The Girl from Vichy

by Andie Newton

  ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ I said, and she looked up.

  ‘You know how hard it is for him to get away,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know.’

  ‘I heard Gérard got a case of expensive champagne for after the ceremony, and you’ll dance and you’ll be in love, and…’ Charlotte kept talking about my wedding and then stopped abruptly and patted her pregnant belly. ‘And who knows, maybe in no time we’ll be mothers at the same time too!’

  ‘Mmm.’

  A mother with her young daughter walked into the boutique. Charlotte instantly lit up. ‘Adèle!’ She waved for me to bring her a few extra flowers, and then gave them to the little girl. I watched Charlotte as she talked to her, brushing a golden lock of hair from the child’s eyes as if she was already a mother herself with babies all around.

  ‘You are the sweetest thing,’ Charlotte said to the girl. ‘If it’s all right with your mama, I have some sweets in the back if you’d like…’

  I’d gone back to the window, listening to Charlotte talk to the little girl. Two nuns dressed in heavy black and white habits stood outside the train station, about to walk inside. There was a small convent in Vichy, but an even bigger one in Lyon, which was several kilometres away, I thought.

  Nobody would find me in Lyon—at a convent.

  I bolted out of Charlotte’s shop. I heard her calling for me, ‘Adèle… Adèle… your bouquet…’ But I had gotten into Papa’s car anyway and drove off.

  ‘Mavis, I don’t…’ I looked at her helplessly, trying to think up something to tell her that wasn’t the truth when Claire plopped down next to me, her knees jittering as if she had drunk too much coffee. ‘Are you all right, Claire?’

  ‘This is yours,’ she said, holding a journal out for me to take. ‘They must have gotten switched when we mopped the floor earlier.’ Mavis had gone back to her Bible, which I was glad about; I didn’t want to answer any more of her questions.

  I flipped through the pages of the journal I had in my lap, expecting to see the notes I’d been making about how Catholics behaved, but Claire was right; our journals had been switched, and we exchanged.

  ‘You’re quite the drawer,’ she said, pointing to a diagram I had drawn on how to hold a rosary.

  I folded my arms around my journal, pushing it into my chest. ‘Thanks,’ I said, closing my eyes so she wouldn’t say anything else about my drawings and notes. I rested my head against the stone column, trying to send her a message to leave me alone, but she piped up again.

  ‘Could you believe that old woman in the square?’ she said. ‘And what about Marguerite?’

  ‘Marguerite?’ I sat up. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Her electric eyes. Hideous… just hideous!’

  ‘Shh,’ I said, patting Claire on the knee. ‘That isn’t nice.’ As much as I agreed with her, I shuddered to think about the reprimand I’d receive if I was caught talking badly about a postulant.

  Mavis studied her Bible, either pretending not to have heard Claire say mean things about Marguerite or completely ignoring it.

  ‘I think she wants to put you on a stake and set you on fire.’

  My mouth gaped open. Claire was seventeen—I didn’t expect her to act as old as me, certainly, but she did talk with a sort of unfiltered naïveté that made me wonder about her upbringing. Mavis heard Claire this time, pulling her eyes away from her Bible.

  ‘She hates you!’ Claire said.

  Mavis shook her head. ‘No, Claire. That’s not true.’

  ‘Did you see the look she gave Adèle?’ Claire said to Mavis, but then turned to me. ‘We all saw it. You have to tell us… all of us are wondering.’ She smiled deviously. ‘What did you do?’

  Mavis looked lost and worried, the way her eyebrows bent in the middle like broken arrows and her pupils dilated like an owl’s. I couldn’t have her thinking I wasn’t a good fit for the convent. I had to protect myself and squash any kind of rumours the girls might have already been discussing. I sat up tall.

  ‘We got stuck on a hot train together, and it had an emergency stop. Résistance, you know. They made our journey here a nightmare. I think she might blame me a little for her discomfort because I had a cigarette and she’s sensitive to the smoke.’

  Mavis listened with a drawn mouth, and then sighed in relief as if she had wondered what I had done to Marguerite and was glad to hear it wasn’t too serious.

