April In Paris, 1921

by Tessa Lunney

  ‘My house my rules, of course.’ I shook out two of the last cigarettes from my somewhat battered Gitanes packet.

  He placed his between his teeth, struck a match and leant close to light mine, my hands cupped around his so that the breeze wouldn’t blow out the flame. How could this gesture be more intimate than a hug? Was it the deliberation, the stillness, the way he watched me breathe in? Was it that we almost touched, and this sparked a desire to feel his fingers, his face, his breath? I only know that he let the match burn down as he watched me, inhaling and lighting his at the very last second. He leant back against the opposite window frame, looking at me, watching the street, blowing his smoke into the air. He looked wrung-out and scruffy, but he looked just right, like he belonged here, sitting on my windowsill, halfway between the studio and the sky.

  ‘You won’t believe what happened,’ he said.

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Look at this.’ He pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket; it was worn and brown along the folds. I sniffed it; it smelt of Woodbines and trench mud. I raised my eyebrows but Tom just nodded. I opened it carefully. It looked like it was written on thin army-issue paper, which meant it’d be quite fragile. It was dated 18 October 1917:

  Bobsy – it’s done. I hardly had to do anything! TT disappeared – bloody awful show – but that hardly matters. What matters is that he was seen being helped by the Boche. Really! Just out of a shell hole & he was injured or some such – but again that hardly matters. All I had to do was drum it up. The groundwork we laid made the brass receptive to the charge – treason! From military medal to spy – could we write a penny dreadful any better? That nobody Sergeant Thompson is finished. Fancy a transfer? SJS

  P.S. Burn this when you’re done.

  I read it over twice more. I could hardly believe it.

  ‘This is proof.’

  ‘Incontrovertible. The idiot actually wrote it down.’

  ‘But “Bobsy” didn’t burn it, as instructed.’

  ‘It almost restores my faith in God.’

  ‘Who’s Bobsy?’

  ‘No idea. Either a fool or a friend.’

  ‘Or someone who guessed what this note might be worth,’ I said, but Tom just shrugged. He couldn’t pull down his smile where he sat in the window, the breeze in his hair and the light on his dark stubble. He was stretched out, his legs so long that they reached me at the other side of the windowsill, but he was only pretending to relax.

  ‘Did you know about all of this, Tom? Did you know precisely what “SJS”—’

  ‘St John Sinclair. Golden boy, man-fancier and outright bastard.’

  ‘Did you know exactly what he’d done?’

  ‘Not at all – that’s the wonderful thing!’ He leant forward in excitement. ‘I couldn’t understand how the charge of treason came about. I mean, I went missing in that mud along with all the other blokes who bought it. If you were looking for a fella, wouldn’t you check among the bodies in no-man’s-land? Or the POW lists? As he says, I got that silly bravery medal – that I had somehow run off to the Hun didn’t make sense. But this explains it – some Jerry helped me, heaven knows why; someone saw it happen and the Saint used it against me. Clearly he’d been blackening my name for some time.’

  ‘Why?’ I put on my schoolmarm tone. ‘What did you do to him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be his “special boy”.’ He grinned. ‘Not that I have anything against that sort of thing, a man’s business is his own. But I won’t be ordered into it, especially not by my superior officer.’

  ‘That’s all? That doesn’t seem like enough – he’d surely be used to rejection if he was trying to find his lovers in the trenches.’

  The Sunday sounds came up from the street, more subdued than during the week. There were no newspaper boys yelling doom or fruit sellers dragging their carts along the cobbles. Just the flower girls, the Sunday cafés, the sighs of mothers released from drudgery, and the laughter of factory workers unshackled from their machines.

  Tom smiled but looked sad. ‘He was humiliated in front of the men and blamed me.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It was pretty ordinary – he soiled himself during a bombardment, got the shakes, couldn’t even walk himself to the latrine. I had to take charge. Every man would’ve forgiven and forgotten if he hadn’t become nasty.’

  ‘He sounds like—’

  ‘A liar, a coward, a snob. Oh yeah, and I beat him in a rugby match in 1910.’

  ‘Don’t tell me this is an old school rivalry—’

  ‘Not really.’ He shrugged with a smile. ‘But it didn’t help.’

