The Milliner's Secret (13 page)

‘Everyone should read
A
Farewell to Arms
, most particularly men who like war. It should be required reading in Germany, but we burn it instead.’ The shop’s owner had offered the German translation,
In Einem Andern Land
. Dietrich had bought that, too, saying, ‘Read the two together, and you’ll learn German without trying.’

The first week of July drifted by. Dietrich and language lessons by day, alone by night. Brownlow was now accompanying Dietrich on his nightly excursions which was the worst snub of all.

Her downcast manner must have impinged on him because one evening Dietrich cancelled his plans and took her to Montmartre, to boulevard de Clichy for a taste of nightlife.

The Rose Noire was darkly anonymous. Little danger of Hiltrud von Elbing’s acquaintances chancing upon them there. The resident band were playing swing, slow and seductive, perfect for swaying in Dietrich’s arms. In their second set, they upped the tempo for the Lindyhop.

Dietrich sat out the fast dances, but when a black man called Dezi Rice, who had previously sung onstage, approached and invited Coralie to partner him, he waved her off, saying he didn’t mind so long as she came back afterwards. She assumed it was a distaste for wild American rhythms that kept Dietrich in his chair, but he insisted it was more to do with ligaments.

‘What’s ligament?’ she asked later, as their dinner was brought to them.

‘The tissue that joins bones to bones. It stretches.’ They’d been served trout mousse in oyster shells, a house delicacy that took the place of Ȋle de Ré oysters during the hot months of summer. He bent an empty shell backwards, showing how it was hinged. ‘Damage a ligament badly enough, it snaps. See?’ He broke the hinge.

‘You damaged yours?’

‘Ruptured. And this’ – he raked his hair back to reveal a scar to his hairline, raised like the pith of an orange – ‘I crashed.’

‘Driving too fast?’ She remembered the lipstick-red Mercedes Roadster.

‘You’ve heard of Baron von Richthofen?’

‘The bloody Red Baron? You’re not him, are you?’

He put oyster shells on her plate, offering her the black truffle sauce that came with the mousse. ‘No, but I flew with him in 1915.’

‘In the war?’

Dietrich nodded. ‘Richthofen called me “Kleiner” because, for a while, I was the youngest pilot in the army air service.’

‘Were you an air—’ She bit her lip. She’d been about to say ‘air ace’. She had to keep reminding herself that Dietrich had been on the wrong side. ‘Did you get shot down?’

‘Winged, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. I was hit by a Canadian pilot flying a DH.2. That’s a British plane, and it was a dog-fight over the British forward lines near Arras.’

‘I suppose the Canadian thought he was doing his job.’

‘Of course. My gunner would have got him, given a chance. We went into a spin but I straightened out, landed in a ditch, and fractured my patella. My knee,’ he translated. ‘And gained this.’ He indicated the scar.

‘You should pretend it’s a duelling scar.’

‘My father had one of those across his left eye, like all good Prussian aristocrats – he despised mine because it did not come from the edge of a sword.’

Coralie sipped her wine, a chilled Pissotte from the west of France recommended by the club’s friendly sommelier, Félix. How strange life was. Last month, she’d been a factory hand whose favourite tipple was Guinness. Her opinion of Germans had been pretty cut and dried. Now look at her, in steamy cahoots with a man who’d won his spurs shooting down British boys over France. By the time their oysters shells were empty, she’d learned he’d been sixteen when the Great War started – which made him thirty-nine now – and eighteen when he flew his first mission for the Kaiser. She’d been a babe in arms.

A new conversational topic was in order. Looking around, she asked Dietrich what he thought of women dining in hats. Several expensively dressed women were doing just that. ‘I’d feel funny, eating with a hat on.’

‘In my mother’s day it was
de rigueur
except at private dinner parties. Since you cannot Lindyhop in a hat any more than you can march in rubber flippers, why bother?’

Maybe. She’d enjoyed being hurled round the dance floor but, still, these after-dark hats with their diamond pins and cowlicks of net were very desirable. She could imagine herself perched on a window-seat, the wireless on, constructing satin pillboxes for wealthy clients. Trimmings in a basket . . . busy fingers. Only this time, working for herself.

‘I’m going to order steak for us next.’ Dietrich leaned back to catch the eye of a waiter.

‘Make sure they cook mine properly.’ She’d seen plates go past with blood-gravy.

‘You must to learn to eat meat pink, not grilled to the texture of a pilgrim’s sandal.’

When she said, ‘Pink for hats, brown for meat’, he took her face between his hands and kissed her until a waiter coughed discreetly.

‘Or we could go home?’ Dietrich said. He consulted his watch, which had luminous hands and a worn leather strap.

‘We don’t have a home.’

‘No. We have freedom, now you’ve unburdened yourself.’ When the waiter had left, he continued, ‘You have unburdened yourself? Or do you need to tell me more about this friend, Donal? Was it he who took your virginity?’

So he had noticed. Course he had. ‘It wasn’t Donal. He and I have never been more than pals. Can I tell you another time? I feel raw with so much telling.’

‘I have no business to ask, but do not blame me for minding.’

‘When I’m ready.’

‘And until then you are free to be yourself. Free to be Coralie de Lirac, who walks down the boulevards of Paris with fifty pairs of eyes following after her.’

He was a little drunk, she decided. Fifty pairs of eyes? Maybe, if she had her skirt tucked into her drawers.

‘I want you to imbibe Paris, Coralie, absorb her so that I can see her through your eyes.’

‘See her through your own!’

‘You understand that to us Germans, Paris, La Lutèce, is the mythical white hart we chase through the dark forests. She is our quarry, our fantasy, for ever out of reach.’

