The Girl from Vichy

by Andie Newton

  Mama tightened her peignoir before taking a seat on a dusty old chair wedged in the corner. ‘Charlotte always said inspiration came from within.’ Mama tapped the middle of her forehead with one finger. ‘Said it was always in her mind.’

  ‘In my mind…’ I stood in front of the stone wall. ‘Should I take a deep breath?’ I kicked off my shoes and got comfortable in my housedress, thinking I should count backward and think about the grass and the sun to find inspiration.

  Mama shrugged. ‘Do what feels right to you.’ She nestled her back into the crook of the chair, brushing her bobbed brown hair from her face, her lit cigarette burning between two fingers, waiting for me to paint.

  I closed my eyes, and took two or three deep breaths before I noticed the darkness in my mind had turned into a swirl of colours, some bright as the sun, others a mix of blue and grey. What do I paint? Thoughts of the police, the urgency of what I’d heard at Antoine’s ebbed like a slow pulse through my veins. And the woman I saw at the Morris Column…

  My eyes popped open, and I painted what was in my heart. A naked woman, beautiful, raw, and bold.

  ‘Christ, Adèle. You can paint.’ Mama held the lantern up to her eyes, leaning closer to the wall. ‘What is that you wrote underneath? Les Femmes de la Nation? It’s very good—this painting. Almost better than—’

  ‘Don’t say that, Mama. It’s not better than Charlotte’s.’

  She shrugged. ‘Say what you will.’ She flicked her cigarette. ‘A Picasso if I didn’t know better,’ she said, and I laughed.

  ‘No, Mama,’ I said. ‘It is not.’

  I dabbed the brush into the red paint to touch up the last letter before standing back to admire my work. I had to admit it was better than the painting I did at the convent. With this one, I almost thought it was worth a winter’s rationing of coal.

  ‘Did you hear about the woman in the square?’

  ‘I heard.’ Mama snubbed her cigarette out in the dirt wall, exhaling after a long inhalation. ‘This painting of yours would cause just as much panic for the regime.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Think of how much commotion that woman caused in the square.’ Mama’s eyes brightened next to the lantern. ‘Adèle, you could paint this!’ she said, pointing at the wall. Her voice was full of excitement, something I hadn’t heard from her in a long time. ‘There are thousands of walls in Vichy that could serve as your canvas. You said it before, there’s enough paint to cover every wall in this city!’

  ‘I said that?’

  ‘You did,’ Mama said. ‘The last time we were down here together.’

  Using Charlotte’s paints somehow seemed wrong, knowing how strongly she felt about painting. The leopard dress was one thing; she had thrown it out, didn’t even know Mama had saved it from the rubbish bin. ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘Does this have something to do with Charlotte?’

  ‘You know how she is, Mama. If she ever found out…’

  ‘She doesn’t visit. Even if she did, she wouldn’t come down here.’ Mama walked away holding the wall with one hand for balance, talking as she went. ‘Won’t even let me know where my granddaughter is buried…’ She yelped a little cry, and I chased after her.

  ‘Mama, wait!’ I said, and I caught up to her near the kitchen.

  ‘If Charlotte throws a fit that her paints are gone, so be it,’ she said. ‘I’ll have a talk with her. I bought the paints.’ She patted my shoulder. ‘All right?’

  She left me to go upstairs to her bedroom, and I stood in the dark. The vineyard was quiet, and so was the chateau, and I sat down at the table, waiting for morning.

  I woke up to the sun rudely shining through the kitchen window, with my head slumped over on the table. I shuffled out to the patio, heavy and dog-tired, with a crick in my neck from sleeping slumped over on the table. The doors to the barrel cellar were closed, and there was a settled quietness.

  ‘She made it to Laudemarière,’ I said, yawning. ‘She must have.’

  I rubbed my ears, yawning again, when the barrel cellar door burst open, and I jumped from the crack of wood on wood. The man from last night paced in circles. He looked to the vineyard and then the field making sharp turns. I rushed over.

  ‘It’s sunrise—she’s not back.’ He unravelled a crumpled piece of paper in his shaking hands, his lit cigarette glowing brighter with his breath, but then pounded his forehead with his fist. ‘I don’t know where this is,’ he said to himself.

