The Book of Lost Names(32)
Rémy nodded. “I’ll be with you either way.”
He held out his hand and she took it after carefully folding the papers for her father’s release back into her handbag.
Downstairs, two dozen women in silk robes were lounging around a large table in the room the Germans had been filtering in and out of the night before.
“Morning, ladies,” Rémy said casually as he led Eva in, tugging her behind him though she was trying her hardest to stall.
Some of the women looked up and regarded him with boredom; others didn’t even pause in their conversations. Madame Grémillon hobbled in from the kitchen carrying a large serving platter and nodded in their direction. In the bright light of morning, and without a heavy coat of makeup, she looked even older. “You’re just in time,” she said to Eva. “My girls might screw like rabbits, dear, but they eat like horses. Get yourselves some food before it’s gone.”
Eva wanted to hold back on principle, but the tray floating by her contained fresh bread, glossy oranges, sausages, and large wedges of cheese. She stared, slack-jawed. “How…?” she began.
“The Germans like to keep the girls happy,” Madame Grémillon cackled, answering the question that had been on the tip of Eva’s tongue. “Happy stomachs mean happy—”
“Oh, I’m not sure we have time for one of your anatomy lessons today, thank you,” Rémy interrupted. “Sorry, Madame Grémillon, but we can’t stay. We’ll just grab something for the road.”
The old woman grunted. “You always think you’re too good to dine with us.”
“Not at all, Madame Grémillon. I just have places to be.” He grabbed a few hunks of bread, a wedge of cheese, and a thick sausage. “Thanks for the hospitality.”
Madame Grémillon glared at him for a few seconds before turning to Eva. “How a pretty young woman like you could fall for a man with these manners is beyond me.”
Eva felt her cheeks go warm. “But I’m not… he’s not…”
Rémy grabbed her hand and planted a big kiss on her cheek. “What she means to say is that it’s too late. She has already married me.”
A few of the girls at the table looked up.
“No, I—” Eva protested.
“Come on, my darling. There’s a train to catch. See you next time, ladies!” And with one hand full of food clutched to his chest and the other holding tight to Eva, Rémy dragged her from the room and out the back door of the brothel without a look back.
“I bet you think you’re funny,” Eva said between huge, ravenous bites of bread a few minutes later as they hurried toward the avenue Jean Jaurès in the nineteenth, where Rémy had arranged for them to meet a man he knew who had a car and would drive them to Drancy.
“Most people find themselves charmed by me eventually. Now come, are you trying to leave a trail behind us on the streets of Paris? Are we Hansel and Gretel?”
Eva looked behind her and realized that Rémy was right; as she had stuffed bread into her mouth, starving, she had left crumbs all the way down the boulevard Haussmann. She smiled slightly. “I suppose my table manners leave something to be desired. It’s just that I’m so hungry.”
Rémy handed her a big piece of cheese, firm and waxy, as he dropped back to keep pace with her. “Well, there’s no table here, and I’m not judging you.”
She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t judging him, either, but of course she was. She had been since the moment they’d met. And perhaps that wasn’t very fair.
* * *
It took more than an hour to travel the thirteen kilometers to Drancy, a bleak suburb on the northeastern edge of the city. The war-torn roads were littered with French policemen leaning on their police cars and smoking cigarettes, and young German soldiers laughing as they passed by in trucks. Their driver, a man Rémy introduced as Thibault Brun, had merely grunted a greeting at them when they got into his old truck. Eva and Rémy had awkwardly wedged into the passenger seat with their hips pressed together, and Brun didn’t say a word the whole ride. But he seemed to know nearly every official they passed, waving at some, nodding at others. “Here we are,” he muttered, pulling alongside a curb in a nondescript residential block. “I’ll wait, but be back in an hour. Give me half the money now.”
Wordlessly, Rémy handed the driver a wad of cash and unceremoniously shoved Eva out of the vehicle, landing beside her. Brun counted his money as they hurried away, the truck belching gazogene fumes that smelled like rotten eggs.
“You have some interesting friends,” Eva muttered as they made their way down the shadowy street, which was strangely silent in the middle of the day.
“Brun isn’t a friend. He’s a contact.” Rémy didn’t elaborate.
“Where did you get the money?”
“Does it matter?”
Eva hesitated. “No. And thank you.”
Rémy nodded and put a hand under her elbow. “You might want to hold your breath.”
“What are you—?” Eva didn’t complete her sentence before it hit her like a punch in the face. The unmistakable scent of human waste was suddenly all around them, drifting in on an underbelly of brackish body odor and mud. She gagged and heaved, stumbling, but Rémy caught her before she went down.