The Milliner's Secret

by Natalie Meg Evans

‘I met an RAF flier,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘I think he flew Fairey Battles.’

  ‘Poor damn boy.’ Jan Brommersma held his coffee cup between his palms like a child. ‘I, too, met a pilot, after the fall of France. He had crashed and my wife and I got him to the coast, on to a fishing boat. He hated those Battle aircraft, called them “lousy crates”. You understand “crate”?’

  Only too well.

  ‘He said they were too slow to outfly the enemy.’ Seeing her face freeze, he said quickly, ‘Hey, some blokes are always lucky, like me. Your pilot has been retrained maybe for Lancasters or Blenheims.’

  She chose two in the afternoon for them to leave, the hour when shops reopened after lunch and people were hurrying back to work, or joining queues in the hope that a short break had magically refilled the shelves. Walking ahead, her trench coat buttoned against the cold, a pink feather in her hat, she kept to the middle of the pavement so Jan never lost sight of her. If he was stopped, she would pause to retie her shoelaces, dawdling until he was waved on. If it looked all over for him, she’d walk on. And tit-for-tat, she emphasised. No heroics. They were dead meat if they were caught, but the Resistance must go on, the wheel must keep turning.

  Their destination was the Île de la Cité, the smaller of the two Seine islands that were the foundation stones of Paris. Knowing how hard it was for Jan’s tortured fingers to grip a suitcase, she’d decided in advance to take a bus the length of rue de Rivoli. She’d given him change and coached him on how to pay the fare.

  She could hear him, breathing heavily through the scarf he’d tied around his lower face to hide the burns. Lucky it was February, she thought, everyone similarly huddled. The wait at the bus stop flayed her nerves, and when a gazogène-guzzler drew up, she stumbled on board. A man laughed at her pink feather, asking where the rest of the flamingo had gone.

  Coralie made a playful reply, and Jan was able to find a seat without anyone looking at his face. Still, Coralie spent the short journey convinced that, any moment, the bus would be flagged down and a quartet of Gestapo would order everybody out.

  After alighting at the Saint-Paul Métro, she led the way down steep stone steps to quai d’Anjou. Hands in pockets, she strolled along the wharf, stopping just short of pont Marie. There she stared over the water, as if entranced by its colour of silvered teak when in fact she was reading the nameplates of the barges. Be at your mooring, Thalassa.

  Yes, there she was, a rusted tub, her engine grinding out diesel exhaust. Coralie bent to smooth the ankle socks she wore over her woollen stockings. Left first, then right, as she’d demonstrated to Jan Brommersma. A hearty cackle came from above.

  ‘Parcel for me, michou?’

  Coralie glared up at Thalassa’s deck and hissed, ‘Quiet!’ An old woman, bare-armed and bare-legged in defiance of the cold, beamed down through ill-spaced teeth. She wore a straw hat a scarecrow would have handed back.

  ‘That him?’ The old woman pointed towards Jan, who was hesitating under the bridge. ‘Have him throw his bag up first. Last lot were so nervous they nearly left a wireless set behind on the quay. Brought me my medicine, michou?’

  Last night, Moineau had said, ‘The old bird can’t steer the damn boat without a proper drink.’

  Coralie tossed a bottle of aquavit over the gunwale and the boatwoman caught it expertly. Two minutes later, Coralie was on pont Marie, again staring at the river. As the chug of an engine became a thick purr and angled wavelets broke against the bridge’s feet, she allowed herself to breathe. ‘He’s away! I’m a proper résistante now.’

  And she was free to go back to work. At La Passerinette she found a note on the mat.

  I must speak with you. Meet me at the café where we last had coffee with Teddy. I will be there at six. D.

  The mention of Teddy felt so heartless that she tore the page up without reading it twice. After all, the job of a résistante was to resist.

  PART FIVE

  CHAPTER 29

  It wasn’t so much a fresh mood sweeping Paris as the days lengthened – people were still hungry, angry and frightened – as a new game, called Bait the Occupiers. Make fools of them, but never let them know it. It was a very feminine game, and Coralie joined in. As La Passerinette still enjoyed favour among German officers’ wives, the scope for furtive sabotage was endless.

