Mireille stroked her arm, comforting her. With a sigh, she said, ‘Well you’re certainly not the first girl to have had her head turned by the promise of a little luxury and indulgence. But the important thing is that you’ve learnt your lesson now. The next time a dashing German officer crosses your path, you won’t take the bait quite so easily, I reckon.’
‘I won’t take the bait at all,’ Claire retorted, with a vehemence that made Mireille smile. ‘I hate the Nazis. For everything they have done. To me. To my family. And to my country.’
As she nursed her broken heart and tried to focus on her work in the months that followed, Claire sensed that change was in the air. When the Germans first invaded, there had been a sense of numb incomprehension amongst the citizens of Paris. And perhaps it had been tempting to believe the propaganda posters that had appeared, showing kindly-looking Nazi soldiers protecting France’s people and providing food for France’s starving children. But as the calendar rolled over to another new year, the mood had shifted.
There was a sense of volatility sweeping through the city. Stories of protests and acts of defiance were rife and some Résistants even dared to attack their German occupiers. Of course, the retaliation against such acts was swift and brutal: executions took place in the streets, and everyone had heard talk of the trains that pulled cattle trucks filled with human cargo, which departed more and more frequently from the Gare d’Austerlitz and the Gare de l’Est. There were rumours, too, of an internment camp in the Drancy suburb to the north-east of the city centre, to which the Jewish residents who had been rounded up were sent. The fact that this camp was patrolled by the French police rather than by German guards only added to the sense of angry unease that more and more of Paris’s inhabitants were beginning to feel.
And now this unease was beginning to work its way into Claire’s consciousness. She worried for her brothers, Jean-Paul and Théo. There had been no news of them. Had they managed to meet up in Germany? She hoped they had and that they worked alongside one another in some factory somewhere, keeping each other’s spirits up until the day they could return to their home in France. She grieved for Luc, and nausea rose in her throat when she thought of his body lying in a war grave in the east, all that time that she had so foolishly spent with Ernst – an agent of the very regime which had killed her brother. It was as if she’d been sleepwalking through those months, seduced by the illusion that money and glamour would change her life, distracting her from the reality of what was happening in the world around her.
As time went by, though, and the mood in the city around her changed, Claire felt a change happening within herself as well. Her heart had begun to mend – as hearts will do if they are given enough exposure to time and the kindness of good friends – and as it mended, it transformed into something new. The hard lesson that she’d learned had forced her to reflect on the person she really was, and on the person she wanted to be, and she discovered a new core of resolve within herself.
And so it was, one evening when Vivi had stayed on at her work in the sewing room again, that Claire knocked on the door of Mireille’s room.
‘Come in!’ called Mireille from within.
Claire stepped over the threshold, into the tiny bedroom under the eaves, and stood in silence for a moment, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Then she said, ‘I want to help. Tell me what I can do, Mireille. I am ready to fight back now.’
Mireille rose from where she sat on her bed and pushed the door closed, quietly but firmly. Then she patted the quilted cover, motioning Claire to sit down.
‘It’s not that easy, Claire. Are you certain that this is a step you want to take?’ she asked in a low voice.
Claire nodded. ‘I hate them. I hate what they have done to me, personally – to my family – and what they continue to do to our country. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get here, but I’m ready now.’