The Book of Lost Names(25)

“We don’t owe them anything,” Mamusia muttered a moment later, breaking the silence Madame Barbier had left in her wake.

Eva sighed. “Of course we do. I would never have thought to forge documents from the Argentine embassy. And even if the idea had somehow occurred to me, I never would have known how to do it.”

“So the priest gave you a bit of information. And Madame Barbier prepared us some food. So what?”

“It’s the best we’ve eaten in two years, Mamusia.”

Mamusia looked away. “That still doesn’t mean you have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“What if I want to help?”

“You don’t even know what the priest is involved in.”

“I know he’s involved in helping people. Maybe that’s something I should be doing, too.”

Mamusia’s jaw tightened. “What you should be doing, moje serduszko, my heart, is looking out for your family. Don’t forget, France has turned its back on us. On you.” She returned to her meal with a grunt, and as Eva watched her eat, her stomach swam with uncertainty.

France may have turned her back. But did that mean that Eva could do the same when lives hung in the balance?



* * *



After helping her mother clear the table and scrub the dishes in an empty kitchen, Eva washed up and left in the fading twilight to meet Père Clément.

The heavy front door to the church was unlocked, but inside, the cavernous space was dark and silent, lit by only a few candles burned down to nearly nothing. Above the altar, the statue of Jesus seemed to watch Eva, and she wasn’t sure whether to feel peaceful or nervous. What had she expected, that Père Clément would be waiting here cheerfully to roll out the red carpet? She hesitated only a moment before heading for the door to the right of the pulpit, the one that led to the small library. It was unlocked.

Père Clément wasn’t there, either, but the empty room had seemingly been prepared for her. Curtains were drawn over the stained glass windows, making the space feel cavelike, and three lanterns burned around the room, one on the table in the center. Eva made her way carefully inside, pulling the door closed behind her, and her eyes widened when she realized what was sitting in the middle of the workspace. There was what appeared to be an official form from the Argentine consulate, and beside it, several pieces of thick blank paper, and art pens in red, blue, black, and violet. An old typewriter, the kind her father would have immediately bent to examine with glee, waited for her just to the left of the lamp. The leather-bound book, the one with the gold-etched spine that Père Clément had said was printed in 1732, sat on the corner of the table where she’d left it that morning.

“Père Clément?” she called out cautiously, but only silence greeted her. After a few seconds, she sat down carefully in one of the two chairs facing the table and picked up the authentic letter from the Argentine consulate. The format was relatively basic, and the stamps looked easy enough to forge. She waited for another minute before grabbing one of the blank pieces of paper and feeding it into the typewriter. She would craft the letter first, modeling it on the real document, and then she’d worry about the letterhead and stamps.

She hummed absently as she typed out the words to a formal letter announcing that Leo Traube of the rue Elzévir in Paris had in fact been born in Argentina and thus was exempt from German detention. He was, she wrote, to be released immediately. When she was finished typing, she duplicated the flourished signature of the real diplomat and then set to work with the black art pen, carefully copying the consulate’s letterhead.

Next came the stamps, red and blue, and she slid the old leather-bound volume of epistles and gospels across the table to hold down the paper while she worked. As she rendered the false stamps, her mind drifted as it often did when she created. She could feel the rhythm of her breath with every pen stroke, and as the stamps slowly materialized on the page, hope floated up within her. She was doing good work, and she knew it.

She was nearly done with the final stamp—a sun etched in blue—when the sound of a door opening snapped her out of her reverie. She jumped up with a gasp, clutching the false document. From the shadows between the shelves, a young man emerged, and Eva scrambled to grab the real Argentine letter, too. She stuffed it, as well as the false one, behind her into the stiff waistline of her skirt.

The man stared at her without saying anything. His hair was black, and his eyes looked green, or perhaps hazel, in the flickering lantern light. He was tan, square-jawed, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. His expression was impassive.

“Good evening, monsieur.” Eva was attempting to sound casual, innocent, but her voice cracked.

His face didn’t change as he crossed his arms, his eyes never leaving hers. “What are you doing here?”

Eva flashed him a nervous, fake smile and groped around on the table. “Just a little reading,” she said, holding up the leather-bound book.

“Epitres et Evangiles,” he said, tilting his head to read the spine. “Ah yes. Nothing like a two-hundred-year-old guide to the weekly mass to titillate the senses.”

Now she could feel her cheeks flaming. “Well, I’m very religious, you see. Père Clément said it was fine for me to be here.”

The man still hadn’t moved. “Yes, he’s very supportive of religious scholars like yourself.”