“Of course he was; they were doing a lot of the digging in the part of the town known as Les Balances – they found most of our statuary. We bought it for very high prices.”
The Professor gave an elf chuckle. “Our people thought it was Foreign Intelligence which wanted to free him because of the secrets he knew. Hence the interrogation. But you have confirmed my own surmise – it was just a friendly act by the gypsies who were his friends. Thank you, Your Highness.” He stood up, for in the mirror among the clustering palms in tubs he had caught a glimpse of Constance returning. “I don’t wish to disturb you any longer. But if there are any other afterthoughts please let me know – here is my number. I could arrange for you to visit him, if you so wished – either of you.” For Constance had seated herself and after nodding good morning, was looking from one face to the other to try and seize the thread of their conversation. The Prince explained, “It’s about Quatrefages. He is in the local asylum. This wretched treasure – now it’s Hitler who is after it, one can’t imagine why. He can’t need the money I shouldn’t suppose!”
The Professor permitted himself to say, with a becoming unction, “The Führer’s motives are not pecuniary, I can assure you; his interest is a mystical one, to trace the roots of the Templar beliefs, the secret of their downfall. German freemasonry was also involved in their history – I suppose you would know that?”
He seemed anxious to justify himself and indeed re-open the conversation, but he received no encouragement from the Prince, who nodded curtly and with a dismissive air said, “Ah, I see Madame Quiminal coming into the hotel. Let us order some more breakfast for her, shall we?” The Professor accepted his cue and made his departure but not before giving Constance a card with his phone number on it. “In case you might ever have news for me, or information for me,” he explained hastily and saluting turned away to make room for the newcomer who came smiling to their table. She was grateful to spend a moment with them before the office opened. “I will be frank,” she said. “I have been told that the hotel can afford real coffee because its patrons are army people.” But though the coffee was good the hotel seemed completely empty. Although Nancy Quiminal was handsome in her unusual fair-skinned way she was clad in rather a perfunctory fashion, and her shoes were very worn. She caught Constance’s eye as it roved over her attire and she said, “Eh bien, I know. You are looking at my shoes with surprise.” “On the contrary,” said Constance, “I took a walk this morning to look at the shops – there is nothing in them! And when I think how chic the town was as a shopping centre.” Quiminal made a grimace. She did not comment further. But when they rose to go she asked if they might take the bread and croissants with them because one never knew … She wrapped them swiftly in a paper napkin and placed them in her much used shopping bag. Then she led them to where their new office was to be created in the back block of apartments which adjoined the handsome central Mairie which looked out over the famous square with its formal Monument des Morts wreathed in metal tracery of breath-taking flamboyance, and contrasting so definitively with the sobriety and ampleness of the theatre. The great central court of the Mairie with its fat classical columns was swept with icy draughts, for a traditional mistral had begun to blow. “We will call on the mayor,” said their mentor, “but don’t say much to him; he is one of them.” She jerked her head with contempt and looked as if she were about to spit. They climbed the beautiful staircase in silence, digesting this information. But it was only to be expected that the Germans would appoint people they could trust, and Constance said as much, sotto voce. But Nancy Quiminal said, “No. He was here before. Anyway it is for you to judge.” And she threw open a door on the first landing and ushered them into a handsome high-ceilinged apartment where M. le Maire sat at a vast desk, his shoulders bowed under a quilt whose function was to keep him warm enough to sign the documents which issued from his department. He looked both pleasant and quite intelligent, and offered them chairs with courtesy and a certain dignity. “I have heard nothing official, but I gather from common gossip that you are going to come and install yourselves here for the Red Cross. I would say welcome, if things were not so difficult. My poor country!” He saw them eyeing a portrait of Pétain on the wall behind his desk, and made a grimace of distaste and sadness. “Ah, the Marshal,” he said tenderly, “without him it would have been worse – a total defeat! He is saving as much as he can, but even he is not superhuman.” There was an awkward pause; Madame Quiminal rose and excused herself, saying that she would precede them to the offices which had been set aside for them. “I think M. le Maire will want to talk to you for a moment by himself,” she added tactfully.
For the mayor it seemed an unexpected idea. He asked them a few questions about the sort of organisation they were minded to father upon the town, and seemed quite pleased at the idea that through the Red Cross they might have access to medical supplies and food parcels for the new prisoners. “All is chaos,” he said, “for the moment. There are new camps being used as transit camps for prisoners.… Supplies are always short.” Then, somewhat to their surprise, he said that while all knew that Madame Quiminal was indispensable to the Red Cross she was not … here he paused to seek the right phraseology: she was “not a woman to whom one could say everything”. Constance showed her surprise so plainly that the mayor went on to explain that he had nothing against her personally, she was very good at her job. “But there are ambiguities. They say, for example, that she accepts the favours of a German officer, indeed the head of the Gestapo here!” This really took the wind out of Constance’s sails; she felt her nascent indignation subside in astonishment and sadness at the thought. “She must have her reasons,” she said with asperity and the mayor agreed with his gestures that there was no doubt about the matter. “Nevertheless,” he said, “it makes one hesitate. You see, there are many people who are frankly on the side of the … enemy. One has to be rather careful. But there, I don’t want to depress you with such matters. Come, I will take you to your offices myself.”
