“Merci.”
He gets up from his chair, fusses with his trouser creases, and once I’m out of the kitchen, calls for Moeder.
*
Two unfamiliar cars full of big dogs and men have now left Jeanne Tremblant’s property and we’re on our own again, with the battering night outside our four walls.
Moeder heats up the stew she’s made and cuts half a loaf into five unequal portions. I’m allowed to stay up after all, but prefer my room and my friendly dolls to this frightened silence. No-one stops me or says ‘dormes bien,’ but the moment I’m outside the door, crouching on the bottom stair, an argument begins.
I listen…
“He expected me to hand over my bloody rifle and hand gun, and account for every second of the past two days...” Joop bangs the table, making the cutlery rattle. “Why’s half-wit Espaza picking on me?”
“He’s not, son,” says Vader. “I had the same treatment. The man is a Catalonian donkey. What else do you expect?”
“Those Boussioux peasants have weapons too. Including knives. I bet they’re keeping them.”
“And trying to pin the old girl’s murder on us,” says Christian. “Everyone knows they’ve been after her land for years. But is anyone listening?”
I am, I reply to myself. For as long as it takes.
Chapter 56. John.
Tuesday 22nd April. 10:14 hours.
“I don’t want to build up your hopes, Monsieur Lyon, but it seems Dr. Fürst may be coming round,” said Sister Radas when I called the Clinic from Rotterdam’s busy airport just north of the city. Her English fluent, on a good line. “She’s showing signs of agitation, saying the odd words, but we daren’t try and sedate her. Not yet.”
“What words?”
“Joop. Dog meat. All cut up, cut, cut... Can you make sense of that?”
“Yes.” Also sensing a shiver.
“Moving well too, considering.”
I smiled but felt hollow. I’d put my mission in Holland over Karen’s safety, and would just have to trust this nurse and the guards to be alert. To keep anyone suspicious away. Particularly someone who’d been tailing her too long.
“She may have a visitor planning to harm her again,” I began, trying to shut out the hubbub around me. “I mean it.”
“Who exactly?”
“Her elder brother. Father Léon Diderot from Les Platanes in Villedieu, and also 44, Rue des Coquelicots in Dansac But I believe his real name is most likely Joop Maurits Ryjkel, originally from Rotterdam, like the rest of her family.”
Silence.
“We’ve not been told anything. So, what’s happened between them?” This clearly more interested in relationships than official delays.
“Perhaps she’ll tell us before it’s too late.”
The line suddenly broke up. I’d also planned to ask if Karen might still have to lose three toes but had to move fast to reach Perpignan by tomorrow. Meanwhile, the shuttle bus to the city’s harbour district was almost due. Just enough time to call Carol, but not to check if if L’Indépendent had published anything on Herman. My first question.
“No. But some girl calling herself Mireille has just phoned,” my sister tetchily replied. “We really don’t appreciate our ex-directory number going out to all and sundry. Especially a schoolgirl.”
“She’s not a schoolgirl. She was training to be a nun. Besides, I found her extremely helpful.”
I could have beefed about her passing my photo to the paper. Instead, asked if Mireille had left any message.
“To call her as soon as you can. And,” the sisterly tone grew even more stern. “Stick to the grey brigade, John. Even your Dutch - I mean, German - friend sounds a better bet. We can’t afford to bale you out on under-age charges. How is your new copaine, by the way?”
“Getting there.”
“She may have brain damage. Be careful what you commit yourself to,” she added. Typical Carol. And yet, if Karen did pull through, I might need thm both in the interim, for where else could she possibly go that would be as safe?
*
I blocked the future out as I queued for the shuttle which dropped me where the oilysea smell seemed to coat my tongue. Cargo vessels to and from every destination, dipped and swayed on the Köningshaven’s tide for as far beyond the Erasmus Bridge as I could see, while nearby, behind the Maritime Museum, a massive, black, semi-abstract sculpture of a man in anguish, seemed to touch my soul.
A city destroyed. And not just a city...
The biting wind made the passing lunchtime crowds hunch forwards, their feet trapped by blown litter. Gulls too, foundered in the blast, and gave up trying, while beyond cranes and clutter, the grey North Sea matched my mood.