  Claire’s eyes narrowed and I had the distinct feeling she believed I was holding back. Last thing I needed was for Marguerite to cause me trouble, get me sent back to Vichy—she’d already noticed I had hid from the police. I couldn’t let that happen. Not now, especially not after what I saw in the crypt. I should have answered her in the square and then apologized again just to get her off my back. Now I was afraid I’d made things worse.

  ‘A postulant’s arrival to the convent—any convent—is a momentous occasion,’ I said. ‘I’m sure with some time Marguerite will soften. I owe her a proper apology.’ Perhaps from my knees. ‘I’ll talk to her.’

  Mavis looked relived. ‘Maybe when we do our crafts this afternoon?’

  Crafts. Craft time was always so busy. I certainly didn’t want to apologize with so many people around, but when else was I supposed to do it? The postulants were expected to participate.

  The bell tower chimed, announcing midday, and we all stood up. ‘Yes,’ I said, but two whole days passed and I still hadn’t seen Marguerite, and I started to feel a little anxious with the passing time. She was like a spectre in the night and in the corridors, her voice always loud and echoing, though never seen. I worried I’d bump into her again unexpectedly like I did at the parade, and I was constantly looking for her, fearing I’d have to apologize while in a rush.

  Mavis must have asked me ten times if I had made amends with her since talking in the cloister, which didn’t help. On the second day I knew that if I didn’t see Marguerite during craft time, I would have to set out to find her.

  I stood at the craft table. We had a choice to either make ashtrays out of clay or paint on canvases outside. Neither sounded enjoyable. I decided to paint, since the conservatory was too hot, and I picked through the brushes.

  Mavis walked up, whispering. ‘Today?’

  ‘Today,’ I said, glancing around the room as the girls gathered their painting supplies, listening for Marguerite’s husky voice, and looking for her plain face. ‘If she doesn’t show up, I’ll personally go find her.’ I must find her.

  Mavis patted my shoulder so lightly I barely felt it. ‘Good,’ she said.

  I held the door open as the girls shuffled outside with their canvases and brushes. Claire stopped in the doorway, canvas under her arm, not giving a second thought to those behind her. ‘Mademoiselle,’ she said. ‘I—’

  ‘Move on,’ a girl said from behind, which I think Claire would have been happy to ignore, but when she saw it was Victoria, the girl with the ginger hair and freckly face, she stood her ground.

  ‘I’m talking,’ Claire said, glaring, but by now she’d backed up the line four girls deep, all trying to balance their painting supplies in their arms.

  ‘We can talk outside,’ I said to Claire, and she huffed, giving Victoria another glare before finally walking over to where Sister Mary-Francis told them set up their easels.

  ‘I don’t like her,’ Claire said.

  ‘Who?’ I said, setting up my canvas.

  ‘That one,’ she said, pointing with her head. ‘With the red hair.’

  ‘You were holding up the door,’ I said.

  ‘It’s not just that,’ Claire said.

  Mavis brought out chairs for everyone and we got settled on the eastern slope of the convent grounds, in a field of swaying grass that popped with white wildflowers, partially shaded by the willow trees. Claire painted on with zest, first with a glop of green paint and then smearing it all over the canvas, spreading it from edge to edge, talking to me about everything and anything. ‘And
who likes chicory coffee?’ she said, which came out of nowhere.

  I looked around for Marguerite, over my canvas, and behind my back, but she was nowhere in sight. I dabbed my brush into some paint. ‘I don’t like chicory,’ I said, starting my painting, thinking about Marguerite, her snarling face, that beige skirt she wore on the train to go with her beige face, and all the trouble she could cause me if I didn’t find her.

  ‘We’re in the Free Zone,’ Claire said. ‘You’d think we’d have better—’

  ‘Claire!’ Sister Mary-Francis yelped, and Claire dropped her brush in the grass. She ran over, almost tripping on her long, black habit. Her mouth gaped open, staring at Claire’s painting. ‘We… We…’ She scolded her immediately, pointing to the canvas and then to Claire’s palette where she’d swirled her brush through every colour, making a mess. ‘We can’t sell this!’

  ‘Sorry, sister,’ Claire said, shrinking. ‘I got carried away.’ She ran a cloth over the canvas, taking off some of the paint. ‘I’ll fix it. You’ll see.’ She smiled.

