breath through his nose, closing his eyes. ‘Fresh bread and vanilla oil. Haven’t had that in a long time. And sipping wine in the sun, lying in the grass. That’s it. All four of them together. Took them for granted before I…’ He looked at me. ‘Well, you know.’
The last time I had wine in the sun I was with Gérard. ‘I’ve had enough wine in the sun,’ I said, and Luc looked at me.
‘One day you might find you miss it,’ he said, and I realized how difficult his job must be. To not see the sun, to not feel it on your face without fear of someone seeing you and questioning who you are.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Sorry for what?’ he said.
‘I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m sure there’s lots of things you miss.’
‘I have a feeling you’ll know soon enough,’ he said. His cigarette was done, and he got up after stubbing it out on the patio, but I still had half mine left.
‘Thanks for the cigarette. See you around?’ I said, and then winced. That wasn’t a phrase I normally used, and I thought he could tell.
He smiled, stepping into the shadowy darkness of the night. ‘See you around.’ He winked, and my stomach flipped again; then when he was out of sight, I collapsed backward on the patio and smoked my cigarette while staring up into the stars.
‘Christ, Adèle,’ I said to myself. ‘You’re such an idiot.’
13
The following morning, I packed a tin with a crust of bread and a jar of peaches from the root cellar. I wasn’t going to give Gérard any of our meat until Mama talked me into it. ‘He’d know,’ she said, ‘that you weren’t sincere if you didn’t hand it over.’ As much as I hated to admit it, I knew she was right and stuck a can of the pork in with the rest of it.
Before I could deliver anything to the Hotel du Parc, I had to look for a new dress. Something Gérard hadn’t seen before. With the tin hooked on my arm and a gingham towel as a cover, I took the money Marguerite had given me to Le Grand Marché Couvert, a covered market filled with a hundred vendors selling everything they could get their hands on. Nothing lacy, I told myself, but something sophisticated.
Mme Dubois had been selling textiles and exotic foods brought up from Marseilles for donkey’s years, as she’d always say. But since the armistice she kept the clothes hidden. Mama once told me she sewed for Coco Chanel twenty years ago, but Madame denied it when I asked.
Mme Dubois’ oversized glasses had slipped to the end of her nose and she pushed them back up as she talked. ‘I don’t want to go out naked, of course. I always stash a little of the fabric away for myself.’ She pointed discreetly to the linen-covered bolts of fabric she had under her table.
‘Madame Dubois, naked?’ I laughed softly.
Mme Dubois picked lint from her rose-print skirt before looking over the rim over her glasses. ‘It could happen.’ She leaned over her vendor table, her striped top grazing the jars of dates and sticky figs she had imported from Africa. ‘Not that anyone would want to see me naked.’ She laughed, running a hand through her thin brown hair.
A woman selling ground chicory at the table next to hers rolled her eyes as Mme Dubois talked. ‘You talk about the strangest things, Dubois.’ Madame waved for her to go away, but the woman sprayed rosewater at her from a perfume bottle.
‘Ahh, the smell of rose,’ Madame said. ‘She sprays it to cover up the stink the Vichy police leave behind. They passed by not too long ago, love.’ She put her hands together and played unconsciously with her wedding band. ‘What can I help you with today?’ The spray misted behind her. ‘The chicory makes a nice coffee substitute!’
Mama had enough coffee stored in her root cellar to last three more months, but I wouldn’t dare tell anyone we had such a treasure.
‘I need a dress, Madame. Something fresh.’
Her eyes brightened. ‘I have just the thing!’ Underneath the bolts of fabric she had under her table were two dresses made from the same cloth as her shirt. ‘Pinstripes are always in season, no matter how dreadful the drought is.’
I presumed the drought she was talking about had something to do with clothing rations and the designers in the north. She held the dresses