“Girls, I feel dreadful making our friends wait for us. Chloe, where in heaven’s name are your stockings?”
I squeeze Chloe’s arm. Begrudgingly, she goes over to the dresser and procures a pair of silk stockings from the same drawer she’s kept them in her whole entire life.
“Found them,” she announces.
As Chloe and I pull on our jackets, Papa shuffles out of his study to see us off. His whiskers are rough against my cheek when he kisses me goodbye. There was a time when Papa would join us on a night like tonight, but my father hasn’t left the apartment very much since we returned. He’s taking an indefinite leave of absence from the university, where he used to be chair of the history department. He also hasn’t laughed much, or even talked much; he’s a shell of his old self.
“I expect I’ll be in bed before the three of you return,” Papa says.
Maman steps forward and smooths Papa’s rumpled edges, starting with his hair and moving to the creased collar of his housecoat, as though she’s holding him together with her hands. When her hands pause at his cheeks, Papa turns his head to kiss her palm.
“There’s soup on the stove, my love,” says Maman.
“Odette,” Papa replies, “you are as wonderful as ever. Thank you.”
“I’ll miss you very much.”
“I’ll miss you, too.”
They share a kiss goodbye. When I get married someday, I want us to be like my parents: two people who love each other fiercely, even in the most difficult of times. Papa gives us his two-fingered wave as he closes the front door behind us.
Maman and Madame LaRoche have been best friends since they were schoolgirls. Madame LaRoche was the one who introduced Maman to Papa, the quiet but charming professor who had fought in the same regiment as Monsieur LaRoche during the Great War. Madame LaRoche divorced her husband a couple of years ago, and she’s since devoted the bulk of her time to planning lavish dinner parties for her expansive circle of friends.
Before the war began, I enjoyed going to these dinners. It was a chance to see my two dearest friends, Charlotte and Simone, whose parents were also close to Madame LaRoche. But I haven’t seen either of them for months now; Charlotte’s family had the forethought to board a ship to South America last winter, and Simone’s family is staying at their vacation home in Marseilles, in the Free Zone. Tonight, the only other people my age will be the LaRoche twins, with whom I have absolutely nothing in common. Thank goodness for Chloe.
“Odette! Adalyn! Chloe!”
Madame LaRoche is a vision in deep blue silk and diamonds. She kisses each of us in turn as we step through the door of her penthouse apartment on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. “You three look ravishing. These tough times are treating you well.”
“We’re making do as best we can,” Maman replies as a maid arrives to take our coats.
With a twirl, Madame LaRoche guides us down the mirrored hallway to the drawing room, where her seventeen-year-old daughters, Marie and Monique, sip champagne on the divan. Madame LaRoche has a long face and large teeth like the horses she grew up riding, and her daughters look exactly the same, only younger. They greet us in unison. At their feet, the coffee table is set with a silver tray of bread, cheese, and butter. Maman’s eyebrows disappear into her perfectly coiffed bangs.
“Ooh, Geneviève, look at all that butter! Wherever did you get it?”
But everybody knows where Madame LaRoche got all that butter. She must have purchased at least half of these items on the black market, because there’s no way she got this much food on the rationing system the Germans have in place. I’m almost certain Maman has been doing it, too—just the other day I saw her returning home from the market with a very suspicious quantity of salted beef and Papa’s favorite cognac.
Madame LaRoche smiles mischievously as she slathers butter on a small chunk of bread and pops it into her mouth. “You just have to know where to look,” she says in a low voice.
Chloe sniffs.
Madame LaRoche doesn’t seem to notice. “It’s a shame Henri couldn’t come tonight. We would have loved to see him.”
Maman sighs. “He wishes he could have joined us, but he isn’t well enough, unfortunately. He sends his regards to the three of you.”
“It’s his nerves, still?” asks Madame LaRoche.
“I’m afraid so. The nervous spells used to happen occasionally, but since May, they’ve been constant. Even the sound of their boots going by is difficult for him. . . .”
Madame LaRoche frowns and rubs Maman’s arm. “That must be difficult for you, too, Odette.”
Maman’s smile twitches, betraying a hint of the sadness underneath. I know it breaks her heart to see Papa suffering. When his nerves are at their worst, she sits by his side and holds him until the panic subsides, whispering words of comfort into his ear.
After smoothing her skirt, Maman rearranges her face and straightens her posture. “The best thing the girls and I can do is remain positive,” she says, her eyes flitting to me for reassurance. I nod supportively, not because I agree about being positive, but because I know how badly she wants to help Papa. “We have to show him there’s nothing to be frightened of,” Maman continues. “That we can get through this, just as we got through the last war.”
“Precisely,” says Madame LaRoche. “Especially with the Old Marshal on our side.”
“Yes. Marshal Pétain saved France in the Great War, and he can do it again,” Maman says firmly. “If he says cooperation is the best way forward . . . then we must trust him.”
“I agree,” says Madame LaRoche.
She dabs at her lips with a cloth napkin and I can already sense the pendulum of conversation swinging in my direction before she twists toward me. “So, Adalyn, tell us: Any exciting young men in your life these days?”
It’s always the first thing Maman’s friends want to know about me.
“Nobody at the moment, Madame LaRoche,” I reply. “Although I haven’t been in the mood for romance, anyhow.”
She shakes her head and sighs. “If only our poor men could come back home. . . .”
Thanks to the war, there are hardly any young men left in Paris these days, besides the ones who are still in school. It’s a tragedy, and not because I haven’t any romantic prospects. Those who went off to war are either dead now or being held in German prisoner-of-war camps. Our downstairs neighbor, Madame Blanchard, hasn’t had word of her son since he was captured at Dunkirk in June. She looks thinner every time I see her.
Marie leans into the center of the room. She rolls the stem of her champagne glass between her fingers.
“You know, some of these Germans are rather attractive,” she confesses.
“You’re only saying that because you haven’t seen our own men for so long,” Monique says.
“Perhaps,” Marie muses. “They certainly don’t have that French charm, but they really are handsome. And more polite than you’d think. One of them helped me pick up my spilled groceries the other day.”
“I’m sure all our men in POW camps would be happy to hear it,” my sister mutters under her breath.
“What was that?” asks Madame LaRoche.