  ‘She’s not back?’ I took the paper.

  ‘Would I be standing here now if she were?’ The cigarette slipped from his mouth onto the ground. ‘I’ll have to go in her place,’ he said, taking a frantic breath. ‘She was probably arrested. But I know nothing about the spas in the Auvergne.’

  Arrested? The paper had been crumpled over and over from having been in his hands for hours; the writing now just faded scratches, but still I recognized the retreat listed. Papa used to sell his wine there, before they closed after the armistice. ‘The Sleeping Lady Retreat.’

  He grabbed my shoulders. ‘You know where this is?’

  I nodded, knowing what he was going to ask next, but I wasn’t sure if I could do it, with Gérard probably on his way there. I told myself Hedgehog had managed to tip them off, that she wasn’t back because of some other reason. Lies, all lies. I’d have to go. I’d have to.

  ‘I need you to go,’ he said, though I couldn’t take the car, I’d have to take my bicycle, but it wasn’t a far ride. He gave me a shake. ‘Many people are staying there. Lieutenants, agents from the Alliance—résistants, some of the bravest.’ His voice lowered, and his eyes squinted into tiny slits. ‘Someone you know.’

  ‘Luc?’

  He nodded slowly, and I felt my lips pinch, but not because I was mad. I felt something different bubbling inside of me—I wasn’t sure what to call it—as I faced an entirely different situation. Luc.

  ‘Are you going or not?’ His brow furrowed, his breath blowing a cloud of white into the cold.

  I wadded up the paper and threw it at his chest, running for my bicycle.

  19

  I rode faster than I’d ever ridden in my life, only to slow down once I made it to the retreat. I pedalled up the long gravel road, looking around cautiously. I hadn’t been up that way for many years, and I was surprised to see how similar it looked to Papa’s vineyard. Overgrown bushes in need of a trim crowded the roadway from many months of vacancy. Plaster crumbled from the nineteenth-century chateau, and half the gardens looked dead.

  I got off my bicycle in the main courtyard, listening for a sound, any sound, other than the whirl of the river not that far away. Shutters hung from corners, and a dead cat lay flattened near the front steps, which made the place even more unsettling. My hands shook a little, thinking the police could show up any minute. I walked up to the front, trying to get a peek through the window, but then the door opened suddenly and I was yanked inside.

  ‘Marguerite!’

  ‘Adèle!’ Her face dropped. ‘What are you doing here?’ She looked out the only window without boards nailed to it.

  ‘You must leave!’ Words shot from my mouth. ‘A raid! Hurry—’

  She moved quickly, slinging guns that had been resting against the wall over her shoulder, yelling for others to get up and move. Men and women of all ages flooded down the stairs and out of every room. The parquet floor shook as they plodded through the corridors, grabbing crates and carrying them down to the basement. People folded up maps and threw papers into the fire. I called out for Luc, but my voice was one of many shouting for someone. Then everything got very quiet and still. Incredibly still.

  ‘In the basement there’s a passageway that leads into the hills. Someone has to close it from the outside.’ Marguerite touched my arm and her voice turned soft. ‘You understand, Adèle. Don’t you?’

  I swallowed. ‘I can’t go with you.’

  ‘If the police are waiting outside then…’
/>   ‘Go, Marguerite… Go!’ I said.

  I followed her down a long but wide marble staircase that led into a room that smelled of salt and looked like it had once been a place for the baths. A round mosaic of nymphs set in the wall was actually a door. Marguerite was the last one to go through it.

  ‘It’s heavy. Push it until it clicks.’

  I got ready to push when Marguerite reached for my hand. She opened her mouth, about to say something.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ I said. ‘But next time you’re pushing the door.’ Her hand slid from mine, and I gave the door a good shove, but then panicked because the door was much heavier than I thought, and by now everyone had fled into the dark tunnel. I was all alone, pushing and grunting and sweating, feet slipping, trying to get the door to shut. ‘Ack—’ I screamed, face beet red, eyes bulging, and then it closed.

  I tore out of there panting, racing up the stairs and out the front door. I grabbed my bicycle and ducked behind the chateau, riding through a field of thicket and overgrown brush crawling with mice in a frantic rush to get as far away as possible.

