Daughters of Paris Read online

  Fleur dutifully planted the strawberries but Colette did not return. Nor did she respond to either of the letters Fleur wrote in the first three months of her absence. Delphine was reluctant to give Fleur the address but agreed that if Fleur kept her letter to one sheet of paper, she might slip it in with the letters she herself wrote to Colette.

  ‘It’s funny. I did not want you and my daughter to become close friends. I thought you might lead her into trouble,’ Delphine said. She looked Fleur up and down and Fleur knew she was comparing the two girls. ‘How wrong I was. Yes, I will post your letter, but don’t expect Colette to reply. She will have enough to keep her busy.’

  Sure enough, a reply never came. Fleur wrote three more times but after that, she stopped. She tried not to resent the lack of communication too greatly, but it stung. After all, Colette was a reluctant writer at the best of times and was undoubtedly enjoying sights Fleur could only dream of. She had books to keep her company and was happy to retreat into the attic room, which Monsieur Nadon had kindly given her as a bedroom. The privacy was wonderful. No more sharing with Tante Agnes and listening to her aunt’s snores.

  Even better, she found work four days a week in a small bookshop in the winding back streets of Montparnasse. It was a convoluted journey to get there, but she didn’t care. She caught the Metro at Porte Maillot to Bienvenüe. From there she would leave the wide, tree-lined boulevards and wind through the narrow streets until she reached the modest shop with its wood panelled front. The painted sign named the shop as Ramper et Frère Librarie. There was no sign of the frère from the sign and Fleur did not like to ask the remaining Monsieur Ramper what had happened to the absent brother.

  Most of the shop contained conventional volumes but Monsieur Ramper had an unashamed passion for bandes dessinées, detective novels and science-fiction. Two shelves and one window display were given over to the illustrated exploits of Tif et Tondu, Tintin and the American Flash Gordon.

  Monsieur Ramper was an amusing employer, given to long monologues of a scurrilous nature, though on occasion he would lose his train of thought and grow grave.

  ‘I saw the Great War as a young man, ma puce, and I can taste it coming back.’

  He smacked his lips as if tasting wine. Fleur eyed him anxiously, waiting for him to laugh and dismiss his words as a joke but he didn’t. He shook his head, ran his hand through his chestnut hair, and pushed it back from his temple.

  ‘The Anschluss in spring was the start, Fleur. It is not good. Austria apparently welcomed the Führer, but how true was that?’

  He said no more about it, but his words planted a seed of apprehension in Fleur that lay dormant, waiting for the right opportunity to sprout. She did her best to ignore it.

  With a thoughtful expression, Monsieur Ramper handed her an envelope of pay at the end of the third month she had worked there. He then poured her a cup of coffee – he insisted the only way to drink it was black and bitter – and patted her shoulder.

  ‘How often do you explore this neighbourhood? You are surrounded by artists, poets and writers. If you wish to be one of them you should go meet others.’

  Fleur sipped her coffee before answering, trying not to let her distaste for it show but wishing she had a jug of hot milk to hand. ‘My aunt might not approve if I did. I had to argue long and hard to be allowed to work here at all.’

  ‘Then tomorrow tell your aunt that I need to keep you late to inventory the stock. Take an hour and walk around before returning home. See what you find.’

  The following day, Fleur dressed in her best skirt and pressed her blouse carefully. She folded the Hermès scarf in her bag and once Monsieur Ramper closed the shop she carefully arranged it around her neck, combed her hair and walked from the bookshop to the Metro station a longer way round to normal. The route took her down the Rue Daguerre and through a square filled with horse-chestnut trees, which shaded cafés where groups of both sexes wrapped in heavy coats sat outside around tables. As she crossed a corner her ears were attacked by the most discordant sound she had ever heard.

  It was a screeching saxophone, what might have been a clarinet, and definitely drums. There seem to be little rhythm and she wasn’t even sure if there was a melody. Still, it pulled to something inside her and she followed the sound to a café. The noise – Fleur could not in all honesty call it music – was coming from inside. The café was single fronted with a door to the right of the window with a ruby-red painted frame and a matching red awning extended over the front. The glass was slightly tinted but Fleur could see figures moving inside.

