The Perrache network in Lyon, right in the heart of Klaus Barbie’s territory but unbreakable until her arrival. Innocence in the guise of a lonely but attractive war widow who had also lost her children.
Another sixty-two into the bag and eighteen million in confiscated Louis d’or and uncut diamonds to sweeten things further.
Others, too, and all because of her—Hans Albrecht Dirksen’s French mistress. The pride of the SS in France, their little secret weapon. ‘Mon cul is too valuable, Major. You’re on borrowed time as it is because you kill too many before the purse of their lips is opened. Hans is watching you very closely, mon ami. Now please remove your hand from the front of my blouse, or is it that you would like to tear it from me?’
The waves of dark brown hair, the big brown eyes that were now hard but could appear so innocent, the fine brush of the brows and soft, naturally red lips were those of the wealthy and the pampered who had been thrown onto hard times at the Defeat of 1940 and forced to fend for themselves. First by the use of her ass, and then by that natural suspicion and wiliness of peasant ancestors deeply buried but not quite forgotten.
Kraus fingered the white lace trim of the modest brassiere that had been hidden by the blouse. He hooked his fingers in under the strap of the throat supporter, as the whores, their maquereaux and petty gangsters were so fond of calling a brassiere, and he wanted to pull hard but resisted the urge. Naked, she would tremble. Naked, he could make her do anything he wanted. ‘Don’t ever think your kind are indispensable. There are lots more where you came from. All I have to do is drop a certain little dossier into the hands of the Banditen. The photos are excellent and they show you in all of those places where you’ve had your “successes”. They connect you, Marie-Hélène de Fleury of the boulevard de Beauséjour and the solitary walks in the Bois de Boulogne when your conscience is troubling you—it does trouble you now and then, yes? Please don’t deny it. Cooperate. Learn who your master really is.’
He’d do it too, thought Marie-Hélène.
Kraus let go of her. ‘Now start telling me what happened with Vergès. Don’t leave anything out, and from now on you report everything to me first. Dirksen needn’t know you’re doing so. Indeed, if I were you, mein kleiner Schatz, I wouldn’t tell him of our agreement. I’d just keep it a secret. Sort of like between two lovers who are supposedly happily married to others and don’t want to upset their little applecarts.’
Herr Dirksen had a way with him, felt Angélique. He didn’t push but gave the impression of one who persevered in his own quiet and quite charming self. And yes, he seemed to want only to satisfy himself about Martin and her, but never asked a question that could even be remotely thought of as threatening. Instead, it was as if he waited only for an opening, a little window through which he could see enough to say to himself, I was right about them.
That he knew the city well was evident, and he really had been very kind, this “businessman” from Düsseldorf, this “buyer of cotton, flax and wool”, this “manufacturer of bed linens and dress fabrics”, and certainly he couldn’t possibly have known that in the autumn of 1938, on 18 September, Martin’s father had brought her to this same restaurant. It had been so very expensive then, would cost a fortune now, but could he have known of the memories it would evoke? A smile, a look, a lamp being lighted or the way her hand had been touched? The meal, ah such a meal, their glasses constantly refilled, and afterwards the quays under lamplight to pause and embrace until, satiated with that, they had found their little hotel and themselves again and again.
La Vagendende, at numéro 142 boulevard Saint-Germain, was of the belle époque. Frosted, etched glass gave haunting images of demimondes with swept-up hair, flowing tresses and half-closed eyes. Their plunging necklines revealed the softness of their skin, with lovely little dragonfly clasps in silver or gold to release a halter strap but later … later.
On each table there were tall brass lamps with round and frosted glass globes that softly glowed and clear glass chimneys that sometimes smoked. The tablecloths were of damask, the table legs curved and the lines of them flowed continuously to blend in harmony with the rich, dark mahogany panelling, the forests of parlour palms whose leafy fronds were reflected in the mirrors as was the big brass trumpet of the wind-up gramophone.
