by Valpy, Fiona
Feeling sickened, I pull on a jacket and head out to get some fresh air. The early-morning city is quiet after the noisy celebrations of last night which have been forgotten now, overtaken by this latest terror attack on French soil. Without planning where I’m going, I head towards the river. I cross the road and stand for a moment, leaning on the wall opposite the Île de la Cité. At first I hardly see the landscape before me. A kaleidoscope of nightmarish images plays in my mind, of a truck careering down a crowded street, and of the concentration camps that I’d researched yesterday. What is this world where human beings can be the perpetrators of such inhumanity against their own kind? I’m trying hard not to let the rising panic overwhelm me and I press my hands against the wall, taking deep breaths.
As my breathing quietens, I realise that I’m looking at the downstream end of the island. And then I notice it: Mireille’s willow tree. It’s still there, on the point at the very tip, its branches trailing their green fingers in the flow of the Seine. I cross the bridge and find the narrow stairs that lead down to where the boat trips depart from the island. The cobbled quay skirts a small public garden and I follow it to the tree. In the middle of the city, I am in an oasis of solitude. The noises of the first of the rush-hour traffic on either side of the river are muted by the veil of leaves and the quiet sounds of the river lapping at the stones that reinforce the banks of the island. Just as Mireille found sanctuary here all those years before, I sit with my back against the trunk of the tree, leaning my head against its reassuring solidity, and my mind calms enough to be able to think more clearly. Setting aside the horror of the terror attack in Nice for now, I mull over what I’ve learned about my grandmother, longing for her to ground me and reassure me.
It was a miracle that Claire survived. I realise that if Vivi hadn’t been there to encourage her and support her, she never would have made it. Vivi’s determination to keep going – and not only that, but to keep trying to find ways to sabotage the Nazi war effort – speaks of an awe-inspiring strength of character. The concentration camp system was set up to be totally dehumanising for the inmates. But it couldn’t break Vivienne’s spirit: she never lost her humanity right up to the very end.
When that end came, though, Claire was left alone. Not only did she have to bear the guilt of having been the cause of Vivi’s arrest in the first place, but she also had to carry the guilt of survival with her for the rest of her life, alongside the scars left by those traumatic eighteen months in the camps. She went on to marry and to have a child. I’ve worked out that my mother was born when her own mother was almost forty . . . it must have taken many years for Claire’s broken mind and body to heal enough for her to be able to sustain a pregnancy. And so Felicity was named for the happiness that she represented to her parents – a miraculous child born to a woman who had survived so much.
Now that I am able to understand it better, I have come to see my mother’s death in a new light. Her final act may have been to take her own life by swallowing a handful of pills and a half-bottle of brandy, but I know that what killed her was the fragility that she had inherited. Born in peacetime, she was still a child who had to carry the legacy of war and it was a legacy that bestowed upon her burdens of her own: the burden of embodying happiness; the burden of those trauma-induced genetic changes that were passed on to her; the hard-wired fear of abandonment. These were the factors that created the perfect storm of despair and hopelessness that overwhelmed her and finally led her to commit suicide.
It helps me to know this, to be able to understand so much more about my mother’s life and death. But it terrifies me as well. How can I escape the same fate? In a world that seems filled with fear and panic, what can I do to stop the cycle repeating itself? Do I carry that same fragility in my own genetic make-up? Am I helpless, or is it possible for me to retake control of my life?
I realise that I can’t find the answers to all these questions on my own. Perhaps I shouldn’t be such a stubborn, independent Breton or Brit. It’s time to be brave enough to ask for help.
And so it is, sitting within the sheltering arms of Mireille’s tree, that I summon up the courage to make an appointment with a counsellor. If it is easier for me to express myself in a foreign language, maybe it will help me talk freely, at last, about the burdens of my own.
