’d been sleeping against his mother.
He was small and thin, making it hard to place his age. Perhaps between two and four. Children were no longer plump with youth as they’d once been, their growth stunted by a lack of proper nutrition.
Sarah grasped Noah to her as she rose. He laid his head on her shoulder, more for comfort than weariness, his gaze alert.
Elaine led them to the kitchen. “Please have a seat.” She indicated the small wooden table that wobbled.
An old copy of Le Nouvelliste—the Nazis-approved publication for France’s public—was wadded beneath the shortened leg like a bit of trapped rubbish, its text ragged and torn from the sharp peg. Many people who purchased the newspaper did so with the intent to burn it for warmth with fuel being so scarce.
Sarah sank into one of the mismatched chairs with her son. His wrinkled gray pants showed his ankles, and his navy winter coat was buttoned up to his skinny neck.
The water in the kettle was still hot, and while chicory coffee steeped, Elaine cut up the last of the bread.
“You are with the Resistance?” Sarah asked.
The knife gliding through the hard crust stopped short as Elaine stiffened.
“This is the office of the Bureau of Geophysical Research,” Sarah said slowly. “Which does not require machines like the ones you possess. Copies of Combat and Défence de la France are sitting here on the counter.” She paused, studying Elaine. “I’m not asking to frighten you, but to put myself at ease.”
Sarah navigated her hand around her son to reach within her jacket pocket and spread an identity card on the table. The woman’s black-and-white image looked up at her, the red JUIF stamp brilliant where it overlapped her shoulder.
“You are Jewish,” Elaine said.
“You are Resistance?” Sarah pressed.
The two women stared at one another, a silent battle waging for trust, powered by fear and the threat of betrayal.
“Oui,”Elaine replied at last as she scooped up the last precious bit of the strawberry jam. The spoon clinked against the glass jar as she scraped at what was left, the smear of translucent red flecked with minuscule seeds.
Saliva filled her mouth at the tart, sweet scent as she set what was to be her own dinner onto the table with a muffled clink of china against the wood.
Sarah’s stare was part bravado, part fear. “Oui, we are Jewish.”
Noah’s eyes widened at the food in front of him, but he did not reach for any until Sarah gave him a slight nod. He immediately claimed a piece, taking a bite as big as his small mouth would allow.
Elaine poured a mug of chicory coffee for herself and Sarah. Noah devoured his slice and took a second.
“I’ve already eaten,” Elaine lied. “Please help yourself.”
Sarah inclined her head with gratitude and accepted some food from the plate, chewing slowly.
As she ate, Elaine gathered the remnants of bread on the cutting board into a neat pile and removed a tin from the shelf to carefully swipe the crumbs inside to join a collection of others. It was a habit formed at the start of the ration as suggested in one of the women’s magazines. Those little bits of bread, once thrown away, could make such things as eggs and milk go further in recipes and offer an extra bulk that might make one feel satisfied after a meal.
Or as close to satisfied as anyone could be these days.
“You said your husband was in America.” Elaine joined them at the table with her own mug as Noah gleefully consumed his fourth piece, sticky red jam glistening around his cherubic lips. “Why are you not with him?”
Sarah took a sip from her chicory coffee. “We were all supposed to flee Paris back when rumors indicated Hitler might attempt to pass the Maginot Line. Before we could go, my mother became ill. From what we understood, it was only the men who were in danger of the Germans, and so I insisted Lewis go on without us. We didn’t know...”
They didn’t know how the Bosche would strip away a Jew’s freedom until they were relegated to a cramped life. Until they were sent away. Until those remaining had no choice but to hide in order to survive.
Sarah glanced reverently at her right hand. “My mother died several months later. Before the roundup in Paris. An organization helped us to Lyon, but that was as far as they could take us. It cost me my mother’s ruby ring but was well worth the expense.” She rubbed at the base of her finger where the jewelry had likely been. “We did not expect to be stranded here, but then the Nazis occupied the Free Zone.”
She smoothed her son’s hair from his face as he reached for the final piece of bread. “Those who aided us wanted to take Noah somewhere safe, saying it would be easier to protect him than it would be both of us together.”
The little boy looked up at his mother with affection gleaming in his eyes.
“It is selfish to keep him with me, I know, but we suffered many losses before we finally had Noah.” She studied her son as he took an unabashed bite of the food. “I’ve heard terrifying tales of organizations with children being captured, the little ones too noisy and chaotic to properly conceal.” Pain shone in her eyes. “I also know there is a possibility that if I let him go, he might never come back to me. He is too young to remember his name as well as those of myself and my husband. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing Noah.”
Elaine and Joseph spent their marriage anticipating that she might eventually become pregnant. When a babe had failed to take root in her womb, neither of them had been overly distraught. Now she understood that perhaps they were fortunate to avoid having a child in a world such as theirs.
“Our family is broken apart.” Sarah’s voice was thick with emotion. “I want to be with my husband, all of us reunited once more. Do you know anyone who can help us?”
Elaine shifted her focus into the dark, murky brew in her cup. It was one thing to find a place for the two, but quite another to manage a transport for them to America.
