The Paris Secret

by Lily Graham

  She hurried down the stairs, pressing her ear to the door, frowning as she heard what sounded like low sobbing.

  The doctor hadn’t come home yet, but sometimes he was late from the hospital.

  She felt safer when he was there. She kept all the doors locked just in case. Her hands shook. What if it was Valter Kroeling again? What if he knocked down the door? It was past midnight; she doubted that the man Mattaus Fredericks had paid to look out for her hung on past then, not when he could spend the money on drink.

  Then she heard a faint voice call, from the other side of the door, ‘Mireille.’

  ‘Clotilde?’ she whispered.

  There was a faint ‘It’s me’ on the other side, and Mireille scrabbled to open the door, her heart lifting. She’d been worried about Clotilde, whom she hadn’t seen for days, and was relieved that she was finally home now, at last – only to catch her breath as she found her friend leaning against the opposite wall, her clothes torn and filthy, with dried blood in her hair, and all down her face.

  Mireille gasped, then dragged her inside. ‘Are you hurt? What happened? Oh, Clotilde.’

  Clotilde looked at her with her deep, dark eyes. ‘I got away.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mireille’s heart started to thud – was no one she loved safe?

  ‘I was followed. I should have listened to you – it’s true, since that Nazi Valter Kroeling started haunting you, we’ve been watched. One of his men caught me passing information in the park about the movements of the officers, their schedules – there was a plan to attack.’

  Mireille’s knees turned weak. How deep had her friend got?

  ‘He tried to take me. But I fought him off. You know the penalty,’ she said, her voice breaking.

  Mireille closed her eyes. It was death by firing squad.

  Clotilde began to shake and sob.

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ said Mireille, pulling her friend into a hug and leading her to a chair. The first thing she needed to do was to assess the damage. Then they could figure out what to do. If there was somewhere she could hide Clotilde, perhaps… She got a clean washcloth out of the cupboard, along with some iodine. She wrung the cloth out under the tap, and tended her friend’s wounds, getting up afterwards to fetch her father’s whisky and pour them each a large glass.

  ‘I heard about your father – that he was arrested. Is it true?’ asked Clotilde. Her large eyes were full of pity.

  While they drank, Mireille told her about what had happened – how badly things had gone wrong with Valter Kroeling, and how her father was now in prison.

  Clotilde closed her eyes. ‘I should have been here!’

  ‘It would have made no difference.’

  Clotilde nodded. ‘Maybe.’ She clutched her head. Then she stood up after a moment. ‘I must go. That man has my name – it is only a matter of time before he comes here, and I have heard that they deal swiftly with resisters for what I have done, beating up that officer… I just needed to see you, even if it’s only to say goodbye.’ Her voice broke.

  Mireille stood up fast, too. ‘No, don’t leave! Where will you go, Clotilde? Let’s talk about this – there must be somewhere I can hide you. If you run, they’ll find you. You’re all I have left! I can’t let anything happen to you.’

  A voice behind them made them jump. ‘She can stay here, for now.’

  Mireille turned slowly, ashen, and saw at the bottom of the stairs leading into the bookshop Mattaus. How long had he been standing there?

  He came into the room, and walked straight to Clotilde, who recoiled, looking from him to Mireille in fear. Mireille didn’t know how to begin explaining.

  ‘I – thought it best to sleep downstairs, in the storeroom,’ he said, by way of explanation.

  Had he been here this whole time? She frowned.

  ‘That looks painful,’ he said, looking at Clotilde. ‘May I?’ He came forward to peer at her face. Clotilde jumped at his touch.

  ‘He – he’s a doctor,’ said Mireille, trying and failing to slow her beating heart. Clotilde looked as if she were ready to bolt, and flinched when Mattaus laid his fingers along her skull, testing the flesh.

  ‘It is not cracked. Just bruised, I think. You will need stitches, though, above that eye. I will do it. I have something for the pain, from my bag downstairs… give me a moment.’

  As he left, Clotilde looked at Mireille, and hissed, quickly, ‘What is he doing here? Should I run? Can he be trusted?’

  As quickly as she dared, she told her friend of the arrangement.

  ‘He’s here because your father asked him to look out for you? Dupont?’

  Mireille nodded. ‘Yes.’

  Clotilde shook her head. ‘And instead of encroaching on your flat, your space – he’s been sleeping in the storeroom?’

  ‘It seems like it. Yes.’

  After a beat Clotilde shook her head. ‘I didn’t know there were ones like him.’

  Mireille nodded. She hadn’t either. But still…

  ‘I don’t know that we can trust him, Clotilde, however nice he seems.’

  There was a noise from behind, and Mattaus came back into the room. If he had heard Mireille’s words, his face betrayed no sign of it. Mireille closed her eyes, her cheeks flooding with colour.

  He didn’t say anything as he opened his bag and prepared the stitches. He looked at the open whisky bottle, and nodded at Mireille to pour another. ‘I think that will help more than this,’ he said of the small bottle of pain medicine he took out.

