by Lily Graham
The doctor nodded. ‘I will look after her, I assure you. But surely it will not come to that.’
Mattaus woke Valter Kroeling with a bucket of ice water. Kroeling startled awake, groaning and staggering as he tried to stand, then sat back down. His hands went to his bloodstained head, felt the lump that had formed on his forehead, and his face grew angry as the night’s activities came rushing forward in his memory. ‘I am going to kill that old man, with my bare hands! I should have done it on my first day here!’ His fists balled at his sides, and he lurched forward, screaming and threatening. Mattaus laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. The doctor was a large, imposing figure, and Kroeling stopped, seeing Mattaus’s face, which was cold.
‘You will have a hard time doing that while I’m here, I’m afraid, not after what you did.’
‘What I did?’ Valter Kroeling looked blank. Then his eyes grew dark and he sneered. ‘Ah, the bitch – I suppose she fed you some lie, and you believed her?’
‘I did.’
‘Well then you are a fool.’
‘And you are a rapist.’
Kroeling’s eyes flashed. ‘Or just a lover. Have you ever stopped to wonder that maybe that innocent act of hers is just that – an act?’
Mattaus gritted his teeth. ‘Get out of this shop right now. Go and sleep it off. That’s an order.’
Kroeling rubbed his head and turned to leave, but before he left he spat: ‘That old man can’t just strike an officer and get away with it…’
The doctor sighed. ‘I said, go.’
Kroeling’s lips curled. ‘This isn’t over.’
It was a warning, Mattaus knew. When he was gone Mattaus muttered, ‘No. It isn’t.’ He was angry, and he felt out of control; it wasn’t a good place to be.
They came for Dupont that afternoon. Kroeling’s men had her father taken away in handcuffs and beaten, while Mireille screamed and howled.
For now he was to be sent to jail only. It appeared that Mattaus had managed to convince them that incarceration would be the best option for a father who thought his daughter was being raped and acted in her defence.
Mireille followed them to the jail, begging and pleading, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. When she arrived back at the apartment, her heart skipped a beat in fear to find that there was someone inside. She entered with her heart in her throat, to find a man’s suitcase and a box of belongings next to the stairs. She picked up a small statue of the Virgin Mary that rested on the shelf, and went up the stairs. If Kroeling was here, then she would fight – resistance or death, she decided. She wouldn’t let him finish what he’d started the night before.
As she entered the apartment, her eyes widened instead to find the doctor sitting on the sofa, waiting for her.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, in shock.
He tucked in his bottom lip for a moment as if not sure where to begin. ‘I am moving in.’
She gasped. ‘You’re – what?’
He stood up and her knees went weak: could this really be happening again? He was so tall and big. He had seemed gentle in a way, despite his size, but maybe not. Were all the men here mad, primal beings?
He held up his hands as she clutched the statue, as if ready to use it as a weapon.
‘I am here for your protection only.’
She frowned, lowering the weapon slightly. ‘My protection?’
‘Yes – your father—’
‘I do not need protecting from my father.’
He gave a half grin that revealed very even teeth. ‘Of course not. What I am saying is that your father spoke to me—’
‘He spoke to you?’
‘He told me what happened last night. He worried that if he were taken it would happen again.’ He looked away, not meeting her eyes. ‘He told me what Kroeling said, what he tried to do – and how it might have been prevented. How Kroeling had at first stayed away because he thought you might be… mine.’
Mireille bit her lip. ‘I do not want to be your woman,’ she said, unconsciously using the words that Kroeling had taunted her with. She felt her stomach twist, and the tears fall. It was just too much, after everything that had already happened.
He took a step back. ‘I would not ask – I am not asking now. I will not force…’ He stopped, swallowed, then attempted in vain to clarify himself. ‘I am here, as I said, for your protection. May I use the room at the end of the apartment?’
Mireille stared at him. It was a question, not an order. At last his words seemed to penetrate – he wanted to stay to protect her from Kroeling. Of course, with her father away, there was every chance he would come back and attempt to finish what he’d started. Her knees grew weak. She felt the air leave her chest in sudden gratitude. It was the smallest room, and held only a child’s wardrobe.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I –’ She cleared her throat. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry for what I said.’
He raised a hand, dismissing her words, and nodded. ‘I will say goodnight now, then. Please call if you need me.’
And she watched him go, not knowing what to say. Hating that he was here, hating how grateful she was that he was, and hating most of all that because of people like him, she was in this situation in the first place.
Chapter Sixteen
1962
‘Dupont was arrested?’ said Valerie in shock. ‘For defending his daughter?’
Madame Joubert nodded, her eyes sad. ‘He had struck an officer, badly wounded him – they didn’t see it from the other side. What Dupont had done was enough to have him executed. The fact that he wasn’t was because the other officer – the doctor – had intervened on Mireille’s behalf, and even then, he was sent to jail for four months.’
Valerie shook her head. ‘What a crazy world that was. I can’t even imagine it.’
Madame Joubert nodded, her eyes thoughtful as she watched Valerie put the photograph back in Dupont’s desk, and said, ‘Well, for that, at least, I am glad.’
