The Milliner's Secret

by Natalie Meg Evans

  ‘As doorkeeper and friend,’ Una insisted, though Coralie suspected more. Perhaps the difference in their ages and the social gulf between them made them wary of revealing too much.

  One morning in mid-October, Kurt Kleber called at La Passerinette. Would Coralie make a hat for his wife as a surprise? She would be joining him shortly in Paris. His clear eye softened as he spoke his wife’s name, and Coralie thought, My God, lucky girl.

  Unfortunately, it hadn’t occurred to Kurt to find out his wife’s measurements. ‘She is a little like you in looks, Mademoiselle de Lirac. Well, blonde, anyway.’

  ‘Have you a photograph at least, so I can see the shape of her face?’

  ‘Naturally I have picture of Fritzi.’ In his pocket book, next to his heart.

  Coralie pinned it to her work-board and created a hat by empathy. When Kurt called back to check progress, he thought the result magnificent. He paid her in occupation currency, which had twenty times the value of the franc, and gave a delivery address on avenue Marigny. ‘This is General Hanesse’s headquarters, where I have taken an apartment more suitable for a married couple. Did you know Dietrich is back at rue de Vaugirard? You must have thought him a stupidly long time in Switzerland. I did, I can tell you. Will you not call on him?’

  So, he’d been to neutral Switzerland. She’d love to ask why, but pride stopped her. And, no, she wouldn’t call.

  Kurt decoded her expression. ‘I wish you would. I saw how proud Dietrich was when he brought you to our pavilion. I saw him look at you. I have known him several years, but never truly happy until then.’

  ‘It didn’t last. He left me.’

  ‘You know why?’

  ‘Not really, but, look, I’ve customers waiting.’ She pulled open the door, eager to get Kurt through it. ‘I’ll have a delivery lad bring the hat as soon as it’s done. Tell Frau Kleber to pop in – I’ll show her how to wear it and we’ll adjust the sizing.’ She watched Kurt go. Nice man, but she couldn’t risk overstepping the line into friendship. Where was the line? It amused her to sell doll-hats at a thousand francs apiece to the boys in grey uniforms. As she handed over the little poplar-wood boxes, she’d say, ‘Your sweetheart will think she’s getting a French cheese. When she opens the box – ooh, là là.’

  She’d hear herself vamping up the sexy accent and think, ‘I’m no better than Serge Martel, taking their money with a synthetic smile.’ It was collaboration, made worse because some of those boys genuinely believed that, in a matter of weeks, they’d be heading north to launch Blitzkrieg on England. Every saucy comment, every wad of occupation currency she accepted from a soldier’s pocket, betrayed two countries. Liking Kurt Kleber wasn’t collaboration, but visiting Dietrich in his flat was. The line was a wiggly one, but she saw it clearly enough.

  A few days before the end of October, the roar of engines broke the early-evening peace. A moment later, two glowering youths thrust open the door, barged in and shouted, ‘You have Jewesses working here.’

  Coralie stepped between them and the client she was serving. Actually, she had just appointed two new backroom assistants, Paulette and Didi Benoît, French-born Catholics. And it was absolutely no business of these louts. ‘Get out,’ she said.

  One of them waved a brick. ‘This is going through your window if you’re lying.’

  Red mist descended. She was not Jac Masson’s daughter for nothing. Grabbing the youth’s hand, Coralie made the brick collide with his nose. She shouted over his howls, ‘Out of my shop, you nasty little shits!’ and reached for her scissors. Left-handed scissors Una had given her last spring to celebrate her first collection. ‘Out, or I’ll slice a hole in your face big enough to post your sodding brick through.’

  They backed out, just as one of Coralie’s regular clients arrived, escorted by the German officer she was having an affair with. The officer demanded to know what was going on.

  The uninjured youth, whose accent and argot linked him to the backstreets of Montmartre, made a form of salute and thrust out a card. ‘We can do what we like!’

  The German inspected the card, shrugged and handed it back, explaining later to Coralie, ‘They’re with our police.’

  ‘They’ve joined the Gestapo?’

  He made a ‘sort of’ noise. ‘They’re under Gestapo protection.’

  ‘So they can do what they like?’

