The Girl from Vichy

by Andie Newton

  Also by Andie Newton

  The Girl I Left Behind

  THE GIRL FROM VICHY

  Andie Newton

  AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS

  www.ariafiction.com

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © Andie Newton, 2020

  The moral right of Andie Newton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 9781789546675

  Cover design: Leah Jacobs-Gordon

  Aria

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  London EC1R 4RG

  www.ariafiction.com

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Historical Note

  1942

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  1943

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  1944

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Become an Aria Addict

  To Matt, Zane, and Drew

  Historical Note

  On a warm June day in 1940, inside a train car deep in the Compiègne forest, France signed an armistice with the Third Reich—something no other invaded country had asked for. Under the armistice’s terms, France was split in half, one part occupied militarily by the Germans, the other free, where France’s leader, Philippe Pétain, and his newly formed Vichy regime had unfettered control. To the French people, Pétain promised a separate state of peace, but to Germany he promised collaboration.

  1942

  1

  Vichy, France

  I stopped running just under the large clock that hung above Gare de Vichy’s stone archway, my heels skidding on the cobblestone ground. I had seen the clock hundreds, maybe even thousands of times before, having lived near Vichy my entire life, but this was the first time I heard it ticking and saw its pointed, metal hands actually moving. Across the street behind a kerbside flower cart was my sister, Charlotte, watering a blooming fuchsia hanging from a hook outside her maternity boutique. A feeling hand swept over her pregnant belly, and I tugged my beret down low.

  Squeezing my pocketbook, I could all but feel the letter inside addressed to the Sisters of Notre Dame de la Compassion, asking them to take me in. They’d never know Mama was the one who wrote the note, forging it in Papa’s best handwriting just moments ago in her kitchen.

  ‘I want what you want,’ Mama said as she slipped the note in my hand. A smile twitched on her lips, and I pretended not to notice.

  ‘And for the almsgiving? I’ll need a donation.’

  Mama opened a drawer underneath the woodblock she used for cutting meat. Inside, bundles of francs tied with string. She counted them one by one, ‘Un, deux, trois…’ until she had completely emptied the drawer.

  ‘Give it all to the sisters to ensure a long stay.’ Mama stuffed the money into my pocketbook along with some of her cigarettes and the cloisonné lighter from her pocket. ‘Take only what you need for travel.’

  I took a deep breath. My wedding to Gérard Baudoin, a gendarme in the Vichy police, was the following morning. An icy shiver waved over my body. Marry a collaborator.

  The police had become goats to our new government under Philippe Pétain, the leader of the Free Zone. Papa believed, like many in Vichy, that it was best to support Pétain and his regime. He was our nation’s hero, and we should trust him. But I believed what Mama said, that heroes don’t send their soldiers to a stammlager—a German prison—or take orders from the Reich on how to run the Free Zone.

  I pulled my wedding dress off its padded hanger and held it at eye level, yards of Mechlin lace hand-stitched into the bodice scrunching in my fists. A train of white satin pooled onto Mama’s parquet floor. Papa arranged the marriage himself. He will be angry, I thought, and hurt when he finds out I had left.

  Mama nudged the dress box on the floor, scooting it closer to me with her toe. ‘Don’t waste your time thinking about that collaborator.’

  ‘Gérard?’ I said. ‘I’m not thinking about him.’

  There was a moment of silence shared between us. Running away from a marriage I didn’t want was one thing. Disappointing Papa was another.

  ‘Stick to your plan,’ she said. ‘Hide out at the convent and let me take care of your father. He brought this upon himself, Adèle—cosying up to the regime as he has. Charlotte too, encouraging this marriage. Your life should be your own.’

  I breathed in her words. ‘Ma vie.’

  Mama plunged her hands into her apron pockets. ‘You choose your destiny.’

  I dropped the dress into its box. Heaps of lace and crème fabric mushroomed from every corner, the smell of lily wafting from the sachets inside snuffed out like candles.

  ‘Even if it means living with the nuns in Lyon?’

  My words came out as a question, but I merely wanted to make sure Mama knew the stakes. Mama grew up Protestant, often saying that gold, crystal, and decoration inside the sanctuary were idols for the hypocrites.

  ‘We do what we have to, Adèle.’ Mama kicked the dress box, sending it sliding across her kitchen floor. ‘When we have to.’

  The box hit the back door and stopped next to the rubbish bin.

  2

  The seats in premiere class felt velvety and plush; it should have been easy for me to relax, especially as the train rolled out of the station. Yet my thoughts were dizzying, one rolling into the other as we steamed down the track. Was Mama going to wait until the wedding ceremony to break the news, or was she doing it right now? I patted my face and felt my throbbing head. I already knew Gérard would be furious and Papa would be hurt, but Charlotte—she’d be crushed—she was excited for me to be married like her.

