The Girl Who Dreamed of Paris

by Natalie Meg Evans

  Coralie felt as if she’d wandered into a huge, empty hotel. Everywhere she looked, there was a new texture calling out to be stroked. Onyx, suede, marble, burr walnut . . . And no clutter. Una had joked of moving back there with Arkady if – when – he ever got over his awe of her and made a romantic move. But really? Arkady would be a fish out of water in this palace.

  She followed Una into a lavish bedroom, conscious of her outdoor shoes sinking into snowy carpet. One wall was lined with mirrored doors. Sliding one back, Una said, ‘My wardrobe. This was my maid Beulah’s domain – I still feel I’m trespassing. But, for better or worse, I’m my own maid now. Grab what you like.’

  Coralie gaped. ‘How many evening dresses do you own?’

  ‘Two hundred maybe. Beulah took a dozen trunks back to the States, but I guess there’s enough left. To misquote Henry Ford, “Choose any color you like, so long as it’s—”’

  ‘Beige. I dare you to wear red tonight, or give pink a go.’ Coralie pulled out a floor-length shrimp-pink dress shot with silver thread. She exclaimed over the plastic zipper in the back.

  ‘Elsa Schiaparelli,’ Una told her. ‘It’s the real thing, because nowhere could I get a zipper dyed just the right shade.’

  ‘You’ve never worn it?’

  ‘Virgo intacta.’

  ‘I just don’t understand—’

  ‘Must we always come back to this? Because I can. Because it used to give me pleasure to run up bills for clothes I never wore, and thus torment Mr Kilpin, the kind of man who would charge a friend to smell his coffee. And,’ Una put the Schiaparelli back on the rail, ‘because if I had a dress, no other woman could have it. Come on, choose. We need to be at the Rose Noire when it opens to get a good table.’

  ‘Nothing too tight or heavy.’ Coralie was thinking of midnight, when the club’s walls trickled with human perspiration. They needed to be able to move freely and to run, if necessary.

  Ottilia picked up a dress that was little more than a net covered with reflective discs that blinked as they caught the light. ‘This,’ she breathed.

  ‘Vetoed.’ Una replaced it in the cupboard. ‘In your heart, you may want to outshine me, but those paillettes have a nasty habit of coming unstitched. You’d end up shedding scales like a wind-dried herring.’

  Coralie’s watch said it was gone five. ‘Why don’t you just choose for us?’

  For Ottilia, it was ivory silk with a lace evening coat. For Una, cream bias-cut with an overskirt of embroidered chiffon that fanned behind her as she walked. For Coralie, a sheath of coffee-cream rayon silk, whose back dipped below her waist, weighted with strands of beads.

  ‘All Lutzman originals,’ Una said proudly, ‘and there only ever were originals. Yours suits you, Coralie. It needs a long back and heroic shoulders. Mine are too narrow.’

  Coralie contorted herself in front of the mirror. ‘Are the beads at the back to give dance partners something to play with?’ Not that she was going to dance. Head down: that was her plan. ‘Who is Lutzman? He obviously shares your love of washed-out colours.’

  ‘Not he, she. Alix Gower – one of Javier’s protégées. Lutzman was the name she adopted when Gower became a little poisonous. A story for another time.’ Una struck a pose for the mirror, hips forward. ‘She absorbed Javier’s liking for clean lines but, being female, also understood the desire to seem innocent while being downright sexy. Men never knew where they stood with Alix. Had them all on the hop, even her husband.’

  ‘I never took to Javier’s stuff,’ Coralie admitted. ‘Too plain for me.’

  ‘You don’t say. Your dress is called Lutzman Number Ten.’

  ‘Is Alix still in Paris?’

  ‘No, she ran for her life. She’s half English, half Jewish and, as we know, both parts would have been locked up if they’d caught her. Hell, where’s Tilly?’

  In the en-suite bathroom, it turned out, rootling in the medicine cabinet for tweezers. Encountering herself in a wall of mirrors had alerted her to the ‘horrendous tragedy’ of her eyebrows. A bottle of sleeping tablets without its cap stood on the vanity unit.

  ‘How many did you take?’ Una demanded.

  ‘Only a few.’

  ‘Then let’s pray they don’t start working too soon.’