  She read the name.

  Café Morlaix.

  This was exactly the sort of adventure she should report to Monsieur Ramper so she cautiously opened the door and stepped inside.

  Chapter Three

  She was greeted by a fog of sweet cigarette smoke and a spicy, exotic fragrance that made her eyes water but her heart race. There was something old and shabby about the Café Morlaix. The clientele was mainly young and male, with a handful of women seated at circular tables close to the corner where the source of the cacophony was coming from. Three young men were playing; a saxophonist with dark brown skin and tightly curled black hair, a clarinettist (was that the word, Fleur wondered) with pale skin and light ginger hair that stuck up in spikes, and a drummer who looked more like a bank clerk with neatly combed black hair and a Mediterranean complexion. Fleur wondered whether they had deliberately chosen each other for their contrasting appearances as they barely seemed to be playing the same tune.

  ‘Mademoiselle?’ A waiter dressed in black with a ruby-coloured apron around his waist approached her. He stared at her through a pair of very thick, round glasses. His light brown hair made Fleur think of an owl.

  ‘A table for one, or are you meeting somebody?’

  ‘For one, please,’ she replied. ‘But not too near the band.’

  The waiter grinned. ‘Of course. This way, please.’

  He escorted Fleur to a small table with two chairs set against the back wall and handed her a menu. He returned a few moments later with a carafe of water and Fleur ordered a café crème, thinking how disapproving Monsieur Ramper would be. One or two of the other patrons looked at Fleur and she smiled back self-consciously. She took a book out of her bag and began reading it, referring occasionally to her English dictionary.

  ‘What are you reading?’ the waiter asked when he brought the coffee. She showed him the front cover.

  ‘Jane Eyerer?’

  ‘Eyre,’ she corrected. ‘It’s an English book.’

  The waiter pulled up a chair and sat without asking. ‘You speak English?’

  ‘A little,’ she admitted with pride. ‘Not enough to read this without a dictionary.’

  ‘You’re a student?’

  Fleur took a sip of coffee to delay answering and give herself a chance to observe him. He had a searching face and was probably not much older than she was, though his glasses and a line between his eyebrows – which Fleur was later to discover was the result of a childhood spent squinting at the world without glasses – made him appear older.

  ‘No, but I enjoy reading and I’m trying to teach myself. I work in the bookshop a few streets away.’

  This obviously met with his approval because the waiter held out his hand. ‘I am Sébastien.’

  Fleur shook it and told him her name.

  ‘I am very pleased to meet you, Fleur. I am a student,’ he said proudly. ‘Of art and literature.’

  ‘And a waiter?’ Fleur asked.

  Sébastien’s jaw tightened. ‘I need to eat. The café is owned by my second cousin, Bernard, and he gives me as many shifts as I can manage. I don’t have rich parents like some of them.’

  He waved a hand around the room. Fleur looked around. Thanks to living with Delphine, she could tell many of the patrons were wearing quality garments.

  ‘Forgive me for saying so, but this doesn’t seem like the sort of place where wealthy Parisians w
ould gather.’

  His eyes grew hard, and she thought she’d offended him but the corner of his mouth jerked into a quick smile. ‘Very perceptive. Some of them like to pretend they are not rich. Some have rejected families but kept the trappings before they slammed out of the house.’ He leaned in close to Fleur and spoke in a low, drawling voice that made the skin on the back of her neck shiver. ‘See Sabrina over there with the black hair? She had a fight with her father and walked out of an apartment just off the Champs-Élysées but went back the next day to pack three suitcases of shoes, hats and bags.’

  ‘Naturally. How could anyone survive otherwise?’ Fleur laughed. ‘I should bring my friend Colette here. She would find it remarkable.’

  She grew sober at the mention of Colette’s name. She had never replied to Fleur’s letters so she couldn’t really describe Colette as a friend any longer and on consideration, she liked the idea of having something of her own.

