The Alice Network

by Kate Quinn

  “Don’t you Yanks know how to knock?” Eve’s cigarette glowed at the tip as she raised it for a long drag.

  I folded my arms. “The thing is,” I began, as though we were continuing a discussion already begun, “I don’t know what comes next.”

  Eve finally looked at me. She raised her eyebrows.

  “I had a plan, all broken down like a simple geometry problem. Find Rose if she was still alive, have my baby, learn to cope. I don’t have a plan, now. But I’m not ready to go home. I’m not ready to go back to my mother and start arguing all over again about how I’m going to live. I’m not ready to sit on a couch knitting booties.”

  Above all, I wasn’t ready to lose this little trio that had molded itself around Eve and Finn and me in a dark blue car. Part of me had had enough pain for a lifetime, and that part wanted to pull up stakes and run home rather than take the risk that Finn would reject me tomorrow morning. But another part of me—small but increasingly demanding, just like the Rosebud—wanted to stick this out, whatever this was. I wasn’t sure exactly what had pulled the three of us together, or why it had turned out we were all chasing some variant of the same thing: legacies left by lost women in past wars. I didn’t have a destination anymore, or a goal at the end of this road, but we were headed somewhere and I wasn’t ready to abandon the journey.

  “I know what I want, Eve. I want time to figure out what comes next.” I groped my way through this thicket as Eve sat giving me no clue if my words were sinking in. I looked at her hands, taking a deep breath. “And I want to hear the rest of your story.”

  Eve exhaled smoke. I heard the honk of a horn outside, some late-night driver.

  “You asked me at the café tonight if I had guts.” I heard my own heart pounding. “I don’t know if I do or not. At around my age you were racking up medals in a war zone; I haven’t done anything even remotely in your class. But I’ve got the guts not to go crawling home. I’ve got the guts to hear what happened to you, no matter how bad it was.” I sat down opposite those steady eyes that were afire with remembered pain and savage self-loathing. “Finish the story. Give me a reason to stay.”

  “You want a reason?” She passed me her cigarettes. “Revenge.”

  The pack was slippery in my hand. “Revenge for who?”

  “For Lili’s arrest.” Eve’s voice in the dark was low, graveled, ferocious. “And for what happened to me, the night I was caught.”

  And as dark wore on to dawn, Eve told me the rest of it.

  CHAPTER 30

  EVE

  October 1915

  It didn’t matter what she said or didn’t say. Whether Eve insulted René, answered him civilly, or refused to answer at all, he brought down the bust of Baudelaire in a sharp, precise movement and broke another finger joint. Even in the throes of agony, Eve could look down at her hands and count.

  She had twenty-eight finger joints in total.

  René had so far gone through nine of them.

  “I am going to give you to the Germans.” His metallic voice was level, but she could hear the emotions running taut below the surface. “First, however, you are going to talk to me. You are going to tell me everything I want to know.”

  He sat opposite, one finger tapping the dome of Baudelaire’s head. The once-pristine marble was now flecked with blood. He’d broken her first few joints without skill, clumsy at it, flinching at the noise of shattering bone. He was getting better at it now, though the blood still made his nostrils flare in distaste. You’re as new to this torture business as I am, Eve thought. She had no idea how much time might have passed. Time had turned elastic, molding itself around the pulse of her agony. The fire flickered, and the two of them sat in leather armchairs with the table drawn between them, as they used to sit playing chess before retiring to bed. Only now Eve’s hands were tied flat to that table’s surface with the silk cord from one of René’s robes. Tied so tightly it hurt, so tightly she had no hope of pulling free.

  She didn’t try. Escape wasn’t a possibility now. The only things possible were to remain silent, and show no fear. So she kept her back straight, much as she wished she could curl over her hands and shriek, and she managed a smile for René. He would not know what that smile cost her.

  “You wouldn’t rather play chess?” she suggested. “I let you teach me how to play, because Marguerite was t-too ignorant to know chess, but I’m actually rather good. I’d love to play a real match instead of always losing on p-purpose so you can feel superior.”

