The Milliner's Secret (55 page)

If only they could stop time. Coralie would gladly have signed up to an endless afternoon in that rustic bed. Warm, sated and happy. But Dietrich had other ideas.

‘I want you to come back to rue de Vaugirard. Every day, the central heating is turned on and warms nobody. Why stay here?’

‘I’m not ready to move again.’

He didn’t argue, though she felt it was a tactical retreat.

‘At least come for the evening. Bring evening clothes and we will bathe and change in the warm. We are going out tonight. Where is the ring I gave you? You should wear it?’

Five orders in five seconds. He wasn’t a Generalmajor for nothing.

He explained more as they walked to his flat. ‘I have booked a table at the Rose Noire.’

‘Are you mad? Last time we only just got away with our lives.’

‘We can crouch in the shadows or stride down the middle of a sunlit road. Which do you prefer?’

Later, dressed for the town, they stood in front of a crackling fire. He wore his uniform, the Pour le Mérite dead centre between his lapels. She wore an artificial-silk evening dress, one of Una’s, in cream and gold print. It had bell sleeves, a flounced neck and a tight waist. The pewter-grey choker didn’t look right with it, so she hung her silver snuff-bottle from a fine chain. The ruby ring weighed down her middle finger. Dietrich seemed as wound up as the watch he kept consulting.

‘Dietrich, what’s tonight about? You seem excited . . . upset . . . I can’t tell which.’

‘I am impatient. Not with you, not even with myself, but with others.’

‘Explain.’

‘Berlin has been bombed afresh. Thousands have died. Hundreds of thousands are homeless. My own flat near the Tiergarten . . . uninhabitable. You accused me yesterday of failing in courage, as if I had Hitler in my sights and had failed to pull the trigger. But it isn’t that simple. Putting a stop to the blind murder of my country is no less my desire and duty than it was a year ago, and the reckoning is in sight, but others will say when.’

‘So – when?’

He made a warning gesture. German orderlies were billeted at the top of the house. Forbidden to use the lift, they entered the main flats only to lay fires and clean, but his gesture implied, ‘Ears and eyes.’

He went on, ‘In Berlin, I met military friends and we renewed our intention but the pace is slow. Like you, I want to speed up the music and run.’ He spanned her waist with his hands. ‘I often dream that it is all over. Last night, I even dreamed we had a son. I could not see where we were living. Somewhere very high, with a view over the world, and I knew that you were my wife. If I survive what is to come, I want to live with you and only with you.’

She kissed his forehead, her lips finding the raised scar left by his crash-landing twenty-five years before. She would like Dietrich’s child . . . but not yet. She needed her body to be free because, like him, she was tied to a duty. She would never divulge her Resistance activities to him. He had his allegiances, she had hers. It would be tough, being together, with so much to hide.

‘Tell me again why you want to go to the Rose Noire.’

‘To hear music and see faces. To hold you in my arms.’

‘We could do that anywhere. You want to walk into the wasps’ nest because it’s more fun than waiting for the wasps to find you.’

He gave a slow smile. ‘You paint my thoughts. So, shall we go?’

‘No.’ She put a hand to her hair. ‘I can’t go out without a hat.’

CHAPTER 33

Walking down the familiar shadowy stairs, through the baize curtain that an attendant pulled aside, Coralie was struck by the brilliance. She hadn’t blinked like this for months. The deserts of Africa had their oases and Paris had its Rose Noire.

Lustrous lights and candles, quartz-pink tablecloths, wreaths of flowers and polished silver – it had returned to being a refuge for pampered exils de luxe. People and hope might die, but money never did. It just crept into ever fewer hands.

How often could the world be remade and still make sense? Her world had changed in the last hour. Dismantled like a wooden puzzle, and rebuilt in a new shape. Not a worse shape, but a profoundly troubling one.

Félix Peyron saw them and managed to bow while still walking. Or, rather, hobbling. Arthritis up to his knees, Coralie thought. He struggles on, because he has to. And then Martel was before them, a flat palm accentuating his heart.

‘Monsieur le Comte, Mademoiselle de Lirac, when I heard who had booked a table, I reserved the very best one. A pleasure to see you back here. You will discover a few changes. For the better, I trust.’

