“Tais-toi, you worrier!” Lili switched into English, as she’d already told Eve they were to do when alone. Far better to spin a story about how they spoke English, if they were overheard, she explained, than to be understood discussing things like secret messages and British codes in French. Lili’s English was flawless, but she salted it with casual French curses. “Now, we need to get Marguerite up to date before you and I head to the border to get the reports out.” She smiled at Violette. “Our new friend is splendidly dumb faced and she’s going to be brilliant, but she needs work.”
In Folkestone Eve’s training had been formalized: the instructors, the row of desks, the uniforms and flags. This training was quite different. It happened in a damp little room with a narrow bed and a single washstand and a crack running through the ceiling, where everything smelled musty from the unending needle-fine rain falling outside. A room chosen not for its comfort but its proof against eavesdropping, since on one side the building was insulated by the thick stone wall of a chapel, on the other side by a derelict and abandoned apartment building, and above them by an empty attic. A room where three women sat with mugs of an unappetizing drink made of walnut leaves boiled with licorice, because the Germans had confiscated all the coffee, talking matter-of-factly about unspeakable things.
“A German officer walks toward you on the street,” Violette began after the door and window were checked and sealed. She looked grim compared to Lili’s jauntiness; if her superior refused to be serious, she was clearly carrying the grimness for two. “What do you do?”
“Let him pass, don’t look at him—”
“Wrong. Salute. If you don’t, you risk a fine, and three days’ arrest.” Violette looked at Lili. “Do they teach them anything in Folkestone?”
Eve bristled. “They teach us plenty—”
“We’ll get her ready,” Lili reassured her lieutenant. “A German asks to see your papers, then starts to grope you. What do you do?”
“Nothing?” Eve guessed.
“No. Smile, because if you can’t fake a smidge of willingness, you will likely get slapped and then possibly searched. A German asks why you have your hands in your pockets, what do you do?”
“T-take them out as quickly as—”
“No. You don’t put your hands in your pockets ever, because the Huns will think you are reaching for a knife and they will bayonet you.”
Eve smiled uneasily. “Surely not—”
Violette’s hand cracked across her cheek, making a sound like a rifle shot. “You think we exaggerate? It happened to a boy of fourteen last week!”
Eve’s hand flew to her stinging face. Her eyes turned to Lili, sitting with her little hands wrapped around her mug. “What?” Lili said. “You think we’re here to be your friends? We’re here to train you, little daisy.”
Anger flared through Eve—more than anger, betrayal. Lili had been so warm and welcoming in Le Havre; now everything was wrong-footed. “I’ve already been trained.”
Violette rolled her eyes. “I say send her back. This one is useless.”
Eve opened her mouth to snap back, but Lili laid a finger over her lips. “Marguerite,” she said, and her voice was matter-of-fact. “You don’t have any idea what it is like here. Neither does Uncle Edward. He gave you the training that would get you here, but Violette and I have to give you the training that will make you useful here—and keep you alive. We have just a few days to do it. If you don’t learn, you’re nothing but a liability.”
Her gaze was steady and unapologetic. She could have been a factory foreman delivering a brisk lecture to a new worker, and Eve’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. She let out a slow breath, unclenched her jaw, and managed to nod. “Salute all German officers. Do not object to being groped. Keep my hands out of m-m-m—out of my pockets. What else?”
They drilled her, over and over. Encounter drills: What do you do if—? Quick-hide drills: If they happen upon you before you’ve hidden a report, what do you do to distract and delay? And they tutored her about the new rules of life in Lille.
“Trust nothing in the newspapers or bulletins. If it’s in print, it’s a lie,” Lili decreed.
“Carry your identity cards at all times, but hide your pistol.” Violette had a Luger of her own which she handled with casual authority. “Civilians aren’t supposed to have weapons.”
“Steer clear of the German officers. They think they can have any of the women they want, with or without their consent—”
“—and once that happens, a good many people in Lille will despise you for a collaborator and say you flopped on your back just to get favors.”
“You’ll live here, in this room. Before now we’ve used it as a bolt-hole for quick overnights, but now you’ll live here, so the door outside will need a posted notice with your name and your age in case a roll is called—”
“—no gatherings of more than ten people allowed—”
“How does anyone l-live like this?” Eve wondered on the second day, finally earning enough grudging approval to venture the occasional question.
“Life is shit here,” Lili said. “It will likely go on being shit until we drive the Germans out.”
“When will I report to you? If I l-l-learn anything.”
“We come through regularly, Violette and I.” Lili grinned at her lieutenant. “We’ll continue to bunk here with you when we need to stay the night in town. But we’re on the move so much between all my drops, you’ll be alone more often than not.”
Violette looked at Eve with an utter lack of enthusiasm. “I hope you’re up to it.”
“Salope!” Lili tugged Violette’s taut bun. “Don’t be such a bitch!”
German-run Lille was a horrible place, Eve soon saw. Before the war it must have been a fine, bright, bustling city—church spires piercing the sky, pigeons fluttering about the Grand Place, streetlamps casting circles of warm yellow light in the dusk. Now the city was dulled and wretched, every face downcast and pinched with hunger. They weren’t far from the trenches and soldiers and the real action of war—the boom of guns in the distance rolled like low thunder, and occasionally a biplane droned overhead like a poisonous wasp. The Huns had held Lille since last fall, thoroughly entrenched: the boulevards sported new street signs with German names, German boots rang confidently on the cobbles, and German chatter resounded loudly in every public place. The only pink well-fed faces were German, and that alone was enough to push Eve very quickly from a rather impersonal dislike of The Enemy to utter, burning hatred.
“Don’t get too much fire in your eye,” Lili advised, helping Eve dress for her interview. A neat, drab skirt and shirtwaist, but it was more than just the clothes. Lili was dulling Eve’s skin with a few strategic dabs of chalk and soot, downplaying the healthy color in her cheeks. “You need to look downcast and beaten, little daisy. That’s what the Germans want to see. Fire in the eye will get you looked at.”
“D-downcast,” Eve repeated grimly. “Oui.”
Violette looked her over, round glasses flashing. “Her hair gleams.”
They dulled it with a little dirt. Eve rose, putting on her darned gloves. “I am a country g-girl newly come from Roubaix,” she recited. “Desperate for work, badly educated. Neat, deft, a little s-s-stupid.”