  Rage tightened his face. Eve barely had time to brace herself before the bust descended, and with it the now-familiar sound of crunching bone.

  She screamed through clenched teeth, making René’s chin jerk. She had told herself at first that she wouldn’t scream, but she’d broken down by the fifth knuckle. This was the tenth. She couldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt. She couldn’t look directly at her hand anymore either. From the corner of her eye, she saw a mess of blood and black bruising and grotesquely twisted joints. All the damage so far was to her right hand—the left still sat beside it, undamaged, curled into a fist.

  “Who is the woman with whom you were arrested?” René’s voice was taut. “She can’t be the head of the local network, but she might know him.”

  Inside, Eve smiled. Even now, René and the Huns had underestimated Lili. They underestimated anything female. “Her name is Alice Dubois, and she’s a nobody.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He hadn’t believed anything out of her mouth so far. After the sixth knuckle went in a burst of blood, Eve had tried giving him false information, anything her imagination could make up. Hoping it would make him stop. But he had not stopped, even when she pretended to acquiesce and started talking. He might be new to the business of torture, but he was keen.

  “What is the woman’s real name? Tell me!”

  “Why?” Eve managed to spit. “You won’t believe anything I say. Give me to the G-Germans and let them ask the questions.” At this point she wanted a German cell. The Huns might interrogate her, they might kick her about the floor, but they did not hate her personally as betrayed, outwitted René did. Just turn me in, Eve prayed, biting the inside of her lip to stifle a moan, tasting her own blood.

  “I will not turn you in until I’ve drained you of information,” René said as though reading her mind. “If I’m to overcome the distrust the Germans will harbor knowing I took a spy for a mistress, I must give them something valuable. If I can’t, I may as well spare myself the suspicion altogether and just shoot you.” A pause. “It’s not as though anyone will inquire about a disappeared waitress.”

  “You can’t kill me. You’d never get away with it.” Of course he could, but Eve began flinging doubts at him anyway. She’d already thought of this, the moment he pointed the pistol at her. “You think you could march me out of this study on my own two feet, off to some lonely spot where you can shoot me and leave me in the bushes to rot? I’d scream and struggle every step of the way. Someone would see.”

  “I could kill you here in this room—”

  “And then have to dispose of me somewhere, all by yourself. Your German friends may owe you favors, but they won’t dispose of a corpse for you. You think you can lug a body out of your restaurant and get rid of it, all without someone noticing? This is a city of spies, René, German and French and English alike. Everyone sees everything. You’d never get away with it—”

  Oh, yes, he could. Money, luck, and a good scheme could always make murder possible. But Eve kept flinging up objections anyway, and she could see the doubts being sowed in René’s eyes. He had no firm plan and he was floundering here, for all his taut control. You make brilliant plans, Eve thought, but unlike me, you can’t improvise worth a damn. René was so rarely surprised by other people; when he was knocked back onto his heels he had no idea how to proceed. Eve filed that away. God only knew if she would ever be able to use it against him, but she still filed it away.

 
“I could kill you,” he said at last, “but I’d rather drain you of information. If I can give the Germans the network of agents that has done so much damage in this area, they will be exceedingly grateful. Because as it stands, they don’t have the evidence to sentence the two women they are holding to death.”

  Eve filed that away too.

  René smiled, fingers tapping Baudelaire’s marble head, and she couldn’t help the ice-cold shiver that flashed through her body, everywhere except her destroyed hand. “So—who was the woman, Eve?”

  “She’s no one.”

  “Liar.”

  “Yes,” Eve spat. “I’m a liar and you kn-know it, and you won’t trust anything out of my mouth. You have no idea how to c-conduct this interrogation. This isn’t about getting information from me; this is about you being outsmarted. You’re destroying me because I was cleverer than you.”

  He stared at her, mouth tight, two spots of color gleaming high in his cheeks. “You are just a lying bitch.”

