The Paris Library(101)

Philippe and Paul dragged Margaret into an abandoned impasse. Ronan pulled the basket from her grasp, and she smiled brightly at him, thinking he meant to pick up her carrots. When she said merci, he hurled the basket through the grimy window of an abandoned concierge’s loge.

Paul pushed Margaret to the ground. She tried to get up, she tried several times, but the men took turns shoving her down. Margaret peered around them, hoping to see a passerby. “Help!” she cried to a Parisienne, who hurried along, careful to look the other way.

“British bitch,” Paul said. “Abandon the fight, sink our ships, and come back when it’s all but over!”

“I’ve been here the entire time!” Margaret cried. “With you and Odile.”

“You’ve been with some Fritz. That’s what she says.”

“They’re punishing sluts who slept with Nazis,” Philippe said. “Collaboration horizontale. I saw them, shorn on the square.”

“That’s what she deserves,” Paul said.

Margaret pushed on her hand and made it to her knees.

They liked her on her knees.

“Please. No.”

The men hadn’t planned this. They’d never hurt a woman. Never wanted to hurt one. But before them, here she was, a trollop in the dirt. Foreign. Soiled. Eating steak while they went hungry. Wearing a new dress while their women did without.

She wasn’t a woman to them, not anymore. They’d been beaten and humiliated. Now it was their turn to beat, to strike, to slash.

Paul fingered her pearls. “Who gave you these?”

“My mum.”

“Liar!” He pulled them until they dug into her neck.

“They were my mum’s.”

“I bet they’re from your lover.” He jerked on the necklace, and the string broke. Pearls fell around her in a sad constellation.

“My mum’s,” she wailed as Philippe scooped them up and put them in his pocket.

“Shut up, or you’ll be sorry.” Ronan held out a knife to Paul. “Care to do the honors?”

She wanted to tell him, “We’ve eaten dinner together. You’ve been to my home. When Odile was unsure of you, I stood up for you,” but her voice disappeared along with her courage.

Paul took the knife.





CHAPTER 43

Odile




THE FORBIDDEN ROOM smelled of mothballs. It was perhaps the one place in Paris that hadn’t changed during the war. The last time Maman had allowed me to enter, I was fifteen. With fantasies of the future floating in my head, I delighted in my trousseau, in the treasures the women in my family had crafted for my wedding. A wooden chest held a baby blanket crocheted by my grandmother. Soon, Paul and I would have a little one. I unfolded the flowing white nightgown that Maman had sewn. “For your honeymoon,” she’d said shyly. I hadn’t been with Paul since he told me about Professor Cohen, and we certainly hadn’t sought a new trysting place. He and I sat primly on the divan while Maman chin-wagged about chips in the china. A wedding would be a new beginning. I imagined walking down the aisle toward him. Engrossed in my daydream, I barely heard someone knocking at the front door. I made my way toward the insistent rapping, and found Paul on the landing, his face bathed in perspiration.

“What on earth?” I giggled. “You’re like a little boy, pounding like that. Are you really so impatient?”

He grabbed my hands. “Let’s get married.”

It was like he’d read my mind.

“We’ll elope,” he said. “Today. A civil service.”

“Don’t the banns have to be up? Maman will be devastated if we don’t marry in the church. Besides, I’d like Margaret to be my maid of honor.”

“Marriage is about the two of us, nobody else. Your parents will understand. Forget the banns, I have a special license. I’ve carried it in my pocket for a long time now, hoping.”

“A special license?”

“Please say yes.”

Paul always knew what I wanted. “Embrasse-moi,” I said.

In my arms, he trembled. “I love you. I love you so much. We’ll go away, we’ll never come back.”

Would my parents be disappointed if Paul and I eloped, or secretly relieved? There was no money for a bridal dress much less a wedding feast. One thing was certain: after the long limbo of the Occupation, I wanted to be with Paul.

“Yes!”

“Leave a note for your parents. We’ll go to my aunt’s for our honeymoon. I need to get away! We need to get away.”

“Are you all right? You don’t seem like yourself. Maybe we should wait.”

“Haven’t we waited long enough? I want to marry you. I want a honeymoon.”

Honeymoon, I thought dreamily, packing a few tattered dresses, the nightgown from my trousseau (almost sure Maman wouldn’t mind), and dear Emily Dickinson for the train trip. Paul called the stationmaster and asked him to get word to his aunt. Scarcely out the door, my suitcase clasped in his hand, I said, “Hold on! I can’t leave work.”

“Tell them you need a week for our honeymoon. How can they say no to true love?”

As I penned a note for the neighbor girl to deliver, I wondered if eloping was romantic or rash.