The Girl from Vichy

by Andie Newton

  ‘I miss you,’ Mama said, reaching for Charlotte, but she turned away.

  A Milice paddy wagon lurched to a stop just in front of the train station; miliciens poured out like army ants from the back doors, their rifles drawn on the people, outnumbering the police still sweeping catchfly into piles. People scattered, the bulk of them moving across the street onto the pavement.

  ‘Come on, Mama,’ I said. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

  Charlotte walked into her boutique, slamming the door, shuddering her windows. Mama reluctantly moved her hand back, looking at Charlotte’s closed sign before gazing through Papa’s window next door; a dim light glowed in the rear. Mama leaned to one side, looking a tad woozy as she put her hand on the doorknob and gave it a squeeze.

  ‘Do you feel all right? I said.

  Mama tightened her grip around knob but still she wouldn’t turn it. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’m fine. I haven’t seen him since… Since that fight in our kitchen.’

  ‘Go in, Mama.’

  Papa bent over some crates, shelving his wine, having no idea his wife was watching him, missing him. She whimpered, a sickness crying out from her eyes for the man she loved, but who had left her. ‘I wasn’t supposed to be in the city today—’

  ‘Does it matter, Mama? He’s all alone. Talk to him.’

  Her hand gripped the knob tighter before she let go of it completely, putting her fingers to her lips. ‘I can’t.’ She turned away. ‘Not now. Not after—’

  She clutched her chest, glancing at Charlotte’s boutique.

  Damn my sister. ‘Let’s get you home.’

  I moved to walk away and a spray of rosewater hit me like a pie in the face, the mist falling onto my arms and hands. ‘Collaborator,’ I heard in a breathy whisper. A woman in a striped shirt walked the opposite way.

  ‘Mme Dubois.’ The smell of the rose against my skin, and the faint taste of it in my mouth was as vile as a shot of sour milk.

  ‘Shake it off, Adèle,’ Mama said. ‘Shake it off.’

  I watched Mme Dubois walk away, her floral skirt ruffling against her little legs. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever take a liking to rosewater.’

  ‘I understand why,’ she said.

  Mama handed me a hanky from her pocketbook, and I wiped the mist from my face.

  ‘Mama,’ I said. ‘What were you doing at church? Since when are you Catholic?’

  ‘I’m Catholic,’ she said. ‘When I want to be.’

  I gave her back the hanky, and she picked up the catchfly Charlotte had thrown on the ground. ‘Now,’ she said, wrapping the hanky around the catchfly’s sticky stem. ‘Let’s show this weed some respect.’ She threw her head back, smiling, and for a moment I saw a glimpse of the youthful woman she had been before the armistice, before Papa had left, when she looked more like Coco Chanel than a widow with grey streaking through her hair.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Respect.’

  We walked down the street, the catchfly in Mama’s hands. ‘Mama, how’d you get here? I have Monsieur Morisset’s car.’

  She looked at me, her eyes shifting slyly. ‘You’re not the only one with friends in Vichy.’

  *

  That night, Luc and I lay in the field behind the chateau on a blanket, wild grass growing up around us as we gazed into the speckled night sky. Catchfly had grown in patches, trying to take over the field as much as it had the hill. ‘You should have seen her eyes,’ I said, rolling over on my side to face him. ‘Like Pétain, in one of his posters…’

  Luc let me go on about the face-to-face I had with Charlotte in the square, how even for Charlotte her attitude was very sharp toward Mama and me. The war had changed us all in some way, but Charlotte looked haggard, older than she should. Alone.

  ‘Makes me sad,’ I said. ‘Thinking of my sister. What she’s become.’ I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to spend what precious time I had with Luc talking about sad things, and switched the subject. ‘And then there was the call for catchflies from Le Combat.’

  ‘What?’ he said, and I told him the story. ‘That’s incredible! The paper could have called for anyone, résistants who mark cities with the Cross of Lorraine… or the V for Victoire. You, the Catchfly, caught their attention.’

  Attention. I smiled slightly with this word, before telling him about Mme Dubois and the rosewater.

  He brushed a lock of hair from my eyes. ‘She doesn’t know the truth about you.’