1945
‘Mireille, there is great news!’ Monsieur Leroux seized her and hugged her when she opened the door in response to his pounding. ‘They’ve found Claire in one of the work camps! I tracked her down through the Red Cross. She is alive. She’s been ill, and they’ve been caring for her in the camp hospital, but now she is well enough to be evacuated. I’m going out there, to bring her back to a hospital here in Paris where she can continue her recuperation. And I’ll to try to find Vivi too. Claire will have news of her, surely. If Claire has survived then there’s hope that Vivi has as well. You know how strong she is! Perhaps Claire will be able to tell us where she is.’
Mireille’s heart felt as if it would burst with the mixture of emotions that bubbled up at the sight of his joyful face. ‘Where is Claire?’ she asked.
‘A camp called Dachau. Near Munich. I’m leaving today. As soon as I know more, I’ll let you know. They’re coming home to us at last, Mireille, I feel certain.’
Claire’s eyes fluttered open as sunlight streamed through the windows of her hospital room. Her hands looked as though they belonged to someone else where they lay against the clean whiteness of the turned-down sheet. At the end of her skeletal arms, their skin reddened and scarred with acid burns, her knuckles were swollen knobs of bone, her fingertips cracked and hardened. It was hard to believe these hands had ever carefully pieced together offcuts of midnight blue crêpe de Chine with stitches so tiny they couldn’t be seen, and held delicate silver beads in place as she sewed them around the neckline, creating her own constellation of tiny stars in a night sky.
She was still weak from the fever that had overwhelmed her the day after she’d watched Vivi’s body being laid in a hastily dug mass grave, alongside so many others. Even though it was April, the grip of winter had seemed loath to leave Dachau that day and it had snowed, lining the grave with ermine and drawing a soft, white shroud over the piles of corpses that lay stacked beside the muddy trench.
Typhus had swept through the camp and even after its liberation the few thousand remaining prisoners who had been too sick or weak to set off on the death march to the mountains with their fellow inmates, continued to die in their hundreds, in spite of the ministrations of the international Red Cross and the US army doctors. Claire was one of the lucky ones. When the fever had seized her in its brutal grip, she’d been treated promptly and had been well cared for in the makeshift hospital.
And yet, as her strength slowly began to trickle back into her veins, she wished she had died with Vivi. Instead of a liberation, it felt like a lifetime’s sentence: she would live with the knowledge of having been unable to save her friend. And she knew that her life would be filled, every day, with the guilt. It was her fault Vivi had been captured; Vivi had looked after her and protected her, but she hadn’t been able to do the same. She hadn’t even been there when Vivi had taken her last breath.
She had wanted to lie down beside Vivi’s body in the snow-lined grave and sleep for ever.
A nurse, taking the pulse of a patient in the bed opposite, noticed that Claire was awake. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘let me help you sit up a little.’ She plumped the pillow and said, ‘Drink this.’ Claire obeyed, too weak to protest even though the tonic tasted bitter and made her want to retch.
She drifted in and out of sleep and each time she woke she opened her eyes expecting to see Vivi’s smile, dreaming that she would hear her whisper that Claire wasn’t alone, that they were together, that everything would be alright. But she saw only the clean, white sheets that covered the broken husk of her body and an empty chair next to her hospital bed, and the only voices she heard were those of the nurses as they we
nt about their duties. And she would drift off to sleep again, thinking – hoping – that perhaps this time she wouldn’t wake up . . .
The next time she awoke there was someone sitting in the chair. The figure bent towards her, and for a moment her breath caught in a gasp as she looked into Vivi’s clear, hazel eyes.
But then, as she focused, she realised it wasn’t Vivi.
It was a man, who reached for her hand and held on tight, as if he would never let it go.
