Monsieur le Commandant

by Romain Slocombe

  ‘I had no trouble finding out that you are a widower with two children, Monsieur Husson – Jeanne, who died in an accident in 1938, and Olivier, not seen since his demobilisation in 1940. Where is your son at present? The Free Zone? London? North Africa?’

  ‘I don’t know. We’ve fallen out.’

  ‘Not that we care, mind you. We work in the Jewish branch, not the political. What interests me about your son is that his wife, first name Ilse – well, well – still lives with her children at 10–12 Rue Richer, in Paris. She comes to see you here from time to time, they told us in town. So you haven’t fallen out with her. During the week, she works as a secretary at the Opéra. Only the strange thing is, her naturalisation review file has gone missing. By chance? Or connections in high places?’

  ‘I don’t see what you’re getting at. But yes, I do have friends in the Andigny Kreiskommandantur. And I know the Prefect of Police, Monsieur Langeron.’

  ‘Who is no longer Prefect. And your friends at the Hôtel de Paris here are not the sort to take kindly to Jews. In fact, it was Commandant Schöllenhammer who called us to take custody of Lévy the caretaker. Okay, enough talking. This is what Cuvelier and I propose, Monsieur Husson. A little monthly payment of 5,000 francs. See how nice we are? In exchange, Madame Olivier Husson, née Wolffsohn, can sleep easy. And so can you.’

  He held out his hand, palm upward.

  ‘The first payment is effective immediately.’

  I protested instinctively.

  ‘I am not the kind of man who gives in to blackmail, Inspector.’

  His colleague Cuvelier rose to his feet.

  ‘Do you mind if I use your telephone? We need to send a car to pick up Madame Olivier Husson at her office at the Palais Garnier.’

  ‘She’ll be in Drancy by tomorrow,’ Sadorski added. ‘Along with the other foreigners of her religion. Undeclared, no star. That will be more than enough. And by the way, I happen to know that the representative of the French police in the Occupied Zone, Monsieur Leguay, is meeting SS Heinrichsohn today in Paris to discuss the forthcoming transports to the east. They’re planning one a day by early September. A thousand Jews per train, sixty to a carriage, no seating.’

  I gave in.

  I asked my guests to wait while I went upstairs to fetch the money from my office.

  I took the banknotes from my safe, slid them into an envelope and went back downstairs. Cuvelier was waiting for me midway up, looking furtive and sly. I walked by him without a word and handed the envelope to his superior, who stood sipping his cognac in the drawing room in front of the Boilly painting.

  Inspector Sadorski pocketed the envelope and shook my hand. His grip was vigorous and firm. He smelled strongly of tobacco.

  The two men returned to their Citroën and left with friendly waves in my direction. They were on their way to the Feldgendarmerie to pick up the Jew. We had agreed that Cuvelier would come to collect the next instalment in thirty days.

  I closed the front door, went up to my room and lay on the bed to think.

  22.

  So Ilse had become pregnant with my offspring.

  And without telling me, she had chosen to rid herself of the child she was carrying.

  I had made myself the unwitting accomplice to murder. That of my own son, or daughter. A half-Jewish child, like Aristide and Hermione. Or even, in accordance with their own beliefs, fully Jewish.

  Not only had I committed the carnal act with a woman of the accursed race that enjoined the torment of our Lord, and the wife of my own son, but this first and twofold sin had resulted in a far more serious act, a mortal sin, the most hateful of all sins. Thanks to me, a woman had murdered her own child.

  I had brought about my own damnation.

  And the just wrath of God was speeding me to Hell.

  The guilt was entirely mine; yet again, I could not bring myself to blame Ilse.

  Indeed, how would the poor woman have been able to explain to Olivier on his return – if he returned – the existence of another child? My daughter-in-law had acted, on her own behalf and from her own perspective, with wisdom. Every trace of our crime would have to be erased, even if that meant committing another.

  The child – who would have been the half-brother or half-sister of my grandchildren, as well as their uncle or aunt – could not be allowed to come into the world.

  Three oppressive days went by.

