The Darkest Hour(14)

I blinked at him.

“What do you think I plan on doing with the cash Uncle Sam is going to give me?” he said.

So he hadn’t given up on our plan. “What about Ruthie?”

“Shh,” he said, and jutted a thumb in our parents’ direction. They didn’t know that he had a girlfriend, much less a Jewish one who Papa would never approve of. Not that Theo cared much about pleasing our father those days. He had signed up for the war without mentioning a thing to our parents. “Ruthie will come with us, too. Oh, don’t make that face. You like her. Admit it.”

It was true. I did like Ruth Green. I was all prepared to hate her for stealing away Theo’s heart, but she won me over when she made him study for his tests and single-handedly brought his C average up to a B+. She was nothing like Theo at all. She was serious while he was all jokes. She kept the books at her mother’s sewing shop, and Theo couldn’t save a nickel if he wanted to. But somehow they fell for each other, and they’d been glued at the hip for almost a year.

“When I get back,” he said, “we’ll all hop on a bus, the three of us. Just you wait.”

“You promise?”

He grinned. “When have I ever broken a promise to you?”

The train started to move, and Theo gave me a fierce hug before he jumped onto the car, a smooth move straight out of the pictures. As the engine chugged and ushered him away from me, he winked and called out, “Say a Hail Mary for me every night, won’t you, Luce?”

I shouted back to him that I would, and I did him one better. When I woke up every morning, I said a prayer for him. When I folded dough after school, I whispered another. Then late at night, when I tried to ignore Papa’s drunken shouts, I said two Hail Marys for Theo just as I’d promised.

Until the telegram came.

I remember that day, too. January 14, 1943. Maman collapsed onto the kitchen floor, weeping; Papa left the house and didn’t return for two days. All the while the telegram sat on our dining table like a shard of glass, untouched. A Western Union emblem was printed at the top, followed by the lines: Dear Mr. and Mrs. Blaise, The Secretary of War expresses his deepest regret …

After the funeral, I dreamed of Theo for weeks. It was always the same—of him lying on a sandy battlefield in North Africa with his mouth blue and his beloved uniform shredded. It was his eyes, though, open and lifeless, that would make me wake up screaming. Maman would rush into my room while Papa would yell at me to shut my mouth. Months passed before that nightmare went away, but tonight it comes back to haunt me. This time, though, instead of Maman waking me up, it’s Sabine.

“What are you doing in here?” I say groggily. Sabine rarely sets foot in my room, which means she isn’t here for chitchat. She’s here for a reason. “Is there an air raid?”

“No,” she says plainly, and I breathe out a sigh of relief. Ever since the Americans formally entered the war, the air raids have become a regular part of life. And while it might be comforting to know that our boys are so close, they don’t always hit their marks.

“Then what do you want?”

“You were having a bad dream,” she says, holding up a candle that drips wax onto my covers. Her tone is unreadable; I don’t know if she’s chiding me or comforting me. Knowing her, it’s probably the former.

I clutch my covers tight to me, a tattered shield against her words. “Is having a bad dream a crime these days?”

“No, but you were thrashing about loud enough to alert every soldier in a two-block radius. Major Harken sent me to wake you.”

“Well, I’m up now. You can give Harken my apologies.”

“Tell him yourself. He wants to see us in the meeting room. Matilda is already there.”

“Why? I’m not going to Reims.” I expect Sabine to smile at that, but her mouth tightens into the shape of a prune.

“Those were his orders. Get dressed.” Before she leaves, though, she lights the candle on my nightstand, and I notice that she’s dressed in her Fifine alias. Fifine is a sweet-as-sugar dressmaker who whimpers at the sight of a gun, and her wardrobe matches her purity: a strawberry-blond wig that’s braided down the back and a pale yellow dress that sings pastel innocence—although I’m sure Sabine has at least two daggers strapped to her thighs and a pen that doubles as a single-shot pistol in her pocket.

I should thank her for lighting the candle for me, but my gratitude sticks in my throat. Seeing her ready to go to Reims reminds me of how I’ve disappointed Major Harken again.

“Don’t keep the major waiting,” Sabine says, and then she’s gone.

I drag myself out of bed and don’t bother changing out of the clothes I’d fallen asleep in last night, but I do scrub my face clean from the bowl of water on my dresser. Running water has turned into something of a joke in Paris, so we fill up our cups and pitchers whenever the pipes are working. When I reach the meeting room, I find Tilly and Major Harken sitting at the table while Sabine slices a loaf of bread and disperses a knob of cheese. I find someone else with them, too. Laurent.

“Ah, Lucie!” He gives me a giant hug beneath the doorframe. His arms are warm and strong, and I feel like I’m embracing a bear. “I wish I could stay, but I’m afraid I must hurry back to the club.”

I step back, puzzled at what has caused him to return to headquarters so soon. Laurent usually visits once every two weeks to bring us information that he has gleaned from the Nazis who visit the jazz club that he owns. The soldiers who frequent Le Grand Duc have no clue that Laurent speaks fluent German. They simply see what they want to see—a black Frenchman with a limp from the Great War—and that’s how Laurent has mined his precious intelligence for us, like where the Nazis are manufacturing munitions and any news about the Pacific theater of the war. As much as I enjoy Laurent’s drop-ins, however, two visits from him within two consecutive days can mean only one thing—he must’ve brought urgent news to Harken. I wonder if there has been an update about Delphine, but he’s clearly eager to leave.