pulled a heap of white fabric out from under Mama’s bed and threw it at me. ‘Remember this?’ he said. Yards of Mechlin lace lumped around my neck—the weight of the heavy fabric on top of me an all too familiar feel from the last time I had it on.
My wedding dress.
Mama shook her crying head for having saved it after I thought she’d thrown it out.
Gérard pulled Luc’s flask from his pocket and drank what alcohol was left inside, his brow furrowing from the taste of the English whisky. He mumbled in between gulps about the torturous things he was going to do to Luc when he found him. ‘Hang from a tree,’ he said. ‘Drain like a deer.’ I lay helplessly on the floor staring up at him, my eyes fluttering, on the verge of blacking out.
Gérard threw the flask against the wall once he had emptied it. A swipe of his thick hand across his mouth wiped the gloss of whisky from his lips. ‘Merde! This is shit!’ he said with utter disgust. ‘Where’s Albert’s wine?’ he asked, though he didn’t expect us to answer. He stomped downstairs, slamming the door shut behind him so as not to hear us crying as he guzzled Papa’s wine in the kitchen. I could hear his heavy plodding from one wall to the next, smashing wine bottles.
Mama spit out the rag. ‘My gun,’ she said. ‘Adèle, my gun!’
‘Gun?’ The word roused me like a splash of water to the face—I’d forgotten about the gun Mama had in the floorboard. The thought of escaping gave me enough strength to pull my hand from one of the knots and feel around for the loose board—frantically, frantically, and then I found it. I lifted the board up by my fingertip, unseeing, and grabbed the gun from the secret compartment. ‘I have it,’ I whispered, and Mama breathed heavily. I hid my whole arm under the dress, finger on the trigger. ‘Weep for Christ’s sake, Mama. Weep!’
She went back to wailing while I waited, palms sweating, remembering what Luc had told me about aiming. Look down the barrel, close one eye and use the other to aim.
I counted backward from ten in my mind, eyes closed, thinking of the grass and the sun and calming my nervous heart, breathing deeply, too deeply for my pounding heart. Then Gérard started up the stairs and my eyes popped open, listening to the thumps. The door flew open, slamming against the wall—only one shot. Mama hopped in her seat, her cry more like a squeal.
‘Enough!’ he yelled as he threw a full wine bottle at the wall. Crash! Wine splattered behind Mama like blood from a bullet to her head, her squeal turning into an outright scream as the shattered glass rained down on her skin.
Gérard stood in the doorway unlooping the belt from his waist, his eyes pointed as daggers looking into mine. He paused when he noticed my arm wasn’t tethered to the vanity. Where’s—’
I pulled my hand out from under the dress, Gérard’s face a mix of fear and anger as I aimed my one shot. Pop! My eye lay fixed down the barrel, frozen, as his body fell like a tree on top of me, onto the wedding dress.
Mama’s wailing was now a search for air as I moved my body out from under Gérard’s, untying the rest of my limbs from the constraints he had tried to rape me in, the dress soaking up his blood.
I felt a mix of sadness and loathing as I stared at Gérard lying motionless on Mama’s floor—Gérard, the good soldier I kept hearing about, really had died years ago, crushed by his own ambition and greed.
‘My God, Adèle,’ Mama said after I untied her, both of us moving to the floor, kneeling and gazing at his body. ‘My God!’
‘Better him than us.’
‘I know!’ Her voice was shrill. ‘Jesus Christ!’ Mama put both hands to her head, worry as much as fright keeping her swollen eyes open. ‘Let me think!’ she shrieked. ‘Let me think of what to do—’
Gérard moaned and we both screamed. ‘He’s alive!’
We scrambled to get clear of him, but his meaty hand latched on to my ankle. ‘I’m going to kill you.’ He spat blood spat from his mouth. ‘You and your mother!’ Mama went for his hands but he got her throat, the wedding dress pillowing underneath their knees as they both tried to gain a footing.