The Girl from Vichy

by Andie Newton

  ‘That dog will be someone’s dinner soon,’ he said, blowing into his coffee before taking a sip. ‘Don’t feel sorry for it.’

  ‘You’re awful, Gérard.’ Fresh meat was hard to come by. Warnings had been issued by the regime on the dangers of eating pets, but that didn’t stop the gypsies. The few who hadn’t been arrested by the French police were kept in resident camps and were known to venture out at night in search of strays—God only knew what the Reich was telling the French to give them to eat.

  ‘Perhaps the regime should open up the reserves, give the people something to eat.’ I smirked as if I were joking, but inside I was as serious as I could be.

  Gérard crumpled up what was left of his croissant in the wax paper, and then pushed it into my hand as he chewed and swallowed. ‘I’ll have a car pick you up.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘The dinner. Eight o’clock.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I blurted. ‘I have work to do at Papa’s, and then Mama needs me.’

  ‘Yes, you can.’ He smiled. ‘It’s my first night back in so long. Albert will be all right with it, maybe even your mother if she’s suffering like so many others under the rationing. You will be there, and you might just enjoy it. The last time I invited you to a formal dinner you left for the nunnery, missed my police promotion. You won’t miss this one.’ He winked. ‘I know it.’

  I gulped. ‘Gérard, I—’

  ‘It’s good to see you again, Adèle.’ Gérard took a deep breath, slumping back in his chair instead of leaving as I expected him to. ‘You’re prettier than I remembered. The way your hair brushes up against your shoulder—it is like a woman but also very innocent.’

  He sounded like a real man—not the sly collaborator I knew him to be, and I sat, dumbstruck by his sincerity. Then an odd sensation roiled in my gut—nervousness, which I hadn’t felt for a very long time

  ‘I’m back now,’ he said, ‘for good. We can stop with the cat and mouse game. Can’t we?’ He tugged on my hand, pulling me in for a kiss across the table. ‘Remember, eight o’clock.’

  I went to leave, slinging my pocketbook over my shoulder. ‘I told you I can’t.’

  ‘Meet me there if it’s easier,’ he said. ‘Dinner’s at Antoine’s.’

  I walked away in a hurry, ducking into an alley to collect myself. He’s back. I closed my eyes. Charlotte had warned me, Papa had warned me. I peeked around the corner to see if he had watched me leave, catching a glimpse of him still sitting at our table, unfolding the newspaper and sipping his coffee.

  The cowering dog had followed me and was now at my feet, her little brown eyes looking up at me, licking her lips, a wagging tail between her legs. I unfolded the wax paper and gave her the last of Gérard’s croissant, kneeling to pet her as she ate. She took gulping bites, looking up at me every so often while licking the paper.

  ‘Gérard,’ I breathed. I still couldn’t believe it. I peeked once more, but he’d moved away from the table and was now talking to one of the Germans, monitoring, pointing down the street and to businesses, and then to his newspaper and the headline about the Catchfly.

  I gasped.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, picking the dog up and tucking her under my arm. ‘You’re nobody’s dinner.’

  *

  Mama took one look at the dog and then mumbled about having another mouth to feed. She counted the number of fruit jars she had left in the root cellar. ‘We’ve eaten too much of the meat, and the pickles are gone.’

  ‘I couldn’t leave her behind the rubbish bin. A scrap to be eaten.’

  The dog hid under Mama’s skirt and licked her calves as she sat at the kitchen table, tearing a two-day-old crust of bread in half. ‘Not much flour left either. This war has taken everything. Now it’s taken my food too.’

  I hadn’t wanted to admit it before, but the flour really had started to go, most of it crawling with weevils.

  ‘I didn’t think it would come to this,’ Mama said. ‘We’re damn near the bottom now.’

  I felt guilty for bringing the poodle home, but what else could I do? ‘If the dog becomes a problem, I’ll take care of it. Not sure how, but I will.’

  Mama glanced up. ‘Don’t name it. If you do it’ll be that much harder to get rid of, if the time comes.’

  ‘All right.’

  I picked the poodle up from the floor and sat down with her on my lap. Drool oozed from her jaws as she watched Mama pick at her bread, taking small bites to make it last longer.

