Then he saw him.
He held his breath and didn’t speak for a few moments till he was sure. Then he let it out with a sigh.
‘He’s here,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘He’s here.’
She turned her head slowly as if fearing a deceit. And when she saw him, she fixed her eyes on him with a desperate intensity as though fearful that even a single blink would wash him away.
He was much thinner. He was almost literally bareheaded. They must have shaved his head for the operation and the black hair was still as short as the nap on velvet. She could see the scars. One from the bullet at the side of his left temple, and the other edging from beneath the pall of hair where the surgeon’s scalpel had probed. But it was still Jean-Paul, unmistakable, unbelievable, Jean-Paul. She looked at him and her heart swelled with love. She’d hated Günter Mai in the days after he had taken her, but now she forgave him. More, she laughed at him and mocked him for having asked so little of her in return for this dearest of treasures.
Jean-Paul hadn’t seen her yet. He was walking slowly along the platform, not like an invalid but with the slowness of uncertainty. A voluntary worker spoke to him and rested her hand on his arm, but he ignored her and walked on as if she were not there.
And now suddenly he smiled, the smile which turned his dark face from ascetic scholar to Sicilian shepherd boy. His steps speeded up. He came running towards them, heedless of the people between. She stood quite still, frozen by joy. And now for the first time in nearly two years she heard her husband’s voice.
‘Christian!’
Suddenly his arms were round Christian Valois’s neck and his joyous face pressed hard against the shoulder where her dejected face had so recently rested.
‘Jean-Paul, it’s so good to see you. Good? It’s bloody marvellous!’ cried Valois. ‘But hold on a bit. Come on, Jean-Paul, I don’t think you’ve quite got your priorities right.’
Disengaging himself from Jean-Paul, he twisted him round so that he faced Janine.
For long silent seconds the young wife and the returned husband looked at each other and the smiles faded from both faces.
Then Jean-Paul turned to Valois and said in a puzzled tone, ‘Who’s she?’
PART FOUR
February-November 1942
Enfants, beaux fronts naïfs penchés autour de moi, Bouches aux dents d’émail disant toujours: pourquoi?
Victor Hugo, Ce qui se passait aux feuillantines
1
Janine awoke.
For a moment she did not know where she was. The room was full of frosty radiance as dawn broke through the high sash window. Jean-Paul always slept with the curtains pulled wide. ‘I’m a creature of light,’ he said. ‘I wake with the sun.’
Jean-Paul. She turned. There on the bolster beside her was his dear head. In the month since his return his hair had grown to a fledgling’s fluff obscuring much of the scars, and his face had lost something of the wasted pallor that had turned him into his own ghost.
He turned in his sleep, stretched out his arm, draped it round her shoulders. She held her breath. He opened his eyes, saw her face so close to his and smiled. It was a smile that drew back years, the smile of a young man who knows that by an incredible stroke of fortune, here at the very start of his adult life he has got all that he needs to guarantee his happiness.
The door burst open. Céci rushed in crying, ‘Maman, maman, Pauli’s hid Mimi!’
Janine looked at her daughter with unusual irritation. These first moments of the day when sleep had thrown a fragile membrane over Jean-Paul’s inner wounds were her most precious possession, her greatest hope for his healing. He was sitting up in bed now. The smile had gone and with it the carefree boy, as his face took on its now more normal expression of puzzled watchfulness.
‘All right, all right, Céci. I’ll be out in a minute,’ she said.
Disappointed of her mother’s sympathy, the little girl turned to her father.
‘Papa, Pauli’s very naughty,’ she chimed.
Simonian looked at her then he smiled, not the same smile he had woken with but undoubtedly a smile. Janine felt a flood of relief. Though her old Jean-Paul was rarely with her for more than a few waking moments, there were at least two new Jean-Pauls. This one acknowledged formally who she was, could have animated conversations, particularly with Christian, and was able to smile at his daughter. The other, the one she feared, was a grim intense figure who clearly inhabited a world of darkness and pain the nature of which those around him could only guess at.
‘Let’s go and see Pauli, shall we,’ he said, swinging his legs out of bed and picking up the delighted child.
Janine followed them out of the bedroom. She was always worried at any confrontation between Pauli and his father. Of all the renewed relationships this was the worst. Even at his darkest, Jean-Paul recognized his mother and Christian. Céci he had no recollection of, but as she had no recollection of him either, it didn’t seem to matter. This was her papa, she was told, so that’s how she treated him, leaving him no choice of response. Janine could find hope here even when things looked at their blackest. As for herself, her days swung between the joy of that morning recognition and the pain of subsequent rejections, ranging from the courteous to the totally indifferent.
But the real problem was Pauli.
She saw it now as she watched through the open door of the children’s room.
‘Pauli, papa says you’ve got to give me Mimi back,’ cried Céci from the imperious heights of her father’s arms.
