The Black Swan of Paris

by Karen Robards

  Their hats were pulled low over their eyes, but their faces were turned in her direction.

  There was something about them—warning bells went off in her head.

  The gestapo were everywhere these days, spying on everyone, arresting indiscriminately, killing on no more than a suspicion of complicity with the Resistance. Desperate to stomp out the French underground in the face of the Allied invasion that everyone knew was coming, although no one could say for sure where or when, they’d turned particularly savage. In the last weeks their numbers had multiplied until they swarmed through Paris like an invasion of cockroaches. Many favored tan trench coats.

  Her heart jackhammered.

  Were they watching the house? Do they know what it is? Did they see me leave?

  The frantic questions chased one another through her head.

  They had to have seen her leave. They were right there. If they were looking, that is. Maybe they hadn’t been.

  Maybe two men in the kind of coats the gestapo favored just happened to be walking down this particular street at this particular time, and just happened to be looking steadily in her direction.

  And maybe not.

  She did not speed up. She did not look back. She kept on walking, same pace, same rhythm, through the lavender-tinted light toward the rue de Rivoli, while her breathing turned ragged and goose bumps raced over her skin.

  Picturing herself being hauled before a firing squad like those poor souls in Cherbourg made her go all light-headed. Balling her suddenly cold-as-ice hands into fists, she thrust them into her pockets.

  Hard as it was, she forced herself to maintain a steady pace.

  Her mouth went dry. Her pulse drummed in her ears.

  The glimpses she got in the shop windows she passed told her the men were behind her now, walking casually along, more easily tracked as the sun rose and the shop windows grew shiny with it, reflecting like mirrors.

  Even if she were to lose them now, they could come for her anytime they liked. At the hotel, at the theater, onstage...

  Panic churned her stomach.

  The men walked faster, not quite fast enough to spook their prey should she happen to spot them, but fast enough to eventually catch up.

  Maybe they didn’t know who she was. If they were watching the house, maybe what they saw was just some random girl coming out. Maybe they only wanted to ask her a few questions, and if she played dumb, they’d let her go.

  Maybe was a weak and pitiful word on which to stake her life.

  That it took so long to dawn on her was a sign of how frightened she was. She’d dressed to escape notice in Berthe’s box coat, with Berthe’s scarf tied over her head. Given the uncertainty of the early morning light, with them behind her and at the distance they were, they couldn’t possibly have gotten a look at her face. If they didn’t know who she was, if they hadn’t seen her leave the hotel and followed her from there—I would have spotted them, I’m almost sure—then they could not know she was Genevieve Dumont.

  A tiny flame of hope flared inside her.

  If I can get away from them, I have a chance.

  Run.

  It was her only shot.

  Abandoning all attempts at subterfuge, she rounded the corner and dashed up the dark, deserted street toward the relative busyness that was the rue de Rivoli. Her shoes clattering on the cobblestones sounded loud as gunfire to her terrified ears. Her breathing came in lung-wrenching pants. This side street was a canyon, narrow and walled in by buildings. A wild look around told her that there was no exit, nowhere to go but straight ahead. Dashing up stoops, banging on closed doors, pleading for help, could, if she happened to choose a residence with someone who would actually answer the door and then take her in with a minimal explanation and in the face of putting themselves in danger, get her off the street faster. More likely, such an attempt would just slow her down and lead to her getting caught. Her best hope was to keep running and reach the rue de Rivoli in time to disappear.

  It’s no good, there’s too far to go, they’ll turn the corner and—will they shoot me?

  The gestapo was notorious for shooting fleeing suspects.

  A nerve-shattering creak overhead proved to be an old woman who threw open an upstairs window, stuck her head out, peered up and down the street without seeming to notice Genevieve looking up at her wide-eyed as she tore along the pavement below, and withdrew. A pair of schoolchildren in uniforms exited a house at the end of the street, walked the few meters to the rue de Rivoli, turned left and walked out of sight.

  An odd whispering sound behind her sent an icy tremor shooting down her spine. She snapped a frightened look back: a bicycle was coming on fast. Head down, feet pumping the pedals, the man riding it—the civilian riding it—was clearly in a hurry.

  A quick, compulsive snap of her eyes beyond him told her that the trench coats had not yet appeared.

  The bicyclist passed her. Even as her head swiveled to follow his progress, he braked with a squeal of tires, fishtailing so that the bicycle skidded directly into her path.

  Gasping with fright, she jumped back. He leaped off, grabbed her arm.

  “Here.” He yanked her toward the bicycle, gave a jerk of his head up the street. “Jean’s Café, across from the Grand Palais. Go.”

  Who he was or where he’d come from didn’t matter. He was old and shrunken and bundled up in a threadbare coat and...she didn’t care.

  Grabbing the bicycle with a breathless “Thank you,” she hopped on and pedaled as if her life depended on it. Which she was very much afraid it did.

  Behind her a muffled shout—the trench coats?—caused her to tense in terrified anticipation. Is it them? Will they shoot me? But she was flying now, bent low over the handlebars. Almost there.