  Sébastien frowned. ‘If she would view us as a circus or zoo exhibit, don’t bother. I’m afraid I had better get on with work now.’ Sébastien picked up her empty cup and gave the table a quick wipe. ‘I hope we will meet again, Fleur.’

  She looked at his smile and her stomach did a slow flip. ‘So do I.’

  ‘If you come on a Wednesday evening, a few of us gather to discuss … the world. You’d be welcome to join us.’ He’d paused before completing the sentence, leaving Fleur to wonder what aspects of the world they discussed. Somehow, she could not imagine this young man or his friends listening to this discordant noise while they sat and nodded in agreement at government policies. Her scalp prickled with excitement.

  ‘Yes, I would like that, thank you.’

  Fleur walked back to the Metro station pleased that she finally had something she could tell Monsieur Ramper about. His advice had been good and she was glad to have taken it.

  It was three weeks before Fleur was able to find the time to visit the café again. She dressed in her blue-striped skirt that matched last year’s grey cardigan, conscious that her clothes were nothing like some of the elegant but slightly bohemian ensembles she had seen in the café. To think she had been invited to join them made her insides wriggle with trepidation but Sébastien had clearly seen something inside her worth inviting. She added a peach silk scarf that had been a present from Delphine and Louis on her nineteenth birthday, and a touch more mascara than she usually wore, and felt almost bohemian herself as she walked through the door.

  Again, there was the sound of jazz, but tonight it was only a recording that sounded even more scratchy and discarded. The café was almost empty apart from a group sitting close to the bar with three of the round tables pushed together. Sébastien was sitting at one, alongside the red-headed man who had played the clarinet. Fleur waved timidly from the door and Sébastien rose to greet her with rapid kisses on both cheeks.

  ‘I didn’t think you were ever going to come,’ he said, with obvious pleasure at having been proven wrong.

  ‘Neither did I,’ she admitted, sitting on the chair he pulled up to the table. ‘My aunt is a housekeeper for a family, and we live on the premises. As well as working in the bookshop, I help her as there is often lots to do in the evening.’

  ‘So you have to work twice as hard to be able to live there,’ said the clarinet player. He spoke with a clipped accent Fleur could not place. ‘I suppose they grew rich off the back of honest workers?’

  ‘Are you communists?’ Fleur’s voice came out as a squeak, and she clamped her lips shut. Someone pushed a glass of red wine into her hand, and she grasped it tightly.

  ‘If you are asking, are we dangerous men who will forcibly take property, then no,’ Sébastien assured her.

  ‘But a few have everything and others have nothing. Does your aunt’s employer work harder than your aunt to merit his wealth?’ asked another man.

  ‘I don’t know, but he does work hard.’

  ‘Harder than his employees?’ Sébastien asked gently.

  Fleur took a small sip of wine and considered the question. ‘He spends a lot of his time at his factory. His wife complains of it.’

  But she could not deny that in the evening, when Monsieur Nadon sat with a cognac, reading the newspapers in the late sunshine, Tante Agnes was still ironing his shirts despite her arthritis that was becoming a curse. Fleur looked up and caught a glance between Sébastien and one of the others.

  ‘You’re thinking, I see,’ Sébastien said. ‘We are socialists, not communists. We want people to think and then perhaps change a little. Though I am not too sure about Brendan, but he is an American so we will excuse him.’

  The red-haired man laughed and raised the middle finger of his left hand at Sébastien. American. That explained his accent at least.

  Sébastien refilled Fleur’s glass.

  ‘Santé!’

  The others echoed his toast, Fleur included, and they all drank.

  It was a strange introduction into a world Fleur had never imagined. Sébastien’s friends were either students or had recently been. They aspired not to own factories or businesses, much less labour in them, but to create art or music or write. Fleur met with approval because a bookshop was the source of knowledge and she was supporting herself.

