Lucien Lelong’s couture house had survived the war and was now thriving, thanks to a designer with a reputation for brilliance whom he’d employed.
Mireille’s knees shook when she was introduced to this same designer, a Monsieur Dior. He was working on some new looks to mark a new beginning, he explained to the team from Maison Delavigne, as they were being given a tour of the atelier on their first day. ‘I am pleased to welcome you to Lelong. Maison Delavigne’s seamstresses have a reputation for perfection,’ he said. ‘And I expect nothing less.’
Mireille enjoyed her work with her new employers. It was still hard to come by some fabrics, but Monsieur Dior made the most of what was now becoming available. His ideas included softer outlines and subtle embellishments, and there was a little more fullness in the skirts of the gowns Mireille stitched. The atelier hummed with the sound of sewing machines and a sense of busyness that had long been absent at Delavigne Couture. Monsieur Dior’s reputation was growing rapidly and wealthy clients from around the world had begun to demand Parisian couture once again.
She couldn’t help thinking how much Claire and Vivi would enjoy working here, using their skills to breathe life into Monsieur Dior’s stunning evening gowns, as they painstakingly worked on their intricate beadwork. She wished they were here now, sitting at the sewing table beside her, exchanging an occasional smile when they looked up from their work, pausing to stretch cramped fingers and aching necks.
When would the war finally end? Much of France had been reclaimed now, but the Germans had consolidated their remaining forces in the Vosges Mountains in the east. The radio broadcasts that she listened to avidly announced that, despite last-ditch attempts by Hitler’s troops, the Allies were fighting their way across Belgium into Germany now. As she listened to the news each night, she wondered when she would hear the news she really longed for: news of her friends.
Monsieur Leroux still worked unceasingly to try to find them, through his contacts in the army and in the Red Cross. Surely he would track down Vivi and Claire soon, she told herself. Only then would she be at peace.
In Germany, the winter had been another cruel one. At first, when Claire had joined Vivi on the hard labour detail, they’d pulled a heavy roller over the roads that had been built to link the new, underground factories that were being constructed in an attempt to protect production against Allied bombs. Wagon-loads of rubble arrived by train on the siding that had been built alongside the camp – rubble cleared from cities which had been targeted in bombing raids. The starving, skeletal prisoners were ordered to ferry it, barrowload by barrowload, to the road site. Harnessed like horses between the handles of the roller, Claire and Vivi had to throw themselves forward to get it to move at all and then, for hours on end, they trudged over the rough mixture of clinker and rubble, crushing it and flattening out the surface.
Then the snow had begun to fall and the women had been set to work clearing it with shovels to keep the roadways open so that the prisoners could walk to the factories each day. It was hot work, which made sweat soak their striped jackets, rotting the fabric until the seams frayed. But at the same time their fingers froze around the handles of their heavy shovels, bleeding and turning black at the tips where frostbite nipped them.
As the ground froze and the snow continued to fall, the factories at Dachau had been commanded to increase their productivity. Like the crematorium, the munitions factory ran day and night. One day the kapo in charge of their work party told Claire and Vivi that they had been reassigned to work the night shifts there.
Their new job involved dipping metal shell casings in an acid bath to clean and toughen them before they were packed with explosives. The acid splashed and burned their arms, eating into what little skin still covered their jutting bones. Exhausted, they fell into their bunk each morning, just as it was vacated by its night-time occupants, pulling dirty, ragged blankets around themselves and huddling together for warmth. And each time they did so, they would whisper the words to each other that kept them alive, before falling into an uneasy, pain-wracked half-sleep. When she woke towards evening,