La Place De L'Étoile

by Patrick Modiano

  ‘Thank you, general.’

  Saul led me back to my cell. He threw a few punches but my warder seemed to have mellowed considerably since the previous night. I suspected him of eavesdropping. He had doubtless been impressed by the meekness I had shown with General Cohen.

  That night, Isaac and Isaiah bundled me into an army truck with a number of other young men, foreign Jews like me. They were all wearing striped pyjamas.

  ‘No talking about Kafka, Proust and that lot,’ said Isaiah.

  ‘When we hear the word culture, we reach for our truncheons,’ said Isaac.

  ‘We’re not too keen on intelligence,’ said Isaiah.

  ‘Especially when it’s Jewish,’ said Isaac.

  ‘And I don’t want any of you playing the martyr,’ said Isaiah, ‘it’s gone beyond a joke. It’s all very well you pulling long faces for the goyim back in Europe. But here there’s just us, so don’t waste your time.’

  ‘Understood?’ said Isaac. ‘You will sing until we reach our destination. A few patriotic songs will do you good. Repeat after me . . .’

  At about four in the afternoon, we arrived at the penal kibbutz. A huge concrete building surrounded by barbed wire. All around, the desert stretched as far as the eye could see. Isaiah and Isaac lined us up by the gates and took a roll call. There were eight of us: three English Jews, an Italian Jew, two German Jews, an Austrian Jew and me, a French Jew. The camp commandant appeared and stared at each of us in turn. The sight of this blond colossus in his black uniform did not fill me with confidence. And yet two Stars of David glittered on the lapel of his jacket.

  ‘A bunch of intellectuals, obviously,’ he roared at us furiously. ‘How can I be expected to create shock troops out of this human detritus? A fine reputation you lot have made for us in Europe with your whining and your critical thinking. Well, gentlemen, here there’ll be less bitching and more body building. There’ll be no criticism and lots of construction! Reveille tomorrow morning at 06.00 hours. Now, up to your dormitory. Come on! Move it! Hup Two! Hup Two!’

  Once we were in bed, the camp commandant strode into the dormitory followed by three young men as tall and blond as himself.

  ‘These are your supervisors,’ he said in a soft voice, ‘Siegfried Levy, Günther Cohen, Herman Rappoport. These archangels will knock you into shape! The slightest insubordination is punishable by death! Isn’t that so, my darlings? Don’t hesitate to shoot them if they annoy you . . . A bullet in the temple, no discussions! Understood, my angels?’

  He gently stroked their cheeks.

  ‘I don’t want these European Jews undermining your moral fibre . . .’

  At 06:00 hours, Siegfried, Günther and Hermann dragged us from our beds, punching us as they did so. We pulled on our striped pyjamas. They led us to the administrative office of the kibbutz. We rattled off our surnames, first names, dates of birth to a dark-haired young woman wearing the regulation army khaki shirt and grey-blue trousers. Siegfried, Günther and Hermann stood behind the office door. One after another, my companions left the room after answering the young woman’s questions. My turn came. The young woman raised her head and stared me straight in the eye. She looked like the twin sister of Tania Arcisewska. She said:

  ‘My name is Rebecca and I love you.’

  I did not know how to answer.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘they’re going to kill you. You have to leave tonight. I’ll take care of everything. I’m an officer in the Israeli army so I don’t have to answer to the camp commandant. I’ll borrow a truck on the pretext that I have to go to Tel Aviv to attend a meeting of the chiefs of staff. You’ll come with me. I’ll steal Siegfried Levy’s papers and give them to you. That way you won’t have to worry about the police for the time being. Later, we’ll see what we can do. We could take the first boat to Europe and get married. I love you, I love you! I’ll have you brought to my office at eight o’clock tonight. Fall out!’

  We broke rocks in the blazing sun until 5 p.m. I had never handled a pickaxe before and my pale hands were bleeding horribly. Siegfried, Günther and Hermann smoked Lucky Strikes and stood guard. At no point during the day did they utter a single word and I assumed they were mute. Siegfried raised a hand to let us know our work was finished. Hermann walked over to the three English Jews, took out his revolver and shot them, his eyes utterly expressionless. He lit a Lucky Strike and puffed on it, staring up at the sky. After summarily burying the English Jews, our three guards led us back to the kibbutz. We were left to stare out through the barbed wire at the desert. At eight o’clock, Hermann Rappoport came to fetch me and escorted me to the administrative office.

  ‘I feel like having a little fun, Hermann!’ Rebecca said, ‘Leave this little Jew with me, I’ll take him to Tel Aviv, rape him and kill him, promise!’

