Claude had let the pistol droop in his hand. Fabrice knew that he was afraid of guns, and in a calculated move, he leapt on his former comrade. The gun fell from Claude’s hand and skittered along the ink-stained wooden planks, and Fabrice dove for it. The men grappled, rolling on the floor, and though Fabrice was younger and smaller, he was the better fighter, more willing to be vicious.
He stood and loomed over Claude, pointing the gun at his head.
“It wasn’t me!” Claude yelled. “It washer!”
“Who?” Fabrice demanded.
“Michelle.”Paulette’s nom de guerre. “Your girlfriend, the one you love so much.”
It was falling off a cliff. It was drowning. It was being lined up against a wall and shot, the bullet tearing into his gut.
“Wh-what are you talking about?” Fabrice stammered.
“Shewas the collaborator. They got to her family, in her village in Provence, and threatened them. She betrayed us.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Ask the doctor, or the maid—Carine was one of the first to suspect.”
“I can’t. Everyone’s gone.”
“Think about it, Fabrice. How did the Gestapo know about Pierre and Françoise, or Monsieur R., or any of the others who went off on missions and never returned?”
Fabrice tried to think. Everything hurt. The scrapes and bruises from grappling with Claude were nothing compared to the pounding in his head, the sick sensation behind his eyes, the belief that his heartwas actually shattering into shards that were crowding his chest and tumbling, bleeding and broken, into his gut. He fought the compulsion to vomit.
“Remember when you went to take the photos outside of Nantes?” Claude continued. “The doctor told her you had been sent to Brest. He had his suspicions about her even then.”
Fabrice remembered: Paulette had seemed shocked to see him when he walked into the office after returning from his trip to Saint-Nazaire. At the time he thought she was overwhelmed with relief, full of emotion upon his return. That was the first time he had held her in his arms. Could it be possible that she had intended to send him to his death?
Fabrice lowered the gun, but continued to hold his onetime friend by the collar. His emotions and thoughts were at war; he had lived so long under the threat of betrayal, suspecting one day the woman at theboulangerie, the next the boy who swept the floor at the printshop, the day after that the old woman on the corner who sat in her window and peeked out at the world through shredded silk curtains.
“We have torun, Fabrice,” said Claude. “Run and hide. I heard her call you by your real name; they might already know where you live. We are not safe; ourfamiliesare not safe.”
“What do you mean, our families?” Fabrice asked, his voice barely above a whisper. He felt drained of energy, and finally released Claude, sliding down the wall to sit on the dirty floor beside him. “My parents know nothing about my actions.”
Claude let out a harsh laugh. “You think the Gestapo cares that our families are innocent? They are not known for their discretion. It might already be too late. You should go to them—or better yet, ask a neighbor to check, just in case there are soldiers there waiting for you already.”
Claude grabbed a pipe overhead and hauled himself to his feet, wincing and holding his arm over his chest. Dully, Fabrice wondered whether his punches, fueled by fury and fear for Paulette, had broken a rib.
Claude was only a year older than Fabrice, but his eyes belonged to a much older man. They were still just teenagers, but they had both changed since the war began, and even more since working with the Résistance; they had become hard, distrustful, wary.
“Well,Iam going to run,” said Claude, with sudden fervor. “It has been more than three years; this war cannot last forever. The Free French are working with the Allies; they will liberate us eventually. Of this, I am sure. Until then, I will live in the shadows. As should you.”
Fabrice watched as his friend limped toward the back door, opened it a few inches, and peered out to check that the alley was safe before slipping through. The metal door clanged as it swung shut.
Should Fabrice believe Claude’s version of events? If Claude himself was the informant, wouldn’t it make sense to cast blame elsewhere? Still, there was something about his words that resonated. And no matter whether it was Claude or Paulette or someone else who had betrayed the cell, Fabrice had to run and hide. But first he had to be sure his family was safe.
His parents were innocent of anything but repairing statues, but it did not take much. Only a whisper of association, and they could be disappeared as swiftly and surely as the next person.
He saw their faces in his mind: his mother’s patient, gentle smile; his father’s serious, dark gaze; his little sister’s chubby red cheeks. There were moments when he despised them, felt they were holding him back... but they were his family. They were all he had, and he loved them. Surely he had not put them in danger? They had nothing to do with any of his actions. If he had to, he would turn himself in to the Gestapo, confess to everything, to keep them safe.
Tears stung his eyes as he sprang to his feet, flung open the door, and ran down rue Saint-Séverin and across boulevard Saint-Michel, the streets he had run through as a child, toward the apartment he had shared with his family his entire life. His father’s woodworking shop was on the first floor of a building on the Impasse Hautefeuille, notfar from Place Saint-André-des-Arts. A small sign,CHARPENTERIECLEMENT, was the only indication.
TheOUVERTplacard hung in the window, but the door was locked.
Fabrice banged on it and yelled, fighting panic. The door was never locked during business hours; Marc-Antoine did not believe in turning anyone away, especially now. The family needed every job that came in, in order to pay the rent, to find food, to survive.
Guilt washed over him. Fabrice was supposed to have been here working beside his father, planing planks and carving details, using rottenstone and pumice to bring the wood to a high polish. He was supposed to have been here.
