Page 47 of Daughters of Paris

Fleur waited until she heard Colette’s bedroom door open then knelt by her bed and pulled out the bag from where she had kicked it the previous night. Inside were thirty paperback-book-sized leaflets.

She broke out in a cold sweat just thinking of what would have happened if the German had discovered these. She had intended to post them through letterboxes and pin them to trees early this morning but that would have to wait. She could not do it in daylight. She heard the door open again and Colette walked in without knocking.

‘Fleur?’

Fleur froze, leaflets still in her hand. She raised her head from the other side of the bed.

‘I’m here.’

‘What are you doing down there?’ Colette asked.

‘I lost a stocking. I was seeing if it was under the bed.’

‘Do you want me to look from this side?’ Colette offered.

‘No! No, don’t trouble yourself.’ Fleur slid the roll of leaflets between the bag and the wall. ‘It probably got put back in the drawer with some other laundry. What do you want anyway?’

‘I wanted to see if you fancy coming out shopping with me this morning. I heard a rumour that Babineau’sépiceriemight have some rillettes.’ She glanced at her wristwatch. ‘It’s probably too late now anyway.’

She retreated and closed the door.

Fleur sat back on her heels. Colette’s slightly pained expression had made Fleur feel a little contrite. She felt a little closer to Colette after what they had shared, and of course they were now bound by the secret of what had happened, but she couldn’t explain what she had been doing under the bed. Colette’s visits to the cabarets and the hotel meant she must never learn what Fleur was involved in. It would be too easy for her to let slip something unintentionally – Fleur was fair minded enough to know it would be unintentional because Colette was not a traitor to France – and then the lives of everyone involved would be in danger.

She had been so hurt by the revelation of Colette’s nights out dancing but her secret was not of the same magnitude and she felt no guilt at keeping it.

April 1941

‘You now walk with more confidence through the world,’ Monsieur Ramper remarked one morning when Fleur arrived at the bookshop.

He was boarding up the front window, through which a brick had been thrown overnight. Fleur looked at the destruction in despair.

‘Do I?’

She knew the answer. After she had cried for the lost life, she had taken Colette’s advice on board. She would be hard. Someone had tried to hurt her and she had stopped him. She felt no remorse for it, nor should she.

She never discovered if the German authorities accepted the scenario they had created, but no one came to arrest the women and there were no black cars with smoky windows slowly purring through the streets. The only change of note was a new checkpoint being erected between the Metro station and the entrance to the pleasure park at the Bois de Boulogne, though that might have been coincidental.

Neither she, Colette, or Sébastien ever referred to what had happened. It was another secret she had to keep but knowing this one was shared was more comforting than she expected.

She tucked an empty paper bag into her pocket. She had discovered that if she ate her baguette and butter as she walked, she didn’t notice how meagre her breakfast was.

‘I’m sorry I’m late. I forgot to wind my watch last night and it ran down. I can stay late tomorrow instead if you want me to.’

‘It does not matter. We had no customers yesterday.’ Monsieur Ramper beckoned her inside to sit down on one of the two chairs beside the cash register.

‘Fleur, I am leaving Paris.’

Fleur’s legs turned to water. ‘Why?’

‘I have thought long and hard about it. The other shops in this street are closing, perhaps for good. My grandfather was Jewish so in the eyes of the Nazis I am tainted. It is now against the law for my people to own businesses.’

He gestured to the boarded-up window. ‘I do not wish my shop to fall into the hands of the Nazis, so I am selling her to you, Fleur. I have prepared the legal documents for you to sign.’

He had fired so much information at her with the precision of a Fokker’s gunner and she could barely take it in. One fact stood out.

‘Monsieur Ramper, I can’t afford to buy it.’

He smiled. ‘The price is five francs. There is no one else for me to give it to. I have no family in France. Perhaps none anywhere. I know you understand how that feels.’

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