  Hermann nodded.

  ‘Well then, it’s just the two of us!’ she said ominously.

  As soon as Rappoport left the room, she squeezed my hand affectionately.

  ‘Follow me, we don’t have a moment to lose!’

  We went out through the gates and climbed into a military truck. She got behind the steering wheel.

  ‘Freedom is ours!’ she said, ‘We’ll stop in a little while. You can slip on Siegfried’s uniform, I’ve just stolen it. His papers are in the inside pocket.’

  We reached our destination at 11 p.m.

  ‘I love you and I want to go back to Europe,’ she told me. ‘Here there’s nothing but thugs, soldiers, boy scouts and nudniks. In Europe we’ll be happy. We’ll be able to read Kafka to our children.’

  ‘Yes, my darling Rebecca. We’ll dance all night and tomorrow morning we’ll catch the first boat for Marseille!’

  The soldiers we encountered in the street snapped to attention as Rebecca passed.

  ‘I’m a lieutenant,’ she said, smiling. ‘But I can’t wait to throw this uniform away and go back to Europe.’

  Rebecca knew a clandestine nightclub in Tel Aviv where we danced to the songs of Zarah Leander and Marlene Dietrich. It was a very popular club among young women in the army. To gain admittance, their companions had to wear a Luftwaffe officer’s uniform. The dim lighting was conducive to intimacy. Their first dance was a tango, ‘Der Wind hat mir ein Lied erzählt’, sung by Zarah Leander in a smouldering voice. He murmured into Rebecca’s ear ‘Du bist der Lenz nachdem ich verlangte.’ During their second dance, ‘Schön war die Zeit’, he held her shoulders and kissed her passionately on the lips. The voice of Lala Andersen quickly snuffed out that of Zarah Leander. At the first words of ‘Lili Marlene’, they heard the police sirens. There was a great commotion but no one could get out: Commandant Elias Bloch, Saul, Isaac and Isaiah had burst into the club, waving their revolvers.

  ‘Round up all these fools,’ roared Bloch, ‘but first, do a quick identity check.’

  When his turn came, Bloch recognised him in spite of the Luftwaffe uniform.

  ‘Schlemilovitch? What are you doing here? I thought you had been sent to a disciplinary kibbutz! And wearing a Luftwaffe uniform! Clearly European Jews are irredeemable.’

  ‘Your fiancée?’ He gestured to Rebecca. ‘A French Jew I’m guessing? Dressed as an Israeli army officer! This just gets better and better! Look, here come my friends. Well, I’m a generous man, let’s crack open a bottle of champagne!’

  They were quickly surrounded by a group of revellers who clapped them on the shoulder. He recognised the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames, Vicomte Lévy-Vendôme, Paulo Hayakawa, Sophie Knout, Jean-Farouk de Mérode, Otto da Silva, M. Igor, the ageing Baroness Lydia Stahl, the princess Chericheff-Deborazoff, Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

  ‘I’ve just sold fifty thousand pairs of socks to the Wehrmacht,’ announced Jean-Farouk de Mérode as they sat down.

  ‘And I’ve sold ten thousand tins of paint to the Kreigsmarine,’ said Otto da Silva.

  ‘Did you know those boy scouts on Radio Londres have condemned me to death?’ said Paulo Haya
kawa. ‘They call me the “Nazi brandy bootlegger”!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Lévy-Vendôme, ‘we’ll buy up the French Résistants and the Anglo-Americans the same way we bought the Germans! Always keep in mind this maxim by our master Joanovici: “I did not sell myself to the Germans. It is I, Joseph Joanovici, Jew, who BUYS Germans.”’

  ‘I’ve been working for the French Gestapo in Neuilly for almost a week,’ said M. Igor.

  ‘I’m the best informant is Paris,’ said Sophie Knout. ‘They call me Miss Abwehr.’

  ‘I just love the Gestapo,’ said the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames,‘they’re so much more manly than everyone else.’

  ‘You’re so right,’ said Princess Chericheff-Deborazoff, ‘all those killers make me so hot.’

  ‘There’s a lot of good to be said for the German occupation,’ said Jean-Farouk de Mérode, flashing a purple crocodile-skin wallet stuffed with banknotes.

  ‘Paris is a lot calmer,’ said Otto da Silva.

  ‘The trees are blonder,’ said Paulo Hayakawa.

  ‘And you can hear the church bells,’ said Lévy-Vendôme.

  ‘I hope Germany is victorious!’ said M. Igor.

