Sisters of the Resistance

by Christine Wells

  Yvette said nothing for a while. The moon was rising over the sea, a great golden disk that floodlit the water, and it was like a scene at the end of a movie, not the beginning of one. It made her strangely melancholy. She drew a breath. “Well, she is free. And more in demand than ever, it seems.”

  He nodded, but absently, as if he did not care very much about Louise Dulac and her burgeoning film career. “It occurred to me,” he said, selecting a cigarette and returning the case to his pocket, “that I got it all wrong with that proposal I made.”

  That struck Yvette dumb. She stared at him, wanting him to continue, but afraid that once he said it, she would have to respond. And she didn’t quite know how she would do that.

  He cleared his throat and kept turning the cigarette end over end between his fingers, as if it were a new invention and he was trying to figure out what it was for.

  “Vidar, I—”

  “No. Please let me finish. I do have feelings for you, Yvette. They are . . . complicated.”

  She had to stop this. She wasn’t sure of much, but suddenly she was positive it was the wrong time for such declarations. “Do you know what I would like?”

  His gaze snapped up, relief and disappointment mingled almost comically in his expression. Then he smiled, a smile of recognition and acceptance that warmed her all over. He glanced away, then back at her, and tilted his head. “No. Do tell me. What would you like, Yvette?”

  There was a tingle in her fingertips and in her toes. “I would like to work with you, I think. I want to learn how to be a proper spy, not one who carries out missions she doesn’t understand and blunders around in the dark.”

  He said nothing for a few moments, and she wondered whether she had hurt his pride by sidestepping his declaration. But one of the things she liked about him was his utter lack of arrogance. His smile turned rueful. “Of course. I’m sure something of the sort can be arranged.” He eyed her speculatively. “Working for Dior could be the perfect cover.”

  “Eventually, I might even become a diplomat’s wife.”

  “Really?” he said, tossing his cigarette away and stealing an arm around her waist. “I’ll have the captain marry us tomorrow.”

  She put her hands to his chest to hold him off. “But no! I said eventually. If we find that we are suited.”

  They needed to get to know each other properly, without the shadow of war hanging over their heads. How could she marry a man before she had even grown accustomed to using his real name? “Besides,” she added, “when—if—I get married, I want a big, fancy wedding with a gown made by Monsieur Dior.”

  “Ah, it’s the gown she wants.” He touched a fingertip to her chin. “But what about the vows, my little résistante? Do you think you can convincingly promise to love, honor, and obey?”

  “Of course I can,” she said.

  “Oh, really?”

  “But yes! I was a spy during the war, you know. I am very good at pretending.”

  He laughed at that but sobered almost immediately and drew her closer. “Are you sure it’s what you want, this life? It’s not for everyone. And you must understand that you cannot simply do as you think fit at all times. Not everything is black-and-white in this world, Yvette. It never was, but at least during the war we knew who our enemies were. Now we move in the shadows.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I am sure. But for me, you understand, some things can never be grey.” Rafael was one of those things, but of course, Vidar knew that. No doubt they would have a reckoning about this very soon. “I will never stop having a conscience,” she told him. “I will never stop trying to do what is right. Even if that doesn’t make me the smooth, professional spy.” Half-apologetically, she added, “Even if that makes things harder for you. You understand?”

  He searched her face, then nodded. “Do you know something? That’s exactly why we need you.” His voice grew thick as he pulled her to him. “Why I need you.”

  “Then we will get Rafael. Together, we will bring him to justice.”

  “Yes. We will get Rafael. After he leads us to the others.”

  He sighed as if she had lifted a burden from his shoulders rather than complicating his life even further, and buried his face in her neck, kissing the tender skin there. She put her arms around him, and it was the strangest feeling to be held by this man again at last, a scintillating and dangerous feeling, yet utterly, perfectly right.

  It was like an exciting new adventure. And it was like coming home.