  Sister Mary-Francis looked briefly toward the sky, folding her arms, but then noticed my canvas. ‘And what’s this?’ She was pleased this time, smiling.

  Claire whipped her head around.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, pulling my brush away. ‘It’s nothing…’

  ‘No, Adèle,’ Sister Mary-Francis said, ‘this isn’t nothing. This is—’ Her raised face took on a questioning expression. ‘You never painted like this before.’

  Girls set down their brushes and ran over to see what the commotion was all about.

  ‘I… I have a sister who paints,’ I said as if that was an explanation. ‘She taught me,’ I said, which was a complete lie. I’d never had a lesson in my life. In fact, Charlotte hated me using her paints. The only time I got to use them was when I stole them out from under her, and that was when I was just a girl.

  I got off my chair and stood back with the others. It wasn’t the kind of painting my sister would have liked; it was more modern, with boxes for faces, and colours that didn’t make sense.

  Sister Mary-Francis carried my canvas away. ‘Now this,’ she said. ‘This is how you paint, girls.’

  ‘Is that a Picasso?’ someone said, and I burst out laughing, but after a second or two I realized I was the only one laughing. I thought it was ugly as sin and looked more like my thoughts, which were solely on Marguerite. Only Mavis thought it was as ugly as I did.

  ‘Get back to work, girls,’ I said, and they went back to their own canvases.

  ‘Adèle…’ Mavis whispered, pointing her brush to something over my shoulder, and when I turned around, I saw a few nuns not that far away, flashes of black as they walked the perimeter of the castle grounds, and one postulant. Marguerite. Mavis patted my shoulder, but this time I felt it.

  I handed her my brushes. ‘I’ll be right back,’ I said, and I ran off through the field. Claire called after me, but Mavis must have gotten to her.

  I followed them around a stone turret, trying to think of who the other nuns were with Marguerite. I didn’t recognize them, but they also had their headpieces on and it honestly could have been any one of the sisters at the convent. I practised how I’d say sorry.

  ‘Marguerite,’ I called out, just quietly enough for me to hear. ‘Do you have a moment?’ I thought that would be a good start and when she’d look at me with her dagger eyes, I’d offer her all the apologies I could muster. Maybe with the other sisters there it would break the tension. Maybe she won’t be so nasty. I hadn’t thought of that before, and skipped off a little faster, turning my head just once to see the girls behind me on the far hill painting, and then around the corner.

  Only nobody was there.

  I stood in the dirt, staring at an empty courtyard. ‘Where’d they go?’ I said out loud, and then threw my hands up. A deep breath followed. Getting all worked up and then having nowhere to go only made things worse. My stomach ached, and not the kind of ache I’d get from eating the sisters’ dinner soups. It was a nervous ache; one I couldn’t control no matter what I put in my mouth.

  My head felt light from running, and I sat down on a wood bench next to a statue of a saint whose name I didn’t know, and lit a cigarette, where yellow flowers grew willy-nilly in between the cobblestones.

  The clouds hid the sun in patches and cast handfuls of shady spots on the ground, a welcome relief from the heat that had roared through earlier in the week. After a few puffs, and suddenly having a few quiet moments to myself, it was easy to drift off and think about home, back at the chateau, in the Vichy hills of Creuzier-le-Vieux.

  I thought about Charlotte and all those times we’d lain in the meadow behind Papa’s vineyard, gazing at the clouds with our hands tucked behind our heads like pillows. Papa’s wavy hair had started to grey, looking like flecks of salt and pepper. Wavy, where Charlotte’s was curly. And Mama, and her summer salads with herbs from the garden. If she were here, she’d tell me to stop looking at the clouds and start thinking about what I needed to do to make up with Marguerite.

  Gérard.

  I wanted to cry. If I didn’t find a way to reconcile with Marguerite, get her to stop watching me and forgive me, I’d find myself back on a train before I knew it. Lyon isn’t far enough away, I thought. I should have gone the other direction and all the way to Spain.

  ‘Adèle?’ a voice said.

