A Week in Paris (31 page)

‘Why don’t you take it to the Red Cross?’ she told Lili, wondering why she hadn’t thought of this immediately.

Lili gave a nod, took the postcard and thrust it back in her bag, then tried to cheer up. They spoke about plans for Joséphine’s third birthday, which was coming up shortly. The girl’s mother had acquired some sugar for a cake and they were saving up butter. ‘There won’t be chocolate icing, but she’s got some old vanilla.’

The sound of slow footsteps made Kitty look round, but the path was hidden by bushes. It left her with an odd tingling feeling, as though they were being spied upon.

Eugene arrived home in time for dinner carrying a paper package which contained half a small chicken, a gift from the grateful family of a wealthy French patient. Quite how they’d acquired it was better not to ask. Normally Gene would pass on such presents to the hospital cook, so everyone might benefit, but this time he’d asked to take some home. ‘I felt we needed it,’ he said with one of his old carefree smiles. Kitty seized the meat immediately and it wasn’t long before the air was redolent with the delicious smell of fried poultry.

‘Such bliss,’ Kitty said, licking her fingers after the feast and laughing at Fay sucking at a drumstick. ‘I’ll make soup tomorrow from the bones.’

The taste of proper food cheered them up for the evening, but once Fay had gone to bed, the mood turned sombre, for Gene had found out more about what had happened the day before at the Vélodrome, the bicycle stadium.

‘It was a planned operation, of course,’ he told Serge and Kitty. ‘They took everyone they rounded up there – thousands of them. Many were children, Kitty.’

‘No,’ Kitty breathed, pity welling up. ‘What will happen to them, Gene?’

Gene sighed. ‘They’re putting ’em on trains. Sending ’em off goodness knows where. Listen, Ramond, my contact said they’re mostly Jews who are not French citizens, so it may be your family is all right.’

‘My mother is Polish,’ Serge told them, ‘and my father’s from Belgium, so I’m not sure.’ He covered his face with his hands for a moment. ‘I wish there was some way we could get news. Perhaps I should go there.’ His hair was rumpled and his expression dazed.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Gene’s voice was stony. ‘You’d be picked up in an instant.’ He went to the mantelpiece for the matches, then lit a cigarette and gave one to Serge. ‘No. We must get you out of here as soon as possible. It won’t be long now, I’m sure of it.’

‘Where will I go?’

‘Somewhere safer than here, that’s all I know.’

‘Don’t worry, Serge. We’ll take care of you,’ Kitty told him. Serge looked so lost, she thought, so strained and hollow-eyed she knew they couldn’t do otherwise. But oh, she wished he could be gone, because if they were caught with him, she dared not think what might happen to them all.

The next day was no less tense. Serge looked as though he’d slept badly. He sat on the edge of the sofa, passing Fay building blocks in a desultory fashion for the house she was making. Kitty folded up his bedding and took it into Fay’s bedroom, out of the way. It was while she was thrusting it into a cupboard there, that she heard the piano being played.

‘Serge – ow!’ she cried, bumping her head on the roof of the cupboard in her haste. ‘Serge, don’t.’ He had launched into a complex piece she recognized immediately as Chopin – one of his Ballades, which Serge played fluently and with a passion that came from his very heart.

‘Stop it, stop it!’ she cried, but only when she grabbed at his hands to tear them from the keyboard did he come to himself. ‘Someone will hear you, or see you or something. Come.’ She closed the lid of the instrument and led him back to the sofa where he sat morose.

‘Anyone hearing that would know it wasn’t me,’ she told him gently. ‘I hardly play now, and anyway, you’re miles better.’ He looked at her then and she was so pleased to see his smile that she burst out laughing.

Suddenly she was serious again. ‘Serge,’ she said, ‘listen. You must not play the piano.’

Everything as usual
. Although he offered, she could not leave Fay with Serge when she went out shopping, because a neighbour might wonder what was going on. She did not acknowledge another, deeper reason, which was fear for Fay should the Germans come when she was out. She would never forgive herself if something happened to her daughter when she wasn’t there. Never ever. She told herself this as she and the little girl waited for the lift, and after Fay declared that she didn’t want to go in the pram today, Kitty held her hand tightly as they stepped out into the street.

