German soldiers with rifles and submachine guns poured out of the camouflaged canvas back of the lorry. They ran forward to surround them. She couldn’t move, couldn’t find her voice, tried to say, Martin, please don’t blame yourself.
A sergeant clicked his heels together, bowed in salute and motioned to a corporal to pick up their suitcases. Others guided them to safety, stopping the whole circus of traffic so that everyone else silently cursed them.
Deposited safely on the pavement at the north side of the Champs-Élysées, they were given another bow in salute.
Then the whole thing started up again, the mad round the round, the dervish whose wheels squeaked and clicked but hardly made a sound when one remembered the Paris of before.
Martin gently squeezed her hand and brought it to his cheek, his way of telling her everything was all right, that the soldiers had gone.
‘I love you too, chéri. If we get through this in one piece, we’ll have a celebration. If it still hasn’t been dug up, we’ll open that bottle of Dom Pérignon we’ve hidden for when your father comes back. He’ll understand why we had to do it. Then I’ll pour some over your head in the bath and I’ll let you do the same to me. It’s terrific. It makes your skin tingle.’
Did he teach you that? wondered Martin. Did he bathe you in champagne?
The jeton didn’t work in the telephone and she had to go up to the bar again, where the patron made her buy another of the little metal discs. It took ages to get through to the clinic, and all the while Martin stood next to her, looking down the length of the café, staring out through the grimy windows. He was trying to get her attention. Every two seconds he’d give her skirt a tug and she wanted to say, Stop it! but couldn’t.
‘Allô! Allô! Is that the clinique Albert-Émile Vergès?’
The receptionist wasn’t happy. ‘Where have you been, mademoiselle? Your appointment was for 4.00.’ Et cetera, et cetera.
‘Please, we’ve been detained.’
The receptionist hung up. The line simply went dead. ‘Ah no,’ she gasped and threw a desperate look towards the zinc, said, ‘Martin, what is it?’
Two men were looking in the windows. One was shielding his eyes though there was no need since the awnings were out and it was shady where they were standing.
‘Encore un jeton, s’il vous plaît,’ she said harshly to the patron. ‘Make it two, damn it. I have to get through.’
This time a man answered and when she had explained that the trains had been delayed for hours and hours, he said calmly, ‘It’s all right. I understand perfectly. Come anyway. I have other patients but will fit you in when you get here. If you’re taking the métro, remember that alternate stations have been closed. Vavin is no longer in use so you must get off at Montparnasse-Bienvenue and walk over. It’s not far. We’re at the southwest corner of the rue d’Assas and the rue Vavin. You can’t miss it.’
They were following them, those two men from the avenue Foch. One would go ahead while the other stayed behind. Down into the métro it was the same. But at the end of the line, they vanished and she had the feeling they had been replaced but didn’t know by whom. Even Martin was puzzled. ‘Chéri, did you really erase the parachute? Please, if you didn’t, I’ll forgive you but only if you tell me the truth. It’s important.’
He was just a little boy and she really could forgive him, couldn’t she? she asked herself.
Martin found his pencil and paper and wrote, I’m sorry. I forgot.
There wasn’t an old magazine or newspaper in the waiting room—they would have been stolen to be made into papier-mâché balls, dried hard for the stoves of winter. Everyone had heard about it. News like that travelled far. No coal in Paris, no firewood for that matter. Parisians froze in winter, that is to say, those who didn’t have at least one of the Occupier living in their building or had some other connection. There was no milk, no cheese or eggs, and yes, it had been wise of her to have taken the boy to the farm. What else could she have done? And certainly she had had to plead with her life for a place there, a tiny two-room “cottage” of their own and had had to pay the exorbitant rents, which, each quarter now, were being raised to the limit of her salary.
But was it wise to remain there? Could she not see if perhaps a move to the south, to Perpignan or Aix-en-Provence could be in the cards—the boy, his throat, et cetera? Something was going on in Bois Carré and for some reason God had suddenly chosen to connect their lives to it.
