by Lily Graham
Mireille’s hands shook and she swallowed, giving the soldier a thin, tight smile.
‘Is that the time?’ she exclaimed, glancing at the clock on the wall in the far corner, though she didn’t read it. ‘I’m afraid, sir, I have to close the shop,’ she told the officer suddenly, standing up. ‘I have a dentist appointment, which I nearly forgot. I’m already late, if you don’t mind…’
The officer left with a laugh, telling her to look after her pretty smile, suggesting that he’d call on her again some time soon for dinner if she was free. Mireille’s face hurt from gritting her teeth in a pained grimace of a smile. As soon as he was gone, she locked the door and put up the ‘closed’ sign, even though it was barely past ten in the morning.
She turned to her friend, her blue eyes wide and filled with fear. ‘So, it’s true.’ She came over to touch the large yellow star tacked onto the jacket. ‘You have to wear this now?’
Clotilde nodded. Her eyes were scared too, which was what shocked Mireille most – her friend, larger than life, bolder than anyone she knew, was never afraid of anything.
‘Can’t you just take it off?’
‘No, they said it’s the law now and if any Jew doesn’t wear it then we could get sent to jail – there’s a list with all our names…’ she explained.
Mireille had heard the rumours, of course she had, but despite all that she’d seen and heard so far – including the crazy man who’d shot a book in their shop – she hadn’t dared to believe that the Nazis would be asking the city’s Jews to identify themselves.
‘Why are they doing this?’
‘Why? It’s because of him, Hitler, their fearless lunatic of a leader – he hates us.’
‘I know… but—’
‘There needs to be a reason beyond the fact that we are different?’
‘How? How are you different? Do you not bleed?’ she said, quoting Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. It was gallows humour, but Clotilde appreciated it all the same.
‘Not enough, clearly,’ said Clotilde with a wry twist to her lips.
Mireille kissed her friend’s cheek and embraced her. ‘Stay here tonight, with us.’
Clotilde nodded. She didn’t want to be in the apartment next door, alone. Her brothers were fighting in the war, and her mother was in the countryside, with her sisters. Only Clotilde had stayed behind. She’d declared that she would join the resistance – though as the days passed she wasn’t sure if there even was such a thing as yet. But she vowed she would be ready for it when it arrived.
‘I’ll make us some tea, and we can pretend, just for a moment, that the world hasn’t gone completely mad,’ said Mireille.
‘I think for that you’d better open up a bottle of wine instead.’
Mireille nodded. ‘Yes.’
But the world had gone mad. Well and truly mad. And as far as Mireille was concerned, that madness took the form, for the most part, of the young Nazi soldier named Valter Kroeling who’d made it his mission, ever since that first day he’d come inside the shop firing his pistol at the book, to spend as much time as he could in the bookshop. A month later he had declared himself the new manager of the store, to her father’s complete outrage.
Mireille had had to warn her father to keep his temper. Already the Nazis were making short work of the men in the city; you could be sent to a labour camp or jail just from opening your mouth. She didn’t want that for her father.
Valter Kroeling came into the shop, shortly after Clotilde had come around with the news that Jews now had to identify themselves, to declare that from now on half of the bookstore would need to make room for a division of Official Correspondence. This consisted mainly of a small press that would soon form part of the German propaganda wheel. They would also be using the bookshop to store pamphlets and newsletters to encourage the people of Paris to obey their new rulers.
A few days later, seeing Clotilde step inside the shop one afternoon, Valter Kroeling marched to Mireille’s side to tell her that her Jewish friend was no longer permitted to walk through the front door, and should enter only through the service entrance around the back from now on. ‘Like the rest of the riff-raff. But who knows,’ he whispered into her ear, moving aside her long, silken hair, causing the tiny hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end in revulsion. ‘For a kiss, maybe I can look the other way.’
