“Do it.”
Her voice came out in a desperate snarl. It was more than her determination to stay, to continue her work. It was the fact that behind her surface calm, Eve battled a panic bordering on madness. She’d given up so much since coming to Lille—home, safety, virginity, even her name—and she’d done so willingly because it was for an unseen future, a sunny clearing somewhere safely beyond war and invaders. And now the invader was inside her, claiming her as thoroughly as the Germans claimed France, and there was no more future. At a stroke she’d been rendered from a spy and a soldier, someone who battled enemies and saved lives, into just another pregnant woman to be unceremoniously bundled home and treated like a whore. Eve knew exactly what kind of future she could expect seven months from now if she did nothing: unmarried, unwanted, jobless, penniless, despised, shackled for life to an invader seeded by an enemy in the cold, starvation-racked hell of a war zone. Her body had betrayed her so completely: giving way to pleasure in a profiteer’s arms, then keeping some portion of him when she tried so hard every night to wash away every trace. She was not going to let it betray her any further.
Eve had spent weeks huddled in her cold bed, fighting the wild surges of blind panic and icy dread, and she knew she would happily risk bleeding to death for the chance to reclaim her future from the invader.
Violette was nodding tersely. “There’s a surgeon in the network who treats people for us,” she said as Eve stood battling her own emotions. “He wouldn’t touch something like this—he goes to mass every day—but I can borrow some instruments on a pretext tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Eve said, dry-mouthed. “Yes.”
Sunday. Holy Day, blessed day, ironic day because it was the day Eve had decided to do something most men would call her a murdering slut for even considering. It could only be Sunday, because Le Lethe was closed Sunday. It meant she had a full day free to bleed and die, or bleed and recover.
“What happens if I die?” Eve managed to ask when Violette arrived with her bag of borrowed instruments. “During the procedure or—or after?”
“I leave you here and never come back.” Violette was matter-of-fact. “I’d have to. If I tried to see you buried, I’d be arrested. Your neighbor would probably find you in a day or two, and then it would be a pauper’s burial for you while Lili notified Uncle Edward.”
The sordid reality of such plans hit Eve like a knife thrust. “Well. Let’s g-get on with it, then.” And try not to die.
“Lie quiet.” Violette said it over and over that afternoon. Eve didn’t know why; she lay quiescent as a marble figure on a tomb. Perhaps it was meant for reassurance. The bed was spread with a clean layer of sheets; Violette wore an apron with a crossover front surely left from her Red Cross days, and her voice had a nurse’s crispness. Instruments gleamed on a folded cloth, but Eve didn’t look at them too closely. She pulled off her petticoats and underclothes and stockings, everything below the waist, and lay down. Cold. She was so cold.
“Laudanum,” Violette said, uncapping a tiny vial, and Eve opened her lips obediently, swallowing down the drops. “There will be pain, I warn you.” Her voice was brusque, officious, and Eve thought of Lili saying, The habit of nagging, let me assure you, goes with a nurse no matter what she does. Right now, Eve found it comforting.
Violette wiped down her instruments with something astringent. She cleaned her fingers with the same harsh-smelling stuff, and warmed the metal between her hands for a moment. “Doctors,” she said, “never warm their instruments. They don’t realize how cold the metal is on a woman’s parts.”
The laudanum was already making Eve’s head swim. The room blurred. Her body felt blunt and heavy. “Have you done this before?” she heard herself ask from a distance.
“Once,” Violette said brusquely. “Earlier this year—Antoine’s little sister, Aurélie. She works for us, escorting the couriers so the locals don’t get suspicious, and she got caught at night by some German soldiers looking for fun. Only nineteen, poor thing. Her family came to me when they found out the bastards left her enceinte.”
“Did she survive—this?” Eve looked at the instruments in Violette’s hands.
“Yes, and she went right back to work for the network afterward, good stout-hearted girl that she is.”
If she did it, so can I, Eve thought. But she couldn’t stop herself from flinching as she felt Violette’s hands part her bare knees, and heard her say, “Brace yourself, now.”
Despite Violette’s attempts at warming the instrument, it pierced Eve like an icicle. The pain, when it came, was sharp. “Lie quiet,” the order came, though Eve didn’t move. Violette did something, Eve didn’t know what, it all felt very distant. The pain bloomed then faded away again, bloomed and faded. Cold. Eve closed her eyes, willing it all to go far, far away from her. Lie quiet.
The instruments were gone. It was done, but it wasn’t done. Violette was saying something. “—will be some bleeding now. You don’t panic at the sight of blood, do you?”
“I don’t panic at anything,” Eve said through numb lips, and Violette smiled grudgingly.
“You don’t, I’ll say that for you. I first saw you, and I thought you’d go screaming home to your mummy within a week.”
“It hurts,” Eve heard herself saying. “It hurts.”
“I know,” Violette said, and gave her more drops of laudanum. Bitter. Why did everything in Lille taste bitter except what came from René? He was the source of rich food and delicious wine and warm cups of chocolat, whereas everything shared with Lili and Violette was bitter and vile. In Lille everything was upside down; evil was delicious and good tasted like gall.
Violette was taking bloody cloths away, replacing the pads under Eve’s hips and between her legs. “You’re doing well,” she said. “Lie still.”
Church bells rang outside, sounding evening mass. Did anyone go? Who thought prayer did any good in this place? “Lille,” Eve said, and heard herself quoting Baudelaire. “‘Its black enchantments, its hellish cortege of alarms, its cups of poison and its tears, its din of chains and dead men’s bones . . .’”
“You’re rambling,” Violette said. “Try to lie quiet.”
“I know I’m rambling,” Eve replied. “And I am lying quiet, you bossy bitch.”
“That’s gratitude for you,” Violette commented as she piled Eve with more blankets.
“I’m cold.”
“I know.”
And Eve cried violently. Not from pain, not from sadness. From relief. René Bordelon had no more hold on her future, and the relief brought tears like a storm.