The Milliner's Secret (35 page)

Still, Ramon seemed determined to find fault. ‘Ottilia will have to hide for a week in a town full of government spies, German agents and security men.’

‘It’s still safer than Paris and she’ll have Arkady to take care of her.’

‘And when the week is up?’

‘Three boys will come back, and Arkady takes her by train to Perpignan. That’s close to the Spanish border.’

‘I know where Perpignan is! You’re talking about my backyard. It ought to be me taking her—’

‘Well, it isn’t.’ Coralie poured boiling water on tea leaves, splashing some in her irritation.

Ramon had the grace to shrug. ‘I suppose you have to look after Noëlle.’

‘I do.’

‘And Una—’

‘Has her hospital shifts. Arkady will be fine. He’s fought in a war, you know.’ She bit her lip as Ramon looked away and down. ‘What I mean is—’

‘I know what you mean.’ Black eyes flashed. ‘I wanted to fight the Germans, but I ended up digging latrines and carrying stretchers. The war isn’t over and one day I will prove that my blood is as good as the next man’s.’

‘It won’t come to that. Look, there is a way you can help. Look after Noëlle tomorrow night. And if . . . if anything happens and I don’t come back . . .’

He put his hand hard on hers and the teapot went down with a crack. ‘You will,
chérie
, because at the first sign of danger, you will leave the Rose Noire. But don’t come back here tomorrow evening in case you’re followed. Go somewhere safe and get a message to me.’

She wanted to tell him not to be so over-dramatic, but instead she apologised again for getting Henriette into trouble.

Ramon said grudgingly, ‘My sister! Let’s admit it, she had it coming.’

After Ramon left, Coralie and Ottilia made their way to place de l’Opéra and joined a line at the
Kommandantur
, where the Germans administered the permits that now governed French lives. ‘I’m sure this queue is growing from the front,’ Coralie complained after they’d stood for two hours. Arkady was minding Noëlle, but he had to leave at five for the Rose Noire. At a quarter to five, a uniformed functionary came out and shouted, ‘Closed. We are closed. Come back again on Monday.’

Monday?
‘Couldn’t we see somebody now?’ Coralie pleaded, stepping in front of him, showing him the pink
Ausweis
. ‘We need a signature.’

The man frowned at the paper, reading the names listed. ‘Which of you is Dupont? Why have you come here together?’

‘We’ll come back on Monday,’ Coralie said. Sensing danger in his questions, she hurried Ottilia away.

Over supper Una proposed a solution. She’d brought home slivers of smoked ham from the hospital kitchen, a rare luxury, and for Ottilia and Noëlle, a whole chicken leg. Coralie had managed to buy a few potatoes and a litre of rough red wine. It was amazing, she thought, as she laid the table for the adults’ supper, how such basic provisions could manifest a feast. Add hunger, and you had a miracle. Noëlle had fallen asleep faster too, having put away a good meal.

‘This is how we’ll do it. Serge Martel boasts that his club is a magnet for a certain type of German officer.’ Una lifted her glass and said, ‘Cheers.’

‘What type?’

‘The old-school kind, which signed up to Nazism but doesn’t really swing along with it. Martel told me that he keeps an eye out for them.’

‘Protects them?’

Una laughed at Coralie’s naivety. ‘Garners information on them for the security services. Every night one table at the Rose Noire is reserved for Nazi police who are spying on their own side.’

‘Gestapo?’

‘Martel just said police. He points out those officers who might be getting a little . . . shall we say, too French? A little too relaxed. Anyway, we will brush up our charms, and
they
will give us our signature.’

‘You think a German policeman will put his name on an
Ausweis
because we smile at him?’

Una topped up their glasses. ‘Sure I do.’

They spent Friday evening packing Ottilia’s suitcase with plain skirts, knitwear and basic lingerie. If she was searched, there must be no couture labels and, heaven forbid, no London ones.

Coralie struggled to make Ottilia understand why she must jettison her twenty-two-carat Cartier cigarette case with ‘von S’ engraved on it. Ditto the gold cigarette holder and lighter. Predictably, Ottilia wept. ‘They were my twenty-first-birthday present from darling Papa!’

‘Choose
one
, then,’ a spinster florist might conceivably have one luxury to her name, ‘and nothing monogrammed.’

‘When I get to Spain,’ Ottilia suddenly asked, ‘how will I know where to go?’

That was the elephant-sized question and Coralie couldn’t answer it. Arkady would deliver her to a safe house, whose address had been supplied by one of Una’s hospital colleagues. After that, Ottilia would be on her own.

I could survive
, Coralie thought, and Una would relish the adventure. Actually, Una would probably end up travelling first class to Madrid courtesy of a German Feldmarschall, with his entourage carrying her luggage. But could Ottilia sustain the shock of having to make endless difficult choices by herself? Even now, she seemed to be in a trance. She was sitting at the dining table, murmuring in a soft monotone. Her voice, with its German inflection, sounded like a whispering water-pipe.

‘Bedtime. I know it’s not dark yet,’ Una spoke like Matron, ‘but we’ve a big day ahead—’ She stopped dead. A car was drawing up outside. She flattened herself against the wall by the window, nudging aside the blackout curtain that Coralie still kept in place. ‘Oh, joy,’ she murmured.

‘What?’ Coralie demanded.

‘Black Mercedes 260D. And two gentlemen.’

‘Are they . . .?’