  Yes, pretty much, was the answer. From that moment, Coralie truly understood that there were two enemies: uniformed Germans with their obsession for new rules and counting ‘Ein, zwei, drei!’ as they entered buildings in tight formation, and the home-grown scum, who were finding undreamed-of power and were answerable to nobody. Her new-found happiness and feelings of safety drained away.

  The last day of October, All Saints’ Day, was a Thursday and quiet. Coralie was sitting over the books with Madame Thomas, sharing a small desk in a corner of the salon. Jeanne Thomas had asked if she might work downstairs because it was warmer than in her flat upstairs. Coralie had agreed because, though nobody said so, they felt safer if they were all bunched together.

  As Madame Thomas ruled lines down a clean page of her ledger, Coralie discreetly eavesdropped on Violaine – or, more particularly, Violaine’s new client. A stunning girl with the figure of a fashion mannequin, she’d strolled into the salon with a German companion, announcing loftily that ‘darling Rudi’ had been recommended to this place by ‘darling Jakob’, who turned out to be the officer who had helped see off the brick-carrying youths.

  Violaine had invited Rudi to make himself comfortable on the sofa, before pulling out a chair at one of the mirror-tables and inviting the newcomer, ‘If Mademoiselle would please sit here?’

  Mademoiselle had insisted on having the table turned around so that her back was to the window. Perhaps she wanted to gaze on her German prize, or was she even a little nervous of him? Rudi cut an imposing figure in his Stygian-black SS uniform, ice-blue eyes radiating a combination of blankness and rigid discipline.

  ‘. . . must make provision for tax, of course, Mademoiselle de Lirac.’

  ‘Sorry, Madame Thomas?’

  ‘You have made a profit, so must pay tax.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Better to pay a little extra than too little.’ The German Revenue imposed heavy penalties for errors and defaults. Coralie’s eyes drifted back to Violaine’s lady customer, who said sharply, ‘Don’t stare at me. And don’t you stare either, Rudi. Read a newspaper, why don’t you? Will you find him one?’ She clicked her fingers in Coralie’s direction.

  Coralie rose, with what she hoped was quiet dignity. ‘Of course, Mademoiselle. French or German?’

  ‘German, obviously.’

  Coralie bought two newspapers each day, the Allgemeiner Zeitung and Le Figaro. After passing the Zeitung over, she walked back to her place, passing behind Violaine, who was lifting their customer’s lustrous black hair to reveal the shape of her head. Rude and uppity she might be, Coralie thought, but this nameless young woman possessed the kind of neck poets write about. Only – Coralie gasped – her left ear looked as if it had been eaten by rats. The girl tensed and Coralie passed on.

  Watching Madame Thomas print ‘31 October’ at the head of her new page, Coralie murmured, ‘Ramon’s birthday.’ She’d been planning to buy him a packet of cigarettes and take Noëlle to see him. And, if she were honest, to look over his new woman. But she’d bumped into Bonnet last Sunday at the quai de Montebello and had not quite recovered from something he’d told her. She and Noëlle had been looking for story books among the stalls. Bonnet had been selling some of his own books, and he’d broken off from haggling to greet her. ‘Ramon’s lady! And Ramon’s child?’

  She’d introduced Noëlle.

  Bonnet had shaken his head. ‘A fool, Ramon leaving you for that piece he’s with now. Oh, she’s pretty enough but she’s out every night and, mon Dieu, they argue. The language. She slams out, and I hear her tap-tap-tap down the street. He runs after her . . .’ Bonnet ha
d mimed a man desperately in love ‘. . . “I cannot live without you, Julie!”’

  ‘Julie who?’

  Bonnet didn’t know. ‘There are thousands of Julies in Paris.’

  True, and even Ramon would not have stolen a friend’s girl. Or his child’s former nanny . . . She’d stooped to questioning Noëlle. ‘Was Papa’s lady-friend nice when you stayed with him that time?’

  ‘No lady, just Papa.’

  So, he’d got rid of ‘Julie’ for the day, had he? Keep away from rue Valdonne, good sense told Coralie. Some things it’s better not to know.

  Madame Thomas closed her ledger. ‘Lunchtime – and look at that rain.’ A slanting downpour, the boulevard dark with umbrellas. But, then, it was November tomorrow, the threshold of winter. What would this one would bring? Shivering under blankets, chapped hands and chilblains. Frozen bodies brought out of unheated apartments?