  “Here’s something you can believe.” Eve leaned forward over her own mangled hand. “Every moan I ever made in your bed was faked.”

  He brought the bust down. The first knuckle in her right thumb shattered and Eve couldn’t catch the scream in her teeth this time. Even as she screamed, she wondered if the neighbors would hear through the windows, the muffling brocade drapes, the thick walls. No one can help you, even if they hear. The darkened city outside might as well be on the other side of the world. Let me faint, Eve prayed, let me faint—but René picked up the glass of water at his elbow and tossed it in her face, and the world cleared with a jolt.

  “Were you aiming from the start to seduce me?” His voice was tight.

  “You walked yourself into that trap, you g-gutless French pansy.” Eve managed a cough of a laugh, water sliding down her chin. “I was glad you did, though. The way you spilled your g-guts over a pillow, it was worth the four minutes of panting and moaning first—”

  She had only three knuckles still whole on her right hand, and René broke them all in a flurry of now-expert blows. Eve shrieked. A sharp stench rose into the air of the rich study. Dimly, through the agony, she realized she had soiled herself. Urine and worse ran down the butter-soft leather of René’s expensive armchair to the Aubusson carpet below, and even through the torture engulfing her hand, she was ground down by a bone-deep wave of shame.

  “What a dirty slut you are,” he said. “No wonder I insisted you take a bath before I ever fucked you.”

  Another wash of shame, but the fear was stronger. She was more terrified than she even knew was possible. Trapped—the word kept running through her brain like a mouse skittering before a stalking cat. Trapped—trapped. No one was coming to help her. She was very possibly going to die here, the moment he tired of giving her pain and decided it was less trouble to shoot her than to turn her in. Her mouth was so dry with terror, it felt like gravel.

  “That’s one hand,” René said casually, setting down the bust. His eyes glittered, perhaps with arousal, perhaps with his own brand of shame—the shame of being made a dupe. Either way, there were no more flinches or flared nostrils for the mess of the scene, the blood, the sounds and smells. “You still have your left hand, and that’s enough to get along. I’ll spare the rest of your fingers if you start talking. Tell me who the woman arrested at the station is. Tell me who ran the network. Tell me why you returned to Lille when you had already escaped to Tournai.”

  Verdun, Eve thought. At least the message got out. She had to hope it would be worth it, that the message for which she and Lili were captured would save lives.

  “Tell me those things, and I will bandage your hand, give you laudanum for the pain, and take you to the Germans. I’ll even request a surgeon to set your fingers.” René reached out, stroking the side of her face. The path of his fingertips carried its own agony, a shiver of revulsion so deep Eve’s bones quivered. “Just talk to me.”

  “You won’t believe me even if I—”

  “I will, pet, I will. Because I think I’ve broken you. I think you’re finally willing to speak the truth.”

  Eve’s eyes blurred. She wanted to tell him, that was the terrible part. The words were on her tongue: I worked for Louise de Bettignies, code name Alice Dubois, and she ran the entire network. Lili, whose name Eve wouldn’t know if they hadn’t run into that German general on the train platform. If only that had never happened.

  I worked for Louise de Bettignies, and she ran the network—a woman not five feet tall and brave as a lioness. And if she were here in my place, she would not say a word no matter how many fingers she lost.

  Or would she? How did one know what anyone would do when they had fourteen joints systematically smashed?

  But Lili wasn’t here in this chair with her hands bound in front of her. Eve was. Who knew what Lili would do; all Eve could be sure of was what Eve Gardiner would do.

  “Who is the woman?” René whispered. “Who?”

  Eve wished she could smile mockingly. She had no more smiles to give. She wished she could summon a cutting phrase. She had no insults left. So she just spit blood in his face, spattering his immaculately shaved cheek. “Go to hell, you cut-price collaborating cunt.”

  His eyes were all fire. “Oh, pet,” he breathed, “thank you.”

