by Alan Furst
There was a door next to the shuttered entry to the garage and, a few minutes into Ricard’s sermon to himself, the door opened and Teodor appeared. This was the clandestine Teodor, wearing an overcoat with the fur collar turned up and a hat tilted low to obscure his face. “Ricard,” he said. “Good that you are on time.”
Politely, Ricard said, “Bonsoir,” as though they were two acquaintances who had just happened to meet in a deserted garage.
“The civil servants in London,” Teodor said, “have for years kept close watch on the French press and they have a suggestion for you. Do you know the newspaper called Le Journal du Jour?”
“Alas, I do. In the thirties, when the right and left were tearing each other apart, the Journal was worse than most. If a left-wing senator proposed money to improve the railroads, the Journal attacked. They called him a Stalinist. And blood, according to the Journal, dripped from his Bolshevik fangs.”
“The foreign editor at the Journal is a Monsieur Lagache,” Teodor said. “He will approve whatever you propose to do because he’s been reached—as the Russians put it, he is nasch, ‘ours.’ Once you have an assignment in Germany, you must next get a travel permit from the Propagandastaffel at the Hôtel Majestic. Of course you will be interviewed, and you will reveal your Vichyite sympathies.
“In all probability, the man you’ll see at the Propagandastaffel is called von Lobau, Major von Lobau. He is one of those Germans who, following the victory in 1940, pulled strings to get a job in Paris. He is enchanted with Paris, was a tourist here before the war. You know the German expression ‘God lives in Paris’? Well, von Lobau is a believer in Paris; the dingiest workers’ cafés, the clochards with their bundles of rags, the smallest restaurant—Mère this, Chez that, where they serve every innard known to beasts, where you can smell piss on the pig’s kidney you’re served, von Lobau loves it all.”
“He doesn’t sound so bad,” Ricard said. “Among tourists, it’s a point of pride to have experienced the ‘real’ Paris.”
“Well, Paris won’t be the subject of your story for the Journal, that subject will be somewhere in northern Germany, close to the city of Kiel, where the Germans build their U-boats, using Polish laborers. Once you find your way there, you can begin to investigate, you can begin to make contact with the Poles who work there, and you will, if you are lucky and don’t get caught by the authorities, find the source of your drawing and work to get more.”
Ricard thought it over, then said, “There is one difficulty, Teodor, I don’t speak Polish.”
“That eventuality has been foreseen,” Teodor said, with some satisfaction. “Your friend Kasia will accompany you and act as your interpreter.”
* * *
—
At Teodor’s direction, Ricard went to see Lagache, the foreign editor of Le Journal du Jour, at his office on the Rue de Richelieu. It was a small, cramped office, on the shadowed side of the courtyard, with framed newspaper photographs on the walls: mostly well-dressed men shaking hands, radiant actresses with their escorts, and a few glum criminals being led away by detectives.
Lagache had a dark complexion, with a thin nose flanked by small eyes set close together and a mouth which had sneered so often that the twisted smile lived permanently on his face. He had a pencil line of a mustache, eyeglasses with thick frames, and wore the Vichy emblem, the Francisque, the double-headed axe, on a lapel pin. Sitting across from him, Ricard felt palpable hatred flowing across the desk. According to Teodor, Lagache had been fixed, bribed, but that didn’t stop him from loathing his enemies—one of his greatest pleasures. Like the rest of the world, Ricard was no stranger to being disliked, it happened; still, Lagache’s withering glare made him uncomfortable.
As a fascist, Lagache was a fervent believer in the Vichy regime, thus a disciple of the white-mustached General Pétain, the leader of the French right wing, who claimed that the fall of France was due to the corruption of the true French values: family, work, and religion. The followers of Pétain’s enemy, General de Gaulle, were accused of drinking too much wine, eating too much fine food, and making too much love. Pétain would have called them libertines; Ricard called them French.
