to the floor from Vivi’s lap, scattering like the wings of broken butterflies on to the bare boards at her feet. The guard shouted, and two of her colleagues came running in from the room next door.
‘Traitor! French whore!’ the guard screamed. She reached down and scooped together the triangles of yellow cloth. ‘How many of these have you exchanged for blue ones? Don’t deny it! I’ve been watching you. I saw you do it. And you’ve been leaving off the yellow ones when there are two to be sewn on, as well. I can have you shot for this.’ She glanced around at the terrified seamstresses and prisoners who had all frozen in their places. ‘Let this be a lesson to you all. Don’t you dare think you can disobey orders.’
In the stillness, the sound of Claire’s chair scraping on the floorboards as she stood up made everyone turn to stare at her. Vivi’s face was white and a trickle of blood ran from her bottom lip, but she looked pleadingly at Claire and shook her head, almost imperceptibly, wordlessly begging her to stay where she was.
‘You too?’ snarled the guard. ‘Are you also a traitor? Or do you simply want to volunteer for hard labour alongside your friend here?’
Claire opened her mouth to reply, but just then Vivi called out, ‘No! Leave her. It was me, on my own. No one else knew.’
‘Take her away,’ snapped the guard. ‘And you,’ she spat at Claire, ‘sit back down and get on with your work. I’ll be watching you, so don’t think you can try any such clever tricks, either.’
‘Please . . .’ said Claire.
‘Silence!’ roared the guard and she pulled her revolver from its holster. ‘I will shoot the next person who opens her mouth. Now, are you going to get on with your work or do I have to clear the whole lot of you seamstresses out of here and allocate your cushy jobs to others who won’t be so ungrateful?’
Slowly, numbly, Claire sank back down into her seat and bent her head over her sewing machine, her tears falling on to the blue and white striped shirt on the table in front of her, as Vivi was frog-marched out of the reception centre.
Claire was frantic. No one knew where Vivi had been taken. The senior in the barracks just shrugged when Claire begged her to try to find out. ‘She shouldn’t have been so stupid as to try to trick the guards. Pulling that stunt, hiding the yellow triangles to try to save prisoners. After she was so lucky to have that job, as well.’ She shook her head. ‘She’s probably in the crematorium by now.’
It must have been about two weeks later – Claire had lost track of time, and another prisoner had taken Vivi’s place in the shared bunk – when Vivi reappeared in the barracks one evening. She was thinner than ever and her cough had returned. Her clothes hung like rags from her frame and she walked with a stoop, seeming to have crumpled in on herself. Claire ran to her, and helped her to the bed, making the grumbling woman who’d taken Vivi’s place move to another bunk. She fetched some soup and tried to give it to Vivi, but Vivi’s hands shook so badly that she couldn’t hold the bowl without spilling it. ‘Here,’ Claire soothed her, ‘let me.’ Little by little she spooned the watery brew of potato peelings and cabbage into Vivi’s mouth.
Later, when she’d regained her strength enough to speak, Vivi told Claire that she’d been put in solitary confinement for two weeks. She’d lain alone in the darkness, listening to the moans and cries from the neighbouring cells, and kept herself going by repeating over and over the words that she and Claire had whispered to each other so often: I’m here. We’re still together. Everything will be alright. ‘As long as I knew you were okay, I could bear it,’ she said.
Claire had helped Vivi to lie down. ‘You’ll get better now,’ she said. ‘I’ll look after you. Will you go back to work in the factory, do you think?’
Vivi shook her head. ‘They’ve told me to join the labour detail tomorrow morning after roll call.’
‘No!’ Claire’s eyes widened in horror. ‘You haven’t got the strength to do that work. It will kill you.’
‘That’s exactly what they’re hoping. When the guards took me from the sewing room, one of them pushed me up against the wall