The Little Parachute

by J. Robert Janes

  The lieutenant was now no longer by that statue, nor could she see him anywhere. Ah merde, said Marie-Hélène to herself, am I, too, being watched? Had she been such a fool? Had whoever was leading this réseau set the whole thing up just to trap her?

  If I follow Vergès, will I now be followed in turn?

  Sickened by the thought, she knew there was only one thing to do. Reluctantly she turned diagonally away from the terrace and headed for the gate that let out onto the boulevard Saint-Michel. She couldn’t try to intercept the doctor as he reached the rue Vavin and his surgery. Now suddenly her bicycle was an encumbrance. If she left it against a tree and hurried away, they would know exactly who she was working for. Same, too, if she left it anywhere else but at her apartment.

  Try as she did, she couldn’t remember what the lieutenant had looked like. Tall, not too thin, not too heavy either and about forty, she felt, the face … yes, yes, pleasantly narrow, the chin sharp—was there not something far more familiar. The ears? Ah, that’s crazy of me, she said. I’ve never seen him before, but the thought, it wouldn’t go away.

  It was in the set of the eyes and the way he stood as if bemused while watching her curiously to see exactly what she would do. Totally relaxed in that grey-green uniform. One of the “green beans” for sure, and yet not relaxed at all.

  A Wehrmacht lieutenant with a copy of Pariser Zeitung.

  ‘Hans, I’m telling you I had no other choice but to leave it! Vergès may have set me up. Is he being watched by another of that réseau he must be connected to? Watched, do you understand? Is he being told ahead of time exactly what to do so that they can set up a little souricière* for me?’

  ‘Arrest him,’ snorted Kraus. ‘Pry the truth from him before it’s too late, or is it already that?’

  ‘Maudit salaud, how can you blame me for what happened? You weren’t there!’ she shrilled. ‘You didn’t have to stick your neck out. You hid here at the avenue Foch behind closed doors!’

  ‘Verdammte Schlampe, how dare you?’

  ‘Ach, now look, you two, calm down,’ said Dirksen from behind his desk. ‘Already we know this thing goes far beyond that woman and her son. The Paris section of the réseau de soie bleue must be exceedingly well organized. Your beating Doumier to death, Kraus, has cost us dearly. By picking him and the Bellecour woman and her son up at the Gare du Nord, you gave it all away. They must have been onto us right from the first and now the game gets serious.

  ‘Marie-Hélène … Look, I know how unsettled you must be, but try to think back over this morning. Do they now suspect you?’

  ‘Ah, mon Dieu, how the hell would I really know? Maybe yes, maybe no and not yet, but … but we’re going to have to be very careful with this. It’s not the usual, Hans. The Résistance … the Banditen, yes? The terrorists, if you like, are becoming better and better at it.’

  ‘And you’re sure he was wearing a Wehrmacht lieutenant’s uniform?’ asked Dirksen.

  ‘Why would I not have known such a thing? He even looked the part, but …’

  ‘Chérie, please.’ Both she and Kraus were standing before him, the two so at odds, they wouldn’t look at each other unless ordered to.

  ‘Hans, I feel I’ve seen him before but … but can’t recall where.’

  Lyon perhaps, or Marseille, or was it Perpignan? wondered Kraus, relishing her fears, but saying, ‘Berlin are demanding arrests, Colonel. The Reichsführer Himmler …’

  ‘And what, please, does he have to say about this?’ asked Dirksen.

  Kraus paused to swallow, for he knew this Schlampe of the colonel’s had stiffened and was now looking at him. ‘The Führer is also concerned and wishes to reassign the security of the Retaliatory Weapon One sites to the SD* and not leave it in the incompetent hands of the Abwehr.* I considered it my duty to let the Reichsführer know that things were not being handled as they should if we are to succeed.’

  The son of a bitch! ‘I see.’ sighed Dirksen. ‘Then perhaps you should read through the telex I sent him this morning.’

  ‘What telex?’

  ‘Read it, as I’ve just said, mein lieber Major, and might I remind you that is an order.’

  Men like Kraus had always to be taught lessons. That was why they rose only so far and were then left behind.

  It was dated Saturday 28 August 1943 and given the top secret notation and code name of Blue Silk.

