The process had been unbelievably slow and difficult.
By February of 1941, she’d been stuck in Casablanca for seven months. Desperately afraid, all alone, cut off from everyone and everything she’d known, she’d been down to her last few francs and reduced to singing for her supper wherever she could find a gig. Once a week she’d finagled herself a slot onstage at the Rialto Theater, the owners of which tended to prefer burlesque and vaudeville acts to singers. Other times she sang in hotel lounges or at private parties or smoke-filled bars, often teaming up with Max on the piano. The pay was low, often just tips, but it was enough to allow her to survive. Morocco had recently come under the control of Vichy France, which had sworn its allegiance to the conquering Germans. Britain and France were both in the area, fighting it out, with British torpedo boats attacking a French battleship in the harbor and French bombers strafing the city in retaliation. Most days, all anyone had to do to die was step out into the street at the wrong moment.
“I do,” she said. “It felt like the most dangerous place in the world.”
“It was something, though.” Otto sounded faintly nostalgic.
Her reply was tart. “If you like choking dust and camels and villains.”
But in retrospect, it had been something. With its blazing heat, gleaming white buildings, majestic Moorish architecture and swaying palm trees lining wide colonial boulevards, Casablanca was beautiful, exotic—and in turmoil. By an accident of geography, it had become a way station for thousands of weary, frightened refugees. It was crowded to the bursting point, thick with criminals from pickpockets to smugglers to murderers, a place where loyalties were fiercely divided and nearly anything could be had for the right price. It was also a teeming nest of spies and intrigue, with calamity awaiting the unwary around every corner.
“Lucky you ran across the one guy who wasn’t a villain, huh?” Otto’s voice was soft but full of meaning. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have wagered a shilling on your chances of making it out of there alive.”
Genevieve’s lips thinned. Much as she might want to, she couldn’t actually disagree. Max had saved her. But...
“You’re a cheerful-looking pair. What’s the subject?” Max was back, glancing from one to the other of them. The broadsheet was nowhere in sight. From the slightly scorched smell in the air, she guessed that he’d burned it, as was the usual fate of such documents once their message had been received.
“You,” she said.
“Old times,” Otto said at the same time with a dismissive shrug. Clearly he didn’t intend to enlighten him any further.
Max’s eyebrows went up.
“Charles Lamartine.” Genevieve’s tone was brittle as the man’s face popped into her mind’s eye. It was her night for dealing with ghosts.
Her grievance with Max stemmed from that night—the night when the character of their budding friendship had changed. She’d thought...she’d thought that, maybe, in Max, she’d found someone special. She hadn’t realized then that she was stepping right into the jaws of the trap he’d been laying for her since they’d met.
“Ah,” he said, as their eyes held. He didn’t need to say anything more: she knew he knew exactly what she was referring to.
Well-known Nazi collaborator and man about town Charles Lamartine had been sniffing around her for weeks before he heard her sing a defiant “La Marseillaise” from the stage of the Rialto. She’d chosen the song in response to a conversation she’d overheard by a group of Nazi sympathizers who’d compared defeated France to a cowed dog. Lamartine had smilingly told her that her choice had certainly severed any chance she might have at official protection, then followed her back to her rented room above a deserted shop. After knocking on her door, he’d muscled his way in when she answered and tried to force himself on her, covering her face and throat with slobbering kisses, ripping her dress, shoving her down onto her bed. She barely managed to save herself as he dropped down on top of her by grabbing and shooting him with his own Rubis revolver. With a choked gasp rather than a cry, he’d reared up, rolled off the bed, hit the floor and died before she could do more than scramble to her feet to stare down at him in horror. The wild, unthinking panic that had given her the strength to save herself devolved into a shaking fit that had her sinking down onto the floor beside him as her knees gave out. When she finally, finally accepted the fact that he was really dead and she had killed him, she was appalled by what she had done. Then, as the ramifications slowly sank in, she was seized by fresh panic as she realized the true enormity of what she now faced.
She was already a well-known singer, though not nearly as famous as she’d since become. Even if she’d possessed her present degree of fame, however, it wouldn’t have been enough to save her. Lamartine was known to work closely with high-ranking members of the German spy network, the Abwehr. His killer would be looked on harshly, especially in the aftermath of her partisan-rousing song. If she reported Lamartine’s death to the local police, she could expect at the minimum a lengthy interrogation. Even if they believed that she’d acted in self-defense, she was unlikely to escape arrest. Perhaps she would be freed at trial, but more likely she would be convicted and executed for murder.
In extremis, she’d managed to pull herself together enough to go out into the night in search of Max, the one acquaintance she had in the city who she thought might be able to deal with such a crisis. Explaining what had happened in disjointed whispers, she’d brought him back to her room. One look at the corpse on her floor and she’d once again started to shake. The knowledge that she’d taken a life felt horrible. Max had come through for her magnificently, wrapping her first in his arms and then in a blanket, giving her brandy, calming her down. He’d disposed of the body, then as questions had started to circulate about what had become of Lamartine, he’d managed to get her out of the country, obtaining an almost impossible emergency certificate allowing her to travel by emphasizing to the Reich the public relations importance of a series of performances he’d quickly arranged for her across Europe. Of course, afterward he’d used her to further his own agenda as a British agent, and in hindsight she saw that he’d been grooming her for inclusion in his spy network from the moment they met. But by the time she’d worked that out, she’d been so hopelessly involved in his schemes that there was no escape. She’d become his, in the worst possible way.
