Page 33 of Daughters of Paris

‘Thank you,Offizier-Anwärter Durlich!’ he snapped.

Fleur repeated his name and title obediently, stumbling slightly over the unfamiliar syllables. He waved his hand again and she walked inside.

The café was dark and stuffy, and as a result it was deserted. She wanted to weep at the comforting familiarity. Sébastien appeared from the room behind the bar and Fleur ran and threw her arms around him. He gathered her into a hug. She closed her eyes and leaned against his chest.

Wonderful, strong, safe, Sébastien.

‘Let me get you a glass of beer. Take a seat.’

Fleur pulled out a chair well away from the door. She unpinned her hat and used it to fan the back of her neck where loose tendrils of hair clung to the skin uncomfortably. When Sébastien brought the beer, she drank half in one go, then held onto the glass. It was cool and the condensation on the outside felt refreshingly clean on her grimy fingertips.

‘Did the officer outside bother you? I’ve seen him visiting different cafés in the area and he likes to throw his weight around.’

‘Not really. I think he just wanted to scare me.’

‘Did he?’

She thought. ‘Yes. But now I’m more angry than scared. If he wanted me to cry it didn’t work.’

Sébastien leaned his elbows on the table. ‘When you didn’t come before I hoped you had managed to escape.’

‘We tried but had to turn back.’

Fleur poured out everything that had happened since they had last met while Sébastien listened without speaking. As she described the death of Agnes, he covered her hand and a sob choked her momentarily. She described the aborted flight from Paris and the return, Sophie’s rudeness and her conversation with Monsieur Ramper.

Sébastien took off his glasses and wiped them on his apron, peering at her closely.

‘It sounds like your friend Colette is learning some courage if she defied her mother to come back with you. It’s good that you have a friend.’

‘Speaking of friends, do you know if anyone else is still in Paris?’

‘Odile left on a train the day the government declared Paris an open city. She said she was going home to Dijon. I haven’t heard from her. Daniel is now working in the hospital despite not being qualified. I have only seen him once. As for the other regular customers, few are left. Who wants to drink in a café alongside Germans?’

Fleur glared in the direction of the door. ‘I hate them. I thought that seeing tanks and flags would be the worst part, but they are behaving as if they own the city.’

‘They do,’ Sébastien said quietly.

He sounded resigned, but as their eyes met, Fleur saw anger magnified by the thick lenses of his glasses. Fleur leaned back on her stool and stared at the ceiling, watching the blades of the fan lazily rotate. It brought to mind the propellors on the planes that had gunned down the women and children. Her stomach swam with nausea. She slid her glass across the table to Sébastien.

‘I must go. I told theOffizier-Anwärterthat I was looking in different cafés for my friend. If I stay here too long, he may get suspicious.’ She shivered and hugged herself tightly. ‘I hate this. I feel as if I should look over my shoulder all the time but if I did it would look suspicious. I don’t know whether I should ignore the Germans or smile at them. Neither is good. If I had a knife, I fear I would stab as many as I could before someone took it away.’

‘This is the first time you have been out and really seen what Paris is like now, isn’t it? I can tell. It gets easier, though not any more palatable.’

He patted her hand. ‘I wonder…’

A pair of German soldiers came in through the front door, blinking as their eyes adjusted to the gloominess and he stopped mid-sentence.

‘Take a seat outside,mes messieurs, and I will be with you as soon as I have finished with this customer,’ Sébastien called. The men backed out, chatting to each other. As soon as they left, he leaned close to Fleur.

‘Many of us don’t like what is happening in the city and want to protest against it.’

‘How? In the streets?’

‘No. Nobody will rise up because everyone thinks they are alone so we want to show people that they are not. You have a good way with words. Would you help us create posters and leaflets, or a newspaper, as we talked of before?’

Fleur dropped her head. Before it had seemed fun but if they were discovered the consequences would be imprisonment or execution.

‘I’ll think about it.’

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