by Andie Newton
She would’ve had a few moments to grieve alone if it weren’t for the bald man, who came up behind her shouting. It was hard to tell who was angrier, both cursing at each other, pointing to the grave and then to me in the cottage. Marguerite shoved money into his hands, which he immediately started counting. He stopped her when she tried to come back inside, and then she drove away in the truck the wife had cleaned.
The couple drove me back to Vichy that night in the same dusty black car I had ridden to the convent in. We drove with our headlamps off, the full moon casting a soft glow over the rolling hills, which looked black and grey in the distance. When I left Vichy, my pocketbook was stuffed with money to bribe the sisters, now it was stuffed with money Marguerite had given me for a dress—something to help with Gérard, something sexy.
I wasn’t sure where I’d begin once I got back home, but I knew with whom I had to begin. Papa. I’d have to trick him as much as I had to trick Gérard. The thought made my throat turn dry. I reached for my cigarette case, but then remembered I left it at the cottage. ‘Christ!’
The bald man slammed on his brakes. My body jerked forward before slamming back into the seat. I thought he was mad at me for cursing Christ’s name, but then he yelled Marguerite’s name and sneered.
‘Get out.’
‘What?’ He had stopped in a valley between two jet-black hills that hid the moon. ‘You can’t stop here. I don’t know where I am.’
He turned around in his seat, striking a flame from his lighter so I could see his pitted old face. ‘You don’t expect me to drive to the Hotel du Parc, do you?’
‘Well… well…’ I stuttered. ‘No.’
He kicked open his door and mumbled to himself about getting rid of me. Then he opened my door, wide, as if I was as big as his wife and needed the space. ‘Get out!’
‘But what direction am I to go?’
He reached through the open window and turned the headlamps on. ‘Walk that way,’ he said, pointing down the dirt road where the hills split into two. ‘Creuzier-le-Vieux is over there. Vichy is after.’
It was late. I didn’t have a watch, but I assumed it was sometime around midnight. I pulled a few francs from my pocketbook. ‘Perhaps some money.’
‘Yes!’ the wife yelped. She stuck her arm out the window and motioned with her hand for the money.
He yelled at her and then turned to me. ‘Keep your money. And this.’ He shoved a crinkled note into my hand and got back into car, slamming his door. I tried the handle but he pushed the lock down.
‘Wait!’ I cried, with pounding fists as he rolled the window up. ‘Don’t leave me here!’
He jammed the car into gear without even turning his head and then bolted down the road. His wife’s hands flailed in the air, smacking him on the shoulder as their red tail lights faded under whirling dust.
Everything was quiet.
A RAF balloon drifted over my head, dipping and plunging in the air, spilling propaganda leaflets from the sky. And I walked; down narrow dirt roads that turned into wider ones until I saw black, twisted grape vines growing on the hills in the distance—Creuzier-le-Vieux, Papa’s vineyard and the chateau.
Some of the winemakers in Creuzier-le-Vieux made wine only for themselves, planting grapes in their gardens so they’d have wine at their supper tables. Others, like Papa, made a good living off their vintages, owning acres upon acres of ancient Vichy vines. The wrath of grapes rolling over the darkened hills, dotting plots of country land here and there, was a stark contrast to the abruptness of the city only a few kilometres away, and the dull glow of city life.
The sun crested the horizon and I’d finally made it back home. I was exhausted, choosing to sit down on the grassy slope behind the chateau before going inside, rubbing my blistered, bloodied feet, banged up from walking all night in the wrong shoes. I pulled the note the bald man had given me from my pocket, and read Marguerite’s coded message. Three days, it said.
The chateau looked the same as I remembered with its eighteenth-century stone façade and blue shutters. The clay pots where Mama grew her favourite herbs were still on the patio: mint, basil, and fennel by the bushels. Wrought-iron arbour arches in the garden overgrown with light pink roses buzzed with swarming bees.
I fell back into the grass without meaning to, feeling the blades in between my fingers. A budding French catchfly had broken through the volcanic soil and fluttered in a twist of morning light, its distinguishing, prickly stem too new to poke back. Then I thought about it, the day I realized I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—marry Gérard.
