Page 5 of The Dressmaker's Gift
As Mireille stood in the doorway of Esther’s old room, Claire slipped an arm around her shoulders. ‘What happened to her?’ she asked, quietly.
Staring at the iron bedstead with its mattress stripped bare, Mireille’s face was expressionless as she told Claire in a low voice how they’d got caught up in the flood of refugees fleeing Paris as the German forces broke through the Maginot Line and advanced on the capital. The road south had been choked with the tide of civilians when the lone plane attacked, diving again and again to strafe the crowd with machine-gun fire. ‘Esther had gone to try to find some food for Blanche. When I found her, her face looked so peaceful. But the blood was everywhere, Claire. Everywhere.’
The expression of wide-eyed horror on Claire’s face crumpled as her tears began to flow. ‘And Blanche?’ she whispered. ‘Did she die too?’
Mireille shook her head. And then she turned to look at Claire, meeting her eyes at last, with a flash of defiance. ‘No. They didn’t get Blanche. She is safe with my family in the Sud-Ouest.My mother and sister are caring for her there. But, for her own safety, her origins must remain a secret as long as the Nazis continue their barbaric persecution of the Jewish people. Do you understand, Claire? If anyone asks, just say that Esther and Blanche are both dead.’
Claire nodded as she tried, ineffectually, to stem the flow of her tears with her sleeve.
Mireille reached out and grasped Claire by the shoulders with a fierceness in her grip that commanded attention. ‘Save your tears, Claire. There will be a time for grieving when all this is over, but now is not that time. Now we must do all that we can to fight back, to resist this living nightmare.’
‘But how, Mireille? The Germans are everywhere. There’s nothing to be done when our own government has given up on France.’
‘There’s always something to be done, no matter how small and insignificant our efforts may seem. We have toresist.’ She repeated the word again, with an emphasis that made Claire’s eyes widen in fear.
‘Do you mean ...? Would you get involved ...?’
Mireille’s dark curls danced with something of their old determination and there was defiance written across her features as she nodded. Then she asked, ‘And you, Claire? What will you do?’
Claire shook her head. ‘I’m not sure ... I don’t know, Mireille. Surely there’s nothing ordinary people like you and Icando.’
‘But if the “ordinary people” do nothing then who is going to step forward and take a stand against the Nazis? Not the politicians in Vichy who are puppets of the new regime; and not the French army whose battalions lie rotting in shallow graves along the Eastern Front. We are all that is left, Claire. Ordinary people like you and me.’
After a pause, Claire replied. ‘But aren’t you afraid, Mireille? To get involved in such a dangerous way ... and right under the nose of the German army? Paris is theirs now. They are everywhere.’
‘I was afraid, once. But I have seen what they did to Esther, and to so many others who were on the road that day. More “ordinary people”. And now I am angry. And anger is stronger than fear.’
Claire shrugged, causing Mireille to relinquish her grip on her shoulders. ‘It’s too late, Mireille. We have to accept that things have changed. France is not the only country to have fallen to the Germans. Let the Allies do the fighting. It’s enough of a battle to stay alive these days without going looking for trouble elsewhere.’
Stepping backwards into the narrow hallway, Mireille reached for the handle of the door to Esther’s room and pulled it firmly shut.
Claire tugged nervously at the hem of her shirt, uncertain what to say next. ‘There’s a bit of supper ...’ she began.
‘That’s alright,’ Mireille replied, with a smile that couldn’t erase the sadness in her eyes. ‘I’m not hungry tonight. I think I’ll just unpack my things and get some sleep.’
She turned towards her own bedroom, but then paused, without looking back. Her voice was calm and low as she said, ‘But you’re wrong, Claire. It is never too late.’
Harriet
As I lie in the unfamiliar darkness of my new bedroom, listening to the sounds of Paris by night wafting up from the streets down below, I mull over what Simone has told me of my grandmother’s story so far. It seems important to capture her words, so I’ve begun to write them down in the journal that I’ve brought with me. I’d intended to use it to record my year working in Paris, but Claire and Mireille’s story seems so connected to me, such a vital part of who I am, that I want to remember every detail.
As I read back over the first few pages, I have to admit to feeling a little disappointed that it was Mireille who wanted to join the Resistance and not Claire, who quite frankly seems to have been a bit of a wimp in comparison. But she was young, I remind myself, and hadn’t experienced the horrors of the war in the way that Mireille had.
The background sounds of the traffic a couple of streets away on the Boulevard Saint-Germain are interrupted by the urgent wail of police sirens. Their sudden noise makes my heartbeat race. As I listen to them fade, the city lights cast a dull orange glow through my attic window and I reach out a hand to steady myself, touching the bars of the bedstead behind my head. The metal feels cool, despite the mugginess of the city night. The mattress on my bed is clearly a recent addition and is comfortable enough, but could this be one of the original bed frames that was in the apartment all those years ago? Did Claire sleep here? Or Esther and her baby, Blanche?
I roll on to my side, willing sleep to come. In the dim light, the photograph on the chest of drawers gleams faintly in its frame. I can just make out the three figures, although I can’t see their faces in the darkness.
I recall Simone’s words of warning from earlier, that I should only ask questions if I am absolutely certain that I want to know the answers. Which is worse, I wonder: knowing the horrors of war like Mireille, or choosing to remain as unaware as possible like Claire?
Simone must have realised I’d feel a bit let down by my grandmother’s passivity and her reluctance to join the struggle against the Occupation. Maybe that was why she didn’t want to tell me the story. But how could any of us nowadays know what it feels like to have your country invaded? What it feels like to live with deprivation and fear, in the grip of foreign control, with the ever-present threat of casual acts of brutality? How could any of us know how we’d respond?
I fall asleep at last. And I dream of rows of girls in white coats, their heads bowed over their work as they stitch together an endless river of blood-red silk.
1940
Mireille shivered as she waited outside the tobacconist on the Rue Buffon, pretending to wait for a bus. It was bitterly cold and her feet were frozen. She knew that later on, when she washed them in a bowl of warmed water back at the apartment, her toes would itch and burn as the chilblains that pierced them thawed out.
To take her mind off the cold, she ran through her instructions in her head once again, making sure she’d got them straight. Wait here until a man in a grey homburg with a green band goes into the shop. He will come out carrying a copy ofLe Temps. Go into the shop and buy a copy of the newspaper, asking the tobacconist whether he has any of yesterday’s edition left over. He will hand you a folded copy from under the counter. Keep it safe in your bag. Walk to the Métro at the Gare d’Austerlitz and catch a train back to Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Sitting at a table in the back corner of the Café de Flore, you will see a man with sandy-coloured hair wearing a silk tie with a paisley pattern. Join him as if greeting a friend, and he will order you a coffee. Put the folded copy of the newspaper on the table while you drink your coffee. When you leave, do not pick it up.
