Her work for F-section kept her busy as a courier and a wireless operator. The only feeling of normality for her was in returning home in the evening to the family she lived with who treated her with great affection.
Mr Renoir, Pascal, was a scholarly type. He read a lot and kept up on all that was happening in the war via any newspapers Vivi could obtain through the underground. His wife, Florence – or Maman as they all called her – was ever practical and modest, and she cooked the most wonderful meals even from the war rations. She insisted that her family assemble for dinner each evening despite the fact that food was scarce. Their conversation lingered late into the night, and Vivi became truly attached to the family in an extremely short amount of time.
It was there, one evening, she learned about why they’d joined the Resistance. The whole family and Vivi had been enjoying a delightful dinner, on the finest blue china, and they’d had candles lit, not because they craved the ambiance, but because the Nazis restricted the electricity throughout the day. They had been chatting about the war, when suddenly Florence became wistful.
‘This war is very personal to us, you see, because as well as Yvette we also had another child. A son who has passed away… Patrice.’ Silence fell around the table as the Renoirs stared into their soup, lost in their memory of him.
Vivi found the courage to ask them, ‘Tell me about your son.’
Florence smiled, and there was a gentle reverence for his name upon her hostess’s lips. ‘Patrice was a wonderful boy. Strong-willed, and with intense feelings about this war. He was too young to fight in the Great War, so when we faced this atrocity a second time, he couldn’t wait to sign up to fight for his country, to free France from the Germans.’
Florence crept silently from the table and picked up a photo in a silver frame from a drawer in a sideboard – obviously placed there, apparently still too painful to be out on display. She passed it to Vivi, and she stared at the picture of the brave young man with defiant eyes. A younger version of his father stood in his uniform, captured, as Pascal added his thoughts to the conversation.
‘Taken the day before he went off to fight this war. He would have been twenty-four now,’ Pascal said. ‘Twenty-four years old. He died at twenty-two, right before his twenty-third birthday.’ He shook his head, as if trying to loosen that thought from it. ‘That’s no age to die.’
Yvette looked sombre. ‘I wish I was old enough to be able to fight in the war.’
Her mother scowled at her. ‘Yvette, you are all we have left. Do not speak of such things. It will be over one day, and you will have a husband and children, and we’ll put this time behind us. But until then, we’ll do all that we can for the Resistance to bring about the end. We are more than grateful for what you are doing, Claudette, and even though we know you will be with us such a short time, we hope you feel as though you’re a part of the family.’
‘I do,’ responded Vivi. ‘I do feel a part of your family! I’ve grown to love all of you so much.’
Yvette perked up. ‘It has been wonderful to have a sister of my very own. I need to learn to speak good English because after this war is over, I plan to travel, and one day I will go into fashion and become a fashion designer, and maybe I’ll travel to London and Rome,’ she said with great excitement.
Her mother tsk-tsked her. ‘You, my dear, will pick up the dishes and help me wash up. These flights of fancies of yours are nothing more than that.’
‘I will just be grateful to get books again,’ said Pascal, wistfully. ‘So much of the paper is used for other things now, and books are scarce. Claudette, if you come across any books, I would appreciate you bringing me one or two.’
Vivi smiled. ‘I will look, but with my pupils, who knows? Do you like children’s stories?’
He chuckled. ‘At this point, I’ll take anything.’
As they all made their way into the kitchen, and everyone pitched in to clear up and do the dishes, Vivi thought again how this felt so familiar, such a traditional lifestyle in such a changing world. Eating, talking, dreams and the desire for books… such simple things, and yet it was hard to know if any of these future dreams would be possible.
The only thing she feared now more than the Nazis taking her away was them hurting this family. The Renoirs had been so kind to her. The thought of it tormented her in her sleep. And so often at night, Vivi lay awake, thinking on this. So much of the preparation she’d gone through before she came had not equipped her for the emotional turmoil she would feel being in France with real people. Vivi felt she could tackle someone with a knife, but could she endure the wound to her heart if anything happened to these wonderful new friends?
She shuddered with the thought. She could not let them down. Yvette had to be a fashion designer and Mr Renoir would have his books.
16
Present day
On the way back to the manor Sophie had another thought: what about the man Vivienne had eloped with, the Nazi? He had to have a family too. Maybe there was a way of tracking down Vivienne through him, maybe they had even had a family together. When Sophie got home, she asked her auntie Jean if she could look around in the attic in case there was anything that was left about the hospital.
‘Good luck with all that dusty stuff,’ Jean stated, screwing up her nose. ‘I don’t know why we even keep it. I’m sure I will get rid of all of it, after Dad… Well, it would upset him right now though, so it’s all somewhere in boxes up there,’ she said, shaking her head, as though that would get rid of all the controversy around it.
Sophie made her way up to the enormous attic and looked around in dismay – old pieces of furniture, curtains, bedding, ugly works of art. There wasn’t anything in here that looked worth saving. After about an hour of searching, she did find a box. On the side of it, it said ‘hospital records’. Sifting through it, right at the bottom, she found a book with the word ‘admissions’ printed on the front. This would be a good place to start.
Each line on the pages would have the name of a soldier, his date of birth, his serial number, what he had been admitted with, and his final outcome. As Sophie looked through, she was astonished at how many patients had come to the hospital during the war and was sad to see many had died there. Turning the pages, she finally came upon the name of the person she thought she might be looking for and a chill ran through her body as she read it. In one of the columns were the words, ‘German POW’. She ran her finger along the line and read the name of the man that her great-aunt had apparently fallen in love. It was an interesting entry with a name she couldn’t read having been crossed out and the name Marcus Vonstein put in its place. There was another German patient that arrived after Vonstein, but he was very young, just twenty. Too young to have reached such a high rank in high command as the man Vivienne had left with, according to the newspaper article Sophie had read. She quickly scanned through the rest of the book but these POWs were the only ones entered in the ledger during the relevant 1942 to ’43 timeframe.
Vonstein had been admitted with a broken leg, multiple cuts and a head wound, nothing too serious to impair his escape with the help of a capable nurse by his side. But this information could be valuable. She scribbled it down.