at the instructions, flipping the page over where it was blank. ‘You have to reload after you shoot it, and the target has to be close up.’
Gooseflesh bumped over my arms. ‘I hope we never have to use it.’
‘I forgot I had it, to tell you the truth, Adèle. You know as well as I that if the Germans come this damn thing isn’t going to help us. I never believed in Satan until I met my first German. I’m sure Elizabeth would agree.’
I held my tongue, waiting to see if she’d say anything else about her and Mother Superior unprompted, but she looked rather breathless and weak from having just mentioned her name.
‘As dangerous as the Résistance is, you know what would happen to us if someone knew we had a gun? Put it away, makes me nervous,’ she said, and I put the gun back in the floor. Headlamps shone through the window and Mama looked alarmed. ‘Jesus Christ, is that—’
‘He sent a car,’ I said, and she heaved a sigh of relief.
‘I don’t want him in my home. I know you said he wasn’t going to show up again uninvited, but I don’t trust him. Not one bit.’
I straightened myself after having been on the floor, tucking in loose hair strands and checking my makeup. ‘How do I look?’ I said.
‘Adèle,’ Mama said. ‘Be careful. Don’t anger him.’ She kissed my cheeks, and the driver knocked on the door. ‘Do you understand?’
‘I understand,’ I said.
*
I felt the stuffiness of the room even before I opened the door to Antoine’s brasserie. There must have been at least twenty police, all similarly dressed in evening suits, standing around tall bistro tables without any stools. Beautiful women gathered around them, taking sips from fancy cocktails in crystal glasses.
I stood in the doorway after taking my coat off and looked for Gérard, through the haze of cigarettes and cigars, trying to remember all his rules. ‘Don’t look like a prostitute,’ he’d said, and a flit of warmness came between me and the chiffon dress, which suddenly felt like an invitation.
‘Adèle!’ Gérard barked from the bar, and I waved.
He commanded the waiter to fetch me a drink with a snap of his fingers, but I had grabbed a glass of gin off the bar myself.
‘Bonsoir, Adèle.’ He kissed both my cheeks, the stink of a cold cigar souring on his breath.
‘Bonsoir.’
He smiled, smoothing his jacket against his chest. ‘Aren’t you going to say anything about my suit?’
I drank heartily, the jewelled pin in my hair blinding one eye. The maître d' answered for me in passing while I sucked the gin down. ‘Extraordinary.’
I should have known Gérard would say nothing about how I looked, and instead seek out compliments for himself. He cosied up next to me at the bar, sticking a cigar in his mouth. ‘It’s a good night for us, Adèle.’
I pulled the glass from my lips. ‘For us?’
He chuckled as if I should have known better. ‘The police.’ He lit his cigar and let the smoke balloon from his mouth in clouds. ‘A very good night.’
I downed the rest of my gin and then asked the waiter for another. ‘Whatever do you mean, Gérard Baudoin?’
He leaned into my ear. ‘Résistants,’ he said as the waiter handed me a fresh glass of gin. ‘We got some. Important ones.’
‘Résistants?’ I tried to act more afraid than concerned, jolting to a stiff stand, spilling a drop of gin from my glass as the waiter poured a generous amount of lavender syrup over the ice. ‘Here?’
‘Not here! Lord, Adèle. A résistant wouldn’t survive a minute in this place with all these police—we’re trained to sense a traitor’s blood.’ He laughed, and I saw clear into the back of his throat.
‘Then where? You’re scaring me, Gérard—all this ado about the Résistance.’
He swung his arm around the back of my neck, pointing at the crowd of police before us. ‘You’re in the safest place in Vichy. No need to worry.’
A woman slunk past wearing a floor-length satin dress. She had an eye for Gérard and she let him know it, smoothing her dress against her thighs as she walked. His arm slipped off the back of my neck from the distraction, but when I moved, he pulled it back up.
‘What do you mean you have some résistants? As in tied up, prisoners?’ I tapped my foot on the floor as if checking for a loose board. ‘In the basement?’