The Night Gate - Enzo MacLeod Investigation Series 07 (2021)

by Peter May

  It didn’t matter what de Gaulle wanted. He was in England, and she was here. And she wished she had never come. Surely there was more she could have done for the war effort from London than be stuck here in a gallery that had become a repository for stolen Nazi art?

  It was dark out. A clear but moonless sky, and the temperature had fallen to minus seven. The heating in Rose’s apartment was erratic at the best of times, and Georgette shivered, pulling the quilt around herself to keep warm. From somewhere she heard the distant ring of a telephone. Insistent and penetrating. And she realised suddenly that it was ringing in the apartment, the phone in the hall.

  She heard Rose’s bedroom door opening, and moments later the ringing ceased. Rose’s voice was muted and indecipherable. Then silence, and Georgette assumed that she had hung up. A knock at the door startled her, and it opened to reveal Rose in hairnet and dressing gown. ‘It’s for you,’ she said, the displeasure clear in her voice.

  Georgette was startled. ‘What is?’

  ‘The phone, of course. Be quick.’

  ‘But’ – Georgette was perplexed – ‘who even knows I’m here? Or your phone number?’

  ‘These are very good questions.’ Rose paused significantly. ‘It’s a man.’ She stepped aside to let Georgette past. ‘Hurry up!’

  Georgette slid off the bed, pushed her feet into a pair of slippers and hurried into the hall. She lifted the receiver with great trepidation.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Georgette Pignal?’ His French was lightly accented, but distinctly foreign.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘My name is Lange. Paul Lange. You might remember making a bit of an idiot of yourself on the steps of the Jeu de Paume the other day. I was the charming German officer who helped you pick up the miniatures.’ Evidently he was not taking himself too seriously. But his words, nonetheless, sent a shiver of fear through her.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ She could hear the smile in his sardonic drawl.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Why are you calling me?’

  ‘Because I would like to take you to dinner.’

  Now her breathing had stopped altogether. Her fear was marbled with embarrassment.

  ‘I know a very nice restaurant in Montparnasse.’

  No matter how nicely he was asking, it seemed to Georgette that it was more of an order than a request. How could she say no to a German officer? ‘When?’

  ‘I was thinking tomorrow evening, if that suits.’

  Her mind was racing. ‘Em . . . I’m not sure. I . . . I’d need to check my work schedule to see if I’m available.’

  ‘Well, give me a call when you know. Do you have a pencil handy?’

  Georgette’s panicked eyes scanned the hall table and saw a pencil and notepad lying side by side. She grabbed the pencil. ‘Yes.’

  And he read her out his number, which she scribbled hastily on the pad. ‘You can get me here most evenings.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, wondering why on earth she was thanking him. ‘I’ll do that. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodnight, mademoiselle.’

  The line went dead and she hung up the phone.

  ‘Well?’

  She had forgotten that Rose was even there, turning to find her still standing by the bedroom door, arms folded sternly across her chest.

  ‘Who was that?’

  Georgette hardly dared tell her. ‘It was the German officer who helped me pick up the miniatures on the stairs the other day. Paul . . .’

  ‘Lange.’ Rose finished for her. ‘What did he want?’

  ‘To take me out to dinner.’

  A flicker of incredulity crossed Rose’s face before a deep, angry sigh issued from between clenched teeth. ‘You see? This is what happens when you draw attention to yourself.’ She paused. ‘And, by association, to me.’

  For once in her life Georgette was at a complete loss. ‘What am I going to do?’

  ‘You’ll have to accept, of course. What else can you do?’ She turned towards her bedroom door. ‘Wherever he wants to take you, just go. And don’t make a fuss.’ The door slammed shut behind her and Georgette stood shivering in the cold and dark, more convinced than ever that she should have stayed in London.

  Lange was waiting in a taxi outside the Jeu de Paume the following evening as Georgette finished work. In spite of herself, she had taken care to select her best dress to wear to work that day, and shortly before leaving the gallery, had spent several minutes in the lady’s room applying a light make-up to her lips and eyes.

  She had never ridden in a Paris taxi before, never been able to afford it. It was a big, black carriage with a canvas roof and sweeping wheel arches that belched great clouds of exhaust fumes into the cold night air. Lange stepped out and held the door open, offering a hand to help her up. She ignored it and stepped quickly into the cab, sliding herself across the seat to the far window, wanting to put as much distance between herself and the German as she could.

  A tiny smile played about his lips as he settled himself in the seat beside her and gave the driver their destination. ‘One hundred and two Boulevard de Montparnasse. The restaurant La Coupole.’

  Georgette saw the driver looking at her in his rear-view mirror and was certain it was contempt she saw in his eyes. She wanted to curl up and die. How had it come to this? Being taken to dinner by a German army officer. ‘I suppose you know all the best restaurants,’ she said.

  ‘Actually, yes.’ He smiled. ‘The occupying authority has been good enough to produce a guide of the best places for German soldiers to eat.’ He produced a folded leaflet from the pocket of his greatcoat and flipped through the printed pages. He stopped at one headed Wichtig für den Soldaten! and ran his finger down a column of names. ‘Here we are. La Coupole. An iconic art deco brasserie which opened in 1927.’ He looked up from the page. ‘Actually, I have eaten there several times. It’s excellent.’

