The Dressmaker's Gift

by Valpy, Fiona

  ‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’ asked Claire as she popped another square into her mouth.

  ‘Just one brother. How about you?’

  As the girls chatted, savouring every last delicious morsel of the chocolate, it seemed to Mireille that a new friendship was being shared around the table as well that evening – and that tasted even better than anything a Belgian chocolatier could have concocted. Claire, too, seemed happier and more relaxed with a new flatmate to fill the silences, as intangible and as chilly as a river mist, that had permeated the apartment in recent weeks.

  As well as bridging the distance between Mireille and Claire, Vivienne brought with her news of a very different France beyond the city limits.

  ‘When Hitler’s armies advanced, Lille was besieged. It was a terrifying few days. The French garrison fought desperately and managed to hold the city long enough to allow allied troops to be evacuated from Dunkirk. But in the end, the power of the Nazis was overwhelming. They drove their tanks into the centre of town and our troops were forced to surrender. Thousands of soldiers were marched through the Grand’Place as prisoners of war. It took hours for them to pass by.’ Vivienne shook her head, recalling the sight. ‘And then all those thousands of men were taken away. And suddenly our city wasn’t French any more. The Germans drew new lines on their maps and decreed that Lille was now part of the Belgian administration. It’s been a bewildering couple of years.’

  Vivienne described how she had been forced to work in the spinning mills, producing thread for the Nazi war effort. ‘But I managed to continue to make some money on the side with my dressmaking. Having no new clothes, it turned out that my skills were needed more than ever by our friends and neighbours. I have perfected the art of remaking coats into dresses and dresses into skirts. I even made a suit for the Comtesse de Rivault, out of a pair of curtains that she’d salvaged from her home before it was appropriated as a billet for German officers. She was the one who helped me get the job here at Delavigne Couture. She was a good client, before the war.’

  As Mireille lay in her bed that night, waiting for sleep to come, she pondered her new friend. Vivi, as they had quickly taken to calling her, seemed a true kindred spirit and Mireille was glad to have her in the flat. And yet, as the hunger pangs – which those few squares of chocolate had been unable to assuage – griped in her belly, she realised that Vivi had disclosed very little information about herself. She had shared lots of details about her work in a local dressmaking atelier before the war had overwhelmed Lille, where she had specialised in the tricky job of sewing chiffon evening gowns for society ladies; she had told them how hard the work had been in the factory, running the machinery that spun thousands of yards of yarn every hour under the watchful eye of a German foreman; and she had described the sleepless nights spent listening to the bombing raids by the British air force on the nearby metalworks and railway yards. But, Mireille realised, as her eyelids began to grow heavy, what she had described had seemed impersonal, somehow, a little like a cinema newsreel. She had shared very little about her family – the parents and the brother that she’d mentioned in passing.

  Never mind, she thought, there would be more such evenings together when they would share their rations and their stories. And her lips curved in a smile of contentment as sleep finally came, as it always did in the end in spite of the hunger and the cold and the ever-present, nagging anxiety that she would be caught or denounced as a Résistante. At last she set aside the burdens which she endured in silence through her waking hours, and slept.

  Claire enjoyed Vivi’s company too. She was a breath of fresh air in the apartment and it was nice having someone she could confide in about Ernst. Vivi asked questions and seemed to understand the relationship in a way that Mireille could – or would – not. Although Claire had to admit that even Mireille was a bit less uptight with Vivi around. There was an ease and a lightness about Vivi that was infectious, and her friendship had greatly improved the atmosphere in the sewing room as well as the apartment, as far as Claire was concerned.