The queues for food were particularly bad that morning. There had been some news the day before about an explosion on a main railway line and the authorities often reacted to such acts of resistance by disrupting the distribution of food. Inevitably there was grumbling. Milly would have berated the grumblers, but Kitty felt some sympathy for those struggling to keep their families alive.

In the butcher’s, where the queue wound out of the shop, they waited nearly half an hour, watching the small piles of meat in the window diminish. Inside, the butcher’s wife was still talking about the events of the day before yesterday. ‘Pushed them into railway wagons, they did, like animals, but at least they give animals water.’ Kitty couldn’t bear to hear about it, and it took a supreme act of will for her not to walk out again. Her reward was some beef dripping and a quarter pound of stinking tripe. The butcher smiled down at Fay and coiled on an extra piece when he weighed it. She paid quickly, feeling sick as she picked up the packages and made a hasty exit.

Out in the fresh air she looked up at a sky of radiant blue. She took a deep breath and urged a reluctant Fay down to the main street. There was a stall at the covered market selling wild strawberries, someone had said in the meat queue. She’d not eaten a strawberry for years and Fay had never had one. She was too late, of course. The strawberries had gone, if indeed they’d ever existed, but she bought a lettuce, not a very green one, then walked home, stopping in the grocer’s for a tin of condensed milk on the way. It was as she pushed open the door to their building that she happened to glance up the street. Outside the tobacconist, a man was leaning against the wall reading a paper. She couldn’t see his face, but for a moment she watched him before Fay gave an impatient cry and pulled at her mother’s hand.

In the lobby her mind worked as she nodded to the concierge and crossed the floor to the lift. What was it about the man that piqued her interest? It was something she recognized about the way he stood – but it wasn’t only that. It was his fingers, gripping the edges of the paper. Even at this distance she had seen that he was wearing gloves.

It was early afternoon and Kitty was sewing, trying to let out a dress of Fay’s that was too tight about the chest and shoulders. Serge sat at the modest dining table in his waistcoat, his jacket hooked over the back of his chair. He was writing a letter to his parents, a task that was causing much sighing and rasping of his jaw, and once Kitty caught him wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

She was thinking it was about time to wake Fay when there was a knock on the door, a timid knock, but still enough to make them stare at one another in frozen horror. It woke Fay, too, who cried out, so there was no pretending no one was in. Kitty gestured and Serge rose instantly, gathering his jacket and his notepaper, and tiptoed into the main bedroom where he pushed the door until it shut with a gentle click. They’d rehearsed this. He would hide in the wall cupboard, though if anyone looked inside . . . she banished the thought from her mind.

Instead she flew to the door and opened it, and felt a tremendous relief and surprise to see her friend. ‘Oh, Lili!’

It was indeed Lili, but Lili without Joséphine. She wore a troubled look and said in an uncertain voice, ‘Kitty, I am sorry to come without warning.’

‘That’s all right,’ Kitty said, widening the door. ‘Come on in.’

As Lili entered, Fay peeped round the door of her bedroom, two fingers in her mouth, her other hand clutching her zebra. Lili greeted her, and Fay briefly removed her fingers to smile, then popped them back again.

‘Do sit down, Lili,’ Kitty encouraged.

Lili took the sofa and Fay came and sat next to her. Kitty, sitting in Gene’s chair, glanced swiftly about the room, but was relieved to see no evidence of Serge’s presence. The door of the main bedroom remained closed. What if Fay asked after Serge? How would Kitty answer? Although Lili was Kitty’s friend, she couldn’t let her know. She had to get her out of here as soon as possible without arousing her suspicions.

‘We were just going out,’ she said, thinking of an idea. ‘To get some air, see if you were in the park, in fact. Would you like to come?’

‘No, thank you,’ Lili said. ‘I’ll only stay a moment. I ought to go back to Joséphine. I left her with a neighbour, you see.’

‘Has something happened?’ Kitty wondered, sensing the girl’s unhappiness.

Lili’s head drooped. ‘I visited the Red Cross this morning, as you said,’ she sighed. ‘There was a long wait, but then I spoke to a woman and showed her my postcard. She couldn’t read the stamp either but she said to leave it with her. They’d make enquiries. That’s all. I just thought I’d let you know.’ She finally met Kitty’s gaze and Kitty was struck by the desperate expression in her eyes.

