by Peter May
There was still not a soul in sight, not even the chatter of birdsong to breach the silence of the village, as Narcisse climbed the dozen or more steps to the door of the house. The sharp rap of metal on wood echoed all around the tiny square as he employed the wrought-iron knocker to announce his presence.
Bauer watched as Narcisse shuffled impatiently before knocking again. And then the door opened. But from where he stood, Bauer could not see who had opened it. Just the animated discussion that followed. Their voices were hushed, and at the same time raised, like loud whispers that filled the air. Bauer was unable to make out a word of it, but discerned at least that the other voice was that of a woman.
Then silence, and a long period of what appeared to be a stand-off, before the door opened wider and Narcisse disappeared inside. The door closed softly behind him and Bauer stepped out into the sunlight. He was shaking with anger, and it was all he could do to stop himself from running up those steps to hammer on the door and beat the life out of the treacherous bastard. He took long deep breaths, condensing now as the temperature of the air around him dropped, and he glanced behind him to see the sun slip away beyond the roof of the nearest house, throwing the whole park into shadow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
She is more animated now in the telling of her tale than she has been at any other time, and he has the sense that perhaps it is nearing its end. But then he realises, with something of a shock, that the story cannot reach its conclusion until the summer of 1944. And that she has only reached the spring of 1942.
Georgette arrived in Montauban in late March that year, full of hope and the expectation that at last she would take full responsibility for the safety of the Mona Lisa. She had been unaccountably saddened to say goodbye to Lange, but he had promised to stay in touch and assured her that she would see him again before long.
The Musée Ingres is a huge brick building that stands on the east bank of the River Tarn, a stone’s throw from the medieval centre of Montauban. The whole town is built from the same red-brick that characterises the nearby city of Toulouse, known as la ville rose. The pink city.
The museum is built on five, or six, levels, depending on whether you include the rooms in the towers that stand on each corner, and the upper basement level. Below it all there is a huge basement that fills the footprint of the building. Its four tall arches are visible from the Pont Vieux which spans the river from the museum to the west bank, and much of the evacuated art from the Louvre had been stored there.
On the day that Georgette arrived, she was shown into René Huygue’s makeshift office on the first floor. Huygue was a handsome man in his late thirties. He had dark hair silvered at the temples and brushed back from a distinguished face marked by a long, aquiline nose and a neatly trimmed moustache. Georgette thought he had the air of a man of aristocratic heritage, although she knew nothing of his family history. He wore a dark green blazer over moleskin trousers and a pale green tie neatly knotted at the neck of a crisply pressed white shirt. He regarded this young woman foist upon him by Paris with deep suspicion as she handed him her letter of introduction from Jacques Jaujard.
He sat down at his desk to open it as she remained standing, like a school pupil called before the head teacher. A deep frown furrowed his brow as he read, and he looked up at Georgette with renewed interest and even deeper suspicion. ‘Sole custody of La Joconde?’ he said, hardly able to keep the incredulity from his voice. ‘What credentials could you possible have for this?’
Georgette shrugged. ‘You’re holding them.’ And something about her bravado immediately communicated to him the sense that if he chose to fight her, he would lose. She was, after all, correct. The only credentials she needed were the letter he held in his hand from Jacques Jaujard. And he knew Jaujard well enough to realise that he would not ask this of him without good reason. Still, it irked him that he was being kept out of some very private loop.
He sighed. ‘Very well. There’s a spare room in the north-west tower. You may sleep there. Jacques says you are to be an assistant curator. I’ll expect you to fulfil that function for however long we might be at Montauban.’ He laid the letter on his desk and eyed her very directly. ‘The way things have worked until now is that La Joconde resides with me during the day.’ He nodded towards the other side of the room, and Georgette turned to see the very crate she had helped pack, sitting on an armchair set into a corner by the window. Planks of rough white poplar nailed together and strapped above the stamp of the Musées Nationaux by a strip of wood bearing three large red dots. Inside, she knew, was the humidity-resistant leatherette and fireproof paper designed to protect the painting from external damage. Huygue said, ‘After all this time the Mona Lisa and I are accustomed to each other’s company. So she will remain in my office during the day, where I can keep a personal eye on her.’
Georgette nodded. ‘But she will sleep with me at night. Where you will not, I can assure you, keep an eye on either of us.’
And so Georgette spent the greater part of the next year living in the museum, sharing a bedroom with the most famous painted lady in the world. In all that time she heard nothing from Lange, and often wondered what he would make of the relationship she had developed instead with La Joconde. More than once she had opened up the crate to peel away the leatherette and fireproof paper to gaze upon the smile that had so bewitched the world. The slight, enigmatic curl of the mouth, the dark eyes that seemed to look at only you, regardless of where you might stand in the room. The road that snaked towards her from distant rocks with the latent menace of a serpent preparing to strike.
She was not conventionally beautiful. Prominent brows shadowed hooded eyes. Her nose was, perhaps, overlong, her mouth and chin somehow too small for the rest of her face. And yet she was utterly captivating. It was little wonder that men such as Hitler and Göring had fallen under her spell.