With Arkady and Florian gone from Paris, the Vagabonds had ceased to exist. A new band filled the stage, nine men, playing old-fashioned swing.

Dietrich asked, ‘Have my guests arrived?’

‘Just this minute, Monsieur.’

Dietrich hadn’t mentioned guests. Coralie frowned. Like an onion, just as Teddy said. Layer after layer. If she peeled too far, what would she find?

As they followed Martel, she felt they were being watched. Dietrich always commanded attention and her dress shimmered like a firebird’s wings. With no time to wash and set her hair, she’d brushed it out and let it hang in its natural curl. She must be the only woman there who hadn’t used a gallon of sugar-water. As for a hat . . .

When she’d refused to leave the flat without one, Dietrich had insisted, ‘You look beautiful as you are.’

‘I’m a milliner! I wouldn’t ask you to go on parade in a linen suit.’

He’d flicked his wrist, for the tenth time.

‘That watch must be getting sea-sick,’ she’d said tartly.

‘Couldn’t you adapt something of Ottilia’s? The wardrobe is still full of her things.’

In Ottilia’s former bedroom, he’d unlocked an armoire, revealing a treasury of couture. Only one hatbox, and whatever it contained would be years old. Opening it, she’d exclaimed, ‘Good God! Tilly’s trifle-topping.’ It was the hat Ottilia had worn at Epsom, which Coralie had cheekily suggested needed a brim.

Actually, it looked good, though as old-fashioned as she’d feared. It was the wrong weight for evening too. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to drop in at my salon.’

‘Wait.’ Dietrich had been staring at her reflection. She knew he’d recognised the hat and his expression gave way briefly to sadness. He fetched the gauze stole that Coralie had intended to drape over her shoulders and spread it over the hat’s asymmetrical peaks. It fell like golden mist. Instantly, a new shape was born.

‘A vision from a medieval tapestry. You are Fiametta, Dante’s beloved. Ah-ah, do not adjust it, it is perfect. We need something just to secure the veil.’ A pearl shirt-stud had sufficed. ‘May we go now?’

‘One last thing.’ She’d applied lipstick, red and bold. Fiametta, little flame. ‘I want an answer to something that has plagued me for years.’

‘Why now?’

‘This hat has let the genie out of the bottle. You remember Ottilia staggering, punch drunk, out of that fortune-teller’s caravan? What had she heard?’

A shrug. Can’t remember.

‘Doesn’t wash. You remember things and so do I. You told me she’d wanted an answer to a burning question. What was the question?’

He’d sighed. Must I?

Yes, he must. She could smell Ottilia’s perfume on this hat, and while she’d often been exasperated with the woman, she’d never been indifferent to her sorrow. ‘I want to know why, when she had so much, she was so lost.’

Dietrich had capitulated. ‘The question she asked the Romany woman was “Did he reject me because of what I was?” The woman answered, “Yes.” She left in shock because it was the answer she feared.’

‘Because of what she was . . . Jewish, you mean?’

‘I believe that is what she meant—’

‘Did you dump Ottilia for that reason?’

‘I did not.’

‘Then tell me why. You cut your engagement just days before the wedding. Tilly’s kind and beautiful. She’s not the brightest, but you were supposed to be a man of honour. It was as though you opened the car door and pushed her out.’

Behind her at the mirror, he’d spoken to her reflection. ‘I broke off our engagement because my mother called me to her private room and confessed that Ottilia was my half-sister.’

‘Oh.’ Oh. ‘Your father and Ottilia’s was the same man?’

‘My mother and Bernard von Silberstrom were lovers, and at the time of my conception, she and her husband – whom the world calls my father – were in different parts of the country.’

‘Why not tell Ottilia? Why let her believe it was her you rejected?’

‘I told her brother – my half-brother, Max – who urged me to say nothing. Ottilia cannot keep a confidence, as I am sure you have found out.’

‘It would have made her feel better. Loved, at least.’

