She swallowed, looking up to meet his gaze. He had eyes of no particular color, and he seemed to have no need to blink.
“Do you think me a collaborator? A profiteer?”
Yes. “It’s war, monsieur,” Eve replied. “We all do what we must.”
“Yes, we do. Will you do what you must, and serve the Germans? Our invaders? Our conquerors?”
He was baiting her, and Eve froze. She had no doubt at all that if he saw fire in her eye—as Lili put it—then her chance was gone. He wouldn’t hire a girl he thought might spit in the Germans’ boeuf bourguignon. But what was the right answer?
“Do not lie to me,” he said. “I am very good at scenting lies, mademoiselle. Will you find it hard to serve my German patrons, and serve them with a smile?”
No was a lie too absurd to even attempt. Yes was an honesty she couldn’t afford.
“I find it h-h-hard not to eat,” she said at last, playing up the stammer just a little. “I don’t have t-t-time for other hardships, monsieur. Just that one. Because if you do not hire me, I will not find w-work elsewhere. No one will hire a girl with a s-s-s-stammer.” This was the truth. Eve thought back to her days in London and how hard it was to find that silly filing room job, because jobs that didn’t require easy speech were rare. She remembered the frustration of that job search, and let M. Bordelon see her bitterness. “I cannot answer a telephone or give directions in a shop, not w-w-with a stumbling tongue. But I can move plates and lay silver in s-s-silence, monsieur, and I can do it to perfection.”
She gave him the doe eyes again, all desperate, hungry, humiliated youth. He steepled his fingertips—extraordinarily long fingers, no wedding ring—and looked at her. “How remiss I’ve been,” he said at last. “If you’re hungry, I shall feed you.”
He spoke as carelessly as if speaking of putting milk down for a stray cat. Surely he hadn’t offered refreshment to all the girls? It is not good if he singles me out, Eve thought, but he’d already rung the bell and was now speaking with a waiter who came from the restaurant below. A few murmured words; the waiter departed and then returned with a plate. Piping-hot toast; and Eve could see that it was good white bread of the kind almost impossible to locate in Lille now, with butter—real butter—spread thick and profligate. Eve wasn’t so hungry yet that she could be transfixed by the sight of toast, but Marguerite was, and Eve let her hand tremble as she lifted a triangle of bread to her lips. He sat waiting to see if she’d wolf it down, and she bit off a ladylike corner. Marguerite couldn’t be such a country stick as Eve had planned; René Bordelon clearly wanted something more polished in his waitresses. Eve chewed her toast, swallowed, took another bite. Strawberry jam clearly made with real sugar, and she thought of the boiled beetroot Lili used as a sweetener.
“There are advantages to working for me,” M. Bordelon said at last. “Scraps from the kitchen are divided nightly among the staff. Exemptions from the curfew are issued to all my workers. I have never had a woman serving in my establishment, but as it is inevitable, I assure you that you will not be expected to . . . entertain the clientele. That kind of thing lowers the tone of a restaurant.” The distaste in his voice was clear. “I am a civilized man, Mademoiselle Le Fran?ois, and the officers who eat under my roof are expected to behave like civilized men.”
“Yes,” Eve murmured.
“However,” he added disinterestedly, “if you steal from me—food supplies, silver, or so much as a swallow of wine—then I will hand you over to the Germans. And you will see that they are not always civilized.”
“I understand, monsieur.”
“Good. You start tomorrow. You will be trained by my second, beginning at eight in the morning.”
He did not raise the matter of pay. He knew she would take whatever wage he offered; all of them would. Eve swallowed the last bite of toast, ladylike but hurrying because no one in this city would leave buttered toast unfinished on the plate, and bobbed a curtsy before scurrying out of the study.
“Well?” Violette looked up from the tiny rice-paper message she sat inscribing as Eve tumbled back into the musty room.
Eve nearly whooped in triumph, but she didn’t want to look like a giddy little girl, so she nodded matter-of-factly. “I was hired. Where’s Lili?”
“Off to get a report from one of her railway contacts. Then she’ll head to the border.” Violette shook her head. “How she manages not to get shot, I don’t know. Those border searchlights would show a flea cowering on the floor of hell, but she always slips through.”
Until the day she doesn’t, Eve couldn’t help but think as she unhooked her boots. But it wasn’t profitable to dwell on the ways they could all be caught. Do as Lili said: be afraid, but only afterward. Before that, it’s an indulgence.
And now that she was out of sight from René Bordelon and his elegantly manicured hands and his eyes that didn’t blink, Eve did feel fear, humming along her skin like a poisoned breeze. She let out a long breath.
“Getting the shakes already?” Violette raised her eyebrows, light reflecting off her round glasses. Glasses like that must be useful, Eve thought—all she had to do was tilt her head against the light, and her eyes were cloaked. “Wait till you pass a bad checkpoint or have to talk your way past a sentry.”
“René Bordelon.” Eve lay back on the hard pallet, folding her arms under her head. “What do you know about him?”
“He’s a filthy collaborator.” Violette bent back over her work. “What else is there to know?”
Do not lie to me, his metallic voice whispered. I am very good at scenting lies, mademoiselle.
“I think,” Eve said slowly, and the thrum of fear increased just a tick, “that it will be very difficult to spy under his nose.”
CHAPTER 9
CHARLIE
May 1947
No,” Eve said. “I hate Lille and we are not staying one bloody night inside those walls.”
“Not much choice,” Finn said mildly, straightening from the Lagonda’s innards. “By the time I get her purring again, it’ll be time to stop.”
“Not in fucking Lille. We can push on through to Roubaix in the dark.”
I’d had just about enough of Eve in the last twenty-four hours. “We stop in Lille.”
She glared. “What, because the bun in your oven is acting up again?”
I glared right back. “No, because I’m the one paying for the hotel.”