  I folded my hands in my lap only to unfold them, trying to breathe slower, deeper, but nothing seemed to work. Teacups clinked from the buffet car and old women chatted over their cigarettes. I slipped off my shoes and rested my feet on the vacant seat in front of me, eyes closing, thinking that would help calm my nerves, only to be barked at seconds later by a woman standing over me in the aisle.

  ‘Excusez-moi!’ she said.

  I shot up in my seat, trying to piece together the last fading moments before putting my feet up.

  ‘My seat!’ She pointed. ‘Your feet are on my seat.’

  ‘Oh…’ I gave her some room, swiftly putt
ing my shoes back on as she sat down in a huff. ‘Pardon me,’ I said, as she fit her bottom into the seat cushion, getting comfortable, smoothing her beige skirt over her lap. ‘The seat was empty when we left Vichy.’

  She glared, setting a book she’d brought with her on her lap. ‘It’s taken now.’ Her gaze turned out the window, looking at the lavender fields as we travelled through the country, a light smile meant only for herself replacing the scowl. I found it incredibly hard not to stare. A businessman in a suit bumped my elbow on his way back from the lavatory, apologizing with a flick of his newspaper, and I sat up a little straighter, but still watching her.

  Her voice had seemed deeper than a woman’s ought to be, and her nails were natural, not a fleck of paint anywhere on them. And her jewellery—she didn’t wear a necklace, a bracelet, or a ring. In fact, aside from her long hair and the dreadfully plain dress she had on, there wasn’t anything feminine about her.

  She must have felt my gaze rolling over her body because she flashed me a condescending smile. ‘Is there something else?’ She traced an invisible circle on top of her book, over and over again, on her lap.

  ‘No,’ I said, fluttering my fingers into a wave. ‘Nothing else. Sorry for bothering you.’ I reached for a cigarette, digging around in my pocketbook looking for my case, mumbling to myself about how I didn’t know the seat was taken. I sat back in my seat when I found it, and then sank down low when I felt Mama’s cloisonné lighter. She’d never shared her lighter with me before, keeping it in her apron pocket for as long as I could remember, but I was glad she had. The silver was dull—a nice patina from years in Mama’s hand.

  I struck the flint wheel and the woman immediately gasped, squeezing the spine of her book, getting as close to the window as she could as I puffed my cigarette to life. A throaty cough followed her shifting eyes.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I finally asked.

  She flicked a finger at the ashtray. ‘I have an affliction to cigarettes, if you must know,’ she said. ‘It’s the smoke.’

  It was then that I noticed a blotchy rash bubbling up her neck. As painful as it looked, it was the colour that concerned me—pink as a fresh slap on white skin. I sat straight up. ‘Sorry,’ I said, immediately smashing what was left of my cigarette into a pile of ashes.

  Two old ladies across the aisle had just lit up and blew plumes of smoke from their mouths. It wasn’t hard to notice they were smoking Nationales, much thicker and cheaper than the slim I used; much more smoke spewed from those cigarettes than from mine. ‘Maybe you’d be more comfortable in third class, where you can open a window.’

  ‘No seats available,’ she said, closing her eyes briefly. ‘Now, if you please, I want to be left alone. You’ve caused me enough problems today.’

  ‘I was only trying to help.’

  She opened her book, and I turned away.

  I tried to relax again, putting the woman out of my head long enough to think about the convent, but then someone yelled that the train was making an emergency stop. The train shimmied with a loud squeal, metal on metal, slowing to a crawl, and people popped out of their seats to move into the aisle. The woman gripped her book tightly, eyes strained, and then oddly relaxed like a lumpy blanket just as the French police burst through the doors at the end of the train car.

  I bolted to a stand, clutching my chest, first from the sound and then from the looks on their faces as they ran down the aisle toward the other end, boots thumping with rifles slung over their shoulders.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I said into the air.

  A burly gendarme with grit in his teeth pushed one of the old ladies back into her seat, but she stumbled, throwing a weak little hand against the window to catch herself, which made many of us gasp. More police rushed in and ran down the aisle, only this time the diplomats who’d been reading their papers trailed behind them like dogs on a tether.

  The doors closed suddenly on both ends of the train car. A piercing quietness followed. Few people moved, aside from their eyes. Heat waving up from the tracks into our still compartment roasted us like chickens. A baby’s cry from somewhere buoyed the restless uncertainty ballooning among us all, then a whisper of sabotagers swept through the car almost faster than the heat, louder and louder until someone finally said, ‘Résistance.’

  Résistance? I stood on my toes, trying to see into the other train car, when a man caught my eyes through the body gaps. ‘They’re invisible,’ he whispered, eyes tormented and grey. ‘Phantoms in the night and in the day.’

