Single to Paris

by Single to Paris (retail) (epub)

  Rosie nodded. ‘Hospitals, for instance.’

  ‘Indeed. You were a nurse, Jacqui mentioned.’ Sitting again, and lighting two cigarettes. ‘So glad you were able to come today, Jeanne-Marie… Where did you do that – the nursing?’

  ‘In more than one hospital. Most recently at Nantes. And as a trainee at first, which was mostly scrubbing floors and so forth, here in Paris. But I’m not really cut out for it, I’m afraid. When I met you in Rouen of course I was trying to sell perfume – and Jacqui was so kind to me…’

  ‘That job didn’t last long, I understand.’

  ‘You’re right, it didn’t.’

  ‘And you have a child – little girl – for whom you’re searching now in Paris?’

  ‘She’s with her grandmother – my late husband’s mother. The old woman must be crackers, but I do know she’ll be looking after her. Trying to steal her from me, I suppose. It’s a long, boring story – via Nantes to Dijon, then here – no, Rouen first—’

  ‘To find Jacqui, eh?’

  ‘Partly. But I was seeing another friend there too.’

  ‘And in Jacqui’s salon they gave you this address?’

  ‘Yes. Eventually.’

  ‘That Portuguese she’s taken on?’

  Rosie looked at Jacqui. ‘I believe I’m being interrogated.’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’ Stiff-faced, formal. German. ‘Such was not my intention – only it is surprising—’

  ‘I’m surprised that such details should be of interest. I got the address – here I am!’

  ‘The surprise to us both arises from the fact that he was told not to release such information. So much for him.’ To Jacqui: ‘But it might not be easy to replace him. And as things are now he might be better on your side than as your enemy. Perhaps just caution him?’ Back to Rosie: ‘You told Jacqui some customers were gossiping about her relationship with me?’

  ‘Yes. Not that your name was mentioned. Only – you know – catty remarks. Which in the long run it struck me could be lethal.’

  ‘And that’s what brought you here. For which we’re both grateful. Not that we aren’t in any case well aware of that danger. May I ask you – with apologies in advance – one more question?’

  ‘Go ahead.’ She nodded to Jacqui. ‘This is a good wine. From Alsace, you said.’

  ‘Which is currently German again but may very well revert to French occupation before much longer.’

  ‘You think you’ll soon be right out of France?’

  ‘Out of Alsace too – if you’ll allow me my own historical perspective. But – almost certainly. They won’t stop before the Rhine, that’s for sure. And now we’re talking about the war, which you particularly requested we should not?’

  ‘I thought the subject was wine.’

  ‘So it was. Yes, all the Alsace whites I like very much. But my question – a serious one, Jeanne-Marie – is about Jacqui again. You’re worried for her, and so am I. She, on the surface anyway, less so. Is that also your impression?’

  ‘Talking about me like this – as if I weren’t even here—’

  ‘The motive behind her display of sang-froid being, of course’ – continuing to Rosie – ‘to make it easier for me, although the predicament is very much her own. I tell you, Jeanne-Marie, I love this woman very much indeed.’

  ‘I understand it’s mutual.’

  ‘I too. I have had some evidence of it, even.’ Joke: thin smile to label it as such. Rosie wondering how Jacqui could stand him, let alone be in love with him. Even that ‘love this woman very much indeed’ had had a coldly formal ring to it. False ring. Adding now, ‘Should be straightforward therefore, but unfortunately that’s not the case – on account of complicating factors of which I believe you know. Hence this question now: you intimated to Jacqui yesterday that you have a practical suggestion – what we could do, what she could?’

  ‘Well.’ She took another sip, and put her glass down. ‘No great brainwave, I’m afraid. Rather obvious. Simply that she should get out of Paris and stay out until things have settled down.’

  ‘Until the Resistance has finished taking its revenge, you mean.’

