‘I don’t like myself, Hans. Not with this one. Martin’s so defenceless, it’s cruel of me.’
‘“33 rue Racine, at 12.30, an attic room”,’ said Angélique in a whisper. They were sitting on the bed, facing each other, the grey mice having left some time ago, the note in her hand. ‘“At just after curfew the alerte aérienne will sound”. We are to appear as if we have dressed hastily.’
And then? he asked, indicating the note the Mademoiselle Moncontre had given him.
‘We are to join the hotel’s other guests and leave by the main entrance, but when we get to the street, we are to quickly turn to the right so as to slip away.’
She held her breath. Martin knew her heart was racing at the thought, but that together they would do it, he just knew they would, and thinking it would help, gently reached out to brush her tears away.
Kissing his hand, holding it tightly to her lips, she tried to smile. Martin must never know what Herr Dirksen had asked of them, not if she could prevent it. ‘At the corner of the rue Monsieur-le-Prince we are to go left and continue to the first intersection, cross over and take the left again. The rue Racine.’
Count two houses and then the third, said Martin, shutting his eyes and moving his lips so that she could see that he had memorized the note. A small blue light marks the door. Others will be returning from the shelters in the place de l’Odéon, a false alert.
‘And then?’ she asked so softly he felt her lips pressed gently against his brow. They were warm and moist and she was trembling a little, and the smell of her was different from that of the Mademoiselle Isabelle. Not sweeter. Not anything like that. Just different.
We are to ask for a room in the attic, he said, letting her read his lips. We are not to listen to the patron. We are to demand a night’s rest and present him with the tip of five hundred francs.
‘It’s a maison de passe,’ she said. ‘No names are necessary in such places. It’s not like a regular hotel where everyone has to show their papers when they register. It’s a house, Martin, where les filles des rues take their clients for their little moment.’
Mystified, he said, Oh, and dropping his gaze, settled it on the base of her throat. ‘You are to pay no attention to what’s going on there, do you hear me?’ she said. ‘We’re doing this for your father’s sake.’
And because he has asked it of you. He’s their leader, Angélique, and is the one who told the Mademoiselle Isabelle what to do.
‘That’s impossible and you know it. He’s in England, Martin. He got safely away. I swear he did, so let’s not argue.’
Again she read the note and then again before letting him destroy it while she remained sitting there studying him. ‘You’re only ten years old,’ she said at last, ‘and certainly your childhood is nothing like it would have been had you stayed in England with your mother.’
Reaching out to her, she felt him touch her hair and then her lips but couldn’t know that he had done this with the Mademoiselle Isabelle.
‘War’s not pleasant, Martin. We’ve only to think of what happened to Mademoiselle Moncontre’s brother.’
That’s why she’s a résistante, he said, mouthing the words. That’s why she and my father are helping us.
The leather cord, a dark brown bootlace, had come from that room in the avenue Foch where Martin had left his little parachute in the window dust and had found some woman’s wedding ring. It was bloodstained and dry, but he looked up at her with … Ah, what was it? wondered Angélique. Apology? A plea for understanding, or for forgiveness for having taken it too, and not told her?
‘No matter,’ she said, and taking it from him, securely tied his left wrist to her right one. ‘Now hold my hand. That way people won’t question things or see the lace. We can’t become separated. You couldn’t cry out to me if we were.’
So there, no argument! He could see her thinking this. Her hand was sweaty. Her fingers had shaken so much, she had had trouble tying the lace and, impatiently refusing his help, had used her teeth to pull the knot tight. A thing she had hated doing and had spat several times afterwards because of the dried blood.
Ready, they waited inside the door of their room. At just after midnight, the air-raid alert was taken up by the hotel’s alarm system, but still they didn’t leave.
‘Others must go first,’ she said.
The corridor next to the main staircase and the lift were soon filled with Germans. All stood two by two in order, waiting for their turn. Most were in various states of uniform, but some wore suits. There was no panic, no appearance of concern. Now a step, now a wait. There was lots of room on the other side for people to come up the stairs but who would want to?
