by Andie Newton
Mama downed the rest of the wine. ‘That’s all I want to say right now.’ She gazed at the empty bottle, her grip tightening. ‘Damn Germans.’ She threw the bottle against the stone wall, and the glass shattered into a handful of sharp chunks, some getting stuck in between the stones, others lying curve side up in the dirt. She took a deep breath, and a reprieving smile lifted her face. ‘I should throw bottles more often.’
Mama straightened herself up, tucking her hair behind her ears and smoothing her apron flat against her dress, but then pulled a piece of paper from her other pocket. She looked like she had forgotten it was there with the deep-set creases between her eyes.
‘A letter to Papa?’
Mama shrugged, sliding the letter back into her pocket. She walked out of the cellar, touching both walls with delicate fingers to keep herself straight after the wine, leaving me with Charlotte’s chest and the light from one fat candlestick that got brighter the longer it burned.
*
The next morning, I woke to find my bicycle standing upright on the back patio with its tyre plump, full of air. Luc. I hesitated, looking back at the thick black strip of air cutting between the cellar’s open doors, wondering if he was indeed below Papa’s oak bending machine like Mama had said, and what it looked like.
Made of stone and larger than most people’s homes, the cellar’s vaulted ceiling arched like a cathedral with dark wood beams. It was where Papa aged his wine and kept his work equipment, and it smelled as fruity as the fermented grapes and peaty soil that had been trudged in from his oversized work boots. The door was not built to protect or hide the work of the Résistance, but was in fact very ordinary.
I made up my mind to walk over, and I took the vanilla oil with me.
‘Hallo?’ I whispered, pushing open the doors. The walls were still lined with Papa’s tilling tools; behind them, and ever so faint, were the free-hand scribbles of Charlotte and me written in charcoal from when we were children.
I walked in, shutting the door behind me, and over to the oak-bending machine Papa used to cut wine barrels. I pushed it until it rolled a few feet away, exposing a plank of wood with a hole just big enough for one finger.
I crouched down and knocked on the floor, which felt odd to do. Nobody answered.
I could just turn around; he’d never know I had come. But I’d never seen a real transmitter before, only heard about them arriving by parachute.
I poked my finger through the hole and lifted the board up. A short ladder led into a cave of a room, lit all aglow with a kerosene lantern. ‘Luc?’ I said, just to be sure. Nothing. I climbed down the ladder and into the room, which was no bigger than a large wash closet with a small table. And his radio. Looked like a metal valise, one a typist would carry, though it was hulky, a massive heap of metal with more knobs and wires than I could have imagined.
My eyes skirted around the small room, and I was thinking I should leave. I set the vanilla oil on his table, but instead of leaving I sat down in his leather chair and picked up the ceramic mug he’d left behind, half-full with diluted tea that smelled of liquorice. ‘And headphones…’ I traded the mug for the headphones and slipped them on, closing my eyes, and caught a whiff of his cologne, something musky hovering in the air. My mind went straight to Luc. He’s so damn handsome. I smiled to myself, humming a song I remembered from Charlotte’s wedding. The one she and Henri danced to.
We had just toasted them good fortune and Charlotte pulled me aside to gift me her wedding bouquet. ‘I know you’ll have one of your own someday,’ she said, smiling. ‘But I want you to have this as a promise. A promise that one day love will find you.’
She kissed my cheeks.
‘Charlotte, I…’
Henri looked at her from across the garden, under the glowing lantern lights strung across the estate garden. Even from so far away I could see love filling up his eyes. He was everything Charlotte wanted in a man. A commandant in the Colonial Army, turned local diplomat. Respected. Good family.
Loving.
The flowers felt incredibly soft. ‘Thank you.’ We both smelled the same rose, and laughed when our noses touched. ‘You’re married now,’ I said, and she nodded. ‘What does love feel like?’ I said, and she looked at me, surprised by my question.
‘Love,’ she breathed, and her eyes glossed with tears. ‘There’s a fluttering,’ she said, cupping her hand near her stomach, ‘deep inside, like butterfly wings, where you feel fragile as a hollow egg. But then it pulls, the fluttering, and you feel attached, as if everything in your body is connected… to someone else.’