  It boiled down to shape and proportions. The couture collections at the end of February took the previous year’s silhouette to a new extreme and, as ever, hats reflected the trend. Coralie came up with voluminous shapes to balance bold shoulders, narrow waists and puffed skirts. The new style suited chic Frenchwomen, but not broad German frames.

  March 1943 arrived with peevish skies sneezing sleet which rattled against the salon windows and kept clients at home. One morning, fitting a hat to the head of Frau Pfendt, whose husband’s staff car waited at the kerb, Coralie thought unenthusiastically about her journey home at the day’s end. No longer the twelve-minute sprint to impasse de Cordoba. For good or ill, she’d moved her belongings back to rue de Seine. Una had paid the rent up to the end of March this year, so it made sense to occupy it or it would be lost to them. And Una needed somewhere to come home to. Coralie firmly believed that, one day soon, her friend would stroll into La Passerinette, saying, ‘Well, that’s what I call a waste of a winter.’

  Coralie was glad to be back on the Rive Gauche. She liked being a Right Bank milliner but the Bermondsey girl inside her was definitely Left Bank. Even so, she shivered in anticipation of the squall that would hit her when she re-crossed the river.

  She asked Frau Pfendt to raise her chin a little – and felt like adding, ‘All four of them, gnädige Dame’ – ‘I want to see if we need a little more height.’

  The face in the mirror was round-cheeked with quivering jowls. In happier times, Coralie would have created something dignified. But Frau Pfendt was a victim of ‘the game’. Thousands of French men were being sent as forced labour to Germany. Women too. Had Coralie not been married, she’d have been called up, as she was within the age range. The German occupation was siphoning food, labour, health from France – while making the victims pay twenty times over for every scrap thrown back at them. Anger needed an outlet. Coralie had her Resistance work, and this . . .

  She stood back to judge the effect of supple, red leather which, when sewn together at the back, would resemble a soft trilby. She’d adopted Violaine’s method of constructing directly on to clients’ heads, speeding through different shapes until one stood out as a perfect marriage for the face beneath. Or, as in Frau Pfendt’s case, as millinery grounds for divorce.

  Now that supplies had dried up almost completely, Coralie had put aside her blocks and devised templates to fit any reasonably-sized remnant. The leather she was using for this client had been acquired, by an indirect route, from the bombed-out Renault factory. In peacetime, it would probably have upholstered part of a car seat.

  Frau Pfendt would no doubt want some sort of fantastical trimming on it. One of Coralie’s current favourites was wood-shavings, which, when sewn in place resembled . . . wood-shavings. She’d never seen the point of pretending that ‘found’ materials were other than what they were. Ersatz hats were just that. Good enough. Ersatz coffee was unpleasant and walnut-juice ‘stockings’ fooled nobody.

  Taking a handful of stiff ribbon from a basket, she added bows and loops, which quadrupled the hat’s dimensions. Red and white, barber-shop colours. Solange Antonin would have carried it off beautifully, but on Frau Pfendt, the result was a hair’s breadth away from absurd. Teamed with the woman’s outfit, a red and white striped suit from Jacques Fath’s latest collection . . .

  Showing Frau Pfendt how to hold the hat together on her head, Coralie perched on the sofa arm and invited her to walk up and down. She called out, ‘Brava,’ while reflecting that short A-line skirts gave no quarter to stocky legs. Nor had Monsieur Fath designed the blouson jacket for matronly bosoms. Add grey pigskin ankle boots . . . ‘over-dr
essed teapot’.

  Coralie kicked one leg comfortably back and forth, watching her client contort. She’d embraced the new silhouette herself and was growing used to it.

  She sat Frau Pfendt down again and made some adjustments. She was jotting notes when the gunshot creak above their heads made them both jump.

  ‘Dear me!’ Frau Pfendt patted her chest. ‘Who’s walking about up there?’

  Coralie supposed it was the landlord or his handyman checking the place over. The rooms had remained empty through the winter but spring would surely entice new tenants in. Sometimes, at the end of a long day, she’d stand at the foot of the stairs and imagine she heard Violaine and Madame Thomas gossiping or teasing each other: ‘What d’you fancy for supper, dear? Lobster Thermidor or caneton Tour d’Argent?’ In the worst of her loneliness, Coralie had once called out, ‘Goodnight, you two.’