  ‘I know. Doesn’t make it any easier, people thinking I’m a collaborator.’

  ‘And what about Pauline?’ he said. ‘How is she?’

  I played with the heart pendant he’d given me as I thought about Mama’s disposition—which had no doubt changed since I left for the convent. ‘I think the state of her and Papa’s relationship—Charlotte’s too—is taking a toll on her. I can see it in her eyes when she looks at me; sometimes her mind seems very far away and foggy. I could be Hitler himself and she wouldn’t know it.’

  ‘What about you?’ I said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Every few days you sleep somewhere else. God knows what kind of near misses you’ve had, especially with the Milice working with the Gestapo. You must feel drained.’

  Luc fell to his back and expelled all the air from his lungs. ‘You never hear of it,’ he said, ‘the exhaustion. But it’s there. Inside all of us.’ He patted my leg. ‘In you, too.’

  We lay for many minutes thinking quiet thoughts, the stars sparkling, with the light buzz of field bugs moving about in the grass. We shared swigs of whisky from his flask, our bare feet tickling each other’s.

  ‘Tell me about your family,’ I said as he played with the heart pendant around my neck. ‘Do you see them? Your mother?’

  ‘I haven’t been back in two years, since the Occupation. But one day I’ll go back to Nancy,’ he said, taking a swig, ‘and you’ll go with me.’

  ‘I will?’ I perked up, taking the flask from his hands and a long savoury drink from the spout. ‘Tell me about it—Nancy. What’s it like?’ I lay back listening to him with one hand under my head.

  ‘There’s a fountain in Stanislas Square, in the city centre, made of gold and wrought iron, and the railings—there’s a reason why Nancy is called the city of the gilded gates, and it’s simply magnificent when you see it in person—Neptune and Amphitrite surrounded by spraying water.’

  I breathed in his words, the images of Nancy. At times it felt like he was describing a distant land untouched by war, the armistice, and the Germans.

  ‘At night the fountain is lit all aglow, golden arches sparkling from the reflection of the water. You might think of Saint Peter when you see it for the first time, Catchfly.’

  ‘Sounds beautiful,’ I said, though I wasn’t just talking about the fountains. I loved it when he called me Catchfly.

  ‘Yes, it is beautiful. But that’s not the most intriguing part.’

  ‘It isn’t?’

  ‘It’s the Neptune babies. It’s where you make your wish. Everyone in Nancy does it sooner or later—can’t call yourself a local if you don’t.’

  ‘Make a wish?’

  ‘Ah, it’s the source of a powerful legend. If you make the same wish for three days straight it will come true. But there’s a catch,’ he said. ‘You only get one wish in your lifetime.’

  ‘Only one?’ I could practically see the Neptune babes myself and the pool of coins, each one representing someone else’s dreams, with my skin feeling very cool from being so close to falling water. ‘Have you made yours?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I have.’

  ‘What did you wish?’ My eyes grew wide, wondering what Luc had wished for.

  He rubbed his chin. ‘Well, I’d tell you, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was!’

  ‘Oh, you!’ I said, and we laughed and then lay back on the blanket, our legs curled up together and our bodies close. The images of Nancy were so grand in my head, lovely,
like a sunny day that smelled of fresh baguette and blooming lilacs. I sighed, enjoying the thoughts, feeling them as I felt the warmth of Luc’s body next to mine.

  ‘A spring wedding,’ he said. ‘That’s what my mother would like. If it’s all right with you.’

  I sat up, blinking like a deer into his eyes. ‘Is that a proposal?’

  ‘Well, if you want me to take it back I can.’ He smiled.

  For the first time in my life the thought of being married didn’t make me shiver with dread, but instead filled me with so much joy I could feel it bulging in my dimpled cheeks.

  Luc kissed me warmly, the way a woman ought to be kissed after being proposed to, a bit of our breath blowing softly on each other, a piece of our souls touching with our lips.

  ‘Well?’ he said, after pulling away.

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘Are you going to accept?’

  ‘That’s why I kissed you back!’

  He exhaled, hand on his chest, taking the last swig of whisky from his flask. ‘You like to make a man sweat, do you?’

  ‘Only you, monsieur.’ I used my thumb to wipe whisky from his bottom lip. ‘Only you.’

