Charlotte’s scrunching face when she yelled at me—she’d never last in the Résistance, living with dirt on the hem of her dress, lying to keep her stories straight, taking pins in the shoulder and sprays of rosewater. Marking buildings in the night. Even if she did believe in our cause, the inconsistency of where and when to strike would throw her into a childlike fit; she was incapable of being spontaneous. I was my parents’ only daughter who could handle such a task.
A swift breeze howled through the buildings, cracking through the trees, and I walked, scooting delicately down the pavement, another shadow in the night, holding the wet brush from a closed fist near my thigh. ‘For the Jews,’ I said, heart racing as I methodically, and ever so deliberately, flicked the brush over every one of the door’s handles, coating them in Charlotte’s red paint. ‘And for France.’
A door burst open from down the way. ‘Who did this?’ A man yelled, and I ducked down, writing excitedly, heart bubbling, ‘Vichy Catchfly’ in cursive on the pavement before disappearing into the dark and motoring home.
I arrived back at the chateau very late, headlamps rolling over the dead vineyard and Papa’s craggy vines, only to see Mama pulling her old bicycle up to the patio. She had her peignoir on as if she’d already been to bed and climbed back out of it.
‘What are you doing?’ I said, and she squinted into the headlamps.
‘Turn those off,’ she said, and I cut the engine, then the lights.
‘Mama,’ I said, walking up to her. ‘What are you doing out here? It’s late.’ She shivered, holding her peignoir closed in a cold breeze. ‘Where’s your coat?’
Mama rested her bicycle on its kickstand and handed me the tyre pump. ‘You shouldn’t take the car as much,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think about it until after I went to bed. You can use my bicycle. Or, walk. If someone recognizes Monsieur Morisset’s car…’
I didn’t want to use her bicycle, but if it made her feel better, I would. I took the pump and fixed the flat tyre while she swiped at some cobwebs. ‘I won’t use the car as much,’ I said. ‘If it makes you feel better. Don’t worry. Ah, Mama, you should have seen it.’ My heart still bubbled, and I threw my hands up, looking into the stars.
‘It does make me feel better.’ She held her hair back and kissed my forehead. ‘And you can tell me all about it tomorrow,’ she said, and she walked through the screen door, leaving me to celebrate by myself on the patio.
Luc would have loved it. I smiled.
Mama slept in the next morning, and I left for Papa’s wine bar, buttoning up my coat for a long ride. I missed the car right away, and then even more so when I pedalled into a crowd waiting for a Milice parade to start, getting stuck behind two women. They chatted about jewellery, or so I thought with their talk of rubies and diamonds. I rang my bell, but they did not move. I rang it again, but now I was at a standstill and got off my bicycle.
‘Just like the Avenue des Champs-Élysées,’ one said to the other. ‘Rubies for the red tail lights and diamonds for the headlights. Oh, how I miss shopping in Paris!’
‘I will have to see it myself,’ the other said. ‘I bet it is striking.’
Only after I heard them talk about the brightness of cadmium paint did I interrupt. ‘Hallo?’ I said. ‘Hallo, I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but what are you talking about?’ I straddled my bicycle in the crowd, waiting for them to tell me. One looked at me coldly.
‘The Catchfly,’ she said. ‘He’s struck again. This time taking a cue from Paris and the avenue of rubies and diamonds.’
‘He can’t be a man,’ the other woman said, sounding somewhat surprised her friend would think such a thing. ‘Les Femmes de la Nation is a woman’s cause.’
‘Only a man would be out at night roaming the streets,’ she said. ‘Besides, a shop owner saw him racing away in a car. A nice one.’
‘A car?’ I said, and I was very glad to have taken Mama’s bicycle that morning.
They turned to each other, almost forgetting I was there and continued debating whether the Catchfly was a man or not.
‘What about the rubies and diamonds?’ I said.
‘There’s marks in the shopping district. He—’ her eyes shifted to her friend just briefly,