He stopped by the chateau one afternoon in early June, as he had been doing for the last few weeks to talk to Papa, often asking me to take rides in his sidecar or go wine tasting in the valley.
‘We need each other, Adèle.’ Gérard swept a lock of hair from his eyes, which looked yellowy-brown. ‘Your country needs you.’ He spread a blanket onto the tall grass and told me to sit on it, smiling back at the chateau to Papa who was watching from the window.
‘My country?’ I folded my arms. ‘Who are you to tell me what my country needs?’
‘I’m a gendarme in the Vichy police,’ he said, pushing me down. ‘Don’t you know what that means? What woman would turn down such an opportunity: a prominent place in this nation?’
‘I have a place.’
He laughed, uncorking the bottle of wine Papa had given him. ‘And where is that? Your sister told me you’ve done nothing since you quit setting hair at that salon.’
I held up my glass. ‘Just give me some wine. Papa is watching. I know how much you like to put on a show.’
He poured me a glass, and I drank it down before he had a chance to pour his own. Then I played with the grass, running my fingers through it, wondering how long I’d have to listen to him talk about my place in this country.
‘I asked your father for your hand. We are to be wed in a week.’
I sprung up. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘He arranged our meetings. Surely you know what’s happening when a man visits your home for two weeks straight.’
‘Papa said I needed to be nice to you. I thought it had something to do with his wine, a big purchase for your parents’ spa…’
‘Your family needs a marriage to a man like me, Adèle. You may not survive the war if you don’t make the right connections. The Germans run the Occupied Zone. If they join with the Free Zone outright and you’re not on the winning side, what will become of you?’
‘Papa can’t tell me who to marry.’
‘You go ahead and tell yourself that. But there will be a wedding.’
‘But why me?’ I said, and he laughed deeply from his throat, looking at my bare toes and running his eyes up my body.
‘You don’t know?’ he said, and I scooted back.
Gérard popped his head up above the grass, and after realizing we were hidden from Papa’s peeping eyes, he pushed me down low until I was completely flat and his body was on top of mine, his muscly build like a truck compressing on my chest.
‘Get off!’ He kissed me, nearly biting my tongue as he dug his way into my mouth. I kicked my legs out from under his, struggling to break free, when the back door swung open and closed with a squealing crack. He sat up and wiped his lips with the back of his hand, laughing. Mama stood on the patio, glaring at us, which made me think Papa had just told her the news.
‘Relax, Adèle. I’ll save the rest of that for next week.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I have to go, as it turns out. A big arrest. Nicholas Fenoir.’
I stood up in a daze, stepping away from him. ‘The cripple?’
‘I suppose we did cripple him last time. I’m an aggressive interrogator, what can I say? He won’t have to worry about being a cripple where he’s going.’
‘But he has a family and small children.’
‘Yes, and I knew him growing up.’ He smiled, his teeth taking up most his face. ‘Doesn’t matter. He’s a résistant, Adèle. Anyone w
ho fights the regime is an outlaw. Punishable by death. The Reich wants it this way. I have informants hidden here and there, you see? And we all know how the Reich feels about the Jews.’
Gérard dumped his glass in the grass and then wadded up the blanket and lobbed it at my feet. ‘See you at the wedding,’ he said, recorking the half-drunk bottle of wine and sticking it under his arm. He went to kiss my cheek, and I jerked away.
‘So, it is true.’
‘What?’
‘The Vichy police… they are… you are—’
‘Don’t hurt yourself, Adèle,’ he said. ‘Maybe you should think before you talk.’
Collaborators. Just like Pétain’s regime.
‘What happened to you, Gérard?’ I said, remembering the boy who used to buy wine from my father, the one who said please and thank you and treated women kindly.
He glared at first, and then straightened. ‘What’s happened to all of us, Adèle?’
He walked down the grassy slope to his motorcycle. I wanted to be mad at Papa, tricking me as he did. But by the look on Mama’s face, I figured he’d get it from her better than from me.
Gérard tossed the wine bottle into his sidecar and then put on his helmet. ‘One week!’ he shouted just before he drove away.