She pulled away, forcing out a tight smile. She wanted to retort that he wasn’t a man at all, just a boy playing dress-up, but she clenched her jaw and gritted out through her teeth: ‘I’ll see my friend at the back as you advise. M’sieur,’ she added, like a hiss.
His face hardened. ‘If that is what you wish.’
‘It is.’
He looked at her, and cocked his head to the side. Mireille could see along his forehead a string of pimples. His pink, fleshy hand strayed to the top of her linen blouse, touching the collar, and leaving behind a small mark from his ink-stained fingers. ‘There is still time to change your mind. I can wait for you to come around, if you know what I mean.’
She had to stop herself from batting his hand away.
Behind her someone cleared his throat.
It was another Nazi, one she hadn’t seen before. He was a big man with dark blond hair and vivid green eyes.
‘Mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘My apologies, I was wondering if you could help me.’ He saluted Valter Kroeling, who stood reluctantly back from Mireille. Kroeling greeted the man with, ‘Heil Hitler. Herr Stabsarzt Fredericks.’
The doctor nodded his greeting and turned to Mireille. ‘I was hoping that you had a French to German medical dictionary? I’m afraid that I am slightly rusty on my French medical terminology.’
Mireille was for once genuinely grateful to see another soldier, and went to check their catalogue in haste – anything to get away from Valter Kroeling and his grasping hands. ‘I am not sure if we stock anything like that, M’sieur, but I will check. If not I can order one for you from the publisher.’
‘That would be most kind,’ he said, sounding surprised.
A muscle twitched in Mireille’s cheek.
‘It’s what I would do for any customer.’
He frowned. ‘Yes, I see.’
Mireille looked away. She had seen how some women were treated by the French for being too kind to the Nazis. There wasn’t exactly a guidebook on how they were meant to behave. How should you act towards what were for all intents and purposes your captors? All she – along with the other women she knew – wanted to do was to tell them all to go to hell. The trouble was what happened when one did. They had all seen and heard officers lose their poise, striking an older woman who spat in a Nazi’s face, carting them off to labour camps or worse… the things they did to some of them behind closed doors. What balance did you strike – how friendly was friendly enough to let them leave you alone?
‘I’m afraid we don’t have a medical dictionary – but I can order you one, as I suggested.’
‘Thank you,’ said the officer.
She nodded, and took down his name and telephone number for when the book was in stock.
He hesitated, then asked, ‘They are setting up a printing press in here?’ He gestured at the officers who had taken over half of the shop and commandeered the stock room.
She bowed her head, her smile thin, her eyes dark. ‘We are allowed to keep this half of the store,’ she said between clenched teeth. ‘We are grateful.’
He nodded, and said again, ‘I see.’
The pity in his eyes was too much and she looked away, then started when he leant his face near hers, and whispered, ‘Be careful of Herr Kroeling.’
‘M’sieur?’ she asked, stepping back.
He straightened and his face was impassive. ‘Remember what I said.’
She watched him go, then frowned. How bad was Valter Kroeling if his own people felt the need to warn her about him?
Chapter Ten
1962
The Cafe De Bonne Chance was
filled with the sound of soft jazz. Through the fog of smoke and laughter, Valerie found Freddy sitting in the back facing the window, his battered green portable typewriter on the table, his long limbs crossed, a pencil clutched between his teeth. His messy dark hair was ruffled from where he was twisting it between two fingers, a habit he had had since he was child, whenever he was thinking about something. Valerie had often wondered if one day there would be a bald spot where his fingers played, but so far, so lucky.
He looked up and flashed her a grin, revealing the even teeth in his tanned, ruddy face, and his dancing brown eyes.
He’d been scribbling away in a notebook, which he closed when he saw her.
She ordered a citron pressé and marvelled at the sight of Freddy Lea-Sparrow in Paris.
When she sat down he gave her a heart-stopping wink.
She caught her breath. Could she actually do as Madame Joubert had advised and ask him straight out if he’d come here because he was in love with her? She gave a nervous laugh.