  ‘Shall I tell Paulette and Didi to take their lunch now?’ Madame Thomas asked.

  ‘Of course. Violaine will be a while and I’ll have mine when you come back.’ Coralie stayed at the table, running her eye down Madame Thomas’s figures, but when the door shuddered open, she looked up in alarm, fearing another brick. A lone man stood in the doorway. Even worse than youthful bullyboys, it was Serge Martel.

  Martel, standing in her light, his hat and the wide shoulders of his jacket dark with moisture. Coralie rose, and forced a smile. This man had power, and she had a little girl to protect. ‘All this way in the rain, Monsieur Martel? Not running your car, these days?’

  ‘I like to walk sometimes, to stroll in the park.’

  ‘Really?’ She doubted it, somehow. That pale hair and the paint-water eyes belonged in basements, or in a prison cell. She tried to think of something to say that didn’t involve the Rose Noire or Ottilia, whose wraith shivered between them. In the end, she said, ‘Vichy loved the Vagabonds, Arkady told me. The management of that club they played in keeps trying to rebook them. Will you let them go?’

  ‘Maybe they can have them. I can have my pick of the best jazz quartets now.’

  ‘Being nice’ snapped. ‘No, you can’t. Not since the round-up of black musicians.’ Dezi Rice had gone and she’d wept for him. He’d been walking away from a cabaret in Montmartre when a windowless van had stopped beside him. Raised voices, the slam of doors. People called those vans Salad Wagons – maybe because victims were tossed inside them. ‘The best jazz quartets are at Drancy now, awaiting deportation to nobody knows where.’ Only the luckiest had got on America-bound ships before the round-ups started. ‘Stick with Arkady. Loyalty means that when you need friends you have some.’

  ‘Recognise this?’ Serge Martel dropped Ottilia’s British aliens’ card on Madame Thomas’s ledger. Its fibre-board was swollen from its drowning in a lavatory cistern, but the information inside was clear, the photograph sharp. ‘You hid a wanted woman instead of delivering her to the authorities.’

  ‘Who found this?’

  ‘Julie.’

  ‘You mean my Julie?’

  ‘My Julie. She knows how to keep me sweet.’ Martel pinched Coralie’s ear, which hurt because he had found the part where the nerves were close to the surface. He continued, ‘We can help each other. You give me information about a certain man’s activities. I, in return, tell those in authority that you are an innocent dupe.’

  So, Ramon was his target. She’d better get a message to him, fast. ‘I’m not an informant. You’ve picked the wrong woman.’

  ‘I get a pat on the back from Major Reiniger, you get to live.’

  ‘As I said, I’m not an informant.’

  ‘Your little girl has Maman to kiss her goodnight, not a hard-fisted bitch in a state institution. If you’re arrested, your kid will go to an orphanage. Did you know that the matrons in those places sometimes sell little girls to supplement their wages. Sell them to men who pass them around until they end up dead.’

  ‘You are obscene.’

  ‘Mm. So there it is. Give me information, and I’ll keep a nice table for you at my club. “The best champagne for Mademoiselle de Lirac, Félix. Hurry up, you arthritic old slob.” Deal?’

  ‘I’ll hand over my husband when Hell freezes.’

  Pale eyes blinked. ‘Cazaubon? You think I want your wind-up Bolshevist?’ Martel spat.

  Violaine turned and said, ‘What is happening? Mademoiselle de Lirac?’

  ‘Nothing. We’re having a chat.’

  Martel leaned so close that Coralie smelt acetic acid on his breath. Félix Peyron had confided once that his boss ate only red meat. ‘I don’t want your husband. I want Dietrich, Graf von Elbing. And if you don’t give him to me . . .’ He sang the opening bars of a familiar song. ” Tell me its name, Missde Lirac.’

  ‘“The Lambeth Walk . . .”’ She pronounced ‘Lambeth’ as a Frenchwoman would and he gave a bow, acknowledging her bravado.

  ‘An Englishwoman who aids Jews, your life will be finished. Think about it.’ On his way to the door, he cut behind Violaine, staring into the mirror at the face reflected there. ‘Good God, Solange Antonin, back in town and in good company.’ Oblivious of the shocked response his greeting provoked, or perhaps enjoying it, Martel stared into the mirror. He departed, leaving the door for somebody else to close.

