truths that she clung on to as she drowned in that sea of pain and time. ‘I am Claire Meynardier. Vivienne Giscard is my friend. We are seamstresses in Saint-Germain.’ Again and again, through swollen lips, she mumbled the words until, at last, darkness descended.
When she came to, Claire was lying in the corner of the room. Her body was numb with the chill that seeped through the walls and the bare floorboards behind and beneath her but, as she slowly regained consciousness, the numbness was replaced by a burning sensation in her feet. The stiffness of her limbs slowly thawed into a throbbing ache and, as she tried to sit up, a sharp spike of pain shot through her ribcage.
Tentatively, she ran the tip of her tongue over her cracked and swollen lips, and winced. She began to shiver then, uncontrollably.
Her woollen stockings were tangled in a heap beside her and she slowly sat up and began to pull them on over her bloodied feet for warmth. What day was it? How many hours had passed? Where was Vivi and what had they done to her? Her head swam and she lay back down on the floor, curling her bruised and battered body into a ball and tucking her hands into her chest so that they could absorb the faint warmth of her breath. ‘I am Claire Meynardier,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Vivienne Giscard is my friend.’
It was the woman in the grey uniform who opened the door. She looked at Claire without emotion. ‘Get up and put on your shoes,’ she said. ‘It’s time to go.’
Claire didn’t move, unable to uncurl her aching limbs from the small core of warmth she’d created. Her hands were pressed against her heart and she felt the blood pulsing faintly through her body.
The woman nudged her with the toe of her shoe. ‘Get up,’ she repeated. ‘Or do I have to go and get the men to put you back on your feet?’
Slowly, painfully, Claire sat up then. The woman pushed her shoes towards her and Claire put them on, gasping at the flashes of searing pain as she forced them on to her swollen feet. She couldn’t tie the laces, but they were on, at least. She managed to pull herself up using the chair and then shuffled forwards, following the woman to the door.
Each downwards step on the stairs sent more pain stabbing through her feet and up into her calves, but she gripped the handrail and hobbled on, determined not to cry out. At last they reached the ground floor and the woman gestured to her to take a seat on a hard, wooden bench against one wall. Thankfully, she lowered herself on to it. ‘May I have some water?’ she asked.
Wordlessly, the woman brought her a tin mug and Claire took a few sips, moistening her mouth and washing away the iron taste of blood. Plucking up courage at being granted this small request, Claire said, ‘My bag of clothes? May I have it back?’ But the woman just shrugged and turned away.
As she sat and waited for whatever was to happen next, she heard two sets of footsteps coming down the stairs. The men carried a stretcher between them and it took Claire a few moments to realise that the huddled bundle of wet rags that lay on it covered a person. And it was only when she saw the tumble of copper hair hanging over the side of the stretcher that she realised who that person was.
Harriet
Outside the building where my grandmother was so brutally tortured, once I’ve stopped crying – enough to be able to gather my thoughts, at least – I turn away from Thierry and I start to walk. All I know is that I need to be anywhere other than here. How can I ever see the world as a good and kind place to be when I know what obscene cruelty humanity is capable of?
As my feet carry me onwards, the sudden wail of a police siren makes the traffic scatter and a sickening scream of pain and anger fills my head with white noise, blotting out everything else. Without thinking, I begin to run, wildly, panicking. I can hardly see, can’t think, can’t make sense of my surroundings. Flickering blue lights engulf me and I feel them burning like flames. Stumbling, I blunder off the edge of the pavement and hear a shout, the screeching of car tyres, a blaring