The Book of Lost Names(40)

“No, madame, thank you. We were hoping you might have a hand-printing press. The kind teachers use to duplicate worksheets for their students.”

Madame Noirot’s brow creased. “You need to make copies of something?”

“Actually, Eva had a very smart idea.” Père Clément finally pulled his attention from the pens and came to stand beside Eva. “What better way to reproduce official stamps?” he added in a whisper.

Madame Noirot opened and closed her mouth. “But I thought you had Rémy etching stamps out of rubber.”

Père Clément nodded. “But you know as well as I do how long that takes—and how many different stamps we have to duplicate. He happened to mention that to Eva on the first night they met, and upon thinking about it, Eva had an idea: to reproduce stamps using a roller like this, someone would need only to trace the real stamps with a sure hand.”

Madame Noirot nodded slowly. “And to match the proper ink colors.”

“Which we were hoping you could help with, too,” Père Clément concluded.

Madame Noirot turned to study Eva for a few seconds, a look of awe on her face. “Why, if I didn’t know better, Eva, I would think God himself had sent you to us.”

Eva could feel herself blushing as Madame Noirot ducked into the back of the store, saying that she was certain she had a few of the hand-printing presses stored there and could order more of the gels if necessary. “Why did you tell her my real name?” she whispered to Père Clément.

He looked surprised. “Well, first of all, I only told her your first name, not your surname. And didn’t Rémy tell you? He found you and your mother new identities in the Journal Officiel, and yours allows you to use the name Eva.”

“But he already gave me a new identity. Marie Charpentier.”

“That was just temporary. And since you used it at Drancy, and it’s certainly a part of the official record by now, it’s better to discard it. Besides, you need an identity you can use along with your mother, since you live together. Rémy has found the perfect family—a naturalized White Russian by way of Turkey who married a Frenchman and had a daughter named Eva in 1920. The fact that the family is Russian will allow Madame Barbier to easily claim your mother as a cousin, which will explain your presence at her boardinghouse. You’ll be Eva Moreau, and your mother will be Yelena Moreau.”

Eva stared at him. “Finding such a family must have taken him ages.”

“I don’t think he slept at all last night. He knew you were upset about your father, and he wanted to help you to feel more comfortable here. He thought it might help if you were able to use your real name.”

Eva blinked back the tears she could feel in her eyes. She had misjudged him—not that she could be blamed entirely for thinking the worst of a man who was on such chummy terms with the madam of a brothel that catered to Nazis. “He’s a good man, isn’t he?”

“Indeed he is, Eva. Indeed he is.”

Madame Noirot returned then, proudly holding up two wrapped hand-printing presses. “I found them. I’ll come by later with some extra gels, but this should get you started. I have some of the special colored ink behind the counter, and I will order more.”

“Not so much that it might look suspicious, though,” Père Clément warned, taking the presses and ink from her after she’d placed them in a bag. He handed over some francs, which she accepted without looking at them.

Madame Noirot put her hand over her heart. “Why, Père Clément, you act as if this is my first time doing this sort of work.” She winked at Eva. “Don’t worry. I know quite well how to play the role of the batty old book rat. It’s the best kind of cover.”

Eva smiled at her, and as she and Père Clément turned to go, Madame Noirot called out once more.

“Wait. Eva?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. Thank you for being here. You will save lives.”

Eva smiled and mumbled a merci in return, but as she left the shop with Père Clément, she couldn’t help feeling like a fraud. After all, she wasn’t some savior for the cause—she would be here only long enough to help Rémy get rid of the backlog. Then she would take her mother to Switzerland to wait for Tatu?.

“Père Clément?” she began as they walked briskly back toward the church. “May I ask you something?”

“Of course, Eva,” Père Clément said after pausing in their conversation to nod to the mustached butcher, who was closing his shop, and to wave to the stout florist Eva had exchanged bonjours with on the way to the church for the first time.

“Where did you get the money to pay for the supplies?”

He smiled. “We don’t work alone here. In addition to funneling supplies, the underground sometime helps with funds, too. Speaking of which, if you decide to stay with us for a time, there will be some money for you. You’ll be doing a job, and you should be paid.”

“You don’t have to—”

“It will allow you to pay your rent, buy your food.” He winked at her. “Speaking of which, I’ll get you some blank ration cards for your mother and yourself.”

She swallowed her guilt. Leaving would be even harder now. “Can I ask you something else? You said the children whose documents I’ll be forging are without their parents.” She took a deep breath. “Who keeps track of their real names?”