say the words. It was a private funeral. Just her and her husband is what she told me. I’m still heartbroken about it, too heartbroken to say it out loud.’
‘I understand.’
‘Did she—has she—taken you there? To the grave?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I haven’t been.’
Mama nodded. ‘She hasn’t taken anyone as far as I know. I faced many things as a nurse in the 1914 war, but nothing—nothing—has been as hard as watching your family crumble into dust.’
I was stunned to hear Mama mention her time as a nurse; she rarely brought it up. Part of me didn’t want to push the subject, but as more quiet seconds passed with her looking at the ground, the courage to broach the subject built inside of me.
‘Mama, tell me about the lighter. Your time as a nurse. Elizabeth—Mother Superior.’
Mama sighed heavily, sitting down in a wood chair and slumping forward. ‘There were three of us. Different war, but the same enemy—ruthless.’ She paused, swallowing dryly, pulling the cloisonné lighter from her pocket and rubbing the inscription on the back before slipping it back in. ‘Let’s just say I understand why Elizabeth joined the Order after the war.’
Mama downed the rest of the wine. ‘That’s all I want say right now.’ She gazed at the empty bottle, her grip tightening. ‘Damn Germans.’ She threw the bottle against the stone wall, and the glass shattered into a handful of sharp chunks, some getting stuck in between the stones, others lying curve side up in the dirt. She took a deep breath, and a reprieving smile lifted her face. ‘I should throw bottles more often.’
Mama straightened herself up, tucking her hair behind her ears and smoothing her apron flat against her dress, but then pulled a piece of paper from her other pocket. She looked like she had forgotten it was there with the deep-set creases between her eyes.
‘A letter to Papa?’
Mama shrugged, sliding the letter back into her pocket. She walked out of the cellar, touching both walls with delicate fingers to keep herself straight after the wine, leaving me with Charlotte’s chest and the light from one fat candlestick that got brighter the longer it burned.
*
The next morning, I woke to find my bicycle standing upright on the back patio with its tyre plump, full of air. Luc. I hesitated, looking back at the thick black strip of air cutting between the cellar’s open doors, wondering if he was indeed below Papa’s oak bending machine like Mama had said, and what it looked like.
Made of stone and larger than most people’s homes, the cellar’s vaulted ceiling arched like a cathedral with dark wood beams. It was where Papa aged his wine and kept his work equipment, and it smelled as fruity as the fermented grapes and peaty soil that had been trudged in from his oversized work boots. The door was not built to protect or hide the work of the Résistance, but was in fact very ordinary.
I made up my mind to walk over, and I took the vanilla oil with me.
‘Hallo?’ I whispered, pushing open the doors. The walls were still lined with Papa’s tilling tools; behind them, and ever so faint, were the free-hand scribbles of Charlotte and me written in charcoal from when we were children.
I walked in, shutting the door behind me, and over to the oak-bending machine Papa used to cut wine barrels. I pushed it until it rolled a few feet away, exposing a plank of wood with a hole just big enough for one finger.
I crouched down and knocked on the floor, which felt odd to do. Nobody answered.
I could just turn around; he’d never know I had come. But I’d never seen a real transmitter before, only heard about them arriving by parachute.
I poked my finger through the hole and lifted the board up. A short ladder led into a cave of a room, lit all aglow with a kerosene lantern. ‘Luc?’ I said, just to be sure. Nothing. I climbed down the ladder and into the room, which was no bigger than a large wash closet with a small table. And his radio. Looked like a metal valise, one a typist would carry, though it was hulky, a massive heap of metal with more knobs and wires than I could have imagined.
My eyes skirted around the small room, and I was thinking I should leave. I set the vanilla oil on his table, but instead of leaving I sat down in his leather chair and