‘I refuse to sew that wretched thing on to my dresses. So I’m forced to wear my one coat everywhere.’
She’d walked all the way from the Marais, with heavy bags, because taking the bus or Métro had become a humiliation. People would move away from her, she said, or refuse to let her sit down. ‘I can’t stop at a café table or peer into the window of a shop for fear of being moved on. We must keep moving, like stray dogs, and though some people feel sorry for us, there are plenty who think we’re getting our just deserts.’
‘If you want to sit in the salon and drink tea, be my guest.’ Coralie was astonished to see Amélie’s brows tilt angrily.
Madame Thomas came out of the salon just then. She’d been out on an errand and wore a bolero over a summer blouse. Seeing a yellow star that matched her own, Amélie exclaimed, ‘If a customer were to report you, Madame, and La Passerinette closed down, we would all lose our work. It is this,’ she gestured at the bags she’d put down in relief, ‘that feeds my daughter and my grandparents.’
‘I will use the side entrance from now on,’ Madame Thomas said meekly, and Coralie nodded agreement. It felt like colluding with injustice, but fighting back would only make things worse. Her friends must keep their heads down, tread quietly through life, survive. Then, when the world returned to normal, they could congratulate themselves on having acted right.
*
The end of a stifling July day. Coralie stepped off the train at Paris’s Montparnasse station, reaching to take Noëlle from Una’s arms. Arkady unloaded their suitcases and, carrying the heaviest ones, led the way to the ticket barrier. They’d just enjoyed a week away, Coralie’s first proper holiday ever. A friend of Una’s had lent them a house near Rambouillet, to the south-west of Paris. Standing deep in the woods, the cottage had been basic, but that hadn’t mattered. They’d filled their days with picnics and walks, boating on the river Eure, cooking outdoor suppers on fires Arkady had lit in the garden. He had played his violin while they sang English and American songs, and French ones with outrageous anti-Vichy lyrics because nobody could hear them. Coralie had done things she’d never done as a child, with all the pleasure of doing them now with her own little girl. As the Paris suburbs filled the train window, she’d felt a tug of regret.
At the Métro entrance, they were told that lines twelve and six were closed. ‘Walk to Duroc station,’ they were advised.
They could have separated then, Arkady and Una to walk to rue de Seine, Coralie and Noëlle to take the Métro to the Right Bank. But a strange noise seemed to be coming from the west, from the river, like distant thunder mixed with the roar of a football stadium.
‘Sounds like planes.’ Coralie scanned a sky as violet-blue as a chicory flower. The RAF and its Allies had re-bombed the western suburbs back in March, targeting weapons plants. Four hundred people had died.
‘Such noise would have to be many planes, and they do not come in daytime,’ Arkady said.
‘Sounds to me like a big game’s in play,’ Una said. ‘Honey, we’ll all stick together.’
They headed west along boulevard du Montparnasse. The Eiffel Tower above the rooftops was their beacon as they walked towards Duroc where, by mutual agreement, they proceeded past the station entrance. Noise drew them on. It was when they reached the Champs de Mars, the open space surrounding the Eiffel Tower, that they finally identified where the noise came from. It rose from the Vélodrome d’Hiver nearby. The ‘Vel’ d’Hiv’ was a covered cycle track. Evening sun streaked the western sky, but over the stadium lay a halo of bluish light.
‘They don’t usually race this time of the year,’ Una commented. ‘And it’s Sunday.’
‘That’s not the sound of cheering.’ Coralie’s shoulders were aching because Noëlle had wanted to be carried since Duroc. A headache was taking hold, made worse by a smell on the breeze. Sulphurous – familiar. What exactly?
It came to her. Once, on a hot day, her father had told her to empty the piss bucket in his workshop. It was a metal canister with a lid, like a milk churn. Pouring the stagnant contents into the yard drain, she’d almost passed out.
‘A rally?’ Arkady suggested. ‘Perhaps Hitler has come to visit again.’
‘Could be,’ Una agreed. ‘It’s a feral sound.’
‘Let’s turn back.’ Urgency gripped Coralie, as on the day she’d heard soldiers marching down the Champs-Élysées. For all she hated the Métro, she wanted to get underground. She turned on her heel and the others followed. But at Duroc a milling crowd suggested that another line had been shut.