After hating Ricard for a time, Lagache drew a gold fountain pen from his desk set, unscrewed the cap, affixed it to the end of the pen, and said, “So then, Ricard, where is it you wish to go?” The absence of the monsieur title was an insult, but Ricard didn’t care.
“I am going to Lübeck, in Germany,” Ricard said. He knew the city of Lübeck was forty miles from the U-boat facilities in Kiel.
“And what news event will you be covering?”
The civil servants in London had an immense and very private library in an anonymous office building near the Mayfair district. Here they had every newspaper and journal published in the principal cities of the world, as well as books of a political nature, and it was one of their librarians who had suggested an assignment for Ricard.
“A new bridge has been built across the river Trave,” Ricard said. “It is to be called the Heinrich Himmler Brücke, and the opening ceremonies will take place on the fifteenth of November.”
Lagache wrote a few more words, then put the cap back on his gold fountain pen. Ricard could see that this was, to Lagache, a symbolic gesture: power had spoken. Lagache then called to his secretary, seated just outside his office. Following the clackety-clack of her typewriter, Ricard had his assignment letter, on official Le Journal du Jour stationery, in an unsealed envelope. He rose to say goodby but drew from Lagache only a final, and particularly intense, glare. It wasn’t simply emotion, Ricard thought, it was a threat: When Germany wins this war, we will settle with you and your Gaullist friends.
* * *
—
His assignment letter in hand, Ricard went off to keep his appointment with Major von Lobau, the German bureaucrat who loved Paris, at the Hôtel Majestic on the Avenue Kléber, at the ceremonial center of the city, within sight of the Arc de Triomphe. The hotel was the nerve center of the occupation, high-ranking German officials streamed in and out of the guarded doors as their Grosser Mercedes automobiles, military drivers in attendance, stood waiting on the avenue.
About von Lobau, Teodor had been cautionary. “He cannot be bribed,” he’d said. “He will have to be manipulated. And though he will be wearing an army uniform, he in fact works for the SD, the Sicherheitsdienst, the real German intelligence service, the lawyer Schellenberg and his pack of fellow lawyers, who have nothing to do with those brutes in the Gestapo.”
Von Lobau’s office was on an upper floor, isolated from the busy offices that managed the occupation. A sign on the door said PROPAGANDASTAFFEL, a brass plate next to it, MAJOR F. J. VON LOBAU. When von Lobau’s orderly admitted him, Ricard entered a room that reflected the tastes of its occupant: this was not an office where plans for slaughter were issued, but the workplace of a sophisticated and intelligent administrator. Von Lobau awaited him at a low table on the other side of the room from his desk, where a coffee service—delicate china cups and saucers, dainty little silver spoons—had been set out.
“Will you take a coffee?” von Lobau said.
“Thank you, I will,” Ricard replied.
“One lump or two?” von Lobau said.
Ricard took two, sipped the coffee, and found it perfect, prewar coffee, the real thing.
Von Lobau was a distinctive-looking gentleman. In his thirties, he had light blond hair, heavy lips, and pale, almost colorless eyes, with just the faintest touch of blue for color. He could have been, Ricard thought, from the far north of Europe, maybe Estonia, somewhere up there, put armor on him, give him a staff with a pennant, and you would have a Baltic knight of an earlier century.
As Ricard sipped his coffee, the orderly entered the room and handed von Lobau a dossier, a stiff, green cardboard folder. My dossier! Ricard thought. There it is! This w
as something one never expected to see. It was packed with typewritten papers, some of them stapled together, and copies, flimsies, of issued documents. Merde, what’s in there? Likely memoranda—We believe that subject RICARD, or On the night of 9 August—perhaps information taken from his neighbors—We’re not sure of her name, but she—or from his concierge, his former teachers, friends, lovers past and present. Von Lobau, his face without expression, opened the file and skimmed through the pages. As he read, he took a pencil in hand and idly tapped the eraser on the wood surface of his desk. Eventually he looked up from the dossier and said, “May I see your assignment letter, Monsieur Ricard?”
Von Lobau scanned the letter quickly, then said, “Vichy seems to approve of your work.”
