Page 17 of The Dressmaker's Gift
1942
Mireille and Vivi had been so kind to her when they’d got back to the apartment after that awful encounter with Ernst and his family in the Louvre, but Claire had shut herself in her room, not wanting to see the pity written on their faces, knowing what an idiot she’d been.
Mireille had tapped on the door in the evening, bringing Claire a bowl of stew. ‘Come on,’ she’d urged, with a kindness that brought tears to Claire’s eyes. ‘You need to eat. Keep your strength up.’
Claire had shaken her head, feeling sick with humiliation, but Mireille had insisted, perching on the bed beside her.
And then the floodgates had opened and Claire began to sob. ‘How could I have been so stupid? Did he single me out because he could see I was a foolish girl who would fall for his charms?’
Mireille shook her head. ‘You’re not stupid. Just young and inexperienced in the ways of the world. Perhaps he sensed your innocence. He fed you the words you’d wanted to hear.’
‘Yes, but I swallowed them without stopping to wonder whether there was any truth in them.’ Claire’s cheeks blazed as she recalled the asides he used to make to his fellow-officers when they went out, how they’d all laugh. At the time, she told Mireille, she’d assumed they were just harmless jokes, part of the role as the life and soul of the party he enjoyed playing when in company. But now she wondered how many of those asides had been at her expense.
Overcome with humiliation and shame, she sobbed on Mireille’s shoulder as she spoke of her family. When she’d been with Ernst, she’d pushed the memories of Jean-Paul’s words to the back of her mind, justifying her actions by telling herself that he didn’t understand how hard it was to live in the city. Women were powerless at the best of times, and the war heightened that feeling, but being with Ernst had given her a sense of security as well as the luxury of being pampered and envied. Now she saw that that sense of safety had been built on the fantasy that she’d spun for herself out of silk stockings and glasses of champagne. ‘How could I have betrayed my own brothers in that way? Oh Mireille, I can’t bear to think what they must think of me. Jean-Paul went off to the work camps knowing that I was ...’ she hesitated, choosing her words carefully, ‘... Enjoying the attentions of the enemy. How I wish I could tell him now that I know how wrong I’ve been!’
Mireille stroked her arm, comforting her. With a sigh, she said, ‘Well you’re certainly not the first girl to have had her head turned by the promise of a little luxury and indulgence. But the important thing is that you’ve learnt your lesson now. The next time a dashing German officer crosses your path, you won’t take the bait quite so easily, I reckon.’
‘I won’t take the bait at all,’ Claire retorted, with a vehemence that made Mireille smile. ‘I hate the Nazis. For everything they have done. To me. To my family. And to my country.’
As she nursed her broken heart and tried to focus on her work in the months that followed, Claire sensed that change was in the air. When the Germans first invaded, there had been a sense of numb incomprehension amongst the citizens of Paris. And perhaps it had been tempting to believe the propaganda posters that had appeared, showing kindly-looking Nazi soldiers protecting France’s people and providing food for France’s starving children. But as the calendar rolled over to another new year, the mood had shifted.
There was a sense of volatility sweeping through the city. Stories of protests and acts of defiance were rife and some Résistants even dared to attack their German occupiers. Of course, the retaliation against such acts was swift and brutal: executions took place in the streets, and everyone had heard talk of the trains that pulled cattle trucks filled with human cargo, which departed more and more frequently from the Gare d’Austerlitz and the Gare de l’Est. There were rumours, too, of an internment camp in the Drancy suburb to the north-east of the city centre, to which the Jewish residents who had been rounded up were sent. The fact that this camp was patrolled by the French police rather than by German guards only added to the sense of angry unease that more and more of Paris’s inhabitants were beginning to feel.
And now this unease was beginning to work its way into Claire’s consciousness. She worried for her brothers, Jean-Paul and Théo. There had been no news of them. Had they managed to meet up in Germany? She hoped they had and that they worked alongside one another in some factory somewhere, keeping each other’s spirits up until the day they could return to their home in France. She grieved for Luc, and nausea rose in her throat when she thought of his body lying in a war grave in the east, all that time that she had so foolishly spent with Ernst – an agent of the very regime which had killed her brother. It was as if she’d been sleepwalking through those months, seduced by the illusion that money and glamour would change her life, distracting her from the reality of what was happening in the world around her.
As time went by, though, and the mood in the city around her changed, Claire felt a change happening within herself as well. Her heart had begun to mend – as hearts will do if they are given enough exposure to time and the kindness of good friends – and as it mended, it transformed into something new. The hard lesson that she’d learned had forced her to reflect on the person she really was, and on the person she wanted to be, and she discovered a new core of resolve within herself.
