regained his composure, he said, ‘You’re right. Of course, you’re right. We can’t give up. We have to keep fighting, even if it takes the last breaths in our bodies.’
‘Good,’ she replied. ‘That’s agreed then. I’ll start my duties again, as soon as you can get the links re-established.’
He shook his head. ‘No, Mireille, I’m afraid we can’t use you any more, neither as a courier to replace Claire, nor as a passeuse. And we certainly can’t have another wireless operator located here. As I told you, they’ll be on the lookout for you and if you’re picked up out there on the streets it’ll be the worse for the others, as well as for you with everything you now know.’
Mireille’s hand went to the locket around her neck and her fingers tightened into a clenched fist. ‘Please, Monsieur Leroux, I have to do something. I can’t just sit here while they’re out there, enduring . . .’ Her words trailed off.
Then she spoke again, more quietly this time but with an undertone of determination. ‘One of my friends who lived in this apartment was shot down in cold blood by the Nazis. Now two more have been arrested and tortured and deprived of their liberty. Their rooms stand empty, and I can’t bear to look at them. So let me use those three rooms to shelter others who need them. This whole building is deserted when the salon closes and the other seamstresses go home. I’m the only one left. If we run it as a safe house for the network, it will mean that those rooms don’t stand empty any more. And it will stop me from going crazy. Because I’ll be doing something for people like Vivi and Claire. And then, when they come back to us, when all of this is over, I’ll be able to tell them that I was brave like them. I’ll be able to look them in the eye and say that, like them, I never gave in.’
Monsieur Leroux raised his gaze to hers. He shook his head again, but this time it was more in admiration than in defeat. ‘You know, Mireille,’ he said, ‘you three young women are some of the bravest people I’ve ever met. And one day, when all this is over, I hope we will all be reunited in a better world. That really is something worth fighting for.’
The door slammed shut and Claire’s prison cell was plunged into darkness, apart from the letterbox-like slit in the door which allowed a glimmer of light to slip beneath its ill-fitting cover. As her eyes adjusted, she could just make out the narrow bed with its coarse blanket and the bucket in one corner of the room.
She sat down on the hard mattress and covered her face with her hands. Defeat crashed over her like a breaking wave, an overwhelming force that knocked her feet out from beneath her and held her under for a moment so that she felt she could hardly draw breath. Until now, she’d always known Vivi was close by. In the back of the truck that had brought them here, swaying and swerving through the streets, she’d crouched on the floor beside the stretcher and held Vivi’s hand. Gently, she’d brushed the hair away from Vivi’s face, being careful not to touch the swollen, bruised skin around her eyes and jawline. As she slowly regained consciousness, Vivi had begun to shake uncontrollably and Claire had hushed her and soothed her with those same words that her friend had used to reassure her when her nightmares had woken them both. She repeated them over and over until they became more of a prayer than a statement: ‘Hush, now. I’m here. We’re together. Everything will be alright.’
Vivi’s hair and clothes were damp. Through swollen, broken lips she managed to whisper that they’d filled a bath and held her head under the water repeatedly until she was certain that she would drown. ‘But I didn’t talk, Claire. They didn’t break me. I knew you weren’t far away and that kept me strong.’ She reached a hand up to touch Claire’s blackened eye. ‘And you were brave too.’
Claire nodded, unable to speak.
Vivi squeezed her hand, weakly. ‘I knew you would be. We will stay brave together.’ She closed her eyes then and slept. Claire sat watching over her for the rest of the journey until the truck pulled up with a jerk at the prison gates.