Harriet
The office at Agence Guillemet is once again a frenetic hive of activity. The usually quiet hum becomes a crescendo of ever-more-frantic conversations as Paris Fashion Week approaches and the pressure mounts on the account managers to handle last-minute crises (models going AWOL, a shipment of shoes stuck in French customs, requests for radio and press interviews . . .). Simone and I are run off our feet, helping get everything ready and keeping the coffees coming. We work all through the weekend and barely stop to grab a sandwich for lunch on the Monday, the day before the official launch of Fashion Week. My year-long internship is up, but Florence has asked me to stay on for an extra few weeks to help with the busiest time of the year. I’ve put off thinking about what I’ll do next. I’d love to stay on in Paris, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to Florence about the possibility of a full-time position at Agence Guillemet. I know it must be a long shot, though, or she’d have suggested it before now. Maybe I’ll have to go back to London and try to get a job there. Every time I think about leaving Paris, I feel a wrench of sadness, as if the tentative roots I’ve put down here are about to be wrenched up as I start somewhere new all over again. The pattern of my life – the constant upheavals, the packing and unpacking, the next move to another place where I don’t really have any sense of belonging – seems inexorable and inescapable.
I try not to think about that today, though. Work is the perfect displacement activity so I immerse myself in it. I’m just finishing up, putting the final touches to some goody bags filled with our client’s eco-cosmetics that will be handed out to guests at one of the catwalk shows, when Florence comes through reception. ‘You’re working late, Harriet.’ She smiles. ‘And thank you, those look wonderful.’ She fishes in her handbag (a classic Mulberry, naturally) and brings out a couple of white cards. ‘Here,’ she says. ‘I have two extra of these. I think you and Simone more than deserve them. I’ll see you there.’
She gives a little wave as she sweeps out of the door, calling, ‘Bon courage!’ as she heads home to prepare for the biggest week of the year in the fashion capital of the world.
I examine the cards. Embossed across the top is a logo that is instantly recognisable.
I run up the stairs to the apartment, taking them two at a time, and am so out of breath by the time I get to the fifth floor that I can scarcely get the words out to tell Simone that we have invitations to the Vogue party. And it’s being held at the Palais Galliera. So now I know exactly how Cinderella felt when she was told that she’d be going to the ball.
As we join the procession of the glamorously famous climbing the steps of the museum, I’m so excited I can hardly breathe. In the background, the Eiffel Tower flashes as if clad in silver lamé and then sparkles as if covered in sequins. It’s been the headline of all the papers, a light show commissioned especially for Fashion Week. There’s a sense of magic in the air, which is heightened by the sight of the museum building as we approach, lit so that the pure white of the stonework appears ethereal against the black of the night.
Inside, the hall and main gallery are filled with people dressed in a dazzling range of outfits, from the avant-garde of those who are trying hard to grab the attention of the movers and shakers in the fashion world to the classically understated of those who have no need to try at all. Cameras flash and a film crew circulates, capturing the glittering array of guests. Music pumps from hidden speakers and both the temperature and the volume of conversation in the room soar. Clutching our glasses of champagne, Simone and I weave our way through the crowd, nudging each other as we recognise models, actors and fashion editors. Florence catches sight of us and waves us over to where she is in conversation with a man whom she introduces as one of the directors of Paris Vogue. She is generous in including us, but we are aware, too, that this is a business event for her and so we soon drift away, leaving her to her high-level networking. Simone bumps into a client of the agency who she’s met before and I leave them to chat as I circle the room. I can hardly believe this is the same place that I’ve come to for refuge, seeking out the peace and reassurance of the history it contains. It’s the perfect setting for this glamorous party, of course, but a little bit of me resents the invasion. How many of the people here have even noticed the exhibits, I wonder.
Setting down my empty glass, I slip through into an adjacent room which is almost empty. Everyone wants to be where the action is, hoping to be snapped in one of the photographs that will appear in Vogue magazines from New York and London to Delhi and Sydney. So it’s easy to find a little peace and quiet away from the hubbub in a room where a series of Belle Époque evening gowns are displayed in glass cases.
As I stand looking at a beautiful crystal-encrusted satin creation which would overshadow any of the party outfits in the next room, a voice says, ‘Hello.’
