The Seven Letters

by Jan Harvey

  Perrine was cleaning the great mirrors in the Salon with vinegar and newspaper, she stopped when Claudette came in. ‘Oh Françoise, I can’t believe it, poor you, Madame F. told me, it’s just awful.’

  ‘With the exception of Nannette and Lilia they all treat me like I’m a piece of dirt.’ Claudette shook her head and sat down on one of the plush red salon chairs. ‘Just because of Pollo and her stupid foot.’

  ‘And it was a mistake, anyway,’ added Perrine. She put the paper and vinegar down and gave Claudette a hug. Holding her at arms length, her hands on her friend’s shoulders, she said: ‘We work in a whorehouse, with whores, it was never going to be easy. When it gets too much think of the tarte Tatin on a Saturday night, and fresh croissant and real coffee.’

  ‘And the hair dye,’ added Claudette, but her smile felt weak. ‘Perrine, why would a German officer be on floor five? Isn’t it empty?’ Perrine looked away and picked up her cleaning where she left it.

  ‘He will have gone up too far in the lift, that’s all, a simple mistake. He will have realised and be wanting to come down again.’ There was something about Perrine that wasn’t quite right, she was turning away, concentrating a bit too hard as she drew the folded paper down the glass.

  Claudette picked up the duster and a tin of polish. She began to wipe the soft cloth across the top of a walnut cabinet. It was inlaid with ivory and mother of pearl, the finish exquisite. Watching Perrine from the corner of her eye Claudette knew she was keeping something to herself. Her hair was the deep dyed brown like her own, also done by Nannette, her slim figure and round, pretty face reflected in the looking glass. For the first time Claudette felt there was something between them, something Perrine knew, but was not going to discuss.

  Jacques opened the door, the sweep of it let in a damp breeze meaning that the front door was also open. ‘Sister,’ he said grimly. ‘May I have a word?’ Claudette looked over her shoulder at Perrine who was not paying any attention, and stepped out of the room. Jacques took her across the hall and past the front door where Madame Odile was talking to a woman whilst she opened her umbrella. She paid Jacques and Claudette no heed as she pulled the door closed behind her.

  ‘She’s going out with her Madam friends,’ said Jacques. ‘Comparing prices and the latest cure for crabs.’ Claudette didn’t know what he was talking about. He took her into the bar and then round the end of it, into the quiet corner where the chairs formed an almost perfect circle round a glass table. ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ he said, hanging his head. ‘I feel bad I wasn’t there to protect you.’

  ‘Thank you, Jacques. I was fine in the end, though the whores wouldn’t have stopped him, they were egging him on.’

  ‘It’s a long time since those bitches had any scruples,’ he said forlornly. ‘We’re all the same now, it’s been a long time since any of us could afford to have them.’

  ‘Don’t count me in with that lot. I never thought I’d be here, doing this. Perrine says we should focus on the tarte Tatin,’ Claudette said dully. ‘That says it all.’

  ‘I have news for you,’ Jacques reached out and put his hand over hers. Instead of reassuring her it felt disturbing, she pulled her hands away and tucked them under her thighs.

  ‘Am I that repulsive?’ he asked, his eyes searching hers for an answer.

  ‘I’m sorry but, honestly, after last night I’ve got a completely different view of things and especially men. And I also think you are keeping something from me.’ There was a pause, she waited for him to speak, he said nothing. ‘Floor five?’

  ‘I have no idea why there was a Boche up there, forget it, we have real work to do here.’ He was agitated. She changed the subject, she would get nowhere with him and she knew it.

  ‘What did you want to tell me?’

  ‘On Wednesday I am sending you to an address in the Marais. You are to go there and you will be collecting some sewing materials. The person in the shop upstairs will be Yves.’