He nodded. ‘It would have been the brave thing. I, of course, would have been disinherited by my father and subject to the restrictions – the anti-Semitism – practised against Jews in Germany. As you say, it would have been the honourable thing to stand up and say it. But I did not. What I did instead was look after Ottilia, and Max, to the best of my ability. When they needed to escape Germany, I got them out. I was able to help several of Max’s employees to Switzerland, too, with their families. Does that even the score? Had I not been Dietrich von Elbing, I would have been too busy escaping to help anybody.’ He gave a bent smile. ‘You look upon me differently?’

‘Actually, yes. You do look a bit like Tilly, now I think about it.’

‘I do not see much of her in me, but I resemble Max in some lights. My daughter Claudia has the same, bright hair as Ottilia.’

They’d said no more about it, but on the drive to boulevard de Clichy, the enormity of what Dietrich had revealed bore in on Coralie. He was half Jewish.

As Martel ushered them to their table, Coralie had a moment to prepare herself to meet Dietrich’s guests. Kurt and Fritzi Kleber. On the way over, Dietrich had given her firm instructions not to mention seeing Teddy.

He said now in an undervoice, ‘If either of them mentions his name, you cannot bear to think of him, yes? Lower your eyes, look away.’

‘And what about Hitler?’ she asked. ‘Mention him? Don’t mention him?’

‘This is not a joke, my love.’

‘I know,’ she hung back, ‘but I’m terrified. Fritzi Kleber must know that I ran away the night you went after Teddy. She might have guessed I telephoned him.’

‘Impossible. When I got back to the flat, she was dead asleep. Actually, she slept until lunch time.’

Hurray for veronal. ‘But, Dietrich, the Klebers surely see me as a threat. I mean, I was enrolled into your plot, then I scarpered. What if Fritzi still has that gun in her bag?’

‘Perhaps she does but all this was a year ago. Time has passed and we meet again as friends.’

A moment later, Kurt was kissing her hand in his usual friendly way. Fritzi kissed her cheek. Wine was already on the table and Kurt’s immediate intention was for them all to drink a toast. He filled their glasses.

‘To a long overdue meeting.’ Dietrich raised his glass

There followed a gabble of catch-up, in German. Coralie held back. Fritzi and Kurt were jumping over each other to explain that they’d spent the intervening months travelling across France, visiting cathedrals and Roman ruins. They’d even been over the border to Spain. As for Dietrich, he gave news of Berlin, though that meant describing the devastation wreaked by Allied bombers.

Reminded of Donal, who might still be flying in those slow, rattling ‘crates’, or even perhaps shot down, Coralie moved her gaze away. It came to rest on Lorienne Royer.

She jumped as Fritzi put a hand on hers.

‘I am sorry I have not been to La Passerinette recently.’ Fritzi made a face. ‘Days hurtle by, but I have seen your creations worn by my friends. What do you think of mine?’ She indicated her evening hat, a padded velvet base with clusters of spring flowers.

‘Very pretty. But not my design. Put a date in your diary, Fritzi.’

‘I will, all the more if this is one of your spring models.’ Fritzi stroked Coralie’s gauze veil. ‘Is it difficult to wear?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t want to try to eat a lobster while wearing it.’ Coralie opened her palms either side of the golden headdress. ‘This is the birth of an idea because, like children, all ideas are conceived in hope. What they turn into is anybody’s guess.’

Fritzi said no more, as their men had started speaking in low, serious tones.

Realising the women had fallen silent, Kurt broke off. He propped his elbows on the table, and spoke against his knuckles. ‘I was asking Dietrich if our oath holds. If we still march towards the same destiny.’

‘Dachterrasse.’ Fritzi said it softly.

‘A year has passed, precious time lost,’ Dietrich said, raising his glass. ‘But let us drink to Dachterrasse. To friendship. To unbreakable loyalty.’

Coralie clinked glasses then looked away, locking eyes with Lorienne Royer.

The other woman’s social smile fell away. Flaxen hair soaked up pink light and her eyes set hard.

‘I’m popping to the Ladies,’ Coralie murmured. She was an inch away from red mist. Lorienne’s letter, describing the arrest of Madame Thomas and Violaine, had been an act of barbarism that, even after a slow passage of time, demanded redress. Except that Coralie did not know how to go about getting it, unless with fists and teeth. ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Fritzi.