  The sound of rapid gunfire kicked me off my bicycle into the thorns. ‘BRAAAP! BRAAAP!’

  Shouts from the police waved through the brush. I heard pounding, then the frightening sound of one loud boom. The chateau’s chimney peeking over the trees lit up with fire blazing out its stack, shooting sparks into the late morning sky. I scrambled to my feet, ditching my bicycle in the brush, hurrying away, until I reached a dirt road I hoped would lead to the river. A plume of thick dust from an approaching car billowed behind me down the road. I ran before I had a chance to even think about running, glancing over my shoulder, my heart bursting from my chest, watching the plume of dust expand like a balloon behind the speeding car.

  The road vanished ahead of me—a cliff. Feeling every inch of the road in my legs and muscles, I pushed harder and harder to outrun the car, but even a leopard’s lungs could only carry it so far. I jumped, the skirt of my housedress parachuting around me as I hurled myself into the air, only to land knees first in a sandy hole, every bone in my body smacking against the other like fists to a palm.

  Rocks tumbled down the slope and caved in around me. Everything got dark and grey, and I felt life slipping away with each struggling breath. Then suddenly I saw Gérard standing over me, his foot pressing on my chest, laughing with his mouth hanging wide open. But soon enough the laugh gave way to a woman’s voice telling me to hold on, and the vision of Gérard disappeared in pieces with every new and wonderful thought I had about making it out alive. ‘Help,’ I gasped through the grit and the dust. ‘Help!’

  I poked my hand through a pocket of air, searching, and a warm hand grabbed mine. Then I saw the most relieving sight of all, a familiar face to match the voice.

  Marguerite.

  She lifted the rocks away one by one, giving me a second chance at life. I looked up and out of the hole, the crisp blue sky above me with the sun on my face, and I knew—I’d use those paints after all, and cover every wall in Vichy if I had to.

  She grabbed on to me, and we hugged tightly. ‘Are you all right?’ She pulled away to look at me. ‘Any broken bones?’

  ‘It’s you…’ I said, hugging her again. ‘I’m so glad it’s you. How did you know where I was?’

  ‘That was my car you were running from,’ she said. ‘I thought you might head toward the river for cover.’ She pulled debris from my hair. ‘Is this paint?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, dusting myself off. ‘And don’t ask.’

  She dropped my hair as fast as she had picked it up. ‘I like your housedress. What’s left of it at least.’

  ‘You do?’ I ripped the dangling hem off. She cracked a smile, and so did I. We hugged again.

  ‘I missed you,’ I said.

  ‘I missed you too,’ she said. ‘Now, let’s get out of here. The police aren’t that far away.’

  We walked down a rocky embankment to the river where she had parked the car. A man and a boy wearing a tattered youth legion uniform guarded the vehicle with guns pointed in all directions. I stopped before I got in. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Into the hills,’ she said. ‘There’s been a big development in the war. The Reich has disbanded the armistice to fight off our shores in the south, the Allies invaded North Africa. Now the Germans are storming the Free Zone looking for résistants.’

  ‘So, it is over,’ I said. ‘The armistice—the Free Zone.’

  ‘We knew it was only a matter of time,’ she said, motioning with her head to get into the vehicle.

  I nodded, though I’d hoped against hope what I knew for so many months would never come to pass. I got into the vehicle. The Germans were coming.

  We drove for a good while, through villages Marguerite said were sympathetic, and into the volcanic Puy-de-Dôme area of the Auvergne just south of Vichy. ‘We’ll be safe with the Maquis,’ Marguerite said, holding her hair back from the front seat. ‘They live in the hills; it’s where they hide. A brutal group of French Résistance, but also the most accommodating. You can rest before going back to Vichy. The camp is near a hot spring.’

  Papa and Mama used to take Charlotte and me into the volcanic hills when we were little for day picnics and rest. There were lakes, but I wasn’t sure where—the basalt cliffs were just as towering as I remembered, shooting up from the ground in columns.

  We headed up switchbacks into a forest with many kinds of trees, finally coming to a stop at the end, marked by a boulder of granite. ‘The Free French come here for the transfer,’ she said, slinging a rifle over her shoulder. ‘What the Alliance hoards, and then gives to the Maquisards.’ She pulled a hunk of crusty bread from her pocket and handed it to me as we walked down a long footpath that cut in between some trees.

