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whispers. ‘ Dieu soit loué . Tell me, ma chérie . Tell me all of it.’
    Wallis has to get the words right now. And not drool. Not come out with Afrikaans. She swallows. Preparing to speak.
    â€˜Tell me, my dearest,’ says the companion gently. ‘ Je t’écoute .’
    The drama of it. The suspense. Like on those TV quiz shows where you could win sixty-four thousand dollars by naming the capital city of Paraguay.
    â€˜OK,’ says Wallis calmly. ‘I remember. Him.’
    â€˜ Oh oui, oh oui, ma bien aimée, ma Wallisse adorable . Just say his name to me. Just whisper his name.’
    â€˜Hitler.’
    Silence in the room again. No wind in the Bois. No ambulances travelling past. Not even the sound of rain. And it goes on and on. Nothing moves outside the window and here, on the bed, the companion sits absolutely still, rigid, a hunk of stone.
    Then comes a horrible sound. The man-woman’s crying. Her body heaves. This heaving’s unearthly, like some demon crawled into her under the tweed. Oh, stop, Wallis wants to say. God almighty. But she can’t breathe now, because the companion’s fallen across her body and she’s clutching her like a lover, her damp cheek pressed against hers, her lips against her mouth.
    â€˜Forget this,’ she sobs. ‘Never mention his name to anyone ever again. You never met Hitler, Wallisse. Forget this. Oh ma chérie , if you only knew what this does to me. Tell me you never went to that place . . .’
    â€˜I went,’ says Wallis. ‘There were vultures flying around the mountain. Hitler admired my cocktail gown . . .’
    â€˜No, no! Oh, my poor heart! Tell me you never met that man. You only dreamed it.’
    â€˜No,’ says Wallis. ‘I met him. I told you, he kissed my hand. I’ve remembered it all.’
    The hag moves off Wallis’s body, but breaks down afresh in a storm of weeping. Jesus Christ, what inconsistency! It defies belief. This terrifying ‘ Maître ’ has spent weeks – or months – slapping and beating her and punishing her because she couldn’t come up with his name, and now she’s said it, she’s said the name ‘Hitler’ out loud, and what happens? The woman has a fit. She’s told to forget it again! Boy, oh boy. This is enough to turn a girl gaga. It surely is.
    Wallis is alone again with night. Alone with the Nightmare that’s always hovering there, behind the locked door. She can hear rain beating on the windows.
    So OK, she got it wrong: it couldn’t have been Hitler she was supposed to remember. But how are you meant to understand what to remember and what to try to forget? And where’s the truth about your life – in the forgetting or in the remembering? Hell knows.
    Wallis’s thin hand scrabbles under the pillow to get the bracelet. Holding that against her cheek, against her lips, is so comforting, it’s like the caress of a person you love. Actually, it’s better than the caress of a person you love. Because love’s so fragile. Well, it was for her. It was a mirage. It was just the shine in a puddle of oil.
    She thought she loved Win Spencer, but he took that love of hers and messed on it. Not once, but over and over. Till she ran away and left him, told her mother no, I can’t be the wife of someone like that. But oh, the look on Mother’s face. ‘For gracious sake, Bessiewallis, don’t say the word “divorce” to me! There has never ever been a divorce in the Montague family, never ever been a divorce in the Warfield family. So don’t you go bringing shame on us with that talk. My, my! What would your grandma say? Now you go right on back to that husband of yours and stay by him. Those vows you made, they’re for life, unless one of you decides to die.’
    He’d been posted to China, to old Canton. When she arrived, he was off the