The Little Parachute

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘We can’t go near it, petit. There are just too many working for the SS and the Gestapo, and even if I really did see your father, how could we possibly prevent him from returning there?’

  They hadn’t been caught yet but it was only a matter of time until they were picked up and taken back to the hotel Herr Dirksen had found for them, the Trianon Palace. And anyway, they had to go back there so as to be ready for the meeting Isabelle Moncontre was arranging later on.

  Across the river, the bouquinistes* were beginning to take down the strings of artists’ prints and old photographs that were tacked to long sticks beside each faded green stall. Now here, now there, last purchases were being made. A German sailor and his girlfriend of the moment were kissing on the lower quai. A car drove slowly by the house and Angélique had to wonder about it, as did others, for there were so few cars, but then it was gone and there was only the house.

  She thought of her life with Anthony, of coming home from the shop or from a buying trip to find him there. He had had such a gentle smile and manner. Intuitively they had both understood that life without each other would have been impossible, but now was it all to turn against them? And how, please, could that same gentle nature have survived and, yes, turned himself into a résistant?

  A dark blue Peugeot two-door crept along the quai over there, but going in the wrong direction. Did the idiots not care if they were seen by others? Were they that confident of their lawlessness?

  Two Gestapo plainclothes got out—Hey, let’s call them nothing else, she thought. It’s simpler just to bulk them under that one label.

  Immediately the car drove off, as one of the men went to the left, the other to the right. All too soon, both were hard to find. Only Isabelle Moncontre could help them now. If Anthony really did live in that house under a nom de guerre, only that chance meeting of Martin’s with the woman could save them. But wasn’t it odd that fate should intervene? The cards? she wondered. A hand that the enemy knew nothing of.

  They started out. They continued right past the Préfecture de police and when they reached the passerelle Saint-Louis, that ugly, narrow footbridge of iron girders that had been thrown up to replace the bridge that had been rammed by a barge in 1939, they crossed over.

  From the Île Saint-Louis, she realizing sadly that they had not even paused for a glimpse of the Notre-Dame or the fine old houses, they went along to the pont de la Tournelle. They could come to that meeting prepared by seeing if Dr. Vergès had been arrested, or they could return to their hotel like good citizens and deny they had done anything wrong, that it had all been a little misunderstanding.

  And if he hasn’t? she asked. Then those types, they are watching everyone in the hope of catching us all.

  Wear nothing distinctive. Try to appear ordinary. Don’t avoid the crowds. Look as if you’re going where you always have. Pass the eyes swiftly over the quarry. Don’t ever let him see you watching him. Remember, it’s business. Think of it only as that and always look for others. Those are the ones who most count.

  Marie-Hélène de Fleury squeezed the sponge above her head and shut her eyes as the ice water coursed over her. ‘Ahh!’ she gasped. ‘Salaud!’ she cursed Kraus who had left her flat hours ago. Hours of exhaustion and of a sleep so fitful it had been crowded with nightmares. ‘Me, I’ll see that you pay for your few moments of pleasure,’ she seethed.

  She would do no such thing, was but a servant of the SS. Even Hans, though he might wish it differently, would see her hanged with piano wire if she killed Kraus.

  Shoving the sponge deeply into the bucket she had filled with ice and water, she squeezed it hard over herself and gasped again. ‘It’s enough,’ she said, ‘but you’d better, eh?’

  And lifting the bucket, stood in the tub forcing herself to watch in the mirror as that sheet of water and broken ice split her hair, she fighting to keep her eyes open and her lips from parting in the scream that must never come.

  Water shot over her breasts to drain and tug at the little beard between her legs, the bucket finally coming to rest on the white wicker table she had always kept beside the bath. A table just like we used to have at home, she said to herself. Bath oils, several bars of soap, some in soft shades of blue, yellow or rose, and all scented. The flat of a pumice stone too, and nail clippers, and the file—ah! everything a girl could ever want to make herself presentable, especially when in the buff.

  Something would have to be done about Kraus. She couldn’t afford to leave it. Hans would have to be forced into doing something other than another light threat before it was too late for the both of them.

