Page 29 of The Resistance Book Club

Lucy took a deep breath before unlocking the door to the flat. It opened into the first-floor living area. It was a vast, open space, and Lucy’s memories populated it with the laughter and chatter she remembered from all the family get-togethers she’d been to here. She could even conjure up the scent of Mémé’s cooking, the enormous meals she’d made – the coqs au vin, the seafood stews, the appletartesand wafer-thin pancakes. In her mind, she could hear Papi’s bad jokes and the affectionate groans that had always followed their telling.

Sunlight streamed through the front windows into the long room, shining against the pans that hung on their hooks above the stove. The dining table was polished as ever, and the sofa cushions were plumped, as if Mémé had just been through with a duster. The large oak dresser was busy with framed photos; Lucy was among them, along with Papi, Beatrice, and her father and uncle, and black-and-white photos going further back.

Some books had been left on an armchair. The room was ascosy as Lucy remembered it, with its atmosphere of ordered chaos, and it carried the echoes of everyone who had called it home.

‘It’s so strange being back here without Mémé,’ she admitted to Beatrice. ‘But it’s as if a bit of her is still here, becauseyouare.’

‘The last night I saw her, we had such a lovely time,’ Beatrice said with a smile, looking around the room. ‘Sébastien cooked us the most glorious supper and we drank the cellar dry. The bar was packed, everybody singing and laughing, then we came back here and looked through our box of treasures. She went to bed that night and…’ Beatrice smiled again, but there was sadness in it now. ‘I was the one who found her the next morning, when I came to call for our morning coffee. I hope I go so peacefully, smiling a naughty smile just like Arielle.’

Lucy placed her hand on Beatrice’s arm. She couldn’t imagine how hard it was to be the one who found a lifelong friend dead. But Beatrice seemed to take comfort in Mémé’s smile, and Lucy wondered if she had been smiling because she’d seen Papi again.

‘I knew she’d passed away in her sleep, but I hadn’t known she’d had such a wonderful time the night before,’ Lucy said. ‘Thanks for…well, for being such a brilliant friend to her.’

Even so, guilt was gnawing at her. If only she could’ve spent more time with Mémé and Papi. She glanced around the room again, and then her gaze settled on a colourful hexagonal box that was sitting on the coffee table. It looked like a hatbox, and each panel had different colours and patterns. Stripes on one, polka dots on another, and zigzags and checks as well.

‘Is that the box?’ Lucy asked, her voice hushed with curiosity and awe.

Beatrice nodded. ‘There it is,’ she said. ‘Our story.Yourstory.’

EIGHTEEN

MARGOT

1941

Once Margot reached the landing at the back of the house, she listened again for the knock. It wasn’t coming from the front door of the bookshop, but from the street door that led to the flats. She stood in the darkness for a moment, lit only by the small candle she carried, and waited for the last sounds of her friends to vanish from the cellar into the tunnels.

She carried on up the passage. Her heart was beating so loudly in her ears that it became confused with the sound of the knocks on her door.

‘Just a moment, please,’ she called as she turned the key. She held her breath as she opened the door, wondering if these would be her last few seconds of freedom.

The flickering candlelight illuminated the Professor’s face.

‘Professor?’ she whispered.

‘My home—’ the Professor began. He glanced down at the battered leather suitcase he was carrying. Beneath his other arm there was a large box and Margot knew, without even thinking about it, that it contained the radio. ‘I was away for the eveningwhen the plane hit my cottage.’ In the flickering candlelight, his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. ‘I’m sorry, Madame, but I have nowhere to go. And I think you have a room?’

The burnt-out ruins, which had seemed so much like a tomb, came back to her. If he was a German spy, as Beatrice suspected, she’d be putting everyone – her friends who were hiding banned books, Esther who was half of Chevalier and was wanted by the Nazis – at enormous risk.

But there was no way that she could refuse him. Just as she couldn’t refuse the Germans who came to browse in her shop.

‘Yes, I’m looking for a tenant for the flat upstairs,’ she said, picturing the dust sheets and rolled-up carpets. ‘It’s furnished, although it’s been empty a long time.’

‘I have no home,’ the Professor murmured and Margot thought again of the photographs, of the Professor smiling and happy with his wife and daughter. He had had a real home, once. ‘I wouldn’t be any trouble to you and I can pay now as much as you want. Please, madame, I can’t go to the hotel, not with my brother there.’

Margot stepped back and held the door open for the Professor.

‘Please come in, Professor,’ she said. ‘I’ll take you up there now.’

This was madness, but then, if they were under the same roof, she could keep an eye on him. She’d be one step ahead. And besides, she needed the money.

The Professor bowed his head in thanks, then stepped into the hallway. ‘Everything burned,’ he murmured.

Margot led the way up to the flat, past the back of the shop and the door down to the cellar. They went up the stairs, past her own flat on the first floor. She was aware of him close by in the near-darkness, could hear each of his breaths and every footstep, and smell his cologne.

Once they reached the top she took the key from the nail bythe door and opened it for him. A lantern sat on a table, and she lifted the glass to light it with the candle. Its glow illuminated the long room, showing furniture waiting like ghosts under the dust sheets.

‘There’s even a piano,’ she said, gesturing to the largest, shrouded shape. ‘It hasn’t been played for ages, though – I don’t know if you’ll be able to get a note out of it.’ She gestured to the doors that opened off the room. ‘There’s a small bathroom and kitchen, a bedroom. This is the living room.’