In spite of this emptiness, the guests all stuck to the down side, causing Angélique to wonder, what if a bomb were to strike?
Down, and down again, thought Martin, but slowly this time.
When they reached the darkness of the rue de Vaugirard, the sound of the sirens swelled and hurt the ears, but apart from the Germans in the hotel, few Parisians seem to pay any attention, enjoying perhaps the chance to just be outdoors.
Together they turned away to the right and soon, on the rue Monsieur-le-Prince, there were fewer sounds other than those of the sirens. No one hurried by. Indeed, she felt they were alone. Unlike Berlin and so many other cities and towns on the Continent and in Britain, Paris had been declared an open city and hadn’t suffered more than an occasional stray hit. Oh for sure, the Renault Works, in the suburbs at Boulogne-Billancourt, had been targeted in March of last year, and misplaced bombs had killed an estimated five hundred, but the city itself had remained virtually unscathed. A downed aircraft might cause a building to catch fire or consternation if bits of it were found the next day on the Champs-Élysées. A crater at Longchamp had interrupted the races on 5 April of this year,* moving those elsewhere to one of the suburbs. But generally, as a result, Parisians tended to ignore the shelters and go back to sleep. Maybe later—next year perhaps—that would change.
Counting the seconds between each wailing, Martin would squeeze her hand as if his heart was beating through his fingers to her own, but finally the air-raid sirens stopped.
They went along the street through the pitch-darkness. There were no tiny blue lights from the vélo-taxis and other bikes, their red taillights too—all had been cleared from the streets at midnight, the curfew. There weren’t even the pinpoints of light from the cigarettes of passersby, nor occasionally those who shielded blue-blinkered flashlights. Paris had never been quieter. The hush, when they stopped to listen, that of at least 2,000,000 and all others, those of the “visitors”, perhaps 100,000, who really knew? More, of course, along the Atlantic Wall and not just in the cities and towns or villages.
Two cats cried out from the middle of the street as they picked a fight. ‘Come on,’ she whispered to Martin, ‘by now they’ll have begun to search for us.’
Somewhere a car started up and they heard the screech of its tyres. Another and another did the same, and soon there were the headlamps as the cars raced down the street, a spotlight showing up the shops and the steel shutters that had been rolled down and padlocked for the night.
Their backs to a wall, they huddled in an entrance and pulled their knees up tightly but it was no use. The spotlight struck the shop and filled the top of the doorway. Now it was being lowered …
The beam flicked away to focus on the other side of the street and dance over the doorways, but when they didn’t find anyone, the car didn’t turn the corner onto the rue Racine. Instead, the engine was switched off, the headlamps, too, and the spotlight.
A car door opened and Marin felt Angélique pressing the back of his hand to her lips.
‘He has to be nearby,’ swore one of the men in Deutsch. ‘We’ll go along to the rue de Vaugirard and start all over.’
When the beam hit her, it was blind
ing. ‘Aufstehen,’ he said.
Get up. ‘Please, we … we became separated from the others during the alert.’
Kraus kept the light on her. He didn’t say anything more, and when she and Martin stood, Angélique thought he was going to hit her.
‘Go back to the hotel. It’s just down the street and around the corner. Hurry.’
They were looking for someone else. It began to rain, and soon they were drenched, but by going past the hotel and around the block the other way, they finally found the maison de passe where the meeting was to be held. Jammed into the corridor, and still on the narrow staircase, they stood with German soldiers and their prostitutes, and oh for sure, these guys should have been in their Soldatenheim beds.
The house stank of urine, cheap perfume, sour cabbage, pickled pork hocks, grease for the boots, mould and disinfectant, namely the eau de Javel that was made in Paris and was used to wash all the railways station windows and skylights blue for the blackout.
