sure was fun, though. Breaking into her chamber. I haven’t felt that kind of excitement in a long time.’
‘I thought you were scared?’
‘I was!’ she said. ‘That’s what made it so thrilling.’ She bounced on the edge of my cot. ‘Let’s play a game!’ She smoothed her wet hair over one shoulder and played with the drippy ends. ‘It’s raining out—what else can we do? I mean, other than pray.’
‘No game,’ I said. ‘I’m not in the mood.’
Claire patted my shoulder, her lips slimmed into a thin, apologetic smile. ‘I understand.’ Then she rushed to the opposite side of the room and joined two other girls gathered around a table dealing cards to each other.
Mavis sat on her cot, her hair strung across her face in wet strands, ringing out her wet postulant’s veil. She seemed out of breath, and her eyes had lost their glow. I asked her if she was all right, and she fell backward onto her cot and lay there like a slug. ‘These girls are a handful.’
I smiled, watching and listening to them. ‘I suppose they’re better than children. Toddlers, that sort of thing.’
Mavis used her elbows to prop herself up, looking very confused. ‘Do you have children?’
I laughed. ‘What would make you think that?’
‘I’m not sure. You’ve talked about men before…’ Her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she collapsed onto her cot again. ‘I must have misunderstood you.’ The rain had picked up and sounded like a million tree frogs jumping on the cobblestones outside. ‘Children are a blessing,’ she breathed from her pillow.
Charlotte. I sighed. She must be close to having her baby, if she hadn’t delivered already. I wondered what she’d say if she knew I had joined the Résistance—she wouldn’t like it, supporting Pétain as much as Papa, but still, I had to wonder what she’d think about me being part of a group who did powerful things.
Mavis sat up again, giving me a very strange look.
‘What?’
‘I heard you sigh.’
‘Oh, that,’ I said. ‘I’m just thinking about my sister,’ I said, but then caught myself from elaborating further. I smiled.
‘Mmm,’ Mavis said, lips pressed.
The girls danced around in circles with locked arms, giggling, slapping their wet braids on each other as if they were towels from the bath. Sister Mary-Francis brought in a tray of kettles filled to the brim with steaming hot consommé, which warmed the room with humidity. Mavis and I moved in close, joining a handful of girls who had poured the soup into chipped porcelain mugs that looked more like bowls. Claire, seeing us gathered in a circle sipping something hot, put down her cards mid-hand and joined us.
Mavis’s slurp sounded like her voice, and I kept glancing at her to see if she was talking until finally, she did. ‘We never see rain like this in Aix.’
‘Is that where you’re from?’ I said.
She nodded, licking her lips. ‘Where are you from, Adèle?’
‘Yes, where are you from?’ Claire said, followed by another girl, and when I paused, several more girls joined in. ‘Tell us! Tell us!’
I gulped a mouthful of consommé. Our conversation happened so quickly, so easily, and I wasn’t prepared to answer such details. Marguerite had warned me not to say too much about where I was from, who I was, and I had already talked about having a sister. I slurped more consommé to buy some time, but spilled some on my dress from a sudden shake of my hands.
I shot up. ‘Damn!’
Mavis laughed softly. ‘That doesn’t sound like a good place.’
The girls giggled when Mavis joked. I sighed, setting my mug down, hoping that would be the end of Mavis’s questions, but she pressed on.
‘Are you from Lyon, Adèle?’
I patted my dress dry. ‘Paris,’ I blurted, and as soon as I said where my story fell into place—Mama spent her summers on a farm just north of Paris when she was a girl; that place was as good as any. ‘A village on the outskirts. I could tell you the name, but you wouldn’t know it. Lots of cows… dairy farms.’
Mavis blew into her mug. ‘Paris,’ she said to herself. ‘Dairy.’
‘Well, where is everyone else from?’ I wanted to get the attention off me, and pointed to each girl with my eyes, but nobody seemed interested enough to answer, except Victoria, the girl with the chicken legs and ginger hair, who sat up just slightly and moved the mug away from her mouth.