Chapter 2

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were." ~ Margaret Mitchell

June 1941

It had been a year since Germany had occupied Paris. A year can change quite quickly, Juliette's brother turned eighteen and became a soldier in the German army, while her older brother became in charge of a camp in Poland. Her mother would frequently send her letters asking for her to come home, or even to reply so she knew that Juliette was still alive, but after hearing what her father had done, she decided that she was no longer to be known as Juliette, she became Joan.

As she walked through the streets of Paris, with her head down and waltzing past soldiers and through groups of Parisian's getting their papers checked and through business owners running to open their businesses at the beginning of the day, she slowly came up to her bookstore. As she slowly looked at the Bakery next door, her eyes darted back to the ground, she remembered how they came in all black and dragged Martin out into the streets as he was branded a spy for the resistence. No one knew where they had taken him.

After this the streets became oddly quiet in the morning as if no one wanted to set out in case they were branded as something they weren't. Joan decided 7am is starting to be a good time for her to open up the store. It had given her a chance to make sure she had got the shelves stacked, and the cashier ready for the hustle and bustle of people coming in to buy books to read or to burn, she didn't care as long as she made rent.

As Joan put her bag down on the table, and opened up the storage room where they get boxes upon boxes of books, she slowly under did her pen knife and got to work, that's when she heard the door slam behind her. "Joan, have you heard? They got Jean in the middle of the night!" Gabriel spewed out of his mouth, his hand on the desk and the other hand on his forehead trying to keep his breathing down as he didn't want anyone to think they were being suspicious or being spies in the store. Joan chuckled to herself, Jean had been messy recently, as soon as he would have a drink, he would start sharing secrets, plans, jews that he had hidden and was planning to help get to another country.

"Gabriel, I am glad he's been caught," she turned around with a grin, Gabriel stood there wide eyed, couldn't believe what he was hearing as he looked so confused, "He's probably told someone at the bar, while he was drunk!" she replied back to the confused look on his face, while he tried to digest the information that she had given him, she turned around to pick more books out of the box.

As she picked up one of her favorites by Virginna Woolf, that's when she noticed a group of shoes banging into her store. Both she and Gabrial turned around to notice there was a group of about 5 soldiers led by a young SS officer with piercing green eyes and wearing all black. "Papers?" Joan dropped the book she had been holding and walked towards the bag, as soon as she felt the smooth paper hit her fingers, she clawed them out and passed them to the Officer, "Juliette Göth?" the man looked at her up and down, while flipping through her papers, she could see that she was scanning her. As soon as her old name had been spoken she winced, no one had spoken her first or last name since she had moved to Paris. The officer passed the papers back to Joan where she shoved them back into her bag that was resting on the counter. She didn't care if they ripped.

Gabriel thrusted his papers in the officer's hands and smiled at him. She understood that Gabriel was trying to be sincere as he didn't want any trouble, neither of them did. Gabriel was then given his papers back without a single sentence coming from the man, Joan could feel the icy stare, both the Officer and group of Soldiers were giving her as she noticed and stared back, the Officer decided to waltz around the room, scanning every book, his black gloves touching every spine that was on sale.

"What are these two rooms used for?" The Officer pointed, Joan walked towards the door on the left and pushed it enough for the Officer to see that it was an office and that its main purpose was for her to be in charge. The door on the right however, was already open, "It's for storage, Officer" she replied back in a quiet but yet confident tone towards the Officer in black. Gabriel's eyes followed them as he hoped that they didn't investigate the office correctly.

They both heard a lot of "hmm" coming from the Officer's mouth, as he pulled out a silver case and lighter, he had waltzed his way back to the bookstores door, "Thank you both," he glanced back at Gabriel, his hand grabbed Joan's and he held her hand towards his mouth to give it a quick peck "and to you mostly, Mademoiselle Göth," he chuckled as he dropped her hand and spun on his ankle to face the door, as soon as the door slammed they both let out a deep breath with their eyes closed, as soon as they looked at each other, they started laughing until they heard the pans banging next door.

They were safe for another day.