The Librarian Spy(5)

She unlocked the door and pushed inside to reveal a dark, empty entryway.

“Joseph?”

Though she expected no answer, a sense of despair washed over her when none came. He really was gone.

But where? And when would he finally return?

The sky darkened as the imposed curfew neared. Each second dragged into a minute in her interminable wait for Joseph to come home. Hélène was preparing to retire early, yielding to the exhaustion of a heavy heart and an empty belly when a soft knock sounded at the front door.

Surely Joseph wouldn’t knock. Unless, of course, he didn’t have his key.

She ran to the entryway with such haste, the floorboards barely creaked underfoot. But it was not her husband who stood on the other side of the door. A woman with blond hair similar to her own regarded Hélène warily with wide dark eyes.

The blood in Hélène’s veins turned to ice at the appearance of a stranger. She nearly slammed the door when the woman put her hand to the glossy wooden surface to keep it from closing.

“Pierre.” She whispered so quietly, Hélène could hardly make out the name.

“Is he here?” the woman continued in her almost silent tone. “Please, I must see him.” The glance she cast behind held an edge of paranoia.

Exactly the kind of thing a neighbor like Madame Arnaud was liable to notice.

Hélène waved the woman in to prevent her from speaking further. While Hélène knew no one named Pierre, the woman was obviously in danger.

Which meant Hélène was now also in danger.

But somehow, she could not turn away the woman. Not when Joseph had so mysteriously gone missing. Not when a niggling at the back of Hélène’s brain suggested this might all be related.

The stranger hesitated a moment before stepping over the threshold. Her brown coat was dappled with raindrops from the evening drizzle, and the hem of a dark maroon dress fell past her knees. While her garments appeared to be clean and in good condition, her black shoes were scuffed beyond repair.

Only when the door clicked closed did the stranger speak again. “Please, I must see Pierre. I know I should not have come here, but I did not have any other choice.”

Hélène shook her head. “I know no Pierre, but perhaps I can help. What’s happened?”

The woman’s eyes went wider still at Hélène’s admission, and she backed up toward the door.

“Is it the police?” Hélène pressed in a low voice. “The Gestapo?”

Her own heart pounded at the risk she was taking. This woman could be a collaborator like Madame Arnaud across the hall, who monitored everyone like a beady-eyed predator and always commented about Hélène having no children. But then, few possessed the fecundity of Madame Arnaud with her eight sons. A proper Vichy wife to be sure.

If the stranger was indeed a collaborator, Hélène would surely be turned in for having asked about danger from the Gestapo.

The woman’s desperate gaze scanned the apartment behind Hélène, like she was seeking something urgent. “I need papers.”

Hélène frowned. “I don’t have any papers here.”

“An identity card, a new one. I was told Pierre...” Tears swam in the woman’s eyes and her face crumpled. “I escaped the roundup several months ago on Rue Sainte-Catherine and have been in hiding since, but every place I go is found out. I need new papers. Ones that don’t have this.”

Hands shaking, she presented her identity card, declaring her to be Claudine Goldstein with a red stamp at the top. JUIF. Jew.

Hélène knew immediately of the roundup to which Claudine referred. Every Tuesday, beleaguered Jews lined up for food and medical attention, the oppression of their people reducing them to practically beg for their survival. It was on that day when the Union Générale des Israélites de France was allowed to offer them kindness and compassion that the Gestapo chose to attack, arresting everyone within the organization as well as those who had shown up for aid. Her heart burned with the injustice then, and the fire renewed itself now with a white-hot intensity.

Questions fired through Hélène’s mind, all ones she knew the woman would not answer: Where had she been hiding? Where was she going now?

“Forgive me, but I do not know a Pierre,” Hélène replied through the heavy, painful sensation pulling at her chest.

Despondency fell over Claudine’s face, smoothing her features with a resigned apathy. “I cannot run any longer. If I do not have papers, I will be sent away like all the others.” She blinked, and a tear trailed silently down her cheek.

She wasn’t incorrect, and the fire burning within Hélène roared to life.

“Take mine.” Hélène grabbed her handbag and withdrew her neatly folded papers from its depths. Not only did she include her identity card, but also her food and clothing rations. After all, they were tied to her name. Without her identity card, everything else was useless to Hélène. And perhaps that bit of sustenance and new garments might in some way help Claudine in her escape.

The woman’s mouth fell open. “Yours? But how—”

“We look similar, and we are the same height,” Hélène said, pushing the folded bunch into Claudine’s hand.