CHARLOTTE
As if the Boche curfew wasn’t bad enough, my parents imposed one of their own. I had to be in by eight o’clock, even though, at the age of eighteen, I was dying to go out in the evenings—to cafés, or dancing at one of the bals clandestins people talked about in hushed, excited tones. My only entertainment was on Friday nights, when I was allowed to have a few friends around. Maman let us use the library, which was much cozier than the salon, with its stiff upholstered Louis XVI couches. Those in the library had come from our country home, the leather worn and soft. We liked to slouch in them, pretending to smoke and be decadent, when really we just chewed on hard licorice sticks and drank tea that Maman had ordered from England before the war.
“You know Marc has left?” Agnès sucked on her licorice, looking at me out of the corner of her eye.
“But he’s Catholic.” My heart beat faster. They couldn’t have taken him.
“No, silly. He’s gone to join the Maquis.”
“No!”
“Didn’t he come and say goodbye to you?”
I liked Marc, and Agnès knew it. I shook my head. They looked at me, eyes soft with pity.
“Don’t worry,” Mathilde said. “He didn’t say goodbye to anyone. We only know because his mother met my mother when they were queuing for food. She’s really upset, of course. The Boches kill them if they find them.”
I wondered how she could say such things so casually. “Well, at least he’s doing something.” I paused, collecting my thoughts. “Don’t you want to do something?” I looked from one to the other, but was met only by blank stares.
“It’s too dangerous,” Agnès finally said. “I’m not running off into the hills to join the Maquis. They’re living wild, sleeping outside. Can you imagine?”
“But at least they’re trying, aren’t they? They’re doing what they can.” I wanted to defend them.
“I think they’re very brave.” Mathilde added, “I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t be any good to them anyway; I’d give away all their secrets the moment I was arrested.” She shuddered. “The Boches do horrible things to them if they catch them.”
“Imagine having to carry a hidden message. I’d be a nervous wreck.” Agnès spoke quietly.
I let out a breath. “Me too. But if someone asked me, I think I’d want to try.”
“Have you heard from Jacques?” Agnès asked abruptly, changing the subject.
Jacques had disappeared one night last month. He’d already been excluded from the Sorbonne because of his Jewish roots, and Mathilde had been passing him notes from other students, but the last time they were supposed to meet, he hadn’t turned up. We heard later that he’d been rounded up and taken to Drancy.
“I wish I’d asked him to come and stay with us.” Mathilde sounded subdued.
“It would have been too dangerous.” Agnès reached out, touching Mathilde’s elbow. “If they’d found him at your place, they would have taken you and your family away too.”
“I hope we can still be friends when he comes back.” Mathilde’s voice cracked, and I understood her distress. How many times had we stood by while our neighbors and friends were deported to God knows where? We all felt complicit in some way, though we never voiced it. After all, what could we do?
“Did you hear about the man who shot a Nazi in Printemps?” Agnès changed the tone of the conversation again. She always seemed to hear about things before anyone else. Working in the boulangerie probably helped; people talked while queuing two hours for bread. We looked at her, waiting for more. “Yes, in broad daylight, on the ground floor, where they sell the handbags.” She waited a minute for us to take it in. “He knew he’d be arrested and executed for it, but he still did it.” She paused. “Isn’t that brave?”
“But French prisoners were shot in retaliation,” Mathilde said. “Do you think it was worth it?” She stood up from the armchair. “I’m not sure.”
I thought for a moment. “I think it just upsets the Boches and makes them behave more badly to the rest of us.”
“I agree.” Mathilde looked at me. “It’s not by killing random Boches that we’ll win the war.” She slumped back into her chair.
“I’ve heard de Gaulle is trying to get an army together in England. One day they’ll come and help us fight the Boches.”
“We should be ready for them when they come.” I wished there was something I could do.
“Ready?” Agnès laughed. “I’ll be ready all right. More than ready!”
“I’d like one of those handbags in the shape of a gas mask.” Agnès changed the topic again.
Mathilde smiled. “Yes, they’re just the thing, but they’re very expensive.”
“And I’d like to get my hair put up in a turban.” Agnès touched her loose wavy hair. “They look chic, but my mother won’t let me. She says it looks peasant-like.”
“Well, you have to do it properly and then set it off with a nice pair of earrings.” Mathilde seemed to be enjoying the way the conversation was going, but I wondered how we could be talking about hair and fashion at a time like this. It all seemed so trivial, so pointless. Were we girls really that small-minded? The thought depressed me.
“Did you know that Madame Clermont from the pharmacy is seeing a Nazi?” Agnès changed the subject again.
I nodded. I’d heard the rumors.
“He’s SS,” she added in a conspiratorial tone.
“That’s disgusting.” Mathilde spat the words out, her eyes lit up in fury. “That woman deserves to die.”
Agnès stood up and moved over to the piano, opening it and hitting a key hard. She started to play “Mon légionnaire.” Mathilde stood too and joined in, leaning on the piano, but I wasn’t in the mood for singing that evening.
Suddenly Agnès stopped playing. “Charlotte.” She turned to look at me. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why are you working in a hospital for the Boches?”
I felt my cheeks burn. “For your information, they’re not all Boches; quite a few of them are French, actually.”
“Yes, but they’re collabos, so it’s the same thing really.”
