Eve continued to clear dessert plates without a flicker.
“A suitable welcome should be prepared, even if the inspection is clandestine. He must not find our attentions wanting. A small deputation to greet his train—what line will he be traveling?”
Please, Eve begged silently. The train and the date!
The general listed both, peering fussily at a notebook to check that he had it all correct. So German, this attention to tiny details, and Eve thanked God for it. She withdrew before it looked like she was dawdling, feet barely touching the ground. She knew when the kaiser—the kaiser!—was coming to the front. Lili would whoop like a banshee. “Parbleu, little daisy, well done! We will bomb that shit-brained bastard into bits, and this war will be finished!”
“What are you smiling at?” the other waitress whispered. A dim-witted corn blonde named Christine who had long since replaced the heavy-footed Amélie. “What have we got to smile about?”
“Nothing.” Eve took her place against the wall, wiping her face of emotion, but her heart was leaping like love at first sight. This war could be over. The trenches filled with dying men and glue-like mud; the starvation and the humiliation of poor abused Lille; the drone of aeroplanes and the muffled explosion of artillery over the horizon—all ended. Eve imagined yanking down the German street sign nailed up over the French one on her block, and stamping it to bits as victory bells pealed.
The clock had never moved so slowly. “Can you take up the books to Monsieur René?” Eve pleaded with Christine as they finished their final sweep-up. “I need to g-get home.”
Christine shivered. “He scares me.”
“Just look at the f-floor and say yes and no until you’re d-dismissed.”
“I can’t. He scares me!”
Eve wanted to roll her eyes. Why on earth did it matter if something scared you, when it simply had to be done anyway? Why were so many women such timid ninnies? She thought of Lili’s lion-hearted swagger, Violette’s dour and ferocious endurance. Now those were women.
She put the ledger off on the headwaiter and was out the door. Past midnight, the moon very high and nearly full—a bad night for sneaking across borders. Lili would be back through Lille soon . . .
“Fraulein!” The bark of a German voice, German boots behind her. “It is past curfew.”
“I have an exemption.” Eve scrabbled in her handbag for her identity cards and the various other bits of paper. “I work at Le Lethe; the shift has j-j-just ended.”
The German was young, officious, his face marked with acne. “Let’s see this exemption, Fraulein.”
Eve cursed silently, pawing through her bag. It wasn’t here—she’d had to empty everything out on the bed this morning so she could unpick the bag’s lining and make a better smuggling space for her coded messages. The card with her curfew exemption must be sitting on her counterpane. “I’m sorry, I don’t have it. The restaurant is just there, they can c-confirm that I—”
“Do you know the penalty for breaking curfew?” the German snapped, looking pleased to have someone to write up, but a smooth metallic voice sounded from the darkness behind Eve.
“I assure you, the girl works for me. Her papers are in order.”
René Bordelon came to stand beside Eve, his silver-headed cane gleaming in the moonlight. He tipped his hat at the perfect angle of courtesy and carelessness. He must have foregone tonight’s look at the ledger for a walk under the summer moon.
“Herr Bordelon—”
René smiled in polite contempt, taking Eve’s arm. “You may take the matter to Kommandant Hoffman if you wish. Good night.”
He moved Eve along, and the breath that had stuck in her throat let out. “T-thank you, monsieur.”
“Not at all. I have no objection to serving Germans when they are civilized, but I enjoy putting the rude ones in their place.”
Eve tugged her arm from his hand. “I would not d-dream of delaying you further, s-sir.”
“Not at all.” He took hold of her elbow again. “You are without papers; I will see you to your door.”
He was acting the gentleman. But he wasn’t one, so what did he want? It had been two nights since their last conversation which had so unnerved Eve; her pulse thrummed, but as much as she wished to avoid her employer, she knew she couldn’t refuse. She fell into step beside him, preparing to ratchet up her stammer. If he wanted to probe her further, this was going to be the slowest conversation in history.
“You’ve had stars in your eyes all evening,” he observed. “Can you be in love, Mademoiselle Le Fran?ois?”
“No, m-m-m-monsieur. I have no t-t-time for such things.” I have a kaiser to kill.
“Still, something has put a light in your eye.”
Incipient regicide. No, don’t think that. “I am g-g-grateful for all I have, monsieur.” They made the turn away from the river. Just a few more blocks—
“You are very silent,” he said. “I have met few quiet women. It makes me wonder what you are thinking. That’s curious to me. I don’t normally care what goes on in a woman’s head, because it’s usually banal. Are you banal, mademoiselle?”
“I’m very ordinary, m-m-m-monsieur.”
“I wonder.”
Do not wonder that. She should chatter the way thoughtless, witless Christine did. Bore him with inanities. “W-why do you call it L-L-Le Lethe, monsieur?” Eve asked the first thing that came to mind.
“More Baudelaire,” he answered. “‘Nothing can match the abyss of your bed, potent oblivion lingers on your lips, and Lethe flows in your kisses.’”
That was a great deal more sensuality than Eve felt comfortable introducing into this conversation. “P-p-pretty,” she murmured, speeding up her steps. Just a block more—
“Pretty? No. But potent.” His hand at her elbow held her back from rushing, his fingers so long they entirely circled her arm. “Lethe is the river of forgetfulness that runs through the underworld, so the classics tell us, and there is nothing more potent than forgetfulness. That is what a restaurant like mine offers in a time of war—an oasis of civilization where one may forget the horrors outside for a few hours. There is no horror that cannot be forgotten, mademoiselle, given the right drug for the senses. Food is one. Drink is another. The pull between a woman’s thighs is a third.”