  One evening Ernst took Claire out to dinner at Brasserie Lipp, a lively restaurant on the Boulevard Saint-Germain which was renowned for its hearty German-style menu. Claire couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten so well as she picked up her cutlery and made inroads into her plate of great slabs of pork, dripping with Calvados and cream. Ernst ate his with gusto, but she soon set down her knife and fork as she discovered that the rich food was more than her stomach was used to or could cope with. She glanced around the room, admiring the tiled panels on the walls depicting flowers and foliage, and the grand, tall mirrors. And then she did a double-take as a familiar face caught her eye. Reflected in one of the mirrors was the profile of a young woman whose hair fell in a thick russet braid down her back. It was Vivi! Claire craned her neck slightly to see who she was with. There were two others sitting at the same table. One was a sandy-haired man, wearing a crisp white shirt and a paisley necktie; he had a distinguished air about him and looked relaxed, clearly at ease in this expensive ambience. As she watched, he lifted a bottle of white wine from an ice-bucket beside the table and reached across to fill the glass of the third person seated at the table, a slightly dumpy woman in a grey uniform. Well, thought Claire, so I’m not the only one who enjoys the company of our German neighbours. She wondered whether she should go across and say hello to Vivi, perhaps introduce her to Ernst. They could make a party of it, maybe, and all go on to dance in a nightclub somewhere.

  But when she suggested it to Ernst, he glanced across and seemed to recognise the woman in uniform. ‘No,’ he said, mopping grease from his lips with a linen napkin, ‘let’s not. I know her from the office – she’s very dull. I’d much rather enjoy your company without having to share you with anyone else. Maybe you can introduce me to your friend another time, though. She looks very pleasant.’

  ‘She is,’ said Claire. ‘She’s great fun. And a good seamstress as well.’

  The next day, as the other girls chatted away in the sewing room, Claire quietly asked Vivi whether she’d enjoyed her meal the night before. Was it her imagination, or did Vivi look a little startled?

  ‘I didn’t realise you were there too,’ she said. ‘You should have come over and said hello.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Claire had smiled. ‘You can introduce me to your friends another time. And I won’t tell Mireille. I think we both know how stuffy she can be!’

  Vivi had nodded, lowering her eyes to her work, as the sound of Mademoiselle Vannier’s heels clicking across the floorboards had put an end to any more talk.

  There was just one thing that niggled a little in Claire’s blossoming friendship with Vivi. That glimpse of a social life was rare and her subsequent invitations to restaurants and nightclubs were all politely rejected. If anything, Vivi seemed to Claire to be far too conscientious about her work. Often, when everyone else had packed up for the evening, Vivi would stay on alone in the sewing room, bent over some particularly intricate beadwork, or painstakingly stitching the hand-rolled hem of a chiffon gown, her needle flashing beneath the light of an angled lamp as it picked single threads, one by one, from the delicate fabric that pooled in her lap.

  ‘You’re working too hard!’ Claire told her when she appeared in the apartment long after the city had been plunged into darkness for the curfew.

  Vivi smiled, but her face looked drawn with tiredness. ‘The work on that tea-dress is taking longer than I’d expected. But tomorrow is Saturday, so I won’t have to get up too early.’

  ‘Let’s have an outing then. You’ve scarcely had a chance to see anything of Paris. Ernst and I were supposed to be going to the Louvre tomorrow but now he has to work. So let’s you and I go instead. Mireille too, if she wants to come.’

  And so it was that the three girls put on their best skirts and jackets and stepped out into the street together. Vivi pulled a camera from her bag, saying, ‘If we’re going to go sightseeing then I need to ta
ke some pictures.’ She motioned to Claire and Mireille to stand in front of the Delavigne vitrine.

  ‘Wait!’ cried Claire. She ran over to where a man had just dismounted from his bicycle. ‘Monsieur, would you be so kind as to take a picture of the three of us?’ she asked.

  ‘Bien sûr.’ The man grinned at the sight of the girls dressed up for an outing, and snapped the photograph. ‘Bonne continuation, mesdames.’ He smiled as he handed the camera back to Vivi and went on his way, wheeling his bike along the boulevard and whistling cheerfully to himself.

  Laughing and chattering, Claire, Mireille and Vivi walked to the river and crossed to the right bank, with Vivi pausing to take photos of Notre-Dame and the Île de la Cité.

  The lime trees in the gardens beside the Seine were clad in their fresh, green finery and waved and nodded at the girls as they passed along the quai on that bright and breezy Saturday in May.

  Despite feeling the disappointment of having been let down by Ernst, Claire’s heart lifted as they walked. There would be other opportunities to come here with him, on the summer days that lay ahead. He and she would wander through these same streets, hand in hand, making plans for their future together. She even dared to imagine other summers to come when she might stroll here, with a wedding ring on her finger, pushing a pram containing a chubby, blonde baby who would chuckle and wave back at the sun-dappled linden branches overhead. But, for today, the company of her friends more than made up for Ernst’s absence, she realised.

