Page 39 of The Dressmaker's Gift
Mireille flung open the windows of the apartment to try and encourage a breath of early evening air to cool the overheated attic rooms, and then she turned on the radio. As she poured herself a glass of water in the kitchen, the announcer’s words drew her back to listen more closely.
‘Let us put an end to these convoys,’ the voice urged. ‘Yesterday another thousand or more men and women were sent east. And today we say “Enough!” Enough of our countrymen have disappeared to the German work camps. It’s time for them to be allowed to come home now. Citizens of Paris, it’s time to put an end to this. The Métro workers, thegendarmesand the police have come out on strike. We call on all other citizens to join them in a wider act of resistance. Rise up now and let us take back our city!’
As if in response to the call to arms, she heard the sound of gunfire from the direction of the river, followed by the dull thud of an explosion somewhere further to the north. There were shouts on the street below, and the sound of running feet seemed to replicate the throbbing of her pounding heart.
She felt an overwhelming urge to be part of it, whatever it was that was happening out there ... Without stopping to think, she ran down the metal stairs and out on to the Rue Cardinale. The tall buildings hemmed her in on the narrow street and so, instinctively, she turned and headed for the river’s more open vistas.
A group of young men marched briskly towards the Pont Neuf, carrying whatever arms they’d managed to procure from who-knew-where. More men emerged from the cellars and the attics of the buildings along the quayside, waiters and clerks and policemen: Resistance fighters all.
Mireille hesitated in the shade of a plane tree, unsure which way to go. At the end of the bridge, men and women were setting up barricades, dragging anything they could find to pile up across the road. Two men began cutting down one of the trees that flanked the entrance to the bridge, hacking desperately into it with axes.
Mireille ran to help a group that was levering up paving stones, adding them to the growing defences. Her hands bled as she clawed at the mortar holding a slab in place, prising a corner loose until the stone was freed and she could stagger to the barricade with it.
‘Look out!’ a man shouted, as the tree began to topple, and she leapt clear as it fell.
Just then, a German armoured car swept towards them across the bridge, spitting machine-gun fire. Bullets ricocheted off the stonework as the Résistants returned fire, and the man dragged Mireille down to crouch behind the fallen tree as a bullet embedded itself into the trunk beside her. The armoured car swerved and then careened off along thequaiin the opposite direction. The man grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. ‘Go home, miss,’ he said. ‘It’s not safe out here on the streets. The city is a battleground now. Get yourself back inside.’ At the far end of the bridge, a German tank lumbered into view, its gun barrel swinging menacingly towards the barricades. ‘Hurry! Go now, while you can.’ He pushed her towards the Rue Dauphine and she ran, stumbling, towards the shelter of the narrow streets of therive gauche. As she fled, she glanced back over her shoulder at the tank as it advanced on the barricades, where one of the fighters lay, at the end of the bridge, in a pool of bright blood.
Back in the apartment, the radio was still filling the empty rooms with its tirade, urging the citizens to retake the city. She flung herself down on to the chair, gasping for breath, and sat listening late into the night to the voices from afar and the closer patter of gunfire, as the battle for Paris raged on.
In the camp, they were used to ‘selections’ being made almost every day. Prisoners were marched away or herded into buses to be transported to and from the many other satellite camps that dotted the region. Some came back to report where they’d been, but others never returned.
At roll call one morning, when the other prisoners marched off to the factories for the day, Claire and Vivi were ordered to remain behind, along with a number of other women. Claire risked a glance at the others left standing on the dusty square in front of the huts. One or two looked afraid, not knowing where they might be sent next and what fate awaited them there. But most just stood with their eyes cast downwards, scarcely able to care. Vivi caught her eye and smiled, encouragingly.
‘Eyes forward,’ snapped the guard.
The women stood, swaying in the summer sun that beat down on their shaven heads protected only by thin cotton headscarves, until at last they were ordered to begin walking. The bedraggled, starving line of women filed out through the gates of the camp and followed the guards to the train station, where a line of trucks was drawn up alongside the platform.
‘Please God, not again,’ Claire prayed, remembering the long, slow journey that had brought them to Flossenbürg in the first place. A guard pulled open the heavy sliding door of one of the trucks and at first Claire couldn’t make sense of what she saw. Slowly, squinting against the strong sunlight, in the darkness inside the wooden carriage she made out a tangled heap of blue and white striped cloth and pale limbs. Dark eyes gazed up at her, sunk into skull-like faces. And then she realised that these were women. The stench of death made her cover her nose and mouth, as the guard hastily pulled the door shut again.
‘Next carriage,’ shouted an SS officer, waving them further down the platform. In silence, the women climbed into the empty cattle truck that awaited them. The wooden door rolled closed, shutting out the light, and a few minutes later the train lurched forward.
The battle for Paris raged through the streets of the city for four days. Mireille listened to the radio broadcasts as reports came in that the Resistance fighters had occupied the Grand Palais and were coming under fire from German troops. Skirmishes were breaking out all across the city but, at the same time, columns of German vehicles had been seen moving down the Champs-Élysées, retreating eastwards.
The next night, the pitch of the broadcasts changed again, becoming even more frenzied. ‘Take heart, citizens of Paris!’ cried the announcer, ‘the Second French Armoured Division is on its way. A vanguard is at the Porte d’Italie right now. Rise up and fight to take back your country!’
From the road below came the sound of running feet and volleys of shots.
But then she heard something else. She pushed her feet into her shoes and ran downstairs, hurrying towards the river again for the first time since she’d helped build the barricades on the Pont Neuf. She joined a growing flood of people taking to the streets of their city and, one by one, they added their voices to the song.
‘La Marseillaise’rang through the streets as French and Spanish troops, in American tanks and trucks, opened fire on the German fortifications.
When they’d boarded the train at Flossenbürg, Claire and Vivi hadn’t known where they were being taken, or how long the journey would last. But after just a few hours’ jolting progress, the train jerked to a halt.
The women lifted their bowed heads at the sound of shouted commands and then they heard the cattle-car doors being pulled back. At last their own carriage was opened and they helped one another down, blinking in the evening sunshine. They turned their faces away from the piles of bodies that were being unloaded from further up the train and stacked beside the railway tracks. Male prisoners in the ubiquitous striped uniforms were loading the corpses on to handcarts and wheeling them away.
Those who were still alive were ordered into lines and herded alongside the train to a high, white gatehouse. As they walked, one of the other women fell into step alongside Claire and Vivi.
‘Are you the ones from Flossenbürg?’ she asked, keeping her voice low so it wouldn’t be heard beneath the sound of shuffling feet. ‘I saw the name when we stopped at the station.’
Claire nodded.
‘And you?’ asked Vivi. ‘Where have you come from?’
‘Further north,’ replied the woman. ‘A place called Belsen. I’m hoping this camp will be a bit better. It certainly can’t be any worse.’
‘Do you know where we are?’
‘I heard one of the guards say we were being sent to Dachau. Away from the bombing in the north. They’re building new factories here, to replace the ones that have been destroyed. So they need more workers.’
