Sisters of the Resistance

by Christine Wells

  Dedication

  For Allister and Adrian, with all my love

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Acknowledgments

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the Author

  About the Book

  Praise for Sisters of the Resistance

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  Paris, February 1947

  YVETTE

  Paris was freezing. Even colder than New York. Yvette waited while the young lawyer’s clerk who had met her at the Gare Saint-Lazare patted his pockets and muttered to himself. Monsieur LeBrun was small, neat, and brilliantined, with round black spectacles like bicycle tires framing his dark eyes.

  For mercy’s sake, stop fussing and let’s get somewhere warm, she begged him silently. But with such men, one must be patient.

  “Ah!” He fished out a paper from an inner coat pocket with an expression of mild triumph. “You will be staying at . . .” He frowned at his itinerary as if it confused him. “The Ritz.”

  Yvette nearly dropped her suitcase. “Vraiment?” She peered over LeBrun’s shoulder to check, but there it was in black and white. Louise Dulac had hauled her all the way across the Atlantic to testify at her trial. Knowing the film star, Yvette had not expected simple gratitude, much less accommodation fit for a king.

  Perhaps Louise was sending her a message: You were complicit. You were there, too.

  “If you will follow me, mademoiselle.” LeBrun took Yvette’s suitcase and they stepped into the thin light of a wintry Parisian afternoon.

  Yvette’s last memories of Paris were of sweltering heat and evening thunderstorms. For a moment, the sight of this brittle, frigid metropolis disoriented her. Then she looked up and saw the delicate strength of the Eiffel Tower standing tall above the tree-lined boulevards, caught the faint strains of an accordion from a café down the street, and the city swept her up in its embrace.

  Half-laughing, Yvette closed her eyes, lifted her shoulders, and inhaled deeply. The air was so cold it burned her lungs, but it was ripe with those old, familiar smells. As in any city, there was exhaust mixed with the whiff of wet rubbish and urine, the chemical tang of printer’s ink from a nearby newspaper stand. But she caught the phantom scent of baking bread, the earthy sweetness of Gauloise cigarettes, and the faint, complex notes of French perfume.

  “How I have missed you,” she whispered. New York, for all its excitement and challenges, had not been Paris.

  A sharp crack-ack-ack made her jump and duck her head, her heart beating wildly. It was only the clatter of the metal grille being pulled shut in front of a jeweler’s shop—she saw that almost at once—but she couldn’t stop the images that flooded her mind. It all came back in a rush of constant vigilance, of hunger and fear. In New York, she had tried so hard to forget . . .

  “Mademoiselle?”

  She started, blinking, then her heart gradually slowed. The war was over and she was safe. The lawyer’s clerk was waiting. “Sorry, monsieur. It is being back again, you understand.” She fastened the top button of her heavy coat, pulled her gloves out of her pocket and tugged them on, then followed Monsieur LeBrun to a waiting Renault.

  If only she had her bicycle! She longed to reacquaint herself with her delivery routes, her old friends and haunts. First, she ought to visit Gabby and Maman . . . But LeBrun shepherded her into the car, settled himself beside her, and ordered the driver to go.

  When Louise Dulac’s summons had come, Yvette’s first instinct had been to refuse. Reliving her wartime experiences, particularly the treatment she’d suffered at the movie star’s hands, was something she’d wished never to do. But the chance to return home to Paris, all expenses paid, was so very tempting, and when she’d discovered that by leaving a week earlier than proposed she could arrive in time for Monsieur Dior’s first-ever fashion show, that clinched the matter.

  She had obtained some catalog work as a mannequin in New York but the American designers had wanted a strong, wholesome, sporty look. Yvette’s high cheekbones and masses of curling, honey-brown hair could not compensate for her ethereal thinness, the pale translucency of her skin, or the disconcertingly catlike shape of her hazel eyes. Besides, everyone knew the true home of haute couture was Paris. If she could be part of Monsieur Dior’s first show, even in some small way, or, even better, if she could talk Monsieur Dior into giving her a job as a mannequin at his new fashion house, testifying for Louise Dulac would be worth it.

  Inevitably, thinking of the couturier brought memories of his sister. Catherine. Guilt uncoiled inside Yvette, spreading its tentacles, enfolding her in its grip. If not for her impulsiveness, if not for the foolish mistakes she’d made—

  Monsieur LeBrun’s pedantic, clipped speech interrupted her thoughts. “The charges against Louise Dulac are very grave, mademoiselle.” He described them and her stomach clenched.

  “Treason?” She had expected they would prosecute Louise for collaboration only. Collaboration horizontale, they called it. Sleeping with the enemy. The authorities must have discovered more about Louise’s activities than Yvette had anticipated. Suddenly, her own position turned precarious.

  She caught the edge of LeBrun’s query: “Does that suit?”

  He was waiting for her answer. “I beg your pardon, monsieur. I was not listening.”

  LeBrun frowned. “The trial begins in less than two weeks, mademoiselle. I will let you get settled tomorrow, but the next day, we must meet to begin preparing your statement. Shall we say, one o’clock?”