“Winterstrasse, please?” I asked the first person I could find. A skinny guy with a rucksack whose yellow Mohican spine swayed back and fore in the wind.
“Going alone?”
“Yep.”
“You know about that street?”
“Should I?”
“Let’s just say you’ve got the Free Holland HQ surrounded by Kurdish wetbacks. Trouble every week there, but nothing changes. The shit goes on...”
“Free Holland?”
“Neo-Nazi wankers in sharp suits, Audis, BMWs the works.” He looked at my suit, frowning. “Can’t bloody touch ’em. Number 148 it is.”
“Thanks,” as a shiver crept through my body. And why was something Capitaine Serrado had said, nudging my memory?
“Cheers.”
Then he was gone, as if his spectacular hair had borne him away. I paused, letting a moment of panic pass. What was I hoping to achieve here, so far from that incomprehensible world I’d been drawn into among Roussillon’s mighty crags and rivers? So far from Nottingham’s familiar streets and the life I’d once had?
October 10th 1942 had to be the answer to past and present tragedy.
*
Squalor spilled from every brick, every broken window. Loose drainpipes swayed in limbo, banging against the walls they were meant to protect. And everywhere, suspicion lay in people’s eyes, their pale, pinched faces. Their clothes, except for the frequent black niquab, made mine, thanks to my brother-in-law, look like Jean-Paul Gaultier.
No sign of the promised Audis as I neared the unprepossessing block that housed a busy launderette, two boarded-up premises and then number 148, the Headquarters itself. Several handwritten sheets of paper in a language I couldn’t decipher, featuring swastikas, had been tied to those lamp posts closest to a steel office door and its tinted, bullet-proof glass front window.
GESLOTEN TIJDENS DE LUNCHPAUZE CLOSED FOR LUNCH
And yet, shadows seemed to be shifting behind this darkened space, encouraging me to ring once, twice, three times for luck. I glanced up to see a more ordinary window begin to open. A young woman whose shiny, blonde hair had blown back from her perfect features, stared down at me.
“It’s urgent,” I said to her, aware of passers-by pausing, muttering in incomprehensible tongues, giving me a wide berth. As for the blonde, my borrowed suit and coat seemed to have worked, and before closing the window, she directed me to the back of the building via a weedy alleyway. “We never use the main door. The Métèques don’t like us.”
I could tell.
And I’ve never liked being overlooked. Windows opposite, especially those veiled by net curtains, make me nervous. And here I was surrounded by completely bare ones framing yet more tense faces. A small, dark-skinned lad was hanging half in, half out three storeys up. I wanted to yell at him to get inside before he fell; to the older youth holding his ankles not to let go. Me all over, that. Never one to stand by.
Except for Constable Ben Rogers…
“Let ‘im drop,” she said in a perfect Estuary accent, swiftly shutting and locking the back door behind me. “Be one less.”
“Bloody foreigners, I added to draw her out some mre. “Swamping
everywhere.”
“Why we’re ‘ere, innit?”
&nb
sp; I forced a grin, relieved that same daredevil lad was being hauled inside to safety. Also, that this girl might, with encouragement, be forthcoming. A natural blonde, I noticed, but whose skin in close-up was nowhere near as good as Karen’s, and when she’d laughed at my ‘foreigners’ remark, her teeth seemed oddly arranged in her mouth. However, she was certainly dressed for the part. Her black, tailored suit fitted tightly around her body. Five-inch black heels to boot.
“Come to ‘elp our cause, have ye? Stop ‘em taking over this marshmallow country? The whole of bloody Europe?” Her green eyes looked me up and down expectantly.
“If I can.”
“So, who are ye, and what’s so urgent?”
During the flight from Perpignan, I’d rehearsed a new ID with tmy usual embellishments in the history area, while the extra, so far unused passport issued in July 1984, that I’d taken from the Rue des Coquelicots, was a fair enough match. Perhaps older versions maybe showing useful evidence of any trips to the UK, had been destroyed.
