Page 55 of Daughters of Paris

‘Mademoiselle Colette!’

She hesitated at the sound of her name. The voice was familiar. She slowed but did not turn.

‘Mademoiselle Colette, it’s a friend. Please, you have nothing to fear.’

She turned cautiously. The man who had spoken had long, straggly hair and a beard but Colette recognised the eyes in a face which had almost – but not quite – changed beyond recognition.

‘Michal Drucker? Is that really you?’ she asked, aghast at the state of the previously immaculate concierge.

He raised a finger to his lips. ‘A name like mine is not good to say out loud in these times.’

His voice was raspy and he licked lips that were dry and cracked.

Colette walked towards him. ‘Oh, Michal, we have missed you. We hoped to hear from you, but you never came back. Why are you living here?’

‘I am a nameless person now and it is better that way.’ His answer was interrupted by a hacking cough that lasted a full minute.

‘You are not well! You should come home,’ Colette exclaimed.

He shook his head weakly. ‘If I go back, I’ll be taken to work.’

Colette nodded slowly, fighting the rising anger in her breast. Everyone knew Jews were rounded up and transported to workcamps to help the German war effort. Many, like Michal and the names in the ledger, had vanished overnight.

‘I’m so sorry to bother you, but do you have a few spare centimes?’

‘Of course, let me see.’ Colette opened her purse and pulled out a five franc note. Louis was still generous with his allowance and the little luxuries she used to buy were no longer so readily available. She could do without her chocolate ration this week but it seemed a paltry offering.

‘Here, take this. But I want to help you more if I can. Come to the house tonight at about seven and wait in the little alcove under the archway by thelogedoor.’

She could see the internal struggle in his eyes and feared he might refuse, but then he clasped her hand.

‘Thank you.’

He slipped back into the shadows beneath the bridge. Colette walked on, wondering how best to help. All day it felt as if she had been bombarded with misery, from the unjustly accused widow to the grim inventory of absent customers. Now she had the opportunity to do something to help at least one person. Let Sébastien try to patronise her when he learned what she had done!

No. Even if it didn’t carry a risk, this wasn’t something she wanted to tell Fleur or Sébastien about. She wasn’t doing it to prove anything to them, but to help a friend.

A little before seven she slipped out of the house and waited in the courtyard. Michal edged along the pavement, clutching a knapsack to his chest protectively, and slipped into the archway. Colette’s plan was to give him some of her father’s clothes and a blanket, but he looked close to collapse.

‘When did you last sleep properly?’ she asked.

He smiled weakly. ‘I am not sure.’

‘The concierge’slogeis not used. You weren’t replaced. You could sleep there tonight.’

‘No. That is too much of a risk to us both…’

He broke off, leaving the rest of the sentenced unfinished. They both knew what he meant: the risk of him being discovered. Of Colette arrested for harbouring him. The thought terrified her, but she could not let him walk back into the darkness and uncertainty of the Paris streets. She bit her thumbnail, feeling helpless, searching her mind for a solution.

Was there anywhere in the house itself? The cellar?TanteAgnes’ old room? Fleur didn’t use it after all. Thinking of Fleur, the solution struck her. They had spent years hiding together, after all.

She glanced at the house. Louis had only arrived home half an hour earlier and always bathed as soon as he returned from the factory; a symbolic cleansing himself of the taint of assisting the German war effort. Delphine would be absorbed in one of her magazines, lounging with a cocktail and pretending nothing had changed. She wasn’t sure where Fleur was, but if she spotted Colette and Michal, she would surely not protest.

‘Follow me.’

Michal looked astounded when Colette showed him the Secret Garden.

‘All this time and I never knew it was here!’

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