I turn to see the woman with the silver-white hair. Tonight, instead of her tailored jacket she is wearing a black dress which is cut to drape elegantly around her neat figure. It looks deceptively simple, but I think that Mireille and Claire would have appreciated the technical complexity of the design, made to flatter and flow, balancing the monotone severity of the garment with a series of tucks that give the dress its structure.
‘Good evening,’ I reply.
‘It’s certainly busy through there.’ The woman smiles, tilting her head towards the main exhibition hall.
‘I know. It’s a fantastic party. I just wanted to get a breath of air.’
‘I understand.’ She turns to face the dress in the display case. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it? You enjoy the history of these pieces, don’t you? I’ve seen you here before, n’est-ce pas? Usually you are writing in your notebook. Are you a journalist?’
I tell her about my internship at Agence Guillemet, which will soon be coming to an end, and that I’ve been piecing together the story of my grandmother – the one I mentioned to her that day when we met in the Lanvin exhibition, who worked in couture during the war years.
She nods. ‘It’s a good thing to do, writing it down. The strands of history can be so tangled and complex, can’t they? Here at the museum, we attempt to tease out some of those strands, letting the clothes tell their stories. And stories are so important, aren’t they? I always believe we tell them in order to make sense of the chaos of our lives.’
‘You work here, then? At the Palais Galliera?’
She digs into the clutch bag she carries and hands me a card. She is Sophie Rousseau – manager of early twentieth century collections.
‘Thank you, Madame Rousseau. My name is Harriet. Harriet Shaw.’
She shakes my hand formally. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Harriet. And I’ve enjoyed our conversations. Get in touch when you’re next coming in. If I have the time, I’ll take you to see some of the gowns we have from the 1940s in our archives in the basement here.’
‘I will. Thank you.’
She appraises me with her warm grey-green eyes. And then she says, ‘I don’t know if it would interest you, but there’s a huge development project planned for the museum, to create a new, larger exhibition space in part of the basement. We will be taking on some additional staff shortly to begin planning for it. The museum will be closed for a while, but when we reopen we’ll be able to display many more of the items that are kept hidden away in the archives. Send me your CV if you like and I’ll pass it on. When you’ve finished your grandmother’s story, there are plenty more to help tell here.’
‘A job? Here at the Palais Galliera? I
t would be beyond my wildest dreams!’ I exclaim. ‘I’d love to send you my CV.’ I tuck her card carefully into my handbag.
‘Well now, it’s probably time to return to the mêlée, don’t you think? Allons-y! But I’ll look forward to seeing you again soon, Harriet. Enjoy the rest of your evening.’
I float through the remainder of the party, trying – and failing – to keep my feet on the ground as I imagine myself working in these very rooms. Perhaps it’s the champagne giving me courage, but I’m beginning to dare to dream of a life for myself in Paris.
1945
Each weekend, Mireille made the trip to visit Claire at the American Hospital in Neuilly, bringing with her news from the world outside: a world no longer at war. She would tuck her arm into Claire’s and take her outside to walk slowly along the paths between manicured lawns and beds full of bright flowers, letting the summer sun coax a little colour back into her cheeks. When Claire grew tired, they would sit on a bench beneath the trees and Mireille would entertain her friend with stories from the Lelong couture house, describing the latest designs created by Monsieur Dior and adding snippets of gossip about the clients who came for their fittings.
At first, it seemed that Claire was reluctant to return to the world that she’d been taken from, almost as if she didn’t want to be there. But slowly, week by week with help and care, Mireille watched her friend return to life. And very gently, when she sensed the time was right, she began to prompt Claire to talk about the things that had happened to her and to Vivi. Some of the memories were still too painful to bring out into the light of those Paris summer days, but Claire talked about working in the textile factory and the sewing room in the camp’s reception centre, and she remembered how Vivi had never stopped finding ways to resist, in spite of the beatings and the torture, the starvation and the cold. When others around them had been deprived of the last scraps of their humanity, Vivi had refused to relinquish hers. It was those memories, more than anything else, that helped Claire to begin to heal.