Page 28 of The Resistance Book Club

‘I won’t take your money, Esther,’ Margot said, shaking her head. ‘The maps are yours. I’ve got some stock in the storeroom upstairs – tourists used to buy them when they came here on walking holidays, but it’s not as if we’ve had a run on them lately.’ No one came on holiday to the area now, except the Nazis, who had taken over Clarenville as their personal spa resort. ‘There’s some for sale upstairs as well. You can have those, too, although I’ll need to leave some out – if we get any Nazis who want a hiking holiday, it might be a bit obvious if I don’t have any to sell them.’

‘I’ve got some at home,’ Brigitte replied. ‘I bought them just before the war when I was getting used to visiting patients who live outside the village. I know my way around the lanes now.’

‘Nautical charts are more my thing,’ Claudine admitted, ‘but I’ll help distribute your maps, don’t worry about that.’

Esther smiled. ‘We’d be grateful for any of those too.’ She sat up a little straighter then. ‘The people we’re helping have nothing at all. I know I can’t ask you for more, we all have so little, but…anything that might seem worthless to you might mean the world to them. But we have to watch for Lauterborn. There’s more to him than any of you know.’

‘We’ll gather some things together,’ Aunt Sandrine said, and her friend Henriette nodded in agreement. ‘I remember in the first war, when the poor Belgians had to flee with nothing. We can’t have that happening again.’

‘I can spare some food from the farm,’ Henriette offered. ‘Not much, the Germans are watching, but whatever I can bring, Esther, it’s yours.’

‘I grow some vegetables on the side,’ Colette admitted. Her florist shop had a garden and a greenhouse. ‘Whatever I can hide among the flowers. I’m sure we can spare something as well.’

Joséphine and Beatrice suddenly stepped into Margot’s mind, resplendent in their new outfits. They were so fancily dressed at Lauterborn’s expense, when her friends would be collecting clothes full of darns and patches for Esther’s refugees.

‘Esther…what do you know about Lauterborn?’ Margot asked.

Esther drew in a breath, then pressed a kiss to the forehead of her sleeping daughter.

‘You all have heard of the internment camp at Bergères-sur-Seine,’ she said. ‘They filled it with Parisian Jews, those who weren’t born in France. They’re under French guards, but the Germans pull the strings.’

The camp had been built just outside a small town on the banks of the grand river that swept in from the Normandycoast, heading through Rouen to eventually wind its way through Paris.

‘There’ve been escapes,’ she told them. ‘A lot of escapes. So many that the Germans think our gendarmes have been helping them. At the start of spring, Lauterborn was put in charge of the camp.’ Esther shuddered.

‘How can they do this on French soil? To people who chose to live in our country?’ Margot sighed heavily. ‘At least our gendarmes were helping people to escape. But now…?’

She couldn’t bear the thought of it; the camp secured behind high fences, patrolled by enemy soldiers.

‘The place was dreadful before he arrived. But he turned it into hell,’ Esther explained. ‘And he revelled in it. Our friends and family…Isabelle’s family— Daniel and I have both lost people to that camp.’ Tears began to roll down her cheeks, but she went on. ‘So many of us have just disappeared into that place.’ She dashed away the tears with the back of her pale hand. ‘Lauterborn doesn’t just give out the orders; that’s why they gave him the name of the Beast of Bergères-sur-Seine. And he’s come here to look for me and my husband.’

No one said a word. And then into the silence, bursting in like the beat of a drum, Margot heard a heavy knock on the door upstairs.

SEVENTEEN

LUCY

2025

Beatrice unlocked the street door, which opened into a corridor that ran the length of the shop. Lucy buzzed with anticipation as they followed it down to the staircase at the back. She had dreaded going alone to her grandparents’ flat above the bookshop. She thought it’d feel like a void, a cold, empty place without their loving presence. But with Beatrice, the oppressive grey image had faded and the old warmth that Lucy remembered started to come back.

The little hall at the foot of the stairs could’ve been a dismal space, with the entrance to the cellar that had rusted shut, and the heavy door that opened into the back garden, but Mémé would never have allowed that. Instead, there was brightly coloured carpet, which continued up the stairs along with Mémé’s collection of family photographs.

‘I’ve seen these photos so many times,’ Lucy said to Beatrice, tapping the glass. ‘I thought I knew my family history so well. I had no idea that my great-grandma ran a resistance book club during the war!’

‘Every year we have services and memorials for the liberation, for D-Day, for VEDay,’ Beatrice explained as they paused on the stairs. ‘But Arielle wanted to tellourstory. When she was given her diagnosis, the doctor told her she’d be lucky to have six months and she swore me to secrecy. Nobody was to know how near the end she was. That was when she and I started working, getting everything ready to pass to you. It was going to be a wedding present, but time caught up with us.’ She briefly squeezed Lucy’s hand. ‘It was important to her that you read it, because it started with reading and with books. So she started to write it all down for you.’ Beatrice smiled gently. ‘And we gathered up everything we could find and put it all safely away. Not Esther’s book though. Esther’s book has always been kept in the shop; I can’t even tell you why, it just wouldn’t have seemed right to pack it up into a box. She was never able to pick it up, but keeping it near, it felt as though she was near too.’

Lucy was so astonished that at first she wasn’t sure what to say. ‘We knew Mémé was ill, but she never told us it was so advanced. We all thought she’d get treatment and live to be at least a hundred.’ She swallowed the tears that were threatening to well up. ‘She never liked making a fuss, or have people fret over her. I…I do understand why she didn’t say anything. And she passed away at home, like Papi did. She always said she didn’t want to be put into a home. To think that you two were collecting things together for me while she…Beatrice, it’s the most wonderful gift. Thank you. I know that’s barely adequate for what you and Mémé have given me, but I mean it. Thank you for trusting me with your story – with Cordeval’s story.’

‘It’ll keep you busy.’ Beatrice chuckled. ‘I go away tomorrow; a few days with my eldest granddaughter and her family in Marseille. But when I come home, we can talk about it all. I want you to learn the story yourself, in Arielle’s words.’

Lucy smiled, although she wasn’t sure she’d still be inCordeval by the time Beatrice came back. Perhaps she could write to her from London?

They carried on up the stairs. Despite her age, Beatrice didn’t need a hand. They passed photographs of Mémé and Papi as a young couple, and later pictures of Lucy’s father and her uncle as children. Mémé’s brother Etienne and his wife appeared in the collection, too, and Lucy peeped out of photographs taken with her cousins. On the first-floor landing was a recent snapshot of Mémé with Beatrice down by the harbour, the wind whipping their white hair. Round Mémé’s neck, the sun had caught the gold chain she always wore, which carried her parents’ wedding rings.

‘There you are!’ Lucy pointed to the photo. ‘The terrible two!’

‘There we are.’ Beatrice chuckled. ‘Wait until I follow her up to heaven and start the party again; StPeter won’t know what’s hit the place!’