by Peter May
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He asks if she would like more wood on the fire. She has remained close to it, and the embers are undoubtedly still warming her. But he feels the temperature falling.
She looks up, surprised. ‘Are you cold, monsieur?’ she asks.
‘A little.’ Perhaps it is because the sun is lost now in autumn cloud, and the warmth it shed earlier through glass has dissipated.
‘By all means,’ she says, and he rises stiffly to lift a couple of logs from the basket and arrange them carefully on the glowing braises, unsure whether they will catch. ‘Use the bellows,’ she counsels.
The bellows lean against a blackened side wall and he lifts them to direct air at the embers, watching how with each puff they glow, and then spark, raising the first smoke from the fresh logs. Satisfied now that the fire will take, he returns to his seat. Hunger is a distraction, but it is not long before he is once more absorbed in her story . . .
Georgette was almost demented after three months in the attic of her safe house in the Loire. A ramshackle old farmhouse whose roof leaked on her when it rained, and chilled her when the autumn wind blew. The risk of going out without papers was increased by the possibility of collaborators informing the authorities.
She had read until her eyes watered, and evolved a daily exercise régime to keep herself fit. Mostly it was the farmer’s wife who had brought her food, but sometimes it was the farmer himself. A ruddy-faced man with eyes that undressed her. He would engage her in uncomfortable conversation, staying much longer than required, a strange, lascivious smile never far from his lips. The latent threat of something more sinister in his intent was ever-present.
Physical fitness was easy to maintain; mental acuity was not. Hope gave way to depression. Depression to despair. And she found herself, latterly, crying herself to sleep at night, burying her face in the pillow.
It wasn’t until Lucien climbed up into the attic one bright winter morning that hope flooded like light back into her life. She remembered very well the man who had led her through the woods in the dark the night that Hugh Verity flew her to France, and when he grinned and brandished her papers she burst into tears.
Before the week was out, she was on a train heading for Paris, briefed on her cover story. She was an assistant curator heading for the capital to take up a post at the Musée du Jeu de Paume. It was safer that she retained her real identity. After all, her background and training made her an ideal fit for the job. Her absence from Paris was explained by an illness and lengthy rehabilitation at the home of some friends of her late parents. It was prudent always to stick as close as possible to the truth.
She found it dispiriting, sitting in that crowded railway carriage, watching her country spool by beyond the window. A country she could no longer call her own. A birthright stolen by the invasion and suppressed by the occupation. All the more poignant because nothing on the other side of the glass appeared to have changed. France looked as it always had. Her France. Her people. Except that there were few of them in evidence in the towns and villages they passed through, and even fewer vehicles on the road. And as they transited from so-called Free France into the occupied zone, it was Germans she saw. Men in long winter coats over grey uniforms, rifles slung across their shoulders, helmets pulled down on pale, alien faces. It filled her with both sadness and anger.
The station at Montparnasse was filled with commuters, and as she stepped into the street outside, she was astonished to see her beloved Paris in full, unfettered flow, almost as if nothing had happened. People crowded the cafés and brasseries, queued at bus stops, filled the sidewalks. Only the military-green vehicles of the occupying army, and the vacant stares of helmeted soldiers gazing from the back of canvas-
covered troop carriers, provided a reminder, if one was
necessary, that all was not as normal.
‘Papers!’ A harsh voice drew her head around, and she found herself confronted by two surly soldiers who stared at her with both suspicion and resentment. The suspicion she understood. The resentment surprised her. But, then, what kind of posting must it be for young men sent to enforce an occupation where they were universally despised by the population? Being resented would breed resentment, which in turn was dangerous. It would be hard to empathise with those who hated you, and you would surely end up hating them back.
Georgette placed her little cardboard suitcase at her feet and fumbled in her bag for her travel and identity documents. She thrust them at the outstretched hand. The soldier who had asked for them studied her papers carefully. The other never took his eyes off her. She was unnerved. Did he suspect her of something, or was he just indulging in some male fantasy? Either way, she felt vulnerable. Physically and mentally. His colleague returned her papers and they moved off without a word.
Only then was she aware of her increased heart rate, and a trembling in her legs. No, there was nothing normal about any of this, despite appearances to the contrary. This was not her Paris, not her France. It was a counterfeit country, an elaborate illusion to lull her into a false sense of security. And she knew she could not lower her guard for even one moment.
It took her nearly forty minutes to walk from the Gare Montparnasse to the Rue de Rivoli, past bakeries and pastry shops, butchers and wine merchants, all doing brisk business in this ersatz Paris. She felt like a ghost, or perhaps the only real person in a city of ghosts. But none of it seemed real, and by the time she reached the Tuileries gardens, and saw the street lined with giant swastikas hanging from poles set at forty-five-degree angles all along its length, she knew she had left her old world behind and stepped into the middle of a nightmare.
The Jeu de Paume was situated in a corner of the Tuileries, next to the Place de la Concorde, about a fifteen-minute walk from the Louvre. It was extended from the original orangerie in the nineteenth century as a sports hall for the pursuit of the game that gave it its name. Jeu de Paume. Or Real Tennis. It had tall arched windows along each side of its considerable length, designed to cast light on the game of kings. But by the early twentieth century it had become an art gallery, which it remained until the Germans rolled into the city in June 1940.