  ‘There’s something else,’ I said, and she looked up. ‘Gérard’s back.’

  Mama gulped. ‘What?’ She closed her eyes. ‘Is he…’

  ‘He thinks we're still together.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Adèle,’ she said.

  ‘I know, Mama. I know. He thinks he’s getting a promotion tonight. There’s a big dinner.’

  ‘A promotion?’

  I bit my lip, pausing. ‘But that’s not the worst of it.’ I reached into my pocketbook and pulled out the front page of the newspaper. I hesitated with it in my hand and her eyes grew wide.

  ‘What is it?’ Mama said as I slid it to her, and her hand clamped over her mouth.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mama,’ I said. ‘They don’t know I’m the Catchfly. They think he’s a man with an expensive car.’ Gérard’s voice was still in my head, and my stomach turned from the unsettling tone of his sincerity, a stark contrast to the newspaper and how he talked about the Catchfly. ‘All right?’

  Mama had her head down, shaggy hair hanging over her eyes.

  ‘Mama?’ I said, and she pulled back the clump.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she said, and I shook my head. ‘What does Luc say?’

  ‘Luc?’ I said, surprised she’d brought him up.

  ‘Don’t give me that song and dance, like you don’t know who I’m talking about. I know that pendant is from him. But I don’t expect you to admit it.’

  I put my hand to my chest, feeling the heart necklace under my dress, wondering what Mama would say if she knew we had plans to marry. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I dare not even hint of it. ‘You know Luc, Mama. He comes and goes. It’s the Résistance—there are no set schedules.’

  ‘He’d tell you to take heed if he were here, not paint for a while,’ she said. ‘Promise me you won’t paint for a while. Wait for it to die down.’

  I nodded. ‘I won’t paint,’ I said. ‘I promise.’

  She seemed relieved, taking a breath and sitting back. ‘And Gérard?’ she said. ‘The timing of that man. I’m surprised he didn’t demand you accompany him to the dinner. Very surprised, especially if he thinks you’re still his fiancée.’

  I sat quiet and still, petting the dog’s head. If I told her he invited me, she might tell me to go to keep his temper in check, but I just couldn’t. Everything was different now, with Luc and our engagement.

  Mama brushed breadcrumbs from the table linen and gave them to the dog. ‘Anything from your father?’ she said as the dog licked from her palm.

  ‘Last time I talked to Papa about your letter he had tucked it in his pocket. That was months ago.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Mama reached for her cigarettes, but all that was left in her metal case were a few shreds of tobacco. She shook the case close to her eyes as if one might be hiding in the rusty hinge. Then she scooted her chair away from the table and walked to the kitchen counter, catching herself from running into the cupboard.

  ‘Are you all right?’ The dog jumped from my lap when I stood.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, putting a hand to her head. ‘I have a headache because I don’t have any more cigarettes. The Germans took all the cigarettes. Just like they took France. My husband and my daughter, and my grandchildren. I invited her to visit today so we could talk. I got up early from my nap and waited, but Charlotte never showed.’

  She gripped the sink’s edge, looking out the kitchen window. Spring blossoms had fallen from the trees outside and speckled the ground with s
pots of pink, the branches swaying as much as Mama’s linens used to, when she had the soap to clean them. In the distance, and completely unobstructed, was the all too painful reminder of Papa’s forgotten vineyard, which had turned into a mass of tangled brown knots.

  ‘Albert, goddamn you.’ Her voice quivered as she spoke and then she hung her head down, sniffling, waving at me to leave the room, but I put my hands on her shoulders instead.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Mama.’ She looked as haggard as Charlotte and appeared more broken than ever without Papa. I started to wonder how much longer she could last. It was possible, I thought, that even Mama had a breaking point. ‘It’s the war.’

  She kissed my hand and put it to her cheek. ‘The war,’ she breathed.

  Mama went back to bed. The chamomile I had been drying in the windowsill wasn’t ready, but I used it anyway, warming up a kettle of water to have a cup of tea. The dog watched me, probably thinking I had food, as I dunked the tea strainer into the steaming water, trying to get it to turn.

