Page 44 of The Librarian Spy

“Where did you get all this?” Her fingertips skimmed the precious stack.

Marcel and Jean shared an amused glance. Mirth sparked in Marcel’s green eyes. “We are the Bureau de recherché géodésiques et géophysiques.”

A bureau of geodesical and geophysical research? Elaine arched an eyebrow quizzically at the two men and their impish grins.

“Or so the Germans think,” added Jean. “Marcel registered—”

Nicole swept into the room, heels clacking, her outfit chic in her usual white and blue motif, a matching hat tilted rakishly over one eye as the silky blond curls at the ends of her hair bounced midway down her back.

Jean’s mouth dropped open.

“The last time I lugged something about this heavy, it was a sack full of guns,” Nicole called out jovially as she exaggerated the strain of her bag.

“Who is that?” Jean asked under his breath.

“That is Nicole.” Elaine gave a knowing look at the besotted man, then indicated the Roneo. “Do you have the transfer sheets? And the fluid? And possibly a rag to wipe it down with?”

“Hmm?” Jean dragged his gaze from Nicole and his cheeks went scarlet. “Oui, of course.” He opened a drawer, displaying a stack of rags. From a bin sitting atop the desk, he presented the two-page master. She separated the paper form with its script penned in a neat, block letter text from its waxy back, which she carefully affixed to the rolling drum, wax-side out.

“And fluid.” He grabbed a tin from the shelf, the contents inside sloshing.

She took it with thanks and poured the methanol into the tank on the left side of the machine, its scent sharp and unmistakable. While the liquid gurgled its way into the wick, she scanned the paper used to create the necessary wax sheet. It was a call to the people of Lyon to gather at Place de la Croix-Rousse in the evening of the upcoming Bastille Day on July 14 and proudly bear the tricolor in defiance of their German oppressors.

Her heart thumped harder in her chest. She was a part of this compelling message.

After swiping away a layer of dust, she adjusted the paper into the feeder tray—a feature her own rustic machine never had. “How many copies?”

“As many as it will do.”

The Roneo could produce almost five hundred sheets, but the ink on the printed copy gradually degraded with each pass so the run likely would fall somewhere closer to four hundred and fifty if they were lucky.

She grasped the handle, rolling it forward in the way that was as familiar to her as the acrid aroma of the methanol. “I’m going to need more paper.”

Not only was Elaine proficient at running the mimeograph machine, but her ability to repair it with ease was especially welcome. So it was that she never resumed her work with Nicole, Denise, and Josette, though the absence of their constant companionship was felt keenly as the days turned into weeks and then a month.

They saw one another on occasion with deliveries, but visits were few and woefully far between. And through it all, Etienne had no further updates on Joseph.

In that time, Elaine continued to reside with Manon. Though never unkind, the woman seemed disinclined to engage with Elaine. Shrouded in her own solitude, she moved through the house like a specter, adorned in loose black dresses that accentuated the frailness of her slender body. Still, she always had a meal prepared for Elaine. Though the contents were meager, they were decorously waiting on a white plate painted with violets and delicate sunshine yellow roses.

The printing press’s assembly was underway, the skeleton fleshed out into a powerful beast—a machine worthy of discrediting Nazi propaganda.

There was a second press—the Minerva—that did not require electricity to make it run, but rather the pumping of one’s foot on a pedal at its base. It was a noisy thing once in operation, the ink plate thwacking against the blank page to imprint the text. Coordinated effort was involved as well, with the operator simultaneously stomping the treadle, removing the completed paper and replacing it with a clean, unprinted one.

Marcel operated the Minerva when he wasn’t puzzling through the myriad remaining pieces of the automatic press, until at last it was complete. The thing sounded like the five-ton monster it was, huffing and chuffing and slamming against the backdrop of the Minerva’s own thundering performance. Its noise was why the warehouse was set so far from Lyon’s heart and within the massive building.

The orchestra of newsprint went on without stop throughout the day until their composition fell into the background. Only when an issue occurred did the production cease, rendering the silence off-putting as one abruptly missed the symphony of its operation.

Elaine and the three men found a comfortable rhythm in their routines, with Jean printing out text in blocks of metal slugs that had to cool before being touched and fitted to plates for the presses. Marcel hovered over the automatic machine in these first days, monitoring each printout with critical study before nodding to himself in approval and returning the paper back to its neat stack. Antoine was Elaine’s favorite to observe as he worked over thin sheets of zinc with a sharpened tool, etching out images with the precise skill of an artist.

“We should run the story,” Antoine said one morning when Elaine walked in.

“Absolutely not.” Marcel kept his stare fixed on the printing press, apparently not in the mood to argue.

Antoine slipped a finger beneath his bow tie as if easing the pressure building there. “But it is news that Max—Jean Moulin—is dead.”

Max was a code name Elaine knew—not through personal introduction, for she would never warrant as much with a man of his caliber, but he came up often in conversations and coded messages. He was the right-hand man in Lyon for General de Gaulle, the war hero who encouraged French Resistance from London. Max had been charged with uniting their different independent factions into one.

What did his death mean for the Resistance? For their future?