‘What do you say we all go to ours?’ Una suggested. ‘Have tea and wait for the engineers to sort things out.’
A welcome idea. But as they re-crossed the intersection of rue de Vaugirard and boulevard du Montparnasse, they discovered a rough blockade had been thrown up. Gendarmes stood guard, their numbers swelled by cadets and youths in shirtsleeves. ‘What’s going on?’ They were about to find out. Coralie saw the policemen crane forward, as if watching for something.
Within minutes, there came the snarl of engines and a policeman shouted to the cadets to ‘stand by’. A moment later, a motorbus chugged by. Coralie saw children’s faces, their features indistinct through the sheets of wire mesh that covered the windows. They wore sun-hats and bonnets, and her instant thought was, They’re going on holiday. But so late in the day? And why the mesh windows?
It couldn’t be a prison bus because it bore the insignia of CTRP, the Paris-region public-transport company. And what prison bus took little children? There were adults too. The vehicle braked, giving her time to see a woman mouthing something at her through a square of window. Her face was locked in disbelief. It was also familiar.
‘Amélie!’
Françoise too. The child lay awkwardly across her mother’s body, a patchwork blanket rolled for a pillow under her cheek. Coralie ran alongside the bus as it picked up speed, Noëlle’s head bumping against her shoulder. She shouted, ‘Amélie!’
A hard hand grabbed her, an equally hard voice ordered, ‘Don’t run!’ It was one of the gendarmes.
‘I know that girl – she’s my friend. Her child’s very sick. Where are they taking them?’ She was being pulled back towards the barricade. In a moment she’d drop Noëlle.
‘Get back, woman. This is none of your business.’
‘But where are they going?’
‘To Pithiviers, to the assembly camp. They’re going to be counted.’
‘Counted . . . So they’ll be let go?’
The policeman took stock of her smart travel suit, her eighth- arrondissement shoes, her La Passerinette hat. ‘Of course, Madame. It is just a formality.’
Next morning, Coralie got herself to La Passerinette as early as Noëlle’s routine allowed. It was the school holidays, and while Mademoiselle Guinard was away, she was bringing her daughter into work. They walked hand in hand and, for once, the child’s chatter failed to divert Coralie. She couldn’t get the sights and smells of yesterday out of her mind. Why send people away to be counted in a different town? Last night as darkness fell, she’d walked through an eerily empty Marais, even though she’d known Amélie wouldn’t be there. Such silence . . . as though a monstrous machine had sucked the inhabitants away. In rue Charlot, she’d found the doll shop unlocked, Amélie’s grandparents sitting side by side on the stairs. Monsieur Ginsler had stared mutely the whole time she was there, as waxen as one of his dolls. His wife’s voice had crackled like a worn-out tape-recording, the sound turned low. ‘They came on Wednesday. We wait for Amélie. They do not take us because we are too old.’
Too impatient to walk all the way to boulevard de la Madeleine, Coralie waved down a vélo taxi, a bicycle pulling a small cabin on wheels. Noëlle sang with delight. Her favourite form of transport!
Expecting La Passerinette to be open, Violaine there to welcome them, Coralie surveyed the locke
d door, the drawn blinds, and her stomach turned over. Violaine was always at work by now. She wasn’t the sort to take advantage of the boss being on holiday. Telling Noëlle sharply to stop hopping, Coralie found her own keys.
No hats in the window. Just a couple of dead bluebottles – Coralie shuddered: she retained a horror of flies. The workroom was locked, too. ‘Right, up the stairs,’ she said brightly, while her heart thudded. Violaine’s flat was empty, and in Madame Thomas’s, she found the landlord’s handyman turning off the gas.
‘It’ll go back on when the new tenants come in,’ he said, giving Noëlle a friendly wink. ‘We’ve a full set of empty flats, all the way up to the roof. You’d get a good bargain, if you fancied moving into one of them, Madame.’
‘Where is Mademoiselle Beaumont? Where’s Madame Thomas?’ Coralie demanded. ‘They can’t both have left.’