Mama stormed back into the kitchen, the screen door clacking against the doorframe. I dropped to my knees with the realization of what had just happened, wishing the ground would crack open so I could disappear.
I heard a yell and my hands slipped from the grass with my thoughts jolting to the present. Birds spooked by the sudden noise flew out of the chateau’s eaves, their wings flapping with great haste over my head toward the vineyard. I stood when I realized it was Papa’s voice. The morning sunlight beamed through Mama’s kitchen windows, and I saw her leaning over the sink, her arms bracing its porcelain edge. Papa stood behind her dressed in Sunday clothes, a black valise clenched in his hand, his voice spilling through the screen door and echoing off the patio.
‘Politique,’ he said, ‘will get you killed.’
I scuttled through the grass and watched them through the screen door.
Mama turned around, her hands on the sink behind her, her slept-on, bobbed brown hair tucked behind her ears. ‘Don’t lecture me about politics. You are not a true Frenchman.’
Papa’s cornflower blue eyes looked black and hard as marbles from where I stood. He ran a light finger over what was left of his ear, a souvenir from the Battle of Gallipoli. It was the first time I’d seen him touch it, preferring to keep it hidden under a tuft of hair that had started to grey.
‘I’m the truest of Frenchman.’
‘Then act like it, Albert!’ Mama tightened the tie on her silky peignoir, watching him as he paced around the kitchen taking short, quick steps as if he wasn’t sure how to handle the anger gurgling inside of him.
‘Everything I’ve done has been for this family. Pétain is the way.’ Mama shook her head. ‘We will prosper if we follow his lead.’
‘The Vichy government is a puppet regime—ruled by German policy, not French,’ Mama spouted with her arms lifting in the air. ‘Occupied, unoccupied—Pétain got a country of his own, he’s happy. Until one day… one day when the Reich decides to take it all!’
‘You will see. Pétain will not let us down.’
‘Pétain?’ She sneered. ‘He only appeals to the people because he’s a hero from the war. Sitting out and wait for the Germans to conquer Britain is not a plan.’
‘Easy for you to say—standing in your kitchen. What do you know about risks?’
Mama’s mouth hung open, and her eye twitched. For a moment I thought I saw the fearless nurse she must have been on the fields at Ypres. ‘Don’t. You—’
Papa pleaded with her to listen to him, stretching his hands out for hers, but she wouldn’t take them. ‘My way is the way, Pauline. Why can’t you see that?’
‘Your way.’ Mama threw a tea towel at the wall, and it hit a framed photo of Charlotte in her wedding dress. ‘And what has that gotten us?’ The frame dangled helplessly from one corner before falling onto what looked like their supper dishes from the night before.
‘Charlotte loves her husband, and she’s doing what she can to keep France alive, adhering to Pétain’s wishes. You can’t blame me for—’
Mama crossed her chest with the sign of the divinity, which stopped Papa from talking.
‘And what about Adèle?’
‘That,’ he said, ‘was your doing.’
‘No,’ Mama said. ‘She left because you betrothed her to that… that… collaborator! A German in French clothing.’
‘She left because you gave her the money,’ Papa said.
‘It’s my fault?’ Mama’s face turned red. ‘You came back for a night just so I could throw you out the next morning?’ Papa didn’t budge. ‘Get out!’
She saluted Papa the way Nazi soldiers saluted each other, and his mouth pinched. He raised his valise into the air and shook it along with his fist as if he wanted to hit Mama—but he would never.
I threw open the screen door and stepped into the kitchen. Mama jumped. Papa froze, the valise suspended in the air.
‘I’m home,’ I said, and the door slammed closed behind me.
Seconds passed—neither of them saying a word. Mama’s face was indifferent; I couldn’t read her at all. Papa slowly lowered his valise, his arms dropping to his sides.
‘Glad to see you, Adèle!’ I said, since nobody else did.
Mama reached for her cigarettes and a lighter that lay on the counter. ‘Your father was just leaving.’ She threw her head back to get the hair out of her eyes and sucked on her cigarette as if she mistook the smoke for oxygen. ‘Weren’t you, Albert?’