Sharon Palmer scanned the details without seeming to notice my ad hoc alterations to the photo with ballpoint and Tippex, or the difference in eye and jaw shapes. Perhaps a retirement hobby was looming.
“I prefer yer ‘air short like it is now, mind,” she handed it back to me. “We’ve quite a few of the God Squad on our books - seventy-two priests and three bishops, to be precise,” was said with pride. “I’d say they’re the most dedicated an’ thorough of the lot. Mind you, I’d never ‘ave put you as one of ‘em.”
“I sometimes forget it myself,” I said, mildly put out she’d not remarked on the fact that Joop Maurits Ryjkel looked far more senior to me.
“‘Ow’s yer Dutch?” She asked.
Panic.
“Forgotten it totally since living in France. I can’t be the only one...”
“You ain’t.” She switched on one of three computers lined up against the nearest wall. André Besson’s machine had also listed current participants and their personal details, but this covered September 1940, with quite a different font. Thick and extra black.
L’ASSOCIATION DES ENFANTS JUIVES..
Seeing those very words brought another chill and before she’d scrolled to the end, I’d already spotted three familiar names. His, and those of Pablo Lopez together with Girard Mannion, 59 years, who’d joined in August 1942 aged 14 years old. Current address, 73, Rue de Razès. Carcassonne. Another home harbouring silent secrets.
I could barely keep pace with her cursor highlighting the other criminals’ details and potted bios. Alize Saporo; even the Suzman kids - Paul, Jules and Marie, but no Joel. This only strengthened my belief that he, the pawn, had been set up. Next came Ricard Suzman then aged thirty-four - one of the original members - proving the chainer Lopez’s believably harrowing story that the rescuers’ three other ‘helpers’ had also been victims of the Milice, was in fact, a lie.
All six responsible for the Dansac massacre had been spared; and even prospered under Vichy.
But why no Joop Ryjkel’s name from that era? Perhaps he’d lapsed, being too busy with other activities. I tried to disguise my relief. Masquerading as him just then, was tricky enough.
“Do you keep a record of former members and when they left?” I asked, once the screen lay empty for my details.
“Not once they’ve gone. Like you, Mijnhir Ryjkel, they prefer a clean slate. One of the membership conditions.”
Very commendable.
“Well, right now, Sharon, I want to re-join. Do you need any other documentation?”
*
Sharon Palmer had, since 1975 been a founder member of what had been re-named Free Holland. Time out after a tourism course at Thurrock Tech. had brought her to Rotterdam and a chance meeting with X, the boss whose name she wouldn’t divulge. Now they were an item and she was three months’ pregnant, all seemed settled.
A future with a purpose for her own and the next generation.
“Coffee?” she asked, drawing breath.
“Thanks.”
She teetered into a tiny kitchenette, still ranting. “Never mind dwellin’ on the past, what’s important is now and the future. That Holland and the rest of Europe are facin’ an even greater danger from not only Jews. We’re sleepwalkin’ into another war, believe me. And anyone wiv kids and grandkids, should be pullin’ together to protest...”
“I quite agree.”
My drink came in a mug decorated by an image of a white candle. I was
tempted to ask if another ‘final solution’ was on the cards, but instead, played along
with her. Biding what little time I had. She then handed me a registration form, with
half a page to fill with my views on the benefits of strong national identities and how to achieve them. The coffee smell was making me hungry and nauseous at the same time, however I obliged. Why the Welsh should keep welcoming their incomers with real fires. Why England should be for the English only, with only Christian faith schools, and so on, until a police siren screeched on by in the street outside. She’d tensed, then soon regained her pert composure once it had passed.
“Do the filth harass you?” I said, having written a paragraph on Paris and its problem with ‘noirs.’.
“Yeah, loads. But then some of ‘em are on our books. Active fieldworkers. They fuckin’ hate what’s happenin’ ‘ere.” She took a sip from her mug. Scalded her lip and grimaced. “So, Joop, what’s with the history?”