“Please,” Sarah said when Elaine had been silent for too long. “I haven’t been able to get word to him after his arrival in New York when he wrote to give the address he secured for us. It has been over two years since we last corresponded.” A tear spilled down her cheek, but she abruptly swept it away. “I yearn for him. Every day without him cuts deeper into my soul until it feels as though my heart has been ripped out.”
Elaine knew such loss. She pulled in a breath that made her lungs and chest ache.
There had been no word of Joseph since his departure for the camp. And while she tried hard not to let her despair debilitate her, he was never completely gone from her thoughts, keeping the flicker of hope alive.
It was that same hope that now glimmered in Sarah’s watery eyes. In her lap, Noah shoved the last of the bread into his mouth, chewing groggily, his lids gradually falling closed.
“I will ask around tomorrow,” Elaine said at last, resolved to bring the matter up with Marcel. “In the meantime, you should rest.”
The floor of the narrow room used for identity cards and stamps was hard and frigid, but still more comfortable than if Elaine attempted to sleep in the drafty openness of the warehouse. At least being in the vicinity meant she would wake upon Marcel’s arrival.
He gave her a quizzical look as she emerged from the small room that next morning. She ran a hand subconsciously down her short blond hair. “I need to speak with you.”
“Did the bedding area flood again?”
She shook her head and Marcel’s features relaxed. The building was subject to the plight of all older construction with faulty electricity, dampness and cold managing to always creep in. And, of course, the occasional flooding.
“It’s far more delicate than that,” she cautioned.
The concern was back on his face, and she quickly informed him of Sarah and Noah.
“Is there a contact who can help them on their journey to America?” she queried after her explanation.
He looked at her as if she just asked him to send them to the moon. “Everyone wants to go to America.”
“Then surely there’s a way.”
He shook his head. “None that I am aware. I can put her in touch with one of the Jewish networks.”
“They would just relocate her again or place her son in someone else’s care.”
“They can’t get to America,” he said with a finality Elaine refused to accept.
It was then an idea struck her, one inspired by the hidden messages sometimes included in the articles and images they printed in the clandestine newspapers. While she did not know all the operative phrasing used, either Antoine could help her, or she could use the coding method she’d implemented when she’d first joined the Resistance.
She tried again. “What if I compose an article with a code—”
“No.” He turned to the newspapers that were printed late the prior night.
There wouldn’t be any errors on the flimsy pages. Elaine saw to that with the same level of precision that Marcel himself applied. Her attention to detail was what made her such a good apprentice, and she knew it.
“We do coded messages all the time,” she countered.
“Not to arrange for relocation to America.” He continued to study the papers, flicking through the top fifty or so.
His disinclination to agree wasn’t indicative of cruelty by any means. In the months Elaine worked with Marcel, he faced many hard decisions. Through it all, his choices were for what bettered the newspaper first and foremost, and the greater population after that.
She also knew him well enough to understand this was an argument she would not win. “I’ll see if someone in the Maquis can help, perhaps.”
He hummed with distracted agreement. “You will need to find another place for them to stay.” He straightened from the stack of papers, his fingertips shaded with a dusting of ink. “They cannot remain here.”
All the safe houses Elaine had spent time in rushed back to her, the desolate locations with sparse furnishings that reeked of solitude and despondency. The ones whose brusque hosts hurried her out in the morning just after curfew, before anyone else walked the streets. All those options were no place for a family. Not for a small boy with big hazel eyes filled with ready trust.
“I can ask Manon,” Elaine volunteered.
Marcel lifted a brow. “Do your personalities not suit?”
Quite the opposite. They were both content to be left to their own demons in the tidy apartment. There was respect between them in that they never asked probing questions of one another, but they certainly had not bonded. That was yet another social relic of times before the occupation.
Without waiting for her reply, he marched over to the automatic press to examine the gears and switches, a father checking in on his child after a delayed absence.
“I’m content living with Manon, but I think her apartment would offer more of a home than other options,” Elaine said at last.
“You’ll need to ask Manon if she is willing to take the risk first.” Marcel pulled a rag from the pocket of his coat and wiped off a fresh streak of oil from his hands. “We can provide the necessary papers and ration cards, but you said she has a son...?”
He looked at her pointedly as he asked the question and the realization dawned. Noah would, of course, be circumcised, which couldn’t be hidden with false documents.
“As a father of a boy, I can tell you they aren’t quiet either.” An affectionate smile touched his mouth, the way it always did when he spoke of his family.
Imagining Noah with his pensive, mute stare being rambunctious didn’t seem possible. But then, he had been tired the night before. Perhaps after some rest, he would be terrorizing the world with shouts and jumps as any other child forcefully restrained indoors.
“I’ll speak to Manon and see if I can gather more supplies while I’m out.” Elaine smoothed the wrinkles from her clothes, collected her handbag complete with her broad wallet of black market ration cards in her name, and hooked the shopping basket handle at her elbow. Sarah and Noah had consumed the last of the bread, and there were no other provisions. Doubtless, they would wake hungry for something in their bellies.
As she waited four hours in the queue at the grocer in the hopes of finding a tin of peas or even a little milk, apprehension at her decision twisted in her chest. She could accept the risk of helping Sarah and Noah herself, but was it fair to put Manon in danger?