  Acknowledgments

  I am tremendously grateful to my agent, Kevan Lyon, for the hard work she has invested in this book at all levels and for her staunch support and excellent advice. Thank you to my clever editor at William Morrow, Lucia Macro, for her insight and expertise and for being such a delight to work with, unfailingly positive in the face of these “interesting times.”

  I spend so long inside the story world that it is a surprise and a miracle to me when that world manifests in the form of a book, and that book finds its way to readers. It is no miracle, however, but all due to the hard work and dedication of the talented people at HarperCollins. Many thanks to Asanté Simons and the rest of the team.

  On a personal note, I’m grateful for the support and advice of writers Anna Campbell and Denise Rossetti and for the fellowship of the talented and fierce Lyonesses. To my friends and family, much love and gratitude for putting up with my writerly ways and for always cheering me on: Allister and Adrian, Cheryl, Ian and Michael, Robin and George, Lucy and Jason, Yasmin, Vikki and Ben.

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  About the Author

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  Meet Christine Wells

  About the Book

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  Behind the Book

  Reading Group Guide

  About the Author

  Meet Christine Wells

  CHRISTINE WELLS writes historical fiction featuring strong, fascinating women. From early childhood, she drank in her father’s tales about the true stories behind popular nursery rhymes, and she has been a keen student of history ever since. She began her first novel while working as a corporate lawyer and has gone on to write about periods ranging from Georgian England to post–World War II France. Christine is passionate about helping other writers learn the craft and business of writing fiction and enjoys mentoring and teaching workshops whenever her schedule permits. She loves dogs, running, holidays at the beach, and window-shopping for antiques, and she lives with her family in Brisbane, Australia.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  About the Book

  Behind the Book

  When I stumbled across an article about Catherine Dior’s amazing courage during World War II on the Jezebel website in 2017, I knew I had to write about this heroine of the resistance who seemed to have gone largely unrecognized. Perhaps this was due to Catherine’s own reticence about her experiences during the war.

  Documented details of Catherine’s activities as a courier for the Massif Central Franco-Polish intelligence service are scant, but in this novel I have stuck to the facts as much as I could: Catherine’s periodic visits to Christian’s apartment and the comings and goings of various contacts were recorded by contemporaries; her friendship with Liliane Dietlin, another heroine of the resistance, endured throughout their lives; Catherine’s eventual capture and the heartbreaking near-rescue by the Swedish consul is outlined in Prosper Keating’s article “The Courageous Life of Catherine Dior” and in the chilling Tortionnaires, truands et collabos: La bande de la rue de la Pompe by Marie-Josèphe Bonnet.

  The latter gives an account of how the Berger gang rounded up Catherine’s circuit and their monstrous treatment of the prisoners they kept in the basement at rue de la Pompe. While Berger was captured in Milan in 1948, he escaped and lived out his life in hiding in Germany. Fourteen members of the gang, including two women, were brought to trial in 1952 and Catherine Dior gave evidence against the
m. The newspapers of the time were particularly aghast at the involvement of two women in the torture of resistance agents; witnesses claimed Denise Delfau sat on the edge of the bath making notes of confessions while victims were treated to the torture of the baignoire. In addition to rounding up Jews and resistance workers and interrogating prisoners, the gang is infamous for arresting thirty-five resistance members who had planned a raid on a German armory and gunning them down by a waterfall in the Bois de Boulogne.

  The French citizens who worked for the Nazis, such as the rue de la Pompe and Bonny-Lafont gangs, were technically recruited as auxiliaries to the German Sicherheitsdienst. Sometimes known as the “Carlingue,” they were also called “gestapistes,” a contemptuous diminutive of “Gestapo,” by French patriots. I have used the term “Gestapo” to refer to the Sicherheitsdienst and the Sicherheitspolizei, both for the sake of simplicity and because that is how the French tended to refer to the German secret police.