  ‘Transfer?’ I shoved the bread into my mouth, my stomach growling, chewing as she talked.

  ‘The guns in the crypt,’ she said. ‘We give them the intelligence we’ve collected and the guns. Weapons to fight with… the ones we steal from the Germans.’ She stopped and touched my shoulder. ‘The codes you got from Gérard’s office unlocked the largest load we’ve had in a single collection.’

  I gasped, smiling, and she patted my back.

  A camp came out of nowhere at the end of the path; fabric draped from tree limbs and sparking fires cooked meat on a spit. The women, some old as grandmothers, others younger than the delinquents at the convent, smoked and passed guns to men wearing berets in vehicles who had their sleeves rolled up to their biceps, which bulged under the tattered fabric of their old French uniforms. Unshaved faces and the grittiness of an underground war thick on their skin was their patch.

  ‘Remember, they call me Chameleon here,’ she said.

  ‘What’s my name?’ I joked, but then started to wonder if I did have a code name.

  ‘I’ve been calling you Catchfly,’ she said. ‘When we hid in those bug-infested weeds, wanting to itch but couldn’t for the sake of our lives… It’s not an animal name, but I’m sure the Alliance can make an exception.’

  ‘It’s perfect.’

  Marguerite walked me over to a small group where she introduced me by my new name. One was a man who looked dirtier than dirt with bloodshot eyes. ‘This is Gill,’ Marguerite said, pointing with her head.

  ‘Like a fish?’ I asked.

  He popped an unlit cigarette into his mouth and pulled back his shirt, exposing what looked like healed bullet holes above his collarbone.

  ‘He’s been known to breathe underwater,’ she said.

  Gill laughed, which turned into a hacking cough when he lit his cigarette. Marguerite adjusted her collar, pulling it from her neck, and I wondered if she had scars. She caught me looking, and dropped her hand.

  ‘We heard you knew about Hedgehog, that she was arrested late last night. Coming in her place was very brave,’ Marguerite said.

  ‘Not any braver than you,’ I said. ‘Saving me from the dirt.’

  T
here were no more words about bravery.

  ‘There’s a man I’m looking for,’ I said, ‘someone in the Résistance who…’ Two men emerged from the tree line, carrying cases and wearing headphones around their necks. I lit up, heart fluttering. Luc.

  He glanced up, catching sight of me, ripping the headphones from his neck, and I ran into his arms. He squeezed me tightly before pulling away, looking dreamily into my eyes. ‘Why’d you do it? You could have been arrested, or worse!’

  ‘Did I have a choice?’ I smiled. ‘You still haven’t told me where you’re from.’

  He pulled me in for a kiss, a quick peck. ‘Come on,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ I said to Marguerite, but we’d walked away from camp and into a secluded part of the woods where we could have some privacy. Our feet dangled over the edge of a basalt cliff, catching the last tailings of sunlight as the sun dipped into the hills.

  ‘I thought about you every day since we drank whisky in your mother’s kitchen,’ he said.

  ‘But you left,’ I said. ‘Not even a goodbye.’

  ‘That night I watched you sit in your mother’s kitchen from the field. I smoked all my cigarettes in the dark, wondering what you were thinking, and how the hell I was going to stay away from you.’

  ‘You watched me?’ I breathed, and the rest of the world seemed so far away.

  He held me in his arms.

  ‘Does this mean you’ll tell me where you’re from?’ I said.

  Luc laughed. ‘I’m from Nancy. I was born there.’ I rested my head on his shoulder.

  ‘And your voice?’ I said, and he laughed again. ‘Where’s the accent come from?’

  ‘As for my voice, well, that’s what happens when you spend time in Britain, talk to them on the radio. They rub off on you—those Brits—like shoe polish. But we need them, and they need us. You and me, and what we do—the Résistance.’

  I sat quietly, thinking of what I’d done for the Résistance, and then sat up. He asked me if I was all right.

  ‘Do you know…’ I looked in his eyes, gulping. ‘Do you know what I’ve done for the Résistance?’ The flutter I felt deep inside turned into a hot ball of nerves when he looked away, into the distance. ‘Luc?’