  I gripped my pocketbook, suddenly feeling nervous, watching police run along the outer edge of the car, looking under the train as if there was something or someone to find. Seconds passed, holding our breaths, mouths as wide as our eyes, waiting for a shootout, arrest or both. Then the police stopped running, lit cigarettes and appeared to be chatting.

  The whole train exhaled at once.

  Some looked relieved nothing serious had happened; others chuckled as if watching the French police run around with nowhere to go was amusing and worth the trouble. The doors opened, sending a burst of fresh air into the train car. The woman across from me who’d seemed unnerved by the gendarmes rushing around was now in a tizzy, bolting from her seat and pushing herself into the crowded aisle. ‘If you please,’ she said, the heel of her clunky shoe smashing the top of my foot. ‘Out of the way!’

  I yelped, though it did nothing but startle the old ladies next to me as she elbowed her way through the train car and past women and children as if she were the only passenger who mattered. I followed the pack, shuffling toward the exit, armpits near my face with hands pushing me on the back.

  People walked around outside in a daze, unsure where to go or what to do. A young mother balancing a toddler on her hip told passengers the train would continue on, all we had to do was wait, but the blaze of the afternoon sun made the thought of waiting seem unbearable.

  A lone train conductor ran a hand through his dishevelled hair next to the loading steps.

  ‘When will we be off?’ I said, slinging my pocketbook over my shoulder.

  The conductor stopped fiddling with his hair and put his cap back on, fitting it tightly onto his head. ‘Secure a ride,’ he said. ‘Before they’re all gone. The regime is searching the train. Bomb, probably.’

  ‘Bomb?’ I threw a hand to my chest. ‘Secure a ride?’

  ‘Look around.’ He waved a finger at the swelling crowd; some were unloading their own freight. ‘These are the general passengers we had on the train. The other passengers are from the regime, filled up most of the compartments. If you don’t catch a ride now, you think the government will give you one of theirs?’ He pointed. ‘Look.’

  Two Armistice Army soldiers stepped off the train, and my stomach twisted into a knot. I turned away, shaking my head. One moment I was safe on the train, and now I wasn’t sure if I’d even get to Lyon at all. I walked around asking—begging some would say—for a ride from the cars that had seen the train stop and had enough sense to drive over from the village. ‘All full,’ I was told.

  An old man in a wheelchair smacked his cane against the side of the train. ‘They’re Germans dressed like the French!’ he cried as I ran by. ‘Get away! Get away!’ The porters tried shushing him, ducking and dodging the old man’s stick as he whirled it in the air. A squadron of Vichy fighters droned overhead. ‘Traitors!’ The old man pointed his cane at the planes, and I looked up, covering my ears.

  I heard Gérard’s voice in my head instead of the planes, yelling for me. Adèle! I’m going to find you! Just imagining his voice sent a shudder through my body, and then to my utter shock, a lorry pulled up in the dirt and three police jumped out, but not the local police. Vichy police.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ I breathed.

  One of them talked to a woman and when he showed her a photo, I felt my heart beating—really beating right out of my chest.

  I turned left then right in a panic, but there was nowhere to go without being se
en. ‘Excuse me!’ I said, pushing my way through the crowd. ‘Sorry, sorry…’ And I jumped the couplings between two railcars, pulling my dress up to my thighs to clear it, and to my surprise, on a country road without any people, I saw a bald man tying a wooden crate to the rear bumper of a beat-up Renault Vivastella.

  I ran over, trying not to alert others still looking for a ride, smoothing my hair and catching my panicked breath. The planes had flown off, and I tried to act calm though my neck was sweating.

  ‘Hallo?’ I adjusted my beret. ‘Monsieur? Hallo.’ A burning cigar protruded from his mouth and oily stains decorated his simple white shirt. His wife—I assumed she was his wife—stood next to him, watching him mess with the rope, trying her best to fold her arms over her bulging, flabby breasts. In the back seat, the shadowy outline of their only passenger sat with the door held wide open by the heel of their shoe. Must be who the crate belongs to, I thought.

  ‘Do you have room for one more?’ Grey and black exhaust spewed from the tailpipe between us. ‘I’m going to Lyon.’ I pulled several francs from my pocketbook and flipped through the notes.

  He used his knee to hold the crate in place while tying his knots. ‘No room.’

  I shook the francs in front of him to take. ‘Notre Dame de la Compassion.’ I thought that if he knew I was going to the convent he’d think I was worthy of becoming a nun, and that might change his mind if the francs didn’t. I smiled big.

  He dropped his foot from the rear bumper, tightening the rope with one swift pull. A bead of sweat dribbled from his brow to his cheek as he plucked the cigar from his mouth.

  ‘Convent?’

  I nodded, fanning the francs out with a licked finger. ‘I won’t take up much room.’ I peeked into the back of the car, catching a glimpse of their passenger fanning themselves with their hand. ‘What’s one more passenger?’