Page 105 of The Ringmaster’s Daughter

‘Five minutes!’ Gardinier’s voice woke Michel.

‘I slept,’ he said.

‘I didn’t want to wake you. I thought perhaps you needed your rest.’

‘Montmartre, you said. Here, be quick, and carry one of those crates back there – I need to deliver this one.’ Gardinier opened the rear of the truck.

Michel and Giordano awkwardly carried the crate into the fromagerie, and as soon as they placed it on the ground, they took their leave and thanked Gardinier.

‘Cost you double next time.’ He counted out the francs Michel handed him.

Michel looked around at the streets he had known all his life and was surprised by how little they had changed. Restaurant Suzette still shone in the morning light, tables set outside even in the cold. The only difference was that her clientele all wore German army uniforms.

The cabarets still advertised their acts, the vendors still sold their wares, but the flags pinned to buildings, flying in the air, were a stark reminder that Paris was no longer their own.

‘I feel like everyone is looking at me,’ Giordano said.

‘Look straight ahead, don’t meet anyone’s eyes. Just keep moving.’

The rattle of a truck hitting a pothole made Michel jump. Soldiers sat in the open back, the diesel engine growling. One of them stood and whistled at a woman who was crossing the street ahead.

She looked up and smiled at the solider. Then, once the truck was out of sight, she hurried her steps, her heels click-clacking past Michel.

Werner’s family apartment was on the second floor of a building on the Boulevard de Clichy, above a brasserie that had changed its name to Der Gute Deutsche, the Good German, to entice its city’s newest inhabitants.

Michel led the way up the tiled staircase, his and Giordano’s feet echoing with each step. He knocked on the door of apartment three: no answer. He tried the handle, but it was securely locked.

‘Serge?’ Giordano bent down and spoke into the keyhole. ‘It’s us, are you there?’

‘Even if he is, he won’t hear that.’

‘Should I shout?’

Just then, a neighbour, an elderly woman with a small dog with dainty paws, opened her front door and looked at the pair. ‘Oui?’

‘Madame, I am looking for the people who live here,’ Michel began.

‘No one lives there. That short fat man did – German, he was. Funny he’s not come back since his friends arrived.’ She fiddled with her keys, then closed her front door and locked it. ‘You’ll want to leave now. No one lives here anymore. Just me and Babette.’ She nodded at the dog, who was pulling at the leash to descend the staircase for their walk.

Michel and Giordano followed her back down the stairs and out into the street, watching as she made her way carefully towards a newspaper stand, the dog stopping to sniff at every wall.

‘What now?’ Giordano asked.

‘We need to go to the bars, the clubs, the places where Frieda said they could be – where their friends are.’

‘It’s nine o’clock in the morning, Michel. I doubt we will find them there now.’

Michel thought for a second, then knew exactly where to wait.

Odette’s café was still standing. Her morning trade sat at the scuffed wooden tables and bar, drinking their coffees and filling the air with tobacco smoke. The warbling voice of Piaf sang out from the record player as it scratched over her song, ‘On danse sur ma chanson’. Odette swayed to the music behind the bar, a red-and-white checked tea towel in her hands, her scarlet lips mouthing the words.

Michel stood for a moment, feeling as though he had been taken back in time, back to when everything was as it should be.

He spotted Bertrand’s black woollen beret bent over a newspaper at the table furthest from the door, and walked towards him.

‘You have not changed one bit,’ Michel said.

Bertrand looked up. His mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air, his eyes wide. Finally, he said, ‘Michel…’