‘Do you recognize that one?’ he said, pointing at one of the prisoners.
Charlotte squinted at the men lined up against the wall. ‘Should I?’ She laughed a sort of girly giggle. ‘I think all criminals must look like each other.’
‘I suppose.’ He sipped the wine he’d poured. ‘It’s Jean Paul. From school.’
‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘I don’t…’ Charlotte shook her head slowly then her eyes lit up. ‘Wait, I do remember him! He sat next to me once. Has a sister with curly hair—like mine—who bit her fingernails.’ The light in Charlotte’s face faded the longer she stared across the street at the man, the grim reality of his fate settling into his face as the Milice ordered them into the station where the Gestapo waited, eyes shifting, monitoring.
‘We arrested him this morning,’ the man said. ‘Our mothers used to put us in the same pram as children.’ He took another sip of Papa’s wine. ‘That one, right there.’ He pointed to a woman kneeling on the ground just outside Papa’s wine bar as she wept for her son, the sound of her wail seeping through the door crack should have been enough to make Charlotte cry out and ask “what are we doing?” but she only looked at the woman with a slight bit of confusion resting in her thinking eyes.
Charlotte turned around. ‘I have to go. But we’ll talk about this—’ she pointed at the flowers ‘—later.’
I exhaled, glad she was gone, but the miliciens were still inside drinking wine, waiting for their turn across the street. ‘What’s Albert got to eat back there?’ He snapped his fingers at me, motioning to the bar.
I begrudgingly served them the walnuts Papa had out, and was about to walk away, but then they sat down and talked about a meeting that was to take place that night.
‘What time is the meeting?’ one said.
‘Nine o’clock. Hotel du Parc. Arrive early, police and all the Milice. Supposed to take all night with Germans coming in from Paris.’
An all-night meeting?
I couldn’t believe my ears. Timing was everything, Marguerite had said. My palms turned sweaty, thinking the opportunity to use Charlotte’s paints had finally come. With the Milice and police occupied, nobody would be around to patrol the streets, or the train station.
One of them noticed me staring out the window into the sky, and he stood up, looking at me suspiciously.
‘Are you all right?’ he said.
I clutched the flowers in my arms. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Of course. Can I get you anything else?’ I smiled, glancing briefly at Papa, who was still plenty busy with his wine crates, but they got up to leave. Throwing down their glasses in a hurry, and following the last of the résistants into the station, leaving the stone wall as plain as it was before the prisoners got there. I looked at my hands, feeling the perspiration on my skin.
‘Adèle?’ Papa said from the back. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting over to Charlotte’s next door? I can handle things here.’
‘Yes, Papa,’ I said, and I rubbed the sweat from my hands.
*
Charlotte had me switch out the silky peignoirs in her display window with the cheaper terry cloth robes from the back closet—still, few could afford the prices she charged. Some offered to trade ration cards for garments, but Charlotte wouldn’t consider something so illegal.
She spent most her day sitting in the back in her chair, giving me the silent treatment, which was fine by me. I found it incredibly hard to concentrate on anything other than the wall, just catching peeks of it while working made my heart bubble like a hot bath. I felt the paint tube Mama helped me hide in the lining of my coat when I went home for lunch, and then the gun in its holster under my dress. ‘Wait until everyone is asleep,’ Mama had told me. ‘And by God, be careful!’
‘Adèle,’ Charlotte called, and I broke away from the window. ‘Can we talk about what happened this morning? I’m exhausted and I don’t want to fight.’ The glow had drained from her face and she did look tired, more tired than I’d seen her. She hung her head down.
‘Charlotte,’ I said, setting down a pile of clothes. ‘I wanted to talk to you about that,’ I said, and she looked up. ‘I should have never brought up the… You know.’
She took a shuddering breath, and I thought she might cry. I held her hands.