SIX
SOLINE
A crucifix around your neck and a charme magique in your pocket may keep away the witch hunters, but they are worthless against the Nazis.
—Esmée Roussel, the Dress Witch
17 September 1939—Paris
It’s near closing time, and I’m tidying up the workroom, complaining about the bolts of fabric beginning to pile up in the corners, when Maman’s sewing machine goes quiet.
“There will come a time,” she says gravely, “when we’ll need more than flour and sugar to survive.”
My mother has never been given to dramatics. She is a woman who lives her life in the cool and careful middle, with no time for theatrics, so this dire prediction, delivered out of the blue, takes me by surprise.
I blink at her. “Who said anything about flour?”
She reaches over and clicks off the radio, then folds her hands in her lap. “It’s time for me to say a few things, Soline, and I want you to listen.”
This alone is enough to put me on my guard. Maman is not a talker, unless it’s to point out an uneven hem or shabbily cut pattern. But war changes things. My belly tightens when I meet her eyes, dark like my own with a fringe of black lashes that are suddenly and inexplicably spiked with tears.
She points to the empty chair beside her worktable. “Come sit by me and listen.”
Her tears, so rare, terrify me. “What is it?”
“There are changes coming,” she begins. “Dark times that will test us all. Even now, the winds are blowing.” She is fingering the gold crucifix she has taken to wearing every day, a new habit, like the garnet beads she keeps in her apron pocket and works absently when her hands happen to be free.
Oui, Maman carries a rosary. And wears a crucifix. It isn’t uncommon for our kind to practice a blend of Catholicism and la magie des esprits. She doesn’t attend mass or make confession, but she goes to the church now and then to light a candle—as a kind of hedge against malchance.
Perhaps it’s to do with the early days of the church, when our feast days were assumed into the Christian calendar in an effort to herd women like us into the one true faith. Or a holdover from darker times, when being anything but Catholic might result in one being bound to a stake and set alight. Whatever the reason, many of the gifted in France continue to straddle the line between saints and spirits. Especially the women.
The female sex has always been troublesome for those in power, because we see things, know things. And now Maman knows something. And so I sit quietly, waiting.
“The Germans again,” she says harshly, picking up the thread of the conversation. “Led by un fou—a madman with a shadow on his soul. He will take everything. And what he cannot take, he will destroy.” She pauses, laying a hand on my arm. “You must be ready, So-So.”
She rarely touches me. And she never calls me So-So. It was one of my tante Lilou’s pet names for me and has always set her teeth on edge. Her sudden show of tenderness sends a chill through me.
“How do you know this?”
“I’ve lived it before. And not so long ago. Now it’s coming again.” She squeezes her eyes tight, as if trying to rid herself of the images. “It will be no little thing, this war. Barbarity the world has never seen, and so will not see coming.” Her head comes up, her gaze riveted to my face. “You will need to be strong, ma fille. And careful.”
She looks pale suddenly, her dark eyes bead-hard as she forces me to meet them. How have I not noticed the new sharpness in her face, the thinning of her once-full mouth? She’s frightened, and I have never seen her frightened.
There’s something she isn’t saying, something that frightens her more than the prospect of war. Suddenly, I’m frightened too. “When, Maman?”
“A year, perhaps more. But I’ve been preparing, laying up stores against what’s to come. It will be harder and harder to get things. Food. Clothes. Even shoes. Money won’t matter because there won’t be anything to buy and no one to buy it from. That’s why the workroom is jammed. And the pantry downstairs. So you’ll have what you need when the time comes. Things you can barter.” Her hand creeps back to the crucifix. “I’m afraid for you.”
The words hang in the air between us. Heavy. Solitary. “Only for me?”
Her eyes remain steady, her emotions unguarded for the first time in my memory. Fear. Sorrow. And a silent apology. Suddenly, I understand what she isn’t saying and what I haven’t let myself see until now. The hollow cheeks and shadowed eyes, the cough I sometimes hear in the night. Maman is sick and will be gone soon.