  ‘Don’t you ever wonder if they spit in your food in the kitchen?’

  He laughed. ‘Trust me, my dear. They wouldn’t dare.’ And although he made a joke of it, she understood that his subtext was deadly serious.

  La Coupole was an extravagant establishment with a large terrace on the pavement, deserted now in the bitter cold of this first December of the occupation. Like the Commodore, it boasted a huge colourful cupola that dominated the interior. Elaborate hand-painted columns divided a sprawling dining area into more intimate spaces, tables and chairs set around hand-embroidered semi-circles of upholstered seating.

  The maître d’ greeted them at the door, an obsequious smile and an extravagant sweep of the hand to guide them to their table in the window. ‘Apparently,’ Lange said, ‘the ground below the restaurant is riddled with catacombs. I never knew it before, but Paris is built of the stone dug out from beneath it by generations of quarriers.’

  Georgette was barely listening. She felt exposed sitting here in the window, open to the gaze of any passer-by. A Frenchwoman being wined and dined by one of the hated occupiers. Her self-conscious eyes flickered across the restaurant. It was almost empty. Just a handful of tables occupied by uniformed German officers in groups of two and three. There were women at two other tables. Ladies with painted faces and loud laughter, flushed by too much wine and the anticipation of a long night ahead.

  Lange was still talking. ‘La Coupole has been a favourite of some very successful artists in the past. Georges Braque, Picasso. And writers like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre.’

  A waiter handed them menus, and Georgette avoided his gaze by averting her eyes to study the plats du jour. She had no idea what to order. But before she could even express her nescience, Lange lifted the menu from her hands. ‘Let me order, my dear. I am better acquainted with the chef’s specialities.’ He handed both menus back to the w
aiter and ordered crevettes flambéed in whisky to start, followed by magret de canard in a blackcurrant sauce and pommes sarladaises. He turned to Georgette. ‘I’d suggest a glass of Puligny Montrachet with the prawns and a nice Cahors with the duck.’

  Georgette shrugged. It almost seemed to her as if he were trying to humiliate her. ‘You’re paying,’ she said.

  A waitress came, adjusting the cutlery to reflect their order, and placed a basket of freshly cut bread on the table. Georgette caught her surreptitious glance at Lange and then at her, and she flushed with embarrassment. She turned to gaze from the window, in the hope that the cold that pressed against it from the outside might cool her face, and that the evening might pass more quickly than it promised. After some time, she became aware of Lange staring at her. She turned her head to face him down. ‘What?’

  ‘You are very reserved.’

  ‘Is it any wonder?’ she said. ‘Don’t you even see how the staff look at me? Or your fellow officers and their painted women?’

  ‘No doubt, like me, they are charmed by your radiance.’

  ‘My embarrassment, you mean. They think I’m a prostitute.’

  He raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘No, they don’t.’

  ‘Of course they do. What self-respecting Frenchwoman would be seen dead in a restaurant with an officer of the occupying force? Other than a woman who was being paid to pretend she liked him? You make me feel like a collaborator.’

  He was unruffled. ‘In that case, next time you shall dine with me privately in my apartment.’

  ‘Your apartment?’ She was appalled.

  ‘Yes. I have excellent accommodation on the fourth floor of an apartment block at number thirty Rue de Rivoli.’

  ‘A stolen apartment.’

  ‘Certainly not. I pay rent to the owners like everyone else.’

  ‘And its previous occupants?’

  ‘Vacated. A Jewish family. Left the country, I believe.’

  ‘Vacated being a euphemism for deported?’

  The amusement which had hitherto crinkled his eyes vanished. He leaned towards her confidentially. ‘Mademoiselle, I would keep your voice down if I were you, and be a little more judicious in your choice of words.’ He paused for effect. ‘Not for my sake, you understand. But they might fall on other, less tolerant, ears.’

  It was both a rebuke and a warning, and neither were lost on her. She forced herself to bite back a retort about the right to express herself freely in her own country. For it was, she realised, no longer her country.

  His smile returned and he sought to change the subject.

  ‘I would be more than happy to cook for you. I have a certain reputation among my friends for fine cuisine.’

  She kept her voice low. ‘What makes you think that I would want to sup with the devil?’

  He laughed. ‘My dear, who would? But I am not the devil. I am your benefactor.’

  ‘If you think I’m going to sleep with you, you couldn’t be more wrong.’

  This time his laughter turned heads from other tables and he lowered his voice. ‘Mademoiselle Pignal, nothing could be further from my mind.’

  And she wondered why she felt slighted.

  The prawns cooked in a whisky flambé arrived, and the wine waiter poured them each a glass of white burgundy. They ate in silence for some time, and to her annoyance Georgette found that it was delicious. She said, ‘I don’t know what you expect from me. Or why you asked me to dinner. But it’s only fair to tell you that I really don’t like you.’

  ‘But you don’t know me,’ he protested.