  While Yvette’s inclusion in Dior’s first fashion show is fictional, in Dior by Dior: The Autobiography of Christian Dior, the couturier does mention that the mannequin Marie-Thérèse stumbled on her first walk and was so upset, she could not finish the show that day. Someone must have worn the garments designated for Marie-Thérèse, and indeed there were usually stand-ins for the principal mannequins at the ready, but I thought it would be fun to have Yvette walk in that parade, so I made her the substitute.

  There has been much discussion about Parisian couturiers collaborating during the war by designing gowns for Nazi wives. In his article “The Courageous Life of Catherine Dior,” Prosper Keating maintains that in fact this occurred rarely, and usually only where the Nazi wife had long been a customer of the Parisian couturiers anyway. It is easy to sit in judgment of French collaborators from a comfortable distance in space and time, but it is due to the pragmatism and courage of designers like Lucien Lelong that Paris remained the fashion capital of the world, contributing significantly to the national economy. Lelong resisted all German attempts to move the entire industry to Berlin. In occupied Paris, sometimes it was a matter of choosing your battles.

  Keating also makes the point that it is unlikely Catherine Dior would have used Christian’s apartment for clandestine meetings as the designer does not seem to have been involved in the network and was not suspected by the Nazis. However, Dior was a close friend of writer and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, whose former lover Jean Desbordes (code name: Duroc) was a key figure in the resistance. Moreover, there are reports from other associates of the Diors that there were all sorts of strange comings and goings at the apartment at number 10 rue Royale while Catherine was in residence. For the purposes of this novel, I have adopted the latter theory, and as there is no real evidence (despite Keating’s well-reasoned argument) to contradict it, I feel justified in bringing Catherine’s associates into the apartment building itself.

  It was certainly the case that many Parisian concierges were either informing on their tenants to the Nazis or working against the occupiers, hiding Jews and dissidents wherever they could. However, I am not aware that the concierge of number 10 rue Royale did either. Danique and Gabby Foucher are purely fictional, and I have adapted their living and working arrangements to my own purposes here.

  The character of Vidar Lind is heavily based on a real Austrian aristocrat, Erich Posch-Pastor, Baron von Camperfeld, a dashing, courageous, and handsome young man with whom I fell utterly in love during my research. He was only in his twenties when Austria was annexed to the Third Reich. His regiment in the Austrian army was one of the few that resisted the Germans, after which Posch-Pastor was interned at Dachau for a year. Perhaps because of his family’s standing—his grandfather had been the last Austro-Hungarian ambassador to the Vatican—he was later released and given officer status in the German army.

  After being wounded in Russia, Posch-Pastor was transferred to Paris, and there, he joined the Goélette-Frégate resistance network in 1943. When he was awarded the Médaille de la Résistance, part of the citation read: “For eight months without letup, he passed economic and military information of the highest importance to the Allies, including some of the first designs of the V-1 rocket.”

  Is Paris Burning? by Larry Collins has been an invaluable source in understanding the role Posch-Pastor played in those final days of the occupation. Acting as a go-between for the Swedish consul and the Nazis in Paris while also spying for the British, Posch-Pastor was instrumental in saving the city’s monuments and bridges from being razed by the Germans, a thrilling account of which is contained in Sauver Paris: Mémoires du consul de Suède by Raoul Nordling. However, Erich “Riki” Posch-Pastor refused to speak about his wartime exploits. His silence led me to imagine a new life for him after the liberation as a Cold War spy.

  Unfortunately for my purposes, the real Posch-Pastor married a beautiful Spanish noblewoman, Silvia Rodríguez de Rivas, toward the end of the war, so I had to fictionalize him just a little to keep him as Yvette’s romantic lead. Vidar’s connection to the rue de la Pompe gang is not based on fact; however, during negotiations with General von Choltitz, Posch-Pastor did work closely with Émil “Bobby” Bender, a shadowy businessman who turned out to be a senior German counterintelligence agent with anti-Nazi sympathies.