  I was incapable of lifting a finger. Words and phrases would not come, making it impossible for me to write. My body was racked alternately by fever and icy shivering. The view of my dear hills, so supreme in their tranquillity, no longer succeeded in soothing my remorseful heart.

  I couldn’t eat; I couldn’t sleep.

  Filled with a nameless horror, I glanced often at the telephone. On the other end of the line were the flat on Rue Richer, the children I was no longer allowed to see, and Ilse, whom I loved, who had refused to speak to me for weeks, and to whom I dared not reveal what I knew – about my own crime and hers, about the abortionist on Rue de Rivoli, and the very fact of her Jewishness.

  Outside, the weather was still as brutally hot and clear.

  I burned in my own hell on Earth.

  And I imagined that nothing worse could possibly befall me.

  Yet it could.

  On the third evening, towards 10.30 p.m., after the cook had gone home, I heard two imperious rings on the bell from the service door that opened onto Quai de Verdun.

  I was still dressed.

  I went down, but I was reluctant to open the door.

  A voice I knew called out from the other side.

  ‘Police! Detective Cuvelier! Come quickly, Monsieur Husson, it’s an emergency!’

  I immediately unlocked the door.

  I was confused to see a car parked on the embankment, which was plunged in darkness because of the blackout. And two figures behind Cuvelier, who pushed me swiftly aside as he barged in.

  The General Inquiries detective was pointing a small automatic pistol directly at me.

  I backed away. Two men followed him in and closed the door behind them. In the light of the vestibule I saw a giant in a trench coat and a skinny fellow in a long black leather coat. He, too, had a handgun trained on me.

  Later that night I got to know their nicknames: ‘the Club’ for the colossus and ‘Simon’ for the other. I was also to learn, by listening to them as they talked to one another, that the latter was a former policeman, jailed in Fresnes for some sort of civic corruption affair, and later released by someone they called, with fear-inflected respect, ‘the Boss’. He pulled out a yellow card, stamped with the seal of the German eagle, and waved it at me briefly, barking, ‘German police!’ (although his accent could not have been more French).

  ‘We’re going to your office,’ said Detective Cuvelier, who I noticed was carrying a leather briefcase in his left hand. ‘You go first. Don’t try anything stupid.’

  Cuvelier, who had spoken in the polite, formal manner at our first meeting, was now using the familiar ‘tu’ with me. I didn’t understand what was going on, but these men looked determined and fearsome. I had underestimated the threat posed by the ‘Special Detective’, who had seemed stupid beside his superior Sadorski. I wondered if these blackmailers were planning to kill me, pure and simple. As you know very well, Monsieur le Commandant, you hear all sorts of unpleasant stories these days, especially in the provinces. But they’re usually about the settling of scores between police and terrorists or, as has always been the case since time immemorial, between one crook and another – and, by God’s mercy, I am neither a crook nor a terrorist.

  Climbing the stairs with the three men behind me, I argued with little conviction.

  ‘If you represent the German police, Commandant Schöllenhammer and Dr Hild at the Kreiskommandantur can vouch for my respect for the law …’

  In response, I was hit in the lower back with a pistol grip and showered with vulgar insults.

  The l
ight was still on in my office. The colossus growled, ‘Hurry up. Open the safe.’

  Now I understood that I was dealing with common thieves acting behind the screen of their official functions. And, at the same time, that the ‘Wolffsohn/Berger’ affair was going to be more costly than I had foreseen.

  Having little choice, I turned the dials on my safe.

  The giant pushed me aside and helped himself to the contents: banknotes, securities, gold coins and, most painfully to me, Marguerite and Jeanne’s jewellery, which I had been saving as keepsakes and not for their value, although that was significant. All found their way into the briefcase that Detective Cuvelier held out, wide open like the ravenous maw of a wild animal, to the oversized criminal whose massive hands, as broad as carpet-beaters, were shamelessly violating my most sacred treasures.

  The man in the long leather coat – who, while far less solidly built than the giant, looked brutal and pitiless to me – turned to me and said, ‘Now you’re coming with us.’