‘Jewish, hein? The police had a round-up while you were away. Nice and neat, none of us saw it. All the Jews in Paris to the Vel’ d’Hiv and shipped away.’
‘They’ve made a mistake.’ Coralie wanted to slap the stupid grin off his face. ‘Madame Thomas is a French citizen and Violaine isn’t even Jewish!’
The man made a face implying, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ Downstairs in the salon, Coralie found a letter on the mat. It had been there when they came in because Noëlle’s small footprint was on it. It was dated Wednesday, 15 July:
You will be wondering why. Her name is Vadia Bermanski and she is a Polish-born Jewess. She thought nobody knew but that is because she does not realise that files can be opened and records searched. She is also obdurate and physically deficient. She always made my skin crawl. I watched the police take her and the other woman away. Vadia dropped her spectacles and a policeman trod on them. Digest that image, Coralie de Lirac. Imagine her final fumbling views of Paris, and you will now understand the cost of sabotaging my life and my work. How will you fare without your ‘right hand’? Who will prove herself the better milliner now?
It was signed ‘LR’.
‘Maman?’ Noëlle plucked at her sleeve.
‘I’m all right, precious.’
A Romany woman had once told Coralie that she would kill and she’d found the idea laughable. Back then, she’d not understood the complexities of friendship and love. Neither had she known that people like Lorienne Royer existed.
She gazed around her salon. I’m an Englishwoman who loves France and I will fight this evil, whatever it costs.
It would cost, and she would start paying when a honey-sweet autumn turned Paris once more into a city of gold.
*
Another Thursday morning, towards the close of September. Coralie dropped Noëlle off at her new school on boulevard de Courcelles. It was a private one, recommended by Mademoiselle Guinard. Noëlle was ready for proper school, she’d said. The child was gifted.
It was just a hop from the Hôtel Duet, and after she’d left Noëlle, Coralie cycled through parc Monceau, where the ghosts of her youthful love affair still walked. She had not given up the business of hats – not with private education to add to her other bills – but because La Passerinette now consisted of herself, alone, she had established a new regime. Arriving at half past nine, she manufactured until lunchtime. After lunch, she took off her apron, turned the ‘Fermé’ sign to ‘Ouvert’ and became fitter and vendeuse. At six, she went home.
There had been no autumn–winter show, the grief-laden summer sucking creativity from her. She now made hats to suit the individual customer, each one absorbing her until it was complete, when she would jump, like a grasshopper, to the next. She had put up her prices and, rather to her surprise, was ridiculously busy. Wheeling her bicycle into La Passerinette’s lobby, she heard the telephone ringing in her workroom.
‘Possess your soul in patience,’ she muttered, digging for her keys, which, inevitably, were right at the bottom of her bag. The telephone rang stubbornly on. At last, she picked up, giving her usual, ‘Bonjour, La Passerinette.’
‘Please come over – now.’ A woman.
‘Who is it?’
‘I just got home from a night shift and learned that soldiers called at my door at six this morning. Looks like today’s the day.’
‘Una? You sound like a guitar string about to break. The day for what?’
‘They’re taking us Americans in. I called the hospital and some of my colleagues have already been arrested. I’ve maybe got a few minutes, an hour if I’m lucky.’
‘Then grab your things and get over here. I’ll hide you.’
‘And put Little One’s life on the line? No, it’s face-the-music time.’ A shaky laugh. ‘This is German–US politics and we’re caught in the middle, but I can’t think they’ll keep us too long. Can you come over, though, fast as you can?’
For once, the Métro ran without stoppages. Even so, Coralie arrived to find Una on the pavement, flanked by German Feldgendarmarie. They were burly men with silver gorgets around their necks like over-sized dog tags. They had fighting-dog faces to match. Even so, Una was arguing.
The men were trying to induce her to step into the open back of a troop truck. Coralie saw faces peering out from under the canvas. All female. All, presumably, American detainees. Some were dressed as if for a diplomatic reception. Others were bundled into mismatched clothes as if they’d been jerked out of bed or from their kitchens.
A policemen ordered Una, ‘Get in, girl, quickly.’
‘Honey, I can’t.’
Coralie saw the difficulty. Una had chosen to wear her plaid Javier suit, the one called Lomond, and its skirt was too narrow to make the step.