  Chapter Twenty Three

  I was on the concourse at Ebbsfleet. A group of businessmen in tight suits all looking like variations on Jack Whitehall were walking towards me, none of them was Matt. I took a seat and checked my ticket for the twelfth time that morning. The sun was high, and I was looking at puffball clouds, imagining I was illustrating them in a children’s book, when Matt touched me lightly on the shoulder. He said hello and immediately began fumbling in his bag. It was the same tactic I use when I don’t want to greet someone with a kiss. We had driven separately because Matt hadn’t suggested anything different and it seemed ridiculous now. What had I done? Broken up a friendship before it really had a chance, that’s what.

  ‘We can go through now.’ Matt nodded towards the group of men who were bunching through the ticket check. I followed him, holding out my ticket to a very smiley lady wearing a lanyard, and running through ideas in my mind about how to talk to him about me, and my stupidity. In the waiting room he went into WH Smith and flicked through magazines and books, idling his time away, away from me.

  On the train we sat side by side, his knee touching mine, awkwardly. The train picked up speed and it occurred to me then that this was how we met six weeks before, it had all been about a train, the train that killed Freddy.

  We talked very little. He was reading a Dan Brown and I lost myself in my book too. It was a convenient escape. He was friendly when he spoke, but the flirtation was gone, the sense of fun over. I felt awful, the engineer of the whole downfall, and here I was with him for four days on separate floors, by request.

  The countryside of Normandy has always intrigued me, an endless patchwork of fields without hedges, ochre and burnt umber flashing past the window. Water towers, steepled churches in pink and grey, pylons very different from ours, linking farmhouses to hamlets to towns. I tried to picture it during the war, the trenches of 1914, the skeleton buildings and dreary greys of the Second World War, but I couldn’t see it. Everything looked so neat and ordered, the ravages of war lost in time.

  At the Gare du Nord a thrill of excitement ran through me; Paris. They were offering sweets at the gate enticing us to think nice thoughts about our journey. The concourse was full of people looking up at departure boards for platform numbers, groups of bemused tourists with irritated locals skirting around them. A beggar, with greasy auburn hair and a face almost the same colour, asked me for money. I caught his eye, but I had to pass him by as I hastily followed Matt who was threading his way at a pace towards the taxi rank. We waited behind two women, one with a poodle under her arm, its woolly coat the same auburn colour as the beggar.

  It was a good ten minutes wait, during which Matt pointed out quirky things he saw, avoiding real conversation. There was a huge American man trying to squeeze into the seat of a taxi-bus and complaining that the seat belts weren’t made for real people in France. There was a couple arguing loudly, her face indignant and his the colour of a blood orange. A Japanese family had just walked out of the concourse and into the taxi at the front of the queue, paying no heed to the line of hot, tired people behind them. The man who was organising us into line, under the long gazebo, raised his eyebrows but ignored them because he’d seen it all before.

  Our cab pulled up and the driver got out. He had very black skin, black sunglasses, a black shirt and black jeans. On his wrist was a huge silver watch with a thick chain-link strap that glinted in the sun when he waved us over.

  As we battled to leave the station our driver said something in French that ended in ‘idiot!’ and which made Matt laugh. I didn’t understand and Matt didn’t translate. The driver had the scars of tribal initiation on his face, deep ridges in his cheeks. I couldn’t help but wonder how he had been able to stand the pain of it.

  We were held up by the taxi with the Japanese in it. There were lots of gesticulations as our taxi driver shouted and punched his horn at a cyclist who, for no ap
parent reason, had stopped in front of him. It was chaos.

  My eyes fell on the sign on the wall next to me. “André Dubois, the heart of the Resistance in Paris.” I found myself wondering about him as the car horns started and the cyclist continued to argue with the taxi driver. I Googled Dubois’ name on my phone but there was very little, only random facts about his life and his time as a radio operator in Tours working for the Resistance, but nothing of his time in Paris. He died in Gross-Rosen, Poland, having been arrested and shot multiple times. I Googled his image. He looked more like an accountant than a resistance fighter.

  ‘What’s that?’ Matt had caught sight of Dubois’ photo on my phone.

  ‘That plaque back there, to André Dubois, that’s him. Looks like an accountant.’ Matt took the phone from me and looked closer.