  Yvette tried to pay attention as he outlined the judicial process, but his voice soon slipped from her mind’s grasp, became mere background noise. She gazed out of the window, drinking Paris in, its tree-lined boulevards and sidewalk cafés, its grand stone terraces with their blue tiled roofs. Plenty of military vehicles and troops still about, but friendly ones. And not a swastika in sight.

  As they headed toward La Madeleine church, her heart gave a sudden, hard thump, but the driver turned left, then right, zigzagging toward the Place Vendôme. Her shoulders relaxed.

  Before anything else, she must see Gabby and Maman. But if merely driving in the direction of their tiny apartment on the rue Royale made her sick and dizzy, how would she bring herself to face her sister? She had not opened a single one of Gabby’s letters, much less answered them.

  It had been enough to know they were alive, Catherine and Gabby and Maman. She’d needed very badly to put the war behind her, to move on. If she’d allowed even one of those memories to seep in through the wall she’d built around herself, it would have become a flood. She would have drowned in them.

  Now, because of the trial, she would be forced to relive it all. Had it been a mistake to return? But what else could she have do
ne?

  Forcing her thoughts elsewhere, Yvette said to LeBrun, “I hear rationing is still in force.” There was no masking tape on the shop windows or sandbags stacked against the walls anymore, but the effects of war were still apparent from the queue outside the butchery they passed, the small pâtisserie whose display window stood empty, the scant vegetables for sale at the grocer’s stall.

  “You will not have to worry about rationing at the Ritz,” said LeBrun dryly as the Renault swung into the Place Vendôme and pulled up outside the hotel entrance.

  Guiltily, she acknowledged that of course, this was true. Ah, but what memories this hotel brought back! She had been there many times before, but she felt even more out of place as a guest than as a shabbily dressed delivery girl from the House of Lelong.

  The foyer, with its high ornate ceilings dripping chandeliers, its elegant Louis XVI furniture, marble columns, and potted palms, had welcomed royalty and movie stars to this home away from home for decades. The reception desk was tucked beneath a circular window, almost out of sight of the foyer, adding to the illusion of a private residence. While Monsieur LeBrun conducted a low-voiced conversation with the superior-looking individual at the counter, Yvette approached the concierge. “Good day, monsieur. I was hoping you could help me. I hear that Christian Dior has opened a new atelier. Could you please tell me where it is?”

  The concierge smiled. “Yes, indeed, mademoiselle. It is on the avenue Montaigne, number thirty. In fact, monsieur’s premiere is tomorrow.”

  Excitement fizzed inside her. “Isn’t it marvelous? I can’t wait.”

  The concierge looked apologetic, no doubt inwardly shaking his head at this strange creature who thought she could waltz into a couturier’s first-ever fashion show. “I’m afraid it’s invitation only, mademoiselle.”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” Yvette replied. “I didn’t mean I expected to go.” And of course she could never command an invitation. She’d only been the delivery girl when Monsieur Dior worked as a designer at the House of Lelong, after all. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t slip in behind the scenes. She would manage somehow.

  With a sense of living in a dream, Yvette followed Monsieur LeBrun up to her suite. Moving through the sumptuous hotel room, she tried to glance about casually, as if she was accustomed to residing in such a place. A far cry from the dingy Brooklyn apartment she shared with two other girls from the modeling agency.

  As LeBrun oversaw the disposal of her suitcase and dealt with the tip, Yvette wandered around, running her hand along a cream silk sofa, inspecting the painting above the marble mantelpiece—a portrait of a lady from the Belle Epoque. The sitting room window overlooked the Place Vendôme. Yvette paused in the embrasure, staring vacantly at the activity below. She felt overwhelmed and wary, off balance in a way that she could not explain.

  The door clicked behind the porter and she turned to Monsieur LeBrun.

  “You must be hungry, mademoiselle.” He indicated the ivory and gold telephone by the sofa. “You are to order whatever you wish.”

  Yvette closed her eyes, imagining a piping-hot meal delivered by two waiters, silver domes whipped away with a flourish. Gleaming lumps of caviar, a steak grillé sur planche. To finish, crêpes Suzette, which the chef would prepare before her eyes, flaming the orange sauce with all the dazzle and drama of a Broadway show.

  It was far, far too much for someone who had subsisted mainly on soup from a can for the past two years and on wartime rations before that.

  “Perhaps later. Thank you.” She paused, then indicated the suite with a wave of her hand. “I did not expect such generosity. Despite her arrest, Louise Dulac still has deep pockets, it seems.”

  LeBrun shifted slightly, as if to disagree. Yvette raised her eyebrows. “Or perhaps it is not mademoiselle who has the deep pockets.”

  He pressed his lips together and did not reply.

  Regardless of who was footing the bill, even the wealthiest person would not pay for Yvette to cross the Atlantic and stay at the Ritz without good cause. Louise must be desperate.

  Yvette’s head jerked up. “Tell me, monsieur, am I Mademoiselle Dulac’s only witness?”

  The clerk fixed her with his worried, earnest gaze. “Mademoiselle Foucher,” he said, “you are her only hope.”