At his puzzled look, she chickened out and asked, ‘How’s your flat?’
‘Well, I think it might classify as a garret, actually, lucky me. I mean, I couldn’t have come to Paris as a writer and live in anything but a garret, you see – there’s a certain expectation, a standard one must keep.’
She grinned and took a sip of the lemon juice the waiter brought over. ‘What classifies a flat as a garret, exactly – is it because it’s in the attic?’ she asked with a frown.
‘Yes, but see, that could easily be a penthouse, if it’s not careful. There’s no danger of that in my garret, though. First there’s the fact that I can touch both walls by standing in the middle—’
‘Ooh, me too, in my room.’
He laughed. ‘So we’re a pair. Still, I have a broken sink, the smell of mould, and a distant view of the brothel on the corner. Not too shabby either – they use red velvet for decor. And it’s in Montmartre, so apparently all is forgiven.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, except that it’s not that bad, and the brothel is really just one lone prostitute by the name of Madame Flausier, who bakes the best apricot tarte tatin ever, and is not shy about making friends with strangers.’
Valerie’s mouth fell open, shocked. ‘Fred-dy.’
He grinned. ‘She’s seventy-three. I suppose if I were interested, she might take herself out of retirement…’
She laughed and poked him in the ribs. ‘Stop teasing.’
‘Impossible.’
She squeezed his arm. That would be impossible.
‘So?’ he said, giving her his interrogation look.
‘What?’
‘The bookshop – your grandfather? How’s it all going? I had to move to bloody Paris just to get an update. You know that there are these things called telephones now, readily available, right? As well as letters? You could have tried one?’
She nodded. ‘I know, sorry. I just had to be careful – what if I wrote to you and you wrote back calling me Valerie… or if Monsieur Dupont read the letter…’
‘Val, I’m a journalist – I’m not an idiot.’
She shrugged. ‘Yeah.’
‘So what’s he like?’
She told him.
They had lunch and moved on to wine, and by the end of her break, when she needed to get back to the bookshop, they had barely scratched the surface.
Freddy’s eyes were serious. ‘I’d like to meet him.’
‘I’d like that too, but you’re going to have to remember not to call me Valerie – promise me, Freddy. If you say it even once, I think he’d know. He’s already said that I remind him of his daughter.’
Freddy was surprised. ‘But then surely you should just tell him?’
She shook her head, bit her lip. ‘Not yet. They’re sort of opening up to me now, I just—’
‘They?’
‘Monsieur Dupont and his neighbour – Madame Joubert, mainly,’ she had to admit, ‘started telling me about my mother, about the Occupation – I think they need someone to talk to about it, though of course, Monsieur Dupont seems to clam up at any mention of the war. He just shuts down, seething with this unspent anger. I don’t know how he’d take it if I told him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Monsieur Dupont is a bit of a wild card – Aunt Amélie called him mercurial, which is true, but he’s – I don’t know – easily riled, and he would be furious, possibly, thinking I’d tricked him. I just want to know more before I say anything. I feel that it’s bigger than just telling him who I am – it’s this chance I hadn’t factored in when I got here. To hear about my mother – to find out who she was before she died, to find out how she died, even. And if I tell them who I am, I might risk having them stop, and I just don’t want to risk that. Not yet, not after I’ve finally found a small part of her again.’
Freddy gave her hand a squeeze. He didn’t need to say more; it was that simple gesture that said, I understand. I get it. She wished she had the courage at least to tell Freddy how she felt about him, and have one thing in her life out in the open at the moment. But when a pretty waitress walked past and he gave her a smile, Valerie stopped herself again. Right then the weight of all the things she needed to say felt like a lead ball sinking inside her chest, making even breathing difficult.
