had done before. ‘Hush now. I’m here. You’re alright.’
She couldn’t talk, yet, about what had happened at the Gestapo headquarters in the Avenue Foch, nor on the train journey to Dachau, nor at the camp. Instead, he talked and she listened in amazement – sometimes wondering whether she’d dreamed what he’d told her about himself and about Vivi.
The first thing was his name. Laurence Redman. (‘Everyone calls me Larry, though,’ he’d told her). Not Monsieur Leroux, after all, although the French was a direct translation from the English.
And the second thing was that Vivi was his sister.
They had grown up in the north of England, not in Lille, although their mother was French and Lille had been her home town. Their English father owned a textile factory and that was how Vivi had known so much about the machinery in the factory in Dachau. ‘She used to follow Dad around, asking endless questions, wanting to know how everything worked. She always loved sewing,’ he told Claire. ‘When she was little, she used to make dresses for her dolls. Then she progressed to making her own clothes. She worked at the local theatre, too, making costumes – she loved all those rich fabrics and trimmings. And it turned out she was a talented actress as well.
‘When war broke out, I was selected to train with the Special Operations Executive,’ he continued. ‘So when she came to me and told me that she wanted to join too, to do something to help the French, I knew she would be the perfect fit. We’re both fluent in French because our mother always spoke it at home, and our knowledge of textiles and fashion were exactly what the SOE were looking for to set up a network based in Paris, where the couture industry provided the perfect cover.’
He stopped then, unable to continue for a minute as he remembered his beautiful, lively sister. ‘I tried to dissuade her,’ he said at last. ‘But you know how she was – so stubborn, so determined. And those, too, were characteristics that made her perfect for her role. She was just what they were looking for. She did the training and passed with flying colours. And so they gave her one of the most dangerous roles going. Wireless operator for the network, camouflaged by her role as a seamstress in the heart of Paris. I didn’t know whether to be proud of her or frightened for her, my little sister.’
When he broke down, burying his head in his hands, Claire reached out and stroked his hair. Gathering her strength, she spoke then. ‘You and I, we both carry the weight of our guilt. We both played a part in her fate. But, listening to you, I now understand that nothing we could have done would have stopped her. She was determined to fight for France, for what was right. It’s who she was. She would always have put herself in the way of danger, stood up against what she knew to be wrong. She had real courage. She was a soldier.’
They wept together, their tears mingling, comforting one another, and while the grief cracked open her heart, hurting almost as much as Claire’s physical scars, she knew that the tears and the pain would allow something new to grow from it. With him – Larry – at her side, together they could find a way to live again.
He told her one other thing too. Vivi’s real name. She wasn’t called Vivienne.
She was called Harriet.
Harriet
So now, at last, I know who I am.
I am Harriet. Named for my great-aunt who died in Dachau on the day it was liberated. Harriet, who chose the name Vivienne because she loved life. Harriet, who was warm and friendly and oh so brave. Brave enough to turn towards danger when freedom was threatened; brave enough to volunteer to put herself right in the heart of the war, in one of the most dangerous roles there was. When the average life expectancy of a wireless operator in the Resistance was six weeks, she survived for four years.
I am Harriet – and although she died before I was born, I know that I am loved by my grandmother Claire, who grew to find a courage within herself that she hadn’t known was there. Claire lost her own mother, and history repeated itself – as it has a horrible tendency to do – when I lost mine. I’ve read that the currents of trauma run