The Milliner's Secret

by Natalie Meg Evans

  ‘Knowing Teddy would be there?’

  ‘In spite of your attempt to send me to the other side of Paris? My darling, I am as familiar with Clisson’s habits as you are. I walked, and the night air calmed me.’

  ‘I had to do it.’

  ‘I know. You were torn between loyalties, but you chose Teddy because you have an affinity with the underdog. I am only surprised it took you so long to make the call.’

  Coralie recalled digging her nails into her palms, willing Fritzi Kleber to fall asleep. I won’t tell him I laced her drink. ‘I’ve often pictured you hammering on Teddy’s door, him letting you in, white-faced above the collar of his Oriental dressing-gown.’

  ‘We will call it a “firm knock”.’

  ‘After that, an altercation – conducted in civilised tones, of course. Teddy calling you “dear Graf” and you insulting him the way you do.’

  ‘The way I do?’

  ‘As if reminding him of something he already knows. I always imagined a gunshot, Teddy slumping, blood on the wall.’

  ‘You are reading too many crime novels. Teddy panicked and his instinct was to hide under his bed. To get him packed and out, I let him think his personal life had caught up with him – as, to be honest, it has. He is on a Gestapo list of degenerates. As for you, I did not blame you for running away – your instincts were correct. The situation that night was deeply unsafe for you, but it did teach me something.’

  ‘What?’ She was perching at the far edge of the sofa and he moved to allow her to sit more comfortably. His gaze bathed her.

  ‘That, in fundamentals, you and I are on opposing sides. It does not make me love you the less. But it is so, and being apart is the safest, the correct, thing to do.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her heart fell, telling her more about her feelings than any philosophical arguments. ‘If that’s what you want, complete separation, then I suppose I agree.’

  ‘But do we wish it, Coralie? Our love is full of risk and will offend many, but separation is so cold.’

  And she was so weary of being cold. She moved closer and he put his arm around her. They sat silent, Dietrich’s eyes on her, hers on the daffodils which were melting into a dazzling paint-splash.

  ‘How did you get flowers on a Sunday?’

  ‘The Duet. I called on my way out of Paris with Teddy, and said, “Flowers, at any cost.” How they did it is their secret. Will you tell me now how you passed your time all those months I was away in Germany? With your husband?’

  ‘I haven’t seen Ramon since the day we thought Noëlle had escaped. What about you? Were you back with your wife all that time?’

  ‘My wife does not go to Berlin.’ It wasn’t a chuckle, the sound that caught in his throat. ‘Do you know what is happening to my city? Do not imagine a place where people meet in cafés or discuss life and literature strolling along Unter den Linden. Your lot are bombing us to Hell.’

  She knew it. Terrence Bidcroft – Una’s RAF pilot – had flown in a squadron that was part of a relentless aerial assault. He’d been vague as to whether the strategy was working, but Radio Londres put it more concisely. ‘Germany is being pounded towards inevitable surrender.’

  Dietrich would tell her yet another version, no doubt. ‘Did you return to your wife at all while you were back there?’

  ‘I spent time with my mother, whom I thought was dying. Who is dying, though she is enjoying a long finale. Yes, with my wife sometimes. Hiltrud tried to take her own life on the fifth anniversary of our son’s death, and for a while I was the only person she would allow close to her. I travelled between Berlin and Hohen Neuendorf as much as air raids and the trains allowed. But now I am back, wanting only to kiss you.’

  They moved together, and their kiss became a long rediscovery. Dietrich stroked her face, as if he needed to learn its shape again, then slipped his hand beneath the untidy layers of cardigan and blouse she’d put on because it was cold, and because she’d expected a day alone. He found the swell of breasts and nudged her brassière down to find a nipple, toying with it as she opened her mouth to invite in his tongue.

  She let him lead her to the bedroom where they undressed quickly. He wore his Pour le Mérite, and she had taken again to wearing her satin choker. They stared at each other’s throats.

  ‘Let’s hope we never have to,’ he said.

  ‘Still, it’s nice to know we can,’ she quipped.

