China Blue (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 3) by Madalyn Morgan (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📕

parents do not have the same name, obviously.’ Antoinette Marron’s almond-shaped, brown eyes filled with tears again. ‘The Germans are transporting whole families to these so-called work camps.’ Frowning, she searched Claire’s face. ‘Some say they are--’ She threw her head back and shook it as if she couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

‘Prison camps,’ Claire whispered.

Antoinette Marron nodded. ‘Many of them are never heard of again.’

Claire shivered and pulled her cardigan around her middle. ‘You are cold,’ Antoinette said, ‘Let us go through to the back of the house where we dare open the blinds and let in the light. The rooms at the front of the house are always cold because we have to keep the shutters closed.’

Claire looked at the shutters at the large windows. Narrow shafts of light squeezed through gaps where they didn’t meet in the middle. There was some light, but not enough to give even the smallest amount of warmth. ‘Do you have to keep them closed?’

‘Yes. Many houses in this street and in neighbouring streets have been gutted. Families who had lived here for generations were evicted in the first few months of the German occupation. Whole families were turned out of their homes. They were only allowed to take one bag of clothes each. If they were seen taking more all their possessions were confiscated.’ Antoinette stopped speaking and took a deep breath. Claire put her hand on her arm, and she nodded. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, and carried on. ‘If they were found with valuables, or money, it was taken from them and they were given a beating. It seemed the world had gone mad. French citizens, who had lived and worked in Paris all their lives, were not only thrown out of their homes, but they were denied travel permits, so they could not go to family or friends who lived in unoccupied France.’ Antoinette Marron laughed bitterly. ‘The irony is, it is against the law to be homeless, so the same people who put the Jewish families out of their homes rounded them up like stray dogs and took them away in cattle wagons to God knows where.’

Claire wondered why Antoinette and her parents hadn’t been evicted. By the way she spoke, Antoinette was clearly not a sympathiser. No one who agreed remotely with the Germans would shed tears as she had done. ‘Please don’t think me rude, Antoinette, but why have the Germans left you and your parents alone?’

‘After the first wave of evictions it went quiet, so my neighbour and I threw bricks through our own front windows. We ripped most of the curtains and stained what remained, so it looked from the outside as if the damage had been done for some time. We wrenched the balconies from the downstairs windows, and used axes to damage the wooden blinds, even pulling some of them off their hinges. To all intents and purposes our homes were no longer habitable. From the outside it looked as if the Germans had looted our houses along with the rest of the street. So, like my neighbour, my parents and I live in rooms at the back of the house. Come,’ she said, ‘now I am sure you are not a German spy I will take you through.’

‘And now I know you are not, I am happy to come through,’ Claire laughed. It was clear to her, as she followed Antoinette Marron through a succession of rooms, that this Parisian townhouse had been beautiful in its day. For obvious reasons, the rooms at the front of the house were sparsely furnished with smashed light fittings and broken furniture, but as they walked deeper into the house the rooms were furnished comfortably. The furniture was old-fashioned, but even in the dim light Claire could see it was excellent quality. The ceilings were high with ornate floral cornices. Doors on either side of a bare hall led to a sitting room, dining room, breakfast room, study and library. Some of the furniture – large settees and chairs, corner seats, huge mirrors – were covered with dust sheets. Walking through the rooms now and seeing all the furniture covered like this, Claire realised how close Antoinette had been to getting her parents out of Paris. That she hadn’t saddened Claire.

‘My father was a banker in the city. He is retired now, I am pleased to say. My mother was a volunteer worker with an organisation that helped the poor.’ Antoinette turned to Claire. ‘They are good, honest people who enjoyed going to the theatre and the opera with their friends. Now they are too frightened to go out of the house.’

‘And their friends?’

‘Gone. Hopefully they got out of Paris, but...’ Antoinette shook her head. ‘No one knows.’

Sorry was an inadequate response, so Claire didn’t say anything.

In the back sitting room Antoinette’s mother sat at a large oblong table surrounded by pieces of a half-completed jigsaw puzzle. Her father was writing at a bureau.

‘Mama, Papa, this is Claire. She is a friend of Auguste’s, and has come all the way from--’ Antoinette Marron faltered.

‘Gisoir, near Orléans,’ Claire said. Antoinette’s parents looked up from their respective activities and eyed Claire in much the same way that the maid had done – with suspicion.

It was Antoinette’s mother who greeted Claire first. ‘How do you do?’ she said, smiling tentatively. Her father followed his wife’s lead, nodding and smiling.

‘We usually have something to eat at this time of day,’ Antoinette said. ‘Yvonne, our maid, went to the shops earlier – not that there is much in them these days, but she is a clever girl. She can make a meal out of very little. I’ll ask her to set another place at the table.’

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Claire knelt beside the river and splashed water onto her face. Sitting on her heels with her hands in the