Claire noticed André had looked in the rear view mirror several times after they had turned out of the street onto the main road. She took her powder compact from Therese’s handbag, held it a few inches wide of her right shoulder, but at the same height. She twisted her wrist to the left, and then to the right.
‘We are not being followed,’ André said.
‘Sorry, I’m being paranoid.’ She dropped the compact back into Therese’s handbag.
‘Old habits, eh?’ André said.
‘Yes.’ Claire inhaled deeply and exhaled loudly.
‘That was a loud sigh,’ André said.
‘I was thinking about Alain. Wondering where he is and what he’s doing.’
‘We’ll find him and bring him back to you as we did in forty-four.’
‘No, André, I am not putting you and the family in further danger. I shall find him. You have already done enough. You must stay here and look after Édith and Therese.’ André opened his mouth to protest, but Claire didn’t give him the chance. ‘I have good friends in Paris who I can stay with. Canadian intelligence will be watching the stations so it won’t be safe for me to travel by train, but if I can get someone to take me there by road, I’ll stay with them for a while. I need to find the woman called Simone. They might have heard of her, they might even know her. If they don’t, they’ll know the Gestapo prison Alain was in because he was brought to Paris from a village close to it.’
Claire woke with a jolt. She had slept so soundly that for a moment she didn’t know where she was. She swung her legs out of bed and left her friend’s spare bedroom. Crossing the landing to the bathroom she heard men’s voices. One was André the other - Claire stained to hear - was friendly but-- She smiled to herself. The other was comrade Pierre Ruban, a fellow Resistance member, who had been part of the group when she had sabotaged a German troop train, and a dear friend, who had risked his life to bring Alain back to Gisoir after he’d escaped from the Gestapo prison.
Claire washed and dressed quickly and went downstairs to the kitchen where André and Pierre were sitting at the table drinking coffee. ‘Pierre! It is good to see you,’ she said, falling into her old comrade’s arms.
‘And you, ma chèrie,’ Pierre said, patting and rubbing her back as if he were burping a baby.
‘You have brought my suitcase from Édith’s?’ Claire said, seeing the case by the door. She cuffed a tear from her cheek. ‘Thank you, Pierre.’
‘My mother has told Pierre about Alain,’ André said. ‘When you’re ready, he will drive you into Gisoir to meet her, and she will tell you when and where to meet the man who will take you to Orléans.’
‘That’s wonderful.’ Claire looked at Pierre. ‘What are we waiting for?’
‘You! You are going nowhere without food in your stomach.’ André took a large omelette from the oven where it had been keeping warm. ‘It should not be dry. I made it only seconds before you came down.’ He divided the omelette into three, sliding one portion onto Claire’s plate and one onto Pierre’s. The remainder he left on the tin oven-dish for himself. He pressed the edge of his fork into the soft cooked egg and lifted a sizable chunk to his mouth. Then, seeing that Claire wasn’t eating her food, he said, ‘Eat! That is an order.’
The three friends sat at the kitchen table eating and drinking, as they had done many times in the war. When Claire’s plate was empty, Pierre drained his cup and stood up.
André made a performance of looking at her plate. ‘Now you can go,’ he said.
Claire laughed, saluted the man who had been the brave leader of the Gisoir Resistance cell and said, ‘Comrade!’
‘Those were the days,’ André said. ‘They called me a hero then. Now?’ He raised his eyebrows, ‘I wear a pinafore.’ He lifted the sides of the tea towel that he had tucked into the waistband of his trousers and danced a jig.
Claire put on her coat and picked up her handbag. At the door, she turned back to André. ‘Poor Cinderella left at home to wash the ugly sister’s dishes,’ she said, and pulling a hideous face, shouted, ‘See you later.’
Claire and Pierre met Édith in Gisoir. She told them that a Resistance member who had been a courier in the war and was part of the group that brought Alain home to Gisoir ten years earlier was now a travelling salesman. ‘He will take you to Orléans where you’ll be met by another resistance veteran who will take you on to Paris.
‘Thank you,’ Claire said, with a catch in her voice.
‘What is it?’ Édith asked.
‘Three years ago, when Alain and I were here, we strolled happily hand in hand through the town with not a care in the world. I was so happy. I had my man and he was safe. I didn’t think about the Germans, the SS, or the Gestapo. All that pain belonged in the past. This year,’ she said, ‘it is as if I have gone back a decade. I am looking for my man again.’ Claire gave in to her tears and broke down.
‘Come,’ Édith said, leading her to a bench in the square. ‘Sit for a while and then we will go to Café La Ronde, ask the proprietor if he has seen Alain. If he is retracing his steps he may have been to the café.’
Claire looked around the small square. The statue of Napoleon that the Germans had ripped from its plinth when they marched into the