  ‘The new tenant’s a harp teacher,’ she improvised, to drive away those memories. ‘He drags his instrument around to catch the light from the window.’

  Frau Pfendt’s eyes widened. ‘I cannot imagine he has many pupils. Who will want to learn to play the harp with a war on?’

  ‘You’re right, so to fill the time, he does physical jerks. He crouches and dances like a Russian Cossack. Says it keeps him warm.’

  She expected ‘Really?’ or ‘Surely not!’ but to her great discomfort, Frau Pfendt began to cry. Tears ran down the pillow cheeks, losing themselves in the many chins. Coralie fetched a clean handkerchief. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘My son Wilhelm is at the Russian front.’ Frau Pfendt blotted her face. ‘Did you know, during the Russian winter, men freeze to their guns? What is it all about, Coralie?’

  ‘I don’t know, gnädige Dame.’ Coralie took a deliberate step backwards. Keep it formal. Friendship was dangerous, and human sympathy was rationed.

  She conducted Frau Pfendt to the pavement, holding an umbrella over her to her waiting car. Another vehicle was parked twenty strides along the street, and the service door to her building was ajar. So, it must be the landlord upstairs. Brrr! She hurried back inside. It was early still, just gone eleven, but even so, she doubted she’d get any more clients as it was Saturday. People would want to stay home with their families. She cleared the window display, pulled down the blinds and took her electric fire into the workroom.

  She was hopelessly behind, always having to explain to customers why their hats were not ready. What she needed, she decided, as she drew her stool up to her bench, was that squad of elves. Ten new hats in a line on the bench every morning. She wasn’t ready to appoint a human helper.

  ‘Coralie?’

  She screamed as a figure filled the doorway. The canvas head to which she’d been pinning pleated felt fell off the edge of the bench. She saw a black leather trench coat with wide lapels, a Homburg hat – and ice-water ran down her spine. The man removed his hat. ‘Dietrich!’ Or was she meant to call him ‘Generalmajor’ again? Actually, something more basic sprang to mind. ‘You terrified me. How did you get in?’

  He displayed a key. ‘I am the new tenant upstairs.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘No, I am not. But I am looking over the place, with the landlord’s consent.’ He sauntered in, checking her workroom in apparent fascination. Once again, he seemed neither civilian nor soldier. The ribbon of his Pour le Mérite was just visible inside his leather collar. Did it still contain that cyanide ampoule? Hers was in her handbag.

  He said, ‘This place is never the same two visits running. I hope you take photographs. One day, they will be a fashion memoir in pictures.’

  ‘I don’t even have a camera. What do you want?’

  ‘You. As you will not come to see me, I have run you to earth.’

  There was only one door, and no proper window. ‘I’ll scream.’

  ‘Go ahead. Shall I wait outside?’

  ‘Oh, damn you.’

  He was smiling in a way that suggested he was not entirely sure of his ground. ‘Will you trust me, Coralie?’

  ‘Shouldn’t it be the other way round? I mean, I know too much about you. I’ve been wondering for months if you’d track me down, to silence me.’

  ‘I think that would be beyond the scope of mortal hand.’

  ‘You did it to Teddy. Dealt with him, without proof he’d done anything wrong. I hate you and all your kind. I’d like to kill you all.’

  From beneath his coat, Dietrich took the pistol she’d seen in Ottilia’s dressing-table drawer. He pushed back the safety and held the grip towards her. ‘It is loaded, seven bullets. Even though you are not an experienced shot, you can almost certainly get one into my head.’

  ‘Just go away.’ She put her hands over her face. ‘You don’t understand what happened here. They took all of them. All my friends.’

  ‘I know. And I am sorry, more than I can say.’

  She sprang at him, making a rake of her nails. She got them caught in his medal ribbon and he raised his gun, pointing it up at the ceiling while with the other hand he prevented her from strangling him. ‘Do not punish me, Coralie.’

  ‘“Sorry” is an insult. “Sorry” pretends to care yet does nothing. Have you killed Hitler yet? That’s why you went to Germany, isn’t it?’

  ‘You know perfectly well that Hitler lives still.’

  ‘You should give me the job. I wouldn’t keep putting it off!’ Her voice was rising. ‘I’d walk up to him, pull out a gun and bang! Done. You men talk but you don’t act. And I don’t believe you give a damn about my friends—’

  He got his hand over her mouth. ‘You are part of the Dachterrasse Circle, so stop behaving like Julie Fourcade.’