Pauli was sitting on the floor cross-legged, his face set in the expression of almost frowning intensity he had inherited from his father. He didn’t look up but reached under the bed and pulled out a battered toy poodle. This was Mimi, originally Pauli’s toy, which had passed with his blessing to his sister some time ago. His reassertion of ownership was one of the disturbing symptoms of his feelings about his father. Almost since Céci’s birth, he had appointed himself her guide and protector. Now he had taken to treating her with a sulky indifference which sometimes came close to bullying.
‘Come on, Pauli, give Céci the dog. Big boys don’t play with toys like that, do they?’
Jean-Paul was making an effort but he couldn’t hit the right tone. The trouble was that Pauli did remember him, and missed him, had been almost ill with excitement at the prospect of his return, and now found it impossible to understand the changes in him. Janine had tried to explain, but despite his apparent maturity in so many matters, she could see that all he felt here was a small child’s hurt at being rejected. He withdrew into his pain just as his father so often withdrew into his. And neither of them emerged far enough to grasp the other’s reaching hand.
Now Pauli threw the dog at his father’s feet. Jean-Paul’s face set. Then he put the little girl down and, pushing his way past Janine, re-entered his room.
‘Pauli, hurry up and get ready for school,’ she said. ‘It’s late.’
‘Don’t want to go to school,’ said the boy sullenly.
‘I don’t want to stand here arguing,’ she said grimly. ‘Get ready.’
She turned and almost bumped into Christian Valois. He was dressed in his dark business suit.
‘Christian, I’m sorry. I should have been getting breakfast ages ago. We’ve slept in.’
‘So I see,’ he said glancing at her body with a smile.
She looked down, realized she was wearing only a thin cotton nightdress which was hanging open almost to the waist.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, putting her hands to her breast.
‘Don’t be. How’s Jean-Paul this morning?’
‘All right. You know, not black.’
‘Good. I must rush. See you tonight.’
She watched him leave and thought, soon we must get out of this flat. It had been marvellous of Christian to put them up. Sophie’s flat had been impossible. It was all right for her to share with the children, but
not for the four of them to sleep in the same room. The boulangerie offered more space, but the problem there was Louise. She and Jean-Paul had never got on well. Now their proximity might be positively dangerous. There was a violence in Jean-Paul which hadn’t been there before and she did not know where it might come out.
But staying here was not a long-term solution. If Christian’s parents or sister came to Paris, they would expect to stay here. And though he had never said or done anything out of order, she had seen Christian’s eyes rest on her body as they’d done this morning and she knew that in fairness to him they ought to move on. But where? To find a decent place they could afford was not going to be easy. You’d think Paris would be half-empty, but far from it. The Boche set the price of things with their inflated exchange rate and property ran high.
And there was no doubt that the longer she stayed in this spacious and airy apartment the more choosy she was going to get!
She went to get dressed.
Jean-Paul had got back into bed. His face was turned away from her but she could tell by the set of his shoulders that he was drifting into that dark solitary world where no one else could follow.
She dressed swiftly. When she went back to the children’s room she found Pauli already dressed.
‘Good boy,’ she said. ‘Go and get yourself some bread while I see to Céci.’
‘I don’t want to go,’ said Céci. ‘I want to stay with papa.’
The little girl had not yet started school but usually Janine took her with them and always on mornings when she could tell that Jean-Paul was regressing.
‘No, you come along, Céci,’ she said. ‘We’ll call on grandpa and gramma and have some breakfast there, shall we?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Céci, easily seduced from her plan by the prospect of being spoilt at the bakery.
She looked in once more on Jean-Paul before they left. He was in exactly the same position. He looked to be asleep, but she knew if she walked round the bed she would find those eyes wide and staring, totally devoid of recognition.
She did not make the journey. That blank gaze still had power to overthrow her, and her life was too full of responsibilities for the indulgence of despair.
‘Come on, children,’ she said briskly. ‘It’s time to go.’
2
There was a queue outside the Crozier boulangerie. They looked defeated and depressed. Even their breath, made visible by the February air, was thin and grey and quickly vanishing.
Günter Mai turned up his collar and slipped round the back to enter via the bakehouse, where he found the baker removing a lightly loaded tray from the right-hand oven. The bigger oven on the left wall hadn’t been lit for almost a year now as the shortage of fuel and flour had tightened its grip. Mai did his best to see that the Croziers got their fair share and a bit more besides but even he sometimes found it hard to compete with specialists.
‘Bread ration day, is it?’ he said.
‘That’s right,’ said Crozier gloomily. ‘And there’s not much to go round. I hate to see the poor devils’ faces when we’re short. Come on through while this lot cools and we’ll have a coffee and croissant.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mai, smiling. There was a not unattractive naïvety of outlook which Crozier seemed to share with his nephew Michel.
‘How’s Janine? And your grandchildren?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ said Crozier, face brightening.
Mai sat and listened to the baker talking proudly of Pauli and Céci and let his thoughts drift to their mother. He hadn’t seen Janine since her husband’s return, but of course had been kept up-to-date by her parents on his visits to the bakery.
