the dead’s wishes.’ Marguerite unzipped the duffle bag and sat on her knees, spilling thousands of loose francs out onto the floor.
I watched the couple outside prepare for the burial as Marguerite counted the francs on the floor. The bald man pointed a finger around his property after they laid the body on the ground. The wife nodded, hands planted on her hips, her lungs huffing and puffing from having lifted something heavy.
I closed my eyes, thinking about Claire. Her body would wash ashore eventually, waterlogged and bleached from the sun. Maybe someone would bury her, maybe not. I’d never know. At least this man would get a burial.
Marguerite had pulled an envelope from the bag and paced around the room in quick bursts, feverishly reading the note inside, still wiping her tears. I got worried.
‘What does it say?’ Marguerite ignored me, and I asked again. ‘What does it say… Marguerite!’ But still she wouldn’t answer, and I could tell it was something serious. I reached for the paper. ‘What does it—’
We stood staring at each other, tugging on the piece of paper between us. ‘Sometimes it’s better to be kept in the dark,’ she said, and then snatched the letter away with a quick jerk, only the part I’d grabbed tore between my fingers.
Marguerite struck a long match she snagged from the fireplace mantel and set it to the paper. Just before the flame reached her fingers, she threw it into the cold ash of last winter’s fire. ‘You’ll have to trust me.’
A young girl riding a bicycle rode up from the field. Marguerite went out to talk to her, alternating a pointed finger at me through the screen door and the couple by the tree before bringing her inside.
‘She’s going to the convent to get some things. Do you have any possessions you want her to bring back for you?’
‘You mean… we’re not going back?’
‘Is there anything you want?’
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t form any words. I had to think. Did I have anything? ‘My pocketbook. It’s under my cot.’
The girl set out on her bicycle and rode away, disappearing behind the derelict wheat field.
‘What do you mean we’re not going back?’ I tried to hide my disappointment; I was good with the delinquents. Sister Mary-Francis told me so.
‘I am,’ she said. ‘You’re not.’
‘You’re leaving me here? Alone?’ My head pained instantly, thinking about spending my days on the farm with the bald man and his wife. I reached into my pocket for a cigarette, but then threw the case across the room out of frustration. ‘You can’t leave me.’
Marguerite took a deep breath. ‘The nuns can’t know what happened to Claire. Killing her wasn’t part of the plan they agreed to. Now we must cover it up. The delinquents will ask questions. So will the nuns.’ Marguerite glanced outside where the couple was burying the body, but then quickly turned her face away. ‘I need your help somewhere else.’
‘But I was good there,’ I said. ‘At the convent. With the girls.’
‘Are you a keeper of delinquents, or a member of the Résistance?’
‘Why can’t I be both?’
There was a long pause. Marguerite stared at me, her lips dry and cracking, and I could tell she was struggling with what to say. ‘You want to know what was in that letter?’
‘The one you just burned?’
Marguerite held her breath as if she was about to deliver something big before exhaling with a groan. ‘Claire thought you were the leader, understand? Someone who gave guns to the Free French—the mastermind behind the guns in the crypt.’
‘She thought I was involved?’
‘She didn’t believe you were just involved. Claire believed you were the Chameleon—that’s my codename.’ Marguerite pointed a finger at her own chest. ‘She thought you were me.’
‘Why does that matter?’ I said, shaking my head.
‘It means the convent’s not safe for you. We don’t know exactly what she’s told her superiors. It’s all very uncertain.’ She paused. ‘But one thing I know for sure. Claire was a professional and probably has killed before. If she had pinned me with that knife, she would have pulled it out and stuck you with it too.’
I shook my head, though I knew she was telling the truth. Claire was the one who wanted to go to the crypt that day of the speech, and then showed up without permission. She had taken my journal, and now that I thought of it, Claire was the one who brought up the idea to jump