Henri called her to him from the dance floor as the band played a slow number. ‘I wish this for you someday, sister,’ she said just before he swept her away.
‘What are you doing in here?’ a voice said from behind, and I shot up from the chair, shrieking, only to see it was Luc.
I ripped the headphones from my ears, and he folded his arms. An excruciatingly awkward silence followed, both of us staring into the other’s eyes. I set the headphones back on the table next to the microphone. ‘Sorry.’
Luc moved the lantern to a hook protruding from one of the oak staves in the wall, rolling his eyes over the table, his radio, and settling on his notepad. ‘Your mother ever teach you about manners?’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t remember inviting you down here.’
He smoothed away a tuft of wavy hair from his furrowing brow, grabbing his notepad. He was angry, though I wasn’t sure by the tone in his voice if it was because I was in his room or because I had sat in his chair. But as I stood there watching him shuffle quickly through the pages of his notepad as if I’d had my fingers in them, I thought, maybe it could be both.
‘I am truly sorry.’ I touched his arm, and he stopped moving. ‘I wasn’t snooping. Just curious. I’ve never seen a real radio, or headphones…’
He picked up the vanilla oil, then looked at me. His entire face had changed.
‘I was at the market and I thought—’
‘You bought this for me?’ he said, and I nodded.
‘If you want, you can go through my things,’ I said, giving him a smile. ‘Though lavender sachets and glass beads are about all you’ll find.’
He laughed. ‘Maybe in a fortnight, after I know you better.’
‘In a fortnight?’ I folded my arms, back against the wall. ‘Did you fly in with your radio?’ A laugh bumped in my throat at the thought of this, making a little joke of his Britishness when he was obviously French, but he didn’t laugh back.
‘Pardon?’ he said, and I stood straight, thinking I may have overstepped, but then he looked more confused. ‘You don’t like my voice?’
‘You have a beautiful voice—I mean—your voice sounds fine.’ I took a hard gulp, wishing I could trade my tongue in for a new one. ‘I thought I heard a British accent. That’s all. I’m sorry.’
He laughed, and I thought that was his way of accepting my apology.
‘I’ll leave you alone,’ I said, and I went to leave, but he flipped a switch on his radio and unplugged his earphones, and I heard the scratchy commotion of British radio, people talking, saying words I didn’t understand, which entranced me.
He sat down in his chair, turning the radio off.
‘Why are you here, Adèle?’ He’d looked away, but then his gaze trailed slowly back to me. ‘Curious about my radio, or is there something else?’
A bashful longing gleamed in his eyes, as if he hoped there had been more, but what I couldn’t tell. His lips could easily tell me lies if I wanted them to. He leaned back in his chair, his shirt stretched against his chest. My knees got weak.
‘Well, I wanted to know why you joined the Résistance.’
‘That’s why you’re down here?’ he said, smiling, and I nodded.
‘What made you join the Free French?’ I said.
‘I was an operator with the central bureau before the war,’ he said. ‘Aft
er the armistice I couldn’t do what they asked of me—work for the Vichy regime. So, I left. Many of us left, snuck out of the country to work with the British only to be dropped back in.
‘Oh,’ I said, but then thought up something else to buy some time. ‘I also wanted to thank you for fixing my bicycle tyre.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he said, and I turned toward the ladder because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, but then he touched me. ‘You don’t have to go.’ His finger flitted down my arm. ‘Stay.’ He pulled a tobacco pouch from his drawer, and rolled two cigarettes, licking the paper and twisting the end. ‘Have a smoke with me.’
I closed my eyes briefly, thinking if I didn’t get out of his room quick, I’d melt into the floor like ice cream on a warm day. But when he handed me the rolled cigarette, I gladly sat down, using the ladder rung as my seat.
He leaned in to give me a light from his lighter. ‘Thanks.’
‘How was Vichy?’ he asked.
‘You know where I went?’ I took a drag of my cigarette, acting casual, but inside I was mortified by his question. He had to have heard my conversation last night with Mama out the window. ‘It was all right.’