  * * *

  WHEN MONSIEUR LEBRUN had gone and Yvette had freshened up a little, she left the Ritz on foot, passing through the colonnade and out onto the Place Vendôme with a shiver that was more due to nostalgia than to the winter air that frosted her lips and made her eyes water. If she had her bicycle, she could get to the rue Royale faster. But perhaps she did not wish this reunion with Gabby and Maman to be upon her so soon. Stepping out briskly to ward off the cold, she sank her chin into her scarf and hunched her shoulders against the icy wind.

  Yvette’s stomach growled. She should have taken Monsieur LeBrun’s advice and ordered something at the Ritz. She thought of those feasts laid out in Louise Dulac’s suite during the war, even though Louise’s diet seemed to consist mainly of cigarettes and champagne cocktails. So much food wasted while French citizens went hungry.

  Paris was bleak in the winter with the plane trees leafless and grey. While the bombings had not touched the part of the city in which Yvette now hurried along, the place had the air of a beautiful, damaged creature still licking its wounds. Now that winter had come, all its scars were laid bare.

  In a dream, Yvette wandered Paris, traveling those old routes she used to take when she was a delivery girl for the House of Lelong. How many of the couturier’s wealthy clients still led the same hedonistic lifestyle as they had during the war? Most of them, she supposed. But not Madame Abetz, the German ambassador’s wife, nor his young mistress, Corinne Luchaire. And neither did Louise Dulac. The movie star was locked up in Fresnes, the prison where the Nazis had incarcerated foreign spies and members of the resistance, before sending them away to unspeakable fates.

  It had grown dark without Yvette’s noticing and the streetlamps were lit, giving out their rosy glow. She turned down the rue Royale, and her steps slowed as memories came rushing back. Music from the café where she had first met Liliane Dietlin floated out to the pavement and wrapped itself around her in a slow, mournful caress. Yvette squeezed her eyes shut. Despite the hardships of her journey to Spain and of her first lonely months in New York, the sweltering July day Liliane helped her leave Paris had been the worst day of her life.

  And yet, how could she dwell on her own pain, when Catherine’s suffering had been so vast as to be incomprehensible?

  She stopped before she reached the apartments at number 10, where Gabby’s life probably went on much the same as it had before Yvette left. A storm of emotions—fear and grief and searing guilt—hit her so hard, she began to shake and gasp for air, her head swimming, her heartbeat rapid and hard in her chest.

  This faintness could overtake her if she didn’t bring it under control. “Breathe,” she told herself. Deep breath in; long, slow breath out. The dizziness receded, but she couldn’t make herself take one more step toward the apartments at number 10. She couldn’t face Gabby and Maman. Not yet. Not after the damage she’d done.

  She’d try again tomorrow. Maybe. Wrapping her arms about herself, Yvette turned on her heel and walked away.

  Chapter Two

  Paris, February 1947

  YVETTE

  Sometime after three in the morning, Yvette paced up and down the pavement outside the House of Dior at number 30 avenue Montaigne. There was much activity at the new couturier, despite the early hour. Few who worked there would sleep tonight, that she knew from experience. Lights glimmered between cracks in the draped windows of the ground floor. In the rooms above, shadows bustled back and forth. Behind the curtainless windows of the top-floor ateliers, white-coated seamstresses were still putting finishing touches to Monsieur Dior’s creations mere hours before the show.

  Yvette hugged herself and rubbed at her arms, trying to keep warm
as she observed the comings and goings. She hoped to glimpse someone she knew from the old days, when Christian Dior had been one of the premier designers at the House of Lelong.

  Her teeth chattered. Despite her heavy coat, the winter chill bit into her skin and her feet were blocks of ice inside her smart boots. She checked her watch. The mannequins would arrive soon. Perhaps she could slip inside with them. At the house of the famous couturier Lucien Lelong, she’d run errands during the shows. The mannequins had been kind. Some had even bothered to remember her name.

  The wind picked up, slicing through her outerwear as if it were made of gauze. Maybe this had not been such a grand plan. She’d freeze to death if she stayed out here much longer. But it was better than lying awake at the Ritz, haunted by ghosts, fretting about Louise Dulac’s trial. She was no closer to judging the movie star’s guilt than she had ever been. Yvette stamped her feet to awaken the circulation, clapped her gloved hands together, held them to her cheeks to warm her face.

  A car pulled up, disgorging two young women who were laughing and talking excitedly. Mannequins, by the look of them, a blonde and a brunette, but Yvette didn’t recognize either. The dark-haired girl paused to give Yvette a long, appraising look. “Are you here to see the show?” she said. “You’re early.”

  The other smirked. “Le patron is not hiring, hadn’t you heard? All the positions are filled.”

  “But no, I—” Yvette faltered to a stop. Suddenly, it seemed like one of her more ill-conceived ideas to try to get into Dior tonight.

  “Cat got your tongue?” the dark girl taunted.

  “Maybe she is a burglar,” said the blonde. “Or a spy, come to steal le patron’s designs.”

  “Of course not! I would never do such a thing.”

  Just then, she heard the click of heels on the pavement approaching. Another girl come to join in the teasing?

  “Goodness, Yvette, is it you?”

  She recognized the accent at once. It belonged to one of the most beautiful women in the world. “Tania!”