Wondering what he really wanted of them, Angélique sat with her back to a corner facing the trumpet of that thing that poured out its scratchy rendition of the Hungarian Rhapsody. Violins were muted against the constant din, the loud talk, the guffaws, the boisterous bragging of German officers with their French mistresses, German businessmen with theirs, the butter-and-egg boys too, ah yes, the big black marketeers, and the collabos also.
All were well dressed and well fed and now took no more notice of this little threesome, she in a pale blue cotton dress, flowered enamel earrings and … and sand-coloured hair that was so drab but now worn to fall loosely over the shoulders. No lipstick or perfume—ah, none of those because to have worn any would have been not to honour the man she loved.
‘Martin, please don’t wolf your soup.’
‘Relax. Let the boy eat. It’s only natural he should be hungry.’
She threw Herr Dirksen a look that said, Oh, and since when, please, were manners not important?
The purée of potatoes and leeks had been served in blue Sèvres cups that were inset into art nouveau pewter chalices whose chipped ice caused beads of moisture to condense and run down the sides. Martin kept grabbing the chalice’s stem and then wiping his hand on his short pants. He ate like a demon, broke bread by ripping it apart like he did at the farm. Then he would dunk it deeply into the soup before cramming it into his mouth. And when done, he finished it all off by wiping the cup clean with more bread and licking the spoon three times. First the back, then the front, then the handle and finally back at it all yet again until she finally had to silently say, Ah, mon Dieu, mon petit, I know you’re worried too. He wants something from us, but what?
Fingers were snapped. ‘Garçon …’
‘Monsieur?’
‘Bring the boy more soup.’
‘Certainly. It shall be as you wish.’
‘Merci,’ she managed, the waiter throwing her a look that made her shudder and wonder, Did they all know who Herr Dirksen really was? They must.
‘This is perfect,’ she said of the soup, with eyes downcast. ‘Do you come here often?’
Please be reasonable, he wanted so much to say. Don’t let Kraus get hold of you again.
‘Pay the others no mind,’ he said. ‘For myself, I only want a little company, nothing else, I assure you. I simply would like to get to know our French allies better. That’s all.’
There were lots of such German businessmen in Paris, felt Angélique, but lots of others too, and yes, there had been some glances at him, some whispers, the eyes turning quickly away from her own, but … ‘I merely asked if you came here often.’
‘Not at all, and then only with those I would like to get to know a little better.’
Had he a mistress? she wondered, only to add, Of course he must! They had taken a vélo-taxi from the hotel he had found for them, and Martin, scrubbed and cleaned up as best she could, had been fascinated by Paris at night. A city so different from before the war, one with almost no cars, few lorries and buses—all gazogènes those—and tiny, infrequent blue lights that moved or seemed to hover in the dark ether as fireflies do when the moon begins its climb and is soon reflected in the Seine.
Cigarettes, too, had glowed, but no other lights than these and the blue ones, the darkness elsewhere like ink and a hope, a means of escape? To where, please? she asked. It’s impossible and you know it. Besides, is he not who he says he is?
Those looks he got, she reminded herself.
Martin’s soup came. Startled, his sea-green eyes widened, for somehow Herr Dirksen had played a little joke on him. To gri
n hesitantly was impossible. It was such a huge plate of soup, her laughter came freely and genuinely so. ‘Ah, mon Dieu, chéri, if you eat all of that, you will eat nothing else and be the size of a giant balloon!’
Earnestly the pencil and paper came out, the answer swift: I like this soup. It’s refreshing.
Herr Dirksen’s chuckle was gentle and honest. ‘Eat what you can, Martin, but remember that after the main course, the salade de homard here is made a little differently than in other such places and they’ve a reputation because of it. Big chunks of cooked lobster, lamb’s lettuce, escargots, too, and tender peas and carrots, all with a dressing of walnut oil and sherry vinegar. The salad is truly magnificent, so save a little room for it.’
