One day a lady came from the Committee of the General Union of French Jews and, seeing the state Maman was in, said she must be moved to hospital. That time Maman refused. But a month or so later, she returned from school to find another lady sitting beside Maman’s bed.

‘Rahel, this is Madame de Cazalle,’ Rahel curtseyed. ‘She is a friend of Omi and Opa, and Papa has asked her to come and see us.’

Rahel shook hands with the newcomer and made a quick assessment of her clothes and manner, a skill she was perfecting in her dealings with the outside world. The woman was tall, dressed in a beautiful tweed suit that dated from long before coupons. She had light brown eyes, like liquid honey in a jar, and thick dark brown hair, smooth and shining, falling to her shoulders under her hat. She was uneasy, her mouth tight, as if her conversation with Maman had distressed her. Rahel bent over Maman for her kiss.

‘Rahel,’ her mother said, ‘you remember when the lady from the Committee come, she want me to go to hospital?’

Rahel nodded. Maman always made mistakes when she spoke French. She spoke fluently, with a large vocabulary, but she made elementary errors, which caused Rahel, with her purist French education, to flinch. She knew that Maman’s speech made people think her stupid or ill-educated, and they regarded her with contempt. Long ago they spoke German together, she and Papa and Maman, but then Papa had forbidden it and they only spoke French. Rahel and Maman tried to obey, even in Clermont without Papa. For her it was easy, for she spoke French in school. But Mama could never give up German; it was her language. So sometimes they spoke it together and Maman was happy.

‘Yes.’

‘I now decide that it is a good time to go and get well. And while I am away Madame de Cazalle will look after you.’

Rahel stared at her new guardian. As far as she could see no one looked after her; it was she who looked after Maman. ‘She’ll come and live here?’ she asked dubiously.

Maman laughed and then coughed. ‘No, you will live with her.’

‘That will not be necessary, thank you.’ Rahel addressed Madame de Cazalle directly.

But she was powerless in this, as in everything else, and it was all arranged. Madame Meyer from the Committee came again and they talked about Rahel’s new papers and her food coupons (Category J3). The two women sat on the bed and the chair, leaving her standing beside Maman. The false papers would say that she was born in St Sever in Pas-de-Calais, because the Mairie had burned down there in the thirties and it was impossible for the authorities to check her identity with the records. Madame de Cazalle, equipped with blank cards and a rubber stamp was an expert in making new papers.

‘And what were you called? We’d better start afresh; not Rahel, I think.’