  ‘Would you care for a Lucky Strike?’ asked the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames, proffering a cigarette case of emerald-studded platinum. ‘I get them regularly from Spain.’

  ‘No, some champagne! Let’s drink to the health of the Abwehr!’ said Sophie Knout.

  ‘And the Gestapo!’ said Princess Chericheff-Deborazoff.

  ‘A little stroll in the Bois de Boulogne?’ suggested Commandant Bloch, turning toward him, ‘I feel like a breath of fresh air! Your fiancée can join us. We’ll meet up with our little gang on the Place de l’Étoile at midnight for a last drink!’

  They found themselves outside on the Rue Pigalle. Commandant Bloch gestured to the three white Delahayes and the black Citroën parked outside the club.

  ‘These all belong to our little gang,’ he explained. ‘We use the back Citroën for the round-ups. So let’s take one of the Delahayes, if you don’t mind. It will be more cheery.’

  Saul got behind the wheel, he and Bloch sat in the front, with Isaiah, Rebecca and Isaac in the back.

  ‘What were you doing at the Grand-Duc?’ Commandant Bloch asked him. ‘Don’t you know the nightclub is reserved for French Gestapo officers and black market traffickers?’

  As they approached the Place de l’Opéra, he noticed a large banner that read ‘KOMMANDANTUR PLATZ’.

  ‘How glorious to be riding in a Delahaye,’ said Bloch, ‘especially in Paris in May 1943. Don’t you agree, Schlemilovitch?’

  He stared at him intently. His eyes were kindly and compassionate.

  ‘Let’s make quite sure we understand one another, Schlemilovitch, I have no wish to thwart your vocation. Thanks to me, you will almost certainly be awarded the Martyr’s Palm you’ve aspired to since the day you were born. Oh yes, a little later, I plan to personally give you the greatest gift you could wish for: a bullet in the back of the neck! Beforehand, we will eliminate your fiancée. Happy?’

  To ward off his fear, he gritted his teeth and summoned his memories. His love affairs with Eva Braun and Hilda Murzzuschlag. His first strolls through Paris, summer 1940, in his SS Brigadenführer uniform: this was the dawn of a new era, they were going to cleanse the world, cure it forever of the Jewish plague. They had clear heads and blond hair. Later, his Panzer crushes the meadows of the Ukraine. Later still, here he is with Field Marshal Rommel striding through the desert sands. He is wounded in Stalingrad. The phosphorus bombs in Hamburg will do the rest. He followed the Führer to the last. Is he going to let himself be intimidated by Elias Bloch?

  ‘A burst of lead in the back of the head! What do you say, Schlemilovitch?’

  The eyes of commandant Bloch are on him again.

  ‘You’re one of the ones who takes his beating with a sad smile! A true Jew, the genuine, hundred per cent, made in Europa Jews.’

  They turned into the Bois de Boulogne.

  He remembers afternoons spent at the Pré-Catelan and the Grande Cascade under the watchful eye of Miss Evelyn but he will not bore you with his childhood. Read Proust, that would be best.

  Saul stopped the Delahaye in the middle of the Allée des Acacias. He and Isaac dragged Rebecca out and raped her in front of my very eyes. Commandant Bloch had already handcuffed me and the car doors were locked. It hardly mattered, I would not have lifted a finger to protect my fiancée.

  We drove towards the château de Bagatelle. Isaiah, more sophisticated than his two companions, gripped Rebecca by the throat and forced his penis into my fiancée’s mouth. Commandant Bloch gently stabbed me in the thighs with a dagger and before long my immaculate SS uniform was drenched with blood.

  Then the Delahaye stopped at the junction near Les Cascades. Isaiah and Isaac dragged Rebecca from the car again. Isaac grabbed her hair and tugged her head back. Rebecca started to laugh. The laugh grew louder, echoing around the woods, grew louder still until it reached a dizzying height and splintered into sobs.

  ‘Your fiancée has been liquidated,’ whispers Commandant Bloch, ‘don’t be sad. We have to get back to our friends!’

  And indeed the whole gang is waiting for us on the Place de l’Étoile.

  ‘It’s after curfew,’ says Jean-Farouk de Mérode, ‘but we have specially-issued Ausweise.’

  ‘Why don’t we go to the One-Two-Two,’ suggests Paulo Hayakawa. ‘They have sensational girls there. No need to pay. I just have to flash my French Gestapo card.’

  ‘Why don’t we conduct a few impromptu searches of the bigwigs in the neighbourhood?’ says M. Igor.

  ‘I’d rather loot a jeweller’s,’ says Otto da Silva.