  While Una searched out evening cloaks for them, Coralie turned her mind to evening shoes. Predictably, Una had a phenomenal collection, though none with heels under four inches. Ottilia opted to keep the walking pumps she had on but Coralie couldn’t bring herself to go out in the leather brogues she’d put on that morning. She selected a pair of satin sling-backs, amazed to discover that Una’s feet were a half size bigger than hers. She made them fit by stuffing tissue paper into the toes.

  Finally, they were ready to go. ‘I take it we’re not going to be spirited to boulevard de Clichy in your Rolls-Royce?’ Coralie asked.

  Una laughed sardonically. ‘I already handed it over to some monocled owl at German Army Headquarters. They’d have taken it anyway, robbed me blind by giving me devalued francs for it – and I hadn’t enough fuel to go further than the city limits anyway. I don’t care because, in return, I got free passage to Switzerland for two writer friends, who were hiding in one of those refugee rabbit cages in the Marais. You know, ten poor souls to a room in a crumbling hôtel particulier? I know you’re going to ask,’ Una dropped her voice, ‘why didn’t I buy Ottilia’s escape?’’

  ‘No. Tilly’s far too much of a prize. They’d have issued an Ausweis and arrested her at the first checkpoint. We’re doing it the only way we can, by stealth. You’re a good woman, Una Kilpin-McBride.’

  ‘Aw, and you’re not so bad yourself, Madame de Lirac-Cazaubon. So – pony-cab? The Rose Noire’s too far to walk, and I don’t rate the Métro in evening dress. Oh, shoot!’ Una had been inspecting herself in the mirror. ‘Hats.’

  ‘Lead the way. I suppose they’ve got their own wing?’

  ‘No – I want to wear one of those bijou babies Amélie Ginsler made for you.’

  ‘My doll-hats? They’re not ready.’

  A week or so after her encounter with Amélie at Henriette Junot’s, Coralie had walked to the Marais to offer old Monsieur Ginsler a commission. After getting lost for an hour in the maze of streets, jangled by the bustle and smells of crowding humanity, she’d located rue Charlot. The Ginslers’ shop had needed no pointing out. Tiny wax faces stared through gauze-protected windowpanes.

  Amélie’s greeting had been a mix of surprise and delight, old Monsieur Ginsler’s more cautious. ‘I was thinking you’d want just one or two,’ he’d muttered when Coralie announced that she’d purchased twenty bags of felt offcuts from a waste-fabric merchant.

  ‘For as many miniature hats as you can make, Monsieur.’ She’d turned to Amélie. ‘Think about it. Women spend all day queuing, or going to and from work. They jam a headscarf on because it’s simpler. But a doll-hat could go into a handbag or its own bag. Then, at night, off comes the headscarf, on goes the doll-hat, and they can go out looking chic without even having to find a mirror.’

  In the end, Monsieur Ginsler’s wife took up Coralie’s cause. ‘You say “no” because we’re so busy, Manny?’ She glanced meaningfully up at a cobweb-strewn beam. ‘Even the dolls sleep.’

  At the end of the visit, the Ginslers had presented Coralie with three teacup-sized hats, perfect in every detail. Later Coralie had shown them to Una, only to put them away as she recognised the gleam in her friend’s eye. She said just as firmly now, ‘I haven’t gone fully into production. I’m waiting for September.’

  ‘What’s to stop you launching them tonight?’

  ‘Everything. They’ll be a sensation, I’m convinced, and the last thing we want tonight is people staring at us.’

  ‘I disagree,’ said Una. ‘The more we give people to look at, the less they’ll notice the thing we’re trying to h
ide.’

  ‘Too bad. They’re at home and I’m not slogging back over the river.’

  ‘You have them made in the Marais? I know the Marais. My writer friends lived just down from the doll shop. So let’s go.’

  *

  The Vagabonds were well into their first set when Una, Coralie and Ottilia arrived at the club. They’d spent half an hour at the Ginslers’, sitting in front of a smoky fire, while Amélie and her grandmother feverishly trimmed three little hats for them.

  Coralie was in reflective mood as she descended into the candlelit Rose Noire. Tonight she’d discovered that Amélie had a profoundly disabled daughter. The family was so protective of twelve-year-old Françoise that her existence had been entirely unknown at Henriette Junot. ‘I told only Madame Zénon,’ Amélie had confided.

  They paused on the dance floor. The Vagabonds were playing a hot jazz version of ‘La Marseillaise’ so loudly that glasses shimmered on the bar.