  Enemy agent dropped Bois Carré night Sunday 22 August. Suspect message sent via Abbeville courier to Paris Friday 27 August, suspected courier Mademoiselle Angélique Bellecour, secretary Abbeville Kommandantur, Paris contact Dr. Émile Vergès, specialist and surgeon of the throat and voice, 7 rue de Tournon. Evidence suggests well-organized Banditen network gathering intelligence of V-1 launching sites. If not suppressed, will cause irreparable damage to security. Estimate 10 to 15 days complete suppression, far longer if Sturmbannführer Kraus continues to ignore my orders and do as he did by arresting land surveyor Henri-Paul Doumier, also from Abbeville,­ and detaining the Bellecour woman and her ten-year-old son. Kraus was ordered to have them all followed and closely watched. Instead, Doumier, under Kraus’s reinforced interrogation, as per Directive 385770, dated 12.6.42 to all central offices, yielded nothing and died.

  Request reassignment of Kraus out of Paris before we lose everything.

  Heil Hitler

  ‘Kraus, you’ve been warned and warned, and I have repeatedly covered for you by stating that such interrogations were, after all, authorized by Berlin. But I can’t allow this thing to become bigger. The Bellecour woman will give us everything we need. If not the Paris network first, then the one in Abbeville.’

  ‘And if I’m to be reassigned?’

  ‘You know as well as I that it will take time, so let’s not bugger about.’

  Finding the most significant responses the boy had written for Marie-Hélène over breakfast, Dirksen read it aloud. ‘“My name is Martin”, and beside it, Kraus, look what the boy has drawn, having trusted her so much.’

  The parachute was evidence enough and there should have been further arrests, a clean sweep, felt Kraus, but said, ‘The woman could easily be convinced to tell us what she’s hiding, Colonel. Let me use the boy. Let me show her what will happen to him if she refuses to talk. We’re not the Abwehr. This is not a gentleman’s game.’

  It never had been for the Abwehr, thought Dirksen, but there had been this constant competition between the two intelligence services and Himmler was determined to absorb the one into the SD and expunge it from the history books. So bad had things become, the Paris SS and SD had been forbidden to speak to any of the Paris Abwehr or be seen in their company, and it would only get worse.*

  ‘We can’t be soft on these people,’ said Kraus.

  ‘And you can’t be disobeying my orders and running to Berlin behind my back. Oh, by the way, you haven’t threatened to betray Marie-Hélène to the Banditen, have you? Photos, that sort of thing, eh?’

  The bitch! ‘Why not ask her? Yes, yes, let’s clear the air.’

  Maudit salaud! ‘Hans … Hans, I’ve already told you he hasn’t. Why would he, since it might well endanger himself?’

  ‘Then we’ll leave it for now. Kraus, what have you found out about the Bellecour woman? Perhaps you should be telling us that.’

  And nothing else. ‘Only that her story is full of holes. She was born in Tours, and did live in Orléans for two years as a student and single woman but without a son. From there the holes are so many and so big, there isn’t a shred of truth.’

  And will that information also get to the Reichsführer? wondered Dirksen, sadly knowing that it could very well be likely, that some battles never seemed to end.

  Marie-Hélène was looking pale and shaken. Irritably she asked for a cigarette but refused the one Kraus had offered, a bad mistake and one she should have avoided. Something woul
d have to be done to soothe the wounds. ‘Kraus, let’s play it my way for a few days, eh? If the Bellecour woman shows promise, we’ll let her continue. If not, well what can one say but that she asked for it and you can bring her in.’

  Ah, nom de Dieu, could Hans not see where such softness would lead?

  Wisely, the major left the room, and when the door was closed, Hans didn’t take her by the shoulders even though she said, ‘He’s got it in for me and he’s dangerous to yourself as well.’

  ‘He threatened you, didn’t he, Liebchen? He told you he would give the partisans all they needed to pin things on you.’

  Everything in her wanted to cry out, Yes! but she was too knowing of the SS and what made them tick, especially men like Kraus. ‘Hans, I think I should tell you that in the Jardin du Luxembourg this morning, the Bellecour woman tried to warn Vergès but the doctor vehemently denied any knowledge of things and refused to listen. This can only mean that the leader of the réseau de soie bleue—perhaps it was that lieutenant I saw—may well have set the whole thing up, which means of course, that she and her son were simply taken in and are totally innocent.’