  She felt more light-hearted than she had done for months. She’d been so isolated since coming to Paris, and Jean-Paul’s visit had made her see just how cut off she had become from her family and her roots in Brittany. She’d written to her father and Marc back in Port Meilhon and, although the officially permitted postcards only allowed space for a few bland lines, she had told him that she was well and happy in Paris, that she missed them and that she sent them her love. She’d felt a sense of relief as she’d handed the card in at the post office and felt the thread of connection to her family re-establish itself, only then realising just how heartfelt the sentiments that she’d written really were. And she treasured the card that she’d received back from her Papa with its few lines which told her how much he cared.

  None of the three had visited the Louvre before, so it was with a sense of awe that they entered the museum’s cavernous entrance hall, passing between a pair of guards who stood, like sentries, at the door.

  They wandered through rooms where some of the walls and plinths were bare since so many works of art had been mysteriously spirited away, and several galleries were closed completely. But there remained enough paintings and sculptures to hold their interest. The girls drifted apart a little as they moved slowly through the open galleries, losing themselves in the timeless landscapes and the faces of the portraits that gazed out at them across the years.

  Turning a corner, Claire found herself in a room containing vast alabaster sculptures from the Italian Renaissance. She was dimly aware of Mireille and Vivi entering the gallery behind her as she stepped up to a reclining woman, cordoned off behind a red velvet rope, and admired the way her draperies, carved from something as solid as stone, could appear as fluid and fragile as the silks with which the seamstresses worked every day.

  All at once, her eye was caught by the profile of a young man who was circling a vast statue of a Roman emperor up ahead. It took a moment for her to recognise him in his civilian clothes, but then her heart leapt with gladness. He’d come after all.

  ‘Ernst!’ she called, and she started towards him, her face radiant at the unexpected joy of seeing him here.

  Hearing his name, he turned towards her. But instead of sharing her pleasure, his face fell and he took a step backwards, away from her, raising one hand as if to fend her off if she came any closer.

  Confused, Claire hesitated, her smile faltering. And then she froze as, from behind the statue’s plinth, appeared a woman dressed in a smart tweed suit. She held the hand of a little boy whose hair was almost the same white-blonde as his mother’s. As Claire watched, horrified, the woman reached out her free hand to caress Ernst’s back, saying something in German. And the little boy reached out his arms to be lifted up by the man he called ‘Vati’.

  As the trio turned away and walked out of the gallery, Claire felt her knees give way and she clutched at the red velvet rope – just like the one that had separated the tables in the nightclub on New Year’s Eve – as she tried to steady herself.

  And then Mireille and Vivi were at her side, holding her up, preventing her from crumpling to the floor. Leading her away, as her heart shattered into a thousand pieces.

  Harriet

  Having heard this latest chapter of Claire’s story, I plan a visit to the Louvre. It’s been hard to find the time to do much sightseeing because the rhythm of the year at Agence Guillemet is dictated by the Shows – with a capital ‘S’. Right now, even though it’s January and the damp, grey lid of the winter sky sits over the city, we’re preparing for the Haute Couture Spring/Summer Shows which will take place later in the month. I’m already excited about them, and am determined to do a good job so that when it comes to the preparations for the next Paris Fashion Week I’ll be able to be more involved. I know it’ll be exhausting, but exhilarating too and I can’t wait to experience it.

  At last there’s a brief lull. It’s a bleak Sunday and the apartment feels chilly and a little claustrophobic – the perfect day for a visit to the Louvre. Thierry agrees to accompany me and we meet beside the glass pyramid that marks the museum’s sleek, modern entrance in the Place du Carrousel. He’s waiting for me when I get there, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his parka, hair buffeted by the wind that swirls around the open square. We hug, briefly and a little awkwardly, realising that this is the first time we’ve been out together, just the two of us, without a crowd of friends and concert-goers thronging around to cover any silences.

