‘No, of course not. But it will be late soon. Why don’t you tell Mama when she comes into the city? Then you don’t have to bother with taking a drive. You really should be resting.’ I held my breath, waiting to hear her answer.
Papa offered Charlotte a chair. ‘Adèle is right, ma chérie, you should rest.’
Charlotte sat down, and I brought her legs up, putting her feet on a cushion. ‘If you think so,’ she said.
‘I do,’ I said, and I reached for my pocketbook to leave.
‘You promise, Adèle?’ Charlotte said. ‘You promise you’ll let me tell her?’
‘I promise,’ I said.
17
That night I asked Mama to brush my hair out in her bedroom. I waited for the right time to tell her, but there was no easy way around it, no matter how many times I practised in my head.
‘She’s what?’ Mama glared at me through the mirror in her vanity. ‘Pregnant!’
‘I thought you should be warned, Mama. Charlotte’s changed—she’s as frazzled as a caged bird with her husband gone all the time. I had to be the one to tell you. She couldn’t take the reaction you’re giving me now.’
Mama threw the brush onto the vanity, cracking her oval mirror. ‘Warned is the right word.’ Her cheeks plumped to ripened tomatoes, and I started to regret saying anything at all.
‘I promised her, Mama. We told her we wouldn’t say a word.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Your father knows?’
‘Yes. Papa knows. She told both of us at the same time.’
She pressed her lips together before letting out a shrill little scream.
I suddenly felt warm and sweaty in the dress I had put on for Gérard’s soirée, and fanned myself with opened fingers while Mama walked around in circles.
‘I cautioned her about getting pregnant too soon,’ she spouted, arms flapping. I wasn’t sure by the look in Mama’s eyes if she was going to charge out the door for Charlotte’s or sit down and smoke a cigarette. ‘Her body hasn’t even had time to heal! Ugh, that girl! I didn’t want her to get married. I swear she spends her time trying to punish me, whether it’s by supporting Pétain or getting pregnant to prove me wrong. And that no-good husband of hers, conspirator, collaborator—God will deal with him.’
I never told Mama I saw Charlotte and Henri dining at La Table with all the collaborators. It would have been too much for her to take on top of everything, knowing that’s where they dined, even if she’d already made her mind up about Henri.
‘Did you know Charlotte’s husband asked her to stop painting? He said it wasn’t the Pétain way.’
‘Henri said that?’ I said, surprised since Charlotte never mentioned it. ‘Maybe she’ll paint again after she has a child.’
Mama stopped pacing and lit a cigarette. The red in her cheeks had turned to pink, which I thought was a good sign. ‘Perhaps.’ She sat on the corner of her bed and gazed at her own reflection in the cracked mirror, blowing smoke from her mouth. ‘Enough about him. I’m talking about Charlotte. She’s not ready. In her head.’
‘I think she is, Mama. She runs a boutique that specializes in clothes for expectant mothers.’
‘No, Adèle. That’s not what I mean.’ Mama took several long breathy drags from her cigarette before stubbing it out in a crystal ashtray on her nightstand. The fury I saw in Mama’s eyes had dulled almost completely—I had softened the blow, for them both.
‘Tell her not to drink the water drawn from the Source des Célestins.’ She grabbed a hold of my arm. ‘I may be the only person in France who doesn’t trust it—the whole city drinking from the same tap. She won’t take my advice—make up a story the Résistance poisoned it—she’ll stay away if she thinks it is poisoned.’ She let go of my arm after squeezing it tightly. ‘The walks along the promenade next to it would be good for her, though. Make sure she walks…’
I nodded, taking the brush Mama had thrown earlier and running it through my hair, switching my thoughts from Charlotte to Gérard. It was the first time all day I had allowed myself to think about the soirée and his feeling hands. Showing up would be the easy part; spending an evening with him in the dark would be another matter. ‘I need to think about tonight.’
Mama handed me her cigarettes as if she knew I needed a smoke.