  When he took away his hand, she said, ‘I’m only part of Dachterrasse because you involved me.’

  ‘I believed in you, as that proves.’ He restored the gun to safety and returned it to its holster. ‘Come upstairs.’

  ‘What’s up there?’

  ‘You will see.’ But instead of leading the way, he held her away from him and slowly shook his head. ‘What are you wearing?’

  What she was wearing was a nipped-in dress with Gypsy sleeves, a skirt that swirled when she turned, a frilly peasant apron tied at the front. For warmth, she’d added a sleeveless bolero. ‘It’s the latest fashion.’

  ‘There are such shortages of cloth, of labour, of everything. Yet French couturiers are designing marionette costumes for women to traipse to work in. It makes no sense.’

  It did to her. She and her fellow milliners might be out of materials, but factories were weaving clothing textiles again. For French consumption, defying the pressure to shift production to Germany. ‘You lot don’t get it,’ she said. ‘And I mean that both ways.’

  They stared each other out until Dietrich said, ‘Come on. The young gentleman upstairs cannot wait much longer.’

  CHAPTER 30

  Young gentleman? He wouldn’t explain. Coralie mounted the stairs ahead of him. The door to Violaine’s flat was ajar and there she stalled. Her legs refused. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘It is only floorboards and bare walls.’

  ‘That’s why I can’t. Where’s Violaine? Where are Madame Thomas and Amélie? Where’s Amélie’s daughter?’

  ‘Lost in Germany or Poland, and I am ashamed.’ He ushered her inside the flat, impelling her until they were in the living room, which seemed vast. Violaine’s furnishings had been big because she’d needed landmarks to help her get about the room. She’d liked textures, too, and Coralie had watched her steer by them, her fingers finding a passimenterie trim or the taut skin of a lampshade. The furniture had been taken out a few weeks ago by a team of men. ‘I don’t know who they were,’ she said. ‘German, obviously.’

  ‘They call themselves M-Aktion Kommando,’ Dietrich told her. ‘The M stands for Möbel.’ Furniture. ‘Kommando implies, of course, a military operation.’

  ‘All her things.’

  ‘Really, they’re just a looting party but they’re thorough.
I do not suggest you look in the bathroom. Take it from me, there is not even a toothbrush holder, flannel or a sliver of soap left. We have a reputation to keep up of impeccable efficiency. But look,’ he ironed the bitterness from his voice, ‘something else is here.’

  She had noticed the wicker basket in the middle of the floor, assuming it was something M-Aktion had left behind. Dietrich unfastened clips, reached inside. A moment later, he was cradling a cat, whose jet fur made his own leather coat look discoloured.

  A baritone miaou made Coralie gasp: ‘Voltaire? Where—’

  ‘In the Jardin du Luxembourg. The kitchen staff at the Palais have been feeding him.’

  ‘No wonder he wouldn’t go home. Traitor.’ She went up to offer a cautious stroke, noticing that his torn ear had mended in lumpy scar tissue. Perhaps she got too close to it because Voltaire hissed and lunged a paw. ‘Has he gone feral?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘I suppose I’m the lucky so-and-so who gets to look after him?’

  ‘You could, now you have no child to worry about.’

  ‘How did you know?’ Because he made no answer, she flung defensively, ‘Yes, I sent Noëlle away. You’d given me an Ausweis so I used it.’

  ‘You were wise, I think.’ Dietrich studied her. Voltaire purred noisily in his arms. ‘The permit had both your names on it so why did you not accompany her?’

  ‘I have other ties. I mean, hat-making – what did you imagine?’ She’d caught the flash of misgiving. ‘I have to make money. I won’t let Ottilia pay for my child to live.’

  ‘She would do so with great joy.’

  ‘And I’d still feel I was imposing. I’ll take the cat if that’s what you’re here for. We’ll rub along, won’t we, Voltaire?’

  ‘Au contraire, dear one. Once a daddy’s boy, always a daddy’s boy.’

  Looking into the doorway, Coralie gave a cry of disbelief. ‘Teddy! Is it you?’ He was thinner, but seemed otherwise well and was smiling in his particular way. ‘You utter bastard.’