The Girl from Vichy

by Andie Newton

  I moved the ice pack from my face, squinting, getting a good enough look at her face. ‘Hedgehog?’

  She winked. Then she turned around and left, disappearing into a corridor.

  Mme Dubois draped a blue scarf over my head. ‘You must mean a great deal for the leader of the Alliance to personally save your bottom,’ she said, tucking my hair underneath the fabric, tying a loose knot under my chin. She helped me off the divan and walked with me outside. She pointed to a car parked against the kerb with its back seat pushed forward.

  ‘Where am I going?’ I got in the car without waiting for an answer.

  Mme Dubois shifted her eyes suspiciously toward the square where the riot was still plenty rife, not at all concerned with my question. ‘Through the seat. Crawl back as far as you can.’

  I hunkered down in the boot from behind the back seat, piled to the brim with bolts of fabric, sewing machines and bags of scrap tossed haphazardly all around; a hard squeeze even for someone who could move without pain.

  ‘No matter what happens…’ Mme Dubois used both hands to push the seat back into place and everything turned pitch-black. Her voice was muffled and barely audible from the other side of the seat. ‘Don’t move.’

  The engine flared and we sped away. The smell of petrol and burning rubber from the squeal of her tyres permeated the air. I buried my nose into a soft pad I figured was fabric. Bumpy roads were made worse by speeding turns, stopping and starting, until I heard the engine shift into a high gear and felt a smooth street under the tyres.

  Just when I started to feel safe and out of the city, the car stopped abruptly. The engine cut off, and everything got very quiet. A German voice spoke up. Then Mme Dubois got out of the car and started talking in a high-pitched, very girly voice. ‘Seamstress on a job,’ she said. ‘Late for delivery.’

  I lay still, and then even stiller when I heard a tap near the back bumper.

  ‘Öffnen!’ I heard, followed by more tapping. ‘Open it!’

  Mme Dubois mumbled as she fit the key into the lock, making much more noise than she had to—a warning not to move. I felt a push of cool air penetrate the scarf wrapped around my head when the boot opened. My heart raced as I realized I’d die from another beating. I barely had the strength to breathe, much less move. If I get caught this time, I thought, it won’t be from my doing.

  ‘Fabric, bags…’ I heard him say, mixing French with German. He poked a few bags with the tip of his long gun, rustling things around. ‘Sew machine,’ he said, tapping the machine’s hard case. ‘Needle case…’ He hit the top of my head and paused, as if he was considering the difference in sound my skull had made compared to the sewing machine.

  ‘I’m very late.’ Her voice turned exaggeratingly high. ‘You want me to sew something up for you? Or can I be on my way?’

  He poked the bags once more, slow and deep, the barrel of his gun dangerously close to my body. Then he pulled his gun back and questioned Mme Dubois about her documents. I wanted to breathe deeply and quickly, feeling very much out of breath, but couldn’t for fear of moving, my heart beating rapidly in my chest.

  The boot closed with the squeal of a rusty hinge, and a radiating pain where his gun had hit me spread over my head. Then I passed out or fell asleep, because I didn’t remember the car starting up again. All I felt was a sudden lurch and a waft of air from when Mme Dubois pulled open the back seat. ‘We’re here, Adèle.’

  I opened my crusty eyes, swollen with a bruised face. We had stopped on a dirt road somewhere in the middle of a field. Another car’s headlamps shone on us from a near distance, its engine running. Mme Dubois helped me out of the car with one hand, the dress she gave me sticking to the wounds on my skin.

  ‘God bless you, love.’ Mme Dubois hopped back into the car and then waited for me to move, raising her eyebrows as I stood slumped over, holding my stomach. ‘Your transfer has all been arranged.’

  ‘Transfer?’

  ‘You’re in hiding now. Just be glad you’re not dead.’ She reached through her open window and patted my arm. ‘Go along.’

  I started toward the car, shuffling through the dirt, the headlamps lighting up the flowers on my floral dress. The engines were a duet of burning petrol and sputters. I pulled the blue scarf from my head, my sight ebbing in the colour black from the whiteness of the light. Feet from the car, still I saw no one. Then, out from the darkness, a figure draped in something heavy and long stepped into the light. A nun. I stopped, and she pulled her veil back.

