Page 12 of The Mademoiselle Alliance

11

My Armor

Rabat, 1932

I ask the maid to look after Christian, then I borrow one of her haiks, slip it on, steal out the kitchen door, and work a full day amidst babies and mothers, despite Edouard’s forbidding me. Near dusk, one of the midwives approaches, face so solemn I know it can only be a death.

“Who?” I ask.

The woman I’d cared for last week. The one who’d given birth to her tenth daughter. Last night, the midwife says, she committed the gravest of all sins and threw herself from Rabat’s walls, unable to bear the guilt of bringing another girl into a world that will shroud her and rule her until death.

I press my forehead to the window. Through the glass, black mountains are silhouetted against a crimson sunset that bleeds into red sand. Standing there, I believe there will never be a place more extraordinary than the one I’m in now—but nor will there ever be a place so cruel. I’m as empty as Marguerite feared I’d become. I want my mother’s arms around me, my sister’s.

Especially if…

My breasts have been sore for at least a fortnight, my hip worse than normal, as if something is softening the ligaments that try to hold it in place. Last night, Edouard snapped, “For God’s sake, stop limping around,” and I’d gone to bed early because I couldn’t hide the hitch in my gait.

I stumble-run back home, not even thinking to hide from Edouard, who shouts when I burst through the door, “How dare you sneak out of my house!”

My diary confirms the most terrible fear I’ve ever known.

I haven’t bled for three months. Out of one of those infrequent nightly visits my husband makes to my room, something has bloomed.

And I know, the same way I know that Christian is toddling down the hall to see me with his delicious little smile, that this time it will be a girl—and that watching her grow up here under Edouard’s command will make me feel like a thorn-swallowing A?ssaoua, torn apart from the inside out by every wretched spike.

He’s still shouting at me, still demanding to know how I dared, when Christian, sobbing, wraps himself around my leg like armor.

So I dare because that’s what love is—you risk your neck, go out on a limb, bare your breast, lay yourself open, dance on the razor’s edge, and now I’m limbless and bloodied and split wide open and yet I will continue to love because it is worth it.

Christian holds on tighter.

God, it’s worth it.

“I have to go back to France,” I tell Edouard, making my voice nonchalant because he cannot know how much I love this child or the one that’s coming. “I’m pregnant. You’ve always said it isn’t as hygienic here as in France. It would be better to have the baby there.”

He laughs. He laughs and he laughs and just when I think he’ll stop, he laughs some more. Then he straightens his tie, examines himself in the mirror.

“No man in my position gets divorced,” he says crisply. “And you can’t divorce me without my consent. So go back to France. Christian will soon be at school, and many wives return to Paris at that time. Have the baby there. But you are Marie-Madeleine Méric, my dear, until death do us part.”

—

Maurice and Marguerite drive Christian and me to Casablanca. On the way, I try to think about everything I’ve been given in Morocco—the gift of Maurice’s and Marguerite’s friendships, one perfect child and the promise of another—rather than what I’ve lost. A father for my children. My heart. Myself.

Who is Marie-Madeleine Méric? That’s the name I’ll wear for the rest of my life, Edouard’s brand forever upon me. But I don’t know that woman at all.

We draw into the Place de France in Casablanca. Cream posters showing a red car speeding up a hill adorn the walls. Grande Semaine Automobile du Maroc, the headline reads.

“Is the rally this weekend?” Marguerite asks Maurice, who nods. Then he turns to me, saying, “If you want to go out with a bang…”

Marguerite adds, “I’ll look after Christian.”

“And I’ll be your navigator this time,” Maurice finishes.

My interest in anything besides going home is roused, just a little. “I can drive?”

They both grin.

Memories of the first and only time I raced in a rally crowd in. But rather than seeing the epic sweep of land we drove through, I remember Edouard’s taking my purse from me afterward. “What will Edouard say?”

Marguerite asks, very gently, “What does Marie-Madeleine say?”

I look at her, my friend who’s adored by her husband, who revels in life. She has so much, and perhaps right now when I have very little, I ought to be jealous. But, What does Marie-Madeleine say, she’d asked. Not, What does Marie-Madeleine Méric say?

“She says yes . ”

—

Close to Casablanca, I pass another car and wonder how many are still in front of us. Then we’re at the top of the very last hill, and once again Maurice and I look at each other and shout, “Full throttle!”

We soar down that hill the same way I’ve always rushed at life, with my heart wide open and trusting, a wild child choosing her way.

When I pull up into the square, it’s full of people and empty of cars.

“ Mon Dieu! ” Maurice cries. “You won!”

Yes, the world is still magnificent and awe-inspiring and full of miracles. Edouard doesn’t have the power to change that. I might be tied to him against my will for the rest of my life, prohibited from falling in love ever again, but I, Marie-Madeleine, can still search for one miraculous moment in every day. And I will protect my children, who are the most magnificent of all miracles, with my life.

I turn to Maurice and Marguerite, who’s run over to embrace us, my son in her arms. “Thank you both. For everything.”

“This isn’t goodbye or the end,” Maurice tells me. “We’ll see you again, Marie-Madeleine. And when we do, you’ll be winning at something more important than a rally.”