  When he’d finished, he seemed to have been gearing himself up for something, because he took a deep breath and said, ‘You can, you know,’ to Mireille.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  He put his supplies back into his large leather bag and closed it with a dull click. ‘Trust me. I will not betray you. Either of you.’

  They blinked. Mireille’s heart started to pound again.

  ‘But there is something I need to tell you,’ he said, turning to Clotilde now. ‘There have been talks of rounding up people like you, people of your faith. It has for the moment been rejected but I am not sure for how long. I fear that is the way it will go, soon. If you can get out of the city, that would be wise, and if I can help you to do that, I will.’

  ‘Why?’ said Mireille later, after she had helped her friend to bed, and she’d come downstairs to find that this whole time he had been sleeping in the small stock room, on an old couch that was far too small for him, covered in cat hair.

  ‘I thought you might be more comfortable if I was not in the apartment – I saw that you were not sleeping.’

  She frowned, shook her head. ‘Thank you, but no, I did not mean that – though it is fine, you are welcome to sleep upstairs. This can’t be comfortable, and after all it is you who are helping me – the least you should have is a good night’s rest from the arrangement.’

  ‘I am fine, believe me. I’m a doctor, used to sleeping where and when I can.’

  She nodded, bit her lip, and asked her question again. ‘What I wanted to ask was why should we trust you – why would you risk all of this for us?’

  He looked down at his feet. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  She frowned. ‘Not to me.’

  He smiled for the first time, and she noticed how handsome he really was, how under normal circumstances she would have enjoyed looking at a face like his, with his cropped dark blond hair, defined cheekbones, tanned skin and bright green eyes.

  ‘Well, it should be. I have done that stupid thing that I was warned against. Fallen for the enemy.’

  She took a step back, her heart starting to pound.

  ‘Mireille,’ he said. It was the first time he hadn’t called her Mademoiselle. ‘I don’t expect anything from you, or for you to feel the same. This is about me, or the man I used to be, before my country went mad – the world, really – and when I’m with you I think maybe I could be that man again, some day…’

  She sat on the edge of his couch.
‘What man is that?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Just a doctor, and some day perhaps a husband, a father.’

  ‘Not a soldier? A Nazi?’ She couldn’t help the venom that came with that last word, as much as she tried.

  He shook his head, his eyes growing dark. ‘No, that was never part of the plan. I was conscripted. I admit that for a while I did believe in some of the things the people who followed Hitler said.’

  At Mireille’s deepening frown, he tried to explain. ‘Germany was a hard place growing up. We were poor, suffering a great depression. Everything the country made went to paying off reparations for a war we never started. People were starving and suffering, and then he came, and things got better for a time. Until they got a lot worse, until nothing made sense any more. And suddenly my friends, people who I once debated with about politics and religion and our country, had suddenly become fanatics, not able to see sense. They were brainwashed, and if you spoke out, it was jail or execution. I never wanted this, trust me.’

  He looked so sad and lost that Mireille felt that suddenly she could truly see the man behind the uniform. She’d been so terrified of having him there. She kept waiting for him to turn into the monster she was sure was lurking behind his pleasant mask. She frowned, then, with shaking fingers, she touched his shoulder. She hadn’t ever willingly touched him before, and though it was a small gesture, it was one that would change everything.

  He reached out and squeezed her hand, and she left hers in his. For the first time in months she didn’t want to be anywhere but where she was, sitting right next to him. Having him look at her the way he did, and having, for just a moment, the feeling that maybe the world might make sense again one day.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It took a week, with Clotilde hiding in the apartment, for Mattaus to get the false identity papers for her to leave the country.

  Already several officials had come to check if Clotilde had come back to the apartment. Each time, thankfully, Mattaus had been on hand to answer their questions, and to show them around – proving that that she wasn’t. He didn’t show them everything, of course. Like where they had actually hidden her, which was in the attic. There was a moment when one of the men looked up at the ceiling as if thinking about it, but when he saw Mattaus looking at him with a raised brow, he nodded, then left.

  They had all breathed a sigh of relief after that.

  ‘These papers will help you to leave, via Spain. There is a man who will help you to cross the border.’

  They’d dyed Clotilde’s hair blonde the night before, and she would be leaving with the doctor in one of Mireille’s dresses. It showed how thin her friend had become that it fitted her, despite the difference in their height. It broke Mireille’s heart seeing her so reduced.

  The doctor and Clotilde went over the plan once again as Mireille watched Clotilde pack her bag, tears streaming down her cheeks. When would she see her friend again?

  ‘You will let me know, somehow, that you are safe?’ she asked for the third time that morning, and Clotilde nodded, pressed her close to her chest.

  ‘I will, I promise.’ Then she blew out her cheeks, and said, ‘I think he might be one of the good ones.’

  Mireille nodded, then gave her one last squeeze as Mattaus told her to hurry: the car was waiting outside.

  When Clotilde was at the stairs, Mattaus turned back to Mireille. ‘I will go with her as far as Lyon, then come back later tonight, from the hospital. It will take some time before we get word that she has crossed the border – you must be strong.’

  She nodded, and when he reached out to squeeze her hand, she gave him one in response.