  The garden was green with weeds, but when I looked out the window and off into the horizon, I couldn’t tell they were weeds. I thought about Mama waking up from her nap, waiting for Charlotte to come for a visit and then the disappointment she must have felt when she didn’t. My eyes trailed off to the garden once more, and then back to the tea strainer, dunking it in and out of the water, watching loose bits of chamomile swirling around in my cup, only to whip my head back at the garden and to a set of tyre grooves I was sure weren’t mine.

  My stomach sank.

  I leaned out the window, and saw what Mama and I couldn’t have seen from the kitchen table: Charlotte’s car parked around the side. I waited for her to walk in, quickly wondering how many seconds it would take to walk that distance from the car, but I knew she wasn’t outside—I knew she couldn’t be outside. I had been at the window for a while; I would have seen her drive up.

  It was then that I noticed her driving gloves lying on the bookcase near the door. Bright blue, just like her divan. She had come to visit and was in the chateau, somewhere, and she’d heard us talking—the Résistance, Luc and Gérard.

  Catchfly.

  I whipped around, hands grasping the sink, eyes wide. ‘Charlotte,’ I called out, shakily, but there was no answer. I raced down the corridor, opening doors as if she were hiding in one of the bedrooms, but she was nowhere in sight.

  The cellar door was last. ‘Christ,’ I said into my hand. ‘She knows.’

  I breathed heavily against the wall, staring at the door. Mama said she’d handle Charlotte when the time came, but this was more than just the paints, and she’d become fragile in her own way and as delicate as a snowflake on glass.

  I put my hand on the door, closing my eyes. ‘God, let this be quick,’ I said to myself, and I walked down the creaking old wood stairs into the dark cellar.

  ‘Charlotte?’ A lit lantern flickered next to the wall, lighting up the mural I’d painted down there months ago, the blazing red paint still shiny and wet-looking from the cadmium in the oil. ‘Charlotte,’ I said, again. ‘I know you’re down here.’ I swallowed. ‘We need to talk.’

  The dog trotted up from behind only to back up and growl like a dog ten times her size, rabidly gritting her teeth at something set in the wall. ‘Come out.’

  From an obscure cleft beside the chest of paint, Charlotte emerged into the flickering light. Her lips snarled and her hair was as ratty and stringy as I’d ever seen it, wild as the snakes on Medusa’s head. I took a step back when I saw a tube of paint in her hand.

  She slapped the tube into her palm, over and over again. Slap! Slap! Slap!

  The dog growled at her from between my legs as Charlotte stopped in front of the mural, her face looking pasty white and her eyes silver-grey, gazing at the painted wall.

  ‘Let me explain—’

  ‘I want no explaining—’ she ran the tube over the painted stones, an evil eye shifting toward me ‘—from you.’

  I collapsed to the ground, the chill from her icy eyes numbing my legs—never had I seen her look this way. Nothing could have prepared me for such a sight. She started mumbling about the Paris exhibition and comparing my art to hers, studying the lines of the letters, tracing the bends with her fingertip, the dog nipping at her heels. ‘I couldn’t tell you—I knew you wouldn’t understand,’ I said as she walked up the stairs. ‘Come back, sister, come back and talk to me.’

  The kitchen door cracked from having been slammed shut. The dog ran in circles, barking and squealing. Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow I’ll talk to her. Maybe then I’d miss the worst of her breakdown, and she’d listen to what I had to say.

  *

  I stood outside Charlotte’s boutique that morning, waiting for her to arrive. After a while, I started to wonder if letting her leave Mama’s was a bad idea. What if she’s at the cemetery, delirious? What if she drank herself to death? As delicate as Charlotte was, how could I have left her alone? My hands shook when I realized it was well past ten o’clock and she wasn’t coming. I should have followed her. Flower carts wheeled past and people rushed by, chatting, some laughing, a morning noise that built and built. I rubbed my shaking hands together, beginning to pace. I’d have to go to her apartment. Yes, that’s it, I thought. I’ll find her in her apartment.

  There was a commotion down the way; women took their children’s hands, moving into the street, making a path. Someone yelled that the Milice were coming; then I heard my name. ‘Adèle!’ Gérard charged through the parting crowd, sweaty and beet red, dressed in a navy blue Milice uniform and steaming straight toward me. ‘You stood me up!’