“How about we leave the past in the past?” Max said.
Genevieve didn’t reply.
“Good plan.” Stepping into the breach, Otto glanced at Genevieve and gestured at the valise. “I brought you some clothes. Berthe packed them. Max thought you might not want to go back to the hotel in last night’s evening gown.”
“How thoughtful of him.” The edge in her voice was aimed at Max. “By the way, I see my coat is missing. I’m quite fond of it, actually. Am I ever going to see it again?”
“I’ll bring it back later,” Max said. “Why don’t you go get changed?”
Her lips compressed. But she really, really needed a moment to herself, and lashing out at Max wasn’t going to fix anything. She took the valise and headed for the bathroom, conscious of Max’s gaze following her the entire way. It didn’t require someone who knew him as well as she did to divine that something in her manner was striking him as a little off. Well, let him wonder.
Some fifteen minutes later, she adjusted the belt around the snug waist of her brown tweed suit, slid her feet into a pair of brown pumps, checked to make sure her stocking seams were straight and took a final look in the small mirror over the sink. She’d pinned her hair away from her face in soft rolls and made judicious use of the cosmetics Berthe had packed, but she still looked pale and hollow-eyed.
Haunted was the word that came to mind.
She picked up the trench coat Berthe had included and the valise that now contained her discarded evening clothes and left the bathroom. Max was half sitting, h
alf leaning on the edge of the table, shirtsleeves rolled up, arms crossed over his chest, engaged in a low-voiced conversation with Otto. They broke off as soon as they saw her.
“Otto’s going to take you back to the hotel now. He says the streets are safe.” Max’s gaze assessed her. It occurred to her that he knew her as well as she knew him, and she felt a niggle of unease as she wondered what her face might reveal. The version of her past that she’d given him was far different from the truth, which she would not, could not share.
“Relatively safe,” Otto said.
Straightening away from the table, Max stepped up beside her to take her coat from her. He helped her into it as Otto moved away to hit the button for the lift.
“Why don’t you skip this morning’s rehearsal and rest today?” Max’s voice was low. “You look like hell.”
“Thank you.”
At the acid in her tone, Max flicked her cheek with a long forefinger.
“Beautiful hell,” he amended. “If you’re feeling guilty about Lamartine again, don’t. He was a bad man. He was going to hurt you, and you did what you had to do.”
“I know.” But she felt guilty anyway.
He studied her face. She would have turned away, but she was afraid of what he might read into that.
“If it’s not Lamartine, then what is it? What’s the matter, angel?”
Angel: there it was again. In a voice that was almost—tender.
“You tell me.” She gave him a searching look. They stood very close, so close she had to tilt her head back to see his eyes. “You haven’t called me that since—”
She broke off. She didn’t like to remind him of those first months after he’d gotten her out of Casablanca. She didn’t like to remember them herself. As the itinerant entertainer cum new manager cum knight in shining armor she’d thought she was getting to know, he’d been irresistibly charming. She’d sung in the venues he’d arranged for her, explored various cities with him, eaten nearly all her meals with him, had fun with him. Relied on him for protection and advice and companionship. Until, on the last night of their stay in Oslo, she’d taken shelter in his hotel room during a terrible bombing raid, fallen asleep in his bed (he, like the gentleman she’d thought he was, had slept on the floor) and then awakened not to the sound of more bombs exploding but to find a British agent, too injured to be discreet, slipping through Max’s hotel room door. Thus, abruptly, she had discovered who and what Max really was, along with the ulterior motive behind his pursuit of her. Since then, their relationship had been strictly business.
“Oslo, wasn’t it?” he said. “I remember. Nice to know you do, too.”
Something indefinable passed between them.
They’d spent two weeks in Oslo before she’d learned the terrible truth. They’d shared so much—including a searing, heady kiss that, much as she tried to banish it from memory, came back to her in moments of weakness. She’d thought they were headed to something special—something like falling in love. But the revelation that Max Bonet was actually Major Max Ryan, SOE, was followed by a rejected apology, a blazing if low-voiced fight and finally her attempt to walk out the door.
He’d grabbed her before she could leave the room.
“Where do you think you’re going?” His voice was a harsh whisper.
“Away from you.” She tried to jerk free. He didn’t let go.
“Keep your voice down.” Out the window, the moonlit night was just beginning to lighten to gray. The bombing had stopped, but sirens still wailed. On the bed, the badly wounded agent, patched up to the extent possible by Max, lay rigid and panting rather than writhing in pain as he had been doing earlier. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Oh, really? You just watch me.”