With that, they had a Chablis from Burgundy that was gorgeously clean and crisp, the 1933 and a perfect year.‘Tell me about yourself,’ he said, she to answer, ‘There’s not much to tell. This’—she indicated the restaurant—‘is definitely not what we’re used to. For us it’s the farm and working in the fields, helping out after the regular job is done. Me, I ride my bicycle the twenty kilometres to Abbeville and back, six days a week. Martin, he helps around the farm after school and during the summer holiday. All the children do, their mothers as well. It’s accepted, and in another few weeks he’ll go back to school.’
Furiously a message was scribbled and thrust at her. Never! You said I wouldn’t have to!
Ah merde. ‘Now look, we’re not going to disgrace ourselves by arguing, are we? Not in front of all these strangers and as the guest of someone so kind? Be reasonable. Don’t sulk.’
She was always accusing him of that. I am being reasonable, he wrote. You promised!
And promises made are those that are kept, but he slammed his fork down and some of the lettuce and lobster had to land in her lap.
Slowly Herr Dirksen shook his head at Martin as if to say, Now look what you’ve done to the one person you should love and cherish more than any other, but of course she wasn’t Martin’s mother.
In the lavabo she tried to get the stains out but knew that would take ages. The attendant brought a bar of soap, such a rarity these days, it took time for such a simple item as that to register. Furious with Martin, she began to scrub, to demand, Why had he had to do it?
Martin? Ah non …
She couldn’t move, could only see herself in the mirror as condemned. The parachute … Is that what Herr Dirksen was after?
She doesn’t know anything about it, wrote Martin. A bit of lobster had caught in his throat. He was going to choke. His face was getting hotter and hotter.
Dirksen handed the boy’s glass of wine to him and calmly said, ‘I make parachutes myself, Martin, in my firm. Good ones, too, but we’re always needing help. Why not tell me what yours was like?’
Everything was going on around them, thought Martin, the waiters like flies about to rush in on the corpse of his salad. It’s special, he wrote. It has straps and is made of dark blue silk with … with secret markings on it.
‘Yes, yes, that’s good. Some of mine are like that too, but how did you come by such a design?’
The monsieur glanced towards the doorway where a curved signboard in coloured glass read toilettes-lavabo, but was he wondering if Angélique would come back too soon? Was he worried that she might?
‘Well?’ prompted Dirksen. ‘Look, we’re friends, aren’t we? I’m only curious. If you don’t want to tell me who told you about such a parachute, we’ll forget I ever asked.’
Martin shook his head and diligently wrote, No one told me about it. There was a field under moonlight. A parachute that is invisible against the sky came slowly down and was quickly gathered in for another time.
‘It was buried?’
Buried, but why?
‘To keep it safe?’
Ah! That is so, monsieur, but only the parachutist knows where it is hidden.
‘And yourself, eh?’
Martin frowned deeply at him and thought a while before writing, It’s a really big field, monsieur. The wheat, it has not yet been harvested, you understand, so it is very tall. As tall as this table. Higher maybe.
They could use metal detectors. There’d be the clips and strap buckles, the chute rings. Lautenschläger could organize a sweep of the field using the guise of searching for old artillery shells from the Great War. That should satisfy the curious.
‘Martin, where did the parachutist go after he left the field?’
Go? Ah! This I don’t know, monsieur, for I couldn’t see him. The wheat, n’est-ce pas? Me, I’m still not tall enough.
The basins in the lavabo were of the belle époque and so sturdy they would withstand the centuries, and yes, the place was spotless. The Boches had made certain of that. Ah! Paris had never had cleaner lavatories. Some of them anyway, especially those the Occupier used, and how was it, please, that such butchers could be so fastidious?
Angélique wiped her eyes but pressed the backs of her fingers to her lips to stop herself from crying and said silently, Cher Jésus, help us now, for Martin, he will have been questioned about that little parachute but he’ll not tell anyone everything.
She had taken off her dress and was still working on it, couldn’t seem to go back in there to face Dirksen, and when the attendant came to collect the bar of soap, she threw it down into the basin, gripped the edge and said, ‘Look, who the hell is he, the man we’re with?’
Without a grin or smile, and at the age of fifty-six, forty of those years at this job, Léon Balladur said, ‘My lips are sealed.’