He would really have liked to wash his hands of Janine, but God was still pushing her into his professional path. Why the hell did she have to take her family to stay at Christian Valois’s apartment? Zeller assured him he was getting obsessed by that young man, but the more of a model citizen he became, the less Mai liked it. He’d felt the man’s resentment bordering on hatred the only time they had met and there was no way he could square this with his reported reconciliation with his Vichy father or with his unquestioning acceptance of the collaborationist line in his work at the Ministry.
The one flaw in Valois’s otherwise unblemished front was his acquaintance with Delaplanche. Even that had been explained to Zeller’s satisfaction.
‘He’s an old acquaintance of Valois père from their law-student days and Delaplanche knows the value of not making unnecessary enemies. So when he returns from a visit to Vichy, what more natural than that he should bring back a gift of bonbons from Madame Valois for her much-missed son?’
Zeller might be right. Delaplanche was certainly the wiliest political opponent the collaborationist government had. The extreme rightists would have had him locked up, or better still shot, ages ago. But too many of the rest owed him favours, or, as an insurance against future set-backs, wanted him to owe them a favour, to make him an easy target. Perhaps this was after all the simple explanation of his link with the Valois family.
But Mai didn’t think so. And now he had in Christian Valois’s flat a potential agent ready to be activated. So far he’d been able to justify his inaction on the grounds that Delaplanche was still in the South doing God knew what. But word was that he was on his way back to Paris. So what now? And what kind of agent would Janine make anyway, especially when she felt her price had already been paid?
Crozier’s rambling anecdote was interrupted by his wife’s arrival from the shop.
‘Hello, lieutenant,’ she said. ‘Crozier, isn’t that next batch ready yet? Two lots of forged tickets I’ve had today. I think it’s the Gelicot family in the Rue d’Auch. Wasn’t the son apprenticed in the printing trade?’
Mai made a mental note. Any hint of an illicit press was of interest these days. And as often before, he wondered how conscious Madame Crozier was of what she was saying.
As he rose, Crozier said in excuse, ‘We’re just chatting about the children, dear.’
‘I wish I had time to chat. They’re fine children, which is saying a lot when you consider their father. Doesn’t know his own wife half the time.’
‘He’s confused,’ said Crozier mildly. ‘He’s been through a lot.’
‘Has he?’ snorted Louise. ‘Well, I hope you’d have to go through a lot more, Crozier, before you forgot me.’
The two men’s eyes met for a moment and Mai was still smiling a few minutes later as he left through the bakehouse door. Such moments of pure humour were to be treasured in these hard times.
‘You’re looking very happy, lieutenant.’
It was Janine who’d just come into the yard. She had her daughter in her arms, but the little girl was struggling to get down. Set on the ground, she ran instantly to Mai and waved a little bunch of winter jasmine at him.
‘Are these for me?’ he asked, bending down.
‘No,’ said Céci scornfully. ‘For Gramma. I want donkey.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mai. ‘I seem to be out of donkeys.’
‘I want donkey like Uncle Chris,’ cried the little girl.
Mai looked at Janine who said, ‘Her Uncle Christian gives her donkey rides on his back. Céci, don’t bother…’
‘No bother,’ said Mai. ‘I work like a horse, so I might as well look like one.’
He swung the laughing child on to his shoulders and stood upright.
‘She’s growing fast,’ he said. ‘How old is she now?’
‘Four. It was her birthday last week.’
‘They soon grow up,’ he said. ‘How are you, Janine?’
‘I’m fine.’
She was looking at him warily.
‘Lieutenant, I’d like to thank you,’ she said abruptly.
‘Oh yes?’ he said gruffly. Gratitude was salt to his still raw guilt.
‘For getting Jean-Paul home to me,’ she said. ‘I can never thank you enough. Except…I can’t do that again. Not now Jean-Paul’s home.
’
She thinks I’m capable of forcing myself on her again he thought desperately. But does she never guess what I’m really capable of?
Reaching up, he plucked the young girl from his shoulders and swung her to the ground, ruffling her hair as she ran back to her mother.
’That will not be required again,’ he said stiffly. ‘But I should like to meet and talk sometimes. As friends.’
He saw her expression and laughed without amusement.
‘You’ll never make the Comédie-Française,’ he said. ‘All right. As friendly enemies. Tonight for instance?’
She shook her head.
‘Sunday then?’ he pressed.
Her awareness of having no real choice shadowed her face.
‘Sunday,’ she said. ‘But not in the evening. Evenings are difficult.’
‘All right. Where? The Balzac?’
‘No!’ she exclaimed in alarm, then hastily added, ‘I take the children out for a trip on Sunday afternoons. The Jardin d’Acclimatation in the Bois. The Porte de Sablons entrance. Two, or just after. Is that all right?’
He nodded and she caught her daughter up and carried her into the bakehouse. The little girl waved her flowers and shouted, ‘Bye bye, donkey.’
Mai strolled slowly back towards the Lutétia. He’d done everything right. Every clandestine meeting she agreed to added another filament to the web she was already tangled in. But he found himself wishing he’d left earlier or she’d come later.
He realized he had reached the Lutétia without being conscious of the walk, a dangerous distraction in these days of ambush and assassination.
The Collaborators Page 15