Lily Lian died on May 24th

THE FIRST OF May had a special place on Lily Lian’s calendar. It was her birthday, to begin with. It was also May Day, the workers’ holiday, when she would sing revolutionary songs at the Communards’ Wall, the Mur des Fédérés, in Père Lachaise cemetery. Her father, a fighter in the Resistance, was buried close to it with other communist heroes. She felt proud to salute him, even if her view of him was scarred by bitter rows. And May Day was the fête du muguet, when strolling vendors sold lilies-of-the-valley to passers-by. These sprang up in the woods, and so had she, a love-child conceived in some mossy corner near Versailles. She and the flower-sellers often found themselves together by the Wall.