  I shot up—Mother Superior! I instantly snubbed out my cigarette, only to stop and hold the smashed little thing unwelcomely in my palm. I had broken one of the convent’s rules. There was no hiding that now. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. ‘Sorry, Mother.’ I hung my head down, slinking back onto the bench.

  She picked up my lighter, which had fallen on the ground. ‘It’s all right, Adèle,’ she said, holding it out for me to take, ‘but do try to remember.’ I reached for the lighter, but she pulled it back after taking a second look. ‘This lighter…’

  ‘It’s my mother’s.’

  ‘It’s a cloisonné. The enamel… the inlay…’ Mother talked as if she knew a thing or two about expensive lighters, which surprised me. ‘And this one looks—’

  ‘She’s had it since her nursing days in the Red Cross.’

  She gasped through her open mouth, glancing at me just briefly, but then many minutes passed with her still holding the lighter, rubbing her thumb over the smooth sides, smiling at times and then frowning. I reached for it again, but she ignored me so I put my hand down after tossing my spent cigarette over my shoulder into the bushes.

  ‘Do you know much about her time there? And your father? What of him?’

  Thinking about Mama and Papa fighting made my head hurt, and I had enough on my mind with Marguerite. ‘My father… he’s… they are…’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She looked up, smiling oddly while examining my face. ‘Too many questions?’

  ‘Perhaps just a few.’

  Mother hesitated, and I wondered if she expected me to explain. Then she motioned at the empty space next to me. ‘Do you mind some company?’

  Before I could answer she had already made use of the space next to me, her habit laid out like a blanket, covering every limb. Her white wimple and black veil rubbed up against each other, and it sounded incredibly uncomfortable as we sat, not talking. I caught myself leaning forward to catch a glimpse of her natural hair while she adjusted her veil. She looked at me, pausing, with fingers on her headpiece, and my eyes went to the air.

  ‘Now, Adèle.’

  ‘Yes!’ I sat board straight.

  ‘I heard there is an issue between you and Marguerite.’

  ‘What?’ I gulped. ‘You know?’ Mavis.

  Mother batted her eyes slowly, majestically, and they were beautiful, sea green eyes set wide on her face, which made it hard for me to gauge her feelings. ‘We are human, after all,’ she said, giving my knee a pat. ‘Find a way, a path of compassion. Make amends with her. About her arrival. It’s what God wants.’

  ‘Am
ends?’ My voice peaked.

  She got up from the bench and picked one of the flowers growing between the cobblestones. ‘An unexpected flower in an unexpected place.’ She handed me the lighter, and the metal felt very warm from having been in her hand for so long. ‘Au revoir, Adèle.’ She walked away twirling the flower under her nose.

  My whole body collapsed onto the bench, nearly lying down, searching my pocket for a cigarette, but then decided I better not and took a moment to just breathe.

  And breathe I did.

  A workman’s lorry in need of a new muffler rumbled past me on the dirt road and then stopped abruptly in front of the loading platform the sisters used for laundry drop-offs. I watched the driver as he unlatched the lorry’s double doors. He looked strong and attractive from what I could tell, which caught my eye through the cracks of the bench.

  Sister Mary-Francis rushed out of the laundry in a quiet panic. He waved to shush her, and she covered her mouth, nodding. Together they rolled several laundry carts from the back of his lorry into the laundry room. Some of the carts looked empty, while others overflowed with soiled bed linens from hotels that couldn’t afford, or find, soap to do their own laundry—something the sisters no doubt prepared for, having gone through a war once already.

  I sat up slightly to get a better look, enthralled by the mundane acts of convent life. But then Marguerite came out of the laundry and I ducked. She stood next to the lorry’s double doors, her hands resting impatiently on both hips, tapping her foot as if to hurry them and periodically glancing up into the sky, until Sister Mary-Francis rolled the last cart into the convent and shut the doors behind her.

  And then there was Marguerite, practically alone, standing prim in her blue postulant’s smock.

  I bolted up, heart racing. Now’s the time. I took a breath through my nose. ‘Let this work,’ I said, exhaling. ‘Let this be it and done with.’

  I started the short walk over, back straightening, but then stopped cold right next to the loading platform. Something wasn’t right. Marguerite and the driver had hidden behind the lorry. There were no voices, no words of any kind.