  ‘They know it’s illegal to play it, don’t they?’ Coralie stared uneasily at them. ‘Nobody’s dancing.’ She drew in a breath, steeled herself and tried to avoid the eye of the proprietor, Serge Martel.

  *

  Thirty minutes later she was in the Ladies with Ottilia, the near discovery of Ottilia’s British alien’s identity card still making her breath come short.

  Ottilia went straight to the mirror. ‘Have I done something wrong?’

  Coralie waved the offending card. ‘This is more dangerous than a loaded gun. It’s even stamped “Bow Street police station”! Don’t you get it?’ Obviously not, as Ottilia shook her head. Tears were close. Sighing, Coralie took an eye-pencil from her bag. ‘Give yourself a bit of definition, go on. You look as though you haven’t slept in a month.’ As Ottilia leaned into the mirror and drew shaky lines, Coralie said, ‘Remember that day at Epsom? We both had a palm reading. I don’t know what your Gypsy told you, but mine said I would kill one day. I’ve realised recently, I could.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘No, not you.’ Well, sometimes. ‘Kill to protect the ones I love.’

  Ottilia feathered the pencil over an eyebrow. ‘I envy you. I look for the future and I don’t see anything. I only see what is behind.’

  ‘You will be happy again.’

  ‘No. The day Dietrich broke off our engagement, it was like slamming into a wall. I still remember every word he said. “I find it impossible to go ahead in life with you.” Ahead in life. His went on, mine stopped. I was nineteen. I don’t remember what that Gypsy told me at Epsom, but I remember stumbling out of her caravan in despair.’

  Not knowing what to say, Coralie retired to a lavatory. The flush wasn’t strong enough to drown the identity card so, very reluctantly, she fished it out again. Standing on the toilet seat, she lifted the top of the cistern and dropped the card inside. She heard the door to the Ladies open and shut. Blotting her hands on lavatory paper, straightening her dress, she unlocked the door to the cubicle and stepped out. ‘Good God! Julie!’

  Coralie stared at her former nanny, whom she’d supposed was still in the country. Where had that milkmaid complexion gone? The girl in front of her looked more like twenty-nine than the twenty she must now be. In a tight satin dress, scarlet lipstick and a matching pillbox hat balanced on her exaggeratedly rolled hair, Julie Fourcade was a bad translation of a Hollywood starlet. Hiding her shock, Coralie said, ‘Have you come to see Florian? Poor boy got so thin without you. But why haven’t you visited? Where are you living? Not on rue Jacob, or we’d have bumped into each other.’

  Answering with a vague shrug, Julie added, ‘Busy, you know how it is. And I’m not back with Florian. I have a new man.’

  Yes, Coralie thought. The signs were there. ‘I hope he looks after you.’

  Julie’s gaze skimmed Coralie’s gown, upswept hair and the doll-hat with its hot-pink feathers. Her eye dropped to the coral bracelet. ‘Ramon gave you that, didn’t he?’

  ‘“Coral for Coralie.”’

  ‘My man gave me this.’ Julie flashed an opal ring, showing it proudly to Ottilia before going to the cubicle that Coralie had just vacated. ‘Nice to run into you both. Pop over to my table, have a drink, if you like. Now, pardon me, I’m bursting.’

  As the bolt clicked, it dawned on Coralie that Julie hadn’t asked once about Noëlle.

  Their German officers stood as they returned to the table. A good sign, as it meant they regarded them as ladies, not tarts. Thank God Dietrich had not thought to look for them here – not yet, anyway. Eleven hours to go, trapped, until Ottilia was safe away. Only then could Coralie and Una leave. Coralie saw Una on the dance floor with the senior black-uniformed officer.

  ‘I have an idea,’ she said to those remaining at the table. She spoke German and the men stared, too slow to hide their surprise at her educated accent. Mademoiselle Deveau had been a good teacher, and she’d picked up more from Dietrich than perhaps he’d ever realised. ‘Two of you dance with us, and the one left behind can order dinner. The chef here’s very good. He has nothing to cook with, of course, but his way with fresh air is . . .’ She kissed her fingers. Offering her hand to the oldest of the men, she said, ‘While we dance, I’ll tell you who taught me German.’