‘Mmm,’ he said.
‘How was your day?’
His eyes shifted to his notepad. ‘It was all right.’
And we smoked together, looking at each other in comfortable silence, not willing to talk about what we’d done.
I motioned to his radio. ‘Are you able to tune in foreign radio stations?’ I asked. ‘And listen to music.’
‘Sometimes,’ he said.
‘How does it work?’ I said, and Luc showed me the parts to his radio, the crystals, and even let me listen to some chatter. He seemed to enjoy my interest, and even laughed when my mouth gaped open at hearing British music. He slipped the headphones over my ears, and I closed my eyes, momentarily getting lost in the beautiful bow of strings.
‘I’ve taken too much of your time.’ I took off his headphones.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Before you leave.’ He unpinned an underground newspaper from the wall, handing it to me, but it slipped and fell to the ground. Both of us reached for it, our faces close. Too close. Our lips even closer.
I stood straight up. ‘I should go,’ I said. ‘Sorry for bothering you.’
‘Adèle,’ he said, but I’d climbed up the ladder.
I opened the barrel cellar doors up wide, and walked straight to the chateau, only then realizing I still had Luc’s underground newspaper in my hand, but then laughed to myself. ‘I’ll have to return it.’ I felt a little nervous having it in my hands and stuffed it in my pocket for later.
*
Mama’s eggs had been delivered and waited on the patio near the door. I reached for the basket to bring it inside, but noticed a twisted note between two eggs. I set the basket down, unravelling the note carefully, and gasped when I saw Marguerite’s coded message. I looked over the vineyard: nobody but the birds, and Mama was inside in her room.
It was a diagram—a rough outline of a map to a field about five kilometres away. Meet at noon, Marguerite had written. Or was it one o’clock?
My heart beat faster, and I closed my eyes, counting backward and thinking about lying in the grass in the sun to calm me down, just like Marguerite had taught me, but it was too much with the code. I opened my eyes back up and looked at the message again, heart still beating rapidly.
Noon.
Damn her tests. Why’d she have to write the time in code? I thought.
I rode through Papa’s shrivelling grape vines to a field at the edge of Creuzier-le-Vieux, where wild French catchfly grew in droves, covering a meadow-sized patch of ground with fluttering pink petals. To the west of it on a dirt road sitting on an old man’s bicycle was Marguerite, dressed in a pretty summer dress, which was odd to see. Her hair was done up too, though some of it had been pulled from its twist and lay unkempt near her neck.
I felt myself smiling. I had gotten the numbers she asked for. I really did it, I thought, just like she said I would. I was excited to tell her I’d succeeded.
I skidded to a stop, because instead of looking pleased to see me, she scowled. ‘Do you have to kick up that much dust when you ride? What are the numbers? You have them, don’t you? Your message meant nothing, memorize the damn codes…’ She talked fast, and sounded more like the old Marguerite, the one I met on the train with her curt, cutting voice. ‘Adèle—the numbers.’
The smile on my face slowly faded away.
I got off my bicycle when she got off hers. ‘What are they?’ She took me by the shoulders and the rest of her hair unravelled down her back. ‘I don’t have a lot of time.’
At the minimum I thought she’d be glad I read her coded message right. I shook the stunned look from my face to answer her. ‘Ah… nineteen. Twenty-five. Thirty-two.’
She repeated the numbers. ‘Can you get back in if I need you to?’
‘Into Gérard’s office?’ I was sure Gérard would love nothing more. I nodded.
‘Keep visiting him. I’ll be in touch.’ She turned to leave, but I wasn’t ready for her to leave. Not yet. I yanked her back by the shoulder.
‘Wait.’ My mouth hung open. I thought she’d be happy with my progress—appreciative—impressed, but she wasn’t. Clearly, she wasn’t. ‘No thank you?’ It was the least I expected after what I went through in Gérard’s office, and I needed to hear it; for whatever reason, I needed an acknowledgement, and for her to tell me I’d done well.
She glared at me, first at my touch and then for my voice. ‘We don’t hand out medals, Adèle.’
