Page 35 of Daughters of Paris

‘A guide to living in Paris under the Germans,’ Pierre said.

‘We know how to live,’ Fleur interrupted. ‘Keeping our heads down and queuing with a constant sense of fear.’

Pierre folded his arms. ‘And we shouldn’t. Yes, we are living under occupation, but that doesn’t mean we have been defeated. I propose a list of suggestions to help Paris rebel in small ways. Things to raise morale.’

They all drank silently, thinking.

‘Pretend you don’t know where they are looking for if a German ask for directions,’ Sébastien offered after a minute or two.

Fleur grinned. ‘Or send them in the opposite direction.’

Pierre laughed. ‘Excellent. It takes a woman to be vindictive.’

Fleur thought back to the conversation between Colette and the sisters from the hotel. Sophie thought that flirting and being accommodating would be the safest way to behave.

‘We should pretend we do not see them. Greet their overtures of friendship with faces of stone.’

Sébastien noted it. ‘Water their beer down. They complain that our beer is not like it is at home but drink it anyway. They would never realise.’

By the end of the night they had produced a list of small rebellions or irritations. Nothing that could be seen as outright resistance but enough that anybody following the list would feel a small sense of defiance inside themselves.

‘Tomorrow I will set the type and next week we will print them,’ Pierre announced.

They clinked glasses and Fleur felt an elation she hadn’t for longer than she could remember.

A week later, Fleur left the bookshop an hour before curfew with a sheaf of leaflets tucked between the pages of some oldbandes dessinées. She walked slowly through the winding alleys, past cafés and nightclubs that were preparing to close. When she was certain no one would see, she slipped a leaflet into letterboxes, vestibules and under doors. Sébastien and Pierre would be doing the same thing in other directions.

They were not alone in this. Walls across the city had become covered in graffiti and posters denouncing the Occupation, and when tobacco was rationed in late September, there was barely a wall that did not have an angry slogan painted across it.

‘It is infuriating that our message is being lost,’ Pierre ranted, when he discovered in December that a four-page newspaper, namedResistance, was being circulated. ‘Who will read our words if there are so many others surrounding them?’

Fleur suppressed a sigh at his vanity.

‘Surely as long as the message is out there it doesn’t matter who the author is?’ she asked. Seeing his face, she quickly added, ‘Your writing is so eloquent it will stand out.’

Pierre adjusted his cuffs, preening slightly. ‘I know that.’

She left him to his vanity. It gave Fleur a sense of satisfaction to know that among the posters denouncing the Occupation, a few of her own words bore witness to the fact that not everyone in Paris had given up hope.

Chapter Eleven

November 1940

The weather was impossibly cold; worse than any winter Colette could recall.

‘It feels like the weather is on the side of the Nazis,’ she muttered through chattering teeth as she and Fleur joined yet another early morning line for bread in dense, freezing fog, her breath visible in the air. ‘I hope the line moves quickly today.’

It wouldn’t.

Everything took longer these days. To Colette’s amazement, the initial shock of occupation had been replaced by resignation and even irritation. Producing papers on demand at checkpoints with fingers stiff from cold. Queuing daily for food only to discover the ingredients for particular meals were not available.

‘At least by spring the cold will be gone, even iftheyaren’t,’ Fleur muttered, eying the passing detachment coldly.

The soldiers glanced across then walked on, pulling the collars of their heavy greatcoats a little higher to ward off the bitter winds.

The woman behind them leaned round to talk to the one in front. ‘Did you see the woman from number seventy-three? She has new stockings, and we all know she didn’t pay for them herself,’ she said in a mock whisper.

Colette suppressed a sigh. The hours of queuing meant the women had nothing to do but chat and when it didn’t turn to mean-spirited gossip it was talk of where it was possible to obtain rationed goods on the newly formedmarché noir, and whichtrafiquantsexacted the least extortionate price for goods.

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