The Librarian Spy(51)
Elaine and Joseph spent their marriage anticipating that she might eventually become pregnant. When a babe had failed to take root in her womb, neither of them had been overly distraught. Now she understood that perhaps they were fortunate to avoid having a child in a world such as theirs.
“Our family is broken apart.” Sarah’s voice was thick with emotion. “I want to be with my husband, all of us reunited once more. Do you know anyone who can help us?”
Elaine shifted her focus into the dark, murky brew in her cup. It was one thing to find a place for the two, but quite another to manage a transport for them to America.
“Please,” Sarah said when Elaine had been silent for too long. “I haven’t been able to get word to him after his arrival in New York when he wrote to give the address he secured for us. It has been over two years since we last corresponded.” A tear spilled down her cheek, but she abruptly swept it away. “I yearn for him. Every day without him cuts deeper into my soul until it feels as though my heart has been ripped out.”
Elaine knew such loss. She pulled in a breath that made her lungs and chest ache.
There had been no word of Joseph since his departure for the camp. And while she tried hard not to let her despair debilitate her, he was never completely gone from her thoughts, keeping the flicker of hope alive.
It was that same hope that now glimmered in Sarah’s watery eyes. In her lap, Noah shoved the last of the bread into his mouth, chewing groggily, his lids gradually falling closed.
“I will ask around tomorrow,” Elaine said at last, resolved to bring the matter up with Marcel. “In the meantime, you should rest.”
The floor of the narrow room used for identity cards and stamps was hard and frigid, but still more comfortable than if Elaine attempted to sleep in the drafty openness of the warehouse. At least being in the vicinity meant she would wake upon Marcel’s arrival.
He gave her a quizzical look as she emerged from the small room that next morning. She ran a hand subconsciously down her short blond hair. “I need to speak with you.”
“Did the bedding area flood again?”
She shook her head and Marcel’s features relaxed. The building was subject to the plight of all older construction with faulty electricity, dampness and cold managing to always creep in. And, of course, the occasional flooding.
“It’s far more delicate than that,” she cautioned.
The concern was back on his face, and she quickly informed him of Sarah and Noah.
“Is there a contact who can help them on their journey to America?” she queried after her explanation.
He looked at her as if she just asked him to send them to the moon. “Everyone wants to go to America.”
“Then surely there’s a way.”
He shook his head. “None that I am aware. I can put her in touch with one of the Jewish networks.”
“They would just relocate her again or place her son in someone else’s care.”
“They can’t get to America,” he said with a finality Elaine refused to accept.
It was then an idea struck her, one inspired by the hidden messages sometimes included in the articles and images they printed in the clandestine newspapers. While she did not know all the operative phrasing used, either Antoine could help her, or she could use the coding method she’d implemented when she’d first joined the Resistance.
She tried again. “What if I compose an article with a code—”
“No.” He turned to the newspapers that were printed late the prior night.
There wouldn’t be any errors on the flimsy pages. Elaine saw to that with the same level of precision that Marcel himself applied. Her attention to detail was what made her such a good apprentice, and she knew it.
“We do coded messages all the time,” she countered.
“Not to arrange for relocation to America.” He continued to study the papers, flicking through the top fifty or so.
His disinclination to agree wasn’t indicative of cruelty by any means. In the months Elaine worked with Marcel, he faced many hard decisions. Through it all, his choices were for what bettered the newspaper first and foremost, and the greater population after that.
She also knew him well enough to understand this was an argument she would not win. “I’ll see if someone in the Maquis can help, perhaps.”
He hummed with distracted agreement. “You will need to find another place for them to stay.” He straightened from the stack of papers, his fingertips shaded with a dusting of ink. “They cannot remain here.”
All the safe houses Elaine had spent time in rushed back to her, the desolate locations with sparse furnishings that reeked of solitude and despondency. The ones whose brusque hosts hurried her out in the morning just after curfew, before anyone else walked the streets. All those options were no place for a family. Not for a small boy with big hazel eyes filled with ready trust.
“I can ask Manon,” Elaine volunteered.
Marcel lifted a brow. “Do your personalities not suit?”
Quite the opposite. They were both content to be left to their own demons in the tidy apartment. There was respect between them in that they never asked probing questions of one another, but they certainly had not bonded. That was yet another social relic of times before the occupation.
Without waiting for her reply, he marched over to the automatic press to examine the gears and switches, a father checking in on his child after a delayed absence.