A slight smile replaced Papa’s scowl. ‘Ma chérie.’ He kissed both my cheeks and in that second I knew he really did blame Mama for me leaving. ‘You’re home! You’ve reconsidered Gérard’s proposal?’ A shimmer of cornflower blue pierced the blackness that had marbled in his eyes. ‘I’ll tell Gérard you’ve come back. He’ll be so pleased.’
My knees nearly buckled. ‘You mean… he doesn’t hate me?’ I looked at Mama and then to Papa, disbelieving, but also very relieved.
‘Hate you?’ Papa almost laughed. ‘How could he hate you?’
‘Because I left him,’ I said, ‘suddenly, without a word.’
‘I’ll tell him you’re back.’ He went for the door as if he were going to do it right then, but I grabbed his shoulder with great certainty.
‘No, Papa.’ I didn’t want Gérard finding out I was home before I was ready. As ready as I could be. ‘What I mean is… I’ll talk to him myself.’ I let go of his shoulder after realizing I was squeezing too tightly. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
Papa took my hands. ‘Alliances are very important. And you two got along so well in those weeks leading up to the wedding. He’s a war hero, Battle of Sedan.’
I took a deep breath, about to lie straight to my father’s face—one of many lies I was sure I’d have to tell. ‘I will be grateful if Gérard gives me a second chance.’
He smiled, and I smiled back.
Mama whipped her head away from whatever she had been staring at through the window and shot us both a hard-eyed glare. ‘So, you are your father’s daughter after all.’ Mama shook her head, flicking her cigarette over the sink. ‘Unbelievable.’
Papa leaned into my ear and whispered, ‘I’m glad you’re home, Adèle.’ A parting kiss on my cheek, and he made way for the door.
‘Where are you going?’
Papa glanced at Mama, who had her hand cocked in the air, her cigarette spewing smoke from between two fingers.
‘I don’t live here anymore.’
‘You don’t?’
‘Humph!’ Mama shifted her legs, taking a drag from her cigarette. ‘Tell her why, Albert. Don’t leave her to guess.’
‘I work for the Vichy regime now. I sell the wine they want from an abandoned buil
ding next to Charlotte’s boutique. I made the office upstairs into a flat.’ A hesitant smile followed a short pause. ‘It’s where I’ve been living.’
My mouth gaped open, eyes shifting between Mama and Papa.
‘Do not worry,’ he said. ‘Only Charlotte knows the truth. I’ve told people I live in the city because of the long hours. Our marriage is still very much intact in the public eye.’ He looked at Mama and then whispered, ‘Sometimes we have to make difficult decisions for the good of the family.’
Papa started for the door but then stopped at the kitchen table and scribbled something on a piece of paper that had once been crumpled into a ball. When he was done, Papa stuck the pencil in the woodblock that usually held Mama’s cleaver.
‘One last note, Pauline,’ Papa said as he left.
Mama tossed her lit cigarette angrily into the sink, but then took a deep, withering breath full of sobs and tears. Together we watched him drive away.
‘I knew you’d be back after that old nun came to visit.’
‘Gertrude?’
‘Was that her name?’ Mama’s voice was as faint as the cloud of dust funnelling behind Papa’s car. Once he was completely out of sight Mama turned around and looked at me, her eyes puffy and red from crying. ‘I know what they’ve asked you to do, and you’ll be great at it. You might be his daughter, but you’re mine first.’
‘The sisters told you?’ I swallowed, knowing how she felt about Gérard, and wondering what the conversation with Gertrude must have been like. ‘You’re not angry?’
‘We do what we have to, Adèle. When we have to.’ She paused. ‘Elizabeth saw the strength in you. I do too.’
‘Mama, tell me how you know Mother Superior—Elizabeth—at the convent.’ I took the cloisonné lighter from my pocket. ‘She has the same lighter.’
‘Unused, I imagine. Elizabeth never did smoke.’
‘She said it was—’
‘Not now, Adèle.’ Mama squeezed her eyes shut. ‘My head hurts.’