‘I’m not asking for a medal, Marguerite. Just a damn thank you.’ I felt a pinch in my lips even though I was more hurt than angry. ‘Do you even know what I had to do to get those numbers? He forced himself on me and I let him—hot breath all over my skin, my lips pasty from his wet tongue—Christ, Marguerite! I don’t even want to talk about his heavy hands feeling every curve of my body—but I will if you want me to…’
Marguerite’s gaze had wandered just over my shoulder, her blank face stretching with fright, which caught me off guard. I whipped my head around and saw a blooming cloud of dust billowing in the air from an approaching car.
I gasped, hand to my mouth, and Marguerite dove to the ground, taking me and both our bicycles with her. ‘Over here!’ We dragged them off the road and into the weeds before ducking into the catchfly and burrowing into the ground.
Underneath the flower’s velveteen petals grew a poisonous, prickly stem; its bite a brief, yet penetrating sting to those who dared to disturb it. The venom was meant to catch field bugs, but instead it grazed our faces, leaving strings of poison on our skin as we crawled shoulder to shoulder, the car coming to a sudden, lurching stop. We curled up in the stems, insects buzzing in our ears and sticking to our cheeks. My entire body itched.
I heard German mixed with French and the grave sound of feet walking the edge of the embankment. Marguerite winced when they found our bicycles; then her eyes locked with mine through the catchfly, the whirring cry of locusts warning of someone coming. ‘Thank you, Adèle,’ she whispered. ‘For the numbers…’ Heavy footsteps came toward us, the crunch of the catchfly under their boots too close to think about, and her eyes got wide, wider than I had ever seen before. My heart hummed.
‘I’ll never let her go this time,’ a gruff voice said.
‘Then why’d you let her escape?’ another said back. ‘She’s not here. Those bicycles could be anyone’s.’ There was a grumble and a growl followed by an argument about not tying knots tight enough. Then a man with the loudest German voice I had ever heard spoke over both of them.
‘Thousand Year Reich!’ Gunfire popped haphazardly all around with tufts of dirt lifting from the ground, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
Please… God. Please let me live…
A long, hot pause followed the gunfire. Not even the locusts dared to stir. Then the blessed sound of re
treating footsteps brought my eyes to open and my lungs filled with air.
They laughed as they opened their car doors, talking about quartering Marguerite when they found her—a message to the Résistance. When their doors shut, Marguerite’s body jerked among the catchfly as if each slam was a bullet to her chest.
We sat up once we heard their car speed down the road, dead bugs sticking to our skin and face, bees buzzing above our heads. For a long while we didn’t say anything, both of us watching them disappear into the horizon.
‘Marguerite,’ I said, still shaking. ‘I was wrong. You don’t have to thank me.’
‘You’re right,’ she said, equally shaking. ‘I take it back.’
*
I don’t remember the ride home, or the walk from the patio into Mama’s kitchen, but I do remember getting a bottle of wine from the root cellar. My hands shook after I popped the cork and started pouring the wine into a glass. A chill bumped over my skin but I was sweating and still sticky from the catchfly’s poison. I downed the wine, not wanting to waste another moment sober and awake, small streams of it dribbling from my mouth and down my neck, thinking about how close I had come to being shot. Too close, I thought, too damn close.
‘Feeling all right, Adèle?’
I jumped, wine spurting from the bottle’s neck and onto the floor. Luc. He had been sitting at the kitchen table for God knows how long, watching me drink the wine.
‘Christ, Luc!’ I said, wiping my lips with the back of my hand. ‘You’re always startling me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I was here first.’ He smiled.
I took one last mouthful of wine from the bottle, tasting the flavours of the oak barrel Papa had aged it in with a final swallow. My hands stopped shaking, and I combed out my hair with my fingers, pulling bits of chickweed from it.
Luc had gotten up and examined the wine label—a valuable pinot, the bottle as dusty as the spot Mama had stashed it in. ‘Long day?’
My whole body soaked in sweat, gritty with dirt, and sticky from bugs on my skin. ‘Sure was,’ I said, resting my backside against the sink. ‘What are you doing out in the daylight?’