My brother Isaac was a fully signed-up member of the French Communist Party, yet here he was in the house of God with me. The irony did not escape me. I slid an arm along his shoulder and pulled him closer. He might have been thin but I could feel the dense muscles of him, the sinews and tendons, the strength of him. But the strength of his convictions was what made me nervous.

‘How is life in Marseille treating you?’ I asked with an affectionate squeeze.

But he was too fired up. ‘You don’t realise, Eloïse, in your Paris bubble, that the country is seething with rage and frustration at Laniel’s right-wing policies that are bringing industry to its knees and failing the workers of France. He cannot continue with the government’s austerity programme. Cutting jobs. Refusing pay demands. We are about to go on strike because he is crippling the country.’

‘Who is we? Your dockers’ union?’

‘All of the Socialist and Communist trade union groups are about to stop work and walk out. A general strike. No rail network. No gas or electricity. No postal system. Even miners and hospitals on strike.’ His face glowed the way I’ve seen an evangelical preacher’s glow. ‘We will paralyse France and force Laniel out of office. Replace him and his greedy pigs who keep their snouts in the trough with—’

‘Isaac.’

‘. . . a left-wing coalition. With the PCF – the Parti Communiste Français under Maurice Thorez – holding it together. They will immediately kick the fascist Americans out of our country. This time for good. No air bases. No nuclear bombs to—’

‘Isaac!’

He came back to me from his soap box.

‘Would your protesters out there kill Goliath to make their point?’

He laughed. The sound of it was shocking after his angry tirade. ‘Of course not. These men and women have been born and bred in the gutters of Marseille. They’d run like rabbits if they came face to face with a bull.’ He rubbed my shoulder. ‘Poor old Goliath, the cantankerous bastard.’ He rubbed his own shoulder, which bore a telltale scar. ‘They would attack air bases and face rifles. But not bulls.’

‘A man would need a horse to get anywhere near Goliath. Even with axes there would need to be at least two or three men on horseback.’

‘Pauvre Papa.’

‘And stables? Would they burn stables with horses inside?’

‘Probably. Oh, Eloïse, I wish you would come and fight on our side. We need people like you.’

I took my brother’s hand in mine. ‘Isaac, I miss you.’

‘Not nearly as much as I missed you when you ran off to Paris to follow André, leaving me here with a father who couldn’t stand the sight of me.’

‘No, Isaac, Papa loves you.’

‘He cannot bear to be in the same room with me.’