Page 17 of The Resistance Book Club

She wandered from shelf to shelf again, picturing Mémé finding a book for a customer. She imagined her at the till, ringing through a sale and putting the book in a paper bag.

Right at the back of the shop was a storeroom, and Lucy hadn’t ventured there yet.

She went past the colourful children’s section, and through the door at the back of the shop. As soon as she flicked on the light switch, she saw Mémé’s neat, white-painted shelves, where books waited to go into the shop. A cupboard, one door slightly open, was full of box files bursting with invoices and receipts. Some cardboard boxes of books that Mémé had never unpacked were piled on the floor.

Perhaps that was something Lucy could do: tidy up the storeroom, replenish the shelves and get the shop going again, just for a few final days.

She knelt down to look more closely at the boxes and saw a wooden crate in the corner under a shelf. It was out of place among the cardboard boxes, and it hadsavonprinted down one side: soap. Lucy grimaced as she pulled it across the floor towards her. It was heavy with books; old books.

Had they been cleared from the shelves because they’d never sold? But they looked older than that. Much older. Some had yellow canvas covers, others were blue. Some had cream-coloured covers with the titles printed on, while a few had illustrations where men had oiled-back hair and women wore little hats. Lucy lifted the books from the box, one by one. How long had they been here for? She flipped open the covers to see the publication dates, and stared in surprise.

They’d all been published in the 1930s. And one of them even contained some pressed flowers with frilly purple petals, which were now brittle and dry. Lucy carefully closed the cover.

She kept looking through the crate. Her fingers met newspaper and she lifted out a package. It was just like the parcel forEsther that she’d found under the till, wrapped in an old page fromLe Figaro. Only this time, no name was written on it.

She rocked back on her heels. A memory was stirring. Something Mémé had told her. Something that’d happened during the war.

That was it. The Nazis had banned books after they’d invaded France. It must’ve been so hard for her great-grandmother, Margot, to run the bookshop when the shelves would’ve been checked for anything on the list.

A giddy sensation stirred inside her, a feeling as if time had shrunk and those dreadful days under the German occupation were suddenly close by.

Her father was right, she had to leave soon. The bookshop would be sold. But first she had to find out what secret it had kept hidden all these years. One Mémé had found too painful to tell, but one she was desperate for Lucy to write.

TEN

MARGOT

1941

That evening after closing the shop, Margot headed off to see Esther. They met up several times a week, not just at the book club, and Margot always tried to take something with her. She’d been to the grocer’s and was relieved to find they had a small packet of biscuits. Margot bought it and added it to her basket.

Her walk up to Esther’s cottage on the edge of the village was the perfect opportunity to hide one or two banned books. After Felix Lauterborn’s visit, she knew she was being reckless, but she wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing as the Germans took over France.

She hoped she looked as normal as ever. When she walked past Petit’s, Fernand, the cheerful barman, gave her a friendly wave. She smiled back as she returned his wave.

She passed the florist’s on the street corner where Colette worked, although she couldn’t see her friend behind the counter. It’d lost its smell of flowers that she remembered from before the war. The Germans put in orders for large arrangements of fresh flowers that went straight to the fancyhotels in Clarenville, leaving only silk imitations in the shop’s display vases.

She reached the top of the road and darted into the village square. It was already getting dark and the shadows of the linden trees were long. The windows of homes that overlooked the square were dark, the lights out or hidden behind thick curtains, and the shops were closed for the day.

Margot spotted Madame Guerin. She’d nearly finished bringing in the chairs and tables from the café terrace with its owner, an older man with thinning hair, whose sleeves were always rolled up whatever the weather. Their customers had apparently gone indoors, and there didn’t appear to be anyone else in the square.

Holding her breath, Margot slid into the shadow cast by one of the trees as chairs scraped across the stone. Ordinarily, she would’ve waved hello to her friend, but she didn’t want to draw the café owner’s attention to herself.

The door to the café slammed shut, and Margot peered round the edge of the tree. They’d finished bringing in the chairs and tables and had gone inside. Madame Guerin was now standing behind the polished zinc counter, her head bowed. Margot realised that she was reading a book that she’d tucked under the counter out of sight.

Margot’s hand was shaking as she reached inside her basket.

Don’t be silly. I need to be brave.

She tucked a carefully wrapped book just under the bench that ran in a ring round the base of the tree. In the morning, someone would walk through the square, take a seat on a bench, and then find a little gift waiting for them.

She looked up. There was still no one around. Her job done, she crept through the shadows, heading for a side street.

Margot could barely see in the blackout, but she knew her way instinctively. Down this street, fishermen left lobster pots and the wicker baskets they unloaded their catch into. She decided to leave a book tucked just behind them too. This time as she reached into the basket, her hand wasn’t shaking as much. She felt bolder.

Then she froze: she heard heavy footsteps and voices talking in German.

Three men rounded the corner, all wearing the uniform of the SS. They were chatting among themselves, laughing and joking about something as they made their way through the square. Aside from their uniforms they might have been any other young men, but in those grey clothes and heavy helmets, the twin silver flashes of the SS on each collar, they were terrifying.