  The riposte in her mind was that might take a bloody century. She didn’t say it. Instead, ‘Stay away from Rouen too. That would be as bad – having heard those women. They’ll be denouncing people to prove they weren’t collaborators. But there’s this farm not far from Nantes, where my child and the old woman were. A quiet, hard-working couple, getting on in years, with a house larger than they need. I could take Jacqui there and introduce her as a friend who’s been ill, needs peace and quiet.’ Looking at Jacqui: ‘Peace and quiet’s about all there is; you’d be bored out of your mind, I warn you. But – second thought – might let it be known that you were a résistante.’ A nod towards Clausen. ‘Might have been in his hands?’

  ‘In my – hands…’

  Staring at her, hard-eyed. Inducing in Rosie a not totally unfamiliar tightening of the nerves. But one was here, and hadn’t contrived to get this close to him merely to indulge in small talk, couldn’t expect to be smiled at all the time. Bull by the horns, therefore: ‘Aren’t you in the SD – don’t you have prisoners, interrogate them – torture even, send them to concentration camps, and so on?’

  ‘She’ – a head-movement towards Jacqui – ‘tell you this?’

  ‘It’s common knowledge, what SD do. Even in Rouen I knew that was what you were – Jacqui’d have told me that much, obviously.’

  ‘Well… For your information, Jeanne-Marie, I have conducted interrogations – yes, many times. But where your imagination may run beyond that, and off the rails a little – torture, deportation—’

  ‘No.’ Jacqui, quietly: ‘He could not—’

  ‘He might not, but having established a prisoner’s guilt it would follow, wouldn’t it?’

  Blinking at her, thinking about it. Deciding to ignore it then, telling her, ‘What I am, Jeanne-Marie, is an intelligence officer. As such I’ve many times identified and arrested, or caused to be arrested, enemies of the Reich. You might say that’s been my speciality – detective work. Now, most of my time’s spent sifting, collating and summarising intelligence, compiling daily and weekly reports for my Berlin head office and for OKW – the General Staff, that is. I tell you this in confidence, obviously, but – not so terrible – uh?’

  ‘Intelligence to do with the Resistance, by any chance?’

  ‘Why ask me that?’

  ‘Well – for Jacqui: and this is perhaps a brainwave. Why not draw up a report on her? It’d be absolutely authentic, wouldn’t it – you’d make it so – and she’d have it leaked to her somehow, could use it as proof she’s only been with you in order to work against you. Passing on your secrets – who’s going to be arrested next, that sort of thing? You’ve caught her out and she has to run for it. You wouldn’t file the report, perhaps, because of the nature of your relationship. Might even go so far as to suppress it – warn her?’

  ‘I believe I’d shoot myself.’

  ‘Alternatively – as a loyal German officer – or sergeant, is it—’

  ‘I am an officer. Using the rank of sergeant and dressing as a civilian is a special dispensation from my superiors, facilitating my work in certain ways.’

  ‘Right. As a loyal German officer, then – the report exists, say, it’s on your desk, you might be in two minds about it but – do you have staff, some of them French?’

  ‘Most of our clerical employees are French.’

  ‘One of them secretly working for the Resistance is how Jacqui might get to hear of it. How she’d have got hold of other material too. Anyway, she’s tipped off. What then? Well, if she doesn’t immediately disappear you would confront her with it – arrest her, I suppose – have to, wouldn’t you, no matter how agonising that might be for you? But then – well, how long have you got? Mightn’t you be recalled to Germany at any moment?’

  ‘I might. Yes.’ He’d reached over to put
a hand on Jacqui’s: a gesture that might have made him seem more human being than secret policeman. To Jacqui, it might have done, but to Rosie it seemed wooden – a stage-direction followed unconvincingly. Shaking his head: ‘One doesn’t know. No one does. There is a considerable degree of administrative confusion – in the circumstances perhaps inevitable. That’s what’s at the back of all this, isn’t it?’

  ‘But – two things… One: if you were going to do this, or something like it, it might be best to draft the report right away – have it ready. And two: Jacqui getting wind of it wouldn’t hang around, would she – knowing she faces arrest, being locked up and then God knows what? Locked up where and by whom, incidentally?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well – Gestapo, or—’

  ‘Why should that detail concern us – concern you – in any way at all?’