  Was Marie-Hélène still having pangs of conscience? wondered Dirksen. ‘And that is why I used the words “suspected courier” in my telex. If innocent, she goes free. I swear it.’

  ‘Do you?’

  There was moisture in her eyes. ‘Of course. Now stop worrying so much about Kraus. He’s been told to behave and will because he has to.’

  Still she lingered. Overnight Hans had turned the office into a command centre. On a map, and on an aerial photograph mosaic of Paris, there were pins marking the house at 37 rue des Grands-Augustins and where the boy had first lost his pencil and then again. The Hôtel Trianon Palace was marked, the clinic of Dr. Vergès, the doctor’s house, the brasserie de Dome. Their very route had been traced out. Hans was always so thorough and patient. Even in bed he had that same patience, but did he make love in the same way that he searched for the terrorists—the partisans he’d like to have called them? Ah oui, there were similarities, the hesitant, preliminary explorations, the ever-patient pursuit and then the final entrapment, which could, in itself, be so intense, the realization of just what such close a contact could actually bring them when all the senses were alert and striving until at last le grand frisson* overwhelmed.

  Was that why she liked the hunt so much herself?

  Mosaics of aerial photographs showed the Bois Carré site and the five others that were near Abbeville. Pins marked the farm and house where the woman and her son were living; lines of thin white string, the approaches and distances from house to woods, and from house to what could well have been wheat fields. Confirmation overflights had been arranged. The Luftwaffe were to repeat photographing the whole area but at low and medium altitudes on days sufficiently clear and apart not to raise suspicion. Maps gave all the roads and villages, the paths and trails even. Already other photos, clandestinely taken here in Paris with a telephoto lens, revealed those closest to the woman and her son here in the city, and when a technician brought in the latest, Hans placed a fifty-centime piece over that Wehrmacht lieutenant’s head and drew a circle around it with a white pen.

  ‘Have this circulated to all sections. If he’s really what he seems, then you were mistaken. Now please, meine Schatz, I have a report I must finish. Herr Himmler’s demanding full details and will have to be satisfied.’

  ‘Et moi-même?’

  ‘Go home and get some sleep. You’ve done well. Don’t worry so much. We’ll get them. All of them. No word is going to leak out about your part in things. Kraus or no Kraus, I’ll make sure of it.’

  ‘And what about that flat on the rue des Grand-Augustins? Is that little job for me, Hans?’

  She was in the lift when he came after her and rode down to the ground floor. ‘La Librairie Hachette. The Bellecour woman has just telephoned to ask if you worked there. Our contact used her head and told the woman you were out seeing the printers about one of the new books the firm is to publish this autumn. The woman is to ring back at noon, so go and do your stuff. It’s the very break we need.’

  All along the boulevard Saint-Germain, and then on the boul’ Saint-Michel, the haze of slowly burning green-wood from gazogène lorries and cars that couldn’t afford the bottled gas and shortage of charcoal perfumed the air that was washed by the sunlight. And through this gossamer, the plane trees stood on either side, the vélo and other traffic between, pedestrians on the pavements, the old, middle-aged and young but with one notable exception. There very few if any young Frenchmen. So harsh was their absence, Angélique stopped on the corner of the rue des Écoles to ask, ‘Where have they all gone?’

  ‘The maquis,’ grunted a passerby. ‘The Auvergne, to avoid the Service du Travail Obligatoire.’*

  Tattered posters splashed high on the walls to avoid vandalism had been unsuccessful. GIVE YOUR LABOUR IN THE FIGHT AGAINST BOLSHEVISM, cried one whose Wehrmacht corporal had had his eyes pricked out and his rifle turned into a broom, the flames of which burned at both ends while a little boy, no older than Martin, gazed beatifically up at the soldier while dutifully clasping blonde maman’s hand. DADDY’S GONE TO GERMANY, read the type. AT LAST THERE IS MONEY IN THE HOUSE FOR FOOD.