Kitty said, ‘I suppose that is the best thing to do, to ask them to find out. At least you’re doing something.’

‘Something,’ Lili echoed. ‘I can’t bear the waiting.’

‘Oh, poor you,’ Kitty whispered, going to sit beside her on the sofa to take her hand. ‘I do feel for you. But there’s plenty of room for hope. I’m sure it’s only that a mistake has been made.’

‘Yes, I expect you are right. Thank you.’ She gently pulled away her hand. ‘Kitty, may I have a glass of water, please? I have walked a long way in the heat and—’

‘Of course,’ Kitty cried, standing up, ‘How remiss of me. I should have thought.’ She went out to the kitchen, Fay at her heels.

As she was at the sink, Fay asked where Serge was. ‘He’ll be back soon,’ she assured her, ‘don’t worry.’

When they returned to the sitting room Lili was standing near the front door, repinning her hair in a mirror hanging there. She turned and took the glass, thanking Kitty, and drank, then placed it half-empty on the table next to the dress Kitty had been altering.

‘This is a pretty blue,’ she said, picking up and spreading it in her hands.

‘It is, isn’t it?’ Kitty said, stepping over. ‘Like cornflowers. I’m trying to move this seam.’ She pointed at the garment, showing her. ‘I’m not much good at this sort of thing. Do you think this will hold?’ She stopped as she realized Lili wasn’t looking at the dress at all. Instead she was staring at something on the table that had been hidden by the dress. It was a sheet of paper written over in bold black ink, the French words clear to read. It was a page of Serge’s letter that he’d started and discarded for some reason.
My dear parents
,
I am so worried for you. How are you all? The news here is ghastly but for the moment anyway I am safe
. . .

For a moment her mind went blank and then it cleared. ‘Oh, the neighbour must have dropped that here when she brought the newspaper,’ she said in as normal a voice as she could muster. ‘I’ll take it back later.’ She forced herself to pick up the letter slowly, to fold it and slip it into her handbag.

When she turned round, it was to see Lili looking at her calmly, the dress still in her hands.

‘You have made a good job here, your stitches are so neat,’ she said brusquely, handing it back. ‘Now I shall go. As I say, I have left Joséphine too long. Goodbye, my little Fay.’

Kitty opened the front door for her. ‘Goodbye,’ Lili said in a cold voice.

‘Goodbye, Lili,’ Kitty replied, dismayed. It was as though all trace of their former friendship had vanished.

When she went inside and closed the door, Kitty leaned against it for a moment, going over everything that had happened. Lili had come out specially – to tell her what? No news at all. She’d drunk a glass of water and gone. If she hadn’t seen the letter, all would have been well. That Lili didn’t believe her about the neighbour’s newspaper remained a possibility, but Lili had no other reason for suspecting her of anything. She was her friend, for goodness sake. She was upset about her husband, that was the reason for her strange manner.

Kitty opened the door of her and Gene’s bedroom and went to the cupboard. ‘Serge?’ she whispered, knocking on it, and was almost struck by the cupboard door as it shot open and Serge stepped out, unfolding himself.

‘There’s a nail sticking out at the back,’ he complained, rubbing his hip, then he stopped and said, ‘Did you come in here, or was it Fay?’

‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t think Fay did either, did you, darling?’ Fay, who stood in the bedroom doorway, shook her head.

‘Someone opened the bedroom door a few minutes ago and came in. I would swear it.’

He and Kitty stared at each other. It was as though a giant hand reached out and crushed her heart in her chest. It wasn’t possible: Lili was her friend. Yet she was certain now that Lili knew something. The question was what? And what might she do with the information? She remembered the man with the leather gloves. It could be no coincidence that she’d seen him twice. Who was he? Some accomplice of Obersturmführer Hoff? He didn’t look like Gestapo.

‘Serge,’ she began. His back was to her and the slump of his shoulders spoke of defeat. He no longer looked spruce, but dejected and a little wild. There were so many people looking like that whom she passed in the street. So many lived lives in the shadows, hoping only to survive, to escape the notice of officialdom. How many more were hidden away, never going out?

It came to her in a flash what she should do.

‘Serge,’ she said urgently. He turned round and she saw the desperation in his eyes. ‘You have to leave.’ She could see the situation clearly now. ‘We’ll go with you. There’s a back entrance where we put the rubbish – we’ll take that.’