When Georgette arrived, the main hall was full of paintings leaning at all angles, arranged in makeshift racks, rows of sculptures in marble and bronze lined up between them. There was nothing on display here. It more resembled a giant warehouse than an art gallery, and Georgette picked her way through the chaos, avoiding German soldiers carrying works of art in and out, to and from a group of lorries parked outside.
She found a civilian, a harassed-looking young woman whom she was relieved to find spoke French. She caught her arm. ‘I’m looking for Rose Valland,’ she said.
The girl looked at her suspiciously. ‘And who should I say is looking for her?’
‘My name’s Georgette Pignal. I’m expected.’
Not by this girl, evidently. For she simply shrugged her indifference and told Georgette to wait, before vanishing among the stacks of paintings. It was fully ten minutes before Rose Valland appeared, looking stressed and distracted.
Rose was in her early forties, a small woman with mousy brown hair cut short and dragged back from a round face. Dark overalls provided protection for a patterned blouse and tweed skirt, and she wore a silk scarf tied loosely at her neck. She peered disapprovingly at Georgette through round spectacles little bigger than her eyes.
‘I was expecting someone older,’ she said.
‘So was I,’ Georgette replied. It did not go down well.
‘Follow me.’ Rose marched off among the collected artworks, heels clicking on parquet flooring. ‘Too much light for paintings in the main hall,’ she called back over her shoulder as Georgette struggled to keep up. ‘Ideal for sculptures and other exhibits. We display our paintings in the smaller galleries upstairs.’ And she started off up a marble staircase.
Two Germa
n army officers wearing swastika armbands passed them on the way down.
Rose nodded politely. ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘Brighter today, but still cold.’
‘Freezing, madame,’ one of them replied, rubbing his hands together for warmth. ‘We should see about trying to get better heating in here.’
Both nodded at Georgette. The one who had spoken to Rose raised one eyebrow, denoting apparent interest, and smiled. He said, ‘Afternoon, mademoiselle.’
Georgette could not bring herself to meet his eye, and hurried past them without a word. Both men stopped and looked after her. She kept her head down until she reached the top of the stairs where she found Rose waiting for her, lips pulled together and white with anger. Fingers like steel grasped her upper arm and steered her away from the staircase. Rose brought her face close to Georgette’s and in a tight little whisper she said, ‘When you encounter Germans in this building, you smile and say hello, and make polite conversation, regardless of what you feel. Is that understood?’
Georgette felt like a naughty schoolgirl being dressed down by a disapproving teacher.
‘In here.’ Rose opened the door to a small office off the main gallery, waited until Georgette had entered, then shut it behind her. She turned towards the new arrival. ‘My gallery has been requisitioned by the Germans,’ she said. ‘It is no longer a place for the appreciation of art. It is where they store their stolen goods. Some of the most beautiful works of art anywhere in the world, confiscated from their rightful owners – mostly Jews – and reduced to a commodity. Filed and catalogued to be shipped back to the motherland and hung in the homes of huns desperate to convince the rest of the world that they are really very civilised people.’
She stopped to draw breath, and Georgette was almost shocked by her intensity.
‘The rightful owners of these works have either fled abroad, or been arrested and sent to work camps in Germany. My staff and myself are here only on sufferance, as managers of this traffic in contraband. But while all the fruits of their theft come and go, they are not the only ones who are making an inventory. We have kept our own records of every piece they have brought in, and every piece which has left, and where it was sent. And one day, God willing, we will know exactly where to find it when the Nazis have been ground into the dust. And I will make it my life’s work to get it all back.’
Passion blazed in her dark eyes.
‘And I will not have you or anyone else put that at risk. Is that clear?’
Georgette nodded, chastened, and not a little overawed. At least, she thought, she wouldn’t be here for long, and would not have to endure the disapproval of the formidable Miss Valland outside of working hours.
Rose walked around her desk and gazed from the window down into the Rue de Rivoli. The German administrative authority had taken over almost the entire street, as well as several of the blocks around it. At length she turned. Light reflecting on her glasses hid her eyes from Georgette. ‘It has been impossible to find you accommodation at such short notice.’ She sighed. ‘So, for the moment you are going to have to stay at my apartment.’ It was clear that she was unhappy with the arrangement.
She rounded the desk, suddenly businesslike.
‘Now, I can’t afford to waste any more time. We are setting up an exhibition in one of the upstairs rooms for a VIP visitor tomorrow.’ Her lips curled with distaste. ‘Hermann Göring himself.’
Rose Valland’s apartment was at number four Rue de Navarre in the fifth arrondissement, in an orange-brick apartment block built ten years earlier in the art deco style. A small flat with long, narrow rooms and high, corniced ceilings. Georgette was relieved to find that there was a spare bedroom off the hall at the back of the building. But she would have to share a bathroom with Rose, and take her turn to cook for herself in the tiny kitchen.