  I have to find Dietrich, Coralie thought.

  CHAPTER 24

  How to get away when Mademoiselle Antonin had flown into a frenzy and her escort was waving his pistol at anybody passing the door? Violaine fetched smelling salts and calmed down her client. Coralie was about to slip out of the door when it opened to admit a tall, thin man, in a yellow-brown suit, who shook his umbrella over the step.

  ‘Teddy, you’re back!’ Made stupid by shock, Coralie blurted out, ‘That suit is a horrible colour.’

  Thierry-Edgar Clisson looked a little taken aback. ‘Caramel. Made in Algiers and it brings back memories of sunshine. Good day to you too.’

  ‘Your hair’s grown.’

  ‘One does not trust those country barbers. I returned from my place at Dreux only yesterday. As we’re being personal, what a singular hat.’ Teddy raised imaginary opera glasses to Coralie’s head. ‘A bonbon dish adorned by a pink water-lily . . . Are crowns and brims out of fashion? And who do we have here?’

  Teddy turned an appreciative glance at Rudi, who had holstered his pistol but remained defensive. ‘Waffen SS? Such fetching uniforms you boys wear. Of course, one can never go wrong with black in town.’ Turning back to Coralie, who was mouthing, Don’t! he said, ‘Are you free, dearest? I have a perfect surprise for you.’

  She began, ‘I can’t—’ but a little whirlwind burst in shouting, ‘Maman! Oncle Teddy is taking us for lunch!’

  Coralie’s new nanny, Micheline, followed, her raincoat splashed as high as the pockets. She was a dark young woman with country-fed prettiness but Nature had not formed her for running. As she spoke, she hauled up the brassière straps that had given way under stress. ‘Madame, may we?’

  Everything fled from Coralie’s mind but Serge Martel’s vile threats. ‘You let Noëlle run alone in the street? Anybody could have taken her!’ They could have passed that monster just moments before. ‘I entrust her to you, Micheline. Trust—’

  Teddy squeezed her arm, rather hard. ‘Noëlle was never out of our sight and, my dear, you’re upsetting your child far more than I or Micheline ever could.’

  So she was. She held out her arms and Noëlle rocketed into them. ‘I’m sorry, so sorry. You too, Micheline. I overreacted.’

  ‘Not at all, Madame.’ The girl looked stricken. ‘You are right, we forget from time to time, but things are different now.’

  ‘Can I have ice-cream for pudding, Maman? You always buy me ice-cream when you’re cross.’

  Solange Antonin emerged from her mute state to say, ‘If that were my little girl, I would take lunch with her every day and buy her four ice-creams.’

  ‘Four? Yes, please!’ Noëlle shrieked.

 
; Coralie heard herself agreeing that lunch would indeed be perfect. ‘If you can find any ice-creams in Paris, precious, I will buy you four. Let me just put my coat on.’

  ‘And change your hat,’ Teddy called after Coralie. ‘Unless, like a real water-lily, it closes up in the wet.’

  In the workroom, she put on a trench coat and exchanged her doll-hat for a brown felt fedora, tying a waxed silk head-square over it to protect it from the rain. The telephone she’d inherited from Lorienne Royer sat, shiny black and mahogany, in a corner and she wished she knew Dietrich’s number. She ought to send a note to Ramon too. Martel had not implicitly threatened her husband, but even so . . . my Julie, her Julie, Ramon’s Julie, everybody’s blessed Julie. If Ramon and Martel were involved with the same Julie, there would be trouble.

  Hearing Paulette and Didi returning from lunch, she ripped a sheet from an old invoice book. One of them could take a note to rue Valdonne. What to put, though? Nothing too overt in case the girl was stopped. Coralie chewed her pencil, then wrote: ‘Ramon, some gardening advice . . . ’

  ‘Unless you have somewhere particular in mind, can we go south of the river?’

  Teddy threw Coralie a quizzical look. ‘Of course, but only if we take the Métro. I’ve always considered walking in the rain an overrated pastime, and a certain young lady,’ he meant Noëlle who was jumping in puddles, her rubber boots landing each time with a fat splash, ‘has no respect for pale shades of trouser.’