I burned through two before she spoke up and asked me where I was going.
‘Hotel du Parc, Antoine’s restaurant. The Vichy police love it there.’ I had my hands in my hair when I spoke, the last of my cigarette bobbing with my lips. ‘I was lucky enough to find Charlotte’s gala gown in the closet, buried behind so many things. Leopard chiffon—I’m sure it was very costly.’
‘It was,’ Mama said. ‘She threw it out after the Paris exhibition—doesn’t know I saved it from the rubbish bin. Are you going with Gérard?’
‘Don’t say his name,’ I said, wincing. ‘We know who he is—don’t have to say it out loud. And who else would I be going there with?’ I brushed my hair out, trying to get it into a style, but nothing seemed to work. I stubbed out my cigarette and groaned, looking at my face in the mirror and thinking about Gérard, his soft, wet lips on mine. I shivered from head to toe.
Mama had been watching me with a discerning eye. ‘Your forehead’s creasing.’ She tapped her cheeks. ‘And your dimples are popping. What are you thinking about?’
‘It’s nothing.’ I looked up, my hair in a frizz, and Mama stared at me through her cracked vanity mirror.
‘Are you leaving me to go live with your father?’
‘No!’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t leave you, Mama. That’s not it.’
Mama looked relieved, taking her brush and whipping my hair into a twist. ‘Then what?’
‘My mind’s on Gérard, Mama.’ I shivered again. ‘Feels so degrading. I wish there was something else I could do for the Résistance. Surely, a woman has other talents. But what else could I do? Tonight it will be me in a small room, looking beautiful and surrounded by fifty police. And one Gérard.’
‘Are you worried?’ She clipped a jewel-encrusted pin into my hair twist, and we looked at each other through the mirror.
‘I’m always worried,’ I said.
‘Will you see your father?’ She pulled a letter from her pocket and played with it in her hands.
Only God knew how many letters Papa also had written and never sent. ‘Not tonight, but I see him every day. Is there something you want me to give him?’ I watched her stare at the letter.
‘No.’ She turned away.
I stood to leave, taking a moment to look at myself in the leopard dress. It was long and flowing, the epitome of elegance. I used to beg Charlotte to let me try it on—she never would allow it. Mama watched me from the bed with her cigarette in hand as I smoothed the dress against my skin. ‘I can’t believe I’m finally wearing this—and it was in the closet this whole time.’
‘Mmm,’ Mama said, through her cigarette. She reached for her perfume bottle and sprayed me from behind with rosewater. ‘To cover the scent of that cold sweat you have on you,’ she said.
I waved it away, coughing and gagging from the smell of it, and the feel of the mist falling on my arms. ‘Use the Chanel, Mama.’
I went to leave and stepped through a creaking floorboard—a secret compartment hidden right in Mama’s floor. ‘What’s this?’ I said, very surprised. I brought the board up by its corner. Underneath was a small grey gun lying inside an opened black box. ‘Mama, you have a gun?’
Mama stood over me. ‘A woman needs to protect herself.’
‘Can I pick it up?’
Mama flicked her chin at it, and I reached in. ‘Easy, Adèle. There’s a bullet in it.’
I looked it over from side to side, checking the gun for markings, but the sides were smooth. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘The Résistance gave it to me when Luc showed up. It’s from America—the Liberator, they call it.’
‘Have you shot it?’
‘God, no,’ she said. ‘But there’s directions.’
I pulled a sheet of paper from the box that had twelve numbered pictures on it, each demonstrating how to hold the gun properly and fire it.
I held the gun, aiming at the wall. ‘Luc must know how to use it,’ I said.
‘Throw the directions out and ask him how to shoot it if you want,’ Mama said. ‘But I wouldn’t want you to do anything too unpleasant.’
‘Luc’s arms wrapped around my body, showing me how to aim does sound very unpleasant indeed.’
‘Indeed,’ Mama repeated.
‘Have you seen him lately?’ I said.
‘The last time I saw Luc he was in my kitchen kissing you.’
The mere mention of the last time I saw Luc got me warm and flushed. ‘What do the instructions say?’