  A cool smile spread on my face. ‘Marguerite.’

  She reached into a hidden pocket and pulled out a man’s lighter and my old cigarette case—the thing was full of Gitanes. ‘Looks like you could use these.’ I held in a laugh simply because it hurt too much, but then started to cry. I had forgotten about that damn case—the one I had thrown across the room after Marguerite asked me to go back to Vichy.

  ‘What about the smoke?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, helping me into the car.

  A driver—a girl—I didn’t know, sped off just as I closed the door, turning her headlamps off, using moonlight to drive. I slunk down into the cracked leather seat and smoked, the cigarette hanging off my lips in between puffs because I was too weak to lift my arm. A rash bumped over Marguerite’s cheek, but she never said a word. Not long after, she threw the skirt of her habit over my legs as a blanket.

  After a dry, hard gulp I told Marguerite about Gérard, and how Mama and Papa were covering up the murder. ‘My sister turned me in.’ I could barely say her name it hurt so much. ‘Charlotte.’ Marguerite put her hand on mine and I closed my eyes, the sound of the leather belt slapping against my skin and Charlotte’s pleading voice replaying over and over in my mind like a sad, haunting song. I leaned into her shoulder, shivering, though I wasn’t cold, and she petted my head.

  We pulled up to a cottage nestled between two hills on the outskirts of Lyon just before sunrise, the horizon a mix of sunny-pink and orange blossom bursting through the clouds. There was a long pause as we sat next to each other in the back seat of the car, looking out the window.

  ‘This is where I’ve been sleeping most the time,’ she said. ‘We call it the hill cottage. It’s a safe house for many résistants.’ Marguerite took her headpiece off and gave it to the girl driver who meticulously folded it along with the wimple Marguerite pulled from her neck. ‘Lyon is different now from when it was part of the Free Zone; Vichy has the Milice, but here we have more Gestapo than anything. It’s just safer to stay out here,’ she said, taking rests between her words, ‘than at the convent.’

  I could tell she was tired by the sound of her dragging voice, but when the light caught her face I noticed the bags under her eyes and realized she was more tired than I thought.

  ‘You can help me with the guns in the crypt. Mavis—you’ll remember—she’s very helpful. She found her voice with us in the Résistance and doesn’t squeak like a mouse anymore. The work is different from before—tenuous at best with the sweeps… and the Germans. Mother Superior stays at the convent, doesn’t come out into the open. Or Sister Mary-Francis.’ She handed me a Carte d'identité—a forged set of documents with a grainy photo of a woman who looked like me if you were drunk enough to imagine a resemblance. I also got a new name: Jeanne Calvet. ‘It was the best I could do on such short notice.’ Her eyes sagged when she looked at me.

  I nodded. ‘It’s fine—Jeanne.’ I flipped open the book and read the typed print inside. ‘From Lyon.’

  ‘Adèle, you can’t tell anyone where you are. Not your family and definitely not your lover. They’d unknowingly lead the Milice straight to us if the Gestapo doesn’t make it first.’

  ‘What if Luc comes looking for me?’

  ‘He’s a résistant, Adèle. He won’t jeopardize your cover or his. You know that.’

  I remembered the last time I saw Luc. The feel of his hands on my skin; the comforting warmth I felt deep inside when I took him into my
body, his lovely, syrupy voice when he’d call my name. Catchfly. A name that belonged to the past, its memory as thin as the perspiration my body left behind on the Morris Column.

  ‘I’m sorry, Adèle,’ she said, carefully. ‘This is the way it has to be.’

  I closed my eyes when I felt the tears welling. The sound of Charlotte’s sobs—the painful wounds on my body were nothing compared to the memory of Charlotte’s regretful cry. And Mama and Papa—what would become of them now?

  ‘Don’t be sorry.’ Tears rolled down my face when I opened my eyes. ‘This was my doing.’

  1944

  25

  The sisters’ crypt smelled of old bones and rotting flesh despite the cologne I rubbed under my nose. ‘To keep the Gestapo away,’ Marguerite said. ‘Germans are afraid of germs so the sisters lay the dead in catacombs, uncovered.’ Dug into the ground under the old convent in the centre of Lyon, the crypt had hundreds of tombs set head to toe, linked like dominoes through winding corridors of dirt and stone.