  ‘The Resistance were just normal people forced to do extreme things,’ he said. ‘In the main they were average Joes combining their small efforts to greater effect.’ Then he added; ‘It’s so sad, all those lives lost under the Nazis, round every corner there is some sort of plaque or memorial to the war. There’s a heartbreaking one in the Temple area to the children who were taken from local schools to be transported to death camps.’

  ‘All that misery and loss, it’s so evil.’ I felt a tinge of sadness as I recalled the films I’d watched; The Pianist; Schindler’s List; The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, and when I was at college, Nacht und Nebel, which affected me deeply for years.

  The driver unloaded our bags outside our hotel and we went inside to check in. Did I imagine it, or did the woman in her Hermès scarf at reception smirk when she read ‘separate floors’? It’s a weird request at the best of times.

  My room was on the second floor overlooking the street at the front of the hotel. There was a magnificent building opposite with decorative ironwork in front of the tall windows. A man on the floor level with mine was walking backwards and forwards talking on his mobile, wearing only his boxers; on the floor below a woman was watering the geraniums hanging from her balcony. The water dripped down onto the people passing underneath, some even held out their hands checking for rain.

  Matt and I were starting work that afternoon. It was a furniture shop, an expensive Swedish designer and they had delivered a mountain of tables, chairs, sofas and lighting to a studio in the 14th Arrondissement. Matt was in work mode, focussed and busy. I was introduced to Clemence and Yan who were in charge of marketing. They spoke broken English and smiled a lot. I had to make sure everything was set out artistically, that there were no nicks or cracks on anything and that the props were used to their best advantage.

  At eight we had three sets ready for the next morning. The studio they had hired was large and the technician friendly, even though he and I couldn’t communicate. I do a good line in hand-signals and drawings.

  ‘Why have they used you and not a French photographer?’ I asked Matt as we returned to our hotel at eight thirty. My stomach was growling for food.

  ‘James’ decision, it means he can control the images and we can manipulate them together. He’s very hands on is our James.’

  I was about to suggest an evening meal at a little café I’d spotted just around the corner, when Matt spoke. ‘I’m bushed,’ he said. ‘Long day tomorrow, I’m going to do room service and have an early night.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, a little wrong-footed. ‘Okay, then, I’ll do the same.’

  He turned to go.

  ‘Matt.’

  ‘Yes?’ I thought he looked rather sad, even dejected.

  ‘Can I ask a favour?’

  ‘Of course, yes.’

  ‘Could you phone Daniel for me?’

  ‘Daniel?’

  ‘Yes. You know Daniel, the Daniel. He gave permission to the solicitor for me to contact him.’ I felt disappointed that I had to remind Matt who I was talking about.

  ‘Oh right, can I do it tomorrow? It’s just I really want an early night.’

  I felt uncomfortable because I thought he’d do it. For me. ‘Yes, sure,’ I said, trying to sound as if it didn’t matter. ‘That’s fine.’

  He left the hotel lobby and suddenly I was standing in his wake wondering what to do next. When I turned round the receptionist was giving me a pitiful glance and I felt like an idiot.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Claudette was cleaning Nannette’s room. She was pulling the counterpane into place when she saw something underneath the bed, half hidden by a discarded chemise. She pulled both things out. The chemise was silk, smooth and cool in her hands, the other was a folded piece of paper. It had notes, in German, written in pencil and a small map with arrows drawn on it.

  ‘What have you got there?’ Nannette had entered the room carrying a parcel. It was so big she could barely peep over the top. Claudette spun around hiding the piece of paper in the folds of the chemise.

  ‘This,’ she said. ‘Such a beautiful piece of lingerie and it was in the dust and dirt under the bed.’

  ‘Oh, that, you have it, wash it and enjoy it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Look, I bet there’s at least one in here.’ Nannette placed the parcel on the bed and cut the string with a Swiss Army knife that she produced from her pocket.

  ‘You have a knife in your pocket?’ Claudette asked, whilst slipping the note into hers.