God doesn’t do things like that, she told herself. Had He opened His arms, then, to welcome the man who had screamed? Had He said, I forgive you your sins?
Probably, but now they were Herr Kraus’s only link to whatever information that poor unfortunate had been carrying to Paris, and the SS were certain she was involved. It didn’t bear thinking. Martin’s future would be an internment camp. He’d be the odd one out just as he was here and at the farm or in the village but without her to watch over him. Without her to care.
She mustn’t let it happen.
Nine straight-backed chairs ringed the thin carpet of this waiting room. There were no pictures on the dun-coloured walls, only a wooden crucifix whose nails were too sturdy to be easily pulled.
Five of these chairs were filled with others—three German soldiers, the others civilians, a man and a woman. None of them smiled. All were worried about themselves—why else would they have been here?
Angélique felt sorry for Martin who sat so still beside her, both of them reeking of urine. He’d be crying inside about his throat and worrying about having left his little parachute on that window—he’d know the danger. He was far from stupid, was really immensely intelligent and just like his papa.
He loved her too—he really did. There were times when he would suddenly hold her, times he would just have to touch her or bring her hand to his cheek, but could he ever forgive her for breaking up his home and making others call him a bastard? Could he accept the fact that his father had loved her so much, he had risked his life and had taken his yacht across the Channel in a vain attempt to rescue her before it was too late?
The Blitzkrieg. The invasion.
And could Martin understand that it hadn’t mattered, his having hidden in the bow locker of the yacht to stop his father from bringing her to England? His father had become trapped and had had to leave them both on that road, that terrible road.
Abandonment of his mother first, and then of himself—could she confide this to the specialist or to anyone?
Of course not. It would be far too dangerous.
‘Martin … Martin Bellecour, please?’
‘That’s us.’
The receptionist and nurse must have gone home for the rest of the day. Dr. Albert-Émile Vergès looked older than his fifty years. He wasn’t tall or short but of less than medium height, and the open smock revealed a grey serge waistcoat that was too hot and a white shirt whose collar and tie pinched, though he would steadfastly refuse to loosen them.
Serious dark brown eyes passed over her and the boy, he hesitating but momentarily on herself to say, ‘You’ve had a difficult journey. Come … Come this way, please.’
Like a father wanting only to talk to his son, he gathered Martin in but paused to let her go first. She brought the suitcases. He said nothing about them. Theft prevention was simply understood.
‘Tell him he’s to go into the cubicle and draw the curtain. He’s to strip off to his underwear.’
‘I thought he was here to have his throat examined?’
Vergès ducked his head in acknowledgement. ‘Of course, but we want to see how he is generally. His height, weight, all such things, they give us background.’
She nodded but had always found visits to the doctor’s difficult. ‘Martin, let me get your clean underwear. I’ll pass it through to you. Fold your clothes. Don’t leave them lying in a heap. Treat them with res
pect. They have to last you.’
Vergès closed the door to the waiting room but stood watching her as she opened Martin’s suitcase, she to cry out suddenly and to bow her head in despair. ‘I’ll have to wash things. The butter, Martin. They must have opened the crocks in a hurry.’
‘They?’ asked Vergès, but she didn’t turn, couldn’t seem to close the suitcase, was broken by what she’d found.
At last she sighed. ‘The SS. We were picked up at the station. We still haven’t a clue as to what it was all about.’
If he nodded, she didn’t see this, though she sensed with alarm that something subtle had crept into the room.
‘It’s as I feared,’ he said. ‘Such things, they’re happening all too often these days.’
‘Are they?’ she demanded, turning to find him looking at her with … What was it? she wondered. Suspicion?
He was a grave, pale, serious thing, this doctor of the throat, and she had to ask herself, Is he now afraid?
‘Please, I understand,’ he said.
‘Do you?’ she arched.
‘Yes.’