The patron, a grizzled, moon-faced, uncaring individual, puffed on a cigarette that was falling apart but took his time getting the rooms straight and making sure everyone had paid. Additionally, there was much jostling, lots of laughter, the “girls” all over the age of forty. Mascara had been ruined by the rain, false eyelashes were either gone or askew, the lipstick on some smudged, on others all but worn away. Bleached or dyed, the hair had been plastered down by the rain, their drenched blouses too tight and too open. All were girls who could no longer find work in any of the 140 licenced brothels and had been reduced to using places like this.
‘Oh he’s so little,’ they said of Martin. ‘Is it your first time, sweetie? Ah! she robs the cradle to tease herself.’
Peeling, the wallpaper had once had a border of spring flowers, the paint of the doors and trim flaking, and when she said, ‘We need a room for the rest of the night where we can sleep. The attic, please,’ the patron was perplexed.
Sucking in on that cigarette, he coughed and exploded. ‘But … but that is impossible. The hotel, it is full.’
‘You shameful slut,’ hissed one of the women. ‘You should know better.’
‘It’s illegal, isn’t it?’ said another.
‘Tender. That one will be tender and tasty,’ chimed in yet another.
‘He’s my son, damn you!’ she cried. ‘We were caught out after curfew and warned to get indoors. The flic who brought us here said that the attic would be best, that it wasn’t used for … for well you must know what!
‘Martin, plug your ears!’
A tigress, was that it? wondered Odilon Grégoire, and giving her the shrug she probably deserved, shoved two tags into hands that squeezed past her own to grab them. ‘Please,’ she begged.
A German corporal, a fair-haired, pimply-faced boy with a broken tooth, took the tag he’d been handed and grinned at her, and when she became even more flustered, grabbed her arm and hoisted it for everyone to see.
‘Ah!’ said Grégoire, ‘and why is it, please, madame, that you have lashed the boy to yourself if he is your son?’
It took all types—Angélique could see them thinking this, the prostitutes intrigued, she stammering, ‘It’s … it’s not what you think. He … he can’t speak. He’s lost his voice and I … I was afraid I might lose him.’
‘Out!’ insisted Grégoire. ‘Get on the street where you belong. It’s against the law.’
How pious of him! ‘And isn’t what you’re allowing here also against the law? Don’t the Germans have forty brothels in Paris reserved especially for their common soldiers, and aren’t they forbidden to visit any others, since in places like this there are no medical checks?’
‘Venereal diseases notwithstanding, madame, who am I to question the pleasures of a chance meeting in the darkness? Me, I only offer a little light now and then, since it helps to make the chapeau anglais used as it should be and not blown up like a balloon!’
The hypocrite. Business had never been better, baksheesh simply having been paid to the bloodsuckers among the Paris gendarmerie and the German military police, the Felgendarme. ‘Please, I don’t mean to cause any trouble. We simply want to go to sleep. We’re not from Paris, we’re from the country, from near Abbeville, and are here in Paris for a doctor’s appointment. A specialist.’
‘Ah, let them have a room,’ said one of the women, all heart now. ‘If the boy pees the bed, make her pay a little extra.’
‘Five thousand,’ said Grégoire.
‘Pardon?’ she shrilled.
‘Five hundred,’ said the same one. ‘Twenty-five of that is for the room and two hand towels, the rest for his little retirement, but if he tries anything with you, just call out. Every week he has one of us for nothing. It’s his little privilege. Two sometimes, and both for comfort.’
The room was up five flights of stairs. It was hot and dirty and there were bedbugs. ‘Now we must wait,’ she said to Martin. ‘Hey, we’ll be all right. You’ll see, she won’t forget us.’
Hands in her coat pockets, Marie-Hélène fingered the Beretta. There were four cars lined up in the darkness on the rue de Vaugirard, and the sound of the rain hammering on them was so different from that of its striking the paving stones, it had put her even more on edge. Kraus must be up to something of his own with that maison de passe. She would have to call things off. Hans would have to be told.