  Sébastien was from a village in Brittany. Brendan’s grandparents had emigrated from Ireland to New York decades earlier. He had been travelling to Enniskillen, but had stopped in Paris for a weekend on the way from Chicago two years previously, fallen in love with the city (and a dancer named Celeste), and never left. He shared an apartment with Ike, the saxophonist, whose father had been an American soldier. Then there was Daniel, who was studying to be a doctor as his father wished, but preferred painting, and Pierre, a poet. Odile had dismayed her parents by moving in with an artist who painted her naked in hues of green and purple.

  ‘I think my parents might have been less offended had the nudes been at least flesh-coloured,’ she drawled, which made everyone hoot with laughter.

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ Fleur told Tante Agnes when she arrived home that evening, her aunt listening to everything Fleur said with a disapproving expression. ‘They are men and women from all over Europe and further away who have seen what possibilities the world can hold. If I can’t travel, this is the next best thing.’

  ‘God-fearing men and women would not behave in such a way,’ Agnes said crisply. ‘I thought your friendship with Mademoiselle Colette was unsuitable, but now I wish she was still here to guide you.’

  Fleur bit her lip, a little of her joy melting under Agnes’ fierce disapproval. Listening to Sébastien describing the work of daring artists, or Ike declaring equality for black men must come before long, she felt swept up in their enthusiasm and passion. She didn’t care if Colette, with her love of pretty clothes and vapid men, never returned. She had new friends now. The world was too exciting. Too perfect.

  That changed in the spring of 1939 when Fleur arrived at the café one evening to discover serious faces and no music playing. Brendan announced he had decided to return to America following the annexation of Czechoslovakia two days earlier. ‘I thought about going on to Ireland, but my mam wants me back home.’

  ‘War is growing closer,’ Sébastien muttered, pouring everyone a shot of brandy.

  ‘When it comes, I will be ready to fight,’ Daniel announced.

  ‘We all will,’ said Pierre. He was an attractive-looking man with black curls and dark eyes, whose quick tongue frightened Fleur a little.

  From that point on, the talk of war was never far from the surface. Areas of the city that had once been parks had been dug up and were now trenches. The sight of flowerbeds and wide lawns where families used to sit now housing bomb shelters was chilling. Her hand slipped to the box at her side. Gas masks had been issued to all citizens, along with the instruction to carry them at all times, but no one believed they would really be needed.

  ‘My mother and tante nursed during the Grande Guerre,’ she said. ‘
So did Madame Nadon. I would do the same if it became necessary.’

  ‘You can tend my wounds and give me bed baths,’ Pierre said, blowing her a kiss, and they all laughed.

  ‘What about you?’ Fleur asked Sébastien.

  He gave her a wry grin. ‘I don’t think they would want me. I have a weak chest and am as good as blind without these glasses.’

  ‘We would have to be desperate if we were relying on Sébastien,’ Pierre said. ‘He is a philosopher and a thinker, not a man of action.’

  ‘A lover not a fighter,’ purred Yvette, a woman who occasionally joined them, to general laughter.

  Fleur glanced sidelong at Sébastien. She wondered if Yvette spoke from personal experience and a throb of envy deep in her chest cavity caught her unawares. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him. Sébastien had fine lips and delicate features, with a straight, narrow nose that resulted in his thick glasses constantly slipping down. It was quite an appealing look.

  ‘Now is the time to start a newspaper,’ Pierre declared, tossing his drink back. ‘We who are articulate and young need to be heard. We have ideas.’

  ‘If you mean your poems, I don’t think they will inspire an army,’ Daniel said, hooting with laughter.

  Pierre threw a balled-up serviette at him.

  ‘You have no printing press,’ Brendan pointed out.

  Sébastien shrugged. A light had come into his eyes that made them gleam. ‘Then we’ll buy blocks and print by hand. A single sheet at a time if necessary. Start small. Fleur, you write, I know. Would you write for us?’

  Fleur almost choked on her mouthful of brioche. She wrote stories and her thoughts about books she read, but she had never shared them with another person. She’d only confided in Sébastien because they had been laughing about childhood diaries and she had wanted to show him they had something in common.