  But it turns out there aren’t any silences, other than very comfortable-feeling ones, as we spend the afternoon wandering through the galleries. The museum is a good deal fuller these days than it would have been in the war years when the French hid some of their greatest treasures and the Germans appropriated many others. The collections have been gathered back now and the Louvre is a changed place, of course, with its sleekly modern glass pyramids outside and new additions to the layout.

  In one room, Thierry wanders on ahead as I stop in front of an alabaster statue, a reclining woman draped in fluid robes which belie the solidity of the stone from which they are carved. Could this have been the sculpture that my grandmother was looking at when she came upon Ernst and his family here all those years ago?

  Ever since I’ve heard about Claire’s humiliation and heartbreak in the Louvre, I’ve longed more than ever for a more tangible sense of connection to her. I’ve pored over the photograph and my heart has bled as I’ve imagined the day it was taken: a day which started so well, full of joy and optimism as she’d got dressed in her best clothes and set out with her friends. A day which had ended so badly.

  I realise that, increasingly, my feelings of shame at my grandmother’s naivety and terrible choice of partner have been replaced by sympathy for her – and a cold fury at Ernst. How dare he have treated her so shabbily, toying with her emotions, using her youth and her innocence to facilitate his deception? Was the damage done by that devastating encounter in the Louvre one of the things that contributed to the fragility of her heart? Was she strong enough to be able to recover from it, or did something break in her that day? Did the impact of that fleeting encounter knock her so hard that she was irreparably damaged? Can a broken heart be real?

  And, if so, was that one of the moments that sealed my own mother’s fate, too, the moment that wounded my grandmother?

  A sadness overwhelms me as I feel more keenly than ever the loss of my grandmother and my mother. And I feel afraid, too. Because I wonder whether it is my inescapabl
e fate to feel that they have abandoned me . . . And to know that my connection to life could be so fragile and so tenuous as well.

  I try to shake off these morbid thoughts, hurrying away from the sculpture gallery, feeling the need to catch up with Thierry and have his comforting presence beside me. And how I wish I had Mireille and Vivienne beside me too, at times like this, so that I could absorb some of their strength and their joie de vivre as well.

  1942

  Mireille and Vivi had been so kind to her when they’d got back to the apartment after that awful encounter with Ernst and his family in the Louvre, but Claire had shut herself in her room, not wanting to see the pity written on their faces, knowing what an idiot she’d been.

  Mireille had tapped on the door in the evening, bringing Claire a bowl of stew. ‘Come on,’ she’d urged, with a kindness that brought tears to Claire’s eyes. ‘You need to eat. Keep your strength up.’

  Claire had shaken her head, feeling sick with humiliation, but Mireille had insisted, perching on the bed beside her.

  And then the floodgates had opened and Claire began to sob. ‘How could I have been so stupid? Did he single me out because he could see I was a foolish girl who would fall for his charms?’

  Mireille shook her head. ‘You’re not stupid. Just young and inexperienced in the ways of the world. Perhaps he sensed your innocence. He fed you the words you’d wanted to hear.’

  ‘Yes, but I swallowed them without stopping to wonder whether there was any truth in them.’ Claire’s cheeks blazed as she recalled the asides he used to make to his fellow-officers when they went out, how they’d all laugh. At the time, she told Mireille, she’d assumed they were just harmless jokes, part of the role as the life and soul of the party he enjoyed playing when in company. But now she wondered how many of those asides had been at her expense.

  Overcome with humiliation and shame, she sobbed on Mireille’s shoulder as she spoke of her family. When she’d been with Ernst, she’d pushed the memories of Jean-Paul’s words to the back of her mind, justifying her actions by telling herself that he didn’t understand how hard it was to live in the city. Women were powerless at the best of times, and the war heightened that feeling, but being with Ernst had given her a sense of security as well as the luxury of being pampered and envied. Now she saw that that sense of safety had been built on the fantasy that she’d spun for herself out of silk stockings and glasses of champagne. ‘How could I have betrayed my own brothers in that way? Oh Mireille, I can’t bear to think what they must think of me. Jean-Paul went off to the work camps knowing that I was . . .’ she hesitated, choosing her words carefully, ‘. . . Enjoying the attentions of the enemy. How I wish I could tell him now that I know how wrong I’ve been!’