  She burst out onto the rue de Rivoli, into the stream of automobiles and trucks and bicycles and horse-drawn carriages and assorted other conveyances that was heavy enough even at this early hour to provide cover, and she allowed herself a single glance back. The man who’d given her the bicycle was nowhere in sight. The trench coats, shouting, raced up the narrow side street in pursuit.

  Go, go, go.

  Darting into the middle of traffic, legs working like pistons, tires bumping over the uneven pavement, she dodged around a crowded, lumbering bus, then raced toward the place de la Concorde.

  Once there, difficult as it was, she forced herself to slow down and blend in. Riding full tilt while weaving in and out of the diverse traffic around Paris’s largest public square would attract attention when what she needed to do was disappear. A trio of bicycles—women on their way to work, from the neat hair and modest skirts of the riders—rolled placidly along not too far in front of her. Easing in behind, she tried to look like she was one of them.

  Her heart kept on hammering. Her hands gripped the handlebars so tightly her knuckles ached. She was tense, breathing hard, not daring to look around lest she should call attention to herself by doing so.

  Jean’s Café—should she follow the man’s direction and go there? He’d saved her by giving her the bicycle, when if he’d wanted to he could have held her for the trench coats. She had to assume that he was part of the Resistance, but how had he known that she was, too, and needed help? Had he simply seen her running and figured it out?

  Or had he, perhaps, been watching the house? Or even been inside the house?

  Was he connected to Emmy?

  For the first time, Genevieve was in the thick of the spy game, alone, with no protection and no one to call the shots.

  The additional difficulty she faced was that she was famous. The more people who saw her, the more people she spoke to and interacted with, the more likely it was that someone would recognize her as Genevieve Dumont.

  For anyone to know that Genevieve Dumont was on the run from the gestapo endangered not only herself but M
ax and his network, as well.

  If she went to that café, the secret was likely to be found out by at least the people who presumably would be waiting there.

  Once it was known that Genevieve Dumont was working for the Resistance, she had to expect the word to get out.

  At the very least, her usefulness would be at an end. She almost certainly would be arrested and might well wind up dead. The same might befall Max.

  The scream of sirens behind her made the hair rise on the back of her neck. She wobbled and almost fell off the bicycle before regaining control. From the sound of them, they were still some distance away, but approaching fast. A quick, impossible-to-resist glance over her shoulder found no sign of police cars barreling toward her, but the shrieking sirens grew louder by the second. There was so much activity on the place de la Concorde that she guessed she might not see them until they were almost upon her.

  An icy conviction that those sirens were coming for her gripped her.

  Peeling away from the group finally as she reached the Champs-Élysées, she was drenched in sweat despite the cold air that nipped at her cheeks. Her breathing was as ragged as if she’d been running for days. The sirens were all she could hear.

  I have to get off the street.

  More people were out and about now that the sun was up. The murky lavender of dawn gave way to an increasingly bright morning. As cars passed her and other bicyclists and people on the sidewalk glanced her way, she felt hideously exposed.

  Jean’s Café was up there on her left, across from the swastika-draped Grand Palais, with its enormous banners announcing its latest exhibition of Nazi propaganda. Titled Commerce and Industry in big white letters against a red background, it touted “the excellent French economic results during collaboration.” She spotted the café’s sign, took in the striped awnings, the two large front windows, the small tables out on the sidewalk, empty at this very early hour, the small dark man in the apron—Jean?—stepping out through the glass front door.

  And rode on past.

  Without knowing who the man who’d given her the bicycle was or who he worked for, it felt too dangerous to follow his directions. She could not risk it. She needed to get back to the hotel.

  On the other side of the wide boulevard came a Nazi patrol: two soldiers striding along with an eager bulldog pulling at a short leash. Given a wide berth by the civilians crowding the sidewalk, they walked with purpose, looking to the left and right, staring hard at everyone they passed.

  They seemed to be searching for someone. Her chest clutched. She had to tear her eyes away from them, put her head down, pedal. Not too fast.

  A bicycle rack nestled between two of the horse chestnuts lining the street caught her eye. If they were looking for her, they were looking for a girl on a bicycle. Coasting in, she jumped off and shoved the bicycle into place between the bars. Then she walked quickly away. The lines outside the shops were already long and growing longer. She tried to look like one more worried housewife anxious about what her coupons would allow her to purchase for the day.

  Pulling the scarf off, she crammed it into her pocket. That left her hair and face exposed, but she feared the plaid scarf might be memorable. Berthe’s plain black coat was ordinary enough that with one glance around she saw three nearly identical ones. Turning up the collar to partially hide her face, she almost jumped out of her skin as first one screaming police car and then another raced past down the wide boulevard, dodging traffic as they went.

  A few minutes earlier and she still would have been on the bicycle. Her knees went weak at the thought.

  Head turned away as if she were looking in the shop windows, terrified of encountering another patrol on her side of the street, she kept walking. Not hurrying, but steady.

  By the time she saw an empty bicycle taxi, her nerves were flayed raw. Flagging it down, she said, “To the Ritz, please,” then huddled in the cart’s depths until she was safely back at the hotel.