  He reached tenderly for Eve’s left hand. She curled her fingers into a fist, fighting him, but he wrenched her hand open and flattened it on the table, holding her like a vise as he reached for the little marble bust. Fucking Baudelaire, Eve thought, baring her blood-laced teeth at René. The terror was overwhelming.

  “Who is the woman?” René asked, enjoying himself now, bust poised over the little finger of her left hand.

  “Even if you would believe me,” Eve said, “I won’t tell you.”

  “You have fourteen chances to change your mind,” René replied, and brought the bust down.

  Time splintered, after that. There was scarlet-edged pain, and then velvet-black unconsciousness. René’s metallic voice slid through both like a steel needle, stitching together the waking nightmare and the fainting relief. When a cup of water dashed in her face no longer brought her up from unconsciousness, he pressed a thumb precisely against one of her ruined knuckles until Eve woke screaming. Then he took his time wiping his fingertips on a clean handkerchief, and the questions would start again. So would the sound of breaking bones.

  The pain came and went, but the terror was constant. Sometimes she cowered with tears sliding down her face, and sometimes she was able to sit upright in her soiled chair and meet René’s eyes. In either state, she had stopped answering his questions. The agony stole her ability to form words, or even a token laugh.

  There was a kind of relief when the last of her finger joints shattered. Eve looked down at the carnage that used to be her hands, and it felt like crossing a finish line. I suppose he might move on to my toes, she thought, remote inside her own shaking, sobbing shell. Or my knees . . . But the pain was already so enormous, the thought of more no longer had the power to frighten her. She had come this far; she could continue her silence.

  Because René couldn’t hold her here forever, bleeding all over his Aubusson rug as his restaurant remained closed, as his profits died, and as his neighbors began to wonder about the noise coming from his apartments. At some point he had to give up this game. He would either give her to the Germans, or kill her. Eve barely cared which anymore. Either meant that the pain would stop.

  Endure, the whisper came. In Lili’s voice; Lili would never leave her. Endure him, little daisy. Enduring the Germans, once they got hold of her, would be a different game—unlike René, they would have the power to cross-check her lies, verify her truths. But she had no strength to worry about what agonies were to come, only the agonies that were here.

  Endure. It was simple, really. No more need to pretend, to keep up a cover, to walk the razor’s edge. Eve was off the razor and in among the teeth now, but at least there was
no more need to lie. Just endure.

  So she did.

  She came out of one of her black faints—they were becoming more frequent—not with a shriek of pain but with a trickle of fire down her throat. René stood behind her, tipping her chin back as he held a glass of brandy to her lips. Eve coughed as a trickle went down, then tried to seal her mouth, but he rammed the glass against her teeth. “Drink this, or I will dig your eye out with an absinthe spoon.”

  Eve had thought the terror was at its peak, but there were always new summits, new levels of fear, and she went flying up them. She opened her lips and swallowed the brandy down, a hefty dose that burned her stomach. René sat back down opposite, eyes devouring her.

  “Eve,” he said, tasting her real name. “Aptly named. What a temptation you were. You never even needed to hand me an apple; I took you empty-handed and made a muse of you. Look at you now. ‘I see reflected in your face horror and madness, icy and silent . . .’”

  “More goddamn Baudelaire?” Eve managed to say.

  “From ‘The Sick Muse.’ Also apt.”

  They sat in silence. Eve waited for more questions, but René seemed content to gaze at her. She slipped down into the black pool, and this time woke slowly, swimming back to consciousness, the pain strangely blurred. René’s chair was empty. The sinuous, sliding texture of the jade green silk walls swam as Eve searched for him. She blinked as the walls expanded and contracted like the eye of a kaleidoscope. She shook her head to clear it, fastening her gaze on the Tiffany lampshade. There was a peacock in the shade, tail fanned out in a thousand hues of blue and green glass, and Eve cried out as the peacock turned its head. Its glittering eyes found hers, and every eye in its tail feathers turned to look at her too. Evil eyes, wasn’t that what they called the eyes in peacock feathers? They reared up toward Eve, rippling out of the lampshade with a tinkling sound of moving glass.