Valerie inclined her head, but the woman shook hers.
‘Tell me, chérie, when are you going to tell him?’
Valerie frowned. ‘Pardon?’
Madame Joubert’s hand was still on her shoulder, gentle despite her considerable size. Her dark eyes were knowing, and she picked up a strand of Valerie’s hair, and ran it through her fingers.
‘When are you going to tell him who you really are?’
Valerie turned pale, her eyes wide.
‘You are Mireille’s child, aren’t you?’
Valerie’s heart began to thud loudly in her ears. She bit her lip, then, very slowly, as if she were finally letting go of something heavy, something that had felt like a weight about her neck, she nodded.
It was then, as Madame Joubert gasped, and slipped into deep, silent sobs that racked her large body from the inside out, a hand clutching the desk as her knees seemed about to give out, that Valerie realised that the woman hadn’t known. Not really. She had only hoped.
Valerie left Dupont a message that she would be returning later, and not to worry about dinner for her. She opened a tin of tuna for the cat and telephoned Freddy, telling him that she’d see him the following night.
She’d gone with Madame Joubert next door, helping her inside, the older woman’s fingers shaking, the tears coursing unstopped down her cheeks, while Valerie got her up the stairs to her small two-bedroom apartment, where she poured them each a glass of wine, wishing that there was something stronger.
‘B-but how?’ said Madame Joubert, when she’d at last caught her breath. She clutched at Valerie’s hand as if it were a balloon, as if she were afraid that she would float away.
‘How what?’ said Valerie with a frown, as she sat next to her on the forest green sofa, sinking into the plush velvet cushions.
Madame Joubert’s eyes were wide; the kohl had spooled beneath them in inky smears. Valerie had never seen the glamorous woman look so vulnerable, so fragile.
Madame Joubert stared at her, shak
ing her head. ‘How are you here? How did you find us?’
‘My aunt – Mireille’s cousin, Amélie, she told me, told me about my grandfather, when I turned twenty. She thought I had a right to know.’
Madame Joubert shook her head again. ‘Oh, Amélie,’ she whispered. ‘What have you done?’
Valerie felt her cheeks turn red in anger. ‘I did have a right to know, even if he didn’t – doesn’t want me in his life. I had a right to know that he was alive, and why he gave me away.’
Madame Joubert laid her confused dark eyes on Valerie. ‘Doesn’t want you – is that what Amélie told you?’ She shook her head. ‘You mean, after she told you he was alive she didn’t tell you why you were taken to live with her?’
It was Valerie’s turn to look confused. ‘She said that my grandfather gave me away, that he didn’t want to be in my life, that he’d said it would be best for me to think that he was dead. Aunt Amélie thought – when I was old enough – at least, that’s what she said, that I had a right to know.’
On the day Valerie had been told, she’d found her aunt sitting on her bed, looking out at the garden of their north London house below, the sky turning to blush.
Downstairs the music was still going. Someone had put on the Beatles, and Freddy was doing his best John Lennon impersonation.
She’d taken her presents upstairs – books and jumpers and notebooks from friends and family who knew her so well – when she saw Aunt Amélie sitting there alone. Her face was unusually sombre, a frown between her eyes.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Valerie, worried, putting her presents on the chair, and wondering why she was sitting there in the near dark.
Amélie nodded. She took a deep breath, as if she were gathering her courage. ‘I’m fine. Come and take a seat.’
Valerie did.
In her aunt’s hand was the small photograph of her mother that Valerie kept always in a frame by her bed. Valerie looked at it, but didn’t say anything. It was unlike her aunt to ever speak about her mother – usually when Valerie tried, she’d change the subject.
‘I have been thinking about your mother, Mireille. We grew up far away from each other. She in Paris. Me in Haute-Provence – in the mountains. Anyway, she was my cousin, and I loved her, even though we never got to see each other as much as we would have liked.’
Valerie took the photograph. It had been a long time since she’d really looked at the black-and-white image, seen her mother sitting there, instead of a young woman with a cat and a smiling face.
‘I think it is time I told you the truth.’
Valerie’s heart skipped a beat. The air was tense. ‘What do you mean?’
Amélie sighed, and put the photograph back on the side table. ‘Your grandfather, Vincent, is still alive.’
‘I have a grandfather?’ Valerie was shocked. Amélie had always told her that there was no one left. No one. Apart from her, that was.
‘Yes, it was he who gave you to me, after your mother died. He wanted me to take you away from the war, from Paris.’
‘He gave me to you?’ cried Valerie, trying to process this. Not understanding. ‘He wanted me to be safe?’
‘Yes… and no, he wanted you to grow up away from France. Away from the war. He wanted you to have a better home. But he also thought it would be better if you thought that he was dead, easier for you somehow.’
Valerie blinked. Her aunt’s words were like glass: everywhere she turned, they seemed capable of cutting. He was the only direct family she had – and he hadn’t wanted her? ‘He wanted me to think he was dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why? Why did he hate me?’
Amélie closed her eyes. ‘It wasn’t hate. Don’t think that, please. I think he cared for you in his own way. He just couldn’t keep you.’