Together they negotiated several corridors until at last tall doors opened upon a pleasant suite of rooms in one of which sat Nancy Quiminal at a desk devoid of paper as yet, knitting and reading. The mayor made his adieus with a formal correctness full of reserve.
Outside in the square there came the tramping of boots as a contingent of infantry crossed it on the way to the fortress where they were quartered. It was a strange sight. Constance stood at the window watching the soldiers, lost in thought; the town was all but deserted. Where, one might wonder, were all the inhabitants of the famous city, normally so eager for diversion that the faintest hint of marching feet, or of drum and trumpet, impelled them immediately into the open streets and squares, keen to mingle into a procession or join a dance-measure? A few shabby housewives skulked here and there like mangy cats, holding empty shopping-bags. Members of the new Milice – les barbouzes as they came to be called – strutted awkwardly about in their newly minted apparel. Latins are always conspicuously dangerous when they are serving an unpopular cause for money. It would have been folly to smile at their get-up for they were armed with out-of-date but still quite serviceable weaponry.
They had taken an oath to save the French nation from a besetting Jewry and on them was beginning to fall the onus for the rounding-up of the victims; it had become almost as familiar a processional feature of the town’s life as the dustbin round had once been, and would again be when they got it going. The air of solemn legality was absolutely breathtaking when one understood the issues at stake. Constance could hardly believe her eyes as she watched them pass down the boulevard upon their appointed errand, flanked and headed by motor-cycle combines.
The most important thing, she reflected, as she stood on the balcony of the Mairie which formed a most useful belvedere over the town, was to make her appearance as commonplace and down at heel as possible, so as not to appear conspicuous in so much shabbiness. The Prince, who stood beside her, stirred uneasily in h
is cold shoes and said, but without much conviction, “I suppose it will all settle down one day.” He had spent an active and not unsuccessful morning in taking up old contacts dating from his Provençal sojourn, and he was relieved to find that many had gone to ground in strategic positions – some in the police des moeurs, some in the Milice, some in road-haulage and land speculation. With their help he had even made a brief visit to the brothel where he was accustomed in the old days to pass an occasional evening, but he found the girls somewhat dispirited and depressed. Their clients were now a superior officer class, but mean with the money. All the girls had been issued with ivory swastikas which they wore over their tin crosses and birthday medallions. They were pleased to see the Prince, though they at once concluded that he was pro-Nazi and this somewhat dampened their elation. Nothing he could say would convince them of the contrary. Nor was there time to do much more than distribute some sweets to the pallid rachitic children. It was with something of a pang that he said goodbye.
There were days when one felt like this – that all was lost, or that the war could not be finally won in under a decade. How could one blame people for not believing in the Allies, for picking up the shattered pieces of their lives and trying to reassemble them again, even in the shadow of the black swastika? He sighed and she looked at him affectionately, saying, “You are in a mood today, aren’t you?” He nodded. It was true, and there were a number of reasons. He was not happy about leaving her here in order to go north for discussions over the Jews which he now felt would be fruitless. He had thought at first that the French were simply hostages to fortune, forced to do the bidding of the invaders; he had been disillusioned and disgusted to discover that, on the contrary, quite a number were active anti-semites at heart and only too glad to assist in the persecution of this gifted and ill-fated tribe. He had heard stories of the French concentration camps which froze his blood with indignation and horror – places with such poetical names as Rivesaltes and Argelès, as Noé and Récébédou in the Haute Garonne; but nearest of all was the camp of Gurs in the Pyrenees, which had become a byword for its open brutalities. He became quite pale as he retailed these stories to Constance. “I have been wondering what we could do, if anything; could we ask to visit them? I know, it’s premature. I’m jumping the gun. Let us get established first. O my dear, things are much worse than I imagined. These Germans, they are not only foul, but they revel in foulness for its own sake. What have we done to deserve such things in this century?”
She did not know what to say to console him. Almost every day now the buses went the rounds of the old town, openly, industriously, like bees from flower to flower, combing out their human prey with all the appearance of solemn legality. A uniformed officer presided, holding a typed list of names of the wanted Jews. Nor did the victims ever seem to fly, they waited in a kind of paralysed apathy for the green buses to draw up at their door. There was never a struggle, a protest. The Gestapo was using the familiar green buses known to Parisians, with the broad balcony astern, secured by an iron chain and bolt. This made a characteristic click as it slipped into place. Years afterwards Constance was to remember that little click in the post-war Paris, for the same type of bus was still in use.
She was thinking of other things. She said, “Tomorrow I am to visit the house once more!” She squeezed his arm as she said the words in order to make her voice sound even and natural. It was hard, for emotion and excitement welled up in her when she thought of that bleak little manor-house in the woods, with its high windows and dormer roofs set at ungainly angles. It stayed in her memory like a human face – the face of some meek old housekeeper worn down by a life of household cares. She recalled the last look back at it, as the gate clicked shut – clicked shut upon what had now become the last summer in Eden before the Fall. She had some vaguely stirring premonition that much would be decided by this visit, though in telling herself this she could not exactly explain in what sense, nor fully account for the heightened sense of expectancy. It was as if she might meet her lover there once more, by accident – or something of that order. What rubbish!
