Page 23 of Summer of Fire
‘Not at all. It’s brave of you to come. No one has visited for quite some time,’ said the woman. ‘I thought perhaps it was the end of the Resistance. Here, sit.’
The first glimpses of dawn cast a hazy light into the room and Lizzie saw they were in the kitchen. She heard running water, and then the woman lit the hob. ‘Coffee, yes?’
Lizzie nodded. ‘Oh, yes, please.’
The woman placed a small bowl of steaming coffee in front of her, and she lifted it gratefully to her lips with both hands.
Lizzie drank the coffee and her stomach rumbled loudly.
‘You are hungry, you poor girl. Gone are the days of fresh croissants, I’m afraid. I barely got anything from the shops yesterday after queuing well into the afternoon,’ the woman grumbled. ‘But I’ll get you something.’
Lizzie thanked her and looked around the kitchen. It reminded her of her cousins’ cottage in St. Malo, and afamiliar ache tugged at her chest. There had been no word from them since France surrendered, and she wondered how they were fairing.
The Beaumont siblings had spent many a happy holiday with their French cousins. The nostalgia of times gone by was sometimes too much for her to bear, so she shoved the memories firmly aside. She would use her sorrow to fuel her for what she must do next.
‘What do I call you?’ Lizzie asked.
‘Better you don’t call me anything,’ she replied. ‘The less you know about me and me about you, the safer we’ll all be.’
Lizzie nodded again. She knew nothing about the woman other than she was an ally who offered a safe house for the Resistance and for British agents. This brought her back to the purpose of her visit.
‘What do you know of our mutual friend, Alice?’ Lizzie asked, using Hannah’s cover name, hoping the woman would be familiar with the missing Resistance agent.
The woman sat down heavily opposite Lizzie and sighed. ‘Not much. I fear for her safety, to be honest.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘She hasn’t been here since spring. One of our friends told me to expect her in July, but she didn’t show up. Night after night I listened out for her, but nothing.’
Now her host’s readiness for her arrival made more sense to Lizzie. ‘You thought I might be her?’
She nodded. ‘I hoped.’ Then she shrugged. ‘No offence.’
‘None taken,’ said Lizzie. ‘I hoped she might be here, too. Then we could leave together and get her to safety.’
‘Jews are in grave danger in France. I don’t know how much you’ve heard, but there are vile anti-Jewish tracts posted all over the city. No one is safe. My grandfather was Jewish, you know. I thank God he isn’t alive to witness this.’
‘It’s awful,’ Lizzie said. ‘I don’t have Jewish relatives, butmy grandparents are in Jersey, which is under German occupation.’
‘Devil Nazis,’ the woman hissed. ‘I pray all the French, not just us pitiful few, will rise against them. I could cry when I think about our people collaborating in the so-called Free France.Mon Dieu!Whatever will become of us?’
Lizzie reached for the woman’s hand to comfort her. ‘These are difficult times. Take strength in the fact that the Allies and the Resistance are fighting to free Europe.’
The woman rose. ‘I don’t know where my manners are.’ She disappeared into the pantry and emerged with a slice of bread and a piece of cheese on a small flower-patterned china plate. ‘It’s not much, but it will keep you going for now. I hope to have more luck at the shops today.’
Lizzie thanked her and chewed the bread and cheese slowly to savour every bite. Jack had warned her she might not eat for days if things didn’t go smoothly.
But she was in the safe house and had achieved her first objective.
‘You’d better call me Jeanne, just in case. You are my sister’s friend, after all.’ She winked and smiled.
Jeanne showed her to a neat bedroom upstairs. Lizzie sank down on the bed fully clothed and fell into a deep dreamless sleep without even pulling up the cover.
CHAPTER 11
The next day, Lizzie walked into Reims, following Jeanne’s directions. Champagne country was glorious in late summer, and she admired the rows of vines laden with plump shiny grapes that looked as though they would soon be ripe for picking. Rustic cottages nestled on the landscape like a scene from a watercolour painting.
Jeanne’s willow basket swayed on Lizzie’s arm with a hypnotic rhythm as she moved. She tried not to think about how much danger she was in, or fear would paralyse her.