Chapter Eleven
The apartment was quiet, the dawn sky the colour of an old bruise, pewter grey and silent. Not even the birds had begun their song as Valerie slipped out of her bed, and got the old battered suitcase from underneath, placing it on top. In the inside pocket was the photograph Aunt Amélie had given her when she was a little girl. It was the only photograph she had of her mother. It was black and white, and showed a young Mireille, with long blonde hair, sitting by a window, her legs tucked beneath her. There was a cat in her lap, and she was laughing as she looked down at it.
Valerie touched the photograph now, and whispered, ‘What happened to you? Why wouldn’t anyone tell me?’
It hardly seemed real that she was here in this apartment, where her mother had grown up – where she as a child had spent her first early years; she was more sure of that now than ever. Sure even that once, a long time ago, this had been her room. That she had wanted the room painted blue, like her mother’s eyes.
But was that true, or just a product of her imagination? How much of what she thought she remembered was just a desperate mind trying to fill in the missing parts of her own history? She put the photograph back inside the suitcase and pushed it beneath the bed.
If nothing else, she reminded herself – no matter how painful it could be, how much this could all go wrong – at least she would know who she was in the end, who she’d once belonged to. Her mother deserved that – the woman in the photograph with the kind face, and apples in her cheeks, deserved for her daughter to know who she was.
Valerie had become like a magpie, collecting everything that she saw or heard about her mother, which she assembled, like different sized twigs scattered with jewels and junk, to piece together a nest-like shell of who Mireille had been. She found samples of her handwriting on old index cards and in the margins of books, a cushion that she had made with the word Gribouiller stitched in thread, a watercolour painting of spring flowers in bloom hanging on the wall, with a faint signature at the bottom, a cursive M in the corner. She had been here. Had walked across these floors, slept between these walls. She had laughed and cried here, and somewhere, hidden from sight, was more of her story, if only Valerie could find the right key, the right words to prise the memories from Dupont and Madame Joubert’s lips.
So she looked for things, ways to remind them, to tempt them, as painful as it was, to share their stories, and take her back with them into the past, so that her mother might live somehow, now, and in the future with her.
It was harder with Dupont, of course. He didn’t open up easily, especially about the past. But when he did, it was as welcome as gentle rain on hot baked earth.
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It was the simple admissions that sometimes fell from his lips that stopped her heart.
Like the day she picked up a copy of The Secret Garden that had been left behind on a table, and lingered over the pages, reading the first words, and he came past and touched her shoulder, his voice a little sad as he paused. ‘That was Mireille’s favourite when she was a little girl. She must have read it a thousand times – she used to carry it with her everywhere. Whenever we went somewhere and I said, “Go and get a book for the road,” she’d dart inside in a flash to get that one, even though we had all of this to choose from,’ he said, his hands taking in the wealth of books in the shop.
He smiled at the memory, though his eyes looked sad.
Valerie looked up at him, her heart beating faster.
‘She always used to say that when—’ He stopped then cleared his throat, his shaking hands reaching for his cigarettes, a frown between his eyes.
‘She used to say…?’ prompted Valerie.
He sighed, his gaze falling on the table for a moment, the pile of paperbacks that needed to be returned to the shelves. ‘She used to say that she couldn’t wait to share it with her children. Maybe start a garden of her own one day with them, if she had any.’
Valerie’s throat constricted when she realised that somehow, Mireille had found a way to share her favourite story with her child after all. ‘It’s my favourite book too,’ she breathed.
Tears pricked her eyes as she remembered. There had always been an old, yellow-papered, dog-eared copy in her room in London, always. It was kept on her nightstand since she could remember. It had its own smell, the pages buckled from when she’d taken it with her into the bath, and it had slipped and she’d had to dry it out in the sun. Or the time she’d got strawberry jam on the corners, when she’d stayed home from school with the mumps and it was the only thing that really made her feel better. It was that sort of book, the kind that always came off the shelf, which was more precious because of its wear and tear, and its Velveteen Rabbit type of love.
