might even recognize me. I sighed—there was no way I could get out of it without coming across as insubordinate.
‘You’ll be there?’ she asked, though they were orders. ‘In one hour?’
‘Yes, Sister.’
‘Good.’ Her eyes flicked again to something behind me, and I swear I saw her nod. This time I turned, but looked right into the sun. She touched my shoulder and I looked away. ‘We will see you there.’
I nodded once.
As soon as she left, the girls whined and slumped against the wall as if they had just finished draining the last bit of coolness from the stones and had completely wilted from the heat.
‘Pétain,’ I said to myself. ‘A speech.’
Mavis licked her palm, running it repeatedly over her mouse-brown bangs until they were smooth and damp. ‘This must be terribly important to Mother if she’s interrupting a sister’s private prayer.’ Her voice squeaked when she talked fast. ‘Shall we leave?’ She played nervously with her fingers.
‘Leave?’ The realization of what I was about to do kept my feet from moving—I felt no glamour in supporting Pétain, standing in a crowd waving and smiling. Mavis’s concerned, little brown eyes stared up at me, waiting for an answer as I took a hard look down the path that led away from the convent, fingernails in my teeth.
‘We do what we have to,’ Mama had said before I left. ‘When we have to.’
‘Girls,’ I said using my head to point the way. ‘Looks like we have a speech to attend.’
Some of them seemed excited to do something other than sew, while others lumbered down the path, rubbing their armpits with the lavender sprigs. The last sprig went to Mavis.
‘Sorry,’ I said, realizing I’d given her the smallest one. ‘I picked the bush clean. There might be more down the way.’
She smiled, taking the sprig. Then something caught both our eyes. A shady presence set high up in the castle wall, in a narrow window with its shutters pushed wide open, right above where the sister and I were talking. A leafy vine of ivy that hung over its opening fluttered from having been moved, but there wasn’t a breeze.
‘Mavis.’ I elbowed her. ‘Did you notice anyone in that window earlier? Seemed like Sister Mary-Francis was distracted by something.’
‘I saw Marguerite.’
‘In the window?’ I looked at her once. ‘Watching me?’
She nodded. ‘I think so.’
A hand reached out from the dark middle and closed the shutters. I stood for a moment, wondering why Marguerite would do such a thing, when Mavis spoke up.
‘She asked me about you.’
‘What did she ask?’ I said, but Mavis shrugged as if she didn’t know.
The girls travelled farther and farther down the path, and now I could only hear them.
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘or we’ll miss the autobus into the city.’ And we hurried on after the girls.
*
People poured into the square from all directions waving Vichy flags to stand and wait in front of the Hotel de Ville, under the building’s gold-dipped heralds where a long and narrow stage had been set up, shuffling in, dragging their children by their shirt sleeves. People wearing sandwich boards with posters of Pétain pasted to each side, begged for coins and talked about unity. The sun’s reflection shining off the glass set inside all three storeys of the Hotel de Ville’s barrel-arched windows cooked us all. And for the first time since I had arrived at the convent, I was thankful for the peasant dress the girls and I had to wear, which was made from the thinnest of fabric.
We weren’t the only congregation in the square. The nuns from the neighbouring Saint-Pierre convent had gathered on a one-step bleacher, each of them squinting in the face of the sun under their wing-tipped headpieces. I looked over the crowd for Mother.
A squadron of Vichy fighter planes droned overhead, and eyes went to the sky. Mavis covered her ears. I copied. Then the other girls did the same.
‘Where’s Mother?’ Mavis said, under the rumbling engines, but I only saw her mouth move.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
They planes had flown off, and I directed the girls to line up next to the Saint Pierre nuns, mainly because I wasn’t sure where else to go, and inspected them—backs straight and feet together—reminding them that we were leaving as soon as the speech was over, which I thought would keep their whining down. Mavis bobbed on her feet as if she’d forgotten to wear shoes and had just realized the ground was hot. She