He pushed his glasses tightly back on the bridge of a nose that was not arrogant. He stroked the grey-black goatee that gave such dignity, and said, ‘Others are waiting. It shouldn’t take your son all day to undress.’
‘He’s worried you’re going to operate.’
‘Then tell him to forget it. There’s a six-month waiting list.’
‘He can understand what you say to him.’
‘Good.’
‘Bring your pencil and paper, Martin,’ she called out and then explained, ‘It’s his way of talking.’
In the surgery, Martin stood on the scales and had himself weighed. He was measured. All his reflexes were tested and every time the specialist had a question, the boy would take up his pencil and write out an answer.
Paper was in such short supply. Would a point come when there was none left for him? she wondered, only to hear Vergès saying, ‘That’s a fine bit of machinery, Martin. Where did you get a pencil like that?’
‘It was my father’s.’
But it wasn’t. Certainly it was a mechanical pencil with a chromium-plated barrel for extra leads and a clip, but it was not his father’s. ‘Martin … ?’ she asked. ‘Ah, chéri, did you lose yours?’ He’d be so heartbroken.
The boy shook his head. The examination went on but whenever he put the pencil down, her eyes would find it until, at last, she had to say, ‘That’s monsieur le maire’s. I know it is. Martin, what happened?’
He looked at the doctor, then at her and quickly scribbled, Monsieur le maire gave me his for good luck. We traded for the journey.
Ah no …
Vergès seemed to think nothing of it. Again he continued with the examination. Finally he said, ‘There’s absolutely no need for an operation. We don’t install mechanical talking boxes in anyone. No little wooden doors either. Your problem is all in the mind, Martin. Hypnosis might help. I’m certain of it.’
‘Hypnosis … ? No. No, that’s impossible.’
‘Please don’t be stubborn. It’s harmless. It will help him to remember and in doing so, he may overcome the psychosis that prevents him from speaking.’
‘I’ll have to think about it.’
‘Good. Shall we say next week, then, at the same time?’
‘Pardon?’ Did Vergès not know how difficult it was to leave the zone interdite?
‘Look, I’ll write a note to the mayor, explaining the need. If you like, I’ll do another for the district Kommandant. Just give me his name.’
‘Lautenschläger. The Oberst Oskar. He’s a decent man with a difficult job. He rides two horses. The one of the Occupier, the other of compassion.’
Vergès nodded. He felt the breast pocket of his smock, searching for the pencil he had had only a moment ago but must have dropped on the floor. ‘Martin, let me borrow yours. You can go and get changed. Perhaps, if she wants to, your mother could give your underwear a quick wash? It’ll be wet but in this heat it ought to dry quickly.’
And my own, Doctor? Is this what you’re suggesting, you whose fingers tremble as you hold that borrowed pencil?
How cold she felt.
Without a word, she got up and took the boy from the surgery but didn’t close the door. Vergès heard the water running in the sink and fought with himself not to close the door, for she had left it open as a challenge, she silently crying out, Did you salauds use us? Is there a message in that pencil?
Turning his back to her, he twisted the barrel open and extracted the slender, rolled-up tube of cigarette paper, pausing only for a moment to grip his forehead and silently say, Dieu le père, forgive us. They were innocent.
The bluebottles had found the corpse, and in the stillness of the interrogation room and the heat, the sound of them was irritating. Taking his time, Hans Albrecht Dirksen ran his gaze over the lost opportunity of Henri-Paul Doumier. The flies worried the land surveyor’s eyes that were swollen shut and now encrusted. In their hordes, they had entered that gaping mouth. ‘You fool,’ he seethed. ‘Did you have to kill him?’
Kraus stood to attention, ramrod stiff and staring straight ahead. ‘His heart, Standartenführer. We didn’t know it was weak.’
‘You didn’t know? Come, come, mein lieber Sturmbannführer, admit that you were trying to make an impression on the woman and her son.’
This Hosenscheisser loved nothing better than to dress him down.‘She’s hiding something, Colonel. I know she is.’
