‘Please, madame,’ she begged, ‘get this message to my husband.’
A soldier gave her a shove with the butt of his rifle. ‘Back in line!’ he screamed at her. Then he pushed Mireille with the flat of his hand so that she had to take a step backwards, and snarled at her, ‘And you – stay out of the way. Unless you want to join them.’
The women were loaded into the freight cars while the soldiers patrolled the platform, sliding the heavy doors shut when the carriages were full. With horror, Mireille noticed that the sides of the trucks were formed from wooden planks with gaps between them. What would become of those women as the train rolled eastwards into the wind which would slice through those gaps like a cold steel blade?
She glanced at the piece of paper in her hand. It was a folded note, with an address printed on the outside. She pushed it into her coat pocket as the train she’d been waiting for pulled up at another platform. The note would have to wait: she had work to do.
Later that day, once she’d delivered the man she’d met from the train to a safe house in the sixteenth arrondissement, she picked up her bike where she’d left it near the station and took a detour on her way home to deliver the note to the address which had been scribbled on the folded paper. She knocked on the door, but there was no reply. The house appeared to be deserted, the door locked.
She hesitated for a moment, leaning her bike against the wall, then unfolded the note in case there was any other clue in it as to who it was intended for. Her eye scanned the hastily written scrawl.
My dearest, they have taken me. I don’t know where I’m going, but I will come back to you as soon as I can. Look after our girls. I pray for their safety and yours. Kiss them from their maman who loves them – and you – forever. Nadine.
She looked around, unsure what to do, and then noticed a curtain twitch in the window of the house next door. She knocked there. After a few moments’ hesitation, the neighbour opened her door a crack, peering at her suspiciously.
‘I have a letter,’ Mireille explained. ‘For the man next door. His wife asked me to deliver it to him.’
The neighbour shook her head. ‘He’s gone. The Germans came and took them all, the father and the two kids. Gone – I don’t know where.’
‘Could you keep this for them? Give it to them when they come back?’
The neighbour looked at her doubtfully, then reluctantly extended a hand through the gap in the door to take the note. ‘Alright, I’ll keep it. But they won’t come back. They never do, do they?’
She shut her door with a finality that seemed to underscore her words.
Shaken, Mireille cycled slowly back to the Rue Cardinale, through frozen streets that seemed eerily empty.
She propped her bike in the hallway and climbed the stairs to the apartment, feeling exhausted. It had been a long day and she was chilled to the bone, having cycled miles into the icy wind. She was back much later than she’d anticipated and was looking forward to the company of Claire and Vivi and a bowl of warm soup. She paused on the stairway to pick up a glove that had been dropped there. It looked like one of Claire’s. Mireille smiled – she’d be glad to have it back.
She opened the door and stepped into a silence so profound that it made her ears ring. ‘Claire?’ she called. ‘Vivi?’
There was no reply. She shrugged. They must have gone out – maybe to the café. Claire would be missing her glove, in that case. The door to Claire’s room stood ajar and she pushed it open, meaning to leave the glove on Claire’s pillow. But she stopped in the doorway, a sense of profound unease seeping into her bones. The room was untidy, drawers pulled open and clothes dropped on the floor. The cupboard door swung on its hinges and Mireille could see the silver beads of the midnight blue evening gown glinting within, although the few other clothes that used to hang there alongside the dress were gone.
She ran to Vivi’s room, panic flooding her veins now. If anything, it was even worse. A chair was overturned and the contents of the wardrobe and chest of drawers were strewn