“You’re going to help me get this man out of the country. I can’t do it without you.”
“I wouldn’t help you cross the street. You lied to me. You—”
“They’ll kill him if they catch him. They’ll kill us, too.”
“Us?” She shook her head vehemently. “Oh, no. I’m not involved. I had nothing to do with this.”
“You’ve been helping smuggle people through checkpoints and across borders since we left Morocco. The playbills that get passed out at your shows? They contain coded messages. Right now a dozen radios are hidden beneath false bottoms in your costume trunks.”
Her jaw dropped.
“You’re in too deep to get out.” He held her in place, looked down into her eyes. Except for the moonlight filtering in through the window, it was dark in the bedroom, but not so dark she couldn’t see him. The handsome face with the beautifully carved mouth, the long-fingered pianist’s hands, the tall, lean body—she was achingly familiar with them. With him. Only, she realized with a blinding flash of fear-fueled anger, nothing about him was what it seemed. She didn’t actually know this ruthless man who was gripping her arms so tightly—any part of him—at all.
The man she’d thought she was falling in love with didn’t exist.
Furious, she said, “I will get out. I’ll walk right out this door. You can’t make me stay. You can’t make me help you.”
“You’re right. I can’t. But I’m going to try to get my guy out regardless, and without you in the car with us, our chances of getting caught are sky-high. I won’t give you up, but once they have me and realize I’m your manager, they’ll come looking for you.”
“My God.” The truth of it was appallingly obvious.
“The only chance you have is to go, right now, to the Nazis—their headquarters is at Møllergata 19—and turn me and that chap there in. We’ll be tortured and executed, but you—you’ll be a heroine of the Reich. If you want to do that, I won’t stop you.” He let go of her, stepped back, gestured toward the door. “The choice is yours.”
She was so angry, so hurt, so scared, so shocked that she could barely think. The magnitude of the betrayal stunned her. She stood glaring at him, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides.
One thing was crystal clear: she might not know him, but he knew her. And he knew as well as he knew it was cold outside that she wouldn’t turn him in to the Nazis.
It killed her to say it. “What do you want me to do?”
In the end, with the help of Otto—who up until then she’d thought was strictly their driver—they’d loaded the wounded agent into the secret compartment in the car that was revealed by pulling out the back seat, then drove through numerous checkpoints and across the Norwegian border into Sweden. At each stop Genevieve’s heart was in her throat, but their papers and her travel pass and status as an increasingly popular star got them through.
Once his agent was safe in neutral Sweden, Max, exhibiting no shame whatsoever for what he’d done to her, was prepared to return to the business of espionage under the guise of being her manager. She had shows already scheduled in Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium, he reminded her.
“Cancel them,” she told him. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He’d gone away, and when he’d come back, it had been to say goodbye. She let him into her hotel room because she didn’t want to chance prying ears overhearing whatever he had to say. Sweden was officially neutral, but the Nazis had spies everywhere.
“You should be all right here,” he said. “Whether we win or lose, Sweden is probably as good a place as any to ride it out. If it can be ridden out. But if the Nazis win, not even Sweden will be safe.”
She gave him a stony look.
He continued, “Or you could help us win. You could use your talent, your unique position as a marquee artist, and join the fight. The threat is so enormous we need every advantage we can get. Aren’t you the girl who sang ‘La Marseillaise’ in front of a theater full of Nazis? Do it for France.”
“Goodbye, Max,” she said.
“You might also want to cons
ider that my guy saw you. Got a real good look, and you’re hard to forget. He’s lying low, recovering, but he’s still here in Stockholm until he does. The Nazis almost caught him in Oslo, and they don’t give up easily. He’s a good man, but even good men have been known to talk under the right circumstances, and if he were to be arrested...”
“You are such a bastard.” It was a wrathful exclamation, because her eyes had been well and truly opened, and she now recognized he was just trying to manipulate her into doing what he wanted.
His smile was wry. “We leave in an hour. The car will be around front if you change your mind.”
In the end, of course, she had changed her mind. Because she loved her country. Because she had one gift, and she could use it to help in the battle against the horror that was the Third Reich. Because Sweden suddenly felt gray, and cold, and so lonely. And also because, despite the fact that she’d recognized his attempt at manipulation for exactly that, he’d succeeded in planting the thought that she wasn’t safe anywhere.
“From here on out this is strictly business,” she’d informed Max in a hostile undertone as she’d yanked open the door and slid into the back seat of the waiting car. Both he and Otto looked around at her from the front seat.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Max said, and climbed out of the front passenger seat to oversee the bestowal of her luggage in the trunk.
That was the scene unspooling in her mind when the ping of the arriving lift brought her back to the present, to the studio in the rue de la Lune, only to discover that her eyes were still locked with Max’s.
Despite everything, her pulse gave a wayward flutter at the memory of what Max had been to her before she’d found out what a dirty liar he was. Clamping down on it, she frowned at him and said, “Bad memories are unfortunately often the hardest to shake.”
The Black Swan of Paris Page 11