  Marguerite looked on from behind as I wedged my body in between two beams searching for a gun that had been stashed in a hole two days prior, her face very close to the low-burning lantern she held in her hand. ‘Reach all the way back.’

  I peered into the crude dirt dug-out set into the wall and then reluctantly stuck my hand in. Spiders, biting ones, and scorpions, I thought, as I felt blindly around, breathing in the putrid, thick air wafting from the tombs. ‘Why did you stick it so far back?’ I reached further into the dark hole, feeling for the barrel of the gun amidst cobwebs and crumbling sod, suffocating me as much as the smell.

  ‘It wasn’t me. Get the gun, all right?’ Marguerite was irritated; I could tell by the sharpness in her voice and the jerky movements she made with her head, as if her headpiece wasn’t fitting right, which made me glad I didn’t have to wear a habit like she did.

  I pulled the gun from the hole like a snake. Long and thin, a German MG 42. ‘There,’ I said, tossing the gun into a crate with some others. ‘The last one.’

  Marguerite took inventory of the arms we had smuggled while I dusted dirt from my postulant’s veil. ‘Now we have to wait for the transport truck. The Maquis will collect the arms at the hill cottage.’ As she closed the crate’s oblong lid, I saw its metal handles and instantly felt a pull in my palm from the last time I had carried it—Marguerite’s travel crate, the one I helped her lug to the convent on our first day. We both picked up an end and carried it upstairs into the sewing area of the old convent.

  Just as I was locking up the crypt door, Mavis came scampering through the front doors. She had a smile on her face that bordered on panic, waving a note in her hand as she closed the doors behind her. ‘Adèle,’ she said all breathy. ‘It’s for you—news from Vichy. One of our agents.’

  I hadn’t allowed myself to think about my family, not knowing where they were and if they were safe for fear of shrivelling up like one of Papa’s gnarled grape vines.

  I held my breath, looking at the note, my eyes wide.

  ‘Go on,’ Marguerite said. ‘Have a look.’

  I ripped open the envelope—so many thoughts flying through my head—the gold heart pendant Luc had given me slid out from a heavy crease, and I nearly fell to the floor with it in my hand. Marguerite helped me into a chair next to one of the sewing machines, bolts of fabric stacked high like a wall. I held the heart in my hand, rubbing it in between my fingers, reading the letter written by someone I didn’t know but who had talked to at least one of my parents by the sound of it.

  ‘They’re at the chateau together,’ I said. ‘The Milice blame me for Gérard’s disappearance and have been at the chateau regularly searching for signs I’ve been back. Luc hasn’t been seen since I left and is in hiding.’ I sighed heavily, sad about Luc but glad my parents hadn’t been arrested—they must have hidden Gérard’s body well. At the end of the note was a scribble in Charlotte’s handwriting. Forgive me.

  I pulled my eyes from the note. ‘Forgive her?’

  ‘What about the news of your parents?’ Marguerite said. ‘That’s something, isn’t it? They haven’t found Gérard’s body, and they don’t know where you are. Both those things are keeping your family safe, and alive. The Milice must think you’re close by.’

  Mama probably knew I was here, as cunning as she was, but she’d never breathe a word. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s something. But Charlotte… I’ve given up on her as a sister. She knew telling Gérard my secret would bring violence upon me.’

  ‘The war makes people do things,’ Marguerite said, ‘sometimes awful things they wouldn’t normally do—’

  I put my hand up, stopping her. The conversation about Charlotte was finished.

  Marguerite helped me clasp the necklace around my neck. I pressed it against my chest, the coolness of the metal a refreshing feel on warm skin. And for the first time in a long time, hope had lifted my thoughts like a rising bubble—fragile, breakable, yet there. ‘I know you said Luc wouldn’t come looking for me, but I have to believe…’

  Marguerite put her hand gently on my shoulder. ‘Then believe it.’

  We pushed the gun crate against the wall, used a linen tablecloth to cover it, and then put a stitching machine on top, which Marguerite broke open like a valise to expose its mechanical guts. Thread had been pulled from it and working tools lay off to the side. ‘Has to look as if the machine is broken and placed on the crate haphazardly… in case.’ Marguerite took a deep, exhausted breath. ‘In case there’s a raid before the truck comes.’

