The Librarian Spy(71)
By some miracle, she managed to maintain a calm demeanor. Beneath the surface, however, she was a torrent of fear, worry, and doubt. If the Germans found the stack of newspapers under the filthy box, if those who were arrested gave away a name, if her identity card was spotted as a fake—she might never leave.
Upon her own inspection, the identification appeared to be an exact replica of the ones that were officially issued. But it had never been subjected to scrutiny before. Would the integrity of it hold up?
The car came to a stop, and she was yanked from the back seat into the deluge. Rain whipped at her from all directions, slashing into her eyes and leaving her momentarily blinded. The officer shoved her toward a small building, barking orders she didn’t understand. Her handbag was snatched away, her identity card ripped out for examination. Thankfully her basket with its damning false bottom lay behind on the street where she had dropped it upon her arrest.
Even as she was whisked in the confusing whirlwind, some part of her mind remained calm enough to offer pithy protests declaring her innocence, claiming to be a mere housewife visiting a friend. Even when no one bothered to acknowledge she had spoken, she continued her objections.
They set aside her identity card with disinterest, and she breathed a discreet sigh of relief. She was shoved once more, urged through another door, out into the driving rain. A sound, like the opening note of a siren, blared from all around her with such suddenness, she flinched.
In that moment when she froze, wet and chilled and more frightened than she cared to admit, they grabbed the shoulders of her coat and half dragged her to a larger building, stopping in a small antechamber.
Her dress clung wetly to her legs, and her shoes had doubled in weight. An icy current ran through the high-walled room and left her skin needling with goose bumps. The officer passed her to a guard without any emotion, as if she were little more than a parcel being delivered.
The guard led her to a hallway filled with numerous doors on either side.
“I am innocent,” she stammered.
The man ignored her pleas, continuing to push her onward with a force that made her stagger.
“Please, I—”
A smell hit her like a physical blow—unwashed bodies and the musty sweet odor of sickness. The fetid air crawled with low-toned conversations that vibrated in the echoing halls and buzzed in Elaine’s brain.
A deep tremble settled in her bones, cold and fear clashing together until neither was discernible from the other.
“I am simply a housewife,” she said in a voice that lacked any strength.
The guard hauled her up a flight of stairs, their footsteps reverberating from the hard walls. A cutout in the floor ran the length of the rows of doors, reflecting the level below and the one above—mirror images of one another. He led her down the aisle to a door on the right and wrenched it open.
Two frightened faces stared at her from within. Before Elaine could even register the color of their hair and eyes, she was shoved through the gaping doorway. The door slammed shut behind her with a bang that rang out through the pit of hell she had been manhandled into. A light from overhead illuminated the space, casting a sickly yellow pallor that revealed a small square of a room with a narrow window at the back and a metal flap at the bottom of the front wall beside the door.
The two strangers eyed her with apathetic curiosity.
“Why were you arrested?” the taller of the two inquired, her red hair as dull as the flatness of her hazel eyes.
Elaine folded her arms over her chest to allay the chattering shiver racking her body as her brain scrambled to process what had occurred in the last several minutes. Was this how it had been for Joseph?
Had he been as confused, as frightened, and overwhelmed by it all as she?
“They think I am with the Resistance,” she said at last through her clenched teeth.
“Are you not?” asked the other. She was brunette with sunken eyes and cheekbones that jutted over the hollows of her face, giving her a skull-like appearance in the weak light.
“No, I am not.” This time Elaine spoke without hesitation. She owed these women no explanation, no truth. For all she knew, they were collaborators, placed in the cell to ferret out Resistance members.
She studied the skeletal visage whose blue eyes were wide and luminous against her gaunt features. It had likely been some time since she had consumed a decent meal.
Even those with the Resistance might sell secrets for a bit of food in a place such as this.
No, Elaine could not put herself in a position where anyone could disprove her story. It was far too great a risk.
“Are you a collaborator?” The redhead’s eyes blazed.
“Collette, that is enough,” the skinny brunette said to the other. “Would she be here if she was?”
“I’m a housewife,” Elaine began.
The skinny woman’s brittle smile cut her feeble explanation short. “We all are.”
A small door at the bottom of the cell opened and a tray was roughly propelled inside, almost sloshing the watery soup over the rim of the single bowl. The bit of moldy bread rolled from the thin metal side and fell onto the floor.
It was hardly enough food for one person, let alone three women. The two eyed Elaine, but she shook her head. They clearly needed it more than she. Their hands trembled as they ate, snatching the meal back and forth rather than passing it to one another. The greedy gulps were followed by the sweep of their tongues over the bowl to lap up anything remaining. The scene was reminiscent of starving animals more so than humans.