  Head down, dodging anyone she feared might recognize her, she managed to retain a veneer of composure until she was in her suite. Then she tottered to the sofa and collapsed.

  It was still so early that Berthe was not yet up. If she was lucky, very, very lucky, no one would ever know she’d gone out.

  Otto showed up at nine to take her to rehearsal. She was, outwardly at least, her usual self as she walked out the front door of the Ritz and slid into the back seat of the car. In fact, she’d taken pains to look extra glamorous in a sleek black suit with her hair brushed into shining waves that framed her face, and vivid scarlet lipstick. It had occurred to her that the best thing she could do, just in case the Nazis were out there looking for a mysterious girl in an oversize coat and shabby scarf who’d left a Resistance safe house, then managed to elude them on a bicycle that morning, was to be Genevieve Dumont, the star, and simply go about her day.

  Genevieve Dumont knew nothing about that frantic girl on the bicycle.

  “You see Max last night?” Otto asked on the way to La Fleur Rouge.

  “He came by the hotel,” she said. Then she frowned. “Why? Haven’t you seen him?”

  “Not since he left the theater after last night’s show. I just like to check to make sure he’s alive.”

  “He is. Or at least he was, last I saw of him.” Curiosity got the better of her. “He seems to be spending a lot of nights away from the studio lately. What’s he doing, anyway?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “And you wouldn’t say if you did,” Genevieve concluded.

  His shrug confirmed it.

  “He’d better be careful, or he’ll get arrested for violating curfew. And won’t that leave us holding a fine kettle of fish.”

  Otto grinned, but they arrived at La Fleur Rouge just then and that was her only reply.

  Between wondering if Emmy had gotten her message and if the gestapo had discovered her identity and was going to storm the studio and haul her off at any minute, a knot of dread took up permanent residence under Genevieve’s breastbone. She was so distracted during rehearsal that she twice missed her cue. That was so unlike her that Madame Arnault suggested she take a break, and Cecile, concerned, asked if she had a headache.

  Genevieve took the break, and agreed she did.

  Afterward, freshening up, she was still such a seething bundle of nerves that her hand was unsteady as she applied her lipstick, creating a crooked line, and she had to wipe it off and apply it again.

  When she emerged from the bathroom, it was to discover that the studio was empty except for Max. He leaned against the wall right outside the door.

  She took one look at him in his gray suit and narrow tie—shoulders propping the wall, arms crossed over his chest, a grim set to his jaw, clearly waiting for her—and knew she had trouble.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “The answer’s no,” she said as his eyes slashed to her, because as everybody knew the best defense was a good offense, and she walked by him like she didn’t have a worry in the world. She wore a silky white blouse with her slim black skirt—her suit jacket hung from a peg near the lift—and she could feel him looking at her as she passed. She held her head high, putting a little extra oomph in her walk because she knew he was watching, and distracting him was, she felt, her best hope for warding off whatever this was. Her pumps clicked on the hardwood floor. Her heart started a drumbeat in her chest. “To whatever hideous thing you’re here to try to get me to do.”

  He made a sound that was a cross between a grunt and a growl, shoved away from the wall—he dropped his stick, which hit the floor with a clatter—and came after her. Grabbing her elbow, he pulled her around to face him.

  “Hey!” She tried to yank her arm free without success.

  “Nice try, but it’s not going to work.” He was holding both elbows now as his eyes raked her face. The wall was right behind her, maybe a ste
p away, and he was right in front of her, boxing her in. The curtains were open; dust motes danced in slanting rectangles of sunlight that lay in patches on the floor, but the windows were on the opposite side of the room, leaving his back to them and his face in shadow. Hers, she knew, was well lit. He could undoubtedly see every nuance of her expression, which had probably been his goal when he’d pulled her around like that. “Feeling guilty, angel?”

  “I’ve told you before, don’t call me angel.”

  “I’ll call you anything I want. And I notice you’re not answering the question.”

  Her chin came up. Her pulse drummed, but she would be damned before she’d let him see.

  “Of course I don’t feel guilty. Guilty about what?” She tried yanking her arms free, but his grip was too strong. The abortive movement ended up with her having backed herself up against the wall, and him still holding on to her arms, not quite pinning her there with his body but close. She could feel the cool, smooth plaster against her back, through the thin nylon of her blouse. She could feel the heat and solid strength of him scant centimeters away.

  “You tell me.”

  If he hadn’t been holding on to her arms, she would have pushed him away. As it was, she had to content herself with a glare. “Let go of me. What is wrong with you?”

  He shifted his grip to her wrists, holding them against his chest. The man from last night, the man whose strong arms she’d wanted to rest in and whose broad shoulders she’d wanted to shift her burdens onto, was long gone. Whatever had brought about the change—and she had a sinking feeling she knew what it was—the look in his eyes gave her pause. She wasn’t afraid of Max, but if she hadn’t known him so well, if she’d been anyone other than herself and her relationship with Max had been anything other than what it was, right in that moment she could have been.

  “Suppose you tell me what you were doing this morning on the rue Duphot.”

  Bullets of panic shot through her bloodstream.