  The marché noir, no doubt, or prison, for that little boy held the match in his hand. And while the mother was cradling baby sister in the crook of her other arm, she was also wearing the Cross of Lorraine at her throat, that symbol of the Résistance whose double message was clear enough: If you don’t help us, it’s the throat for you. But, really, so few could because most were simply trying to eke out a living and were terrified of reprisals, herself also, for the Occupier had a little ordinance for such: the Nacht und Nebel decree, namely, get involved and it won’t just be yourself, but all others in the family. Notices gave the names of those shot for such, or even for acts of “terrorism” they hadn’t even known of. Five, ten, twenty—the numbers had just kept multiplying: the work of a few, stacking up against the numbers of those taken. Even in Abbeville there were such notices. She had to post them. It was part of her job. And yes, she emphasized, now we find ourselves deeply involved and just as unaware as most of those poor hostages. As a result, and it could never be forgotten, that same so-called Résistance, fractured into its bits and pieces here and there throughout the country, could be hated by lots, some only with an immediate reason.

  Urgently her hand was being tugged at. Martin had to go, but the pissoir, it looked so filthy and reeked to high heaven, but he was in such pain even small boys must go in such.

  ‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘Don’t speak to … Ah! forgive me. Just don’t let anyone touch you. Run if you have to.’

  Of two round shells, its outer one hid the customers but for their fedoras and shoulders, some of them. Fleurs-de-lis crowned the frosted glass panels above the rusty, grey-painted sheet iron. The gutter ran. Martin vanished, though she searched desperately for a glimpse of his shoes and ankle socks. The Val-de-Grâce, head injuries ward, the note had stated. That was all the receptionist at the Librairie Hachette could give her. The Mademoiselle Isabelle Moncontre hadn’t wanted to meet them at her place of work. Oh for sure, that was understandable, but was it too much to hope that she might, in some small way, be connected with others who could help her out of this mess?

  In spite of the Défense d’afficher warnings, slogans ghosted through that outer shell, in pale white against the grey and the rust: Victory, Laval up against the post, the guillotine for Pétain and all those others. Strong messages, of course, for more and more now felt the end must be in sight. ‘Spring,’ they called it, taken from a popular song, not necessarily next spring yet, but the evidence was there. The Russians were unbeatable, and the RAF and USAAF were bombing the hell out of German cities. Hamburg in particular, and Cologne, and even Munich was getting a plastering, among the many.

 
Proudly doing up his flies, Martin returned, but chose to show her what he’d found. A piece of chalk. ‘Merde, why must you pick up such a thing? You found it in the trough, did you?’

  Grâce à Dieu, he shook his head, but he mischievously smiled in that way of his. ‘Your parachute?’ she asked as if begging, only to feel her heart drop. ‘Idiot, we’re being followed! You can’t be doing such a thing. Did you honestly think those salauds would need a reminder?’

  Swallowed up, they passed by the all-but-empty shops with their long queues for bread, meat, cheese, whatever they used to have before this lousy Occupation had robbed them. But … but Martin gently took her by the hand and all too soon, she felt the backs of her fingers against his lips. It’s all right, he wanted so much to say, felt Angélique, and pausing to kneel on the pavement, held him.

  In the Val-de-Grâce, Marie-Hélène watched as the Bellecour woman and her son received the looks, the smiles, and the empty stares of the Wehrmacht’s severely wounded. Uncomfortable, and at a loss at seeing no Frenchmen, the woman stopped one of the doctors, who then told her the truth, namely that except for the most difficult of French cases, the hospital now served only the Reich.

  Having asked for the head injuries ward, she and the boy were directed to the staircase and when they appeared, this Isabelle Moncontre called down, ‘Martin … Ah, Martin, mon ami, I should have waited at the front desk, but there was no one there when I got here.’

  She hit her forehead with the heel of her right hand. ‘I’m so stupid! Forgive me.’

  Tentatively Angélique took her in at a glance as they shook hands, the grip firm, not hesitant, the woman solidly reassuring, no makeup, no put-on. Even the dark, wavy brown hair, though lovely, had been simply brushed and pinned, not stylishly coiffed as so many still did, necessary though that might well be for some.

  She smiled, too, and it was at once engagingly sincere and honest. A woman, then, of about twenty-eight, perhaps, and very attractive but not deliberately sporting this. Modest to the point of keeping the Occupier at a good distance. The big brown eyes sincere and absolutely enviable.