Page 30 of Daughters of Paris

Fleur raised her brows. Being surrounded by Germans sounded terrible but entertaining them was apparently not too dreadful. ‘You don’t intend to take them anywhere, surely?’

‘I don’t know what would happen if we refused,’ Josette said. Her mouth wobbled.

Sophie rolled her eyes impatiently. ‘It would be foolish to anger them, and perhaps there will be benefits to having to associate with them. Who knows how long the situation might last? It might be for ever.’

‘It won’t be for ever,’ Fleur said firmly. ‘France will fight back.’

Sophie lit another cigarette. ‘France will not fight back. Didn’t you listen to Pétain on the radio? There will be no more fighting, not after the Armistice was signed yesterday. You can sneer all you like about not associating with the Germans, but they are in charge now. They control the food, the power supply, our every movement. Everything that makes life worth living. If the only way to get back some of what we have lost is to appear friendly, then that’s what we’ll have to do.’

‘Don’t take them anywhere we usually go, would you?’ Colette said anxiously. ‘I would hate to be surrounded by Germans when I’m trying to have a nice evening.’

‘Don’t worry, we won’t take them anywhere too nice. Maybe to theChausson en Soie. You’ll come with us, won’t you, to keep Josette company?’

The Silk Slipper was practically a bordello by all accounts and Josette looked as if she was either about to start wailing again or slap her sister. There was clear friction between the two sisters regarding the subject. It was odd that softer-looking Sophie, who was all curls and dimples like a matinee idol from a decade earlier, was expounding such hard opinions, while the more angular and severe-looking Josette was crumbling.

‘I’m done with this, thank you,’ Sophie said, holding out her cup and saucer to Fleur as if she was addressing a waiter in a café. Taken aback, Fleur accepted it and put it on the tray. There was a flicker of a smirk on Sophie’s face.

‘Let me help you,’ Colette said, taking the cup from Josette, despite it being half full.

Fleur snatched the tray from her reach. ‘I can manage.’

She walked to the kitchen, seething with humiliation at Sophie’s rudeness. To take her mind off it she began making an inventory of all the food in the house, from dry goods to preserves. She discovered ten glass jars filled with a suspicious brown sludge, labelled inTanteAgnes’ looping handwriting as courgette pickled in vinegar. She piled them in the back of the larder, considering how short of food they would have to get before she opened one. Maybe she would offer it to Sophie at lunch the next time the sisters came visiting Colette.

As Fleur thought back to happier times spent helpingTanteAgnes make confitures and cakes, a burst of melancholy overwhelmed her and she swallowed a sob. Agnes always used the time to lecture Fleur on her manners, attitude, and appearance. She would have seen Fleur moping about Sophie’s rudeness, laughingly snapped a dishcloth at her and reminded Fleur that she had not been raised to worry about what silly girls thought.

Fleur sighed. ‘I miss you.’

Presently, she heard the front door close. A moment later there was a knock at the kitchen door and it opened a crack.

‘May I come in?’ Colette asked.

Fleur shrugged. ‘It’s your house, you can go where you wish.’

Colette seized her hands and her face twisted. ‘I’m so sorry for what Sophie said. She was so rude to you! I have never heard her talk in such a way or say such things. It must be the tension of everything that has happened.’

Fleur made a non-committal noise. Josette had been polite, and she was living in the same hotel as Sophie.

Colette’s brows creased. ‘You’d like her really if you got to know her. She’s fun.’

Fleur pictured Agnes’ expression listening to the sisters’ plans to go dancing with Germans. She would have had nothing but contempt for them and Fleur shouldn’t either. She pulled her hands away. ‘No, I don’t think I would. I’m sorry, Colette, but your friends and my friends are very different.’

She sank onto a stool, a feeling of loneliness creeping over her.

‘I need to go across the city,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t know if the bookshop is open or closed, or if I’ll have a job. I don’t even know if my friends are still in Paris. Sébastien and Pierre talked about opposing the German army, but I can’t believe they would have. I don’t know how they could without risking arrest or being…’ She broke off, remembering the sight and noise of the planes diving onto the exodus of women and children. The newspapers said that Paris had been taken without a shot being fired, but was that true or just what Germany wanted the world to believe?

‘They sound brave,’ Colette said. ‘And I’m sure the shop will be safe. Who would destroy a bookshop?’

Fleur gazed at her, trying to hide her disbelief. Sometimes she wondered if Colette lived in the same world.

‘The Nazis burned books in the streets. Of course they would destroy a bookshop. Besides, who would want to buy books at a time like this?’

Colette gestured to the table and the copy ofRegainthat Fleur was halfway through.

‘The people who like dancing want to dance. The people who like reading will want to read.’

Fleur mustered a smile. ‘I hope you’re right.’

Colette looked at the table covered in tins and jars. ‘Do you think we should hide some of these in the cellar? If there are going to be shortages it might be good to keep some things back.’

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