9th December, 1940

Paris, France

17:30

Paris was colder this year. Curfew had started being stricter. If you were out without reason or without your papers, you were beaten and taken, and you'd be lucky if you came out alive. It had been 4 months since Maxi was hit by a car and was proclaimed dead. It had been 7 months since Hans Mayer had been proclaimed dead too. It might seem like Aleida had lost everything this specific year when in reality, she knew she had nothing else to lose.

"Jean, I don't care. I want in." Aleida looked at her neighbour from across the couch, she poured herself another glass of wine and sighed, "I've lost everything this year, I don't have anything else to lose" she proclaimed towards the man she had only known for the last few months. "Aleida, if you do this, if you get caught, you'd be sent to a camp."

Aleida rose up from the couch holding on to the glass of Rose in her hand, pulling out a cigarette and lighter from her trousers, she took one long look before placing her glass down on the sideboard and placing the cigarette in her mouth and lighting it.

"Listen Jean, I do not care. Let them. My husband realised a few months ago when we moved to Paris that something was very much wrong within the system and he wanted to do something about it, so let me be that person."

Jean looked around the couch, took his last swig of the wine in front of him, stood up and walked towards the door. Aleida looked towards him and huffed, until Jean replied, "11pm tonight, the old bar". A small smile creeped on towards Aleida's face as she puffed along on the cigarette that she was savouring.

Aleida looked towards the clock, it was only 6pm when Jean had left. She had 6 hours to spare, and only 4 hours until curfew would strike. She noticed the bottle of Rose was now completely gone, so she decided to make her way to the market as she still had time before it closed to grab another bottle. She shoved on her pair of loafers and her winter coat that was now starting to get too big for her, and decided to hurry along the cobblestone.

Paris in the winter is normally pretty, with snow on the ground and the stars in the sky but this time it felt odd. Aleida hurried through the groups of soldiers who were laughing and chatting to their female dates while others were talking in groups. They started calling out towards her but she kept on walking, almost running across the cobblestone paths with her head down, she felt that if she lifted her head up it would mean she was ready to engage in a conversation or she would have to show her papers, that was until she realised she ran into someone who was also on the path.

As she stepped back and looked up at the man that she had run into, she noticed that he was wearing a long leather black coat with a nazi armband around the top of his right arm, with a shirt and tie. It was completely different to what Aleida had seen before as she normally saw them in Green or Grey uniforms. As she fixed her beret and pulled it slightly more to the left on her head a few brown curls fell out, she had noticed the man slowly watching her, bringing a cigarette up to his mouth, as he took a drag he decided to look away from Aleida, she decided to straight up her jacket and hurry along the path towards the market.

A few hours had passed and Aleida had made it back to her apartment. She looked at the clock again as she kept her outwear on as she knew it was nearly time for her to visit the old bar and to see what Jean was up to. As she noticed the darkness had become a lot darker in the following months, she felt it was easier to slowly get around the city, by the time she looked up at the clock it was 10:40pm, she had twenty minutes to get to the old bar and she decided to walk along using the shadows as cover.

Old Town, Paris France

2300

"Aw come on Jean," Jean's associates started to ramble as he started to pour himself another whiskey, before he was even able to put the bottle down he heard a raspy knock on the old red door. Jean jumped out his skin and started shushing the men in the bar incase it was the Germans or something much worse. I mean in Jean's mind what could be worse than the Germans.

The knock only lasted a few seconds before he decided to duck down and use the darkness as cover as he made his way over to the window and that's when he noticed our heroine of the story, Aleida shuffling her feet and rubbing her hands together trying to keep warm in the december weather. He opened the small red door for her and hurried her in, peering out, shafting left and right to see if there was anyone out there.

"Ah!" Aleida heard a voice come from below the bar area, "You must be Aleida", she heard the voice again as she walked down the stairs. Jean stood behind her, slowly closing the door with a sneak so that no one would be able to hear if they were in.

One of Jean's associates was a girl with long brown hair that was neatly braided in two sections, "Jean, my love. You never told us that was averagely pretty" the woman laughed as she watched Aleida take her beret off her head. Jean smiled and nodded, he didn't know how to take his friend sometimes, especially as she acted cruel and cold to other women in the area.

Aleida noticed a younger man sitting on a bar stool in the dark dingy area that they had been all waiting for her, "So, why?" He looked at her with a cold and cruel smile as if he had something planned like pulling out his gun and shooting at her. "I just want to help," she spoke holding out her left hand as she pulled her a stool, "I've heard things in the Cafe, like how they're going to round up Judens", she carried on as he head dropped to the floor, she started playing with beret as she sighed.

"You work with Jean, don't you?" he replied, Aleida looked up and nodded at the young man, she could see his eyes were cold and iced as if he had seen things that he shouldn't have seen. "Er, I own the Cafe, well Mr Alterman does, but German's wouldn't come in if they knew a Juden ran it," she carried on speaking playing with her green beret, she didn't noticed how dirty and old it started to look and realised it's probably seen some better happier days.

"Jean can vouch for me," she carried on speaking to the young man who decided to walk over from the stool to the small bar, he grabbed two whiskey glasses and started to pour the whiskey. He passed one over to Aleida and shouted "Salut" as they shot the whiskey, Aleida pulled a disgusting face as she realised that she was never a whiskey drinker, and she hated the taste.

She had spent a few hours in the little dingy bar that was covered in darkness talking to the men and the women she was surrounded by, that was until the young man spoke up once again, "Okay guys, let's move on for why we are here and we can get back to our real life, we have two children, a boy and a girl. We have transport waiting for them in a few weeks when Pablo gets back," he nodded at the young blonde hair women and carried on, "but we need someone to take them in and hide them for a few weeks until the trucks back," the young man carried on as Aleida whispered in to Jean's ear, "I guess Pablo isn't his real name then?" he laughed and whispered back, "No, our names here, the names you know aren't the names you know, you know? Pablo we call him Pablo as he looks Spanish but his real name is something we don't even know," Aleida nodded and pulled back, she realised if she wanted to stay in this, she needs to think of a name that wouldn't blow her cover.

