Personally, I think it had more to do with Hitler.
Maybe it even had to do with military leaders like Pétain who believed in fairy tales like the stupid Maginot Line to keep us safe. I can’t say something like that, though. I shouldn’t even think something like that about the Marshal—the man who saved France in the last war, and, as everyone says, the only man who can save us now.
But merde, what smug idiots got us into this war?
Hitler’s panzer divisions rolled past French defenses five months ago. The Allies fled at Dunkirk, leaving forty thousand French soldiers to cover their retreat and hold the Germans back. All for nothing. Eighteen days later, we surrendered, to the shock of the world. Like almost everyone else, I was relieved; I thought the fighting would stop and that Henri would come home. But now a swastika is flying over the Eiffel Tower, and France—or what’s left of her below the line of demarcation—is neutral while Britain fights on, alone.
Almost two million French soldiers are prisoners of war—including Henri. My Henri. Given all that, smoking is the only thing keeping me sane, so the lie comes easily. “The cigarettes are for the baron.”
The gendarme looks over his shoulder at the castle and says, “I took the Baron de LaGrange more for a man who prefers a pipe.”
The baron is now the acting president of the preventorium. The baroness trained as a nurse in the last war and has a knack for organization, but unfortunately, women aren’t supposed to run anything now, so her husband got the job. And as the founder of an elite pilots’ training school and a senator with connections in the new Vichy government, the baron is too powerful to question about cigarettes.
Travert knows it and knits those bushy brows.
For a moment, I think he’ll shrug and walk away. Instead, he sweeps autumn leaves off the low stone wall and leans against it. “It gets lonely around here these days, mademoiselle, does it not? Tell me, what does a schoolteacher with such pretty blue eyes do when class is not in session?”
“I lie about eating chocolates.” What does he think? There are four hundred sick children to feed at the preventorium—which means growing vegetables, milking cows in the dairy, and helping to raise and butcher pigs.
Every day since the war started has been a struggle, but I don’t think he cares about that. No, I think the gendarme is after something else when he reaches for my wrist and traces it with his thumb. “Your tone is sharp, mademoiselle. You ought to show more respect for an officer of the law.”
I probably should, considering he could arrest me or seize my ill-gotten goods, but I’m too angry that he’s touching me. I don’t think he’d dare if I were wearing my engagement ring. It’s tucked under my scarf, hanging from my neck on a chain because it kept slipping off a finger that has become, like the rest of me, thinner than before the war. Thinking about it makes me combative. “You really want to know what I do when I’m lonely? I kiss the picture of my fiancé, praying for his safe return from his prisoner of war camp.”
That’s enough to shame the gendarme, who shrugs like he was just testing me. “I wish all Frenchwomen were so devoted.”
Sure, I was so devoted that I made Henri wait until the very last minute, once it was too late to arrange the wedding he wanted. Feeling miserably guilty, I look away, and the gendarme notices. “You’re certain you have nothing to hide, mademoiselle? Your cheeks are pink!”
“The air is chilly,” I say, tugging my old red beret down over my ears. “And I exhausted myself standing in line at the shops in Paulhaguet all morning, and on the ride back.”
This is a stupid lie, because Travert knows I’ve been hiking, camping, and hunting in these rugged woods since I was in pigtails. A bicycle ride isn’t enough to wind me. Then again, everything is harder when you’re hungry.
Travert puffs out his barrel chest. “Exertion is good for you. The Marshal says to stay fit. Get lots of exercise and fresh air.”
I could outrun Travert in a footrace any day, but I’d rather not have to, so I settle on sarcasm. “We must fight the rot of la décadence and restore the honor of France, no?”
He laughs, and I laugh too, but neither of us is amused.
According to the Marshal, the honor of France is so fragile that it was lost to art, accents, women, and wine. Meanwhile, on the BBC, the rogue General de Gaulle says French honor can be restored only by suicidal resistance against the Nazis.
I don’t believe either of them.
These days it’s hard to believe in anything but self-interest. And it’s self-interest that saves me. Tempted by the dried sausage peeking out of its paper, Travert breaks an end off for his lunch and leaves me the rest. “Au revoir, mademoiselle.”
He knows I’m guilty of black market bargaining or he wouldn’t have taken a piece of my sausage, so I don’t argue. “Adieu!”
Once inside the castle gates, I dodge mud puddles in the drive, where the ambulance has been stranded for a week without fuel. The children are at recess wearing scout uniforms; it seems everyone wears a uniform of some kind these days to restore our morals.
A fair-haired eight-year-old who came to us from Lille afflicted with rickets now hops off the swing set, her corkscrew curls bouncing as she runs through fallen leaves to greet me, calling, “Maîtresse! Maîtresse!” She’s followed by an asthmatic fifteen-year-old from Toulouse, who is almost cured and ready to go back to her family.
Both girls are curious about my packages, so I scold, “No peeking. It’s a surprise for the kitchen.”
The littlest’s eyes round. “Did you find cat tongue cookies?”
Our Lafayette kids all love the buttery crisps sent to us by Madame Beatrice from New York; they don’t know our supplies are dwindling because of the blockade. For the children, the war seems far away, and we want to keep it that way, so I say, “We have to save the cookies for Christmas, but you might get a little sausage in your lentil soup. Now, go play before nap time.”
When the girls run off, I stow the bicycle, tuck the cigarettes into my back pocket, and take the parcels to the old feudal guardroom kitchen, which the baroness has all but transformed into a modern canning factory. She’s determined to pickle and preserve every last edible thing before winter sets in, assisted by the school’s doyenne, Madame LeVerrier, and the foundation’s secretary-general, Madame Simon—both of whom are as much a part of the castle as the wooden shutters on the casement windows.
Working beneath old copper pots that hang from the vaulted ceiling, the three women greet me as a heroine for finding even a little sugar. But I don’t stay to bask in their praise, because the last thing I want is to be pressed into making wild strawberry preserves.
I’m in such a hurry to escape canning duty that I nearly plow over poor Dr. Anglade, who is coming down the castle’s winding main staircase with a tray of syringes. When he sees what I’ve got for him, though, his stern expression melts. “Sulfonamide,” he whispers reverently. “Dr. Boulagnon said he didn’t expect a shipment in Paulhaguet for a week. Where did you get it?”