put a hand to her forehead, as if searching.
I fanned my neck, waiting. The Saint Pierre Mother Superior stood next to her congregation, arms folded like the rest of them, in front of their bodies, with their hands tucked into their long and heavy sleeves. I turned to Mavis. ‘Mother doesn’t expect us to represent our entire convent, does she?’
A finger poked my shoulder and I turned around. Claire, a seventeen-year-old girl under my care looked up at me. ‘What are we to do now?’ Her face had flattened, and her eyes looked as tawny as the square’s cobblestones in the morning sunlight.
Claire was sweet, and I felt sorry for her in a big sister kind of way. Her father was in a German prison, captured on the Maginot Line, and her mother couldn’t afford to keep her around, unmarried. The convent, she had told me, was her only option.
I shook my head, looking into the crowd once more for Mother Superior or anyone from the convent. ‘Stand here, I suppose. Sister Mary-Francis said all we need to do is make an appearance.’
Claire pulled a lock of hair away from her bun and twisted it around her finger. ‘But we’re with those nuns from Saint-Pierre.’
Two sisters turned to Claire, who shrank under their gaze, her eyes growing to the size of saucers under the cast of their shadows.
The Saint-Pierre nuns were known for their vows of silence. Most hadn’t spoken a word in over a decade, which was intimidating to some of the delinquent girls, whose idea of commitment reset with each new day. I smiled politely at the sisters, apologizing for Claire’s rude remark, and they turned back around, facing the growing crowd.
Claire sighed with relief. ‘Thank you, mademoiselle,’ she said, giving up her hair to rub her shoulder. ‘Hmm.’ She looked at me as she rubbed. ‘Something isn’t right.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘My shoulder hurts,’ she said. ‘It’s a sign.’
‘A sign of what?’
Claire pressed her thumb heavily into her joint. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, mouth drawn up, ‘but something.’
A laugh puffed from my lips, a laugh I couldn’t control after watching Claire mess with her shoulder as if it were a cable from the sisters. She dropped her hand and stood board straight.
‘Mother Superior must be waiting for us at the sewing centre,’ Claire said. ‘It would explain why she’s not here. I’ll run down to the old convent and make sure.’ She turned to leave and Mavis shook her head, but it was me who spoke up.
‘She wants us down here, Claire. In the square. Besides, Pétain’s speech will start any moment.’
Mavis nodded with what I’d said, licking her palm and wiping it over her hair for the second time since we’d arrived. Time dragged on—every minute that passed felt like five in the hot square. Soon enough, people wondered out loud where Pétain was, and why he was late. The crowd swelled, and we found ourselves squishing up against each other shoulder to shoulder with supporters waving hand flags to keep cool. I could barely see the podium that had been set up in the middle of the stage.
A few thin Armistice Army soldiers walked out with giant Vichy flags on poles and stood on each side of the stage, which made me think the speech was going to start any second, but still we waited. Sweat beads slid down my neck under my dress, soaking my undergarments.
‘What time did we get here?’ I asked Mavis.
‘Oh… ah…’ Mavis squinted at the clock set in the tower.
‘We got here twenty-three minutes ago,’ Claire said. ‘On the dot.’
I pinched the front of my peasant dress, peeling it from my dampened skin, trying to get some air between the fabric and my body. I couldn’t remember a day as hot as this. At least in Vichy we had the river and the spas to keep us cool. I used my hand as a fan, still looking for Mother Superior, when the French police walked out onto the stage.
The police! I gasped, looking to the ground.
I’d thought about all the ways Mama ended up breaking the news I’d left. Each one ended with Gérard vowing to find me, drag me back to his headquarters and punish me for the humiliation I’m sure I’d caused him. Thinking about the police at the convent felt different from seeing them close-up, with their guns. My guttural instinct was to run.
I slowly glanced up, feet stepping on toes, watching the police as