  It was the sort of question, she realised – seeing Jacqui’s look of surprise, alarm even, as well as the sharpness of his reaction – that she should not have asked.

  Chapter 12

  She’d recovered from that blunder, she thought. Having come close to cooking her own goose or at least warning him off with the direct question she’d promised herself (and assured Martin Leblanc this morning) she wouldn’t ask. The parallel between the fiction she’d been proposing and the position of Léonie and Rouquet being so close, the question had virtually asked itself – and might have paid off if one had taken a few seconds to weigh it up, gone for it less directly. She’d actually got out of it quite well, she thought, pointing out (a) that Jacqui’s story needed all the background it could get, since it might have to stand up to close scrutiny by FFI or other post-Occupation investigative authority, and (b) that Clausen’s withdrawal from Paris being for all he knew imminent, he might well have baulked at the prospect of leaving her in, say, Gestapo hands: so what alternative might he have had – in her account of it, the way she’d tell it – other than either dithering, thus allowing time for the leak and her escape, or himself tipping her off, letting her go and then on the face of it discovering what she’d been up to?

  He’d stayed silent: watching her, presumably thinking it out, unmoving while Jacqui decided abruptly to get lunch and declined Rosie’s offer of help. Rosie recalling Leblanc’s Don’t underestimate this man… Adding then as her own unhurried afterthought, ‘What you’d have told your own superiors would have been your own business, you’d know how to address that. You’d be gone and so would all your records; all anyone here would have to go on would be what Jacqui told them. That’s what would have to be realistic enough to hold water. Don’t you agree?’

  He hadn’t come out of his own deliberations until Jacqui had gone inside.

  ‘You’ve come up with a good idea, Jeanne-Marie, but we’d spoil it by allowing it to become too complicated. In principle, it’s excellent. I’m delighted Jacqui asked you here – and grateful that you sought her out in the first place… Speaking of which, when you called here on Friday Jacqui tells me you met Henri Lafont downstairs?’

  ‘He approached me, yes.’

  ‘You didn’t know who he was?’

  ‘Not at the time. I asked Jacqui.’

  ‘Oh, yes. He told me he’d met you, too. That was before Jacqui told me you’d been here – or that he had.’

  Rosie shrugged. ‘A weird character, I thought. That high voice – and to start with, a threatening manner. Is he a friend of yours?’

  ‘We have some professional interests in common, that’s all. He’d come by in the hope of catching me, he mentioned.’ Watching her, dwelling on a pause as if inviting comment. Rosie thinking, He’d have known you weren’t in. No car down there – known it for certain. And not being an idiot, you’re at least as aware of that as I am… Remembering Jacqui’s chatter an hour ago: He’s kept so busy, up half the night… A statement in which she, Rosie, had shown no interest: just as she wasn’t reacting now to whatever Clausen was trying to convey or probe for. He was changing the subject anyway: ‘As I say, I’m grateful for your excellent suggestion. Regarding detail, I’ll sleep on it. A possibility one must of course allow for is some French member of my office staff volunteering evidence to any subsequent inquiry, challenging Jacqui’s story.’

  ‘How might you deal with that?’

  ‘Brief Jacqui on how to challenge any of them. I’d have spoken to her of my suspicions of X, Y or Z. I’ll give her some notes to memorise… You really mean it, though, you’d go down to Nantes with her, stay there with her?’

  ‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t. One difficulty may be this business of finding my daughter, but—’

  ‘Here we are, at last!’

  Jacqui, with a loaded tray – an entrée of stuffed aubergines. Rosie still thinking of her and of the freak with the girlish voice: wondering whether she might be two-timing her beloved Gerhardt. As Gerhardt might, she thought, suspect? Knowing as one did quite a lot about Jacqui’s past, and guessing that Clausen might know even more, might also have in mind that leopards were at least reputed not to change their spots?

  This one might have, though. Although in circumstances such as she was facing now – and needing Clausen as her protector—

  ‘How lovely, Jacqui!’

  ‘Please take lots.’

  ‘You might be sorry you said that. How on earth d’you manage – so quickly, so little effort?’