  ‘What?’ I stepped backward into Charlotte’s closed door.

  ‘The dinner!’

  ‘I said I couldn’t go!’

  He got few inches from me, calling me a tease and a bitch in the same breath. ‘Stop it!’ I cried. ‘Stop it!’ Spit spurted from his mouth onto my face as he berated me.

  ‘Once wasn’t enough! You had to do it again and on the night of my promotion!’ He threw his hand back and Papa flew out of his wine bar, demanding that Gérard stop cursing at me.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ Papa yelled. ‘Leave her be!’

  Gérard growled, abandoning me for Papa, pointing a finger at him. ‘Your family will pay for this, Albert!’ He stepped closer and closer to him, but then froze at the sight of Prêtre Champoix rising up behind Papa.

  ‘Gérard!’ he said, voice booming. The longer he stared at him, the smaller Gérard seemed to become under the priest’s black cassock and the white eye of his clerical collar. ‘This woman is not yours to torment.’ He put a hand on Papa’s shoulder. ‘She’s broken no laws.’

  There was a long, cold pause where nobody spoke.

  ‘You’re not welcome here anymore, Gérard,’ Papa said.

  Prêtre Champoix pointed down the street with his Bible for Gérard to leave, but he looked at me first, flattened against Charlotte’s building, snarling, before adjusting his new Milice uniform jacket and stiffly walking away.

  Papa took me in his arms. ‘Forgive me, ma chérie,’ he said, tearfully. ‘I believe you. I believe you.’

  *

  Papa and I sat across from each other at his usual wine-stained wood table. For a long time we sat in silence. I kept wondering when the next handful of Milice would come through the door, sit down and pour their own wine on Papa’s tab, but he had locked the door, and the shade was pulled down. He could barely look at me without tearing up. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, reaching for my hands. ‘I’m sorry for everything.’

  I nodded, wiping a gush of tears away. I wanted to be mad at him for taking so long, but I felt more sad than anything. ‘What’s done is done, Papa. We have to move on.’ I reached for an unopened bottle of wine with a label I didn’t recognize, something German, though I couldn’t be sure.

  ‘No, Adèle,’ he said, touching my hand. ‘No wine today. Not from this place, not anymore. I should have never l
eft the estate, or your mother.’

  My eyes got wide, praying I heard him right. ‘Does this mean what I think you’re saying? You’re coming home?’

  ‘I heard Creuzier-le-Vieux isn’t what it used to be—that it smells of dust and rotted grapes—that the old Vichy vineyards are all but gone.’ He slumped forward, pulling Mama’s last letter from his pocket. ‘But that’s not what I think about when I think of Creuzier-le-Vieux.’

  ‘What do you think about?’

  ‘My family—how it used to be before the war. You and Charlotte cooking in the kitchen, laughing, being sisters, me and Pauline walking in her garden, being husband and wife.’ I touched his arm, and a spill of tears slid down both our cheeks as he fumbled with the letter. ‘What if it’s too late? What if she doesn’t want me back?’

  For the first time in a long time I understood Papa, realizing why he hadn’t read Mama’s last letter. ‘You thought Mama wrote to say it’s over? No—it isn’t like that. She’s stubborn, yes, but the separation between you two is killing her. I see it in her eyes, the way she walks.’ I swallowed dryly, compelled to guess what she had written. ‘I think it’s an apology.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ He unfolded the letter, adjusting it for light, reading it carefully. My stomach sank when I saw his eyes fade the further—the deeper—he got into her letter.

  ‘What is it, Papa?’ I tugged on his arm. ‘What does it say?’

  He slammed his hand onto the table, cursing to himself. ‘Your mother’s sick.’

  ‘What?’ I reached for the letter, but Papa pulled it away.

  ‘It’s her sight,’ he said. ‘She says there are days when she can’t see, and she’s afraid she won’t remember what I look like.’ He put his fist to his forehead, clenching his eyes painfully shut.

  I thought about all the times Mama had a headache, the way she walked—a little slanted at times—and her wavering moods. I couldn’t help feel a little responsible—I should have seen the signs.