Georgette put her suitcase on the bed and sat down beside it. She cast miserable eyes around her new sleeping quarters. Warmer and drier, perhaps, than where she had spent the last three months, but no less a prison. God only knew how long she was going to have to tread water here in Paris before finally they would send her off in the footsteps of La Joconde. She stood up and walked to the window to look out at lights that twinkled dully in the darkness of the back courts. Depression fell over her like a shroud shaken free of its folds, black and all-enveloping.
There was a sharp knock at the door. It opened before she had a chance to respond, and she turned to see Rose standing in the doorway. The older woman had shed her overalls now and changed her patterned blouse for a white one. She had a cigarette in her mouth, and leaned against the door jamb as she tipped her head forward to light it. She blew a jet of blue smoke through thin lips.
She said, ‘I rise at 6.30 every morning and will expect the bathroom to be free. I will also expect to find it spotless. When you use the kitchen you will clean the cooker and the work surfaces after you. You may use the sitting room when I am not at home, but otherwise I expect you to remain in your bedroom. There is a phone on the hall table. If you make any calls you will be required to pay for them. I will take ten per cent of your wages as a contribution towards heating and electricity. Oh, and no smoking in the bedroom.’ She blew another jet of smoke into the room where it gathered briefly before dispersing in the light of the overhead lamp.
‘I don’t smoke,’ Georgette said testily.
‘So much the better.’
Georgette stared at her very directly. ‘You do know why I’m here?’
‘In my apartment?’
‘In France.’
Rose demonstrated her disapproval with a theatrical sigh. ‘Yes, I know why you’re here,’ she said.
‘Well, I wish I did. The Mona Lisa is in a château somewhere in the Loire, where I have just spent most of the last three miserable months in a freezing cold attic.’
‘You are a little behind the times, my dear. La Joconde, along with most of the other tableaux, has moved several times since then. She currently resides in the south-west, in a museum in Montauban.’
‘So why wasn’t I sent there?’
‘Because in this France we now inhabit, nothing is ever that simple. Arranging the appropriate papers, getting official permissions. It all takes time. And these are things which are entirely out of our hands.’
Georgette’s frustration came close to boiling over. ‘Well, what kind of time are we talking about?’
Rose pushed herself away from the door jamb. ‘My dear, that is in the lap of the gods, or should I say the Germans. Not that I would ever be likely to confuse the two.’ She drew on her cigarette. ‘Right now, it’s impossible to say when you might be allowed to travel.’ She tipped her head back to blow smoke at the ceiling. ‘If ever.’
Georgette was in the grand gallery the following morning when Göring arrived. She had been assigned to the care of the girl she had met on her arrival the day before. Lucie. Several years her junior. A student before the occupation, she told Georgette. But classes had been cancelled and she had been lucky to find work here, moving and cataloguing artworks as they arrived, before carrying them down to the basement where they would await shipment to Germany.
Göring stepped out of a large, black, touring Mercedes at the door, two adjutants at his back. Another two vehicles in the entourage drew in behind it, and officers in army and air force uniforms gathered in his wake. ‘What’s he here for?’ Georgette whispered to Lucie.
‘To choose artworks for his personal collection. He’s been two or three times already. We are instructed exactly what to put on display for him, and he always views the exhibits in person before making his decision.’
Georgette looked on with a certain sense of awe. Göring was second only in rank to Hitler himself. But he was not at all what she would have expected. A big man, overweight, wearing a long, dark military coat and wide-brimmed black fedora, he walked awkwardly w
ith the use of a stick. His round face was flushed pink, and cold eyes surveyed everything around him with proprietorial indifference.
‘Who is everyone else?’
Lucie shrugged. ‘Who knows. People from the Kunstschutz and ERR. Usually different faces each time.’ She nodded towards the back of the entourage as it passed, heading for the stairs. ‘The one with the flying jacket, he’s been before. A real cold fish. Wolff, I’ve heard them call him.’
Georgette ran eyes of appraisal over him. Tall and holding himself very erect. He stood out from the others, with his black leather jacket and blue jodhpurs tucked into knee-high black leather boots. Perhaps he sensed her eyes on him, for he cast her a glance as he passed, a chilling lack of warmth in pale blue eyes.
The party climbed the stairs and disappeared from view, and Lucie asked Georgette to give her a hand carrying a particularly large canvas down to the basement.
They spent most of the next forty minutes or more re-stacking labelled canvasses near the foot of the basement stairs in preparation for departure tomorrow. The tableaux were to travel by rail to Berlin.
‘Oh,’ Lucie said suddenly. ‘I forgot, those have to go upstairs.’ She pointed to a small pile of framed miniature paintings on the long sorting table. ‘Could you take them up? First floor. They’ve to go to the gallery at the far end.’
‘Sure.’ Georgette was happy to have an excuse to go upstairs, curious about Göring and his party, and what the head of the Luftwaffe’s taste in art might be. She arranged the miniatures in her arms and climbed the stairs from the basement to the ground floor, then began the ascent to the first.
Ahead of her she heard voices and footsteps, and looked up to see Göring at the head of his entourage coming down the steps towards her. He seemed in a good mood, laughing at some private joke. And it appeared that when Göring laughed everyone else was expected to laugh with him. Unless the joke really was that funny.