Walking forward, Coralie explained the problem in German, at the same time pulling off her coat, making a screen of it so Una was able to hitch up her skirt and join her compatriots. ‘My suitcase,’ Una rasped.
Coralie handed it into the truck. ‘Only field-police,’ she hissed in lightning-fast French. ‘No you-know-who.’ The absence of Gestapo suggested that Una’s Resistance activities were not the cause of her arrest. It looked like politics, pure and simple.
‘Tell Arkady I’ll be back soon as I can.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Vichy, playing at the Hôtel du Parc. Take care of him and here,’ Una dropped her house keys into Coralie’s hand, ‘use anything of mine you like, and please—’
Coralie was pulled away from the truck so roughly, she felt the cartilage crack in her armpits. The vehicle was revving. A soldier pulled down the canvas flap, knocking Una backwards, but as the truck drew off, an immaculately manicured hand forced a gap. Una’s face appeared. ‘Feed the dog!’
‘You don’t have a dog.’
‘Sure I do. My bulldog. Take it to my good friends at the hospital.’
In Una’s flat – her old flat – Coralie checked every room in case Una really had acquired a dog. An apricot toy poodle, she could believe. Or maybe a Maltese terrier dyed to match the McBride wardrobe . . . but a snuffling, bandy-legged bunch of muscle? That’d be the day.
Finding no signs of canine occupation, she presumed that shock had temporarily addled Una’s brain. She unplugged the lamps, checked the gas was off on the stove and that there were no dripping taps. Finding notepaper on the dining table, she wrote a message for Arkady, telling him to call her. The radio was in its usual place among the pots of mustard and honey, and Coralie moved the dial from Radio Londres, where Una had left it. ‘You’ve been listening to the British Broadcasting Corporation – oh!’ Bulldog! British bulldog!
Checking that rue de Seine was clear of uniforms, she fetched a broom and tapped on the ceiling hatch, calling out in English, ‘You can come down now. I’m a friend.’
Moments later, RAF Pilot Officer Terrence Bidcroft was stretching his limbs and blinking. As she boiled water for coffee, Coralie explained that Madame McBride had been detained. ‘Looks like I
’m your helping hand from now on. I’ll have to find out what I’m supposed to do with you. Meanwhile, how d’you take your coffee? Ersatz, I’m afraid.’
‘Who’s Madame McBride?’ Bidcroft asked anxiously, as he sipped the milkless brew. He had a ruddy complexion, sandy hair and a handlebar moustache.
‘Your hostess. The lady who lives here.’
‘You mean Paule? That’s what I was told to call her. This is dangerous work and operatives have code names. What’s yours, miss?’
‘I haven’t got one. Can’t you tell I’m new to this?’ As soon as the words were out, Coralie knew she’d re-voiced a pledge. She’d wanted to fight barbarity and the moment had arrived. And with it, lethal danger.
*
Two days later, she was standing on a platform at Gare de Lyon, sobs splitting her throat. The Resistance had chosen her, forcing an agonising choice of her own. She was sending Noëlle to Switzerland in the company of Henriette Junot. In any other situation, she wouldn’t have entrusted a pot plant to Henriette’s care but war forced people to the strangest compromises. God protect her darling, and God help Henriette if she botched it.
During the summer, Coralie and Una had exchanged letters with Max von Silberstrom, who had confirmed, in carefully coded terms, that he and Ottilia lived together in a quiet square in the centre of Geneva. Coralie was confident that Noëlle would find a loving foster home with them. Persuading Henriette to take the child there had not been easy, however.
‘I don’t like children and my memory isn’t what it was. I may leave her on the train. Anyway, the girl doesn’t have an Ausweis.’
‘She does.’ Coralie produced the permit that Dietrich had left for her. ‘It carries my name too, but you can explain that I was taken ill.’
Reading in Coralie an unshakeable determination, Henriette had sighed. ‘Very well.’ When Coralie had given her the von Silberstrom address, her expression had lifted. ‘Goodness, that’s the finest square in Geneva. Is it the housekeeper you’re friends with?’
The Girl Who Dreamed of Paris Page 36