The following August, rooms on the ground floor and in the basement of the museum flooded during a summer storm, rainwater cascading down narrow streets from the centre of town and pouring in through the entrance courtyard. A number of paintings were water-damaged, and experts brought in to repair them. Had it not been for the sleeping arrangements, La Joconde might very well have been among the casualties. Georgette’s first act of keeping her safe.
In addition to being an important year for Georgette, this was a transitional year in the war. That summer the Germans and the collaborationist régime in Vichy stepped up their actions against the Jews. Thousands were rounded up and sent off to work camps in Eastern Europe. The Musée Ingres itself lost several Jewish guards, René Huygue unable to prevent it, although he tried everything in his power to do so.
Then in early November the Allies landed in North Africa, and in France everything changed. The German army invaded what they had always laughingly called the Free French Zone, and German troops swarmed into Montauban, strutting about the town with cameras, for all the world like tourists on holiday.
Thanks to orders from the Kunstschutz, the museum was out of bounds to German soldiers, but the artworks themselves were subject to a new and different threat.
Georgette was summoned, along with the rest of the staff, to a meeting in Huygue’s office in early December. Nearly fifteen of them squeezed into his tiny bureau, along with La Joconde, and listened in grave silence as he told them that the museum could no longer be considered a safe haven for the evacuated art from the Louvre. Even as he spoke, Georgette could see through the window behind him the troop carriers and tanks rumbling through the town, soldiers in twos and threes posted at every corner.
‘We are protected from the army by order of the Kunstschutz,’ he said. ‘But it’s anyone’s guess how long that will last. More importantly, we are now under threat of aerial bombardment. With Montauban full of German troops and munitions, we become a legitimate target for Allied bombers. One stray bomb could destroy everything we have here.’
‘What can we do?’ an earnest young curator asked.
Huygue sighed. ‘Move.’ And there was a collective exhalation of disappointment. Most of those present had already been involved in the three previous evacuations, and knew just what a transfer involved.
Georgette said, ‘Couldn’t we notify the Allies somehow that the artworks are here, and have this area designated out of bounds for bombing sorties?’
Huygue shook his head. ‘The collaborators in Vichy have refused us permission to communicate with the Allies.’ His lip curled in anger. Even the mention of the name Vichy seemed to leave a bad taste in his mouth. ‘Presumably they’re afraid the Germans will accuse them of collaborating with the enemy. After all, the Vichy régime is good at that.’ And Georgette got more than a little sense of his hatred for the Pétain government. He drew a deep breath. ‘Paris have identified a château to the north-east of here, in the Département du Lot, that can take most of what we have. The Château de Montal. It’s only two to three hours away by road and far removed from any strategic bombing targets. Unfortunately, we need vehicles and fuel to make the transfer, and up until now Jacques Jaujard has been unable to persuade either Paris or Vichy to supply them. So unless anyone has the ability to conjure a convoy of trucks and the diesel to power them we’re stuck here.’
During nearly nine months at Montauban, Georgette had found herself thinking about Paul Lange less and less, becoming absorbed by the work of curating and protecting the treasures of the Louvre being sheltered at the Musée Ingres.
By December he had become a distant memory, as had his nemesis, Karlheinz Wolff. The dangers she had faced in Paris faded to insignificance somehow in this provincial town so far away in the extreme south-west.
She had fallen into the habit of walking up through the cobbled streets each morning to the Place Nationale in the centre of the vieille ville to take coffee and croissants in what had become a favourite café beneath the arches of the perfectly preserved bastide in the old square.
It was a cold grey morning when she set off one day in mid-December to walk through the little park opposite the museum, castine crunching underfoot, and climbing up to the vast crumbling edifice of the Eglise Saint-Jacques at the top of the hill. Built in 1230, and rebuilt twice, the base of the bell tower still bore traces of the damage caused by cannonballs during the siege of Montauban in 1621. She turned into the Rue Princesse and was almost at the arch leading to the square when she became aware of footsteps falling in with hers, and a shadow at her side. She turned, startled, to find Paul Lange grinning at her from beneath the brim of his soft grey fedora.
She felt suffused by a sudden warmth, as if he somehow radiated sunshine on this dull winter morning. A feeling she would have found hard to explain to anyone, let alone herself. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Speak of the devil.’
‘And he’s sure to appear.’ Lange laughed. ‘An English idiom, isn’t it? Which must mean you were thinking about me. Although, I thought we’d agreed that I was not the devil.’
She smiled. ‘The jury’s still out on that one. I’d almost given up on you.’
‘Oh, never do that, George. Wherever Wolff might be, I’m bound to appear.’
She stopped dead. ‘Wolff’s in Montauban?’
‘He is.’
‘Doing what?’
‘I have no idea. I take it you haven’t seen him?’
She shook her head and all the old fears and uncertainties of her time in Paris came flooding back.
‘Don’t worry. I doubt if he’s ready to move just yet. But something has brought him here.’ They had reached the Place Nationale, and although a busy farmer’s market filled the square, the stalls were only sparsely stocked with winter vegetables and meagre rations of cheese and meat. ‘I thought you might be able to tell me why.’
