Chapter One #3
Marguerite shook her head. “They’re playing by the rules, so far. You’re only wanted for questioning because of your association with . . . Navarre?” Her friend wrinkled her nose. “Is that what Jean is going by now?”
Zelie shot her an exasperated glare. “It rather ruins the point of it if you still use his real name.”
Her friend rolled her eyes. “As if calling him Jean would tell anybody anything, as common a name as it is.” She pushed through the door to their building and led the way up the stairs.
Zelie drew in a long breath. She was trusting Marguerite with her secrets, with her life, with the lives of her children. But one slipup, one missed someone lurking in a shadow, and it could all be over. “Humor me.”
“So dour.” Marguerite fished the key to the flat out of her pocket. She opened the door, held it open for Zelie, and then quickly shut it behind them and locked it again. “If they follow the pattern, they’ll be back tonight.”
“I don’t intend to be here.” She set her suitcase down by the door and turned to face her friend. “They believe your story, though? That you’re my employee, seeing to the place?”
Marguerite nodded as Zelie took off her hat and the itchy wig and shrugged from her spring-weight jacket. “Why would they doubt it? Given my family’s fall from fortune, it makes sense that you offered me a job out of charity.”
Far from it—Marguerite had saved her, not the other way round, and it had nothing to do with money. Her old school chum had been the only one Zelie could talk to as things with Jacques crumbled. Setting aside her wariness, Zelie drew her into a tight embrace. “I’ve missed you.”
Marguerite squeezed her back. “You have no idea how I worry. The risks you’re taking . . .”
“They’re necessary.” She pulled away, gave her friend a grin. “Now. Tell me everything while I pack. Have you heard from your brother?”
Zelie listened as she dashed into her old bedroom.
There was nothing here that was incriminating—she’d taken anything having to do with her work when she fled Paris—but she’d left behind plenty of valuables.
She opened her jewelry armoire, nostrils flaring at the dangling chains of silver and gold, the strings of pearls, the glinting gems.
Marguerite went still. “What are you going to do with those? Wear them as you parade around Vichy?”
All of the pieces on this side had been gifts from Jacques, a few from her parents for birthdays.
Nothing heirloom, nothing too sentimental.
She scooped them all out and tossed them onto the bed.
“I’ve finally convinced Navarre to abandon our base in Vichy—it’s too dangerous, parading right under Pétain’s nose and using his own ministry’s money to fund our endeavors.
Everything is being moved to Pau or Marseille. ”
“Good.” Sinking down onto the bed, Marguerite still frowned. “So these things . . . ?”
“I’ll sell them. And don’t look at me like that. They’re just things.”
But tears welled in Marguerite’s eyes. “They’re all you have left from Jacques. They’re . . . they’re a whole era.”
“I have Blaise. Elise.” She opened the other side but paused before scooping anything out.
Most would go, yes, and perhaps buy food for a while.
But not everything. She reached for the lacquered lotus blossom comb, ran a thumb over it.
It was the last gift Pappa had given her, when they lived in Shanghai.
Before he was struck by the tropical fever, before he was suddenly gone, ending the fairy tale her life had been.
The comb would not go the way of the necklaces.
She tucked it into her pocket and then scooped out the rest. Fetched a bag from the closet, deposited the valuables inside, and then turned back to the hangers and shelves to choose a few dresses.
“When the Gestapo return, tell them I came back to Paris for my uncle’s funeral, but that I’ve already left again.
All right? Tell them you don’t expect me to return. ”
Marguerite wiped at her cheeks. “Where will you go?”
She’d already worked this through. “Areg Grigoryan gave me a key to his house and said I could use a maid’s room there whenever I needed a place to stay and lie low.”
Her friend’s still-damp eyes went wide again. “Grigoryan—the millionaire industrialist?”
“He’s been financing any number of Resistance projects.
” He was even paying the salaries of dozens of Jewish workers he’d had no choice but to dismiss, officially.
She wouldn’t be surprised to learn he had several hidden in his various estates, either.
She sat beside Marguerite and reached for her hand.
“I’ll be safe at his house, as long as I’m in Paris.
I’ll leave instructions for you on how to find me there, if you need me. ”
Marguerite summoned a smile. “Good. What else are you taking with you?”
The most precious things, she couldn’t. As she walked through the flat, she ran a hand over the polished wood of her piano, stood and memorized the enormous Chinese painting that hung over the mantel.
She buried her face in the outgrown clothes her children would never wear again and told herself she could still smell the lavender from their soap.
Then, with one more hug for Marguerite and a promise to be in touch soon, she picked up the suitcase she’d come in with and what she could fit in that one bag.
She fished out the key Areg had given her from the drawer in the kitchen.
And she left the last claim she had on her old life, knowing she’d never come here again.
Not as long as France belonged to Germany.