  They laughed at the shock of marble-cold sheets. Gradually, body heat won out. How long since they’d been alone, with a day before them? Coralie sighed as he stroked her belly, hips, thighs. She opened her legs and let him stroke her to the point of climax, then pushed him away, saying, ‘My turn. I shall touch every inch of you.’

  Peel him, learn everything. She would begin under the blankets, without that most deceiving of senses – sight – to get in her way.

  If only they could stop time. Coralie would gladly have signed up to an endless afternoon in that rustic bed. Warm, sated and happy. But Dietrich had other ideas.

  ‘I want you to come back to rue de Vaugirard. Every day, the central heating is turned on and warms nobody. Why stay here?’

  ‘I’m not ready to move again.’

  He didn’t argue, though she felt it was a tactical retreat.

  ‘At least come for the evening. Bring evening clothes and we will bathe and change in the warm. We are going out tonight. Where is the ring I gave you? You should wear it?’

  Five orders in five seconds. He wasn’t a Generalmajor for nothing.

  He explained more as they walked to his flat. ‘I have booked a table at the Rose Noire.’

  ‘Are you mad? Last time we only just got away with our lives.’

  ‘We can crouch in the shadows or stride down the middle of a sunlit road. Which do you prefer?’

  Later, dressed for the town, they stood in front of a crackling fire. He wore his uniform, the Pour le Mérite dead centre between his lapels. She wore an artificial-silk evening dress, one of Una’s, in cream and gold print. It had bell sleeves, a flounced neck and a tight waist. The pewter-grey choker didn’t look right with it, so she hung her silver snuff-bottle from a fine chain. The ruby ring weighed down her middle finger. Dietrich seemed as wound up as the watch he kept consulting.

  ‘Dietrich, what’s tonight about? You seem excited . . . upset . . . I can’t tell which.’

  ‘I am impatient. Not with you, not even with myself, but with others.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘Berlin has been bombed afresh. Thousands have died. Hundreds of thousands are homeless. My own flat near the Tiergarten . . . uninhabitable. You accused me yesterday of failing in courage, as if I had Hitler in my sights and had failed to pull the trigger. But it isn’t that simple. Putting a stop to the blind murder of my country is no less my desire and duty than it was a year ago, and the reckoning is in sight, but others will say when.’

  ‘So – when?’

  He made a warning gesture. German orderlies were billeted at the top of the house. Forbidden to use the lift, they entered the main flats only to lay fires and clean, but his gesture implied, ‘Ears and eyes.’

  He went on, ‘In Berlin, I met military friends and we renewed our intention but the pace is slow. Like you, I want to speed up the music and run.’ He spanned her waist with his hands. ‘I often dream that it is all over. Last night, I even dreamed we had a son. I could not see where we were living. Somewhere very high, with a view over the world, and I knew that you were my wife. If I survive what is to come, I want to live with you and only with you.’

  She kissed his forehead, her lips finding the raised scar left by his crash-landing twenty-five years before. She would like Dietrich’s child . . . but not yet. She needed her body to be free because, like him, she was tied to a duty. She would never divulge her Resistance activities to him. He had his allegiances, she had hers. It would be tough, being together, with so much to hide.

  ‘Tell me again why you want to go to the Rose
Noire.’

  ‘To hear music and see faces. To hold you in my arms.’

  ‘We could do that anywhere. You want to walk into the wasps’ nest because it’s more fun than waiting for the wasps to find you.’

  He gave a slow smile. ‘You paint my thoughts. So, shall we go?’

  ‘No.’ She put a hand to her hair. ‘I can’t go out without a hat.’

  CHAPTER 33

  Walking down the familiar shadowy stairs, through the baize curtain that an attendant pulled aside, Coralie was struck by the brilliance. She hadn’t blinked like this for months. The deserts of Africa had their oases and Paris had its Rose Noire.

  Lustrous lights and candles, quartz-pink tablecloths, wreaths of flowers and polished silver – it had returned to being a refuge for pampered exils de luxe. People and hope might die, but money never did. It just crept into ever fewer hands.

  How often could the world be remade and still make sense? Her world had changed in the last hour. Dismantled like a wooden puzzle, and rebuilt in a new shape. Not a worse shape, but a profoundly troubling one.