To this opening, Ricard merely nodded.
“One would think you were on the side of General de Gaulle; I mean, from your books, one would think that, no?”
“Yes, one would,” Ricard said.
“But not now? You’ve changed sides? Had a political conversion?”
“Not really. I no longer have a side. You know Mercutio’s line, from Romeo and Juliet, ‘A plague on both your houses’? That is what I’ve come to. French political opinion was so complex and combative—both sides fought among themselves as much as they fought each other—then sometime in the 1930s I gave up on it. I would glance at the front page of the newspaper, shake my head in despair, then proceed to the soccer. That at least I understood.”
This was utter bullshit, but von Lobau didn’t care. It was his job, the power he had, that caused supplicants to make up stories they thought would work. Now he turned back a few more pages in the dossier and said, “So, Monsieur Ricard, I see you are returning to journalism, any reason for that?”
“Books take a long time to write, and the money is slow in coming, so I spoke with an editor at Le Journal du Jour and was assigned a newspaper story.”
“The dedication of a new bridge in Lübeck. Will that be an interesting subject for you?”
“One more human story, the world goes on, and I saw how I could make it good reading. Ceremonies have their own stories: there will be folk dancers—chubby girls in dirndls—and mayors wearing their official sashes, automobiles waiting on either side of the bridge, seeking the honor of being the first one to cross the new span, tugboats decorated with crepe paper blowing their steam whistles…and if I do this well there will be another article in the future.”
“Well, I see I must give you permission. And I will look forward to reading what you write.”
“Thank you, Major von Lobau.”
“And when you return, you might consider occasional visits to my office, there will always be coffee, or something stronger, and we might discuss where you’ve been and who you’ve met. Journalists turn up everywhere, they encounter all sorts of people and situations that one would like to hear about. It is the mission of this office—one of them, anyhow—to gain insight into French life, especially Parisian life. One can always use some extra money, and we would be pleased to help you out there. Our relationship would of course be confidential, most confidential, you may assure yourself of that.”
This was no time to insult a powerful officer, so Ricard pretended to consider the offer, then said, “Thank you, Major von Lobau, I will certainly think it over.” No.
From his desk drawer, von Lobau took various forms, filled them out, then applied this rubber stamp and that rubber stamp. “So you’re off to the dedication. I’m sure you will enjoy the folk dancing, the young maidens in their dirndls and the lederhosen, and be thoughtful about what you say on the subject of Germany. You wouldn’t want to hurt my feelings, would you.”
* * *
—
Of the thousands and thousands of secrets in Paris, Madame de la Boissière’s private shop was one worth knowing. In her forties, she had bright blonde hair, thin lips, and eager, restless eyes. Once upon a time she had married an aristocrat, who gambled away his fortune at the tables in Monte Carlo, then, classically, went into the garden and shot himself. This left his widow with a spacious apartment at the far end of the Jardin du Luxembourg, a multitude of rich friends, and no money. She had, however, a Parisian woman’s feel for style, began to buy friends’ clothing when they no longer wanted it, and soon had, standing wall to wall in her apartment, racks of beautifully tailored suits and dresses from fine little shops.
For their trip into Germany, Ricard needed a new version of Kasia. So, off to Madame de la Boissière. Who took one look at Kasia in her worker’s cap and pea jacket and said, “I have the very thing! She will be bon bourgeois in an hour.”
She was true to her word. Kasia stripped down to bra and panties, Madame de la Boissière stared as she did it, then took her firmly by the shoulders, turned her around, placed a firm hand across her bottom and held it there as she said, “You have a sweet ass, dear.” Kasia turned her head around and smiled at the compliment, then curved her back so that her bottom stood out for Madame de la Boissière to admire. Then Madame de la Boissière held up outfits for her to see, and soon enough moleskin trousers and ankle-high boots were replaced by a cream-colored shirt, a brown wool suit, and tie-up oxford shoes with chunky heels.
