he definitely didn’t like to lose. As much as I hated to admit it, Marguerite was right. I was in a unique situation—a situation that could benefit the French Résistance—if I allowed myself to be put back in it. But I’d be taking a chance, a big chance, which hinged on Gérard’s feelings toward me, which I had no way of knowing unless I went back.
‘I can’t marry him, Marguerite.’ I gulped.
‘Think of a way to postpone,’ she said. ‘You already ran away. It would be normal for you to ask to take things slow.’
I closed my eyes briefly. Gérard take things slow. ‘What then?’
‘Inside his office is a cigar box. Underneath is a set of numbers—a combination. Memorize them.’
I had worried Marguerite was going to get me sent back to Vichy, but in the end, it wasn’t her I needed to worry about. It was me. I nodded.
She exhaled after holding her breath. ‘Thank you, thank you, Adèle.’ She held my hand. ‘There’s a flower cart in front of the Hotel du Parc that only sells flowers out of tins, never baskets. Ask for a single daisy. Then leave a coded message with the old woman that you’re ready to meet, and I’ll be in touch.’
‘When will I leave?’
‘Tonight. After the girl comes back.’
Out the window, I saw the couple drag Philip’s body over to a hole they’d dug and push him in—Marguerite had no idea the pair had just sawed his legs off at the knees. I closed my eyes briefly, praying for Philip, the man who died doing what he believed in. ‘Tonight it is.’
The wife took hold of a rusty shovel, scooped up some dirt and tossed it into the hole.
10
I waited inside the cottage as the sun set, watching Marguerite kneel under the oak tree next to the mound of dirt piled on top of Philip’s grave. She blew kisses from her fingers at the ground. A mournful cry followed, and she clutched her stomach before collapsing onto the ground. It was in that moment, when I saw Marguerite crying in the dirt, that I wanted to get the numbers for her and not just for the Résistance.
She would’ve had a few moments to grieve alone if it weren’t for the bald man, who came up behind her shouting. It was hard to tell who was angrier, both cursing at each other, pointing to the grave and then to me in the cottage. Marguerite shoved money into his hands, which he immediately started counting. He stopped her when she tried to come back inside, and then she drove away in the truck the wife had cleaned.
The couple drove me back to Vichy that night in the same dusty black car I had ridden to the convent in. We drove with our headlamps off, the full moon casting a soft glow over the rolling hills, which looked black and grey in the distance. When I left Vichy, my pocketbook was stuffed with money to bribe the sisters, now it was stuffed with money Marguerite had given me for a dress—something to help with Gérard, something sexy.
I wasn’t sure where I’d begin once I got back home, but I knew with whom I had to begin. Papa. I’d have to trick him as much as I had to trick Gérard. The thought made my throat turn dry. I reached for my cigarette case, but then remembered I left it at the cottage. ‘Christ!’
The bald man slammed on his brakes. My body jerked forward before slamming back into the seat. I thought he was mad at me for cursing Christ’s name, but then he yelled Marguerite’s name and sneered.
‘Get out.’
‘What?’ He had stopped in a valley between two jet-black hills that hid the moon. ‘You can’t stop here. I don’t know where I am.’
He turned around in his seat, striking a flame from his lighter so I could see his pitted old face. ‘You don’t expect me to drive to the Hotel du Parc, do you?’
‘Well… well…’ I stuttered. ‘No.’
He kicked open his door and mumbled to himself about getting rid of me. Then he opened my door, wide, as if I was as big as his wife and needed the space. ‘Get out!’
‘But what direction am I to go?’
He reached through the open window and turned the headlamps on. ‘Walk that way,’ he said, pointing down the dirt road where the hills split into two. ‘Creuzier-le-Vieux is over there. Vichy is after.’