‘You and your sister are younger than I am. You have the strength to fight them.’

‘Unfortunately I lack the firearms of a battalion. What do you suggest I do? Barricade us all in? Throw cups and saucers at them?’

She continued to berate me as I opened the door for her. The bakery no longer smelt like a bakery. It was still warm inside, but the scent of baguettes and croissants had long since disappeared. This small fact made me sad every time I crossed the threshold.

‘I swear I do not know what this country is coming to. If your father could have seen Germans in his hotel …’ Madame Louvier had evidently been well briefed. She shook her head in disapproval as I approached the counter.

‘He would have done exactly the same thing.’

Monsieur Armand, the baker, shushed them. ‘You cannot criticize Madame Lefèvre! We are all their puppets now. Madame Durant, do you criticize me for baking their bread?’

‘I just think it’s unpatriotic to do their bidding.’

‘Easy to say when you’re not the one facing a bullet.’

‘So, more of them are coming here? More of them pushing their way into our storerooms, eating our food, stealing our animals. I swear I do not know how we will survive this winter.’

‘As we always have, Madame Durant. With stoicism and good humour, praying that Our Lord, if not our brave boys, will give the Boche a royal kick up their backsides.’ Monsieur Armand winked at me. ‘Now, ladies, what would you like? We have week-old black bread, five-day-old black bread, and some black bread of indeterminate age, guaranteed free of weevils.’

‘There are days I would consider a weevil a welcome hors d’oeuvre,’ Madame Louvier said mournfully.

‘Then I will save a jam jar full for you, my dear Madame. Believe me, there are many days in which we receive generous helpings in our flour. Weevil cake, weevil pie, weevil profiteroles: thanks to German generosity, we can supply them all.’ We laughed. It was impossible not to. Monsieur Armand managed to raise a smile even on the direst of days.

Madame Louvier took her bread and put it into her basket with distaste. Monsieur Armand took no offence: he saw that expression a hundred times a day. The bread was black, square and sticky. It gave off a musty smell, as if it were mouldering from the moment it left the oven. It was so solid that the older women frequently had to request the help of the young simply to cut it. ‘Did you hear,’ she said, tucking her coat around her, ‘that they have renamed all the streets in Le Nouvion?’

‘Renamed the streets?’

‘German names for French ones. Monsieur Dinan got word from his son. You know what they call Avenue de la Gare?’

We all shook our heads. Madame Louvier closed her eyes for a moment, as if to make sure she had got it right. ‘Bahnhofstrasse,’ she said finally.

‘Bahnhof-what?’

‘Can you believe it?’

‘They will not be renaming my shop.’ Monsieur Armand harrumphed. ‘I’ll be renaming their backsides. Brot this and Brot that. This is a boulangerie. In rue des Bastides. Always has been, always will. Bahnhof-whatsit. Ridiculous.’

‘But this is terrible!’ Madame Durant was panic-stricken.

‘I don’t speak any German!’

We all stared at her.

‘Well, how am I supposed to find my way around my own town if I can’t tell the street names?’

We were so busy laughing that for a moment we did not notice the door open. But then the shop fell abruptly silent. I turned to see Liliane Béthune walk in, her head up, but failing to meet a single person’s eye. Her face was fuller than most, her clear skin rouged and powdered. She uttered a general ‘Bonjour,’ and reached into her bag. ‘Two loaves, please.’

She smelt of expensive scent, and her hair was swept up in curls. In a town where most women were too exhausted or too empty-handed to do anything but the minimum of personal grooming, she stood out like a glittering jewel. But it was her coat that drew my eye. I could not stop staring at it. It was jet black, made of the finest astrakhan lambskin and as thick as a fur rug. It had the soft sheen of something new and expensive, and the collar rose around her face as if her long neck were emerging from black treacle. I saw the older women register it, their expressions hardening as their gaze travelled down its length.

‘One for you, one for your German?’ Madame Durant muttered.

‘I said two loaves, please.’ She turned to Madame Durant. ‘One for me. One for my daughter.’

For once, Monsieur Armand did not smile. He reached under the counter, his eyes never leaving her face, and with his two meaty fists he slammed two loaves on to its surface. He did not wrap them.

Liliane held out a note, but he didn’t take it from her hand. He waited the few seconds it took her to place it on the counter, and then he picked it up gingerly, as if it might infect him. He reached into his till and threw two coins down in change, even as she held out her hand.

She looked at him, and then at the counter where the coins lay. ‘Keep them,’ she said. And, with a furious glance at us, she snatched up the bread, and swept out of the shop.

‘How she has the nerve …’ Madame Durant was never happier than when she was outraged by somebody else’s behaviour. Luckily for her, Liliane Béthune had granted her ample opportunity to exercise her fury over the past few months.

‘I suppose she has to eat, like everyone else,’ I said.