“I think it’s worse,” Mathilde chipped in. “They didn’t have to join up, did they? They chose to.”
“Maman got the job for me. She wanted me to work,” I said, ignoring the last remark. Mathilde always saw everything as black or white.
“Your mother? But I thought she hated the Boches.”
“Of course she does. But she said caring for the sick was a good occupation for young women during wartime.” I imitated her bossy voice, and they laughed.
“But you shouldn’t!” Mathilde looked at me with cold eyes. “You’re an adult. You don’t have to do everything she tells you to do.”
I stared back at her, thinking that she had a point there; I should start making my own choices.
“I thought you were going to the Sorbonne after your exams. I thought you wanted to study literature. You did so well in your baccalauréat.” Agnès closed the piano with a thud. It sent a shudder through me; Maman had taught me how to close it gently, without a sound.
“Yes, I really miss studying.”
“Well, you can read on your own. You don’t need to go to the university for that, do you?”
“It’s not the same. There’s more to a book than just the words on the page.”
Agnès shrugged.
“Anyway, there doesn’t seem much point at the moment.”
“I know what you mean,” Mathilde agreed. “It feels futile to be studying when people are being arrested and killed.” She paused. “Maybe your mother’s right.”
“Yes, Maman said she doesn’t see any reason to carry on in education when the future’s so uncertain, and anyway, the extra ration tickets are more useful.” I paused. “Education is a luxury we can no longer afford.”
“Is that what your mother said?” Mathilde frowned.
“No, it’s what I said.”
“Funny, isn’t it, though? When you’re so wealthy.”
“Morally speaking, I mean.”
Mathilde’s frown grew deeper. “Morally?”
“Well, we have other priorities right now, don’t we?” I hoped I hadn’t offended her.
“Yes, but what can we do?”
Agnès stood up and sighed, as though bored with the conversation. “I don’t know about you, but I’m always hungry.” She patted her flat stomach. “It keeps us slim, though, doesn’t it?”
“Too slim.” My stomach rumbled as if in agreement.
“We had lamb last Sunday!” Agnès leaned forward, whispering. “Maman pawned her pearl necklace, and she got it on the black market—it was Papa’s birthday.”
I felt a line draw itself across my forehead. “My mother doesn’t like to use the black market.”
“But she doesn’t mind you working in a Boche hospital? My parents would never let me do that.” Agnès’s eyes narrowed. “Make sure you stay out of trouble.”
I stared back at her, wondering what she meant.
“You know what soldiers are like. They’ll do anything for…”
“For what?” Mathilde asked.
“You know.” Agnès touched her nose with her finger, looking at me with knowing eyes.
Just then Maman walked in with some fresh tea. “Bonsoir, les filles.”
Immediately we stopped slouching and sat to attention, straightening our backs.
“Bonsoir, Madame de la Ville,” Agnès and Mathilde chorused.
She poured the tea through a strainer into the porcelain teacups. “Earl Grey.”
“Merci, Madame de la Ville.”
I sighed, waiting for her to leave the room so we could resume our conversation. But she didn’t look ready to go, standing there in her tailored suit, nipped in at the waist. I wished I had a nice suit like that instead of the loose frocks she made for me. I guess she thought I was still a child.
“How is your mother?” She turned to Agnès, a frown of concern creasing her usually smooth forehead.
“Fine, thank you.” I felt Agnès tense up. Her mother used to be friends with mine, but then something had happened. Something to do with the war and the black market. “I’m still helping out at the boulangerie, when there’s some bread, that is.”
“Yes, the queues just seem to be getting longer, don’t they?” She turned away from Agnès. “And how are your studies going, Mathilde?”
“Fine, thank you. Well, I mean it’s not always easy at the moment; some of the courses have been canceled.”
Maman nodded. “You have your books, but it’s not the same, is it?”
“No, especially not for science.”
“Yes, of course.” It looked like Maman had forgotten what Mathilde was studying.
“Bien, I’ll leave you girls to it then. I’ll come back at eight so you’ll have plenty of time to get home.”
“But Maman, that’s only in an hour. They don’t live that far away.”
“No point in taking extra risks.” She turned on her heel and left the room, closing the door behind her.
“Don’t worry, Charlotte,” Mathilde spoke sympathetically. “My mother likes me to get back well before curfew.”
“Charlotte.” Agnès looked at me with concerned eyes. “Really, you should be very careful working in a Boche hospital. I’m surprised your parents let you. Some people might get the wrong idea.”
“What do you mean?” I felt my heart beat faster.
“Well, you know. They might think you’re collaborating.”
“No!”
“You know what people are like.”
“Stop it, Agnès! Everyone knows Charlotte’s not like that.” Mathilde’s eyes shot daggers at Agnès.
“Of course not! We’ll stick up for you.” Agnès stood, smoothing out her dress, looking at the painting on the wall. “Is that a Picasso?”
“Yes. Maman got it last week.”
She took a step nearer to the painting. “It’s very avant-garde. He’s not allowed to show his work now, you know. The Nazis say it’s degenerate.”
“Degenerate?” Mathilde laughed. “Who’s degenerate here?”
“It must have cost a fortune.” Agnès continued to stare at it.
“It was a gift.”
“A gift?” She raised an eyebrow. “Your mother must know some interesting people.”
I stared at her, wondering what she was really thinking.