She tossed her head. ‘My purse is at the table.’
Again he ran his eyes over her. ‘Then there’s nothing we can do about it.’
Cochon! she silently cried, but said, ‘I … I could come back.’
‘I’d have to trust you.’
Salaud! she wanted so much to say, but held the dress up to examine the stain that was below the left breast like a wound or the weeping of a wet nurse. It would have to do for now. ‘Well, monsieur? Ah, me, I appreciated the soap, of course, but the show, it is over, so beat it! Scram, as the Americans love to say, and at forty years in just such a place as this, you will of course have remembered them. Maybe they’ll come back, eh? Who knows?’
Still he lingered and she couldn’t turn her back on him, mustn’t, for he’d make a grab for her. She would have to slide her arms into the dress and let him watch.
‘You could offer a little something else,’ he said.
‘I could but am not going to. Now get out. Take your soap. I wouldn’t have stolen it. I’m not like that and am sure as hell not from around here.’
There were no silk stockings on this one, no beige seams that had been painted up the backs of her legs to fake it, just light canvas deck shoes from before the war. A sailor, then, of yachts, was she? wondered Balladur. Perhaps that alone might be worth an extra hundred francs from the colonel. ‘Enjoy yourself, madame.’
She didn’t say, It’s mademoiselle, for she knew only too well what he had implied. Martin was a bastard child. Instead, she tried to tidy herself and ended up by washing her face and having to beg another towel. ‘Unfortunately, the patron allows only the use of one as a courtesy, madame, with the tip, of course.’
‘Then give me back the first one.’
‘Use the dress. It looks as if nothing can save it.’
‘What was that you said?’ she shrilled, only to blanch at the thought of its being ripped off her by the SS or Gestapo.
Balladur smiled at her. She’d be quite suitable, this one, he thought. No competition in bed for the Mademoiselle Marie-Hélène de Fleury, the mistress of the Sturmbannführer Dirksen, but pastures perhaps for the Sturmbannführer Kraus. Ah oui, et bonne chance, mademoiselle, since you wear no ring and are letting the colonel feed you for the other one to devour.
Turning abruptly away,
he began to refold the towels as he had always done, she to hastily cross herself.
But when she returned to the table, it was Herr Dirksen who said, ‘Martin is very sleepy. I’ve kept you up.’
‘We had to leave Abbeville at 5.00 a.m., the new time.’
Three the old. ‘Forgive me. I should have thought of it.’
‘Please don’t concern yourself. You can sleep in tomorrow, can’t you, Martin? It’s his little holiday.’
‘And yours?’ he asked.
He seemed so sincere. ‘Since when do mothers ever have a holiday? We’ll go to the Louvre, eh, Martin—at least we’ll see what the building used to look like, then we’ll take in a few puppet shows in the Jardin du Luxembourg and we’ll sail our boats, eh? Two of them, yours and mine and we’ll see who wins the race, but there won’t be any contest. He’s far better than I could ever be and is so like his …’ Ah merde, why had she said it?
‘His father?’ asked Dirksen.
The life seemed to go out of her. ‘Was a designer of yachts but …’ She tried to shrug. ‘That one never did tell me where or with what firm he worked. A moment, that’s all it took. Fifteen seconds, I think. Maybe thirty. In love, of course, for without love there is nothing.’
Martin seemed to shrink into himself.
Liar, he said to himself. You and my father lived together for nearly two years, whenever he was here in France on business, which was a lot, a whole lot. You even had a flat here in Paris on the rue des Grands-Augustins overlooking the Seine and the Île de la Cité, numéro 37. I found the address on a letter he had forgotten to mail but I soon found myself there, didn’t I? The third floor. Five rooms, one of which he used as a drafting room and office when away from home while you were out at your own job. Me, I tore that letter up and burned it.
He was picking at his crême brûlée.
‘The father,’ asked Dirksen, ‘does he see the boy often? Fathers are so important, aren’t they, Martin? The other half of the equation.’
The Little Parachute Page 5