‘Coming to the door?’ Una leaned as far forward as she dared.

Hard raps at street level told them all they needed to know.

‘Into Arkady’s loft,’ Coralie whispered. ‘Una, grab coats and hats, purses and handbags, so they think we’ve gone out. Leave them.’ Ottilia had begun to pile the teacups. ‘Take your suitcase. I’ll get Noëlle.’

By good fortune, Arkady had left the loft ladder down – he’d been late setting off for the Rose Noire. Noëlle in her arms, Coralie watched Una scramble through the hatch, then reach down to take the suitcase, coats and hats that Ottilia held up.

‘Get in!’ Coralie urged as Ottilia climbed gingerly into the roof space. Coralie was halfway up the ladder, passing Noëlle into Una’s arms, when a crash told her that the front door had been forced. Just time to drag up the ladder and close the hatch.

They lay side by side on Arkady’s bedding, the air heavy with the beating of their hearts. Coralie cupped her hand over Noëlle’s mouth, though the child was still half asleep. A louder crash suggested the door of the flat had been opened with a single kick. Then they heard men’s voices shouting for ‘Freiin von Silberstrom?’

A man called in German, ‘Ottilia? Are you there?’

Both she and Ottilia recognised the voice. Coralie hissed, ‘Quiet, Tilly!’

Coralie couldn’t have said how long it took the men to conclude their search and go. Fearing a trap, they stayed where they were until cramp got to their legs and the continuing silence told them it was finally safe to open the hatch. They spent the night fully dressed, alternately dozing and waking. When the street door bumped open in the early hours, they all woke with a shriek. It was Arkady coming home.

They couldn’t risk spending the following day at rue de Seine. Dietrich had come to fetch Ottilia and had not come alone. He might return at any time.

Entrusting Noëlle to Arkady’s care – he would take the child to Ramon’s house – Coralie spent Saturday strolling in the Bois de Boulogne with Ottilia and Una. They hid among the trees like outlaws. Around teatime, they walked the short distance to Una’s building on avenue Foch. Talking in the over-cheerful voice she used when she was scared, Una fitted a key into a lock and said, ‘Cobwebs and rotten fruit I can handle, but let’s hope there are no Gestapo hiding behind the sofas.’

Inside, their footsteps echoed like the march of wooden soldiers. Coralie was ready to flee at the first answering creak. But there was nothing amiss, beyond a bowl of pulpy apples, busy with fruit flies, and a coating of dust on everything.

Coralie felt as if she’d wandered into a huge, empty hotel. Everywhere she looked, there was a new texture calling out to be stroked. Onyx, suede, marble, burr walnut . . . And no clutter. Una had joked of moving back there with Arkady if – when – he ever got over his awe of her and made a romantic move. But really? Arkady would be a fish out of water in this palace.

She followed Una into a lavish bedroom, conscious of her outdoor shoes sinking into snowy carpet. One wall was lined with mirrored doors. Sliding one back, Una said, ‘My wardrobe. This was my maid Beulah’s domain – I still feel I’m trespassing. But, for better or worse, I’m my own maid now. Grab what you like.’

Coralie gaped. ‘How many evening dresses do you own?’

‘Two hundred maybe. Beulah took a dozen trunks back to the States, but I guess there’s enough left. To misquote Henry Ford, “Choose any color you like, so long as it’s—”’

‘Beige. I dare you to wear red tonight, or give pink a go.’ Coralie pulled out a floor-length shrimp-pink dress shot with silver thread. She exclaimed over the plastic zipper in the back.

‘Elsa Schiaparelli,’ Una told her. ‘It’s the real thing, because nowhere could I get a zipper dyed just the right shade.’

‘You’ve never worn it?’

‘
Virgo intacta
.’

‘I just don’t understand—’

‘Must we always come back to this?
Because I can.
Because it used to give me pleasure to run up bills for clothes I never wore, and thus torment Mr Kilpin, the kind of man who would charge a friend to smell his coffee. And,’ Una put the Schiaparelli back on the rail, ‘because if I had a dress, no other woman could have it. Come on, choose. We need to be at the Rose Noire when it opens to get a good table.’

‘Nothing too tight or heavy.’ Coralie was thinking of midnight, when the club’s walls trickled with human perspiration. They needed to be able to move freely and to run, if necessary.

Ottilia picked up a dress that was little more than a net covered with reflective discs that blinked as they caught the light. ‘This,’ she breathed.

‘Vetoed.’ Una replaced it in the cupboard. ‘In your heart, you may want to outshine me, but those
paillettes
have a nasty habit of coming unstitched. You’d end up shedding scales like a wind-dried herring.’

Coralie’s watch said it was gone five. ‘Why don’t you just choose for us?’

For Ottilia, it was ivory silk with a lace evening coat. For Una, cream bias-cut with an overskirt of embroidered chiffon that fanned behind her as she walked. For Coralie, a sheath of coffee-cream rayon silk, whose back dipped below her waist, weighted with strands of beads.

‘All Lutzman originals,’ Una said proudly, ‘and there only ever were originals. Yours suits you, Coralie. It needs a long back and heroic shoulders. Mine are too narrow.’

Coralie contorted herself in front of the mirror. ‘Are the beads at the back to give dance partners something to play with?’ Not that she was going to dance. Head down: that was her plan. ‘Who is Lutzman? He obviously shares your love of washed-out colours.’