‘Verdammter Idiot, would you have hanged her stripped naked and roped to a meat hook, when for all we know, they could have been using her and the boy without her knowledge? Patience, damn it! Don’t let your lust for power constantly get the better of you.’
‘Jawhol, Colonel.’
‘Dummkopf, is it the Russian front you want and the rank of corporal? When I tell you to go carefully, I mean it. Too much is at stake.’
Dirksen went over the report. The imbecile had got nothing out of the surveyor. ‘Bitte, Kraus, interrogation is an art. Try to think of yourself as a painter of still life, not of houses. If you must, imagine the subject naked but apply the brush as though each stroke was your last and the brush sable-tipped. Now tell me where that woman is, or is it that you simply don’t know?’
‘Ach, the Oberst Lautenschläger swore we were wrong about the Schlampe. He threatened to call the Kommandant von Gross-Paris and make trouble if I didn’t …’
‘Yes, yes, in the wake of the Russian setbacks we’re supposed to show “cooperation” with the Wehrmacht so as to get what we want and please the Führer. So?’
It would have to be said. ‘She’s at the clinic with the boy, her “son”.’
‘He may well be her son, Kraus. Did you think of that?’
‘Yes, Colonel.’
‘Well, then, what have we on the doctor? Come, come, damn it, answer me.’
‘As far as we know, he’s clean. The Wehrmacht use him.’
‘Die Wehrmacht … Since when did that sort of thing not make the job of the Banditen far easier? Has he any connection with Abbeville and that woods? Have you even thought to establish this?’
Dirksen wasn’t going to let up. ‘None that we know of.’
‘You’ll keep a watch on him?’
‘Yes, of course. And the woman and the boy.’
‘Good. Let them feel we’ve no further interest. If anything comes up, see that you find me. I’ll be at the Opéra. La Bohème.’
Again there was the usual response from Kraus, but Dirksen didn’t leave the room. Instead, he took his time, wanted to be absolutely certain nothing had been missed. But no, the corpse of Doumier was just that, though when he came to the remains of the food the woman and the boy had brought, he had to shake his head in despair. ‘Could you not eve
n distinguish between genuine ignorance and deceit?’
Using his pocketknife, he picked over the shredded remains of what must have been a fine ham. The roasted geese had been torn apart. ‘The suitcases? You went through them thoroughly?’
‘A few clothes and toiletries, nothing else. We examined the linings of the suitcases, but didn’t rip them out.’
Well, at least there was that. ‘Good. Then she’ll only think you’ve stolen the food.’
Though he hadn’t seen her and the boy, he could imagine Kraus’s interrogation of them in that other room, the boy not talking because he couldn’t, but this one forcing the woman to sit across the table from himself while the boy … What would he have done? Gone over to the windows to have a look down at the street? Wandered about, lost in his own little world? The bathtub—would he have been puzzled by it? The staves, the smells, the sight of dried blood and fingernail marks?
‘Go carefully with this, Kraus. Mess up again and it really will be the last we see of you.’
Out in the corridor, Dirksen came upon the cleaners, two Frenchmen in shabby bleus de travail and open-collared shirts, no berets for it was far too hot. No cigarettes either, tobacco being in such short supply, they dared not smoke in a place like this, but they were about to go into the room the woman and the boy had been in. ‘Leave it,’ he said in French. ‘Give me a few moments alone in there. Come back in ten minutes.’
And then, to himself, I have to put my mind into that of a ten-year-old boy and then that of his mother. I have to satisfy myself that they simply didn’t know anything of this matter.
Berlin had been adamant about Bois Carré and all other such sites in the zone interdite. The SS were to take over their security from the Wehrmacht, who were thought to be incompetent of such a task and would have to be replaced. No word of what was there was to leak out. The sites were well hidden and must remain so on pain of death.
His own and that of Kraus, if not those of others.
The Little Parachute Page 3