me. ‘Curious about my radio, or is there something else?’
A bashful longing gleamed in his eyes, as if he hoped there had been more, but what I couldn’t tell. His lips could easily tell me lies if I wanted them to. He leaned back in his chair, his shirt stretched against his chest. My knees got weak.
‘Well, I wanted to know why you joined the Résistance.’
‘That’s why you’re down here?’ he said, smiling, and I nodded.
‘What made you join the Free French?’ I said.
‘I was an operator with the central bureau before the war,’ he said. ‘After the armistice I couldn’t do what they asked of me—work for the Vichy regime. So, I left. Many of us left, snuck out of the country to work with the British only to be dropped back in.
‘Oh,’ I said, but then thought up something else to buy some time. ‘I also wanted to thank you for fixing my bicycle tyre.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he said, and I turned toward the ladder because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, but then he touched me. ‘You don’t have to go.’ His finger flitted down my arm. ‘Stay.’ He pulled a tobacco pouch from his drawer, and rolled two cigarettes, licking the paper and twisting the end. ‘Have a smoke with me.’
I closed my eyes briefly, thinking if I didn’t get out of his room quick, I’d melt into the floor like ice cream on a warm day. But when he handed me the rolled cigarette, I gladly sat down, using the ladder rung as my seat.
He leaned in to give me a light from his lighter. ‘Thanks.’
‘How was Vichy?’ he asked.
‘You know where I went?’ I took a drag of my cigarette, acting casual, but inside I was mortified by his question. He had to have heard my conversation last night with Mama out the window. ‘It was all right.’
‘Mmm,’ he said.
‘How was your day?’
His eyes shifted to his notepad. ‘It was all right.’
And we smoked together, looking at each other in comfortable silence, not willing to talk about what we’d done.
I motioned to his radio. ‘Are you able to tune in foreign radio stations?’ I asked. ‘And listen to music.’
‘Sometimes,’ he said.
‘How does it work?’ I said, and Luc showed me the parts to his radio, the crystals, and even let me listen to some chatter. He seemed to enjoy my interest, and even laughed when my mouth gaped open at hearing British music. He slipped the headphones over my ears, and I closed my eyes, momentarily getting lost in the beautiful bow of strings.
‘I’ve taken too much of your time.’ I took off his headphones.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Before you leave.’ He unpinned an underground newspaper from the wall, handing it to me, but it slipped and fell to the ground. Both of us reached for it, our faces close. Too close. Our lips even closer.
I stood straight up. ‘I should go,’ I said. ‘Sorry for bothering you.’
‘Adèle,’ he said, but I’d climbed up the ladder.
I opened the barrel cellar doors up wide, and walked straight to the chateau, only then realizing I still had Luc’s underground newspaper in my hand, but then laughed to myself. ‘I’ll have to return it.’ I felt a little nervous having it in my hands and stuffed it in my pocket for later.
*
Mama’s eggs had been delivered and waited on the patio near the door. I reached for the basket to bring it inside, but noticed a twisted note between two eggs. I set the basket down, unravelling the note carefully, and gasped when I saw Marguerite’s coded message. I looked over the vineyard: nobody but the birds, and Mama was inside in her room.
It was a diagram—a rough outline of a map to a field about five kilometres away. Meet at noon, Marguerite had written. Or was it one o’clock?
My heart beat faster, and I closed my eyes, counting backward and thinking about lying in the grass in the sun to calm me down, just like Marguerite had taught me, but it was too much with the code. I opened my eyes back up and looked at the message again, heart still beating rapidly.
Noon.
Damn her tests. Why’d she have to write the time in code? I thought.
I rode through Papa’s shrivelling grape vines to a field at the edge of Creuzier-le-Vieux, where wild French catchfly grew in droves, covering a meadow-sized patch of ground with fluttering pink petals. To the west of it on a dirt road