Kasia was delighted with her new look, stood at the mirror, turned to see one profile, then another, and was clearly pleased. Three days later, Paul Ricard and Kasia, his translator, at 10:08 in the morning, boarded the Paris-Brussels Express, headed, after a change of trains, for Lübeck, forty miles from the submarine base at Kiel.
* * *
—
12 November. In the rain, under a low, dark sky, chaos. Half the crowd around the Gare du Nord surged toward the station; the other half headed for home. This was not the same madness that struck every year on the first day of August, when almost all Paris headed away from the city at the same time, intent on not losing a minute of their August vacation. But this was November, where was everybody going? Away. Occupied Paris was claustrophobic and difficult, so any excuse would do: Let’s go see Tante Renée in Tours.
Because of the coal shortage, only a few trains were running, and they were mobbed; travelers packed the aisle that ran past the compartments. On the platforms, children were towed along by their parents, travelers ran to make their trains, couples hung on to each other in the mêlée, and the use of sharp elbows was common. As for the German soldiers among the crowd, space magically appeared before them.
At last, after struggling to hear the staticky PA system, and having tried several platforms, Ricard and Kasia reached the train for Brussels. Ricard had meant to buy tickets for the express train, but these were long reserved, so it would be first class on the local. Eventually, Ricard and Kasia found their compartment, gratefully sank onto the faded red-plush seats, and lit cigarettes of relief. Outside the grimy window, faces appeared—somebody searching for somebody—then vanished. As travelers found their seats, they immediately raised the windows to continue saying goodby to those who had accompanied them to the station. Traffic on the platform was slowed by those passengers who never got on a train without asking the conductor where it was going.
Finally, the conductors called out “Tous à bord!” and travelers lingering on the platform hurried to climb the steps into the railcar. Ricard and Kasia thought they might have the compartment to themselves, but, when the locomotive hissed as it vented steam, two Wehrmacht troopers entered the compartment, stowed their rifles, helmets, and heavy duffel bags above their seats, and politely greeted Kasia and Ricard. These were German combat soldiers—officers always took the express, even if a few poor souls had to be kicked off the train to make room for them. The troopers wore Feldgrau—field gray—uniforms, with ribbons and medals pinned to their tunics. Likely they had fought in the army that defeated France in 1940, had been assigned to occupation duty in one of the northern towns, then given furloughs in Paris before they went off to fight in R
ussia, fifteen hundred miles away.
One of the soldiers took out photographs he’d had developed in Paris and showed them to his friend, who said, “Is that Sylvie?” Even with the subject upside down from where he sat, Ricard could see a plump redhead with a crooked smile.
“That’s her, in front of the bar in Pigalle.”
“Here’s one of her friend.”
“Mimi.”
“Yes, with the big tits.”
“God, I was drunk.”
“They didn’t care, they like soldiers.”
Soon enough, the troopers fell asleep, so Kasia and Ricard whispered to each other. “Merde, it is triste here,” Kasia said, staring out the window. She wasn’t wrong. Headed for Brussels, the track ran northeast of Paris—flat fields in the November rain with only an occasional village, and soon enough the names of the towns were the names of the Great War battlefields—Amiens, Arras, Cambrai—this was, after all, Flanders, “the cockpit of Europe,” where armies had fought since the Middle Ages, killing each other with everything from crossbows to rifles. One Flemish farmer, turning over the earth in his field, had revealed a line of twelve bayonets—a squad caught in battle order as they moved down a trench and died, frozen in place, of a shell concussion. Outside the train window, a field of white crosses that took the train a long time to pass.
“Nobody comes here, do they,” Kasia said.
“The French know what happened here, they don’t like to think about it. When Parisians get rich enough to buy a country house, they look west of Paris, near Rambouillet or Chevreuse. Too many bad memories here, an uncle dead in 1914, a brother a year later. The artillery barrages went on for days—they fired a million shells. Still, when the French troops went over the top, German machine guns were waiting for them. Day after day after day, until the mutinies in 1918. Then the generals executed their own troops.”