  Worry consumed Mireille’s days. Worry about her father and for her friend. Every day she had been turned away by the prison – no one would let her see her father. But after a time one of the younger guards took pity on her and gave her an update. He was thin, and had a scar on the side of his lip, but his eyes were kind.

  ‘You don’t need to come every day,’ he said. ‘We are not mistreating him.’

  She nodded. There was something about him that made her believe that what he said was true.

  Mireille tried to make it enough that he wasn’t being abused, but she still continued to visit, still continued to worry. There were other fears she had for him – disease, starvation, loneliness… there was only one of those she might be able to help prevent.

  ‘Can you give him this?’ she asked the guard, passing him a boiled turnip wrapped in a cloth. ‘I have heard that there is not enough food here.’

  ‘There is not enough food anywhere,’ he said. They stared at each other for some time, then eventually he gave a slight nod.

  ‘Can I bring some more for him?’

  The guard didn’t say anything for a while, and Mireille worried that she’d gone too far, that he would throw the vegetable in her face, but he sighed, and nodded. Perhaps he hoped that somewhere, somehow, someone was treating his own father well. ‘Come this time again tomorrow.’

  It took three days for her to get word that Clotilde had entered Spain and was safe. For the first time in days, Mireille felt that she could breathe. In the time since her friend had fled, she had been walking around in a daze, barely seeing Mattaus’s face, just drawing comfort from his continued presence, and his frequent assurances that no news at this stage was good news.

  When Mattaus came home that night, after she had got the news, she ate dinner with him, and before she got up to leave the table, she touched his hair and kissed his forehead. His hand reached out for hers. His green eyes were intense, dark, and she felt her stomach flip. When he stood up to kiss her properly, her heart began to thud. She closed her eyes as his lips met hers, and sank into his kiss.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  1941

  It was spring when her father was finally released and he came home weak and half starved despite the food she had managed to sneak in. He’d given most of it away to another prisoner who had begun coughing up blood.

  He’d grown ever more angry as a result of his time in jail, his resentment towards the Germans a festering wound that would not heal.

  Despite the fact that he’d asked Mattaus to stay with his daughter, he didn’t like it at all, seething with unspent rage that the doctor didn’t move out now that he was back. He wanted his home, his privacy, a refuge away from them, but he felt doomed never to get it.

  Mireille cared for her father as best she could, trying to temper his anger and get him to eat, but his stomach was poor, and could only take so much after so many months of poor nutrition.

  As they moved into the summer of 1941, rationing had become ever more onerous. Turnips had become a key staple of their daily diet, despite the small extras the doctor brought home, which had become less and less as the city needed more, and the farms stopped producing. All the food was needed for the soldiers.

  ‘I am home now – why doesn’t he leave?’ complained Vincent for the third time that week, listening to the movements downstairs as the doctor got ready for bed.

  ‘You know why, Papa,’ Mireille said. ‘As long as he’s here, Valter Kroeling is not.’

  Her father nodded and lit one of the cigarettes that came from the doctor’s supply. ‘I suppose we are to be grateful for that.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He rubbed his eyes. He would be grateful only when this was over, when they had left his city, and his home.

  Mireille waited for her father to fall asleep before she slipped downstairs and crept into the storeroom where Mattaus was still sleeping – he’d refused to encroach further on their apartment. Mireille had cleared it up as much as possible, so at least it was more comfortable.

  Mattaus looked up at the sound of the creaking door, then sat up quickly when he saw it was Mireille. He was only in a pair of white boxers.

  Mireille closed the door, and leant against it. She was wearing her best negligee, from before the war. It was the only one she had now.

/>   She swallowed. Her breathing quickened.

  ‘Mireille?’

  She stared at him, at his body. He was a big man. Tall, fit and muscular. The skin on his arms, neck and face was tanned.

  She was suddenly very nervous. This had all seemed like such a good idea, until it actually came down to it. She couldn’t sleep, and the more Papa had complained about Mattaus, the more she’d realised just how angry she was becoming at what he said, and how she’d come to care for this man who had risked everything for her, including helping her friend to escape the country.

  His teeth were even and white. Her stomach flipped at how handsome he was, especially when he smiled.

  ‘Hello,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve been thinking about things.’

  ‘What things?’ she asked, taking a step closer in her bare feet. She sat down on the edge of the old sofa, aware of how thin the negligee was, how much of herself was exposed. There was very little room; most of it was taken up by him. His legs were warm against hers.

  He looked at her, then shook his head, laughter lines showing around his bright green eyes as he said simply, ‘You.’

  She bit her lip. ‘And what do you think about when you think of me?’

  ‘Everything.’

  He pulled her towards him and kissed her, and soon she was beneath him and his hands and lips were everywhere, trailing kisses along her neck, her shoulders, her breasts. She had to bite her lip to stop herself from moaning out, till they reached even further, parting her thighs. His lips caused shivers as he whispered in her ear, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

  She nodded. Right then he was the only thing in her life she was sure of.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  She found out that she was pregnant eight weeks later, when she could no longer fit into her dress, despite the fact that they were surviving on turnips and the occasional bit of meat.