  Félix Peyron saw them and managed to bow while still walking. Or, rather, hobbling. Arthritis up to his knees, Coralie thought. He struggles on, because he has to. And then Martel was before them, a flat palm accentuating his heart.

  ‘Monsieur le Comte, Mademoiselle de Lirac, when I heard who had booked a table, I reserved the very best one. A pleasure to see you back here. You will discover a few changes. For the better, I trust.’

  With Arkady and Florian gone from Paris, the Vagabonds had ceased to exist. A new band filled the stage, nine men, playing old-fashioned swing.

  Dietrich asked, ‘Have my guests arrived?’

  ‘Just this minute, Monsieur.’

  Dietrich hadn’t mentioned guests. Coralie frowned. Like an onion, just as Teddy said. Layer after layer. If she peeled too far, what would she find?

  As they followed Martel, she felt they were being watched. Dietrich always commanded attention and her dress shimmered like a firebird’s wings. With no time to wash and set her hair, she’d brushed it out and let it hang in its natural curl. She must be the only woman there who hadn’t used a gallon of sugar-water. As for a hat . . .

  When she’d refused to leave the flat without one, Dietrich had insisted, ‘You look beautiful as you are.’

  ‘I’m a milliner! I wouldn’t ask you to go on parade in a linen suit.’

  He’d flicked his wrist, for the tenth time.

  ‘That watch must be getting sea-sick,’ she’d said tartly.

  ‘Couldn’t you adapt something of Ottilia’s? The wardrobe is still full of her things.’

  In Ottilia’s former bedroom, he’d unlocked an armoire, revealing a treasury of couture. Only one hatbox, and whatever it contained would be years old. Opening it, she’d exclaimed, ‘Good God! Tilly’s trifle-topping.’ It was the hat Ottilia had worn at Epsom, which Coralie had cheekily suggested needed a brim.

  Actually, it looked good, though as old-fashioned as she’d feared. It was the wrong weight for evening too. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to drop in at my salon.’

  ‘Wait.’ Dietrich had been staring at her reflection. She knew he’d recognised the hat and his expression gave way briefly to sadness. He fetched the gauze stole that Coralie had intended to drape over her shoulders and spread it over the hat’s asymmetrical peaks. It fell like golden mist. Instantly, a new shape was born.

  ‘A vision from a medieval tapestry. You are Fiametta, Dante’s beloved. Ah-ah, do not adjust it, it is perfect. We need something just to secure the veil.’ A pearl shirt-stud had sufficed. ‘May we go now?’

  ‘One last thing.’ She’d applied lipstick, red and bold. Fiametta, little flame. ‘I want an answer to something that has plagued me for years.’

  ‘Why now?’

  ‘This hat has let the genie out of the bottle. You remember Ottilia staggering, punch drunk, out of that fortune-teller’s caravan? What had she heard?’

  A shrug. Can’t remember.

  ‘Doesn’t wash. You remember things and so do I. You told me she’d wanted an answer to a burning question. What was the question?’

  He’d sighed. Must I?

  Yes, he must. She could smell Ottilia’s perfume on this hat, and while she’d often been exasperated with the woman, she’d never been indifferent to her sorrow. ‘I want to know why, when she had so much, she was so lost.’

  Dietrich had capitulated. ‘The question she asked the Romany woman was “Did he reject me because of what I was?” The woman answered, “Yes.” She left in shock because it was the answer she feared.’

  ‘Because of what she was . . . Jewish, you mean?’

  ‘I believe that is what she meant—’

  ‘Did you dump Ottilia for that reason?’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘Then tell me why. You cut your engagement just days before the wedding. Tilly’s kind and beautiful. She’s not the brightest, but you were supposed to be a man of honour. It was as though you opened the car door and pushed her out.’

  Behind her at the mirror, he’d spoken to her reflection. ‘I broke off our engagement because my mother called me to her private room and confessed that Ottilia was my half-sister.’

  ‘Oh.’ Oh. ‘Your father and Ottilia’s was the same man?’

  ‘My mother and Bernard von Silberstrom were lovers, and at the time of my conception, she and her husband – whom the world calls my father – were in different parts of the country.’

  ‘Why not tell Ottilia? Why let her believe it was her you rejected?’