  ‘Or an antiques shop,’ says Lévy-Vendôme, ‘I’ve promised Göring three Directoire desks.’

  ‘What do you say to a raid?’ asks Commandant Bloch, ‘I know a hideout of Résistants on the Rue Lepic.’

  ‘Wonderful idea!’ cries Princess Chericheff-Deborazoff. ‘We can torture them in my hôtel particulier on the Place d’Iéna.’

  ‘We are the kings of Paris,’ says Paulo Hayakawa.

  ‘Thanks to our German friends,’ says M. Igor.

  ‘Let’s have fun!’ says Sophie Knout, ‘we’re protected by the Abwehr and the Gestapo.’

  ‘Après nous le déluge!’ says the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames.

  ‘Why not come down to the Rue Lauriston,’ says Bloch, ‘I’ve just had three cases of whisky delivered. Let’s end the evening with a flourish.’

  ‘You’re right, commandant,’ says Paulo Hayakawa, ‘after all, they don’t call us the Rue Lauriston Gang for nothing.’

  ‘RUE LAURISTON! RUE LAURISTON!’ chant the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames and the Princess Chericheff-Deborazoff.

  ‘No point taking the cars,’ says Jean-Farouk de Mérode, ‘we can walk there.’

  Up to this point, they have been kind to me, but no sooner do we turn into the Rue Lauriston than they turn and glare at me in a manner that is unbearable.

  ‘Who are you?’ demands Paulo Hayakawa.

  ‘An agent with the Intelligence Service,’ says Sophie Knout.

  ‘Explain yourself,’ says Otto da Silva.

  ‘I don’t much care for that ugly mug of yours,’ declares the elderly Baroness Lydia Stahl.

  ‘Why are you dressed as an SS officer?’ Jean-Farouk de Mérode asks me.

  ‘Show me your papers,’ orders M. Igor.

  ‘Are you a Jew?’ asks Lévy-Vendôme. ‘Come on, confess!’

  ‘Who do you think you are, you little thug, Marcel Proust?’ inquires the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames.

  ‘He’ll tell us what we want to know in the end,’ declares Princess Chericheff-Devorazoff, ‘tongues are loosened at Rue Lauriston.’

  Bloch puts the handcuffs on me again. The others question me with renewed vigour. I feel a sudden urge to vomit. I lean against a doorway.

 
‘We don’t have time to waste,’ says Isaac, ‘March!’

  ‘Make an effort,’ says Commandant Bloch, ‘we’ll soon be there. It’s at number 93.’

  I stumble and collapse on the pavement. They encircle me. Jean-Farouk de Mérode, Paulo Hayakawa, M. Igor, Otto da Silva and Lévy-Vendôme are all wearing striking pink evening suits and fedoras. Bloch, Isaiah, Isaac, and Saul are more austere in their green trench coats. The Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames, Princess Chericheff-Devorazoff, Sophie Knout and the elderly Baroness Lydia Stahl are each wearing a white mink and a diamond rivière.

  Paulo Hayakawa is smoking a cigar and casually flicking the ash in my face, Princess Chericheff-Devorazoff is playfully jabbing my cheeks with her stiletto heels.

  ‘Aren’t you going to get up, Marcel Proust?’ asks the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames.

  ‘Come on, Schlemilovitch,’ Commandant Bloch implores me, ‘We only have to cross the street. Look, there’s number 93 . . .’

  ‘He is an obstinate young man,’ says Jean-Farouk de Mérode. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to drink a whisky. I can’t bear to be parched.’

  He crosses the road, followed by Paulo Hayakawa, Otto da Silva and M. Igor. The door to number 93 closes behind them.

  Sophie Knout, the elderly Baroness Lydia Stahl, Princess Chericheff-Devorazoff, and the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames quickly join them. The Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames wraps her mink coats around me, whispering in my ear:

  ‘This will be your shroud. Adieu, my angel.’

  This leaves Bloch, Isaac, Saul, Isaiah and Lévy-Vendôme. Isaac tries to haul me to my feet, tugging on the chain connecting the handcuffs.

  ‘Leave him,’ says Commandant Bloch, ‘he’s better lying down.’

  Saul, Isaac, Isaiah and Lévy-Vendôme go and sit on the steps outside number 93. They stare at me and weep.

  ‘I’ll join the others a little later,’ Commandant Bloch says to me in a sad voice. ‘The whisky and champagne will flow as usual on Rue Lauriston.’

  He brings his face close to mine. He really is the spitting image of my old friend Henri Chamberlin-Lafont.