The rain came steadily. It found the upturned collar of her coat and trickled between her shoulder blades. It struck her face and seeped into her shoes but still she waited. They were having a little conference in the lead car and as she cautiously approached it, tobacco smoke trailed through a tiny gap where a window had been rolled down.
Someone got out. She stepped back. Caught in the middle of the street, she couldn’t run as from car to car he hurried, and at each said, ‘The Gare de l’Ouest.* Stay together.’
Things must be okay then, but still there was hesitation in her and for several minutes she remained where she was, listening intently to the dwindling sound of the cars as they raced away.
Hurrying now along the rue Racine, her crepe soles making little sucking noises, she found the door to the house unlocked and quickly stepped inside, into darkness and silence.
‘Please, I will not lock it, yes?’ whispered Grégoire from so close, she jumped. ‘The attic,’ he said. ‘Room seven.’
Finding his groping fingers, she pressed the tight roll of five thousand francs into them, he to then hear her cautiously making her way to the staircase and up it as he hurriedly crossed himself, for one had to do what one had to. One could not object, not these days.
Leaving the lock off, as ordered, he retreated to his cage and tried to settle down, but it was no use. Working for les Allemands made him nervous. A raid? he wondered and didn’t want to think about such a thing, for they could well smash the place to pieces and not even this one’s five thousand would compensate for the damages and loss of business, but what was a poor man to do?
There weren’t just German soldiers spending the night with their girls of the moment. There were others who slept with theirs—Frenchmen, yes, and others too, who slept alone. Ah yes, two from Marseille perhaps, or Lyon. Young men, little more than boys of eighteen or twenty and ripe for the STO if caught, but boys he hadn’t told the Sturmbannführer Kraus about, a sudden and unforgivable lapse of memory. Résistants? he had to wonder, not liking the thought, but again, as with the SS, the Gestapo and gestapistes français, one could not object.
Trapped in the middle, one simply had to tough it out. One of those young men would be on the third floor, at the back, the other … now where would that one have stationed himself, considering that only one room had been requested?
Each had carried the shabby, cardboard suitcases the Occupation had granted. Their coats had been buttoned up even in this heat, the rain perhaps, except, of course, that they had ar
rived before it.
One could only sweat and listen.
When she reached the second floor, Marie-Hélène went cautiously along between the staircase and the rooms until a probing foot came up against a wire. It was stretched at ankle height, taut across the corridor between a baluster and the electrical wires, which were fastened to the skirting board. Kraus, she wanted to cry out, but this … this couldn’t have been left by him. He must have thought the house safe, the fool!
Sickened, she looked questioningly up into the pitch-darkness of the stairwell and then back down the way she had come. Lyon? she wanted to cry out. Châlus? Is it Châlus in a German uniform? Had he used the Bellecour woman and his son to trap her?
The sounds of snoring came, and then … then from up on the next floor, the rhythmic squeaking of bedsprings and a muted, ‘Couchez-moi, mon brav. That’s it. A little higher, yes. Get it right up in there.’
If she could reach the boy and his mother, felt Marie-Hélène, she could use them as hostages. If Châlus was the boy’s father, he wouldn’t want to see them killed.
Stepping over the wire, she went on and up the stairs, each foot pressed down so gradually, the board or step beneath the tattered runner squeaked but softly.
There were no more trip wires, but on the third floor, the door to a room at the very back was not quite closed. Waiting, she wondered what to do.Retreating, she decided to creep by it on hands and knees, and when on the fourth floor, undid the belt of her coat and tied it tightly across the corridor at ankle height at the top of the stairs, using a baluster and those same electrical wires on the skirting board.
Up in the attic, she took time to find the skylight to the roof, only to discover that the ladder was already in place and the window unhooked. Everything, then, was ready for her assassination and their escape. Châlus planned to get the Bellecour woman and his son away.
The toilet below was Turkish and cramped. Just a hole in the floor with a flat metal dish, a foot pedal and a pull chain, and water all over the place when used. Niagaras of it, the stench terrible, a constant drip from the skylight.
The Little Parachute Page 15