  I can’t say why I thought of Marguerite at that very moment, as Luc wrapped his arms around me in a warm embrace. But I remembered what she said about falling in love in the Résistance—her warning tugging at the very arms that held me. I couldn’t tell anyone, not even Mama or Charlotte. My head suddenly felt very heavy.

  ‘I love you, Adèle.’

  His words brought with it a strange tingling deep inside, which left me feeling as fragile as a hollow egg. This must be what love feels like, I thought. Charlotte said it would happen one day, but she never said anything about the crushing weight of it where the hollowness felt so vulnerable.

  I squeezed him a little tighter. ‘And I love you.’

  23

  The outdoor cafés opened after a rash of summer thunderstorms ripped through the hills. Metal chairs had been wiped down, and waiters bobbed around pouring chicory coffee from silver pots, touting it as the best faux coffee this side of Paris. I sat at a table for two near the kerb across from Papa’s wine bar, tallying every swipe of paint I had made in Vichy on a tiny piece of paper I kept hidden in the silky lining of my pocketbook.

  I sat back quietly and drank my faux coffee—for a price—the cost of everyday items such as chicory had risen since the Free Zone disappeared. I tucked the paper into my pocketbook, glancing around, trying not to act suspicious, when a forceful hand gripped my wrist.

  Gérard.

  My stomach sank, and so did my face.

  ‘Caught you,’ he said, and he sat down across from me. ‘Finally.’

  I gulped, moving my pocketbook into my lap. ‘You’re back,’ I said, trying to collect myself, but my heart raced. ‘From Paris.’ I counted backward in my mind.

  His mouth hung open for a moment, studying me, his jacket tightening around his chest from not having unbuttoned it. ‘You’ve been avoiding me.’

  ‘You’ve been in Paris, Gérard,’ I said, and he slicked back his hair. Silver stubble budded on his chin, odd for a man not yet thirty, but even more than that, he seemed older than the last time I’d seen him, which was months ago, and angrier, the creases in between his brows more like valleys. ‘What did you want me to do, visit?’

  ‘Would it have hurt?’ he said. ‘I wrote you countless letters to visit.’

  I blinked several times as if I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but I remembered his letters—the one I ripped up in front of Charlotte and tossed in the gutter.

  ‘I sent them to Charlotte’s shop,’ he said. ‘I didn’t trust your mother.’

  ‘Oh, I did get some… Charlotte and I aren’t getting along,’ I said. ‘It’s between sisters, you know women. But I did write you once,’ I lied, ‘surely you received it. It was so sweet of you to write to me too.’

  He shook his head. ‘I received no such letter.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said as if I too had wondered where my letter was. ‘Pity.’

  ‘Charlotte thinks you have someone else.’

  I sat up straight. ‘You talked to Charlotte? About me? How long have you been back?’

  ‘I talk to lots of people,’ he said.

  I stared at him, not sure where he was going with his interrogation, when he reached over the table and flicked the heart pendant around my neck.

  ‘So, is there someone else? Tell me.’

  ‘A man?’ I asked.

  ‘No, a dog—of course a man—Lord, Adèle.’ He tapped his fingers on the bistro table so hard my empty cup rattled in its saucer. ‘Tell me if it’s true. You have a new guy.’

  ‘No,’ I said, taking a slow deep breath, remembering to count and thinking of Luc. ‘No guy as you call it.’

  He leaned over the table. ‘I hear you have a car to drive—and Albert didn’t buy it for you, so who did?’

  ‘Monsieur Morisset’s car?’ I laughed. ‘I paid him an advance to use his car. I don’t use it all the time. Charlotte knows. It’s the car I was driving before you left.’

  ‘Oh, right. I remember now.’ He looked relieved, finally unbuttoning his jacket and sitting back in his chair. Then he smiled, his lips looking very slick. ‘I need you at a dinner. I might be promoted to Milice headquarters. Tonight. Wear a nice dress.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piping-hot strawberry croissant wrapped in wax paper, his name written on the outside in women’s writing.

  ‘Opportunity seems to find you often, Gérard.’

