She’d been warned never to go back to Suresnes, the area of her childhood home. People would recognise her, could betray her. But, desperate for new places to transmit, she made her way there. The streets were so familiar, it was as though no time had passed. Noor found herself within a hundred metres of Fazal Manzil, her old house, when something made her stop.
Instead, she made her way to the house of an old family friend.
‘Noor!’ Madame nearly dropped the vase she was holding when Noor asked her if she could use her house. Pulling Noor inside, she whispered urgently, ‘There are Germans everywhere. We’re surrounded.’ She took her to the kitchen, and pointed. ‘See. Fazal Manzil. Occupied by Nazis.’
Noor felt ill to think of her lovely home so infested, and relieved that she hadn’t gone there first.
Another old friend who lived nearby was happier about Noor using her house. Soon Noor was appearing there every afternoon with her suitcase, taking a chance every time that someone might recognise her and report her.
Paris sweltered in the heat. Noor flitted between the different houses and meeting places, collecting information and passing it on, criss-crossing the city, becoming thinner and increasingly exhausted.
Her messages to London were extremely important. She told them about the German torpedoes that were being stored in the sewers, asked for explosives to be sent to the Resistance, helped agents escape to England, and arranged for false documents.
London had asked her to work with a man called Gieules to set up a network in the north of France. Noor introduced him to several agents in Paris, and set up a meeting for him with a British officer.
When she made it back to her apartment at the end of every day, she collapsed into the armchair – exhausted, but exhilarated, too. She was doing what she’d come to Paris for, and it made her feel proud.