‘Did he need to make you lie, then – if he did it for my good?’
‘Maybe he thought you would go looking for him one day.’
‘Why wouldn’t he want me to?’
Amélie shook her head. ‘Only he could tell you that.’
Madame Joubert took a sip of her wine, and shook her head. ‘But she didn’t tell you the right thing. I think it would kill Dupont to know that you thought that he didn’t want you.’ Her voice caught, and she closed her eyes. ‘It was the exact opposite.’
Valerie blinked, hope fluttering in her chest. She swallowed, but still tears smarted in her eyes. ‘I don’t think that can be true – if he had wanted me, then why didn’t he send for me after the war was over?’
Madame Joubert blew out her cheeks, as if she was trying to find the courage to say what she needed to say. ‘Because, child – the war was never going to be over, not for you. Not if you stayed here in Paris.’
Chapter Seventeen
1940
It was early November and Mireille couldn’t sleep knowing that there was a Nazi sleeping not two hundred feet away from her.
She worried about her father, and Clotilde, whom she hadn’t seen for three days.
Every sound was amplified in the darkness. Every creak a bullet, every shadow a man with a knife. When dawn broke, there were deep welt-like shadows beneath her eyes, which were swollen and red from her tears.
When she went to the kitchen, dressed in her robe, her feet bare and cold against the polished hardwood floors, her heart jolted in fear to find the large form of Mattaus standing in the shadows.
He turned to her, a furrow between his brows at her small gasp. ‘I startled you – I’m sorry. I thought I would put the coffee on,’ he said, pointing at the cafetière, and getting a mug for her from the cabinet. It was such a simple thing, a small act of domesticity that seemed even more personal, and invasive in a way. Even Kroeling had never entered their kitchen before. She hadn’t imagined him being here, a place that, even during the worst of the past few months, had been a refuge without her realising – till now.
Mireille closed her eyes for a moment. A part of her wanted to scream, to shout, and tell him to get out of her kitchen, her house, her life. But she took the mug from his outstretched hand, then breathed out. The truth was she knew that she should be grateful to him – because if he was here, it meant that Valter Kroeling was not, and at least the doctor, despite being German, despite being a Nazi, had not forgotten what it meant to be a gentleman, for the time being at least.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. She didn’t mean for the coffee, and perhaps he knew that, because he said, ‘It’s what I would want someone to have done for my sister, Greta. She’s three years younger than me, a schoolteacher – she hates this,’ he said, looking away, his green eyes seeming sad.
Mireille frowned. ‘Hates what?’
‘The war. We’ve already lost one brother to it.’
She looked up at him, realising, for the first time perhaps, that for the other side there were women like her who were losing their fathers and brothers, who wished nothing more than for the fighting to stop. She swallowed. ‘I hate it too.’ Her eyes felt as if they were filled with glass, as if she had aged a hundred years overnight. She looked away from his pitying gaze.
‘You look exhausted.’
She sighed. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘Your father will be all right. They won’t mistreat him – I have made sure of that.’
She took another shuddery breath, and offered him a small smile. ‘M’sieur Fredericks, thank you, this family is grateful to you.’
‘Though it would prefer not to have to be.’
There was a ghost of a laugh in Mireille’s mouth. ‘Yes, I cannot deny that.’
The small clearing of her features, showing the young girl beneath her pain and suffering, touched his heart. He set the mug down on the kitchen table. ‘I’m leaving now – I need to get to the hospital. I will return this evening at around six.’
‘You don’t need to tell me your plans,’ said Mireille with a frown.
He straightened, his green eyes warm. ‘I only tell you so th
at later you will not be startled.’
She closed her eyes. Yes, that made sense. It was a kindness he was offering. It was strange to think of someone like him as kind. She wondered if it was dangerous too.
He put a set of brass keys down on the table. ‘These are the new keys to the shop and the apartment – I changed the locks last night. My father was a locksmith in Lorraine,’ he said.
That explained the noises she’d heard in the middle of the night, as if someone were breaking in – he’d been trying to prevent that very thing.
‘Keep the doors locked. Kroeling – despite my best efforts to have him tried – is still a free man, though he is no longer in charge of the press, as it is believed that he was neglecting his duties.’
Mireille was shocked. ‘So he won’t be coming here any more.’
Fredericks shrugged. ‘Not in an official capacity, I am sure, but what I do know is that a man like him won’t be pleased at what has happened, and I worry that he will seek his revenge, not on me, but on you.’ His jaw flexed. ‘So, please keep the doors locked, especially at night.’
The prison was overflowing. There was the stench of unwashed bodies, disease and desperation. Rationing was having its effects, and here in the jail, many of the city’s poorest souls, who had been forced to try to come to terms with something they could not, had been living hand to mouth, trying to fight an army of guns and tanks with knives and handmade weapons. It was they who were the ones paying the highest price.
Despite all her pleas, despite using Mattaus’s name, they wouldn’t let Mireille see her father.
A dour-faced officer was busy with a mountain of paperwork – German efficiency at its best – adding ever more names to a never-ending list of traitors, Parisians who would never be free again. He looked bored and well fed, and barely looked up at her.