  At 6.47 p.m. she was outside the southwest gate of the Luxembourg, briefly catching a read from Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo and facing the corner of the rue d’Assas and the rue Vavin. Everyone read such things these days—anything to take one away from the reality of the present and let a person dream of what it once must have been. A Paris and France of heroes, not one of nightmares like she’d had this afternoon.

  When Vergès came out of the building, she put the book in her handbag and said to herself, Straighten your skirt. Turn your back to him. Lick a fingertip and rub a mark off your left shoe. Prepare yourself. You’re going to get the one he’s about to meet. No one else will be in on this today. He’s to be left completely free of them, except for yourself because he has to believe that he’s alone and safe.

  Ah merde, it was the Bellecour woman and her son. She mustn’t let them see her, must mingle with the crowd, cross the rue d’Assas and stick close to someone, give the image of a happy couple or a group if possible and blend so well, she could just keep going and not be noticed.

  Kraus shrieked, ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU “LOST” THE WOMAN AND HER SON?’

  ‘They got away. They had help.’

  ‘HELP?’ he shrieked again, setting the corridors to echoing. Livid, he gave the Frenchman the back of a hand. Once, twice—raking the cheeks with his SS ring.

  Blood welled up in long lines down the bastard’s cheeks, Kraus smashing him hard in the face and breaking his nose, the man stumbling back against the filing cabinets and knocking things to the floor.

  He tried to get up, knew he mustn’t protect himself, that to do so would only mean …

  ‘Kraus? Ach du lieber Gott, calm down! Busting up a good man isn’t going to help.’ Dirksen had come into the office.

  ‘Good? He lost them!’

  ‘So I gather, but now look what you’ve done.’

  Gently Dirksen took hold of the Frenchman by the chin. ‘An ice pack, Victor, and some cognac. At least three glasses. This isn’t going to go away for a month or so and we can’t have the terrorists fingering you because you’re now too easy to recognize. Go and lie down in my office. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything. You’ll find the cognac in the cabinet. If you want a cigarette, take some from the box near the sofa. They’re American from a downed bomber pilot who didn’t want to give them up. Luckys, but a little mild. Here, I’ll ring for the doctor. Don’t worry, you did what you could and I know that.’

  Droplets of blood spattered the floor as Victor Laurent said, ‘The … the woman did have help, Colonel. There was a girl with a vélo-taxi, Le Plaisir du Roi Soleil, licence 5365 RP6.’ He turned aside to catch a breath and try to wipe his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Two old fauteuils in faded wine-red fabric, the bicycle a man’s and black, the girl a brunette with shoulder-length hair pinned at the sides with barrettes and curled at the ends. Ah merde, excusez-moi un moment.’

  He turned aside again to cough blood and spit in his hand, having no handkerchief. ‘About twenty years old. Intelligent. Very quick-thinking. Knows the Tuileries well and in particular the area around the Église de Saint-Roch. Has good, strong legs, that sense of daring and the courage to go with it. Once committed, that one is very determined.’ He shut his eyes and swallowed.

  ‘A
university student?’ asked Dirksen.

  The blood still flowed freely, but Laurent tried to ignore it. ‘Peut-être. A chequered light beige shirt, a man’s, a brother’s quite possibly.’ Again he dabbed at his nose with the back of that hand. ‘Brown trousers—those, too, for they were bunched in at the waist by a man’s belt. White ankle socks, brown leather pumps. Height 162 centimetres; weight, about 55 kilos; bust medium but not pronounced. Held tightly in, perhaps, so as not to be too noticeable.’

  ‘Eyes?’

  Kraus was listening closely, so good, yes good! ‘Brown, I think, but can’t be positive, of course, since it all happened very fast. The face a medium oval, the eyes deeply set. Ah! there was one other thing, Colonel. There were two bunches of red chrysanthemums sticking out of short lengths of pipe, one on either side of the fauteuils.’

  ‘A Communist?’