  I folded the letter up carefully and handed it back. The only way that Fox could have got hold of this letter was if ‘Bobsy’ worked for him. If so, how much of Tom’s charge had Bobsy orchestrated, on Fox’s orders? Or had Fox merely been opportunistic, and if so, for how long?

  ‘So, Tom, what will you do with this letter? Do you know who to show it to?’

  ‘Your Dr Fox?’

  ‘No point. He sent it.’

  Tom stared at me.

  ‘As payment – well, partial payment – for the work I’m doing.’

  ‘That explains why the man who gave this to me knew your name. In the hotel bar, a tall, burly bloke with face like a smacked arse sat down with his beer and threw out a few conversational sallies. I wouldn’t have given him more than a nod and a grunt, but when he mentioned your name—’

  ‘He mentioned it?’

  ‘He said, “Do you know a Katherine King Button? Then this is for you.” He handed over the note, finished his schnapps and walked off.’

  ‘I got the name Kiki so early in the war that not many people here know me as Katherine King.’

  ‘Your full name – I knew then it had to be some kind of intrigue.’

  A sparrow hopped onto my leg, but I flinched at its claws and it fluttered to the other side of the windowsill.

  ‘Intrigue or introduction to purgatory. That note was most definitely from Fox. In which case, what else did the man say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Rubbish. He must’ve given you another place, time, venue, rendezvous . . .’

  Tom shook his head and started unloading the rubbish from his pockets so he could stretch his legs more comfortably. In amongst the smoker’s detritus, lolly wrappers and coins was a clipping from a magazine, folded up and over many times. It was an advertisement for Citroën cars.

  ‘You’re buying a car?’ I held up the clipping.

  ‘What, to put in my suitcase?’

  Under the address of the showroom was a line of tiny handwriting. It read, in English: Factory: Quai de Javel. 1900.

  ‘I don’t know how . . . Was that hidden in the matchbox?’ He took the clipping and folded it up along the creases until it fitted snugly into the top of the matchbox. On the front was a pipe-smoking fox that grinned smugly at us. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It means at the Citroën factory, tonight, we deliver the mole to Fox.’

  TOM HAD INSISTED that he didn’t want a hotel, even if they did have running water. We each looked out at the view as the other washed and dressed and spruced up for the outside world. It worked better than I expected; it felt like beach holidays, when we’d turn our backs as we changed in and out of our swimmers, keeping up the chat the whole time. Part of me wanted to stay on the windowsill and I could see Tom felt the same. Except that he was sleepy and I was hungry, so to Petit’s it had to be.

  The café was always run by Monsieur Petit on a Sunday. He was just as short as Madame but gruff and stern, nodding curtly to me. ‘Bonjour.’

  ‘He doesn’t approve of me,’ I whispered to Tom after we’d ordered.

  ‘How could he not?’

  ‘He doesn’t like my type.’

  ‘The modern woman?’

  ‘Independent. Outspoken. Hatless.’

  Tom laughed.

  ‘And I think his disapproval is in direct proportion to Mada
me Petit’s wish for just such a life.’

  ‘But who wants a life without hats? You’d get sunburnt—’

  ‘Or a head cold—’

  ‘Or covered in flies—’

  ‘Or messy hair – insupportable. Oh Tom, you should have stayed for that hat party at La Gaya . . .’

  Over coffee and fresh croissants, I told Tom everything that had happened. Well, everything that had to do with Fox and this mission; the other things he didn’t need to know. I made a list of everyone he did need to know as we ordered a second coffee the minute we’d downed our first. Monsieur Petit might be gruff, but his coffee was delicious.

  ‘And you? Silesia – the Brownshirts—’

  ‘If I’d known how relevant it was, I’d have brought my notes.’ He tore his second croissant in half, dipped it in his coffee and manoeuvred the soggy mess into this mouth.

  For a moment the café disappeared, with its decorated tiles and wall of drinks, and I was back in Sydney the summer after he’d finished school, feeling like rebels as we sat at the Quay amongst the ferrymen and ate a mountain of cream cakes—

  ‘Button, are you listening?’

  ‘Yes, of course! . . . What?’

  He snorted. ‘This Hausmann character – that’s who you’re interested in, right?’

  ‘He’s as slippery as a whore’s virtue.’

  ‘Ha! Well, I managed to get a bit more information on him before I left. He is with the Freikorps, most definitely. He’s some kind of mover and shaker, knows everyone, people mention his name with awe . . .’