The chilly airs at last drove them back into the bright high-windowed rooms of M. le Maire, but not before they had become aware that down there in the almost deserted square a new sort of movement had begun to come into being; by slow seepage a crowd was forming and advancing gradually down the side streets towards the Monument des Morts. It increased in density as it slowly pushed its way through the narrow arteries which all led in the direction of the Mairie with its wide central square. Yet the pace was slow, almost leisurely, like that of a flock of sheep being coaxed along; in this case, though, the shepherds were uniformed men armed with automatic rifles, a sight which stirred their every anxiety. Their thoughts turned to reprisals, punishments, massacres – the last months had conditioned them to expect the unexpected. But no, apparently, for the mayor took his place beside them inside the sheltering windows, and said, “Ah! It’s the bicycles.” She echoed the word at him in surprise and he smiled reassuringly and said, “It is for today, together with the handing-in of shotguns.”
They saw now that the crowd indeed consisted only of cyclists wheeling their machines; they were ushered, urged, guided into the main square where under the tutelage of the soldiers and the Milice the bikes were abandoned on the ground while the owners were motioned back to the perimeters of the square to become no longer actors but spectators of the scene which was about to take place. It took a little time but gradually the thick carpet of bicycles spread over the ground; many of the owners, now watching from under the trees, were schoolgirls. They were in tears. They felt that something dire was to befall their machines and they were not wrong. Quiminal caught sight of her own daughters in the crowd and asked to be excused so that she could descend and offer them her comfort against the loss they were to suffer. She slipped across the square towards the pretty young adolescents, herself as graceful as a doe. She put her arms comfortingly round their shoulders and spoke to them smilingly. A silence fell for a moment.
Presently there came a stir and some senior German officers made an appearance, obviously to preside over the proceedings and to emphasise their significance. They climbed up on to a dais, whereupon a signal was given at which, with a rustle of steel meshes, two light tanks wallowed into the square, like bulls into a ring, and commenced to devour the bicycles with great zest. Like minotaurs they addressed themselves to the fallen bicycles and reduced them to shivers with their jaws. The officers watched with approval, the crowd with disdain and sadness. The operation proceeded with speed and method. The carpet of bicycles was gradually rolled back, and as gradually the Milice started to dust the residue of steel towards the centre of the square, forming it into heaps for disposal. Here and there a bicycle which had arrived late on to the scene was fed to the tanks like a Christian being fed to the lions. “It’s unbelievable,” cried Constance, watching. “What unbelievable spitefulness!”
“Au contraire,” said the mayor, who had come back to her side after taking a telephone call, “it’s a calculated military move to prevent messages being carried to the Resistance in the hills – supposing that there is such a thing!”
“In what way?” she said, and he smiled as he replied, “A bike does some ten miles an hour. They already control petrol and the cars. It would be hard for me to send a message to the hills, and harder now without bicycles. They are very thorough, our friends.”
Together they watched the systematic destruction for a long moment, the conversion of the bicycles into mounds of dusty steel fragments. By now, too, brooms had been produced and the watching crowd was invited to sweep the débris into the middle of the square where a lorry might gather it all up. “Ainsi soit-il,” said the mayor sadly. “For those who live in the villages and shop in town it will be very cruel indeed. Horses would come back into favour – but I fear the majority have already been eaten! What more can I say?”
There was nothing to be said. The perfo
rmance was over and now the shepherds began to manifest impatience with the sloppy, tearful crowd which still surrounded the square, as if unable to disperse, to tear itself away from the sad spectacle. Those who had come from the villages were indeed wondering how they would get home. Now they were ordered to disperse, with gruffness; they obeyed slowly and reluctantly – too reluctantly for the Milice in their new get-up. There was a menacing clicking to accompany the orders as the firearms were primed for action. Those with brooms started to sweep literally, at the feet of the crowd, driving it back into the side streets from which it had emerged to form this assembly – now riders sans steeds. Nancy Quiminal had rejoined them now, still smiling but albeit somewhat tearfully – on behalf of her daughters, so to speak. “It’s too much really,” she said. “Every day something new. The poor lycéens are stricken to the heart, for their bikes were gifts for first communion or good work or whatnot. Thank God we live in the town.”
When it came to taking their leave she elected to walk Constance back to her hotel, and together they crossed the icy marble halls of the Mairie and descended the broad stairway outside which a lorry was busy sweeping up the litter left by the bicycle episode. A chill wind stirred the trees and Constance thought with distaste of the unheated hotel and her cold bed which awaited her. As they fell into step Quiminal said, “I would have liked to have you home for some tea – I managed to get some fuel for the old wood central heating today: but I am expecting a visit, alas! I suppose the mayor has told you about me?”
“Yes,” said Constance, surprised and relieved in a way that there should be no secrets between them. “He warned me against you!” Quiminal smiled. “Good,” she said. “It’s his duty and his right. He is for Pétain – what can you expect?”
“But I was surprised.”
“Were you?”
The Avignon Quintet Page 75