  I asked where.

  ‘You’ll see, Monsieur l’académicien,’ Cuvelier snarled, shoving me in the ribs.

  I threw on a jacket and an old cap. They made me get in the back of the car, a Citroën saloon like the last, although I don’t know if it was the same one. Simon, the man in black, sat next to me, holding me at bay with his weapon. The detective took the wheel, with the Club filling up the entire space to his right.

  We drove past the church. Two Feldgendarmes, their lapel pins glittering in the night, stepped out from behind the plane trees and waved their torches at the car, shouting ‘Halt!’ and forcing us to a stop under threat of their submachine guns. The giant passed his own yellow card to the driver, who held it out through the lowered window. Your men saluted and stepped aside to let us by. From this I concluded that my kidnappers really did belong to some German police branch. In Paris, I had heard vague talk about a ‘French Gestapo’, also known as the Carlingue, an auxiliary service to yours headquartered on Rue Lauriston and run by Henri Lafont and Pierre Bonny – the latter a renowned former police inspector. I wondered if I had fallen into the hands of one of their teams, which were known for their summary methods.

  The Citroën took a winding road that led up to the plateau. Up there, we passed through little sleeping villages, which I recognised despite the darkness: Cuverville, Houville-en-Vexin, Bacqueville … The Club had a map that he had unfolded on his knees, and was giving directions to the detective, who at times appeared to be lost. I allowed myself an ironic quip.

  ‘I know this area like the back of my hand, gentlemen. If you tell me where we are going, I can help you get there faster.’

  ‘Are you really in such a hurry to wrap up our little excursion?’

  The driver’s response led me to believe that they were taking me into the deep countryside to kill me and bury my body in the undergrowth. Perhaps they would make me dig my own grave – I’ve heard about that sort of thing happening, too. I began to say my prayers in silence. I was not afraid for myself, believe me, Monsieur le Commandant. I came face to face with death many times, when climbing out of the trenches under a hail of bullets. I did not retreat or waver. But that night on the Vexin plateau, I was reluctant to leave this world and abandon Ilse, Hermione and Aristide, three innocents whom my son had already left exposed to the mercy of every peril.

  We drove through Grainville, the last village before the town of Fleury-sur-Andelle. The saloon slowed down because, as I recalled very well, the road becomes increasingly steep at that point in its impressive plunge into the Andelle valley. A little further along, below and to the left, are the picturesque ruins of the Fontaine-Guérard abbey, which I visited last year with my family, and the Trappist monastery of Radepont. It’s safer to stay under thirty kilometres an hour there, as the descent is punctuated by a series of extremely tight hairpin bends. And between each deadly turn are long and deceptive stretches of straight road through the forest, as if to tempt the unwary driver to step on the accelerator.

  ‘Not too fast,’ I counselled.

  Simon, the former policeman sitting next to me, agreed.

  ‘Laugnac warned us.’

  ‘Anyway, we’re here,’ said the colossus in the front, folding his map up. ‘I can see the dump, on the right.’

  Cuvelier applied the brake and we slowed down. The moon was bright in the sky and a dark shadow rose up between the pines and beeches. I had driven past the house before and remembered it – isolated on the roadside halfway down the slope and overlooking the town through a break in the tree line. A strange-looking heap, somewhere between a castle and a post house – too small for the one, too big for the other – mysterious and gloomy, somewhat dilapidated with its dark brick walls, its crumbling turret roofs, its broken lightning rods, its eternally closed and rotting shutters. It felt ill-omened, as if ancient crimes and other macabre incidents had occurred there. I had considered featuring it in any number of scenes in my novels, but had always ended up rejecting the idea, seized with some superstitious fear that the evil aura surrounding the place might somehow insinuate itself into my writing, and perhaps even into me or those I loved.

  A Renault Vivasport with a rear gas generator and another black Citroën saloon were parked outside the house, their headlights extinguished. And, most unexpectedly, a bright light shone through the shutter slats of a window on the second floor. Cuvelier pulled up behind the Vivasport and turned off the headlights.