  ‘I carry it everywhere and have it tucked into the bed head when I’m bedding a Boche, because you never know.’ She said it matter-of-factly as she opened the brown paper and a pile of silk underwear slid out, covering the bed in a pool of dusty pink, pearly ivory and duck egg blue.

  ‘Oh, how absolutely beautiful!’ exclaimed Claudette.

  ‘Look at this.’ Nannette held up a long mauve nightdress with coffee coloured lace at the bottom and an open seam from hip to toe.

  ‘And this,’ said Claudette, rubbing her cheek against a red silk scarf.

  ‘You have that, too,’ said Nannette. ‘We’re not allowed to go outside and we never use scarves, too much temptation for the psychopaths.’

  ‘Oh Nannette, you are kind, I can’t thank you enough.’

  ‘You know, you are really pretty when you smile,’ Nannette told her. ‘You could easily be one of us with your new hair, and you have beautiful eyes. You need only to lose some rough edges.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Nails, they’re awful and body hair. The Boches like everything clean shaven.’

  Claudette’s eyes widened. ‘I don’t stand a chance with the nails, not with the work I do here as –

  ‘Shaving is easy enough, I’ll sort you out what you need.’ Nannette began folding the garments she’d received and putting them into a black lacquer chest with drawings of Chinese men and women wrapped around each other all over the doors.

  ‘Where did they come from?’ asked Claudette. ‘Who sent them?’

  ‘One of my clients, Heinrich, was posted to Russia. He sends me gifts like this all the time, he’s in love with me, or so he thinks.’

  ‘Do you ever wonder how he gets them?’ asked Claudette.

  ‘Probably killed some poor unfortunate person,’ said Nannette with an exaggerated sigh. ‘But that’s not the fault of the lingerie, is it?’ She opened her wardrobe unveiling a rainbow of coloured garments and sighed. ‘All of these come with a price one way or another.’ She pulled out a pretty blue day dress and a pair of matching kitten heel shoes.

  ‘Here, have these, and this bag to match.’ Claudette couldn’t believe what was happening. She took the clothes from Nannette, her heart lifted by the joy of being given things so beautiful. Nannette laughed as she watched Claudette hold them up against her. ‘You see,’ she said brightly, ‘We all have a price, Françoise.’

  ‘I’m going out this afternoon, on an errand. Do you want a
nything brought back?’ asked Claudette, ‘I’d like to repay you in some way for these things.’

  ‘There’s nothing I need,’ Nannette said with a small sigh. ‘We have everything we need here – except our freedom.’

  When Claudette stepped out of the house she was wearing the blue dress and the matching shoes. She looked left and right and saw that the street was empty and quiet. A shiver of nerves was rising up inside her and suddenly the world seemed huge. The street widened then narrowed in front of her. She closed her eyes tightly and opened them again and when she did she found she couldn’t focus. For a minute, the street felt like it was closing in on her, it was spinning around and the road looked molten, as if it were moving. She pulled the door shut leaning on the handle as a wave of dizziness overwhelmed her. Making her way down the three wide steps and along the narrow road she felt uncertain and quite weak. There was a crossroads and on each side of it a German soldier. She realised they were stationed there to protect the house. As she passed by, one of them turned and leered at her from under his helmet, the other looked at her as if she was worthless. Or did she imagine it?

  She crossed over to the other side of the street, but the spinning began again and the road was coming up to meet her. The sky, a tepid brown-grey, the same colour as the buildings seemed to press down on her. She leant against the railings of a house, her eyes focussing in and out on a pile of rubbish banked up against the low wall below.

  ‘Are you all right?’ It was his voice, the same perfect French.

  Claudette took a deep breath, trying to look at his face, but it was swimming before her eyes.

  ‘Come in here, take a seat.’ She was led into a bar, the rough wooden chair under her so different from those in the house. There was a heavy smell of cheap cigars and wine mingling with the odour from the toilet.

  ‘You, boy, brandy!’ The German flicked his fingers imperiously at the barman. The brown liquid came in a cheap opaque glass. The officer held it out so that she could sip it, it tasted warm and sharp at the same time.