  ‘Yes? And?’

  ‘And . . . he’s not German. He’s English.’

  This sounded more and more like a certain Hamilton ‘Teddy’ Houseman. I harrumphed.

  ‘What, you knew?’

  ‘I suspected.’

  ‘I went to so much effort to get that information! The factory worker who told me that Hausmann was English was terrified to do so, and it wouldn’t have slipped out if I hadn’t soaked him in slivovitz. Apparently Hausmann’s German sounded odd.’

  ‘I’ve been told that—’

  ‘That too? Why have I even—’

  ‘This is great, really.’ I squeezed his hand. ‘Just tell me everything.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said, but he smiled. ‘I was trying to talk to Hausmann at one of his political meetings. I failed, due to some zealous German door guards, and only got a glimpse of him orating. However, I did manage to corner a factory worker who left the meeting and convince him to have a drink with me. He said that Hausmann spoke English to two men. One looked like a Junker, with his scar and his limp, the other was a big man – with a ‘broken face’ was how my factory worker put it.’

  Was this another agent of Fox’s? Was this a double-cross of a double-crosser?

  ‘But he said that Hausmann spoke French with a Russian. There were a few Russians floating about the cafés actually, although they were never very welcome as they were clearly all aristocrats . . .’

  The murmurous haunt of flies treads him down: Fern was being betrayed. But by whom, exactly? More turncoat Brits or furious anti-Red Russians? Or both?

  ‘Though I did hear one of the German guards talk loudly about “diese verdammten Engländer” – and I remember enough German to know he was talking about these damned Brits – and the factory foreman told me that everyone was sick of foreigners. Though who is actually a foreigner in Silesia is another question entirely.’

  His high requiem becomes a sod – sod is a word for soil, soil is a synonym for nation – his high requiem is turning into a nation? Suits a nation? Is the high requiem some kind of nationalist mantra – I must be getting close . . .

  I scanned the café. There were just enough people, and the right sort of people – old workmen cradling their aperitifs, young foreigners absorbed in their hangovers, middle-aged foreigners absorbed in their books – to give us privacy. Monsieur Petit ignored us where we sat against the dark wall and where, between the two of us, we had a view over the whole café. Tom saw me surreptitiously looking around and obliged me by scanning the tables behind my back. He shook his head: nothing suspicious.

  I shook out two cigarettes, lit them and handed one to Tom. ‘And on the ground – what’s happening?’

  ‘Nothing – yet. There’s going to be a riot, I’m sure of it. The Germans can’t stand it, that the Poles would rather face the threat of Russian expansion than be a German state. But it wasn’t the government who called in the vigilantes. It must’ve been the good burghers of Katowitz who called in the Brownshirts from Bavaria. Every day I was there I saw more and more on the streets, strolling around, encouraging German shop owners and directing German-Poles away from Polish shops. The only violence I saw was when one young man kicked a passing Jew. I was amazed – the old man was kicked in broad daylight and not a housewife or fruit seller even flinched! You would expect some acknowledgement, wouldn’t you? A jeer, a gasp – but everyone did a sterling job of pretending it didn’t happen. I followed the old man, I wanted him to talk to me, but he refused to speak any language I could understand. But more violence is brewing, I’m sure of it. We’ll be back in Silesia before a month is out, I reckon.’

  ‘And coming back through Paris?’

  ‘If you like,’ he said with his little boy smile.

  I could feel a blush in my cheeks. I had to look away, I smoothed down my ivory silk dress, I played with the embroidered daffodils around the cuff.

  Tom reached over and gently took my wrist. ‘Tell me, Button.’ His blue eyes matched mine. I couldn’t look away; I could hardly breathe.

  ‘Yes, I’d like that,’ I murmured.

  He smiled, wide and joyous, and like a mirror I matched him. It was only us, his fingers on my pulse, the smells of coffee and pastry mixing with memories. I might have kissed him then, I might have done a lot of things, if Petit hadn’t come over and asked if we wanted anything more. I asked him politely for cigarettes, my head in a whirl.

  ‘Right, Button, so,’ Tom was equally dizzy, ‘what’s next?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘There’s someone I need you to meet.’

