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white checked tablecloth.

5
    The next time I saw the German was on a hot August afternoon. Patrick, Olivier and I had called in to my uncle’s clog shop on the village square of Julien-sur-Vionne to give Uncle Félix and Aunt Maude some comforting words about my prisoner-of-war cousins, Paul and Jules.
    Sprinkles of blond hair escaping his Wehrmacht cap, the German was lounging against the fountain wall with the same two soldiers who’d been with him that day at the market. As we walked from the shop, his strange, violet eyes met mine.
    ‘We meet again, mam’zelle.’ He bowed with a feline kind of grace and offered a pale hand. ‘Martin Diehl.’ He waved his other arm at the two soldiers. ‘Karl Gottlob and Fritz Frankenheimer.’
    Karl Gottlob stood stiff and awkward, the cat-eyes as cold as ever. He said something in throaty German I didn’t understand.
    ‘ Pon-jour, mam’zelle , m’sieurs,’ the chubby Fritz Frankenheimer said, and a fattened pig flashed through my mind.
    ‘Céleste Roussel,’ I said, shaking Martin Diehl’s hand. ‘And this is my brother Patrick and a friend, Olivier.’
    The boys too, shook hands with the three men. Despite their polite nods, I caught the vein ticking in my brother’s temple, and Olivier’s jittery foot-tapping. So practised they were at hiding their animosity, a bystander might’ve believed they were truly pleased to make the Germans’ acquaintance.
    ‘Come on, we’ll miss the movie.’ Patrick tugged at my arm, he and Olivier sandwiching me between them as we headed for the queue snaking from Le Renard Rouge cinema.
    ‘Why do you insist on speaking to Germans?’ Patrick said.
    ‘Like your mother says, don’t forget they are the enemy,’ Olivier said. ‘Besides, you know how careful we have to be.’
    ‘Of course I know not to say a word about anything … to anyone, Boche or not,’ I hissed, the heat burning my cheeks as I glimpsed the Germans in the line behind us.
    Lucie-sur-Vionne had no cinema, so we’d cycled into Julien-sur-Vionne that steamy afternoon –– a rare treat for which Uncle Claude was paying, in return for our harvesting help.
    Apart from Lucie’s train line, Julien was much the same as our village, with its bustling square, small businesses, closely-built houses and centuries-old church. Its roads wound through orchards, fields and woods and, as Lucie was named for the Roman soldier, Lucius, Julien was named after Julius Caesar because an elderly villager claimed he’d passed by that way. 
    I sat between Patrick and Olivier in the dark, smoke-stained cinema, aching to look like the actresses in Hôtel du Nord : the blonde, sultry Annabelle or the dark, slim Arletty, with her thinly-arched eyebrows. I dreamed of being on the big screen, fans admiring me, and imagined I was in Hollywood, driving up Sunset Boulevard in a limousine, sipping champagne and wearing one of my dozens of elegant dresses.
    Between admiring the actresses, I caught Martin Diehl looking at me through the flickering dark. Seated with the group of Germans in one corner, the red glow of his cigarette illuminated his high cheekbones, and I slumped in my seat, hoping he’d not notice my dowdy dress, my bare lips and unpowdered face.
    ***
    The audience filed back onto the square, blinking into the sunlight falling thick and golden on the cobblestones.
    ‘We’ve got a meeting,’ Patrick said, as we retrieved our bicycles. ‘We should be back at L’Auberge in a few hours.’
    ‘I suppose I’m still not allowed to come?’
    ‘I told you,’ he said, ‘this is not women’s business.’
    ‘You’re so unfair! Let me tell you that men would never cope with the pain of childbirth that we endure, so the human race can continue. Women would make much tougher soldiers and resistors than all those big-mouthed, honoured war heroes. Besides, you know I’d never say anything to betray you.’
    ‘Not intentionally,’ Olivier said. ‘But someone might force it out of