  The character of Louise Dulac is inspired by Corinne Luchaire, a young movie star who became the mistress of the Third Reich’s ambassador to France, Otto Abetz. After the war, Corinne was put on trial for collaboration and stripped of her citizenship, then died of tuberculosis shortly afterward. Corinne Luchaire certainly did not spy for the Allies, however. That was all Louise.

  Jack is a purely fictional character. I am not aware that Catherine Dior was involved in either hiding fugitives or smuggling them out of France, but her friend Liliane Dietlin certainly was part of an escape network, so I used this circumstance to create a story line for Gabby.

  Liliane Dietlin worked as a courier for Stan Lasocki, the chief of the Massif Central section of Polish intelligence in France. Yvette’s escape from Paris is based on the escape of Gitta Sereny, described in Sereny’s The German Trauma: Experiences and Reflections, 1938–2001, which Liliane Dietlin and a Swedish diplomat arranged for her. Coincidentally, the Thomas Cook travel agency where Gitta obtained her travel documents was situated on the rue Royale.

  Reading Group Guide

  Wartime Paris is described as different for wealthy collaborators than for ordinary citizens: “It was as if to these people [people like Louise Dulac], the war did not exist. They went to horse races and receptions and drank champagne in the company of high-ranking Nazis, while their countrymen suffered and starved.” Does this confirm your thoughts of what Paris during the Second World War was like? Is life, in the book, more or less normal than you’ve imagined?

  Yvette and Gabby, like many sisters, have similarities and differences. What do you see as their strongest difference and similarity? If you are comfortable with it, describe how you and your siblings are alike or not alike.

  Why do you think the New Look caused such an uproar? Surely it was a bit overboard to have riots over fashion—or was it?

  Were you surprised to hear about Catherine Dior and her role in the resistance?

  Given what you have read, do you feel Catherine’s brother, Christian Dior, approved or disapproved of her position? And given how his gowns were worn to balls and political events, was Dior neutral and practical—or a collaborator of sorts?

  Would it have been truly possible to be French and remain neutral during the occupation? Is it possible there were Germans who also tried to remain as “neutral” or sympathetic to the French?

  The role of French criminals like the rue de la Pompe gang in rounding up resistance workers in occupied Paris is not widely known. Were you surprised that it was this gang who arrested and tortured Catherine Dior, not the Gestapo? Why do you think the Germans gave vicious criminals these policing powers toward the end of the war?

  Was J
ack right or wrong for avoiding Gabby after the war? Was Gabby right to accept him back in her life, given his actions? Do you think Gabby would have been fulfilled if Jack had returned immediately?

  Yvette is eager to put herself in more danger, to use her brain and make a “real” difference, but do you think she has any true sense of the danger she will be in? Or is she acting in a state of willful denial about what would happen to her if she were caught?

  Which sister has the more realistic viewpoint of the dangers they face?

  Do you feel Louise Dulac would have abandoned Yvette to her fate if she were caught? Is she the kind of woman who would lie to save herself, or to save her country?

  Is Yvette’s guilt over Catherine’s capture justified? Do you think if she had been captured instead of Catherine that she would have survived all that Catherine endured?

  Yvette and Gabby choose very different paths after the war. Were you surprised by their actions? Why or why not?

  Praise for Sisters of the Resistance

  “Wow! Sisters of the Resistance had me enthralled from the first page right up until its breathtaking conclusion. A tale of courage, resistance, and love—Christine Wells has penned one of the sure-fire hits of 2021.”

  —Kelly Rimmer, New York Times bestselling author of The Things We Cannot Say

  “As dazzling as a Dior gown! Sisters of the Resistance tells the fascinating story of two sisters working with Catherine Dior and the French Resistance during World War II. With a gorgeous blend of fashion, heartbreak, heroism, and love, this book will transport you to France as the sisters navigate their way through the secrets and mysteries of wartime, and as they uncover some stunning revelations in postwar Paris.”