  Gérard smiled, laughing with a pulsating throat. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Opportunity finds me. Doesn’t it?’ He squeezed his croissant and my mouth watered when a bit of the filling oozed onto the wax paper. I hadn’t eaten anything sweet in months; nobody had, unless you were German or a collaborator. He’d kept laughing to himself, but when he noticed my blank look, he stopped abruptly and cleared his throat. ‘As you said… it does find me.’

  The waiter handed Gérard that morning’s newspaper. ‘What have you heard about the Catchfly?’ he said, and I sat bolt upright in my chair.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said, and I wondered if he could hear my heart beating. It was strange to hear him say Catchfly. I didn’t like him saying it.

  He slid the paper to me on the table, showing me the headline. Milice Hunt For The Vichy Catchfly. Vows Vigilance.

  ‘What could I possibly know?’ I said, playing dumb, but he looked like he knew quite a lot. ‘What do you know?’

  He smiled, a mouth of gums. ‘You never could resist a good story, could you, Adèle?’ He took three chomping bites of his croissant, licking his fingers and gulping it down. ‘We know he’s driven an expensive car at least once. We have investigators looking into many things. Vichy wants him squashed. And they will. Squash him. The head of the Milice carries rank with the Reich. He’ll want to save his face.’

  ‘It’s just some paint,’ I said. ‘Is it really more harmful than blowing up cars, trains or stealing guns like I’ve heard of résistants doing?’

  ‘At first it wasn’t, but look around.’ Gérard pointed to the patrons of the café, many talking into each other’s ears so as not to be heard by others. ‘What do you think they are talking about?’

  ‘The Catchfly?’ I laughed, followed by a gulp. ‘Certainly people have other things to talk about.’

  Gérard swallowed the lump of croissant he had in his cheek. ‘How can we be sure? Every mark of paint is mud in the eyes of the Milice, and Vichy. People know it, and they’ve become empowered because of him.’ His eyes wandered off and he gritted his teeth. ‘There’s more résistants than ever, now.’

  My hands shook on the table, and I moved them to my lap.

  A motorcade of three German vehicles rumbled past us, stopping a few yards away at a document-processing office. Roaring engines turned off one by one. They sat in their parked cars, eyes shifting, studying everyone, before getting out and filing into a building
adorned with flapping Nazi flags. ‘They’re checking for illegals,’ Gérard said. ‘Anyone with an expired visa or not of this country will be sought out and punished. The Résistance has a lot of Jews; most will be gone in the coming months. Arrested, dead.’

  ‘Is that a new form of lawlessness?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Being a French Jew?’

  Gérard sat up, catching his tongue. ‘This is war, Adèle, and we’re allies with the Germans.’

  Pétain and his regime hadn’t declared French Jews as undesirable. That was the Reich’s position, but I saw it myself in front of Papa’s wine bar and nobody could tell me I had imagined it.

  Gérard motioned to the waiter. ‘I heard a bag of real coffee made its way to this café not that long ago. Something just for the Milice, and police?’

  The waiter nodded. ‘Several bags were seized from a derelict restaurant now under German control.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Gérard smiled. ‘Deux cafés.’

  ‘No,’ I said, and the table rattled from my jerk.

  Patrons looked over, one by one, whispering. No matter how badly I wanted a drink, if I took his offer of real coffee—which I hadn’t tasted for so long—I’d get something worse than rosewater thrown in my face.

  ‘What I mean is, waiter, I’ve had plenty to drink. Nothing more for me.’

  ‘Your loss, Adèle. I don’t even have to pay anymore. You should enjoy the benefits of having your hands in my pockets.’ He laughed, waving the waiter away.

  A dingy white poodle with patches of fur missing from its coat sniffed Gérard’s pant leg before licking something off the toe of his shoe—something a deep crimson red that looked too dark to be from his croissant. She wagged her tail despite the end of it being burnt to a crisp from a fire. I went to pick her up just as Gérard kicked the poor thing in the ribs. ‘No!’ The dog cowered behind a rubbish bin, yelping.

  The waiter brought Gérard’s café to the table, setting down a stiff white napkin and a silver spoon for stirring. The aroma wafting from his cup smelled heavenly, conjuring up one of many lost memories of what used to be. I called the dog as Gérard stirred sugar and cream into his cup, but she wouldn’t come.