  THANK GOODNESS BERTIE was dressed when he opened the door to his hotel room. A cream suit with ivory brogues, a pearl tie pin and razor-sharp hair parting; it looked like we’d matched our outfits on purpose. He was the too-clean Pom to Tom’s swaggering Digger, but he used his Captain Browne handshake and his infinite charm to put Tom at ease.

  ‘Ah, the boy from the bush!’ he exclaimed. ‘Kiki never fails to mention you.’

  Tom raised his eyebrows at me but I could tell he was pleased, saying, ‘What, in the same breath as “that bloody”, “that annoying”, “that hopeless”—’

  ‘Only in that she might say, “That bloody Tom is so annoying, he won’t stay more than a day! He’s hopeless!”’

  Tom laughed and I breathed out. After his tantrum over Pablo, I was afraid that Tom might act the jealous lover again – which would have been truer with Bertie than with Pablo. But in the ensuing chat Bertie acted the perfect combination of old soldier and gay dandy so jealousy could never have entered Tom’s head.

  ‘Well done, Bertie,’ I whispered, when Tom went to the bathroom.

  ‘Darling, of course! I must say, you have excellent taste.’ He pouted lasciviously. ‘Any chance . . .’

  ‘Not a snowflake’s in hell.’ I grinned. ‘Besides, he’s a little preoccupied with yours truly.’

  ‘Never mind, there’s plenty more where he came from.’ Bertie caught my arm in mock panic. ‘There are plenty more where he came from, aren’t there?’

  ‘Why don’t you see for yourself? It’d be a good holiday.’

  ‘And miss all the fun here? I told you, I’ll have what you’re having, thank you.’

  I laughed and accepted the cognac that Bertie handed to me.

  ‘Private jokes, Button?’ said Tom.

  ‘Just a private stash of booze,’ Bertie cut in. ‘Cognac?’

 
‘You’ll need it,’ I said. ‘So will you, Bertie. We have work to do.’

  ‘Don’t I know it. I have a luncheon, a high tea, and two dinner engagements today.’ Bertie turned to Tom, and said, ‘Persuading rich businessmen to advertise with The Star is part of my job. However, my editor finds it’s best done via the wives and their interminable parties.’

  ‘Nice work if you can get it,’ Tom said.

  ‘Nice! It’s cutthroat. Those businessmen are paper tigers half the time – it’s the wives who drive the bargains. They could beat the Turks in the Grand Bazaar.’

  ‘So you can’t come with us?’ I asked.

  ‘Alas, Kiki—’

  ‘Don’t you have a free window? We’re starting early—’

  ‘Kiki darling, it’s Sunday,’ Bertie implored. ‘Can’t we just stroll along the Seine?’

  ‘Seine, yes. Stroll, no. More like roll or haul – or mole.’ I toasted Bertie’s questioning look. ‘Tom delivered the drop-off place and time.’

  ‘It’s all on then.’

  ‘For young and old. Bertie, can you show Tom that photo of Teddy?’

  ‘Oh!’ Bertie glanced between us but Tom looked nonplussed. ‘Ah. Yes.’ He went straight to his wallet to retrieve it.

  ‘Button, that’s you and—’

  ‘Yes, I know, but the man in the corner – is that the man you saw in Silesia, Tom?’

  As Tom studied the photo, Bertie and I conducted a pantomime conversation. I raised my eyebrow and cocked my head: ‘Really, Bertie? You keep the photo in your wallet?’ Bertie shrugged and looked defeated: ‘What else can I do? I still adore him.’ I sighed softly and let my shoulders droop: ‘Poor Bertie darling. You need better luck.’ He tucked his hands in his pockets and gave a small smile: ‘Don’t I know it.’ All the work of a moment.

  Tom raised his frown-riven face. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Unquestionably. How do you know him?’

  ‘I don’t, but Bertie—’

  ‘Unfortunately, he’s a good friend of mine.’ Bertie sniffed and turned away, hiding his despair by lighting a cigarette.

  ‘With friends like these, mate—’

  ‘Quite.’ Bertie gulped the rest of his drink and grimaced. ‘Oh my giddy aunt, I don’t think one should swig that stuff. That man is known to me as Edward Houseman, a silly boy from Marble Arch with a penchant for cabaret. Then I found out he was also a businessman with extensive contacts, and family, in Germany. Yesterday, Kiki informed me that he’s also a political rebel with a repellent manner. And who is he to you?’