The Paris Library(80)

I made one more call, then rushed to Margaret’s.





CHAPTER 31

Odile




THE BUTLER ANSWERED the door. “Is Margaret in?” I asked, anxiously looking past him into the flat. Imperturbable as ever, he led me to her room, where she lay in bed, surrounded by crumpled handkerchiefs. I embraced her.

“Thank God you’re here. We feared you’d been arrested!”

“I’m ill,” she rasped. “I tried to ring, but couldn’t get through. The phone’s been down all week.”

I perched beside her. “I even asked Paul to come in case we had to file a missing-persons report.”

“You needn’t worry.” There was a sureness in her tone.

“Of course, I worry! The city’s overrun with Nazis.”

“I’m telling you, you needn’t worry.” She peered toward the hall to make sure no servants milled about, before whispering, “I met someone.”

“We meet new someones every day.”

“No, I met someone.”

Was she trying to say she had a beau? “At the Library?”

“No. I didn’t want to frighten you… but I was arrested.”

“Arrested?” I shouted.

“Shh! This is exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

Grasping the blue silk of the bedspread, I wondered how she could keep such a thing from me. Of course, it didn’t occur to me that I hadn’t told her that Paul and I were engaged.

“After I was released, Felix gave me a document that allows freedom of movement.”

She called him by his first name? Did that mean he was her beau? It was too much to take in. She’d kept a secret. She kept company with the enemy. My whole body tightened in anger.

“Did you say Paul is coming?” She moved to the vanity and powdered her pink nose.

Now I was the one eyeing the hall. “You’re not well enough for company,” I said stiffly. “I should go.”

“Don’t do what Parisians do, when they conceal their true feelings behind a stiff veil of politeness.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If you want to go, go. But don’t pretend it’s because I have a cold.” Our gazes met in the mirror. Mine was troubled, hers resolute. “If Felix hadn’t freed me and three elderly ladies from that dank cell, we’d be moldering in an internment camp. And what would my daughter have done then? Think about that.”

Her words sank in. She could have disappeared like our Miss Wedd. I had to stop jumping to conclusions, stop judging. I was as bad as Madame Simon.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “The most important thing is that you’re safe. Are you certain you’re up to having company?”

“I’m only dizzy when I stand. Ask Isa to ready a tea tray. I’ll join you shortly.”

In the sitting room, the gouty men in gilded frames were still here. Each time Margaret had proffered a package for Rémy, I’d felt guilty, imagining these paintings ripped from the wall, sold in order to purchase supplies. But if the portraits were here, how had she procured the food?

She’d asked her Nazi.

Margaret and a Nazi. How odd to put the two together. They belonged in separate books, on separate shelves. But as the war went on, people became entangled. Things that were black and white—like print on the page—mingled to form a murky gray.

When Paul arrived, I pulled him close.

“What’s wrong?” He kissed the top of my head.

“Nothing. I’m glad to see you, glad you’re you.”

“I can’t believe these portraits. It’s like the Louvre in here.”

“All that glitters isn’t integrity,” I said.

“Huh?”

Margaret swept in. She did love to make an entrance. Paul and I stepped apart.

“Sorry to have taken you away from work, Paul. It was kind of you to come. Odile is lucky to have you.”

His ears went red, and he grinned bashfully. “Always a pleasure to see you.”

I elbowed him to remind him that we weren’t here to make small talk. He needed to warn her about the danger—I wasn’t convinced that a flimsy piece of paper from her beau could protect her.

“They say the Krauts have interned over two thousand foreign women,” he said firmly in English.

“I know,” she said.

“You’re in danger here,” he said. “You should leave.”

“You could have fled to the Free Zone in the South,” Margaret argued. “You’ve stayed.”

“I need to stay where Rémy can find me.”

“I want to be with Odile,” Paul said. “Think about your daughter.”

“London isn’t safe, either.” Margaret coughed into her handkerchief.

“Be careful,” he said. “If you see Germans coming, cross the street.”

No one could avoid Nazis, not even at the Library, and I knew Margaret didn’t particularly want to.



* * *




A WEEK LATER, Margaret cornered me in the cloakroom and thrust a box with a silver ribbon at me. I opened it and smelled the chocolate—black-market gold. My stomach gurgled. I didn’t want her ill-gotten goods but couldn’t stop myself from taking a piece. As the milky chocolate melted in my mouth, I wondered what she’d done to get such luxuries, I wondered what else she’d received. Silk? Steak? What were their Dewey numbers? The closest I got was 629 for silkworms and 636.2 for cattle. I couldn’t find the right numbers. I couldn’t believe all she had while the rest of us went without.