Two bottles of Pissotte was probably why she answered, ‘I’m going to get hold of her by the tail, just you see. But would you buy me a hat shop? Like Ottilia did for Lorienne?’

It was probably why he laughed and said, ‘Of course, just not yet.’

That night, in each other’s arms, he murmured, ‘If you intend to remain in Paris, your papers, your language skills, your history must all be impeccable. All traces of Englishness must be erased, including overcooked meat.’

‘You’re frightening me.’

‘Coralie de Lirac must have a history nobody can dispute. You told me your father was Belgian?’

‘From Tubize, in Brabant.’

‘Then we will start there. You must have photographs taken. Easy enough. Louise Deveau can take you to a booth in one of the big department stores.’

He said nothing more about it until, around mid-July, he handed her a parcel. ‘Your new identity.’

They were sitting on a bench in parc Monceau, filling in the time between making love and having dinner. Men in overalls were fixing
tricolor
bunting between the trees in preparation for the 14 July
celebrations. Taking documents from an envelope, she discovered that Coralie de Lirac had been born Marie-Caroline, daughter of Guy de Lirac, a lawyer from Nivelles, Belgium. ‘What’s wrong with Tubize?’

‘Why give the hounds an easy trail? Go to Nivelles some day, familiarise yourself with it.’

‘All right. But come on, a lawyer? My dad hates the law.’

‘
Hated
. He is dead, your poor father from Nivelles.’

‘Why Marie-Caroline? Why give me something extra to remember?’

‘In Catholic France and Belgium, children are invariably named for saints and I cannot find a Sainte Coralie.’

‘I was called Cora for my grandmother, but Mum said Coralie had a nicer ring. She said it would stand out on a billboard if I ever followed her into the profession. Theatre, I mean.’

‘You can still be Coralie. The French have nicknames too. But you were baptised Marie-Caroline.’

Her mother had been given the maiden name of Marlène Decorte, also from Nivelles. There was a French passport, artfully aged, giving Coralie’s occupation as a
modiste
, which, Dietrich said, was the nearest the French had to ‘milliner’. Her birthdate was given as 8 November 1915.

She exclaimed, ‘I’m October the twenty-second!’

‘Not any more. Learn every word of these papers. Repeat them to your reflection in the mirror night and morning. November the eighth is my birthday, which means we can always celebrate together. Wherever we may be.’

‘In Paris, I hope.’

‘I hope too, but I can’t neglect my other life for ever. Like the little bird on Ottilia’s shop window, I am
passerine
.’

‘Is that where “La Passerinette” comes from? I’ve always wondered—’

‘She is a little migratory bird. Pretty, grey and rose-pink and she breeds in southern France, in dry thickets, but winters in Africa.’

‘So . . . ’

‘Like la Passerinette, I perch, I fly away. These documents will get you a residence certificate.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Coralie, what is the matter?’

‘I won’t remember a new birthday, and if you’d grown up in London, you’d hate November. Fog, beginning to end.’

‘From now on, talk only of Paris.’ Taking the papers from her because she was crumpling them, Dietrich added, ‘On November the eighth, I will take you to the Tour d’Argent and afterwards, love you in ways that transcend your experience and stretch my imagination. Then you will remember it.’

‘So you’re staying until November?’

Dietrich moved a curl that had dropped over her eye. ‘I’ll stay until I know you can fly unaided.’

They danced in the hot streets on 14 July and she slept till noon the following day, when Dietrich telephoned her room to tell her to put on one of her La Passerinette hats, ‘Whichever feels most comfortable, and a simple dress. You must be able to move freely. I need your help.’ Coralie sat up. He sounded serious.

‘Ready in no time,’ she promised, then remembered she had a fitting at Javier at two, for autumn suits. Four summer ensembles had already been delivered: one black, three white. She hadn’t worn them. They were gorgeous but, she hated to admit it, the waistlines were too tight. Blame croissants and jam. ‘Dietrich, I forgot – I have that appointment . . . but I can easily cancel.’

‘No, don’t do that. We’ll visit Javier, and then on to rue de Vaugirard afterwards.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Left Bank, by the Palais de Luxembourg.’

‘I’m scared, Dietrich.’

‘Of what?’

‘Of needing to be useful. I’ve forgotten how.’

He only laughed.

Coralie sang as she put on a spotted linen dress and one of the soft, sisal hats Lorienne had made for her. She even laughed later as the fitter at Maison Javier exclaimed, ‘I think that you are finally learning to enjoy, and not endure, Mademoiselle. Though, pardon, you have put three centimetres on your middle since I first met you. Another adjustment to your
toile
, I fear.’

Afterwards Coralie met Dietrich in the salon, and they set off for the Left Bank, taking the Métro two stops further than necessary for the pleasure of walking back through the Jardin du Luxembourg, whose fountains and geometric lawns freshened a blazing day. On rue de Vaugirard, they stopped at a four-storey house overlooking a corner of the gardens. Imposing double doors contained a wicket, a smaller door cut into the right-hand side. Dietrich rang a bell, and the wicket was eventually opened by a man whose empty left sleeve was pinned, Nelson-style, across his front.
Old soldier
, Coralie thought. Though not that old, in fact. Mid-fifties, her father’s age. Her
former
father’s age. The man demanded to know their business.

Dietrich replied patiently, ‘I am Graf von Elbing. Madame Corvet has been letting me in without fuss every day for a month.’

So this was where he’d been coming. Coralie stole a glance at the name plaque to one side of the door, reading ‘von Silberstrom’. What was the likelihood that Dietrich would shortly produce the key they’d fallen out over?