“Like I said, despite my age, I occasionally lecture to students preparing for their Bac. They’re really scared of the future, like I used to be. However, I need background. Facts, so that personal opinion is seen to be reinforced by research. That’s the buzz word now, specially with colleges and universities. No research, no funding. Simple as that.” I leaned forwards, keeping eye contact.
“So, what are White Light’s origins?”
She hesitated. Checked her watch. Moved my completed form over to her side of the small table and scanned it.
“A big umbrella, if you like. Under it, came L’Association des Enfants Juives that focussed on - so they said - savin’ Yid kids once the purge started after Vienna’s Kristallnacht. Had the money to do it, too.”
Yid kids? I wanted to smack her in the mouth.
“Where from?”
“The Reichstag itself. All very clever. They began by offerin’ exchanges between German Yid kids and French Yid kids. Just to create a sense of security. Clever, eh? So, loads of families moved south of the Loire, thinkin’ they’d be
safe. But no-one realised how willin’ both the Krauts and Frogs were to be rid.”
She took another more cautious sip from her mug. A ring on every finger. Pewter and black. “Yids first, then Gyppos, you name it. Never mind gays and Spanish commies. And to make the AEJ sound more, you know, appealin’ it became Opération Anges. I mean, who could resist?”
Again, I struggled to keep my hands to myself.
“The ‘omes ‘ad been specially built, but after a year or so, were used for other purposes instead. ”
“Deportations?”
She shrugged.
“If ye like. No-one suspected a thing, until these kids from the camps never came back. All pretty clever, don’t you think?”
My coffee suddenly tasted foul inside my mouth. It was hard to keep my fingers from her bobbing throat, while the gale outside intensified, battering the office’s walls, bringing those loose down-pipes clanging to the ground.
“Like I said,” she continued, regardless, “we in White Light see a bigger issue than Yids, and by that I mean a frigging global Caliphate.”
She drained her coffee cup, stood up and pulled her skirt over her knees.
“There’ll be no jobs, seizure of bank accounts, and ‘omes. Gradually takin’ away their power... it’ll ‘appen all over again. It must.”
“You speak with such authority,” I flattered, repulsed. “Did you happen to find any leftover material, documents whatever, w
hen you took over here? Anything on the AEJ or Opération Anges for example? Even a monthly mag called Sanctum?”
Her made-up eyes brightened.
“Yeah, we did. But X wanted to burn all that shit. Said we ‘ad enough of it waitin’ to hit the fan as it was. Didn’t stop Peridot, the publishers hassling us for a few months, mind.”
“And just supposing the AEJ had dropped money for their willing workers to continue, would they want proof it had been collected?”
“Four million?” She looked at me. “Sure. By return.”
No sign of that in the Rue des Coquelicots...
Just then, above the buffeting wind, a phone’s ring filled the office’s bare shell. Karen my first thought.
It can’t be. No-one knows I’m here...
Sharon Palmer kicked off her shoes and ran into the kitchenette. With her back turned towards me, her sharp reply suddenly lowered in tone, I knew the signs all too well. I’d probably been traced here, and certainly wasn’t going to wait until that warning call ended...
Chapter 57. John.
As my two-hour flight back to Perpignan wasn’t until 17:20 hours, I had to choose between Karen’s former home near the Cathedral, or another’s. I picked up a cab
by a café whose Reggae throb almost drowned my shout for a road named Mistenlaan in the Schipvroom district. House number 122, to be exact.
“Nice, quiet part,” the Aussie driver shouted back. “Got rellies there?”
“Could say that,” as we left the teeming harbour behind and headed for the city centre via an unspectacular ring road. “We may be being followed. Can you keep a look-out?”
“No worries.”
The cab swayed from side to side as it overtook one cagoule-clad cyclist after another, each clearly out of control amongst the tram lines.
“Bloody morons,” he said, sounding his horn. “Haven’t a clue.” He then eyed me through his rear-view mirror. “Business or pleasure? Mind me asking?”
“Pleasure. One hundred per cent.”
*
Finally, having been dropped off in a residential street of modest, red-bricked houses, lined by still-bare trees, I paid with the guilders I’d bought at the airport, adding a generous tip. I then asked if he could pick me up again in fifteen minutes.
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