  I motioned to Marguerite for more cologne. We passed the vial to one another while standing in a loose circle, dabbing the cologne under our noses, talking about the elegant scent of Chanel compared to the fragrance Marguerite had made from mixing several bottles of unknown perfumes.

  ‘Shh—’ Mavis reached out, touching my hand. ‘Did you hear that?’ Her eyes shifted from side to side, and then I heard it too: a light noise that could easily be dismissed as a bird rustling around in the eaves. ‘Sounds like a bird,’ she whispered, ‘but not…’

  Mavis’s gaze locked on to the far window set high in the stone wall, her eyes widening, her throat gulping as the noise grew into a continuous scratch, something that could only be made by a person, a finger scraping dirt from the glass. A shiver waved up the back of my neck, then Marguerite shivered and we all held our breaths.

  ‘We’re being watched,’ Marguerite said, smiling. ‘Everyone breathe.’ Her voice was steady, but her tone was unlike anything I’d heard, which added to the nervy feeling of eyes on my back. ‘Pass,’ she said, motioning for the vial. ‘Think about lying in the grass in the sun, feel the warmth, steady yourself, your nerves… Just like I taught you.’

  We continued passing the vial around, the sound of fingers pulling at the window ledge outside very clear and present, not even trying to be discreet, as we breathed and thought about lying in the grass. Then came an odd tap against the outer wall that moved from the window to the front of the building. Two quick raps on the front door followed.

  Mavis gasped as if she had come up out of the water. I closed my eyes briefly. One last breath.

  ‘We’re here to clean up sewing scraps,’ Marguerite said, face straining. ‘If we’re asked.’

  I entertained the thought that perhaps it was someone who’d lost his or her way, needed directions, an old man with a cane perhaps? But whoever had looked through that window had made an effort, climbed up on something, as I had all those months ago when I saw the Résistance hiding guns in the crypt. No—I knew—whoever was on the other side of the door was searching for something, someone, maybe even me. Crumpling the note in my hand, I stuffed it down the front of my dress.

  Marguerite took a deep breath near the door, shaking out her hands and shoulders. She cracked it open. ‘Hallo?’ she said, and Mavis reached for my hand, only to drop it when she heard a man’s voice behind the opened door—a German voice.

  The conversation see
med innocent enough at first, listening to Marguerite talk about the weather and the cafés in Lyon. Then the conversation changed—he was asking about the convent, the crypt and how long the Sisters had been in Lyon. My heart sank when I heard her say, ‘Come in.’

  I recognized his Gestapo uniform immediately as he walked in with his pointed hat and his dark, knee-high boots. His eyes skirted over all of us but at the same time skimmed the walls, ceiling, and sewing machines.

  Marguerite pushed the door closed. ‘What brings—’

  ‘Not yet,’ the officer said, motioning at Marguerite. ‘Mach auf! Open up!’ He walked around the room with his hands clasped behind his back as Marguerite held the door open for another officer, followed by another, the door pushing closed between each one only to be stopped by another hand until there were four officers in all.

  They moved about the machines, eyes interested in everything, chatting in German, chuckling occasionally. The darkness of their uniforms, saying words I didn’t know as they circled about, made me feel queasy.

  One officer stood in front of the crate we had stuffed with guns, his black baton dangling from his belt loop scraping against it as he moved. When he spoke, he looked directly at Marguerite even though he addressed us all.

  ‘What’s been keeping you busy this morning, Sister… and?’ Another officer looked Mavis and me over, saying something in German.

  ‘And postulants,’ Marguerite said.

  ‘Of course.’ He put a hand to his chest and bowed cynically. ‘Officer Baader. Lyon Gestapo.’ His thin smile spoke more than his words as he took off his hat, and tucked it under his arm. A chiselled face to go along with his strong, bony hands. ‘This congregation has many sisters. Doesn’t it?’ He put two fingers to his head as if recalling some prior knowledge. ‘Are there twenty-three?’

  Marguerite looked at me before answering. ‘Twenty at present. Recently three went to the Lord.’