  ‘Everyone out,’ he said jauntily.

  The Club pushed open the front door, which was not locked. All four of us went inside, where I was immediately struck by the smell of cigarette smoke, mingled with a whiff of mould and the excrement of forest creatures. As I had always thought, the house was uninhabited – empty rooms, bare walls, loose wallpaper, light fixtures covered in dust. Spider webs in every corner, mouse and ferret droppings strewn across warped floorboards. But I heard voices upstairs. We climbed an old stairway, its boards squeaking. Above us, the light was on in one room. That’s where the voices were coming from. On the landing, the man in the black coat beside me let out a yell in a false German accent: ‘Kamerad!’

  The door to the room, already ajar, opened wider.

  The first thing I saw was a man sitting on a chair, entirely naked.

  His wrists and his ankles were cuffed.

  23.

  There was something theatrical about the scene which lay before me, beneath the glittering light of a chandelier.

  The high walls of the enormous room were hung with nineteenth-century family portraits that had been slashed with a knife. The room was furnished only with an armchair and a few upright chairs; a metal bucket and suitcase sat on the floor. And in the middle, a handsome young man of good height in the tailored black uniform and boots of an SS officer, wearing a cap that was too big for him and armed with a riding crop, stood contemplating the prisoner.

  A third person – the one who had opened the door for us – of very small stature, almost a dwarf, dark-brown complexion, stubbled chin, his repulsive ugliness accentuated by one blank, blind eye, chuckled as he swung what looked to be a sock filled with sand that served as a truncheon.

  The face of their victim was swollen, his torso marbled with long purple streaks. Naked and bound, the boy could not have been more than twenty years old. His features, despite the signs of the violence that had distorted them, reminded me of someone I had known a long time ago … But who? I was too disturbed to be able to focus on the question.

  The SS officer fixed us with a hard but intelligent gaze and spoke French with Norman intonations, and I realised that the only German thing about him was his uniform. His name, Monsieur le Commandant, is Martin Laugnac. Later that night, Detective Cuvelier explained to me that he is deputy to Hauptscharführer Harald Heyns (also known as ‘Bernard’) in the Gestapo security office in Caen. Laugnac was a junior tax clerk before the war. His admiration for the Maréchal, and his attraction to the German uniform, drew him to the
company of the officers of the Feldkommandantur. As a speaker of your language, he was soon recruited as a police interpreter.

  The young man seemed to be on close terms with Simon and the Club, as he and the dwarf welcomed them with much laughter and joking. Having saluted the detective, the French SS officer shook me by the hand, with a certain degree of respect, and called me ‘Commandant Husson’, adding that he had read my novel The Ordeal. His brown eyes, deeply sunk in their sockets, shone with a strange fervour.

  Pointing to the only armchair, the officer politely invited me to sit down.

  He turned back to the boy in handcuffs and ordered him to introduce himself.

  The prisoner, who seemed to be all but drained of strength, raised his head. I again had the feeling that I recognised his face.

  ‘Your surname and Christian name,’ Laugnac repeated impatiently. ‘My Parisian guests are waiting.’

  He emphasised the command by lashing him across the chest with the crop. In a weak voice, the young man muttered, ‘Pin, André.’

  ‘Born in?’ the officer went on.

  The boy shuddered.

  ‘Fresne-l’Archevêque.’

  I knew the village – as do you, of course, since it is only about ten kilometres from Andigny. But the name ‘Pin’ also rang a bell. I combed through my memories, one of which, leaping suddenly to mind, alarmed me.

  ‘What is your father’s profession, my poor boy?’ I asked him gently, leaning forward in the armchair.

  ‘Constable,’ he answered.

  Drops of sweat broke out on my forehead as I silently calculated, dredging up old dates.

  ‘Your maternal grandfather,’ I went on. ‘What is his trade?’

  ‘He had a café in the village. He died just before the defeat.’

  ‘And … your mother’s Christian name?’

  With a sob, he said, ‘Madeleine.’

  It wasn’t possible. And yet, I was already saying ‘tu’ to him.