  ‘I know that you are an officer of an occupying power, uninvited and unwanted. You have no right here, monsieur, and you should know that I detest the Nazis and everything they stand for.’

  He mopped up the juices on his plate with a piece of bread. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I suppose if I were you, I might feel the same. This is not a war of my choosing. Or yours. And yet, here we are, on different sides of the divide. Victims of fate.’

  ‘Are you a Party member?’

  ‘The Nazis? Yes.’

  ‘Hardly a victim of fate, then.’

  He laid knife and fork across his empty plate and leaned towards her again. His voice was barely audible. ‘I joined the Party, mademoiselle, out of a finely honed instinct for self-preservation. The Chinese have a saying: the nail that stands up gets hammered down.’ He sat up again. ‘You should take note of that.’

  Their plates were removed by the waitress, and Georgette kept her eyes on the table as the duck arrived, and the wine waiter poured them generous glasses of a rich ruby Cahors.

  It wasn’t until the first two or three mouthfuls had been consumed that Lange turned towards her again. ‘May I call you Georgette?’

  ‘Would it make any difference if I said no?’

  He smiled. ‘You should know, Georgette, that I’m as proud to be German as you are to be French. Both of our countries have done things in the past that we each have the right to be ashamed of. I very much regret the circumstances in which we find ourselves today. I know this city perhaps better even than you. I have been here many, many times over the last twenty years, buying and selling art. Renoir, Picasso, most of the impressionists. This city is almost a second home to me.’

  ‘I thought the Nazis considered modern art to be degenerate.’

  He shrugged. ‘That is a certain school of thought.’

  ‘I wonder if your friend, Monsieur Hitler, knows about your passion for the degenerate.’

  His smile now was strained. She was wearing his patience thin. ‘I am sure the Führer does not count me among his friends. I have met him only twice, and never shared with him my love of modern art.’ A little of the amusement returned to his eyes. ‘Though I am sure my leader would share an appreciation of my choice of dining companion tonight.’

  In spite of everything she smiled, and shook her head. ‘It’s impossible to offend you, isn’t it.’

  ‘I could only be offended by the things you say if I thought you meant them.’

  ‘I do.’

  He shook his head patiently. ‘You don’t. Because you don’t know me. Yet. And that, I hope to remedy in the coming months. Then, and only then, will I take offence.’

  Both her heart and her spirits sank. Like a fly caught in a spider’s web, the more she struggled, the more entangled she became. There was no escape.

  By the time they left the restaurant there were no taxis available. The curfew was already in force. From 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. daily in this first year of the occupation.

  Georgette panicked. ‘How will I get home without being stopped?’

  Lange shrugged and steered her on to the Boulevard de Port-Royal. ‘Because I will walk you there.’ And for the first time Georgette was glad of his company.

  An almost full moon bathed the blacked-out city in its colourless light. Without it, their half-hour walk to the Rue de Navarre would have been well nigh impossible. There were no street lights, and apartment windows had black curtains drawn against the light within. Where they walked in shadow along narrow streets, Lange produced a torch to illuminate their passage. They were stopped three times by pairs of patrolling soldiers, and each time Lange’s papers produced a clicking of heels and a stiff salute.

  By the time they reached the door to Rose’s apartment block Georgette was chittering with the cold. They had barely spoken during the long walk, giving Georgette all the more time to consider the gravity of her situation, and the unwanted attentions of this German army officer who, it seemed, she was going to have trouble avoiding.

  They stood outside the door, breath billowing in the moonlight.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘You’re hardly dressed for these temperatures. I should have taken care to get us a taxi before the
curfew.’

  She made light of it. ‘I enjoyed the walk.’ Then looked at him very directly. ‘Why are you here? I mean, really here. In Paris. You’re not a real soldier.’

  He laughed. ‘No. I’m not. But these days you need a uniform to get anywhere. I deal in art, Georgette. You know that.’

  She blew her contempt at him through pursed lips. ‘You’re not here to deal in art, you’re here to steal it. Isn’t that what the ERR is doing? Stealing art from Jewish collectors and storing the merchandise at the Jeu de Paume before shipping it off to Germany.’

  He nodded and sighed. ‘Regrettably, yes. However, I have no connection with ERR. I work for the Kunstschutz. Which translates literally as art protection. It’s our job to protect art and return it to its rightful owners at the end of hostilities.’ He hesitated for a long moment, then added, ‘Though that’s not why I’m here.’

  She was surprised. ‘Really? So why are you here?’

  She couldn’t see his eyes. He had his back to the moonlight, and his face was in shadow. But she felt the intensity of his gaze. ‘The same reason you are,’ he said.

  For a moment it felt as if he was looking right through her, and her heart very nearly stopped. ‘What do you mean?’

  She heard rather than saw his smile, the separation of the tongue from the lips and the roof of the mouth as the facial muscles expressed themselves. ‘I have many friends in London, Georgette. I know it almost as well as Paris. I have eyes and ears on the ground there that my superiors do not.’

  A dreadful sense of foreboding wrapped itself around her, like the darkness itself.

  ‘I know perfectly well what de Gaulle asked you to do.’