‘Let’s have breakfast,’ she said, and was grateful that he was not in uniform. But he wore a long winter greatcoat beneath his fedora, and leather boots beneath that, and he could not have looked less like a local if he had tried. The sooner they sat down at her café the less conspicuous they would be.
They found a table beneath the arches and ordered café crèmes and a basket of croissants. As they ate he said, ‘I was recalled to Germany for nearly six months. Everyone’s nervous now, following the Allied invasion of North Africa. Expectations are high that there will be an invasion of Europe too. Sometime soon. Maybe even in the next year. That’s when I think you can expect Wolff to make his move. Though it doesn’t explain why he’s here now. I arrived back in Paris last week, and only found out yesterday that he was in Montauban.’
Georgette said, ‘The authorities at the Louvre are preparing to move everything again. To a château and other locations in the Département du Lot, which is a couple of hours north-east of here.’
Lange cocked an eyebrow. ‘Ah. That would be a vulnerable time. When will they make the transfer?’
She shrugged. ‘No one knows. We can’t get any transport. Not from the Germans, or from the French. But everyone’s afraid that if the Allies bomb the town, everything in the museum will be in danger.’
He nodded thoughtfully and sipped at his coffee, lifting his eyes then to meet hers over the brim of his cup. He replaced it in its saucer and reached out to touch her face with the tips of his fingers, eyes searching deep into hers. ‘I’ve missed you, George. Missed our Friday nights in Paris. Missed the escape from the war that we always seemed to manage over dinner.’ He sighed and closed his eyes. ‘I hate this war. The sooner it’s over, the sooner we can get on with life. We surely have a higher calling than the killing of one another.’
‘Speak to your people, Paul. They started it, I think.’
He withdrew his hand, as if stung. He drained his cup, and to her disappointment stood up to throw some coins on the table.
‘Don’t worry about transport for the transfer,’ he said. ‘I’ll see to that.’
He nodded curtly, and strode off through the tables to disappear among the shoppers at the market, leaving her frustrated and angry with herself. The barb had been out of her mouth before she could stop it. And now he was gone. And she realised that she had missed him much more than she had ever dared to admit.
It was a month later that Huygue announced the granting of permission to move the artworks north. A promise of vehicles from the occupying authority had been given. Privately, Huygue told Georgette that even Jaujard, who had been lobbying for this for weeks, had been taken aback by the unexpected announcement. She had allowed herself a small sense of satisfaction in the knowledge that it was almost certainly her relationship with Lange that had procured it.
On March 1st, eight hundred pounds of packing material arrived at the Musée Ingres, and after an all-night packing session the first convoy left for Château de Montal with police motorcycle outriders. Georgette watched it go, heading across the bridge, and wondered how Lange had managed it all. There had been no further sign of him, and although he had reported Wolff’s presence in the town she had not seen him either. It had not stopped her taking extra precautions, though. She had made a place for the crate that held the Mona Lisa beneath the floorboards in her bedroom, and insisted above the objections of René Huygue that it remained there during the day also.
The major problem in the evacuation of the artworks had been in finding a vehicle long enough to transport the huge rolled canvasses, which would be accompanied by Sketch for the Feast, La Joconde’s doppelgänger, for which Georgette now felt equally responsible. The scenery trailers which had brought them here were no longer at their disposal, and it was only at the last moment that the Germans made a gazogène-powered cattle truck available. Although big enough for the job, this vehicle was fuelled by a wood gas generator which converted timber or charcoal into a gas capable of powering an internal combustion engine. It also had a reputation for spontaneously bursting into flames.
/> As a result, Huygue obtained a jeep, which he filled with fire extinguishers, leaving only enough space for Georgette and the Mona Lisa to join him in accompanying the cattle truck north. There were several other trucks in the convoy and a number of armed outriders for security.
It was a bumpy ride on narrow roads, spring barely settling across a landscape still winter-dead. Only the willows showed signs of budding this early, with the occasional splash of pink cherry blossom. In a few short weeks the whole landscape would be covered with the white blossom of apple and plum and pear trees, the yellows of forsythia and the vivid reds of flowering japonica. Rich, red soil feeding new life to the start of a new year. Spring, 1943.
Georgette recalled Lange’s words expressing German fears of an Allied invasion of Europe. She fervently hoped it would come, and soon. But for the moment it seemed no more than a glimmer of hope on a very distant horizon. The fact that the Germans were still very much in control was emphasised by the number of military convoys they passed on the RN20 heading north.
On the steep, winding descent from the causses into the valley of the River Dordogne, Huygue explained why the rolled canvasses they were following in the gazogène cattle truck could not be housed in the Château de Montal. ‘They’re just too long,’ he said. ‘We’d never get them in. And the château’s not really big enough for everything anyway. We’re going to have to split things up. The bulk of it will go to Montal, the rest to other properties in the area, as well as downriver to Château La Treyne. We’ll be staying at Montal with the Mona Lisa.’
‘And the big canvasses?’ Georgette was anxious to know where she would have to go to lay hands on the forgery.
‘The village of Bétaille,’ he said. It sits on the edge of the flood plain, about half an hour from Montal.
‘What’s there?’