And so it was, one evening when Vivi had stayed on at her work in the sewing room again, that Claire knocked on the door of Mireille’s room.
‘Come in!’ called Mireille from within.
Claire stepped over the threshold, into the tiny bedroom under the eaves, and stood in silence for a moment, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Then she said, ‘I want to help. Tell me what I can do, Mireille. I am ready to fight back now.’
Mireille rose from where she sat on her bed and pushed the door closed, quietly but firmly. Then she patted the quilted cover, motioning Claire to sit down.
‘It’s not that easy, Claire. Are you certain that this is a step you want to take?’ she asked in a low voice.
Claire nodded. ‘I hate them. I hate what they have done to me, personally – to my family – and what they continue to do to our country. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get here, but I’m ready now.’
Mireille gave her a long, appraising look, as if seeing her friend for the first time. ‘Very well then,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll speak to someone. I’ll let you know.’
Claire slept more deeply that night than she had done in many years, as if her newfound resolve provided an extra blanket to warm the bitter chill that had kept her frozen for so long. And as it melted, it bonded the final pieces of her shattered heart back together, into something altogether stronger.
Mireille and Claire crossed the Pont Neuf one bright morning in February. It was the Sunday before Lent and the bells of Notre-Dame were ringing, summoning the faithful to Mass, but the girls pressed on, crossing to the right bank of the Seine and continuing along the quayside, following the silver ribbon of the river downstream until they reached the Tuileries garden. There were no special pastries in the windows of the bakeries that they passed, nor would there be any chocolates to be enjoyed when Easter finally arrived that year. The privations of the war were biting harder than ever now, making themselves felt in the constant hunger that gnawed at the girls’ stomachs. They had grown so used to the pangs now, though, that they hardly noticed any more.
At the entrance to the park, Mireille put a hand on Claire’s arm, stopping her for a moment. ‘Are you still sure that you want to do this, Claire? You haven’t had second thoughts?’
‘No. More than ever, I am sure.’
Mireille smiled, taking in the look of determination on her friend’s face. It was a new expression, one that she hadn’t seen in Claire’s gentle demeanour until recently, and it revealed a side to her character that had lain dormant. But now it had been awakened and Mireille recognised a flame of resolute defiance in her friend, the same flame that burned in her own breast.
It had taken several weeks for Mireille to convince the other members of the network that Claire could be relied upon. She’d been upfront with them about Claire’s liaison with a German officer, but had also told them that she had grown certain of her friend’s commitment to work against the invaders during their heart-to-hearts over the past few months. Eventually the dyer had told her that Monsieur Leroux was prepared to meet her friend, as there might be a role for her. ‘Bring her to the Tuileries on Sunday morning. He will be walking past the Jeu de Paume at eleven o’clock. He wants to talk to her, to see if she really is suitable.’
She recognised his tall figure from a distance as they approached. He was strolling past the entrance to the gallery which housed Monet’s beautiful waterlily paintings. Now, though, the artworks were kept behind locked doors and a German soldier stood guard outside. Monsieur Leroux appeared completely unconcerned by the soldier’s presence and even nodded pleasantly in the guard’s direction as he passed by. When the girls approached, a little more slowly now given the presence of the Nazi soldier in the background, he made a show of stopping, as if surprised and pleased to recognise the two girls who also happened to be out for a stroll, enjoying the sunshine on that bright, early spring morning. He raised his hat to them and Mireille introduced Claire, who looked at him quizzically for a moment, as if she recognised him from somewhere, but couldn’t quite place him. He smiled at the two girls and then, as if politely suggesting that they continue their walk together, he gestured towards a distant avenue of pleached hornbeams, and they fell into step beside him.
He looked, for all the world, like the playboy he was reputed to be. Mireille had heard the models speculating about him as she’d been pinning up the hem of a woman’s coat that he had commissioned. ‘Apparently he has several mistresses. He always keeps his accounts separate and pays them in cash, so they won’t find out about each other I suppose. He must be absolutely loaded! He seems to favour our Nazi visitors, too. I saw him at the Brasserie Lipp the other evening and he was wining and dining a “grey mouse”. I reckon she wanted to eat the sauerkraut there to remind her of home. Anyway, I hope this coat isn’t for her – she was a real dumpling. One of the other girls says he hosts Nazi officers and their wives there sometimes, too.’
‘He’s very handsome, that sandy hair makes him look so distinguished,’ the other model had remarked, languorously rearranging her silk dressing gown where it had slipped open to reveal the black lace of the camisole she wore underneath. She took another drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke towards the ceiling of the room behind the salon, where the models waited in between clients’ visits.