  ‘I told her brother – my half-brother, Max – who urged me to say nothing. Ottilia cannot keep a confidence, as I am sure you have found out.’

  ‘It would have made her feel better. Loved, at least.’

  He nodded. ‘It would have been the brave thing. I, of course, would have been disinherited by my father and subject to the restrictions – the anti-Semitism – practised against Jews in Germany. As you say, it would have been the honourable thing to stand up and say it. But I did not. What I did instead was look after Ottilia, and Max, to the best of my ability. When they needed to escape Germany, I got them out. I was able to help several of Max’s employees to Switzerland, too, with their families. Does that even the score? Had I not been Dietrich von Elbing, I would have been too busy escaping to help anybody.’ He gave a bent smile. ‘You look upon me differently?’

  ‘Actually, yes. You do look a bit like Tilly, now I think about it.’

  ‘I do not see much of her in me, but I resemble Max in some lights. My daughter Claudia has the same, bright hair as Ottilia.’

  They’d said no more about it, but on the drive to boulevard de Clichy, the enormity of what Dietrich had revealed bore in on Coralie. He was half Jewish.

  As Martel ushered them to their table, Coralie had a moment to prepare herself to meet Dietrich’s guests. Kurt and Fritzi Kleber. On the way over, Dietrich had given her firm instructions not to mention seeing Teddy.

  He said now in an undervoice, ‘If either of them mentions his name, you cannot bear to think of him, yes? Lower your eyes, look away.’

  ‘And what about Hitler?’ she asked. ‘Mention him? Don’t mention him?’

  ‘This is not a joke, my love.’

  ‘I know,’ she hung back, ‘but I’m terrified. Fritzi Kleber must know that I ran away the night you went after Teddy. She might have guessed I telephoned him.’

  ‘Impossible. When I got back to the flat, she was dead asleep. Actually, she slept until lunch time.’

  Hurray for veronal. ‘But, Dietrich, the Klebers surely see me as a threat. I mean, I was enrolled into your plot, then I scarpered. What if Fritzi still has that gun in her bag?’

  ‘Perhaps she does but all this was a year ago. Time has passed and we meet again as friends.’

  A moment later, Kurt was kissing her hand in his usual friendly way. Fritzi kissed her cheek. Wine was already o
n the table and Kurt’s immediate intention was for them all to drink a toast. He filled their glasses.

  ‘To a long overdue meeting.’ Dietrich raised his glass

  There followed a gabble of catch-up, in German. Coralie held back. Fritzi and Kurt were jumping over each other to explain that they’d spent the intervening months travelling across France, visiting cathedrals and Roman ruins. They’d even been over the border to Spain. As for Dietrich, he gave news of Berlin, though that meant describing the devastation wreaked by Allied bombers.

  Reminded of Donal, who might still be flying in those slow, rattling ‘crates’, or even perhaps shot down, Coralie moved her gaze away. It came to rest on Lorienne Royer.

  She jumped as Fritzi put a hand on hers.

  ‘I am sorry I have not been to La Passerinette recently.’ Fritzi made a face. ‘Days hurtle by, but I have seen your creations worn by my friends. What do you think of mine?’ She indicated her evening hat, a padded velvet base with clusters of spring flowers.

  ‘Very pretty. But not my design. Put a date in your diary, Fritzi.’

  ‘I will, all the more if this is one of your spring models.’ Fritzi stroked Coralie’s gauze veil. ‘Is it difficult to wear?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t want to try to eat a lobster while wearing it.’ Coralie opened her palms either side of the golden headdress. ‘This is the birth of an idea because, like children, all ideas are conceived in hope. What they turn into is anybody’s guess.’

  Fritzi said no more, as their men had started speaking in low, serious tones.

  Realising the women had fallen silent, Kurt broke off. He propped his elbows on the table, and spoke against his knuckles. ‘I was asking Dietrich if our oath holds. If we still march towards the same destiny.’

  ‘Dachterrasse.’ Fritzi said it softly.

  ‘A year has passed, precious time lost,’ Dietrich said, raising his glass. ‘But let us drink to Dachterrasse. To friendship. To unbreakable loyalty.’