Page 113 of The Librarian Spy

Elaine

The day after Etienne killed Werner, the Nazis fled. Explosions filled all of Lyon as they blew up the bridges behind them to keep the Allies from giving chase. The cowards.

General de Gaulle himself arrived two weeks later and honored Lyon by declaring it the capital of the Resistance. The day was one of great victory that seeded itself in Elaine’s soul, for in that veneration was the appreciation for brutal sacrifices. For those who had been strong enough to endure torture. For those who had paid with their lives. For those whose hearts had been gouged from people they’d lost.

At last, she had heard from her parents. As she had hoped, they fared better than most through the occupation. Their time in the small rural town whose doldrum existence she had resented in her youth had been their salvation, providing them with enough produce to make it through the leaner years.

Prisoners did not return from the camps until the beginning of 1945, and when they did, France was horrified at the zombie-like people who arrived, bone-thin with large haunted eyes set in skulls with only taut skin stretched over them. The ration was still enforced, though not to the strict standards of when Lyon was under German occupation. But when the people from the camps returned, there was not a soul in France who did not offer their own share to help feed them.

Denise returned a month into the prisoners’ liberation, skeletal like all the others, and missing several teeth, but with that familiar fire still bright in her gaze.

It was with their arrival that Elaine found new purpose. So vast was the number of people seeking family members, that she printed lists of survivors to reunite them with who had been lost. She relocated the heavy printing press once more, this time to a room with a wide window facing the street to let in sunshine and make her efforts known. It was from there the Minerva put forth the power of words, no longer enlisting an army to fight hate but reuniting friends and family and restoring love.

It was through those lists that she found Nicole’s father, Olivier, who towered well over six feet and bore the same heart-shaped mole on his emaciated arm. He listened to the tales of Nicole’s bravery with tears in his eyes and confirmed that it was through her packages that he and his son had managed to survive. Nicole’s sister and brother-in-law both made it through their ordeal in Germany as well, and every night the four of them said a prayer for the empty seat at the table that lay between them.

Josette never fully recovered from her precarious state, her nature too delicate to endure the prolonged stress. Elaine had visited once under the disapproving glare of Josette’s mother, who blamed Elaine and the rest of the Resistance for what happened to Josette. Though Elaine wanted to return, her mother barred any future visits.

Lucie did not come back to France. Nor did her husband, both having perished in a camp in Poland called Auschwitz. Every image of the terrible place made Elaine recall her friend who had always been so beautifully optimistic and ache for what she must have endured.

Elaine returned to her home eventually at Rue du Plat, pausing outside with poignancy at what lay on the other side. Not the layers of dust, but the memories of a life that seemed to have belonged to someone else.

When at last she entered, she found an envelope just inside the entryway, a scrape of dust in its wake from where it had been shoved beneath the door. She kept it pinched between her fingers as she slowly walked through those once-familiar rooms. To the sunny kitchen where she used to pore over issues of Combat, back before she’d ever known what a printing press looked like, let alone how to operate one. To the armchair in the living room where Joseph would bend over his research, his warm brown gaze distant with calculations. To the bedchamber where they had slept in one another’s arms until she allowed his need to keep her safe to drive a wedge between them.

Tears burned in her eyes.

What she wouldn’t give to have those days back, to set aside her anger and still allow herself to revel in their love. She entered the bathroom last where the spice of his cologne still lingered two years later.

It was then that her knees gave out and she sank to the floor in a fit of sobs for the man she loved. The man who was gone forever.

When at last her tears had dried, she remembered the letter still in her hand. She drew back the top to reveal a note inside along with an identity card for Hélène Bélanger.

A name as once familiar as the apartment in which she now lay crumpled on the floor.

With trembling hands, she unfolded the note.

I waited for several hours, but I fear you do not reside here any longer. I hope you receive this as I have no other way to locate you. I want to thank you for the time you allowed me to use your name, though truly this note is so ineffectual to express the depth of my gratitude. You saved my life with your sacrifice. It only seemed right to return this to you.

Elaine looked down at the identity card once more.

It had never occurred to her that she could take her name back. In the last two years, Hélène had become something of the past. A woman who selfishly made demands of what she wanted in her life, who thought she could bend circumstances to her will, who allowed her temper to squander the last precious days of her time with Joseph.

But Bélanger...yes, she would take that name once more, to have and to cherish the eternal gift bestowed upon her by the man she would always love.

A week later, when she arrived at her printing press to begin a fresh list of survivors that needed to be printed and shared, she found Etienne waiting for her with a painfully thin man at his side.

The stranger’s shoulders were hunched forward, his hands clasped together in a diminutive stance, as if trying to make himself as small as possible. But he kept his head lifted, his large dark eyes watching her with interest.

It was not the first time Etienne had brought one of the camp survivors to her. He too spent most of his days tracking down family for those who had been unjustly imprisoned. Perhaps it was his time as a soldier that led him to such philanthropic pursuits, though Elaine suspected it had much to do with his personal penance when it came to Joseph and others he had not been able to save.

“It is good to see you, Etienne.” She kissed his cheeks and was met with the familiar scent of cigarettes. He and the other men of France—and some women as well—were relieved to have their tobacco stocks restored.

She turned her attention to the man.

“This is Saul.” Etienne set a hand gently to the man’s thin shoulder, the gesture one of affection as well as being somewhat reverent.

“Bonjour, Saul.” She offered him a smile and kept her tone gentle. Many camp survivors still jumped at being spoken to, haunted by the nightmares of their daily life of barking orders and senseless, unwarranted punishments. “May I help you?”

“I may help you.” His voice was thin and reedy, his breath whistling in his narrow chest beneath clothes that were far too large for his shrunken frame. He held out his fisted hand, which she opened her palm beneath.