  Her partner was in his mid-twenties, muscular, with wide-apart eyes and a broad nose. He smelt a bit sweaty, which induced her to lean back rather than copy other women, and drape herself against his chest. Oh, well, charming signatures out of men was Una’s forte, not hers. It wasn’t long before she spotted Julie, with a German partner, her plump arms around his squared-off shoulders. He seemed rather entranced. Was he the provider of opal rings?

  Phrases had been coined to describe the relationship between invader and civilian, but the word ‘collaboration’ was the most loaded. To some, it meant ‘working relationship’. For those like Serge Martel, it meant profiteering, and to certain women, it meant sexual congress. To others, Coralie supposed, it might even mean love.

  Her partner, she learned, was called Ulrich and he came from Lower Silesia, to which she replied, ‘Where the coal comes from.’

  He seemed taken aback and she wondered if he’d been taught that the French were ignorant and lived in rabbit holes – just as they’d been told that the Germans were starving and smoked cigarettes made from dung. She asked about his regiment, hiding her relief when he pointed proudly to the lightning-strike runes at his throat and said, ‘Waffen-SS.’

  Presumably that meant he wasn’t Gestapo. When she said, ‘I thought you might be a policeman,’ Ulrich looked so offended that she asked quickly, ‘What does SS stand for again?’

  ‘Schutzstaffel. It means “Elite Guard”.’ He showed her a skull-and-crossbones ring on his knuckle.

  ‘We’ll all look like that if food gets any scarcer,’ she said. It didn’t get a laugh. Neither did it get them any nearer a signature on an Ausweis. She searched again for Una and instead saw Ottilia, dancing with another of the younger SS officers, lost in her trance. Ah, there was Una – clearly doing her best to stick close to Ottilia. They needed to have a meeting, re-draw their plan, because Coralie was certain of only one thing: Ottilia would not sustain her composure for eleven hours.

  ‘You were going to tell me how it is you speak German so well, Fräulein.’

  ‘Mm? Oh, a teacher, here in Paris. Half the time we’d speak French, the other half German. And I read a few books. Silly romances,’ she said, deciding not to mention A Farewell to Arms. ‘I don’t like too much reality.’

  She caught Una’s eye then, only to see her friend’s expression petrify. Four men stood at the edge of the dance floor. They were looking from couple to couple, as if crossing faces off a list. Tall and well-built, they were not typically French. Neither was the cut of their suits. Coralie saw them confer, then signal to Ottilia’s dance partner.

  Coralie’s partner had seen them too. ‘They are officer
s of the Gestapo. It seems they wish to question your friend.’

  ‘They’ll have made a mistake. Otill— ’ She cleared her throat. ‘Ottilie is a bit dim, but she’s no danger to anyone.’ Ottilia was being led off the dance floor, towards the men. Take your time, Coralie urged wordlessly. You are a florist from rue de Madrid, enjoying a last night out in Paris before going to your aunt at Perpignan.

  One of the Gestapo was less heavy-set than his fellows. He had a facial scar, and round spectacles that gave him the look of a scholar. Or even a cleric. A Homburg hat was wedged under his arm and he was taking off leather gloves, presumably so he could search inside Ottilia’s bag. She was proffering it meekly. There was nothing alarming in his demeanour.

  He raised a succession of items up to the light. A lipstick, a pen, the gold cigarette holder. Finally, an ID card, which he inspected with agonising thoroughness.

  When he gave the handbag back to Ottilia, Coralie let out her breath, but relief was short-lived. More questions, it seemed, and soon Ottilia was making the fluttering gestures that prefigured tears or sometimes hysteria. You are Ottilie Dupont, who trained at a technical school on the Left Bank. You are unemployed because there are no flowers in Paris.

  Had Dietrich summoned these men? Had he followed them, perhaps from the Bois de Boulogne or avenue Foch? Coralie looked at Arkady, a horrible thought stealing in. He might have been trailed to Ramon’s. The Gestapo might already have taken Noëlle and Ramon, Dietrich making good his threat . . . Your child for my child. Stop it, she ordered herself, or you’ll be in hysterics before Ottilia. Maybe somebody here had called in the secret police . . . Coralie’s gaze found Serge Martel, and he stared back at her for the count of twenty, then put his hand to his heart and gave a small bow.

  The Gestapo had Ottilia surrounded.

  ‘Where will they take her?’ Coralie asked her partner.