The Milliner's Secret (50 page)

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 locked 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 owners, Henriette. Be civil to them – you might get on their dinner-party list.’

Putting Noëlle on the train, passing up her little suitcase, checking she still had the address label around her neck should Henriette’s memory indeed fail, Coralie felt eviscerating pain. ‘You have that letter for Tante Tilly?’

‘Yes, Maman. Why aren’t you coming?’

‘It’s a holiday, just for you.’ The letter read, Please take care of her and tell her every day that she is all the world to me.

She left as the train pulled out, and strode home, bellowing like a cow whose calf has been ripped away, heedless of glances and even the occasional snicker. In her flat, she cast herself on to the sofa and beat the cushions until her fists burned. By linking up with Una’s people at the American Hospital, taking Pilot Officer Bidcroft to a railway station and handing him over to a Resistance courier, she had crossed a line. She was part of something big, yet utterly alone. At least now she could give herself up to danger without putting her daughter at risk. Now she must wait and see what more the Resistance wanted of her.