key, and I gave it to her. Mavis licked her shaking palm to smooth her hair against her head while Marguerite opened the door. The officers peered into the dark space, instantly covering their noses, the smell of death as thick as their wool uniforms.
‘Ach!’ Baader reached for the hanky tucked in his breast pocket and held it over his nose.
‘Do you want to go inside?’ Marguerite stood back and gave them more than enough room to charge down into the crypt if they wanted, but not one of them moved.
‘That’s quite all right,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve seen enough.’
Marguerite closed the crypt back up, and they walked toward the door as if they were done looking the place over, the ruffle of her black habit and our quick feet hurrying them out.
Officer Baader stopped a foot from the gun crate and turned toward Marguerite, his baton scraping against the wood, lifting the linen that covered it up just a hair. He squinted, turning slowly toward Marguerite. ‘Now, you—’ he snapped his fingers at her and then pointed them like a gun ‘—aren’t Mother Superior.’ Marguerite smiled and a bead of sweat snuck out from under her wimple and dripped past her eye. ‘You’re someone else.’
‘Mother Superior is at the convent on the hill. I’m Sister Marguerite.’
‘I had a sister named Marguerite,’ he said, eyes shining, ‘once.’
‘Something else we have in common.’ Marguerite’s bottom lip quivered. ‘Officer Baader.’ It was the first time in a long time I saw the mark of worry streaking in her eyes and face. We had talked about the possibility of a raid, prepared for one, but nothing can really prepare you.
He smiled then turned toward the door as if he were about to leave for good this time, but stopped before setting a foot outside. ‘I’ve seen you before,’ he said, pointing a finger at Mavis. ‘But you.’ His finger moved to me. ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’
I opened my mouth to speak, but Marguerite stopped me with a firm hand on my arm. ‘She’s one of our very own delinquents,’ she said. ‘Only recently decided to become a postulant.’
‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘What did you say your name was?’
I smiled, my mind going white-blank, forgetting the name on my documents, watching Mavis out the corner of my eye smoothing her hair against her forehead, over and over again until it was slicked flat.
‘Jeanne,’ Marguerite said.
‘Jeanne,’ I repeated.
He smiled, and then finally stepped out the door.
I clutched my chest, suddenly feeling myself breathe. Marguerite pressed her back against the wall after she closed the door, looking at the ceiling and grasping for my hand, which she squeezed firmly. Mavis paced around the sewing machines with her arms folded.
‘He’s seen me before?’ I said.
‘He’s fishing,’ Marguerite said. ‘That’s what they do. They want us to misstep, get caught mixing up our own stories. It’s how they work.’
I rested my head against the wall, exhausted. ‘The Milice just tell you what they know. Gestapo… they…’
‘The Gestapo want you to prove what they already know,’ Marguerite said.
Mavis stopped pacing, her cheeks puffing nervously as if she was looking for the right words.
‘Merde!’ I said to Mavis. ‘I’m sure God won’t mind if you say it. It’s all shit!’
Mavis leaned against the wall, her eyes welling with tears. ‘I’m… I’m worried.’
Marguerite put both hands on Mavis’s shoulders, was about to say something, but then looked away.
*
In the late afternoon a rumbling lorry pulled up to the old convent. Two gruff men with grease-smeared jumpsuits hopped out of the side doors. They talked loudly in the street to Marguerite about what sewing machines needed to be repaired before all three of them ducked into the building and got busy loading the guns. Marguerite and I got in with the cargo, closing the doors behind us, settling into the stuffy hatch space that was full with bulging canvas bags and crates.
She pulled her wimple from her head and then wadded up her habit. I crouched down in the corner, slipping the veil off my head as the lorry started up and then barrelled down the road. Out the back window I caught a glimpse of Mavis locking up the old convent’s front doors. I felt woozy watching her, my head light from being shut up with the dead sisters for so long and now being crammed into the back of a moving truck.
A man appeared from around the corner and walked straight toward her with a determined, hand-pumping gait while