altered appearance of her friend and by the shocking words she had uttered, move swiftly to Mireille’s side and wrap an arm around her in a brief hug. ‘Come,’ she said, taking the bag from Mireille’s hand. ‘There’s some bread and cheese in the kitchen. You must be hungry.’ With quick, light steps she led the way, and Mireille followed her more slowly up the stairs.
Sensing that Mireille needed a little time to readjust to being back in the apartment, Claire busied herself with making up the bed for her and then setting out a meagre supper for the two of them. Sharing her week’s rations, Claire wondered for a moment how they would eat tomorrow, but she shrugged the thought aside. It was more important that Mireille should eat properly tonight. Perhaps she’d be able to find some vegetables for a soup. And with Mireille here now too, they’d be able to get double the rations, which would help make things go further.
‘A table!’ she called. But when Mireille did not immediately appear, she went to find her.
Mireille had opened the door to the room that Esther had occupied when she’d arrived in Paris as a refugee from Poland, pregnant and desperate to protect her unborn child. A few months later, her baby had been delivered in the tiny attic room, and given the name Blanche. Claire remembered the awe she’d felt on seeing Esther propped against her pillows, holding her newborn daughter in her arms. She would never forget the look of exhausted elation on Esther’s face as she gazed into her baby’s dark blue eyes, the strength of her love seeming to be both instantaneous and visceral.
As Mireille stood in the doorway of Esther’s old room, Claire slipped an arm around her shoulders. ‘What happened to her?’ she asked, quietly.
Staring at the iron bedstead with its mattress stripped bare, Mireille’s face was expressionless as she told Claire in a low voice how they’d got caught up in the flood of refugees fleeing Paris as the German forces broke through the Maginot Line and advanced on the capital. The road south had been choked with the tide of civilians when the lone plane attacked, diving again and again to strafe the crowd with machine-gun fire. ‘Esther had gone to try to find some food for Blanche. When I found her, her face looked so peaceful. But the blood was everywhere, Claire. Everywhere.’
The expression of wide-eyed horror on Claire’s face crumpled as her tears began to flow. ‘And Blanche?’ she whispered. ‘Did she die too?’
Mireille shook her head. And then she turned to look at Claire, meeting her eyes at last, with a flash of defiance. ‘No. They didn’t get Blanche. She is safe with my family in the Sud-Ouest. My mother and sister are caring for her there. But, for her own safety, her origins must remain a secret as long as the Nazis continue their barbaric persecution of the Jewish people. Do you understand, Claire? If anyone asks, just say that Esther and Blanche are both dead.’
Claire nodded as she tried, ineffectually, to stem the flow of her tears with her sleeve.
Mireille reached out and grasped Claire by the shoulders with a fierceness in her grip that commanded attention. ‘Save your tears, Claire. There will be a time for grieving when all this is over, but now is not that time. Now we must do all that we can to fight back, to resist this living nightmare.’
‘But how, Mireille? The Germans are everywhere. There’s nothing to be done when our own government has given up on France.’
‘There’s always something to be done, no matter how small and insignificant our efforts may seem. We have to resist.’ She repeated the word again, with an emphasis that made Claire’s eyes widen in fear.
‘Do you mean . . .? Would you get involved . . .?’
Mireille’s dark curls danced with something of their old determination and there was defiance written across her features as she nodded. Then she asked, ‘And you, Claire? What will you do?’
Claire shook her head. ‘I’m not sure . . . I don’t know, Mireille. Surely there’s nothing ordinary people like you and I can do.’
‘But if the “ordinary people” do nothing then who is going to step forward and take a stand against the Nazis? Not the politicians in Vichy who are puppets of the new regime; and not the French army whose battalions lie rotting in shallow graves along the Eastern Front. We are