they looked into the crowd, heads and eyes shifting, scanning us like pigs in a pen. It’s all right, I told myself. If they stay on the—
My heart sank.
Gendarmes walked off the platform into the crowd, taking positions among the flag-waving people, strategically arranging themselves like pegs on a board. There was nowhere to hide. One of them could easily recognize me at this close distance and report back to Gérard where I’d run off to.
‘I’m… I’m going down to the old convent!’ I said to Mavis, who shook her head vigorously.
‘I’ll go,’ Claire said, and I looked at her, only a gendarme was now walking toward us, moving girls out of his way, getting closer, close enough to see the dimples in my cheeks.
‘No—’
I bolted before Mavis had a chance to say anything, skirting between supporters and their flags, disappearing into the alley where just a smattering of people were still making their way to the square. I looked back once; glad I had gotten safely away from the police.
I walked on to the convent, only it was a short walk, shorter than I thought, shorter than I hoped. I turned the final corner, and the buildings looked abandoned with drawn window shades.
And the streets were quiet.
Strangely quiet, except for the light din of the busy square lofting above the rooftops.
I reached for the doorknob, but then reconsidered—not one other soul walked the normally busy street, and the sisters were obviously not here since the door wasn’t propped open. I shivered in the sun, suddenly thinking I shouldn’t have come, and that I should hurry back to the square before anyone noticed that I’d disobeyed a sister’s direct orders. But then I heard a loud thump come from inside the building; then another, followed by something big and heavy being dragged intermittently across the floor. The murmur of voices wisped through a crack in the door.
Men’s voices.
I looked over both my shoulders—still nobody was in the street. I stepped up on some wood pallets I found nearby to reach the one window that hadn’t been blacked out, and peeked inside, my eyes rising above the stone ledge.
Men dressed in field trousers dragged rolled-up carpets across the floor, in between our bulky stitching machines and down the stairs into the dark crypt. A woman with flowing blonde hair walked into the middle of the room. The men moved out of her way. She had a rifle slung over her shoulder and a revolver gripped in her hand. She motioned to one of the rugs, and guns, loads of them, spilled out onto the floor.
‘Mother of Christ,’ I said, immediately clamping a hand over my mouth. Résistance. I should have left—I should have run—but my knees had locked up and so had my arms.
A woman rushed out of the crypt and motioned for them to hurry up, roll the carpets back up. A shout came from inside—someone noticed me—and the woman turned around, one wide eye focusing on me through a clean spot in the glass. Walking closer, closer, and then running toward me.
I gasped—letting go of the ledge and falling backward to the ground with a thud and the crash of clanking wood pallets caving around me.
I lay for a moment, stunned, whimpering, with my back flat against the cobblestones, but then scrambled to get to my feet, only a hand grabbed hold of my arm. ‘Ach!’ I threw my hands over my head, my body curling up on the pavement with my eyes clenched tight as fists. ‘I didn’t mean to—’
‘There you are!’ My eyes popped open when I heard Claire’s voice, and I lowered my hands, taking stock of the situation I’d found myself in, while Claire rambled on about how I shouldn’t have left.
‘Marguerite’s real mad at you.’ She paused, her face scrunched up with questions, glancing at the pallets and then to me. ‘What were you doing?’
‘Trying to see inside,’ I scoffed, doing my best to act normal and unshaken, but my heart beat from my chest and blood glugged in my ears from the fall and what I’d seen.
‘Come on, we should hurry,’ I said.
Claire was still looking at the pallets and trying to figure everything out when I grabbed her hand and took off toward the square. ‘Slow down,’ she said, but my legs moved at an alarming rate, in between a run and a walk. ‘Why so fast?’
‘I have to find a toilet, all right?’ I said, and I don’t know where that