  Which would have fitted with her being a student, the politics indicating more definitely a réseau. ‘The red flag, I think, to both torment and thumb her nose at us but she didn’t have a Cross of Lorraine at her throat.’

  Dirksen nodded and patted the man’s shoulder. ‘Look, Victor, I’m sorry this little “accident” had to happen. Maybe I can still use you now and then until things have healed. In the interim, can we say twenty thousand francs?’ Would that wound Kraus enough, he wondered, or must it be fifty? ‘Let’s make it five thousand Reichskassencheine. The Sturmbannführer Kraus will understand that it has to be deducted from his pay book.’

  One hundred thousand francs and an insult, if ever there was one, to an SS officer. Kraus looked as if ready to draw his gun.

  ‘Standartenführer …’ began that one, only to clam up as the patient was escorted into the corridor by Dirksen with more kind words. Only when that door had been closed, did Kraus start in with, ‘Now I’ll never be able to tell that bastard to do anything! Always he and his kind will ridicule me, Standartenführer. Me, your right hand!’

  ‘Not anymore, so let this be a lesson. There will be no beatings, no smashing people up like that one or Doumier. I want us to break the réseau de soie bleue, and to do so, Major, we need to take all of them, which reminds me, you’ve not been putting the squeeze on Marie-Hélène have you? Not after I had already mentioned the possibility. She hasn’t called in.’

  Kraus knew he would have to empty his eyes of all feeling. ‘You’ve been busy elsewhere, Colonel. Perhaps …’

  Men like Kraus would never learn. ‘Beware of the precipices, Major. Watch for the screes that hang up there as if waiting only for the avalanche to come. Marie-Hélène was to have left word for me when she awakened this afternoon. We had agreed.’

  The Schlampe had neglected to do so in order to warn this lover of hers but nothing could be said of that. ‘Would you like me to send a car around to her flat?’

  ‘Your insolence won’t be forgotten, Kraus. You’ve been telexing Berlin again. All correspondence concerning the Sonderkommando Vergeltungswaffen Eins must be cleared by myself and bear my signature and stamp. Refusal to do so will result in your immediate dismissal.’

  Glancing at his wristwatch, Dirksen decided that, since it was now 7.37 p.m., if all had gone well, she should have spotted the Leutnant Thiessen or one of his people making contact with Vergès if, indeed, the lieutenant was the father of Martin Bellecour and a terrorist. But it wasn’t like her not to have called in.

  ‘Leave her alone, Kraus. Don’t meddle and mess it up, or you’ll have to deal with Berlin as well as myself. She’s far too valuable and we desperately need her on this one.’

  Dr. Albert-Émile Vergès was apparently much better versed in things than before. Soon aware that the Bellecour woman and her son were following but not trying to catch up with him, he had crossed and recrossed the rue d’Assas to be certain there was no one other than them, and then … yes, then, had lost them so easily they stood out among the pedestrians, totally mystified as to where he had gone.

  Afraid, perhaps, the Bellecour woman swept her eyes urgently across the shop fronts. He had ducked between two gazogène lorries. She should be wondering if he had gone into a narrow courtyard and up it or simply remained hidden behind its door. Had he recrossed the street again?

  The woman tried a shop, another and another, each time leaving the boy to watch the street until, at last, she had to shrug and give up. Taking the boy by the hand, they were soon lost to sight in the direction of the rue Vavin and, opposite it, that entrance to the Jardin du Luxembourg.

  All well and good, and grâce à Dieu for small mercies, thought Marie-Hélène. Now it was only the doctor, herself and his contact, but could she be absolutely certain of this? One might never know.

  Waiting near the doorway to a bakery, she stood in a queue that was still growing and whose grumbling was constant. Just as she was about to take her turn to enter the shop, Vergès stepped out from the cellar he must have disappeared into, and immediately he began to search the street, of course.

  Satisfied that he was now alone, he continued on up the rue d’Assas. He didn’t carry his umbrella or wear the grey trench coat and fedora this time. Indeed, he had left his briefcase behind in the surgery, a worry to be sure, for any such difference from habit had to be questioned.