  ‘I had a girl in this morning, for a few hours. And we cook on gas – the same cylinders they use to drive the buses – which aren’t running now in any case… But certainly we do live well.’

  ‘Do indeed.’ Clausen: he’d opened a second bottle of the Riesling. It had already had a relaxing effect on him, Rosie had noticed. ‘In fact it’s breaking a lot of hearts to leave this city. I’m giving away no secrets, admitting that. Our women are especially sad about it – understandably enough – but for all of us, in fact—’

  ‘What women are those?’

  ‘Our own – who work with us here. Basically two kinds. You don’t speak any German?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Well, there are the Edeltrippen – which literally means “noble typists” – girls of good education and background who mainly work in our offices but will also – oh, sew on buttons, anything – and they have a great social life, I can tell you. As well as the shopping, which at the rate of exchange that we enjoy—’ He shrugged. ‘Best not to rub that in, perhaps. But in Germany right now, life’s not so comfortable – especially with the bombing, not much fun at all. What I was saying though – another German word for you – there are also what we call the Blitzmädchen. War Maidens, eh? They work for our forces – in canteens and so forth, telephone exchanges—’

  ‘And more personal services?’

  Jacqui laughing: ‘Really, Jeanne-Marie—’

  ‘I meant the “noble” ones. He said they’d do anything.’

  ‘Bring tarts to Paris?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘The brothel-keepers will be sorry to see us go, I can tell you. D’you know how many are reserved solely for the Wehrmacht?’

  Jacqui began again on the same note. ‘Really, Gerhardt—’

  ‘I’ll tell you anyway. Out of the one hundred and twenty which are registered, forty are reserved for soldiers, four for officers and one for generals.’

  Rosie said, ‘A bit limiting for the generals.’

  ‘It must be,’ Clausen agreed. ‘One might even refuse promotion to general’s rank when the time came.’

  ‘One serious question – if it’s not a secret—’

  ‘If it is, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘The tricolor on the police headquarters – I saw it yesterday when I went to meet Jacqui – and now there’s one on l’Hôtel de Ville as well. You’re allowing this?’

  ‘Surprises you? Yes, I suppose it would.’ Putting down his fork. ‘The answer is that the military commander of Greater Paris, General Dietrich von Choltitz – a fine soldier, I may say – is
not anxious to destroy Paris unless he’s forced to. Those two buildings are of no military importance, nor is he interested in a few roughnecks throwing their weight about in the back alleys. As long as he can keep open the roads that matter – those through Paris and encircling it – and the bridges, of course – thus allowing for orderly withdrawal, or fighting withdrawal if necessary – it’s all that concerns him. I might add that all the bridges and certain other structures are being wired for demolition in any case.’

  ‘Although you just said—’

  ‘It’s officially still a secret: but the Resistance know it. Just as they know we have a number of fortified defensive points – blockhouses, which we call Stützpunkte – thirty-two of them commanding what are strategic points.’ He stood up, continued while removing the first-course plates – Jacqui replacing them with others – ‘The head of the Paris FFI – Parodi, a young man who calls himself a general, is allegedly the representative of de Gaulle – was quite by chance arrested at a checkpoint yesterday and taken to be interviewed by von Choltitz at the Hôtel Maurice. They talked, and von Choltitz then released him. Yes – imagine it. Well – to anyone who knows that man’s military background, it’s astonishing. But you see – what I’m telling you is actually no secret. You could say it’s as good as finished here.’

  ‘The occupation of Paris, you mean?’

  ‘To all intents and purposes, you could say so. Oh, there’ll be some fighting, more killing – and for those of us who are ordered to remain, of course—’

  ‘Might you be?’

  ‘I would not have thought so, but actually until one receives one’s orders—’

  ‘You can’t tell. I see. But as regards Jacqui’s future—’

  ‘I wouldn’t want her to stay here even if it looked as if I were going to. No – I’ll rough out some sort of dossier in the morning, bring it home and talk it over with you tomorrow night perhaps, chérie.’ An arm round her shoulders, a quick hug. ‘It’s a very good idea, isn’t it?’