"We have space," Jean raised his hand, "We have space at the Cafe" he carried on, Aleida was far too lost in her thoughts thinking about that comment, she had known Jean for the last few months, he became her neighbour, then they started a bit of romance but if his real name isn't Jean then what it is? She was lost, until Jean nudged her and she coughed, "Yeah, we have space."

Aleida sat there as the bar started to clear out, the young man went first with a pistol with a silencer on and peered out the bar, prompting the next people to started walking and making it less obvious as they did until it got to Jean's and Aleida's turn, as soon as they left, she watched the young man close the door behind them with a sneak.

23rd December 1940

Paris, France

Aleida's Apartment - 0700

It had been two weeks now since she had become involved with the resistance. Aledia's started to cast her mind back to how she was told that members of the resistance didn't use their real names, mainly so it was hard for them to get caught if people released their names to the Gestapo when being interrogated. The air outside was chilly, as she grabbed her coffee that was inside her favourite mug, she sat on the chair on her little balcony as she watched the Germans below her and the French getting by on their daily life. She pulled up her dressing gown towards her ears, and made sure that it was comfortable wrapped around her body. People watching was one of her favourite pastimes and she enjoyed making up little stories in her head. It reminded her of when her son was alive, and how they would pretend they were part of the French army and spies living in a world of fear.

She kept zoning in and out of her mind until there was a knock at the door, as she walked up towards the door she noticed the door handle started to jiggle, until she heard a voice call out, "Aleida, it's me. Can we talk?" she lightly gasped. Someone once told her that the Germans wouldn't knock or ring the bell, they would just use their guns to smash the door down. Aleida hurriedly ran towards her bedroom and threw on some fresh undergarments for the day and then a fresh blouse and skirt, she threw her old ones behind her bedroom door and reminded herself to deal with it later.

She pressed down on the front of the skirt and started pushing her blouse underneath so she looked kept, she grabbed the door handle and threw it open and stood there was Jean, she grabbed her black kitten heels that were neatly discarded from the night before, her red silk scarf as she realised Sunday is her hair washing day and quickly tied her curls up to make it look less messy than it already was.

As they hurried down the stairs and along the cobbled paths of Paris, Aleida was still trying to make sure that her black kitten heels were on her feet nice and securely as she didn't fancy having a twisted ankle as they hurried to work. Jean grabbed the master key for the cafe out of his trousers pocket and started to unlock the door.

"Aleida, what are you doing here?" the young lady who was standing behind Jean whispered as she stared in disbelief as the owner of the cafe had arrived. Jean hurried them both in, "I think she's bored," Jean whispered back to the young lady. Aleida quickly shut the door and changed the sign over from Closed to Open to begin the new working day.

"Stephanie, my love. It's lovely to see you again," Aleida replied with a small smile on her face and held out both her arms to hug the young girl, as Stephine's hands reached out and they pulled each other into a hug, Aleida noticed that Stephanie had a new perfume on. As Aleida pulled away from Stephanie, she shoved her hands back into coat pockets and waltzed towards her office in the back, she peeled off the jacket and placed it on the coat rack that was just behind the door.

Jean had just about grabbed his apron and tied it around his waist just before the bell on the black door rang, "Heil Hitler," the young man shouted while saluting, Aleida's eyes rolled as she heard the man in her office. Stephanie was just about to take the man's order as Aleida walked out of the office. As their eyes both locked, Aleida moved her body and pivoted to grab the mugs and glasses that had been washed the night before and started putting them away, that was until she heard another "Heil Hitler" in the room.

"Someone will bring it over in a few minutes," Jean quietly spoke to the young gestapo officer who was stood on the other side of the bar, Aleida could feel his eyes burning into the back of her head, as she slowly turned around she noticed that he had slinked into the room behind the glass door. "Well aren't you a pretty sight," she heard a young man question her as she noticed his eyes looking up and down her body, this one of the reasons why she hated wearing skirts, she wasn't a piece of meat.

She noticed Jean had put the small espresso mug on the tray in front of her and before he decided to go and deliver it, she grabbed the tray quickly and made her way towards the glass door. The young man that had recently been staring at her, turned his body to watch as she left, he placed his elbows on the bar and started to nudge his friend while smiling and laughing. "You need to get off the bar," Jean shouted at the two young men and before they could start to reply, he placed his hands on the bar and repeated what he said, "If you're not ordering, get lost."

Aleida walked through the glass door and noticed the young officer sitting by a table by himself, Aleida waltzed over towards his table and noticed that he was reading "Das Reich", she scoffed as she read the title. "Is something the matter?" The man spoke calmly in reply to Aleida's little scoff, she smiled and replied, "Thank you," as she placed the espresso on the table in front of him. She watched as he closed the paper and started to fold it up.

She grabbed the tray and hugged it tight to her chest as she hurried back into the bar where she noticed Jean and a few young soldiers arguing, she threw the tray on the side and jumped over the bar and grabbed a knife and a small glass and started hitting the side of it carefully so it didn't break. Jean and the young men stopped what they were doing and looked at her, "Now gentleman, it's the day before Christmas eve, what would your mothers think if they heard you argue in a cafe?" The young man who had spoken to her earlier, scoffed and nudged his friends to move towards the door.

Aleida sighed as the young men who were starting trouble decided to make a move to the exit, she had noticed along with the racket that the man she served earlier was nowhere to be seen at his table apart from a cigarette and Das Reich laying on the table with an empty mug.