  The eyeglasses and the grey-black goatee helped in following him, so too his being of less than medium height, but it was his step she noted most. That left heel no longer came down harder than the right, and she had to ask herself, How could this be? A man with a slight limp, now doesn’t have one. A man, who last evening, appeared totally new to the clandestine world is now apparently thoroughly accustomed to it.

  He must have removed the wedges of cardboard that had given him the limp. This made her hesitate even as she, too, threaded her way through the browsers, the Germans, the people going home from work, the long and disgruntled queues for this and that, for damned near everything.

  When he took a place at the end of the lineup for a boucherie, she knew things were about to happen. Everything was utterly ordinary. Perfect for contact, but was he being watched by others, was she herself?

  They were very close to the corner of the rue Vaugirard. Vergès seemed not to mind the long lineup. No longer did he bother to look behind or try to use the windows as mirrors. Was he satisfied she was behind him—was that it? she asked and told herself not to think like that. She mustn’t ever be afraid.

  He waited. Sandwiched between two women behind him, she also waited, and certainly she could touch him if so inclined but …

  A girl came towards them, smiling, full of the joie de vivre so seldom seen these days. A student. A brunette. About nineteen or twenty. No lipstick, no rouge—none of such. Of medium height, too, and with nice shoulders and a very purposeful walk, a bundle of books under an arm and secured by an old leather belt, a briefcase too and large, deep brown eyes that were so clear …

  ‘Have you a light?’ this student asked of Vergès, he to fumble in a pocket, she finding her only cigarette and thanking him.

  There was no way he could have slipped her the message that had been brought from Abbeville by Angélique Bellecour and Martin, not yet, but then this girl said, ‘Hey, monsieur, I’ll give you fifty francs if you let me take your place. I’m in a hurry.’

  The code words? Marie-Hélène felt her heart racing. Fifty and the message, was that the way it was to be?

  ‘You can have mine,’ said the woman ahead of her, the girl smiling and shaking her head and saying, ‘His place is better. Well, monsieur?’ she then asked of Vergès. ‘Do we have a deal?’

  Others … are others watching? wondered Marie-Hélène.

  Vergès held the girl’s books while she found the money. A coin was dropped. Another and another. ‘Ah merde,’ cried the student and managed to pick them up, she now drawing in repeatedly on that cigarette, the coins of zinc and with the dead flat ring of the Occupation.

 
Vergès departed. He didn’t even waste a moment to glance along the lineup, was too much in a hurry, so much so, Marie-Hélène was convinced the message must have been handed over, but ah, there was no way of her knowing, short of having them both arrested and the books and everything else torn apart, and that was just not possible at the moment.

  As the girl smoked the cigarette, the line moved slowly ahead, but again there was the grumbling, the outbursts of bitchiness especially against the line jumpers who could buy a place for themselves.

  The woman ahead jerked her head that way and said, ‘A “student” eh, who has the cash for cigarettes? That one must earn her keep on her back! If that’s what they teach them, they should arrest the professors for leading such into the life!’

  ‘Me, I’m studying to be a doctor, madame,’ said the girl, ‘so that I and the others with me can cut up the corpses of such as yourself. We use them for study.’

  ‘Putain, friponne, gamine et cobra! How dare you address me, the mother of ten children, in such a way? Here, you need to see the medals, eh? Medals such as yourself will never have due to la syphilis!’

  And now the riot, was that it? wondered Marie-Hélène, panicking at the thought of being caught up in the tussle and knifed, yes, knifed!

  Shoving the woman hard, the girl bolted from the line, leaving her to fall back only to be pushed ahead and into that mother of ten children. ‘All right, all right!’ she cried. ‘Enough. You can have my place too.’

  ‘Bitches,’ swore the girl, laughing as she stepped from a shop to catch Marie-Hélène unexpectedly as the woman hurried past. ‘The butcher will hang out the flag of emptiness in any case, so what was the use? But me, I’m sorry you felt you had to give up your place.’

  Had there been no one else watching them, or was she now to be led into a trap? wondered Marie-Hélène. ‘I hate those lineups,’ she said.