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 take 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