Page 50 of Daughters of Paris

The cause was the stout woman who Fleur and Colette had seen fighting with the young mother. As she approached the queue a couple of women hissed under their breath. She grew pale and stopped dead.

‘I know what you are thinking, but it was not I who did it.’

The hisses turned to murmurs of anger then and a couple of the women further down the queue curled their lips. When the stout woman caught their eyes, they dropped their heads.

‘I do not care what you think. Righteous citizens have nothing to fear.’ The stout woman stalked past the queue to the front. No one objected.

‘What happened?’ Colette whispered to the woman behind her who was holding a baby on her hip.

The mother leaned close to whisper. ‘There was a fight last week between that woman and a widow with three children. The next day, the widow was arrested for prostitution and selling stolen food on themarché noir. When she was returned home, she could not walk. She is still bedridden.’

‘That’s awful!’

‘That woman’s husband is a gendarme. Rumours say people have disappeared before if they have upset her.’ The mother glanced towards the women who had hissed. ‘I wonder if the queue will be shorter by two next week?’

Colette tasted bile in her throat. It was bad enough that the Germans were inflicting terror on the population without the French turning on each other.

‘That’s horrible. So vindictive.’

‘That’s life nowadays.’

Colette chewed her fingernail. Life felt constantly hazardous. She had a sudden longing for a friendly face. Not the Luciennes though. The idea of visiting the hotel swarming with Nazis sent a chill through her. She wanted the one person who would understand what had upset her today.

As soon as she had completed her purchases she travelled into Montparnasse and searched out Fleur’s bookshop. This part of the city was new to her, and she gazed around with interest at the unfamiliar bistros and cafés in the wide, tree-bordered streets.

She wondered idly which café Sébastien worked in. Despite her intention to thank him she hadn’t sought him out. In the end, it had seemed wiser to pretend the incident had never happened and put it behind her. Now she was close to where he might be the fluttering of the skin on her neck caught her by surprise. It had been a very good kiss.

The bookshop was shabby with one boarded-up window and garish books with covers showing starlets being menaced by trench coat-clad men displayed in the other. Colette suppressed a smile. She’d been surprised by – and ashamed of – the burst of envy she had felt that Fleur was suddenly the owner of a business, but it wasn’t as grand as she had expected.

A bell rang as she opened the door. Fleur was standing on a three-stepped stool, dusting. She turned round, recognised Colette, and her expression grew anxious.

‘Is something wrong?’

Colette intended to tell Fleur the whole story, but all that emerged was, ‘The mother has been arrested!’

‘Your mother? Whatever for?’ Fleur dropped her feather duster and clambered down from the steps.

Realising her error, Colette burst out laughing, though she felt far from amused.

‘No, not my mother. The mother from theépicerielast week. Do you remember the two women fighting over sausage? She was suspected of being atrafiquantand prostitute.’

Her face felt dreadfully hot, and she knew she was gabbling. She looked for somewhere to sit down and settled for leaning against the desk on which the cash register stood amid piles of books and loose sheets of paper.

‘Oh that’s dreadful.’ Fleur’s voice cracked. Colette’s nerves threatened to do the same. ‘It must have been that horrible old woman, don’t you think? I bet she informed on her. I bet it isn’t even true.’

‘That’s what everyone thinks but they are too scared to say so,’ Colette said. ‘Those poor children! They were left alone for days! The oldest child was only nine or ten. How terrified they must have been when the house was raided and their mother ripped from them.’

The thought of their plight twisted a knife in her already churning belly and she began to sob.

‘Oh, Colette! This isn’t like you to cry.’ Fleur bundled her into a hug.

‘I know. It’s just … a home should be a sanctuary and now they’ll never feel safe. Ours always has been, but at any time someone or something could cause that to change.’

‘It’s horrible, isn’t it? That isn’t the first rumour I have heard of that sort of behaviour.’

Colette shivered. ‘Really?’

Fleur frowned. ‘Oh yes. People are encouraged to inform the authorities if they suspect any laws are being broken, however small, and so people are using the authorities to get revenge for petty grudges.’

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